Alternate Spiritualities as the Unpaid Bills of the Church:
Notes from the Rapidly Expanding Ferment in Australia
Philip Johnson
Contents
THE UNPAID BILLS METAPHOR
UNPAID AUSTRALIAN BILLS
UNPAID THEOLOGICAL BILLS
I.
Concept of God
II.
Spirit of God (Pneumatology)
III.
General Revelation
IV.
Creation Theology
V.
Animal Theology
VI.
Eschatology
VII. Fall & Creation
VIII. Wisdom & Guidance
IX.
Angelology
X.
Spirituality and Spiritual Disciplines
XI.
Preaching
XII. Sexuality
XIII. Resurrection Theology
XIV. Healing
XV. Church as Community
UNPAID BILLS OF CHRISTIAN PRAXIS
I.
Coping With Pluralism
II.
Apologetic Monologue
III.
Consumer Culture and Globalisation
IV.
Social Justice and Ecology
V.
Ethics and Bio-Technology
VI.
Educating Clergy and Laity
VII. McDonaldised Churches
VIII. Vocation and Spirituality
CONCLUSION
The Lausanne Forum Issue Group 16 has as one of its prime directives the task
of examining what alternative spiritualities are saying to the church. The following
discussion provides a menu of possible topics for consideration. The topics I refer to
are those that arise out of my own cultural context, but may very well have
application in other contexts.
My cultural context is in a young frontier nation, whose spiritual development
is adolescent and chronically frozen at the threshold toward adulthood. Some of our
experiences with Church and alternate spiritualities have affinity with those of our
nearby neighbour New Zealand (Cf. Carey 1996; Ellwood 1993; Johnson 2004a;
Rountree 2004). Although the cultural experiences of both nations have much in
common, each has its own distinctive characteristics.
Across the Pacific Ocean the United States of America is likewise a youthful
frontier culture on the world’s stage. However the American experiment with both
Church and alternate spiritualities diverges in many significant ways from the
religiosity of Australia and New Zealand.
The paper is organised into four parts. Part one briefly explains the origins of
the phrase “unpaid bills of the Church.” Part two then sketches in the statistical
measurements for the Church in Australia, and then contrasting this with the multireligious reality of Australian society. Part three itemises the “unpaid theological
bills” as viewed from the Australian context. Part four itemises the “unpaid bills of
Christian praxis” that follow on from the heels of the theological bills.
THE UNPAID BILLS METAPHOR
Jan Karel Van Baalen (1890-1968) was a minister in the Christian Reformed
Church in America, and a pioneer writer on the problem of “cults” (or new religions).
Van Baalen’s best known book is The Chaos of Cults, which was first released in
1938, underwent four revisions before his death. Van Baalen (1944: 13-14) discussed
“the value of studying cults” of which he originally remarked:
Sects and cults have been described as “the unpaid bills of the church.” The
church is likely to become one-sided in its presentation of Christian truth, and
especially of the Christian life. Many a heresy was born of a desire to stress a
neglected truth. This truth was then emphasized at the expense of other, and
equally important truth … It behoves the Christian to ask, Which peculiar
truth do these people preach together with their errors? Where is the sugar
which has made their poison palatable? Have I myself sufficiently emphasized
that particular element of truth? Or has my own presentation of the truth been
lacking, perhaps, in this point, and have I thereby given people occasion to run
after false gods?
In the last revised edition of his book Van Baalen (1962: 390-391) expressed
himself in these terms:
There is an old saying to the effect that “the cults are the unpaid bills of the
church.” This saying contains more than a grain of truth. Elements of truth
have been neglected by the various Christian denominations have not seldom
occasioned the rise of cults that unduly stressed such ignored or belittled truths
to the point of creating a lopsided religion … There are, no doubt, a number of
contributing factors to the one-sidedness of American evangelical Christianity
… we have developed a type of smallest common-denominator faith that has
left little to be believed and less to be taught. Elements of the Christian faith
that should have been taught — for Christianity is a way of life based upon a
view of life as much as are Communism or Islam — have been sorely
belittled. These elements have then been avidly seized upon and lifted upon a
pedestal by the cults.
Van Baalen illustrated his case by pointing to teachings found in movements
like Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons and others. He then pressed home his argument
by discussing what he believed to be the unfinished task of the Church. He wrote
(1962: 396-397):
Time and time again movements to combat glaring evils rampant throughout
the Christianized nations, such as slavery, prostitution, child labor, racial
discrimination, underpayment of employees, sweatshops, and war, have
originated in, and received their chief impetus from, the world rather than the
Church and church members. The latter have frequently been satisfied with
“saving souls,” to the sad neglect of the economic and social implications and
applications of the Gospel. For hundreds of years the orthodox churches have
stressed too one-sidedly the “other-world” outlook of the Christian religion —
contrary to the Old Testament prophets and the New Testament apostles!
Van Baalen (1962: 397) argued that both teaching and praxis had to be kept in
perspective:
It should, however, not be deemed out of place for these pages to conclude
with the reminder that a full-orbed Christianity must be both purely taught and
earnestly practiced. Regarding the teaching, not only must the doctrines of
forgiveness of sin and eternal life be taught, but fully as much as the principles
of holy living, especially as these latter principles bear upon the many
ramifications of our highly complex life … Regarding the practice, we must
remember that Christianity is not only a theory, but also a life. It is now, as it
was in the early New Testament days, The Way — a way of living that is
based upon the revelation concerning God and man in their mutual
relationship, a relationship once pure, long since disturbed by sin, but
redeemable by the grace that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
In a nutshell, Van Baalen believed that the new religions arose because of
deficiencies in both teaching and praxis on the part of the Church and churches. I have
found it helpful to say that the new religions have reflected what we Christians have
neglected to do (Johnson 1997; Clifford and Johnson 2001, 25).
Remarkably, this basic supposition of Van Baalen has been confirmed in the
work of sociologists of religion (Bainbridge 1997; Stark and Bainbridge 1985), and in
liberal theological studies on new religions (Braden 1949). The sociological evidence
indicates that new religions do indeed offer new theologies and social visions that
arise from the absence of a robust Christian presence in society, and one can find
some of the wells of inspiration for the leaders of new religions deriving from
Christianity.
So the task that faces us in our Issue Group is what areas of teaching and
praxis can we identify as being those where alternative spiritualities, like New Age
and Neo-Paganism, reflect our theological neglect? John Drane (1999) discusses
several critical problems in his book What is the New Age Still Saying to the Church?
Lausanne delegates would find it profitable reading Drane’s treatise. In
addition to that book, some of the more obvious lapses or gaps in both theology and
praxis are identified in the remainder of my notes and reflect the problems I find
myself grappling with in the Australian cultural context.
UNPAID AUSTRALIAN BILLS
It is not uncommon for people living outside the Australian continent to
assume that as it was settled as a British colony, Australia must be a Christian nation.
This sort of outlook is sometimes reinforced by Australian Christians who feel that
this nation had Christian founding fathers.
The impression can be reinforced if one takes a quick look at the National
Census. The combined figures for the Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox communities
certainly places Christianity in front of all other religions. Then if one looks at the
robust plans and efforts of the Sydney Anglican diocese to motivate evangelism in the
city, one might be feel that Christianity is poised to surge forward in marvellous
spurts of growth.
One can also point to the phenomenon of the twin Assemblies of God
congregations in Sydney known as Hillsong (with their combined attendance figures
hovering at 14,000, with worldwide distribution of praise music and the famous
Hillsong annual conference attracting around 20,000 delegates from Australia and
overseas). With vigorous Anglican evangelistic programmes and two robust
Pentecostal congregations existing in the same city, one might feel very confident that
the churches are generally in a healthy state. One may even concede that other
religions do have their followers in Australia, but Christianity really has the upper
hand with the numbers.
There are many problems with taking that portrait at face value. Australia
embraces the paradoxical polarities of antique and youthful cultures. The indigenous
first-nation culture is regarded as the oldest surviving one in the world today.
Meanwhile the national anthem, Advance Australia Fair, envisages its people as
“young and free”. The national coat of arms reinforces this idea through the kangaroo
and emu — neither animal can go backwards — so the nation is symbolized as always
forward moving. British colonization began in 1788 at the height of the
Enlightenment as a convict settlement. It was not founded as a haven for religious
dissenters. The colony subsequently metamorphosed into a frontier society of British
free settlers, followed later by waves of immigrants from Southern Europe, the
Middle East and Asia.
Australian churches began with European ecclesiology. From c.1820-1965
there were strong sectarian tensions between Roman Catholics and Protestants, but
that subsided with the cultural changes of the late 1960s. The churches’ engagement
with sceptics, rationalists and freethinkers mirrors the British and North American
experiences. The churches have had a significant role in education, morality, charity,
politics, social justice, and military conscription debates. Christianity remains
