Anything But the God of The Jews
The Challenge of New Age to Judaeo-Christian Faith

by Rev. Isaac C. Rottenberg

The real taboo among believers in self-actualization is the idea of Torah, authoritative truth received from a transcendent Deity.

Briefly, but accurately stated, "the New Age is an anything but Jesus religion." Such is the conclusion of an evangelical critic of the movement which Time Magazine once described as "a whole cornucopia of beliefs, fads, rituals . . . . a cloudy sort of religion, claiming vague connections with Christianity and the major faiths of the East plus an occasional dab of pantheism and sorcery. To refer to this eclectic cluster of spiritualities and self-improvement theories as "an anything but Jesus religion" strikes me as an unfortunate way of putting things. Such a formulation falls short on several counts.

1) It may suggest to the proponents of a narrow "Jesus is the answer" kind of theology that they are adequately equipped to deal with the issues posed by the New Age. In fact, nothing less than a Christ-centered trinitarian theology of the Kingdom of God is needed to counteract the influence of New Age thinking in the Church and society.

2) The statement implies that historic Judaism, which does not view Jesus in the way traditional Christianity has confessed him, is more acceptable to New Age devotees than the teachings of the Church. In fact, it is the concept of historical revelation which the Church has inherited from Judaism that is most offensive to the New Age movement. In other words, Judaism and Christianity have fundamental differences with respect to the interpretation of Jesus’ life and ministry, but they have foundational agreements when confronted with "religion without revelation" (Julian Huxley) as is manifested in the New Age movement.

3) The formulation also fails to show that Jesus per se is not problematic to New Age thinking. For instance, Shirley Maclaine, who many regard as a high priestess in the movement, is quite prepared to retain Jesus as prophet, teacher and role model on how to achieve a sort of universal "Christ Consciousness." However, the real taboo among those believers in self-actualization is the idea of Torah, authoritative truth received from a transcendent Deity. Jesus becomes a problem only when understood in that biblical context as the embodiment of such a divine revelation.

It would be more accurate, I believe, to interpret New Age thinking in terms of a long "anything but the God of the Jews" tradition, which throughout history has posed a serious threat to the faith of the church. The God of Israel, as revealed in the Bible, has a way of provoking offense, confronting us as the Holy and Wholly Other One and challenging the natural instincts of our pagan souls.

Among the key elements in Judeo-Christian thinking that have always been particularly jolting to religionists who reject the idea of historical revelation, I would list "biblical materialism," "covenantal redemption" and the "jealous God." Time and time again, those notions and the beliefs associated with them have come under attack by those who can be considered part of the "anything but the God of the Jews tradition. Why is this so? That question we shall explore in the sections that follow.

Biblical Materialism

There is a deep-seated longing in the human soul to achieve emancipation from the world of matter and find inner liberation by reaching a higher realm of spirit. There is also a trend in the history of religion which views the earthly realities as inhabited by divine spirits or demons which somehow must be influenced or–if possible–controlled through certain religious rites. The former position leads to the view that the material world and carnal existence are essentially evil or at least inferior when compared with spiritual realities. Unfortunately, such a view has often been reinforced by the Church’s own confused message concerning sexuality. The Cathari, a 13th century sect of "The Pure," went so far as to shun anything that had to do with animal reproduction. They also believed that the Jewish scriptures ("Old Testament") were the work of the Devil.

The latter position has often led to human attempts to get hold of the forces of nature, and particularly the powers of fertility, through rituals that celebrate the vitalistic forces of life and sexuality in particular. These seemingly antithetical positions have a way of meeting, however. This happens, for instance, when views denigrating the body have led to sexual promiscuity on the theory that the physical realm isn’t really real anyhow.

