From the San Francisco "Chronicle" Wednesday, April 25, 1990

                     Chronicle Poll: Last of Two Parts

                        Warning of New Age 'Threat'

          Traditional churches decry 'glorification of self, not God'

                              By Don Lattin

                         Chronicle Religion Writer


From the halls of the Vatican to radio  stations across  the Bible Belt, 
Christian leaders are warning their flocks to stay away form forms of 
mysticism, occultism and meditation that do not keep Jesus Christ as the 
undiluted center of religious contemplation.

Last January, from the podium of the National Religious Broadcasters 
convention in Washington, D.C., televangelist Pat Robertson stood before 
1,500 leaders of the Christian Right, looked into the 1990s and issued a 
dark prophecy.

"There is something coming from the East," said Robertson, lowering his 
voice to a whispery warning. "It's a modified version of Hinduism. It's 
called the New Age. It's seeping into American businesses, the 
classrooms of American, infiltrating into Europe. It's even in the 
Soviet Union."

Several months later, from the podium of the Bankers Club atop San 
Francisco's Bank of America skyscraper, pollster George Gallup Jr. told 
a "Business of God" luncheon that church leaders should be concerned 
about the pervasiveness of New Age thinking in this part of the 
country." He called it "a serious threat to Christianity."

"It appeals to those who have little religious grounding but are looking 
for meaning in their lives," said Gallup, an evangelical Episcopalian 
and longtime pulse-taker of the American religious scene. "Its methods 
-- such as meditation -- are fine. But its ends are the glorification 
of self, not God. Christianity and New Age cannot possibly exist 
side-by-side."

According to a Chronicle Poll on changing religious beliefs, however, 
Christianity and New Age _do_ exist side-by-side in Northern California. 
In fact, they often exist side-by-side in the souls of individual 
believers.

Although it is considered heresy by the their church, nearly 3 in 10 
Roman Catholics believe in reincarnation, while nearly a third believe 
in astrology. Overall, about 25 percent of Bay Area residents who 
identify themselves as "Christian" believe in reincarnation -- roughly 
the same as the general population.

More than a third of all residents of the nine-county Bay Area practice 
some form of yoga or meditation at least weekly, and nearly four in 10 
believe they can contact the spirits of the dead.

Northern Californians are just as "religious" as other Americans, the 
Chronicle Poll found, but they ar more independent and open-minded about 
matters of the spirit. Nearly nine in 10 of those surveyed "believe in 
God or some transcendent spiritual force," but only 30 percent "attend 
church or any organized spiritual service, seminar or workshop" on a 
weekly basis. Forty-two percent of Americans surveyed in a 1988 Gallup 
Poll said thy had attended church or synagogue within the previous week.

Almost eight in 10 Bay Area residents say religion or spirituality is an 
important part of their lives. Thirty percent say its importance has 
increased in the past five years. Only 7 percent say its importance has 
declined.

While Bay Area residents are looking for new ways to explore their 
spirituality, church officials are tightening the theological reins.

Resurrection and Reincarnation
------------------------------

During Easter week, for example, the National Association of 
Evangelicals felt it necessary to issue a press release explaining the 
difference between resurrection and reincarnation. The conservative 
Christian organization blasted the New Age movement as a "shallow 
pop-psychology of self-indulgent affirmations, a synthetic blending of 
half-truths from a spirit world it doesn't understand."

Just before Christmas, the Vatican's Sacred Congregation for the 
Doctrine of the Fath warned Catholics against practicing certain forms 
of yoga, Zen Buddhism and Transcendental Meditation, saying they could 
lead to "moral deviations, psychic disturbances and degenerate into a 
cult of the body."

Evangelical publishing houses have issued a spate of books in recent 
years calling the New Age movement everything from self-centered to 
Satanic.

Outmoded, Paternalistic
-----------------------

Meanwhile, leading New Age personalities are becoming more pointed in 
their critiques of the Judeo-Christian tradition, which they blast as 
outmoded, paternalistic religion that oppresses women and provides 
divine justification for ecological doom.

Much of what is now called "New Age" is actually an "archaic revival" of 
shamanism, goddess worship and the polytheistic "mystery religions" of 
ancient Greece and Rome. It is the same pagan, nature-based spirituality 
the early Christian church battle against nearly 2,000 years ago.

"We have a different approach to nature," said Terence McKenna, an 
outspoken New Age leader from Sonoma County. "The Judeo-Christian ethic 
is that man is the lord of creation and can do as he wishes. The pagan, 
archaic-revival point of view is biological, ecological and stresses 
co-adaptive relations. We are in a global, suicidal crisis -- and 
Christianity has a lot to answer for."