statistically the dominant religion. However Australian religiosity differs somewhat
from its American counterpart in terms of enthusiasm and patronage. Australians have
been ambivalent about regular church attendance. Among the general populace there
has long been a widespread belief in a Supreme Being, but this simply has not
translated into high participation rates in the church. This led the sociologist Hans
Mol (1971: 302) to remark:
The fact that such a large percentage of the Australian population does not
worship regularly but still ‘believes in God without doubt’ and still holds the
churches and the clergy in high esteem fits the picture of ambiguity. As in
Britain the goodwill towards religion is counter-balanced by a massive
wooliness of thinking about it. Australia seems to be a Christian nation in
search of a religion, or a heathen nation in flight from one. Most Australians,
like Englishmen, are obviously heathen, but wish they were not.
Since Mol made those remarks belief in God still remains very high, while
overall church membership and attendance rates are in decline with a mere 9% of the
twenty million Australian population attending church on a weekly basis. Some
Christians refer to the apparent growth of the Australian Pentecostal churches, but
these require sober analysis. Notwithstanding the phenomenon of Hillsong the
statistics are mixed. Part of the growth comprises membership transference from
mainstream denominations, part of it involves genuine conversions, but it is also
accompanied by a substantial revolving door rate of attrition as many affiliates drop
out (Kaldor et. al. 1999: 55).
The religious landscape is now more obviously pluralist than it was in 1971.
Australia’s geographical proximity to South East Asia has facilitated the flourishing
of a minor subterranean thread of religious pluralism. Buddhists have been present
since the mid-nineteenth century (Croucher 1989). Statistically Buddhism is now the
second largest faith and its growth involves a mixture of migrant reproduction and
Western converts. Islam is ranked in third place with its growth being
overwhelmingly caused by migrant reproduction. Jewish and Hindu faiths are ranked
fourth and fifth respectively, again sustained primarily by reproduction or
immigration.
Aside from the world faiths, “religions of informality” have emerged from
time to time ranging from Temperance movements, jingoism (fervent patriotism for
the British empire), ANZAC myths (as a form of civil religion), and now the annual
Carols by Candlelight (another folk/civil religion). Organized irreligion, like the
Humanist Society, has always maintained miniscule patronage. The 2001 national
census shows that 15.4 per cent of the population has “no religion” but this figure
does not equate to atheism or agnosticism. Rather it reflects the fact that many
Australians see themselves as “spiritual” but not “religious”. These sorts of people
either do not identify with organized forms of religion or see themselves as belonging
to more than one faith.
Alternative religious movements have also established their own niches in the
culture, with several having originated in the nineteenth century (Drury and Tillett
1980; Hume 1997; Roe 1986). Between 1890-1930 Theosophy, Co-Masonry, the
Liberal Catholic Church and “Esoteric Adventist” groups left their imprint on
Australian subterranean spirituality (Tillett 1982; 1990). Theosophy attracted famous
Australians such as Alfred Deakin (three times Australian Prime Minister) and
Christopher Brennan (poet). Under Charles Leadbeater’s direction an amphitheatre
was built at Balmoral, a northern Sydney beach, in 1923 in anticipation of the arrival
of the World Teacher (Krishnamurti). US architect Walter Burley Griffin, also a
Theosophist, designed Australia’s capital city Canberra, as well as the Sydney suburb
Castlecrag, according to geomantic and feng shui principles, in the belief that
Australia was destined to be an occult utopia Proudfoot 1994).
Although Griffin’s romantic notions were never fulfilled, the last three
decades of the twentieth century saw a resurgence of interest in esoteric spiritualities.
Major alternate spiritual festivals in Australia began in the 1970s. The first, which
was instigated by the National Union of Students, was the Aquarius Festival in May
1973 at Nimbin in Northeast NSW. It attracted around 5,000 youth and heralded the
beginning of an alternate community at Nimbin based around new age and neo-pagan
spirituality. Nimbin is now the unofficial alternate capital of Australia with neo-pagan
shamanic religion and a pro-marijuana lobby predominating the scene.
Other important alternate cultural events include the Down to Earth’s ConFest
(1976-), the Homeland Festival of Peace and Healing at Bellingen, NSW (1985-), the
Wild and Wise Women’s Festival in East Gippsland, the Woodford/Maleny Folk
Festival (1985-), and Perth’s Conscious Living Expo (1988-). In the state capital
cities, major urban and rural areas we find a plethora of free markets, neo-pagan
festivals, psychic fairs and spiritual exhibitions. Magick Happens is a recent neopagan/Wiccan festival designed to demystify the Craft.
Between the mid-1980s and mid-1990s New Age forms of spirituality shifted
from the social fringe toward acceptance in mainstream society. It was characterized
as a personal experiential search for holistic healing and spiritual empowerment that
borrowed from many different sources: alternative healing remedies, astrology, firstnation indigenous cultures, meditation, nature-based pagan religion, reincarnation,
tarot, theosophy and much more. New Age thought is shaped by myths about spiritual
evolution and human potential, symbolic correspondences between the cosmos and
the inner being of humans, notions of inner gnosis (the answers lie inside us), and
elements from pantheist (all is God) and panentheist (all is in God) thought.
Prominent international advocates include Peter & Eileen Caddy, Deepak Chopra,
Shakti Gawain, Louise Hay, Shirley Maclaine, James Redfield, David Spangler,
Marianne Williamson, Oprah Winfrey and Neale Donald Walsch.
Robert Ellwood (1993: 245-246) has succinctly profiled it as follows:
New Age people by and large give the impression of being 1960s people, now
well into middle age and looking for reaccess to the wonders of their youth.
But now under new terms: being putatively well established in families and
careers, not to mention susceptible to the lassitude of noonday and the
scepticism born of a little experience, they are much less likely than they once
were to drop out, to commit themselves entirely to a guru or a gospel, to trip
out to Katmandu or the antipodes of the mind. On the other hand, they are
affluent enough to be able to put down cash in spiritual salesrooms, and selfassured enough to want to put together their own redemption kits, with
gemstones, tapes, teachers, doctrines now from this tradition, now from
another. The New Age seems to represent a virtually unprecedented level of
spiritual independence and commercialism together. People get fragments of
Tibet or Chaldea in an enlightenment emporium and practice it on their own at
home, apart from any living priest or temple, with a confidence both
wonderful and appalling, with an attitude less of credence than of, Let’s check
it out, and I’ll take from it what I can use.
David Tacey (1995: 192) of La Trobe University (Melbourne) made this
provocative comment:
“As the masculinist pubs, churches, convents, and barber shops go broke or
close down in Australian cities, new age bookshops and ‘awareness centres’
are popping up everywhere, offering the public a broad range of largely nonChristian, non-patriarchal esoteric arts and sciences.”
Sydney journalist Ali Gripper (1996: 11) poignantly echoed Tacey’s point:
“Australians buy more self-development and spiritual books per head than the
US and Britain … It seems that when Australians are searching for meaning
these days, they walk straight past the church and into their nearest bookshop,
the shelves of which are starting to sag with how-to-change-your-life tomes.”
For a while seekers used the term New Age self-referentially, as reflected in
periodicals such as the New Age Journal. By the early 1990s James Lewis (1992:1)
noted that many North American seekers had dropped the term altogether so that its
usage persisted among observers and Christian apologists. Australian bookstores now
designate this literature as “body and soul”, “lifestyle improvement”, “mind, body,
spirit” and “new spirituality”. This shift is substantiated by the field research of
Adam Possamaï (1999) who between 1996-97 surveyed a small group of New Age
seekers in Melbourne. He found that seventy-one percent of the interviewees were
very negative about the term New Age, and that nine percent of those who were
positive about it nonetheless did not see themselves as New Agers. While Possamaï’s
point is well taken, 0.2 percent of the population surveyed in the Australian national
census of 2001 still identified themselves as New Age.
A yawning chasm exists between the sub-culture of the churches and the host
culture that makes up the nation-state of Australia. The other religious alternate
spiritual options comprise their own sub-cultures too. What is sorely lacking is any
relational comprehension of how to interact with these groups and that translates into
a shallow understanding of the need for contextualised missions within Australia.
Now it is with this diverse religious template of Australia in mind, that I now
want to consider Van Baalen’s unpaid bills metaphor.
UNPAID THEOLOGICAL BILLS
The emergence of alternative spiritualities raises a number of theological
issues for the Church to consider and provide an appropriate response. This process
parallels what the ancient heresies did for the early church by compelling greater
clarity of teaching. It is also a provocative challenge because it forces us to take a
sobering look at ourselves as individual Christians and corporately as Christ’s Body.
What we see reflected in the mirror of these theological issues might disturb us
within, for perhaps our confession and witness and way of living have been deficient.
While it may be the easy way out for Christians to simply say that new religions are
the product of human sin and idolatry and the deception of the Devil, it is much more
difficult for us to admit that new religions are also the mirror image of the Christian’s
sin of omission and commission.
I.
Concept of God:

Various new religions also provide sufficient challenges to the way we portray
Christ and God that we really need a return to a very robust Trinitarian theology.
That Trinitarian theology should not merely be a static recitation of the early
creedal affirmations of the faith, but rather should be forged in the white heat of
apologetic and missional dialogue with adherents of new religions. Thus a
missional-apologetic on the Trinity can interact on multiple fronts – addressing
familiar global anti-Trinitarian movements like the Jehovah’s Witnesses; the
evolutionary deity-in-process theology espoused globally by the Mormons; the
non-Trinitarian theology espoused by the Filipino Iglesia ni Cristo; the varieties of
pantheism, polytheism and panentheism within Neo-Pagan circles; New Age with
the immanent panentheist deity or the pantheist deity (depending on who you
meet); and so forth. These renewed challenges require us to not merely reiterate
Nicene and Chalcedonian confessions, but to present the Trinity in contemporary
language and analogies that are understandable.

New Age is experiential and today’s seeker looks for encounters with the
immanent and/or transcendent. We speak a lot about God as transcendent
(sovereign over creation and separate from creation), but have de-emphasised God
as immanent (present in the creation). Some New Age and Neo-Pagan seekers
adopt a pantheist (all is God) understanding of the divine, but a lot of evangelical
apologetic literature has overlooked the fact that many New Agers and NeoPagans are panentheists (all is in God). These views need to be challenged, but
they arise from a decided lack of teaching on our part about discovering God in
the creation (while we have heavily stressed God in Jesus in the Bible).

The Western Church has been characterized in its theology by making
propositional statements about God. Technically this is known as kataphatic
theology - making positive statements about God's nature and attributes. For
example: “The Lord is my Shepherd”. It is Biblical and cannot be ignored.

There is another side, which is known as apophatic theology. This is also found in
Scripture, the early church fathers, the Celtic Church, and in Eastern Orthodoxy.
In this approach one speaks of God by way of negation, or what he is not. There is
a stress on the ineffability of God - He is wondrous beyond our words and
descriptions. The awe and majesty of the Triune God form the basis of
apophaticism. In Scripture we see God’s ineffability at the Burning Bush, on Mt.
Sinai, and in Isaiah’s vision in the Temple.

Apophatic theology seems to lend itself more easily to sharing with New Age
seekers. Remember that New Age is not primarily attracted by propositional truths
and dogmas, but rather intuitive experiences. The Western Church needs to
balance its theology of God by re-exploring apophaticism – cognition and mystery
held in balance.
II.
Spirit of God (Pneumatology)

Neo-Pagan, New Age and other expressions of alternate spiritualities have a rich
vocabulary and grammar concerning divine spirit/s in the creation and cosmos. As
Yong (2003) has pointed out, the terminology for Spirit (and its Hebrew OT
correlates “breath” and “wind”) is also readily identifiable in many cultures and
religious systems. Yong believes that an initial level of engagement with other
faiths and religions can be best done through a theology of the Spirit (and from
there one builds up to the uniqueness and particularity of Christ). Unfortunately,
what is profoundly lacking in Evangelical circles is a current theology about the
Spirit of God in creation.

While a lot of attention is paid to the Holy Spirit sealing us in Christ (Acts 2 etc),
lay Evangelicals seem to think that the Holy Spirit only appeared on earth at
Pentecost. Indeed a polarisation often arises between Evangelicals and
Pentecostals over the dynamics of God’s Spirit post-Pentecost. Yet in both camps
there is often a near total silence (or lay ignorance) about the work of the Spirit of
God as expressed in the OT such as in the creation sustaining life, the connection
between God’s Spirit and Wisdom, the Spirit and OT prophecy, the Spirit and
anointing of kings, etc (Hildebrandt 1995).

The basis for a theology of the Spirit of God in creation is grounded in Scripture
with the Hebrew term ruach. Ruach is the word translated as “Spirit”, “breath”
and “wind”. It is God’s ruach that hovers over the creation (Gen. 1: 2). God’s
Spirit not only was involved in creating the world, but also continues to sustain
and maintain the earth (Heb. 1:3; Ps. 104; Acts 17:24-28). The Spirit is the
fountain of all life (Ps.36: 10), and is the source of all life activities (Ps. 54:4).
Rev. 11:11 & 13:15 affirms that God is the breath of life. The breath of life is
imparted to man and woman at the creation (Gen. 2:7). Death comes to us when
God’s Spirit is withdrawn (Ps. 146: 4; Eccl. 12: 7) (Warfield 1968).

Recovering a theology of God’s Spirit has much to do with recovering an
understanding of God’s presence (immanence) in the creation, and also of the NT
emphasis on the church as a community (Yong 2004).
III.

General Revelation
During the twentieth century Protestant neo-orthodox theologians jousted over the
validity of the knowledge of God in general or natural revelation (Brunner and
Barth, 1946). In theologically conservative Calvinist circles similar debates have
ensued (Sproul, Gerstner and Lindsley, 1984; Van Til, 1980). One outcome is that
many Protestants, including some Evangelicals, are reluctant to acknowledge
divine revelation beyond the deontological (what is in the Bible). The alternate
spiritualities emerging in the post-modern era demands direct correspondence
with the creator. Whether Protestant Christianity will be able to revisit the debate
of natural versus exclusively deontological revelation affects much of its ability to
confidently address the challenges of postmodernity and alternate spiritualities. 1
IV.
Creation Theology

The emphasis on ecology has sprung from New Age, Neo-Pagan and Buddhist
sources, and not from Christians acting on Biblical concerns. In New Age we see
the earth made sacred through the concept of GAIA (the ancient Greek goddess of
the earth). Wiccans in particular seek to reconnect humanity with nature, and to
become sensitive to earth magic. New Age sacred sites like Stonehenge, the
Pyramids and Uluru relate to a sense of sacred power imbued in the creation. The
Chinese art of Feng Shui is concerned with creating sacred space by harmonizing
a room or building with the natural world to radiate out good cosmic power. The
occult science of geomancy looks for ley lines or power grids of spiritual power
running through the earth. The America architect Walter Burley Griffin used
geomantic and Feng Shui principles in his designs for the Australian capital city
of Canberra. New Age has a real sense of the Spirit in creation. The world is being
resacralized, as science is regarded as bankrupt in its pure analysis of objects.

Evangelicals have only joined the bandwagon over ecology after everyone else
has made it an issue of concern. Here we see the church, as usual, lacking any
leadership or prophetic edge, and by default non-Christians make good on our
deficiencies. However, it is not enough to simply adhere to principles of “reduce,
reuse, and recycle”. Evangelicals must go beyond making simple statements about
God as Creator, and giving lip service to the concept of stewardship of the earth.

The creation then is not something static, or like a wound up watch left to tick on
its own until it stops. Rather Scripture unfolds that God’s Spirit renews the
creation. In technical terms, this concept involves the immanence and
omnipresence of God. The Spirit of God is universally present (Ps. 139: 7). Thus
there can be “sacred sites” and “power encounters” accounted for Biblically and
1
This paragraph on general revelation is uplifted from Johnson and Payne (2004).
theologically, but in a way that bears witness to God’s glory and does not
encourage idolatry.
V.
Animal Theology

Allied to this is God’s concern for the animals. There is a distinction made in the
creation between human beings (made in God’s image) and the animals. However
this does not mean that God is unconcerned for animals. Animals are incapable of
sin but they are frustrated by our sin (Romans 8:22ff).

Animals are innocent in terms of sin. It should strike us in our reflections then
how innocent creatures were used for purposes of making sacrifices for sin.
Their innocence as a sacrifice foreshadowed the sacrifice Jesus would later make
on the Cross. The intimate family relationship between the sacrificial lamb and the
Passover is a very poignant example of how God wanted people to see how
emotionally and spiritually serious atonement was – the family “pet lamb” was to
die as an offering for their sins.