Biblical thinking is opposed to both of these positions. The world of nature is confessed as divine creation. The mundane realities are not the product of emanation from God, thus sharing in the divine nature. Rather, the world has been called forth by the Word of the Lord, who creates order out of chaos. Hence the Bible offers us a "good earth faith." Evil is very real, but it does not reside in matter as such, nor do the gods have their dwelling place in nature as immanent cosmic powers. Instead, the scriptures present a story of sin and redemption, a view of the way things are sub specie aeternitatis that our natural impulses tend to resist.

"Biblical materialism" represents a worldview that has come to us via the people of Israel and Judaism. Michael Wyschogrod has argued in his book, The Body of Faith: Judaism as Corporeal Election (1983), that "the faith of Israel is a carnal faith," and that Judaism "does not escape the real, material, and political world for the Gnostic heaven" (p. xvi). The Christian theologian F.C. Oetinger expressed a similar view long ago in his well known dictum that "the end of the ways of God is corporeality."

Whatever disputes may remain in Pauline research, it seems safe to say that a virtual consensus exists among scholars that the "flesh-spirit" dynamic in the "New Testament" deals with the issue of estrangement from God, not with an assumed fall of humanity from the higher realm of spirit into an inferior state of physical existence. The "New Testament" as a whole, despite its intensely eschatological sections, holds firmly to the Psalmist’s affirmation that "the earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it" (Psalm 24:1).

Still, it has often been difficult to put into practice the dialectic of "biblical materialism" with its profound sense of human responsibility before God for the stewardship of the earth. Israel’s prophets raised passionate protests against a mind-set that sought the accumulation of more and more material goods by means of unjust practices and oppressive measures against the most vulnerable segments of society.

The church, on the other hand, at a very early stage was assaulted by various forms of unworldly spiritualism that either sought to cleanse the Hebrew scriptures of their earthly elements through the use of allegory or, as in the case of Marcion, simply declared them to be an unworthy message from an inferior God of the Jews. Gnostic speculations, propounding a body-spirit bifurcation and promising salvation through a freeing of the spirit from corrupt matter, became a major threat to Church teachings. Inevitably, the idea of an assumptio carnis of God in Christ was denied as an offensive doctrine. At the same time a pervasive anti-Jewish mentality took hold in the life of the Church and persisted through many centuries.

As the Church, with the eventual help of imperial power, battled spiritualist heresies, it increasingly came under the spell of worldly standards of prestige, power and material wealth. Also, theologically it has proven to be difficult to incorporate the christological and pneumatological insights of the "New Testament" into an integrated belief system that does justice to the cosmic-historical as well as the personal-mystical dimensions of both the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. And yet, such a theology with broadly catholic-ecumenical perspectives is precisely what is needed to confront the claims of counterreligious forces such as the New Age movement. In the battle for people’s souls, the Church will no longer be able to look to civil authority to come to the rescue and enforce orthodoxy. In an increasingly secular and pluralistic age, sectarian approaches to theology become less and less a luxury the churches can afford.

The major streams of Christian theological tradition have had a basic consensus as to what elements of the biblical message are foundational to the faith of the Church: creation–covenant–incarnation–the cross–the ecclesia and the coming Kingdom of God. These are common elements in Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican and Protestant theologies. They differ, and often considerably so, in the way those elements are accentuated.

For instance, on the one hand one can trace a sacramental stream in Christian theological tradition. Its representatives tend to accentuate the elements of creation-incarnation (in the sense of assumptio carnis)-the Church with its sacramental ministry and the process of sanctification (glorification, or even deification). In that view the Christ-event is closely associated with the creation, because the latter is believed to have already contained the potential of the union of the human and the divine, or of heaven and earth. Thus the incarnation is confessed as the "crown of creation" and through the mystery of the sacraments a progressive extension of the incarnation takes place, leading to a gradual supernaturalization of the whole created order and eventually the transfiguration of all things.

Such a theological approach offers a cosmic-historical perspective, but the almost organic flow of thought from creation to incarnation, the ecclesia and the Kingdom, raises questions about the meaning of the cross and Christ’s atonement for sin. Those elements are focused on in theologies of the cross and reconciliation with their strong emphasis on the proclamation of the Word, the personal encounter with Jesus as risen Lord and the experience of forgiveness as central in conversion.

