Confronting the New Age: How to Resist a Growing Religious Movement by Douglas R. Groothuis

by Douglas Groothuis

Douglas Groothuis provides strategies for bringing the gospel to New Age followers and for confronting New Age practices which are gaining ground in schools and businesses.

Genres: Christian, Philosophy, Theology, Spirituality, Christianity, New Age

Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Douglas Groothuis (PhD, University of Oregon) is professor of philosophy at Denver Seminary in Denver, Colorado, where he heads the Apologetics and Ethics masters degree program. His articles have been published in professional journals such as Religious Studies, Philosophia Christi, Themelios, Christian Scholar's Review, Inquiry, and Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society. He has written numerous books, including Christian Apologetics and, most recently Philosophy in Seven Sentences.

Reviews

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

AN EVANGELICAL RESEARCHER SUGGESTS HOW TO "CONFRONT" THE NEW AGE MOVEMENT

Douglas R. Groothuis (born 1957) is currently Professor of Philosophy at Denver Seminary. He is also the author of books such as 'Unmasking the New Age,' 'Revealing the New Age Jesus: Challenges to Orthodox Views of Christ,' 'Deceived by the Light,' 'Christian Apologetics: A Comprehensive Case for Biblical Faith,' 'Truth Decay: Defending Christianity Against the Challenges of Postmodernism,' etc.

He wrote in the Preface to this 1988 book, "My previous book, 'Unmasking the New Age,' attempted to explain the rise, extent and nature of the New Age movement and to subject it to a Christian critique. 'Confronting the New Age' attempts to build on that foundation by developing strategies for reaching New Agers and confronting New Age cultural advances with the truth of Christianity... Although this book is written primarily for Christians, I hope and pray that those sympathetic with the New Age movement will read it also..."

Here are some additional quotations from the book:

"Journals such as 'Free Inquiry' and 'Skeptical Inquirer' often set their gun sights on extravagant New Age claims and hit the target in exposing their inadequacies. (Of course, for the secular humanist, all spirituality is bogus, and so we also find articles rejecting Christianity as well.)" (Pg. 72)

"Even journals which tend to be New Age in orientation, such as 'The Journal of Humanistic Psychology' and 'The Whole Earth Review' ... will sometimes police their own ranks and print articles critical of various aspects of New Age thought." (Pg. 74)

"A look at 'New Age Magazine' in the 1970s would reveal few, if any, positive articles on American business." (Pg. 156)

"(T)he New Age is a deep cultural trend and not a passing fad... This is no flash in the pantheistic pan. But we do need to take the New Age hype with a few grains of sociological salt." (Pg. 201)

[Michael Millar · Rating 5 out of 5]

New Age uncovered

Absolutely fantastic book superbly researched couldn’t let it down until I had finished it. I was blown away by the depth of teaching and couldn’t recommend highly enough.