God does watch over the animals (Matthew 10:29-31) and the animals praise God
(Psalm 148). Animals are sometimes used as object lessons for us (Proverbs
30:24-31; Job 39 & 40:15-24). Animals were among the witnesses to Jesus’ birth
as he was born in a barn, and Jesus rode a donkey in his triumphal entry into
Jerusalem (Matthew 8:20; Luke 13:34). The descent of the Holy Spirit on Jesus
was in the form of a dove (Luke 3:22). Throughout Ezekiel more than 100
references are made to animals, with creatures on both the earth and in heaven
engaged in the worship of God.

The prophet Isaiah envisaged the time when the wolf and lamb would lie down
together (Is. 65:25; 11:6-8). As the whole creation awaits our liberation (Romans
8:22ff) and as the creation is to be renovated, God is not going to dump either the
earth or the creatures he made. The new heaven and new earth is not just about the
“saved” believers being with Jesus forever, but also includes all the good things
God originally made. Noah’s Ark has often been used as a typology for the
church, and it should strike us as significant then that the Ark was a shelter for
humans and animals.

Neo-pagans are involved in activism against animal cruelty. Many neo-pagans are
vegans – their diet excludes meat, fish and all animal produce. Some neo-pagans
speak of animals as “spirit guides” and here we part company with them.

However as God’s servants we are faced with the challenge from neo-pagans – are
we going to defend the helpless and innocent animals who suffer needlessly due to
our greed and distorted values? Do we care about the manner in which animals
are treated in industrialized farming – farms often linked to fast food restaurants?
Do we care that globalised fast food chains are responsible for the destruction of
forests so that cattle can be harvested for hamburgers? Do we care that young
chickens are placed in captivity – without ever being in sunlight – to be gassed en
masse (often not terminating all life) to be then sent on a conveyor belt where
their throats are mechanically cut and then turned into chicken nuggets?

At the turn of the twenty-first century Britain suffered tremendous loss of herds
due to rampant foot-and-mouth disease and that outbreak was related to
malpractices in farming. The misuse of the earth and of animals translates into
severe droughts, bushfires, the denuding of the planet’s ozone layer, and the selfcentred greedy consumption of natural resources are not in accord with God’s will
for the earth.

One challenge Christians face then is how do we acknowledge the place of
animals in God’s restorative work? How do we make our voice “heard” over the
abuse and maltreatment of God’s creatures (wild, farming and domestic pets)?
How can we be ethical in our diet (irrespective of whether we personally choose
to eat meat or not) so that we do not give assent to cruel and process assembly-line
treatment of animals? (Goodall and Bekoff 2002; Linzey 1994; 1998; Wennberg
2003).
VI.
Eschatology

Flowing out of concerns for Creation, some New Age seekers look for the Age of
Aquarius. The world will be renewed and transformed in this spiritual age.

Some New Age folk have borrowed, or been influenced by, Christian ideas about
the world’s end. Thus Armageddon is the “greenhouse effect”, and the apocalypse
becomes the Age of Aquarius, which we co-create through affirmations,
visualization and networking for change.

Some New Age seekers also take an interest in figures like Nostradamus, and so
an interest in prophecy can be found even in New Age.

Typically evangelicals fixate on prophecy charts from Daniel and Revelation, and
exhaust themselves in speculating about the identity of the Antichrist.

An important lesson is this: whenever the church loses sight of the new heaven
and new earth, secular alternatives immediately arise. For example: the classless
society of Marxism, the Thousand-Year Reich of Nazi Germany, and the capitalist
dream of wealth and success. The Age of Aquarius is yet another instance of
evangelical neglect.

We need to re-explore the prophetic vision of the new heaven and new earth: Is.
65; 2 Pet. 2:13; Rev. 21. This builds on the Spirit of God in Creation, and takes up
the transformation of the creation. Recall Isaiah’s reiteration of animals in the
New Kingdom - Is. 11: 6-9; 65: 25. Recall God’s covenant after the flood included
the animals - Gen. 9:9-11. Romans 8: 22ff portrays the whole creation in pain
awaiting this final transformation. The Psalms remind us that all creation animals, stars etc - praise and glorify God (Ps. 148; Ps. 8). It is also the cutting
prophetic edge that we are lacking. We need to speak forth (prophesy) to the
world about its values and offer the world solid values grounded in God’s
revelation. Here is an effective apologia going begging.
VII.
Fall and Creation

Karmic understandings of suffering and evil are widely accepted among
Westerners. Western views of karma tend to incorporate it in a narrative about
spiritual progress and evolution, which is positive and forward moving. It is an
interpretation of karma developed by esoteric spiritual teachers like Madame
Blavatsky, Annie Besant, Charles Leadbeater and Rudolf Steiner. This
understanding of karma is not identical with the classic Hindu and Buddhist views
where karmic debts are accrued in successive lives and the notion of being re-born
on earth is “hellish” and something to be escaped. The western view of karma
presents a different solution to the problem of evil and suffering, and delivers to
the church an apologetic challenge that is not answered in pop classics like C. S.
Lewis’ The Problem of Pain. The western karmic view is upheld precisely
because the classic theodicy of the Church’s apologists is rejected as nonsensical
(i.e. proving that the presence of evil in the creation is compatible with proving
the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient omni-loving God).

Esoteric understandings of the creation and Fall have percolated throughout
Renaissance Europe and onwards to the present day. In the esoteric approaches
the Creation is comprehended as an ultimate expression of reality which is
mirrored in miniature inside the human being. The universe is, if you wish,
designed according to a code whose symbols can be discerned in the zodiacal
signs, in the Cabalistic Tree of Life, in the Alchemist’s quest for the Philosopher’s
Stone (which confers immortality), and in Tarot cards. The esoteric view then
involves the seeker in the quest of the Magus (magician) to find a way of
reconnecting the human soul with this ultimate reality that is encoded in universal
symbols. This understanding of reality sits mid-way between the poles of
philosophical reason and revelatory faith (the two major alternate ways of viewing
reality that have dominated western thinking). Again there is a profound absence
of any articulated apologia from the Church, and one might ponder on the
unresolved debate in the church concerning the place of natural or general
revelation in theology. One might also consider the place of art in theology, and
revisit the neglected subject of the representation of theological truths in the
heraldic symbols of the Lutheran Reformation (Montgomery 2004).

The consequence is that the karmic view and the esoteric view both have a firm
grip and all in the absence of an articulated apologia.
VIII. Wisdom & Guidance

New Age seekers have reignited an interest in wisdom to live by, and many of
their spiritual tools are designed to provide answers for guidance to live in the
nine-to-five world. Thus seekers consult horoscopes, clairvoyants, spirit guides,
guardian angels and tarot cards for guidance. Hence the popularity of pocketbooks
like Life’s Little Instruction Book, Buddha’s Little Instruction Book and so forth.

Evangelicals have lost sight of the importance of the Wisdom literature of
Scripture: Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Job. Christ is known as the wisdom of God
(1 Cor. 1:30). A theology of wisdom flows out of a creation-based theology.

In their reflections on the challenges that New Age spiritualities pose for Christian
praxis, Clifford and Johnson (2001: 194) indicate, “there is a real need for a
practical theology of guidance.” What Clifford and Johnson allude to arise from
observing the diverse tools for guidance and divination employed in astrology and
DIY approaches to spirituality. While these processes are susceptible to the
consumer demand for “instant solutions”, the gravitation toward intuitive and
divinatory methods suggests that Christians need to readdress the issue of
guidance. Protestant Christianity has tended toward either a pietistic approach,
where decisions are based on reflection, meditation and prayer - or a Logoscentred approach, where decision making comprises a cerebral, rational process of
sorting out options by deriving principles directly from Scripture. It is a hallmark
of Christianity that spiritual growth may be facilitated by prolonged struggle, and
that doubt, paradox and unanswered questions are part of the maturing of a faith
journey. The “no easy answers” of the Christian tradition is something of a
counter-response that some seekers in DIY spirituality may baulk at, but
nonetheless need to hear. Yet the heartthrob for a practically oriented theology of
guidance remains to be visited.

Evangelicals often offer a shorthand answer to any issue of guidance by saying,
“pray about it”. This is not to devalue prayer, but to highlight that often we have
little else to offer by way of practical counsel. As Johnson and Payne (2004c)
have argued, an investigation into the church’s current and standard answers on
divination are shallow. The evidence of both Scripture and church history
discloses a complex picture on what forms of divination are prohibited and what
forms are permitted.
IX.