Of course, within those streams of tradition one finds many diversities as well. It is not my purpose here to dwell on details, but rather to point to the need for a continual conversation between the various Christian traditions in an attempt to incorporate the valid biblical insights of each into a catholic-ecumenical theology. Instead, what we see today is a growing estrangement if not hostility between "evangelical" and "catholic" communities (e.g. South America and the regions of the former Soviet Union).

On the one hand, a sacramental "Cosmic Christ" type of theology, often highly dependent on metaphysical language and categories, may have a hard time presenting a persuasive defense against contemporary cosmic naturalisms that deny historical revelation. On the other hand, a "Jesus theology" that detaches conversion and the inner experience from a theology of the Kingdom may also have a hard time helping believers resist the allures of "inner light" heresies which are proliferating in our day.

Many people, disillusioned with a materialistic and technocratically driven consumer society, including the commercial exploitation of sexuality, are looking for a spirituality that does not lose touch with God’s earth and the fullness thereof. "Biblical materialism" in Christian context is about a world affirmation that is based on a belief in the God of Israel, redemptively present in Jesus the Christ/Messiah and giving us, through the power of the Spirit, a vision and foretaste of the coming new creation called the Kingdom of God.

Covenantal Redemption

There is a deep-seated longing in the human soul to transcend time and the transitoriness of life; for the self to become immersed in that mystical-ecstatic moment of bliss when time seems to stand still and the soul becomes absorbed into the divine and eternal "ALL." But a reading of the Bible is bound to bring about a rude awakening from such dreamy thoughts and heart’s desires because the God of Israel is proclaimed as entering the realm of time, using history as an avenue of revelation and an instrument of redemption. Hence, in the Hebrew scriptures the search for salvation is never resolved by an escape from history.

The idea of the covenant, so central in the Bible, focuses the attention on history, particularly the history of the Jewish people, in order to then open up wide vistas on the destiny of the nations of the world. In the Christian view, the covenant is renewed and reinforced in and through the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth who is confessed as the messianic Mediator of redemption for all peoples.

"How odd/of God/to choose/the Jews" (Lewis Browne). How strange and inscrutable, how contrary to our natural instincts are the ways of the God of Israel. God dealt with a people and a nation, not with a collection of converted individuals whose souls are aflame with the fires of the Spirit or, in New Age terminology, with the delight of discovering divinity within. The communal aspects of covenant theology tend to clash with our preconceived notions about the individual as the center of true redemption.

All issues, including social-political ones, will–according to some New Age writers–be resolved only via the individual who has reached a new state of consciousness. The same idea has sometimes been advanced by advocates of a conversion theology that is based on a narrow "Jesus only" perspective. The ultimate and absolute moment then takes place in the "Garden of Prayer," just Jesus and me sharing a joy so unique that none other could ever have known it. When the encounter in the Garden becomes the essence of God’s redemptive presence at the expense of the Christian life in the congregation (the covenant community) serving the world, then both the Church and society are in trouble.

Of course, the Bible too has plenty to say about the heart and the inner stirrings of the soul. What would our walk with the Lord be without the dimension of the mystical experience? The issue at stake is the context in which we understand the experiential realities of the faith. For instance, is the soul seen as detached from the daily mundane realities of life, from the needs of the body as well as the body politic? In Jeremiah’s vision (ch. 31) of a new covenant when the law of God will be written upon the human heart, the end of the ways of God with his people is not inwardness, but a holy nation embodying the divine commandments in its communal life and culture.

The knowledge of truth as "Begegnung," the encounter with Jesus as the Christ and the conversion experience are all precious elements in the life of the believer. But, once again, it is the context that counts. Conversion takes place in the context of the gospel of the Kingdom and the Kingdom aims at the redemption of all things. The transformation of an individual life is like a sign and first fruit of a wonderful harvest to come. The sign, established by the power of the Spirit, is both the product of God’s redemptive presence in the world and contains the promise of that which is still to come. When God touches our lives, we are born anew to a living hope. (I Peter 1:3) What we hope for is infinitely more than what we feel even in the most blessed moment of communion with Christ. What we hope for is the promised new creation.