According to the Chronicle Poll, Bay Area residents are still making up 
their minds about the New Age movement. Twenty percent have a favorable 
view and 28 percent an unfavorable view, while the majority (52 percent) 
said they "don't know."

Some 42 percent agree with the statement that "what is misguided about 
the New Age movement and Eastern mysticism is that people worship 
themselves rather than God." Disagreeing are 31 percent, while 27 
percent "don't know."

Satan at Work
-------------

About one in four Bay Area residents say they believe that "Satan, or 
some demonic power, is at work behind a lot of the New Age movement and 
Eastern gurus." Sixty percent disagree with that statement.

The Chronicle Poll, a telephone survey of 600 Bay Area adults, was 
conducted March 16-19 by Mark Baldassare and Associates. It has a margin 
of error of 4 percent.

Robertson -- who mounted a failed bid for the 1988 Republican 
presidential nomination and heads the influential Christian Broadcasting 
Network -- condemns the New Age movement as "blatant demonism."

"Young people are the target," he told the National Religious 
Broadcasters convention. "We can either give over them the crack 
dealers, or give them over to the pornographers, or give them over to 
the New Age -- or we can move in with the fresh power of the Holy Spirit 
and win this world for Jesus Christ."

Robert Bellah, a University of California at Berkeley sociologist and 
leading observer of American religion, said the New Age movement could 
replace Communism and "secular humanism" as the great satan of the 
Christian Right in the 1990s.

Fundamentalist Paranoia
-----------------------

"The fundamentalist mentality is prone to paranoia -- they have always 
had a lot of enemies," said Bellah. "For 45 years we have been locked in 
a struggle with the Evil Empire, and the collapse of that is really 
something to think about. Now the worl d isn't doing too good, and we're 
not sure who to blame."

Rather than condemning the New Age movement, Bellah said, mainline 
churches should look at why Americans are gravitating toward meditation, 
divination, Eastern mysticism, shamanism, mythology, humanistic 
psychology and other spiritual practices outside the Judeo-Christian 
mainstream.

"Mainline churches are bland," Bellah said. "People want something more 
interesting -- like channeling or getting in touch with spirits."

Some mainline churches are trying to meet the challenge.

Churches across the spiritual spectrum are finding a place for ecology 
in their theology. They are expanding their retreat programs and 
weeknight workshops from traditional Bible studies and prayer groups to 
encompass Zen meditation, dream analysis workshops and the teaching of 
the late mythologist Joseph Campbell.

At Community Congregational Church, a Protestant church in Tiburon, 
members praise Jesus on Sunday and get in touch with "the Tao" at 
Saturday morning tai chi classes.

At Holy Names College, a Roman Catholic campus in the Oakland hills, 
Native American spirituality, dance therapy, witchcraft, eco-feminism 
and Christian mysticism all find a place in classes at the Institute in 
Culture and Creation Spirituality.

At Grace Cathedral, the Episcopal Church has a program called "Quest," 
designed to cultivate " the art of living spiritually." This weekend, 
Quest is offering a "pilgrimage" program with several leading 
mythologists, an exploration of women's spirituality and "healing 
arts," and a jazz concert to commemorate a 1965 Duke Ellington 
appearance at the cathedral.

'Confused Revolt'
-----------------

"We are seeing a revival of the sacred, a recovery of something we have 
lost," said the Rev. Alan Jones, dean of Grace Cathedral, the seat of 
the Episcopal Diocese of California. "What seems 'New Age' is really a 
new constellation of old things. It's all part of a confused revolt to 
insist the world is a sacred place. Modernity defined the world as a 
place that is not sacred, and that world view is being challenged."

Jones said Grace Cathedral is "trying to build a bridge" to the New Age 
movement.

"What saddens me is the church's failure to share its own treasures and 
mystical tradition," he said. "What are emerging as 'new myths' are 
deeply rooted in the Judeo-Christian story. Americans have such an 
impoverished view of what Christianity is all about."

Nevertheless, some the ideas behind "New Age" thought, humanistic 
psychology and Eastern mysticism are at odds with orthodox 
Judeo-Christian teaching. Many adherents of New Age spirituality see the 
divine in their own "inner Self" or think of God as an amorphous energy 
force buzzing about the universe -- not the Biblical God who issues 
commandments and judges humankind.

Original Sin
------------

Most followers of the New Age and human potential movement have also 
rejected or radically reinterpreted the Christian doctrine of original 
sin, the idea that human kind has been in a fallen state since Adam and 
Eve entered the world.

On perhaps the most basic test of Christian orthodoxy -- the divinity of 
Christ -- the Chronicle Poll found Bay Area residents less orthodox than 
other Americans.