X.
Angelology
The interest in and emphasis on Angels in New Age represents another instance of
near silence on the part of the Western churches to articulate a robust angelology
grounded in Scripture.
Spirituality and Spiritual Disciplines

New Age seekers use a variety of spiritual disciplines in their daily living as an
expression of their spirituality. They connect their spirituality to the ordinary
things of life and eschew the bifurcation of the sacred and the secular. The
disciplines include meditation, stress-reduction techniques, visualization,
affirmations, and healing.

New Age also is appealing because of its emphasis on creativity, intuition and the
right brain. In quite a few church settings there is a heavy emphasis on rational
cognition in theology and even praxis, with a corresponding de-emphasis or even
silence on intuition and creativity. This produces a stunted faith, and the reaction
of New Age in the opposite direction (i.e. emphasising intuition) presents us with
a portrait or mirror image of how distorted the Christian life can become when an
antinomy is propounded – i.e. a Christian is either rational or intuitive; when it
should be that a Christian is both rational and intuitive.

Why are evangelicals silent on the subject of Biblical meditation? Fear of
commodified forms of yogic meditation (TM) is not a legitimate excuse for
relegating to edges a genuine Biblical truth and practice. However it seems as if
fear of non-Christian approaches to meditation has led to a negative reflex
reaction of boundary-maintenance that fends off or attempts to censor all
discussion of any Biblically grounded meditation. Why do books like Richard
Foster’s Celebration of Discipline, Peter Toon’s Meditating as a Christian, and
Dallas Willard’s The Spirit of the Disciplines, stand out like a sore thumb on the
bookshelves? What about the discipline of fasting? Why do evangelicals gobble
up “daily notes” devotionals, at the expense of a broader spiritual life? Why is our
spirituality confined to the “sacred” - namely church services, prayer meetings and
devotionals? Why do we accept the divide between the sacred and the secular in
our own lives? By being silent about Biblical meditation, it is surely the case that
Christians permit a spiritual gap to develop to the point where the breach in
society is filled by non-Christian spiritualities.

Evangelicals have become so cognitive in their theology at the expense of the
creative and non-verbal. John Drane (1997) tackles the problem of creativity in
both worship and evangelism. He stresses that our communication is not limited to
the verbal, and that symbols, gestures, drama, mime all have a valid place in
worship and ministry. Jesus shared his teaching by combining gestures, acts and
symbols with verbal proclamation.
XI.
Preaching

Would a New Age or Neo-Pagan seeker feel welcome in your congregation, and
would she understand the order of service, rituals and sermon? New Age people
look for stories to live by that empower and nourish the whole person. George
Miller, the film producer of “Mad Max” and “Babe”, has asserted that the cinema
has replaced the church as the place where people gather to hear stories to live by.

Those who regularly attend are the only ones who comprehend church services
these days. Sadly sermons can be dry-as-dust exercises with little connection to
daily living. Neo-Pagans celebrate their faith out in the creation; we often do not
have much to say in church services about the creation.

Evangelicals need to recapture the importance of story telling. The Bible is full of
stories about families and individuals that in all the puzzles of life encounter God.
Abraham is a dysfunctional man with questionable morals (e.g. passes his wife off
as his sister and allows other men to enter into relations with her). Esau and Jacob
are dysfunctional brothers, as are Joseph’s brothers. The women in the patriarchal
stories are also dysfunctional (e.g. Sarah vs. Hagar, Lot’s wife and daughters,
Rebekah vs. Isaac over Esau and Jacob, Leah vs. Rachel). Yet these are the very
people God deals with. Compare their dysfunction to that of “The Simpsons”!
These stories are not just incidental to the covenant and messianic prophecy, but
are rich with motifs of healing.

John Drane (1994: 39-40, 40-41) illustrates the real life tensions experienced by
Abraham that may shock our piety, but are precisely the kinds of difficulties that
today’s seekers can identify with:
Abraham was also a man who without hesitation encouraged the king of Egypt
to have sex with his wife Sarah, when he thought it would save his own skin
(Genesis 12:10-20). He was a man who chose another sexual partner when the
same Sarah failed to deliver him a son (Genesis 16:1-4). He was a man who,
even when Sarah eventually did have a child, deliberately engineered tensions
between his two partners and their sons (Genesis 21:8-14), and who generally
engaged in domestic abuse and violence of a most horrific sort … Abraham
genuinely wanted to serve God - there was no doubt of that. But his faith was
so self-centred that he was incapable of seeing what he was doing to those
around him. And the good news was that, far from being a model of morality
to be followed by today's Christians, Abraham’s imperfections were a mirror
in which we could see our own struggles, and discern God’s loving presence
even in all this mess - as the God of Abraham actually turned out to be on the
side of those whom he abused and victimized.

Recall that Jesus primarily conveyed his teaching by telling stories.

We have become so cognitively focussed, we have suppressed creativity in church
with regards to stories and imagination.

We need a balance between expository preaching and story telling.
XII.
Sexuality

New Age has taken sexual relationships into the sacred realm with tantric sex.

New Age is appealing to women, with 80% of attendees at festivals being female.
The church is losing touch with women generally, but especially in the age
bracket 20-50. Earlier we noted the appeal of Wicca and neo-pagan spirituality for
women with its emphasis on healing, creativity and mother goddess symbols. He
Church is perceived as being opposed to women, offering a male dominated
structure with a male deity.

Wicca holds out great appeal for women, while in many churches now women are
deserting congregations to look elsewhere for acceptance and spiritual growth.

Many gay men are exploring neo-pagan and neo-Buddhist spiritual alternatives.
Outbursts of moral outrage with homosexuality and lesbianism all too often
translate into treating these people as spiritual lepers who are contaminated and
rejected. The challenge remains here to balance the call to repentance with the
welcoming friendship and loving treatment of others as mandated by Christ.

The Church must return to the Biblical and Reformation principle of the
priesthood of all believers and giftedness for ministry.

The Church must re-incorporate the sacred dimension to marriage not just via
wedding ceremonies, but also by the celebration of sexual enjoyment as seen in
the theology and divine mandates of the creation and as expressed in Song of
Songs.

The Church needs to remember that anthropomorphic language is used of God in
Scripture. God is sexless. Yes, there are Father images, but also maternal images
(e.g. Jesus wants to gather Jerusalem like a hen her chicks).

The ordination of women debate by-passes the issue of what is the role of women
in God’s community. Pro-ordination opens the pathway for a few women to
become ministers, but does not really tackle the wider lay population’s role in
ministry. Anti-ordination closes the door to the pulpit, but fails to state positively
what women are supposed to do. Issues of power, authority and misogyny must be
distinguished from giftedness to serve and minister. Why can women in
evangelical circles perform priestly duties on the foreign mission field, and yet be
prohibited at home? If the Bible forbids women, then there can be no justification
for this inconsistency. On the other hand, if women on the mission field are not
prohibited in Scripture, then since Australia is a mission field, we require women
on the front lines.

Christians must not tie in their idea of the nuclear family, which reflects TV
shows like “The Waltons” and “Leave it to Beaver”, into Scripture. Otherwise
Christians run the risk of making a mid-20th century western cultural phenomenon
the “norm”, when it is not expressly found in Scripture.
XIII. Resurrection Theology

Many New Age people offer reincarnation as a source of empowerment and as an
explanation for suffering. Apart from reincarnation, empowerment is a basic
structural theme in New Age thought.

The central message of Acts is the risen Christ. We acknowledge the centrality of
the Cross, but at times seem to forget the theology of the resurrection. We defend
the empty tomb at Easter, but fail to recall what the resurrection means and
guarantees for the Christian.

The resurrection is the cement that holds all other theological bricks together.
Jesus is declared to be Son of God by resurrection (Rom. 1: 4). Our justification is
sealed by resurrection (Rom. 4:25). Our faith in the Cross is futile without the
resurrection (1 Cor. 15: 17). The resurrection guarantees all that Jesus taught and
gives us values to live by. New Age seekers are looking for values to live by. The
resurrection guarantees the coming Kingdom of God on earth, and assures us of
our eternal life and forgiveness of sin. Until Jesus was raised, the Spirit could not
be given to us personally to change us within. The resurrection shows the whole
person is important to God. That is why Mother Teresa could go to Calcutta, but
Shirley Maclaine stays away! Resurrection is thus the real paradigm for
empowerment to live (Clifford and Johnson 1998).
XIV. Healing

New Age has as a key component an emphasis on holistic healing. People need to
be treated in body, mind and spirit. Its appeal is due to the reliance on natural
remedies and non-surgical means of recovery. It also stresses prevention, not just
cure, by encouraging people to live a life conducive to optimum health and well
being. If we revisit the Scriptures we discover not only the theology of God as
healer, and the gift of healing through prayer and faith, but also that optimum
health is encouraged in body, mind and spirit. The Scriptures have a holistic view
of the human being and of health and well being. Here is the challenge for the
Church to recover a theology of healing that also correlates to a theology of
lifestyle.

