New Age missionary challenges

New Age has profound ramifications in the mentality and behaviour of many contemporaries all around the world, including people born in traditional Christian communities, although some of them might actually not consciously adhere to New Age as such.

New Age has touched you. You've heard its ideas, listened to its music, viewed its artwork, watched its superstars, read its literature and bought its products. You may even have participated in its therapies, shared in its rituals and embraced its philosophies, all without knowing them as New Age.(88)

Furthermore, the phenomenon of globalisation favours a universal impact of New Age, which constitutes a great challenge particularly in Asia, which is spontaneously inclined to religious pluralism. In Asia in fact, people can readily accept a number of New Age ideas because they are partially consistent with and comparable to elements found in ancient religious doctrines, such as Hinduism, Taoism and Buddhism.

If people are espousing New Age ideas and shopping around for various religious option, because they are starving for something to fill their spiritual needs, one might admit that, humanly speaking, New Age provides some more suitable answer to the postmodern condition. In times of muddled thinking, when different beliefs are a matter of preference and not of truth, the proclamation of Jesus appears to many to make no sense. They see it as an outdated, arrogant and finally ignorant attitude, since the truth is inside oneself and needs only to be unveiled. Evangelizing in such a context is indeed a difficult challenge, and this may be one of the reasons that many, even missionaries, have given up the direct preaching of Christ.

In the last 30 years or so, particularly in the Catholic Church, inculturation and inter-religious dialogue have been considered the major challenges of doing mission in Asia. I would add that the person of Jesus, the Christological question, is an even greater challenge in our time.

New Age challenges Christians, but they should not be discouraged by the apparent success of this movement. Early Christianity found itself in a somewhat analogous situation in the early centuries. Gnosticism, enigmatic religions, various occult cults, rituals and teachings, a number of heresies that reduced either the humanity of Jesus Christ to a farce or the divinity of Christ to an excess of consciousness, dramatically challenged Christian faith. As mentioned above, in Late Ming China, Jesuit missionaries faced similar questions.

Just as at the beginning of the Christian era, faith in Jesus Christ, as the unique event of God become human, was a scandal and foolishness, so it is in the postmodern era. Jesus' question: 'Who do you say that I am?' continues to be a fundamental challenge to human beings, even at the beginning of the third millennium.

The early Church responded by formulating daring Christological definitions and with the genuine witness of faith, as illustrated by large numbers of generous missionaries and courageous martyrs. Christ's disciples are called today to bear the same witness as were the early Christians, "to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world.?Following Jesus may not result in daily exiting experiences, in alteration of consciousness. For the Christian, the mind, rather than altered, is transformed by God's grace. Christian faith is not simply a religious answer to the aspirations of the human mind. It is not (only and primarily) an answer to human needs. Human issues are not prior and above the gratuitous grace of God, who loved us and came to us on his own initiative and in a way contrary to human expectations.

Many people are open to New Age teaching because they are on a quest for meaning, fulfilment, spiritual experiences, stillness, and inner peace. There is a need to respond positively to this search, to rediscover the rich and often unknown tradition of Christian prayer, meditation, spiritual guidance and mysticism. The question of God and the experience of God should become central in the mission of the Church. Many postmodern people perceive the vastness of time and space as cold and impersonal, as if we are alone in the world and living an absurd existence. The New Age quest of spirit highlights the need for reassurance that death is not the complete extinction of life. Christians and missionaries are challenged to propose the oftenobsolete teaching of Christian hope in eternal life.

New Age has an accentuated individualistic character. To a certain extent, it is the religion of the successful, the glamorous and the rich. Its practice can cost a significant amount of money. Christians should rediscover the positive lesson of the Theology of Liberation, and adhere to the gospel of the Beatitudes and bring about a non-bourgeois approach to religion, especially in the so-called economically advanced countries. The church exists for the same mission of Jesus: the mission of evangelization of the poor.

New Age, which has won the sympathy of a lot of women, has a strong feminist outlook. Such a perspective contrasts with the Church's image of an all-male dominated society, which she projects especially in her hierarchy. In fact many sectors of the Church are still afflicted with a patriarchal mentality. The problem of the role of women in the Church cannot be reduced to a no to their ordination to the priesthood. The participation of women in the life and in the leadership of the church is too important and far from being resolved. Moreover, the preaching and the catechesis of the Church have to go beyond the traditional patriarchal and masculine image of God. The New Age feminist outlook genuinely and positively challenges the Church to move beyond the present masculine outlook and become, in all its aspects, a more gender inclusive community.

A personal, sincere witness, as Paul VI noted, is highly valued by contemporary postmodern people. Experience seems to have become the only "authoritative"authority in today's religious world. Christ's disciples and missionaries should propose a discourse on Christian faith which is rational, but which goes beyond rationality. They are called to experience fulfilment, purpose and joy through a personal relationship with Jesus. The communication and sharing of such a life inserted into the mystery of Christ would prove, by experience, that Jesus is neither substitutable nor replaceable.

88. Russell Chandler, Understanding the New Age. Word Publishing, Milton Keynes, (England), 1989, p. 19.