Sixty-four percent of all respondents, and 82 percent of those calling 
themselves "Christian," believe Jesus Christ is God, or the Son of God. 
Some 25 percent -- and 12 percent of those identified as "Christian" -- 
prefer to think of Christ as "another religious leader like Mohammed or 
Buddha."

Only 4 percent of Christians -- and 9 percent of all respondents -- 
surveyed in a recent national Gallup Poll put Jesus on the same level as 
Mohammed and Buddha.

San Francisco Archbishop John Quinn said he is "very concerned" that 
people calling themselves "Christians" would equate Christ with Buddha.

'Not the Real Christ'
---------------------

"You can't put them on the same level. That would be absolutely wrong 
and reprehensible," Quinn said in an interview. "That is not the real 
Christ -- the Christ of the gospels or the Christ of the church. It's a 
false idea, without foundation."

Quinn agreed that the church "could always do more" to clarify its 
doctrines and offer Roman Catholics more opportunities to explore the 
mystical realms within their church.

"We have a long mystical tradition, spanning 20 centuries," said Quinn, 
who recently completed his own 30-day silent retreat. "We have seen 
phenomenal growth in the retreat movement in the United States. These 
programs all have waiting lists, and there is a great proliferation of 
prayer groups and programs of spiritual direction."

Some New age leaders say Christian doctrine has become irrelevant to the 
needs and spiritual aspirations of men and women in the modern world and 
closed off to  science and other systems of thought.

'Mary's a Nice Girl'
--------------------

"Christian mythology is defective," said Robert Bly, the Minneapolis 
poet and New Age workshop leader. "It provides no place for the divine 
woman, other than Mary, who's a nice girl. That's very different from 
the great female beings of India."

"I call myself a Christian, but it's as if I had to go to mythology to 
find what really moved me and explained things to me," said Bly, who was 
raised in the Lutheran church. "Your religion should be your mythology 
and your cosmology."

Jones, the Grace Cathedral dean, separates himself from conservative 
evangelicals who condemn New Age as satanic but nevertheless has his own 
criticism of the movement.

"They are degenerating religion into a private, leisure-time pursuit of 
the 90s," he said. "People into channeling, karma and reincarnation can 
easily go of on private trips. People seem to use it in a way to be 
indifferent to the poor and homeless. Those people are just working out 
their own karma. They're all just following their own destiny."

* * * * *

The Chronicle Poll Results:

The Chronicle Poll was conducted by Mark Baldassare and Associates. The 
survey of 600 Bay Area adults was conducted March 16 to 19 and has a 
margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. Bay Area regions 
are: East Bay (Alameda, Contra Costa), North Bay (Marin, Napa, Solano, 
Sonoma), San Francisco and South Bay (San Mateo, Santa Clara). Results 
may not add up to 100 percent because of rounding. U.S. figures come 
from various Gallup Polls conducted during the 1980s using identically 
phrased questions.

# How important is religion in your life?

Very important................46%
Somewhat important............32%
Not important.................22%


# Compared to five years ago, how would you describe the importance of 
religion or spirituality in your life today?

Stayed the same..............63%
Increased....................30%
Declined..................... 7%


# Which of these religions do you follow?

Protestant...................31%
Roman Catholic...............27%
No religion..................18%
Other Christian..............12%
Other religion............... 7%
Jewish....................... 3%
Orthodox..................... 2%


# How frequently do you attend church or any organized spiritual 
service, seminar or workshop?

Weekly......................30%
Less than annually..........29%
Less than monthly...........25%
Monthly.....................16%


# Do you think Jesus Christ was God or the Son of God?

Bay Area....................64%
U.S. .......................84%


# Do you think Jesus Christ was just another religious leader like 
Mohammed or Buddha?

Bay Area....................25%
U.S. ....................... 9%


# Do you think Jesus Christ never lived?

Bay Area.................... 2%
U.S. ....................... 1%


# How do you feel about the statement: 'There are clear guidelines about 
what is good or evil that apply to everyone regardless of their 
situation'?

Agree:

Bay Area.....................69%
U.S. ........................77%

Disagree:

Bay Area.....................27%
U.S. ........................18%

Don't know:

Bay Area..................... 4%
U.S. ........................ 4%


# Do you believe that what is misguided about the New Age movement and 
Eastern mysticism is that people worship themselves, rather than God?

Agree........................42%
Disagree.....................31%
Don't know...................27%


# Do you believe Satan or some demonic power is at work behind a lot of 
the New Age movement and Eastern gurus?

Disagree.....................60%
Agree........................26%
Don't know...................14%

(C) 1990 The San Francisco Chronicle