One major feature of many New Age healing techniques relates to the concept of
energy. The energy paradigm is sourced in various traditions such as ancient
Chinese healing, Hindu folk religion, the hermetic traditions, and with figures
such as Swedenborg, Mesmer and Mary Baker Eddy. Healers speak of tapping
into cosmic energy to transmit such energy into a patient. Various words describe
this energy: prana, mana, chi, ki, life force, etc. Healing therapies based on energy
include acupuncture, Kinesiology, Reiki, Reflexology, Polarity Therapy and so
on.

Although some New Age healers correlate this cosmic energy with the insights of
quantum physics - energy never dies, but changes form - it is not certain whether
there is any scientific basis to this paradigm.

The Christian response thus far has been highly critical or negative towards
energy healing. The energy source is usually dismissed as unscientific. Since the
healings occur in conjunction with a metaphysic, it is argued that the energy
source must be demonic.
 This reaction is inadequate on several grounds.
 Christians run the risk of tying themselves in too closely with a materialist nonsupernatural view of the cosmos when over-emphasising a rationalist-debunking
model.
 By resorting to a blanket rebuttal that all energy healing must be demonic,
evangelicals run the risk of falling into the trap of a “devil-of-the-gaps” theory.
Since energy healing does not fit in with our presuppositions, it is lumped under
the label of demonic. Suppose it could be established that energy healing comes
from God, then the result would be calling God’s handiwork evil. (Cf. Pollard
2004).
XV.

Church as Community
One striking feature of New Age gatherings is the positive atmosphere, warm and
friendliness generated. Sometimes this is in contrast with a dour and cold
atmosphere experienced in church gatherings where outsiders are not warmly
received. Another discernible desire expressed in neo-pagan gatherings is the need
for a sense of belonging and a place where community can be experienced. If we
look at the Rave Dance culture (where hundreds of thousands of youth gather)
there is an emphasis on PLUR (Peace, Love, Unity and Respect), and verbal
expressions of feeling a sense of transcendental connection with each other
(Johnson 2004b). These are reminders of the need for the Church to be what Jesus
commanded, a community of believers known for their love.

John Drane (1991: 237) makes this arresting comment:
The church should be a place where we can be accepted as we are children, women and men together - a safe environment in which to
discover more about ourselves, to experience personal growth and to make
a contribution to the growth of others. When so very few of our
congregations even begin to approximate to that ideal, need we be
surprised that honest people look elsewhere?

Let us note that DIY spiritualities give seekers a sense that they are “priests”.
Whatever happened to the Protestant principle of the priesthood of all believers?
(1 Pet. 2:4; cf. Exodus 19:6).

The Australian church needs to reassess its lack of mainstream relevance in this
country, and begin to break down the ghetto mentality that persists in so many
quarters. New Age seekers are questing for meaning in life and simply do not
even think the Church is a meaningful place to undertake that exploration. The
continuing decline of church attendance figures (only 9% of the population
attends church) when set alongside the upsurge of growth in popularity of
alternative spiritualities ought to arrest our attention.

If we fail to respond to these theological and missiological challenges, we may
forfeit our “lamp stand” to third world Christians who will reach the Australian
continent because of our laxity.
UNPAID BILLS OF CHRISTIAN PRAXIS
Van Baalen emphasised in his “unpaid bills” metaphor reflects gaps in both teaching
and practice, and he underscored the basic point that Christianity is a way of life and
not merely a cognitive assent to a set of creeds and propositions.
I.

Coping With Pluralism
The unavoidable social reality of globalisation is that western Christians now live
in societies where they rub shoulders with adherents of other religions. However,
the teaching ministry of the churches has hardly begun to address the issue of how
to cope as a Christian living in a multi-faith nation. We have excellent case studies
from both Scripture (the patriarchs in pagan Canaan, Joseph in Egypt, Daniel in
Babylon, Acts of the Apostles) and history (the Church in the pagan pre-Nicene
era), of how believers grappled with serving God whilst living in a religiously
pluralist context. He time has arisen when the teaches of the church need to draw
on these case studies in an effort to help believers apply their faith in daily life in a
pluralist context, which is not characterised by fear of non-Christian beliefs.
II.

III.
Apologetic Monologues
There has been some critical reflection on the shortcomings of Evangelical
apologetic responses to alternate spiritualities and new religions (Drane, 1999;
Hexham 1992; Johnson 2000; Saliba 1999). The central focus seems to be on
defending the uniqueness and particularity of Christ, but presented in a rhetorical
manner that shuts down any meaningful discussion with non-Christians. Much of
the apologetic literature entails debunking and demonising what sociologists refer
to as fear of “the alien other”. It has also been observed by the sociologist Cowan
(2003) that much of what passes for apologetic argument in countercult circles
simply comprises cognitive acts in maintaining boundaries and fending off other
beliefs. In effect the apologias involve a monologue amongst Christians rather
than a dialogical interaction and challenge with non-Christians. This style of
apologetic engagement comes at the expense of being relational with devotees of
other paths. The obvious shortcoming with this state of affairs is that apologists
mistakenly believe that their apologias are coterminous with missional activity,
but the stark reality is that no serious and sustained form of outreach and
discipleship is occurring.
Consumer Culture and Globalisation

Alternate spiritualities are often a product of, or shaped by, the phenomenon of
globalisation. Some secular academics do take quite seriously the phenomena of
pop culture and the emerging consumer culture (e.g. Journal of Pop Culture,
Journal of Film and Religion, Culture and Religion, Journal of Consumer
Culture). Indeed the subject of globalisation has now spawned an academic
journal devoted to the study and discussion of it (Globalization, inaugural issue
September 2004 via Taylor and Francis publishers [i.e. Routledge]). It is in the
nexus of pop and consumer cultures that new religions and alternate spiritualities
are finding niches that we can ill-afford to overlook. Indeed there are fruitful new
frontiers into which missional action can occur.

One form of alternate spirituality that resists globalisation is found in ecospirituality and that associated with the Rave Dance culture. The countercultural
dimension to this resistance of globalisation raises issues for Christian praxis,
particularly as it relates to theology and action on ecology, animal theology and so
forth. It should strike the Church that non-Christians have taken the lead on the
ethical issues in the absence of any vital Christian presence.

I believe that consumer and pop cultures offer many different angles from which
creative writing projects could emerge, and in that process bring new religions and
alternate spiritualities into mainstream missional discourse in churches.

One approach to take is grounded in the OT prophetic tradition. Rampant
consumerism and materialist attitudes can be judged prophetically as “bankrupt”.
What Christians need to be helped to see (be they academic or laity) is that
consumer culture is an integral part of the world we live in. It spread via
globalisation, and is also in some respects a product of globalisation. Consumer
culture impacts life and thought globally, and many western middle class
Christians live lifestyles that are captive to consumerist values.

Beyond the deleterious influences of consumerism inside the Church, one finds
new religions, New Age and other alternate spiritualities as part of this consumer
cultural landscape. Some of the mainstream links between alternate spiritualities
and consumer culture can be detected in the commodification of New Age, Wicca
and Tibetan Buddhism through products, courses, and Internet sites. Examples of
this include spell-boxes as commodities of Wicca; the health and wealth success
packages offered by the Unity School of Christianity, Anthony Robbins’ books,
CDs, magazines, seminars etc.

A different facet to the prophetic angle is cyber-religion. The entire phenomenon
of cyber-religion — that is creating religion and practising it on the Internet — is
another feature of globalised pop culture. A few examples of cyber-based
religions include:





IV.

V.