A conversion theology with its deep sense of sovereign divine grace, is far to be preferred over New Age preachings about self-actualization. But conversion theologies can also have a way of running wild. Then, before we know it, we propel ourselves out of the orbit of biblical faith, turning an inner life theology into an inner light theology quite similar to New Age teachings. In short, a onesided emphasis on the heart (the inhabitatio of the Spirit) without the radical historical perspective of the Bible will lead us straight into all sorts of heresies in which God becomes virtually identified with our deepest inner being. Yahweh, whom we meet–let us say–in the Psalms, who is very near to us in the mystery of his love, always remains foreign to the depth of our souls.

Still, it would be hard to underestimate the positive role of evangelical renewal movements in church history. Whenever faith was threatened by formalism, scholasticism, intellectualism or moralism, such vital movements have resisted routine ritualism, reminding the Church of the unio mystica cum Christo and the internal life of the Spirit (gratia infusa et interna). They have used the language of lovers and the imagery of the intimate embrace to convey the warmth of the blessed moment of encounter with God. Even the suggestiveness of sexual imagery is to be preferred over the emphasis on holy celibacy as advocated by such movements as the Montanists or the higher order among the Cahari who were called the "Perfecti," untouched by intimate physical contact.

Yet, it is not surprising that the heirs of the 17th century Pietists became the 18th century Rationalists. Nor would it be surprising to find that some of the New Age devotees of the 1980s and ’90s have gotten there via the Jesus movement of the 1960s and ’70s. Because, as history shows, spiritual and psychological extremes have a way of meeting in unholy embrace. Historically the temptation of much evangelical theology has been excessive individualism, combined with dualistic and eventually Gnostic tendencies (we, the few truly "enlightened" who are left). The Church is then abandoned in favor of the sect; the apostolate to the world is left undone as we linger endlessly in the Garden, and the potential of renewal is lost in pietistic isolation. Covenantal theology, as it has come to us via the faith of Israel, is a strong antidote against the spirit of our age.

The Jealous God

There is a deep-seated longing in the human soul to find a form of religion that is devoid of the element of judgment. The God of Israel, on the other hand, is portrayed as a jealous and disturbing God, the One who reveals Torah, who confronts us with holy commandments, and calls us to repentance. Biblical monotheism of the covenantal type is often expressed in the language of monogamy and marital fidelity.

The Bible’s view of God and the world contains a strong element of its "overagainstness," a prophetic protest against any idea of identification. Revelation is indeed divine presence in the world. The very name YHVH, untranslatable and mysterious, signifies the divine presence ("I shall be there as I shall be there"–Exodus 3). God, the Holy and Wholly Other One, is present in the mystery of his love. The Name is revealed in the deed and confessed in faith.

In pagan religion (religion without revelation and without history) divinity is found in the nature of things; in the eternal harmony of the universal "ALL." The same is true of much New Age thinking, where in monistic fashion the individual is told "you are the universe" and "You are God." Here there is no confession of the Name, no notion of the otherness of God. The dimensions of historical revelation, law, sin and grace are totally lacking. The sacred is discovered in the depth of one’s being and becomes basically an act of self-realization.

The notion of a jealous God is one of the jolting elements in biblical faith and hence an affront to much popular religion. It seems too narrowing; sounds too intolerant. The God of Israel refuses to be absorbed into a pantheon of gods. "Choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served in the region beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living, but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord." (Joshua 24:15)

But why not broaden one’s spiritual horizons? Why not draw on a wide variety of religious manifestations? Those seductive questions have resounded within the hearts and souls of Jews as well as Christians throughout the centuries. There is so much attractive religion to be enjoyed. Should we deprive ourselves of such richness in the name of a jealous God of the Jews who, according to Christian beliefs, is also the God revealed in Jesus?

