Sorry, but any common ground is far outweighed by the irreconcilable differences. Indeed, you perfectly illustrate this. What you call the positive elements of Christianity are nothing other than what the early church bitterly opposed and condemned as heretical.

And what you regard as the negative elements are the very heart and soul of biblical Christianity. You have stripped biblical Christianity of the very things Jesus and the apostles said and did, leaving us with nothing. The early disciples rebutted equally vacuous notions of the faith, calling such views the deception of the enemy and false teachings to be totally rejected.

Your take on Christianity is as helpful as someone calling for Aussie rules football to be radically redefined and overhauled, by eliminating the field, the ball, the goal posts, the players, the four quarters, the scores, the coaches, and the umpires, and calling what is left true footy.

And no, what my article did attempt to argue for are the two types of righteousness: human self-righteousness versus God-given righteousness. All our righteous is as filthy rags, as Isaiah informs us. But in Christ through faith and repentance we can have the righteousness of God credited to our account.

It all comes down to the biblical view of sin, its reality and extent, which you so plainly and utterly reject. It is because of sin that Christ came in the first place. He did not come spouting a message that we are already divine, but that we are alienated from God by sin and selfishness, and only the work of Christ on the cross can bridge this gap with the one true God.

This always has been and always will be the essential nature of Christian truth claims. They have absolutely nothing to do with New Age mumbo-jumbo or Eastern thought. So anti-Christian heresies have been around for some time now, and your recent version is just more of the same. And given that I once adhered to both New Age and Eastern thought, I can see quite clearly now as a biblical Christian the radical differences between these two worldviews.

Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch

“The only way they can be made to be compatible is if the latter is gutted of its very core teachings and beliefs. The Biblical revelation is highly exclusivist, and does not allow for the inclusivism and syncretism you are trying to force upon it”

I agree with you almost completely, except for the last 7 words in that unlike most well known writers in the NAM Eckhart Tolle and James Redfield for example), I am not trying to soften the differences between Orthodox Christianity and New Age. On a philosophical and Theological level I am specifically trying to address the differences head on.

On a practical level, there is much common ground between any Sincere Spiritual seeker, regardless of whether they are Christian or New Age (Serving God, serving all others, aspiring to Unconditional Love, compassion, forgiveness, charity etc). This doesn’t mean that they are all the same however, as the dogma’s of different paths bring people to focus in different areas.

I deliberately omit the Bible, knowing full well that overall it is not cohesive with the worlds Mystical traditions. Thank you for looking at my website, if you read my articles you will see that I argue that Christianity can be seperated into the positive and negative elements. If you take away the negative elements, than you have Gnostic Christianity, essentially in it’s purest form (there being of course many different Gnostic sects) Perennial Mysticism, virtually identical to the core teachings of Advaita-Vedanta, Buddhism, Taoism, Hermeticism etc.

So, yes I am arguing that Christians should drop the exclusive aspects of their faith (including belief in a Historical Jesus with Resurrection & Substitutory Atonement and inerrancy of the Bible), and follow a Spiritual path of Love and Light, not dogma and theology.

The overall gist of your article was to say that only a Christian worldview results in a Self-less life. Clearly this is a misrepresentation of other Worldviews. Great men of many nations have preached the importance of being Self-Less, in giving up Ego (false Self) we gain the greater self-Spirit. Yes, there are false prophets that preach to the lowest common denominator (ie Rhonda Byrnes “The Secret”, appealing to the desire to be Rich, however not everything in The Secret is false, more just the presentation and focus) If a true New-Age worldview was followed then we would have Heaven on earth.

Jim Clark

Sorry, but whether high brow or low brow, the NAM in particular and Eastern religions in general stand in complete antithesis to the Judeo-Christian worldview. The only way they can be made to be compatible is if the latter is gutted of its very core teachings and beliefs. The Biblical revelation is highly exclusivist, and does not allow for the inclusivism and syncretism you are trying to force upon it. No wonder that in your list of fav books (as found on your website), you feature all the trendy Eastern and New Age titles, but omit the Bible. There is no way it can be crammed into your mystical bowl of soup.

Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch

I was responding to your statement: “We each come to our particular view of the world through various cultural, educational, environmental and social influences. There is no objective truth in these matters, there is only opinion arrived at by careful, or perhaps careless, analysis as the case may be.”

Now you state: “You have totally misconstrued my meaning. My statement was ‘There is no objective truth in these matters’. The matters I referred to were the many different worldviews and belief systems, the subject of Bill’s article.
“My point was that it is not possible to objectively discern the truth of any of them, including atheism. We each have an opinion about whether or not there is a God, and those who believe there is a God have different opinions about his/her nature.”

I was addressing the objective truth or otherwise of worldviews. I don’t think I misconstrued your point at all.
J. S. Mill’s harm principle still requires another referent. Who determines what is harm? Some of the paedophiles and domestic violence perpetrators whom I counsel do not have any sense of doing anybody harm when they sexually abuse a child or are violent towards a spouse. Some of their responses to me in 30 years of counselling have been: (1) They enjoy it; so do I. What’s wrong with having sex with children? These would never be convinced by J. S. Mill’s and your argument in support of the harm principle and rejection of objective truth. (2) She deserves what she gets. If she gave up bitching about any little thing, there would be no need for me to belt into her and call her all kinds of names. The harm principle for a perpetrator like this has nil effect.

