In his book The Secret Battle of Ideas about God, Jeff Myers acknowledges five non-biblical worldviews that have unfortunately become widely accepted by Christians. Myers compares the ideas of secularism, Marxism, postmodernism, new spirituality, and Islam to viruses that have infected many churches today. In 2015, Barna Research stated that only 6 percent of US adults held to a biblical worldview.
Myers believes the meshing of non-biblical worldviews to the biblical narrative is so pervasive in the church today that, “Chances are you’ve already been infected without even realizing it.” In the foreword to the book, David Kinnaman says, “In order to thrive as exiles in what I’ve come to call ‘digital Babylon,’ we need a shot in the arm . . . to inoculate us against the worldview viruses that suffuse the cultural air we breathe.” Myers goes as far to offer individuals, families, and churches a Worldview Checkup at www.secretbattlebook.com/checkup that can help identify “five fatal worldviews [that] may have made their way into your heart and mind.”
I find Myers’ book to be almost prophetic in the sense that it was written years before Covid-19. I think we would all agree that the coronavirus is one virus we all want to defeat! But Myers goes farther saying that we need to learn how to immunize ourselves from these five other highly contagious and sickening idea viruses. I say “prophetic” because Myers says “Bad ideas can multiply out of control, like the spread of a virus that becomes a pandemic.” Just as the first vaccine was released a few days ago to help prevent Covid-19, so too does the church need to be releasing its own spiritual vaccines against the five idea viruses.
It is too much for me tackle all five viruses in this post, but I do want to touch on one: “new spirituality.” I would prefer to call this new age spirituality. I find this idea virus oftentimes makes contact with another idea virus, secularism, combining to make what I call secular Christianity. New age spirituality typically combines itself with eastern religion or philosophy and is thus heavily inundated with Buddhist and Hindu influence.
Barna says that America’s “Judeo-Christian (biblical) moorings have given way to a new moral code — the morality of self-fulfillment,” and backs up its research with findings such as:
-91% of US adults and 76% of Practicing Christians say the best way to find yourself is by looking within yourself
-89% of US adults and 76% of Practicing Christians say people should not criticize someone else’s life choices
I will not list all of the statistics, but I think its important to note that Barna also found that “61% of practicing Christians agree with ideas rooted in new spirituality.”
The face of new age spirituality may be Oprah Winfrey who believes she is a god and that everyone else is too. New age spiritualists don’t condemn Christianity; rather they say its just one more religion that is equal to all the rest. However, that is not what Jesus said as he laid claim that he alone is God and that he is the only way to the Father.
The truth is new spirituality could easily overlap with all of the idea viruses that Myers lists. For instance, Trevin Wax in his new book Rethink Your Self: The Power of Looking Up before Looking In touches on how new spirituality coincides with many popular postmodern slogans of today such as “Follow your heart,” “Chase your dreams,” “You are enough,” “You do you,” and “No matter what, be true to yourself.” Trevin debunks these ideas in his book by pointing out that people should not use God as an attachment to their spirituality, but should rather start with Jesus at their core.
New spirituality would say that the self should vanish away into the world at-large. Postmodernism would say the self exists, but what’s it matter. Secularism would say the self exists and live it up. But Jesus says to deny yourself and to follow Him and to lose your life so that you can find it. In other words, Jesus said he came to give you life and life to the full, but before you can have it, you must denounce your sin, yourself, and all other teachings that run counter to his. Jesus never said this would be easy, but he did say he would leave you his peace. If Jesus gave up his life so that we could find it, why wouldn’t we be required to do the same?