Confronting Neo-Paganism Part 3
The Christian Response
A. Make Clear the Issues of Cosmology
Christian theologians, in this time of great confusion, must define the timeless struggle in order to establish essential theological clarity. The ultimate choice is not between the old and the new, the traditional and the progressive, the cool and the uncool, the modern and the postmodern, autonomous mysticism and autonomous rationalism—but between two irreconcilable, perennial definitions of reality. The conflict is between theism and monism, between God and the world, between Twoism and Oneism, between Heterocosmology and Homocosmology, between ontological Duality and non-dual Advaita.[87]
We must follow the orthodox theologians of the past who, over against all attempts at “synthesis,” clearly saw the reality of theological “antithesis,” inherent in a fallen world. Abraham Kuyper, in the Stone Lectures of 1898, said, regarding the deep antithesis within human history: “Do not forget that the fundamental contrast has always been, is still, and always will be until the end: Christianity and Paganism, [88] the idols or the living God.”[89] J Gresham Machen, stalwart defender of Christian orthodoxy, writing in the 1920s, identified the liberalism entering the mainline churches in his day as maintained the paganism in Christian dress,[90] and adeptly put his finger on the essence of apostasy at a time when it was not so obvious.
The truth is that liberalism has lost sight of the very centre and core of the Christian teaching. …one attribute of God is absolutely fundamental in the Bible… in order to render intelligible all the rest. That attribute is the awful transcendence of God. It is true, indeed, that not a sparrow falls to the ground without Him. But He is immanent in the world not because He is identified with the world, but because He is the free Creator and upholder of it. Between the creature and the Creator, a great gulf is fixed.[91]
It is the apostle Paul who, under the inspiration of the Spirit, juxtaposed the only two possible religious approaches to life, thereby giving us the very touchstone for our apologetics and theology in a more and more neo-pagan world that progressively looks like his:
…they exchanged the truth about God for the lie and worshiped and served the creation rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. -Romans 1:25[92]
B. Make Twoism the Foundation of Evangelism
The study of the contemporary progress of Oneism is not merely an interesting description of the strange things pagans do and believe. It has become an absolute necessity for contemporary evangelism, which must now involve a sensitive deconstruction of non-dual Advaita cosmology, if the Gospel is to be heard and understood. Advaita Oneism denies the need, even possibility, of the Gospel’s notion of reconciliation with the transcendent divine Other. Contemporary evangelism must therefore involve a clear presentation of biblical Twoism. This could hail a new day for God’s Spirit to work in evangelistic outreach.
C. Make Twoism the Touchstone for Twenty-first Century Christian Orthodoxy
In the light of the vast confusion sown in the Church by forms of progressive thinking, the Oneist/Twoist analysis has become a necessary component for the construction of a comparative antithetical hermeneutical system by which the truth can be clearly articulated and defended as over against “the Lie” (Romans 1:25). Such a paradigm serves as a regulative principle of theology, soteriology, of spirituality, of Christian experience, of ethics and of sexuality. Pagan Oneism, in spite of itself, establishes a boundary for biblical Twoistic truth, helping us to see in every area, the limits beyond which any given belief system ceases to be biblical and becomes error. This simple test allows for a deepened and clearer understanding of the nature of truth by seeing it over-against its very opposite.
These parameters serve for a whole series of debated contemporary issues:
- A doctrine of the transcendence and alterity/otherness of God which is the very heart of the Gospel of divine condescension;
- God-honoring and scripture-honoring spiritual disciplines that preserve the Creator/creature personal distinction;
- Corporate worship that witnesses to both the immanence of God through His Spirit and also to His ontological transcendence;
- Our views of gender roles in the Church, seen less in terms of issues of power but more as an expression of essential cosmological distinctions;
- Our understanding and defense of marriage as the union of difference for common projects of responsibility for the next generation, reflecting our deep calling of union with Christ the Other, our transcendent Creator and incarnate Redeemer;
- Our courageous clear discourse regarding the nature of homosexuality which pro-homosexualists call “the sacrament of monism,”[93] but which we must engage not moralistically but cosmologically as the tip of the spear of a coming Oneist civilization;
- Our understanding of creation care as meaningful Adamic service of God’s handiwork, not inspired by the hermeneutic of mystical non-duality, but maintaining the distinction between us human beings and the rest of creation and between us created human beings and the Creator.
