23 May 2021. Pentecost Sunday. Acts 2:1-11 + 1Corinthians 12:3b-7, 12-13, or Galatians 5:16-25 + John 20:19-23 or John 15:26-27; 16:12-15
When the time of Pentecost was fulfilled… they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim… “Are not all these speaking Galileans? Then how does each of us hear them in their native languages? We are Parthians, Medes, and Elamites, inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia. Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the districts of Libya near Cyrene, as well as travelers from Rome, both Jews and converts to Judaism, Cretans and Arabs, yet we hear them speaking in own tongues of the mighty of God (Acts 2:1a, 4, 7-11).
Monism, Monotheism, Pantheism, Pandeism and Panentheism. Esotericism, Gnosticism and Spiritualism. Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, Kabbalah Judaism, Sikhism, Islamic Sufiism and Neopaganism.
New Thought and Theosophy. Aura and Karma. UFO religions and Universal Religion. Scientology, Astrology, Astronomy and Gaia Theory. Environmentalism and Ecological Responsibility. Universalism and Personal Transformation.
This jargon à la jambalaya is not copied from the index of a philosophy textbook. It is the doctrinary of New Age spirituality,* a listing, and counting, of felled and failed ideals of enlightenment.
Their founders who found Christ difficult to follow and His pill difficult to swallow conceived these ideals to widen the gates of heaven and to smoothen the paths leading to it.
Unwilling to commit to anything or to follow anyone, New Agers are united only against their mutual aversion to Christian “dogmatism.”
Since nothing binds or confines these ideals together, the face and shape of New Age syncretism change as these ideals go in and out of fashion.
Unlike the harmony provided by a solid and unchanging Christian doctrine, the doctrinary of the New Age is a cacophony of mix and match of ideals lost and found, expired and revived, rejected and recycled, retrashed and rehashed, warped and garbed anew.
As everybody talks, and nobody listens, the cacophony deafens anybody who hears. The New Age, now appearing as the New Garbed Age, leads to anywhere but to true peace and contentment.
In his book, “What’s Wrong with the World?”, G. K. Chesterton, known as the prophet of the 20th century, wrote that “Man invents new ideals because they dare not attempt old ideals. They look forward with enthusiasm, because they are afraid to look back.” He also stated in the book that, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.”
The modern mind, according to Chesterton, fearing that it could not match the flaming faith and heroism of its forefathers, veer off from the old ideal to chart a new one, where it faces no comparison.
While the Christian ideal is still livable and available to this day, ideals that claimed to be New Age went out of sight and out of mind.
The replacement turns out to be nothing but the flotsam and jetsam of that failed voyage, and the disintegration detritus of a lost voyager. The New Garbed Age offers nothing newer than new garbage. VSS
VSS, “Veni Sancte Spiritus,” (Come, Holy Spirit) marks the end of each of my posts.
Picture credit: Top photo by beachhouserehabcenter.com; middle photo of a yogi by mindfulmuscle.com; bottom photo by pixabay on pexels.com.
BrieflectionS 