Celebrity-based religions, such as those created in the wake of the death of
Diana Princess of Wales.
Satanism (most Satanic groups exist on the web because their adherents
are so thinly distributed around the world).
Neo-paganism and Wicca (where the metaphor of the worldwide web is
invoked as being analogous to the web of consciousness pagans believe
in).
Vampire and Goth religions.
Fan-fiction sites where fans of films, TV shows, or novels (e.g. Star Trek,
X-Files, Dracula) write their own stories keeping characters alive and give
expression to their own myths, folklore, cosmologies and spiritual beliefs.
Social Justice and Ecology
As has been noted earlier with reference to creation theology and animal theology,
and with remarks above concerning Rave Dance culture, there is a disturbing lack
of Evangelical Christian praxis with reference to social justice issues generally,
and specifically with ecological issues. Once again the vacuum created by the
Church’s absence has been filled up by non-Christian spiritualities and activists.
Ethics and Bio-Technology
Another burgeoning area of pop culture that impinges on the frontiers of ethical
problems concerns the discourses on stem-cell research, cloning, nanotechnology, and the new narcissistic behaviour of bodily alterations (botox
injections, plastic surgery, body piercing and tattoos). While some of the raw
edges of these discourses comprise profound ethical problems, there is also the
consumerist dimension that one can improve self-esteem and personal
significance through physical alterations. Some new religious movements, like the
Raelians, are deeply committed to myths about science replacing religion. The
Raelians also believe that cloning is essential to the next evolutionary stage of
human history.

The physical alteration of humanity is something embedded in Gothic myths,
particularly those concerned with the “Undead”. The creation of Frankenstein’s
monster occurs in the cultural matrix where different conceptions of human
anthropology were emerging from both the alchemical traditions of Renaissance
Europe and the Darwinian theories of human origins. A feature of nineteenth
century gothic literature is the mad doctor or scientist who attempts to recreate
humanity in his own image. In many respects the new scientific thresholds of
cloning and nano-technology provide a fresh impetus for reflecting on the same
issues that nineteenth century gothic novels explored. One might also reflect on
the current pop cultural pre-occupation with the Undead in film and TV stories
(“Blade”, “Interview with a Vampire”, “Van Helsing”, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”
etc), and how that interfaces with these ethical questions.

The “Undead” characters (vampires, werewolves, Wandering Jew, golem etc) can
be found distributed through various cultures. It can be argued that profound
theological and moral questions run through the gamut of Undead characters.
Much of it centres on whether immortality and eternal life should be obtained in
this flesh or beyond the grave. The myths associated with the Undead intersect
with the notion of being divinely cursed (think of Cain marked out by God so that
no-one is allowed to kill him; consider those afflicted with leprosy, and the
vilification of Jews, medieval witches, HIV-infected persons, etc). One also finds
blood-motifs that easily lend themselves to analysis from the standpoint of
atonement theologies. There are new emerging pop cultural spiritualities centred
in the Undead (such as Vampire religion) that represent another sub-culture of
unreached people warranting missional action.
VI.
Educating Clergy and Laity

Hyper-specialisation in theological education has also contributed to the
continuing isolation of countercult apologetics and ministry to new religions. Thus
disciplines like missiology and apologetics are kept apart, and even within these
twin subjects new religions are often relegated to the fringes of the curriculum
(Hexham 1992). Ordinands for the ministry therefore are not obliged to study
world religions and new religions as a compulsory component of their studies.
This is highly problematic given the social reality of religious pluralism within
most western parishes today. Professionally trained theologians and missions
specialists have not been prominent in the study of new religions, which by
default ensures that the subject persists on the academic fringes. These specialists
are the trainers of the church’s next generation of leaders. However by
overlooking or marginalizing the subject of new religions and world religions, the
gulf between the local church’s missional needs and the social realities of
contemporary religious diversity grows ever wider and tomorrow’s leaders are
bereft of the skills to cope with this changing context.

A concomitant of the previous point is that there are so few theologians and
missiologists who have acquired formal credentials in a secular university
specifically in the social sciences and religious studies where the subject of new
religions is taught. The critical skills and insights from these academic disciplines
therefore are not integrated into the apologetic endeavours of those few
professionals who occasionally contribute papers or books on the subject of new
religions and alternate spiritualities (Melton, 2000; Muck, 2004).

One long range challenge in bringing new religious movements into mainstream
Christian discourse concerns overhauling models of theological education. Earlier
in this paper it was noted that ordinands for ministry are not obliged to study
world religions or new religions in preparation for parish ministry. If this situation
is to change then the priorities and models of current theological education must
be renovated (cf. Drane, 2000a).

There is much ferment among theorists of education about styles of learning. In
some secular universities the lecture format has given way to seminars where
students undertake preparatory reading, keep a reflective journal, have field
exercises, and combine this with tutorials guided by the course facilitator. The
advent of inter-disciplinary courses also signals some dissatisfaction with the
prevailing currents of hyper-specialisation in subjects.

What would be helpful is for the emergence of some inter-disciplinary approaches
to undergraduate theological studies. For example, a course on the Book of
Genesis could be approached on an integrated and inter-disciplinary model. The
OT lecturer would provide the historical, cultural and theological background to
the book. Then the NT lecturer would explore the importance of Genesis in the
NT. The theologian would tackle topics like God, creation, fall etc in systematics
and in the history of doctrine. The church historian would explore how Genesis
has been understood by the Church Fathers and in other epochs. The ethicist
would tease out the ramifications of the teachings found in Genesis on human
rights, ecology and creation and so forth. The apologist would examine
apologetics questions about God’s existence, evil, and competing views of
creation in other worldviews (like how neo-pagans view creation, how Mormons
view creation, how Jehovah’s Witnesses view creation etc). The missiologist
would examine what principles of cross-cultural mission derive from the first
eleven chapters, and then again in the Patriarchal narratives.

This sort of synthesis though on paper appears very involved could nonetheless
prove to be invaluable for students who after four years of study graduate with
intellectual and spiritual indigestion, and who have not been helped to synthesize
all they learned in their specialised core subjects (i.e. OT, NT, Theology, and
Church history).
VII.

McDonaldised Churches
John Drane (2000b) has drawn attention to what he refers to as processes of
McDonaldisation in contemporary churches. By this term Drane is describing the
propensity of contemporary churches to opt for stereotyped structures, predictable,
pre-packaged forms of worship that are franchised as a “church-growth” solution.
Accompanying these processes is the reliance on franchised tools and courses in
evangelism and discipleship that are intended to help churches grow but ironically
do not seem to reach those who truly dwell beyond the walls of the church.

Franchised courses in evangelism and discipleship have certainly been used by
God to revitalise the faith of many who have attended church over the years.
These courses have also been helpful in reaching the “God-fearers”, those
unconverted people who exist on the fringes of church activities. For all of these
positive outcomes we can give praise and thanks.

However, some sober, honest and searching reflections on the array of franchised
courses now used in Britain, North America and Australia are warranted (cf. Hunt,
2004).

First, many of these franchised courses have been designed by Christians who do
not appear to have road-tested their material with a “control group” of nonChristians who genuinely dwell far beyond the reach of the churches (like
devotees of alternate spiritualities, and those who have never attended church in
their life). The courses are structured around a pre-packaged topical menu with
questions that Christians feel are important and have worked out answers for the
participants to be spoon-fed without debate. The result is that these programmes
reflect lingering influences of Christendom.

An example of this is where franchised courses commence with proofs for God’s
existence. Here the creators’ assumptions about the non-Christian west seem to be
resting on the notion that atheism and agnosticism are rampant. However one need
only take note of the broad mass of non-Christians in Britain and Australia who
participate in major religious traditions (such as the various Buddhist groups in the
west), or are exploring esoteric and do-it-yourself forms of spirituality. These
people presuppose there is some transcendent reality, and thus are inclined toward
working with tools that facilitate contact with the divine. The modernist era was
surely characterised by classic debates between Christians and atheists. However
it is a moot point to what extent those debates are now central in our current
contexts. If one is going to speak of disbelief in God’s existence in many cases
that disbelief is not about a transcendent reality, but rather represents a rejection of
a truncated portrait of the Christian view of God.

Second, the sorts of questions that are progressively answered in these courses are
often remote from the questions many non-Christians are actually exploring. If
one meets up with those who are exploring other spiritualities (which is where a
sizeable proportion of the western world has headed), then one discovers that they
are asking questions like these:









How can I be the best person I can possibly be?
How can I find my place in the cosmos?
Who am I anyway, and who might I become?
How can I be useful to others?
Where do I find release from my brokenness?
Where do I find peace?
How can I reconnect my soul with the divine source of life?
What values should I embrace?
What spiritual tools work the best and how do I choose which ones are
right for me?

How is it that the cosmos I inhabit, which appears to have order and design
and ought to be harmonious, is so screwed up?
I have not seen these sorts of questions (and there are many more) being
addressed in franchised courses.