Conclusion
We live in a neo-Babylonian, post-Constantine, once-Christian culture, now dominated by an Eastern spirituality of man-worshiping non-dual mysticism. This context has massive implications for our culture and for our Church. But the Bible has a word for us. It is not a word of flight but of engagement.
Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters…; multiply there,..seek the welfare of the city…pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. -Jeremiah 29: 4-7
The welfare of the city involves art, music, science and commerce, as well as solid marriages and strong families, which show a clear and attractive statement of the beauty of Twoism. But our attempts to revive/maintain the once-Twoist structures of our culture (as we should, in valid cultural, social and political action) will not stop the revolution. We must also speak truth “with gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:14-16) in a hostile situation. Such speech will be costly. If God is willing to grant us a Christian spiritual awakening, it will come in part by making Twoism known in word and deed, not moralistically but authentically and cosmologically. We must lay before the world the implications of the crucial choice before which all human beings stand—a choice that will determine their eternal destiny.
As theologians and teachers of the Church and of its rising generations, we need to ask ourselves if the majority of contemporary Christians is in any way prepared mentally, theologically and spiritually for the rude battles ahead—for the kind of suffering the New Testament believers encountered in the ancient pagan Oneist empire that our world is beginning to resemble.
In spite of its fabled cruelty, the first century Romans proudly believed that their pax romana was a gift to humanity. Those who ungratefully refused to confess Caesar as Lord and Benefactor were regarded as social subversive ingrates, indeed “haters of humanity,” to quote the Roman historian, Tacitus (AD 56–117). Writing in the New York Times of his day, this ancient Stoic intellectual concluded that denying the “goodness” of this carefully constructed Oneist society was tantamount to downright anti-social “hate speech.” Does this sound familiar?
Hopefully, without sensationalism, I have tried to describe, as I see it, how Oneist spirituality is growing in power around us, and to suggest how we must courageously and respectfully speak and live out the Gospel truth of Twoism, whatever it costs, if future generations of Christians—our children and grandchildren—are to keep the faith and change the world through their Gospel witness.
The situation can discourage us. The onus of responsibility we feel can discourage us, but as Twoists, discouragement cannot be the final word. We must look to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, Who, at the End of Daze, when the seductive Oneist non-dual Lie of Advaita is finally exposed, will be Twoistically confessed by all as LORD, for the glory of God, transcendent Creator and condescending, loving Redeemer. And we look to the encouragement of Scripture, taking the promise of old Israel as finally also true for the New:
Now therefore thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, concerning this city of which you say, ‘It is given into the hand of the king of Babylon by sword, by famine, and by pestilence’: Behold, I will gather them from all the countries to which I drove them…I will bring them back to this place, and I will make them dwell in safety. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God. I will rejoice in doing them good, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart and all my soul. -Jeremiah 32:36
Just as we must love God with all our heart and soul in faithfulness to His truth, know that He loves His people throughout history with all His heart and soul.
[87] See my One or Two: Seeing a World of Difference (Main entry Editions, 2010), where these terms are explained.
[88] In recent times, Carl F.H. Henry, in his Twilight of a Great Civilization: The Drift Toward Neo-Paganism, (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 1988), p. 15, used the term “paganism” as the implication of our turning away from biblical truth. “Our generation is lost to the truth of God, to the reality of divine revelation, to the content of God’s will, to the power of His redemption, and to the authority of His Word. For this loss it is paying dearly in a swift relapse to paganism.”
[89]. Abraham Kuyper, Lectures on Calvinism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1931), 199.
[90] He used the synonym “naturalism.”
[91] J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1923), 62-63.
[92] My translation.
[93] June Singer, Androgyny: Towards a New Theory of Sexuality (London: Routledge and Kegan, 1977), 20, 22.Here Singer states: “[t]he archetype of androgyny appears in us as an innate sense of ..and witness to …the primordial comic unity, that is, it is the sacrament of monism, functioning to erase distinction…[this was] nearly totally expunged from the Judeo-Christian tradition…and a patriarchal God-image.”