Description
By Rev Fr William Goh
A series of 3 talks
1. New Age Spirituality and Beliefs
This talk will give an overview of New Age Spirituality and the underlying tenets that ground their beliefs. This requires us to examine their understanding of God, man and the world. We will also consider the attractiveness of New Age Spirituality to the modern man and the claims as to what they can offer to them that traditional and institutional religions cannot.
2. Incompatibility of New Age Spirituality with Christian Faith
In order to understand why New Age Spirituality is not compatible with the Christian Faith, we will highlight the fundamental differences between them. Most importantly, we will study the subtle nuances between these two spiritualities as New Age Spirituality is largely the result of syncretism and eclecticism; a combination of elements from traditional religions, science and psychology. Such indiscriminate borrowing of such beliefs and practices relativizes our faith in Christ.
3. Pastoral Guidelines in Discerning New Age Practices from Christian Spirituality
Many Catholics, unaware of the subtle differences between New Age and Christian Spirituality, have sought to merge these two into one, resulting in confusion and the dilution of our faith in Jesus as the Christ, the unique Son of the Living God and the Savior of the World. This talk will offer some pastoral guidelines as to how we can safeguard ourselves from the temptation of syncretism. We will also offer some reflections on current New Age Movements or practices, for example, New Age Therapies such as Reiki, the adaptation of Oriental Non-Christian forms of meditation into Christian prayer.