This week I have counseled two families whose lives have been devastated by one partner’s adultery (“affair” was the language they used). Whose view says that adultery is right or wrong? These families have no connection with Christianity or the church but the wives know that adultery is wrong and they acknowledge that it has destroyed their relationships.

God was establishing something that was a core to healthy families when he established the absolute (objective truth): “You shall not commit adultery.”

You can promote the harm principle, but when push comes to shove, who is going to define paedophilia, domestic violence or adultery as that which causes harm for all people at all times harm? Is it going to be J. S. Mill’s utilitarianism or God’s objective truth that calls all sexual immorality wrong? It is not only harmful and destructive, it is wrong and I will not back off from that conclusion.

The harm principle can allow anybody to do his or her own thing according to his or her own opinion of harm. I work extensively with rebel youth who are causing chaos in families. Are disobedience to parents and rebellion against the household boundaries, harmful or not according to J. S. Mill and you? These teens don’t give a hoot about harm to their parents, siblings and school mates. How will the harm principle bring order out of disorder in these families? Its not harmful for some of these kids, yet it is destroying families. Who has the content to “harm” to stop or control what is happening?

You are whistling in the wind with your harm principle because its definition is based on a flimsy, limited knowledge of human opinion. It is one brand of humanistic ethics and founders on its lack of consistent substance when dealing with all ethical situations.

Stalin’s Russia, Pol Pot’s Cambodia, Idi Amin’s Uganda, Hitler’s Germany and the leaders of the Sudanese and North Korean slaughter and oppression, would hardly be stopped by a flimsy utilitarianism “harm principle.”

Sincerely,
Spencer Gear, Qld.

Ah, but now we are cutting to the quick. It took you a long time to ‘fess up: “it is not possible to objectively discern the truth of any of them, including atheism”. OK, so let me get this straight: you are not an atheist after all, just an agnostic? That seems to be to be a slightly more respectable position to hold: admitting our limitations and ignorance is preferable to arrogant claims of total knowledge. So maybe now we can have a genuine exploration of the options, including theism, in a spirit of humility and a desire to follow truth where it leads.

As to the Harm Principle, is does not get us very far. Many feel that homosexuality is a harmful behaviour, and therefore should be discouraged. Who decides what is harmful and what is not? And how can we determine all the variables to properly assess and limit harm? Utilitarianism just is not sufficient in a fallen world. Only God would know all the variables to make such choices.

And how, if we are simply here due to a goo-to-you process, can you speak of harm at all? Harm presupposes such ideas as, it is good not to harm people. But what is the source of goodness in a purely material universe? I have already cited more honest materialists here in this regard.

And even Mill admitted that his position could not stand alone, but notions such as justice and equity had to be appealed to. But the same problem applies here. What good is justice without absolutes? We simply get bogged down again in moral relativism.

You have yet to come up with any objective and workable basis for morality, all the while taking continual pot-shots at those who do in fact have a very good basis for discussing both good and evil..

Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch

You have totally misconstrued my meaning. My statement was “There is no objective truth in these matters“. The matters I referred to were the many different worldviews and belief systems, the subject of Bill’s article.

My point was that it is not possible to objectively discern the truth of any of them, including atheism. We each have an opinion about whether or not there is a God, and those who believe there is a God have different opinions about his/her nature.

The Harm Principle articulated by John Stuart Mill can readily discern that the criminal offences you mentioned, such as paedophilia, murder, stealing, family violence and sexual abuse, are intrinsically evil. That is a clear example of the objective morality that most people, whether atheists or believers, can understand and subscribe to.

Steve Angelino, WA

You should live your life and try to make the world a better place for your being in it, whether or not you believe in God, [but if you don't believe in eternal reward/punishment you risk succumbing to nihilism]. If there is no God, you have lost nothing and will be remembered fondly by those you left behind, [but of course this will be of no comfort to you because you will be dead!]. If there is a benevolent God, he may judge you on your merits coupled with your commitments, and not just on whether or not you believed in him, [but if that God has likened your best efforts to "filthy rags" then you may need a saviour but by then it will be too late for you so you lose again].

Ewan McDonald, Victoria

If there is no objective truth (no right or wrong – true for all times, in all places), why would I spend every week counselling families who have been devastated by sexual abuse, domestic violence, and family breakdown?

Our nation would be devastated if paedophilia was declared “only opinion” and it was never wrong. Why are the following criminal offences in Australia? Murder, stealing, family violence and sexual abuse? Plainly there is objective truth and not what you are advocating, subjective truth, i.e. only your opinion.

I thank God that the Christian world and life view provides objective truth for the health of individuals, families and nations, and for the punishment of those who do wrong.

By the way, is your statement that “there is no objective truth in these matters” objectively true or only your opinion?

Spencer Gear, Qld