Now if one accosts Australian non-Christians with the following well-known
questions the typical response consists of a mixture of bemusement and boredom:
“Is Christianity relevant?” “Is Christianity boring?” “Is Christianity true?” These
questions are premised on the Christendom order still existing, with the added
presumption that most people simply need a friendly nudge to attend church.

While these courses seek to overcome intellectual objections to the Christian faith,
the kinds of questions and the forms of answers given still reflect the era of
modernity. For example, most courses address the problem of evil and suffering,
but rely on a cursory summary of answers derived from C. S. Lewis’ The Problem
of Pain. Now there are some valuable points that Lewis made and these can still
be used. However I have yet to see any franchised course address the widely held
concepts of karma and rebirth. Many non-Christians now hold to a modified
western view of karma (as mediated through Blavatsky, Leadbeater and New Age)
as a plausible way of accounting for suffering in the world. Yet the franchised
courses on evangelism do not even recognise how important karmic explanations
have become in the west.

Again, many courses present brief arguments for the reliability of the gospel
records that are derived from Josh McDowell’s Evidence That Demands A
Verdict. Although that material is valuable and has an enduring place (though
some sceptics have highlighted factual errors in McDowell’s book), it is
inadequate to meet today’s challenges where non-Christians are likely to have
read Notovitch’s claims about Jesus in Tibet, Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code,
and the Gospel of Thomas. Likewise one cannot simply trot out the Lord, Liar,
Lunatic trilemma in a world where non-Christians have read Bishop Spong’s
views of myth and heard about the results of the Jesus Seminar where the gospels
contain “legends”.

Another thread that can be discerned in some courses is the need to refute an
imagined view of “relativism”. This gambit often centres in proving that a
statement like “there is no ultimate truth” is itself a claim to ultimate truth and is
therefore an illogical and untenable position. Another notion concerning the
relativity of truth to culture is sometimes construed to be a denial of ultimate
truth. Doubtless there are people who take that view.

However, there are more subtle and important points overlooked in these courses.
One key point is that those seekers who have been influenced by Blavatsky’s
Theosophy will reply to Christian truth claims of exclusivity by saying “that’s
your truth.” Adepts of this approach do not mean that there is no concept of
ultimate truth. Far from it! In this approach one finds the idea of “perennism”. In
this view lying behind all the cultural accretions of truths expressed in religions
like Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and Christianity, there is a higher synthesis or
system of truth that is superior to these culturally relative religions. That synthesis
of course is Theosophy. Some anti-New Age writers misconstrue perennism with
the view “there’s no such thing as truth” or with the rarefied views of
postmodernists like Derrida. In fact New Age style spiritualities do embrace
metanarratives, and so cannot be legitimately interpreted as a religious
manifestation of deconstruction theory. Perhaps it is high time we admitted that
Derrida’s postmodernism is by no means a grass-roots phenomenon (Drane,
2000b; Hexham, 2001).

Third, while some franchised courses are attractively packaged in video/DVD
formats, there remains a fundamental problem with the communicative style of a
forty-minute monologic, cognitive, non-interactive talk. That style presupposes a
Christendom model where the attention span for lengthy oral sermons was
cultivated in the pre-TV era of the Reformation. Or put another way the film is
simply a radio broadcast with pictures of the announcer. One need only visit a
Mind-Body-Spirit festival to discover that today’s searchers eagerly attend
interactive workshops where they have guided spiritual experiences, as well as
being free to ask the workshop facilitator their questions. All too often the
structures and group dynamics of the post-video session controls or stifles the
kinds of questions that New Agers are likely to ask (such as Jesus’ missing years,
Church conspiracies against the Gnostics, the Da Vinci Code, the compatibility of
astrology with Christianity, the role of women in the church, etc). What is also
problematic is that the well meaning church groups that sponsor these franchised
courses are not educated in the apologetic issues raised by esotericist and New
Age writers.

What also needs to be grasped is that today’s seekers do not simply have cognitive
or intellectual objections to Christianity. The burgeoning consumer culture in
which do-it-yourself spirituality flourishes is a portal that opens up access to an
array of spiritual tools and disciplines about which most lay Christians and pastors
are ignorant (e.g. Cabala, tarot, astrology, feng shui, Reiki, chakras, auras, etc).
Seekers are savvy to both the experiences and the metaphysics associated with
these tools, to which Christians seem to have nothing in common. If seekers
attend a franchised course and bring with them questions or challenges based on
their journey, how can the courses meaningfully interact with seekers when the
Christian facilitators have no background of relatedness to it?

In Australia we have directed a few New Age seekers into attending franchised
evangelism courses. We have noted from their own feedback that the
programme’s content fails to connect with their search. The courses address
questions that are over their heads, do not relate to their exploratory journeys, or
concentrate on cognitive issues they are disinterested in.

We might also anticipate a possible rejoinder offered because of the current
faddish wave of enthusiasm for Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Life programme as
a potential panacea. This programme is a product of Southern Californian
Christian culture, which is peculiar to North America and less amenable to
working well with inquirers into faith in other cultures. The main point I would
make though is that none of the preliminary lessons grapple with life issues that
New Age, Neo-Pagan and do-it-yourself seekers see as crucial.

Now there is an experiential Christian spirituality course that has been devised in
England with New Age seekers in mind, known as Essence (Frost, 2002). It has
many attractive and valuable features to it covered in a six-week programme, with
material suitable for certain kinds of alternate seekers. However, lest we fall into
the trap of McDonaldised franchising, it must be noted that even this helpful
programme needs to be adjusted when used in cultural contexts beyond England.

Fourth, the great fallacy of franchised courses is that one can create a recipe for
evangelism and discipleship that will operate the same worldwide. By
McDonaldising evangelism the assumption is that “one size suits all” in outreach
and therefore should be replicated. The flaw with this thinking is exposed by the
stark and simple truth that the cultural contexts of each western nation vary
considerably and what works in London won’t necessarily work in Sydney,
Auckland, Johannesburg and Los Angeles.

To take but one poignant example, in Australia over 3,000 pastors have been
trained by the Hybels organisation in the art of seeker sensitive church services.
Out of all those congregations who have had pastoral staff trained, there is only
one Australian congregation that is successfully replicating the seeker sensitive
model. Quite apart from the underlying fallacy of McDonaldising the Hybels
model, there is the simple fact that there is a tremendous cultural gulf in attitudes
about church in the USA and Australia. Bill Hybels’ successful model of church is
a product of his culture, and what worked for him there simply does not work
elsewhere.
VIII. Vocation and Spirituality

It was noted earlier that New Age spirituality has found a niche in the workplace,
as many people look for a practical spirituality in their chosen vocation.

The unhelpful split in Christian thinking over vocation and spirituality has led to a
dysfunctional praxis. Christians are exhorted to consider the preacher and
overseas missionary as the ultimate vocation for a believer, while little is said
about applying one’s faith to one’s vocation in other forms of work. With this
comes a corresponding failure to offer a robust faith in the workplace – lunchtime
Bible studies and evangelistic sharing at coffee break time notwithstanding. The
gap between a practical spirituality and vocation has been a product of faulty
Christian thinking and the gap has been seized by alternate spiritualities. We need
to recover, as Luther offered, a robust understanding of faith and vocation, and
begin teaching how to practically apply one’s worship and faith at work.
CONCLUSION
In view of the aforegoing discussion I submit that it would be erroneous to assume
that the subject of alternate spiritualities and new religions is merely a topic for a few
enthusiasts, that the subject matter is of a fringe nature disconnected from mainstream
issues of the church. Perhaps that is one further reason why the issues considered by
Issue Group 16 at the Lausanne Forum need to be recognized as mainstream and
impinge on the agendas of Issue Groups concerned with globalisation, emerging
church, church leadership, reaching youth, theological education, marketplace
ministry and so on. The preceding menu of topics and sub-topics discussed surely
indicates that there is a profound need for spiritual and structural renovation in the
Australian church context, and that the prevalence of new and alternate spiritualities
provides a disturbing mirror image of massive dysfunction and oversight on the part
of Christians. There are sins of omission and commission that we need to repent of
both individually and corporately. Van Baalen’s metaphor of the “cults as the unpaid
bills of the church” has been tested against the Australian context and found to be
true. The task before is massive but stimulating and if we hear and respond to the
voice of God’s Spirit in this hour we may indeed see an outpouring on this continent
such as has never before been witnessed. But that outpouring will not likely come
through the formulaic thinking and formulaic answers currently offered as solutions to
the Australian spiritual malaise.
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