It should be noted that there is jealousy among the gods of Greek mythology as well, but there it’s quite a different story. Thomas Moore, a one-time member of a Catholic religious order and now a wellknown psychotherapist, discusses this topic in his bestseller Care of the Soul (Harper, 1992). It is a brilliant book, full of beauty and insight. It seductively draws one into the sphere of universal soulfulness and at the same time away from the world of the prophetic Word, the divine voice addressing us with Torah, revealing the Name of the One who is foreign even to the deepest depths of our souls.

Thinking mythologically, as recommended by Moore, and thinking biblically (Hebraically) leads one along different paths. For instance, on the question of divine jealousy, Moore points to Euripides’ Hippolytus (p. 98 ff.). It is the myth about a young man’s excessive devotion to the pure goddess Artemis, and Aphrodite’s resentment at his neglect of other aspects of life, like love and sex. So what was this young man’s problem? Answer: his denial of the polytheistic requirements of the soul. In short, he suffered from a highminded but narrow monotheism, which in turn is said to lead to a rigid moralism. His failure then was a refusal to explore the full measure of a soul-full life and that also became his fall.

Soul, writes Moore, is not the ego. Rather, "[i]t is the infinite depth of a person and a society, comprising all the many mysterious aspects that go together to make up our identity" (267). And in essence our identity is one with the world-soul, the anima mundi. In other words, the world-soul and our soul are one or, "we are truly the world, and the world is us" (281). And at the core of it "ALL" we find the divine.

Thomas Moore wants to move beyond modernity with its bifurcated (secular) worldview: on the one hand the world of things and nature to be exploited; on the other hand a subjectivity that is limited to a reasoning ego. We need, he writes, "a new awareness that religion, soul and the world are profoundly implicated in each other" (183). But his new awareness is also very ancient. It is basically the pre-Torah view of the universe.

We are dealing with a conflict of theologies. According to Moore, "our culture is in need of theological reflection that does not advocate a particular tradition, but tends the soul’s needs for spiritual direction" (229). If he were referring to sectarian or denominational particularities, one could talk about a matter of give and take, but in the search for "a more soulful religion and theology" he and many others today leave no room for a revelational particularity. For biblical theology, however, that is an issue of ultimate concern.

There are elements of inclusiveness in Moore’s approach that are extremely attractive and certainly not contrary to the biblical perspective: his emphasis on the ordinary aspects of life, relating the inner journey to one’s job, to creativity, art and culture. In short, he rightly aims at a spirituality "that is not at odds with the everyday and the lowly" (203). Christianity, as an incarnational faith, has often paid dearly for going after spiritualities that had lost sight of the common life.

The world of myth is at heart a world of the non-historical. "When imagination is allowed to move in deep places, the sacred is revealed" (284). Then the soul comes to rest in eternal harmony. The world of revelation is a world of divine irruption. The God of the Bible judges the world of things as they are. The status quo must be redeemed, radically changed. Not the depth of things, but the eschaton, the telos of history stirs the soul of those who have met the God of Israel, the jealous God whom Christians see revealed in Jesus and his love.

What makes the Jewish people such a controversial element in the history of the world? Could it be that their very survival and presence in our midst remind us of the God of Israel, the Great Disturber of our pagan souls? The human heart prefers selfdiscovery over divine deliverance, a deification of the self over the dying of the self. The spirit of our age is one of revolt against revelation. The great choice before us is between religiosity and faith.

Rev. Isaac Rottenberg is a retired general official of the Reformed Churches in America. He has written extensively on theology and is a frequent contributor to various theological journals, often focusing on issues vital to the developing Jewish/Christian dialogue. His wide range of relationships with scholars and leaders in Judaism and in mainline Christian denominations makes his insights informative, provocative, and well balanced. Isaac and his wife Malwuina, live in Denver, Colorado.

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