Today I found a thought provoking website from David MacDonald. It is for building bridges between Catholics and Evangelicals. This Catholic convert has used his very tumultuous previous experience in the secular big-city art scene as a powerful tool for evangelization.
His caveat on New Age got me to thinking. He summed up the problem with it very well. It draws from ancient traditions but OMITS their ancient spiritual safeguards and moral principles. Its all about having personal spiritual experiences, but the element of rootedness in Tradition, deep unchanging Truth, is missing.
Acknowledging this problem opens the way to much discerning clarity that can promote our work for re-integration of po9sitive life-affirming values into our culture..
Traditions, Christian, syncretic and non-Christian alike can find more common ground once people recognize that the problem lies not with, for example, Hinduism, but with modern-day relativism. As cooperation in movements such as prolife and homeschooling show, true adherants of Tradition share many commonalities.
Christians can draw from the truths of other traditions in ways that further affirm and clarify Christian values, and counteract the impact that historical heresies-such as that "dominion over the Earth" sanctions environmental destruction, and that slavery was good and proper-had on Christianity. These Truths are respect for Nature and awareness of the help available from saintly Ancestors. God-the Lord of Hosts- communicates through many messengers.
As I have personally experienced, stronger and more complete Truths can reach people from more varied experiences. Its like building access roads to the highway of Christ.
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