New age to Jesus gals are finding steady ground beyond performative Christianity.
Also, what I tell my kids about swearing.
This is a raw riff written after a beautiful beach morning with my kids and friends. It’s unpolished, as you’ll soon see.
Many Christ followers who went down the ‘New age to Jesus’ pipeline are learning that they didn’t need to throw the entire baby out with the bath water.
They’re diving further into Jesus true teachings, unafraid of what they may find that contradicts what others day. They’re seeing crossover between things like neuroscience and biblical teachings. They’re discovering which parts of their ‘pre Jesus’ life did not need to be tossed out at that moment when they burned their tarot cards and tossed their crystals.
Many threw their manifestation rituals into the ‘ew that’s demonic now’ basket, and swung so hard in the direction of ‘God will move me around like a chess piece’ that they stopped exercising creative use of their imagination to fully participate, to pay attention to desire, to CREATE.
The pendulum swing is a signature of our generation— amplified by the ground swell of social media opinions and trends. Many saw the ‘New Age to Jesus’ pipeline as a trend. I always pushed back on that, seeing clearly that no, genuine truth seekers are running straight into Jesus because all genuine truth seekers do. Tired by their self indulgence and ambiguous spirituality, finding home in spirituality with liturgy, beauty and tradition seems natural.
I know it because I lived it.
I will say though that some of it can become trendy.
Some of it can become performative.
Once someone announces on their social media that they’re now following Christ, they can start to feel the weight of the expectation to speak, think and behave in a certain way— carbon copy christians.
They may pretend to be sure of something when they’re not.
They may borrow convictions they don’t truly have yet.
They may stop questioning things politically because of the condemnation they’ll anticipate.
You’ve got to free yourself from this. Jesus came to free us of this. Jesus would be flipping the tables that some Christians are kissing butts at.
I definitely felt the weight of expectation after I shared with my audience, over three years ago, that I was on my journey with Jesus. I felt like all eyes were on me to never mess it up— after all, it is Jesus Christ I am representing now.
Three years on and I’ve learned a thing or two, the most important thing being that faith can’t be performative and that having a ‘public profile’ can add unnecessary dynamics to what is a pure, personal spiritual life.
More so, I’ve learned more and more about the True Way of Christ and come full circle especially in understanding more about ancient christianity and Orthodoxy, which celebrates mysticism, and is a theology of beauty and of healing the soul.
I make no bones about the fact that I am not a polished American Christian gal. I am an Aussie, raised in the rougher burbs in my area by a single mum of 4 who had a shaved head and tattoos— she still does! I don’t get my nails done except at Christmas time and I go walking barefoot. Sure, I live a luxurious life in comparison to most and I am very blessed and lucky— but I’m rough around the edges— gritty— direct.
My sanctification doesn’t require that I lose my personality.
If you read my last piece you’d have read that when I first had the veil ripped, I was so devoted to understanding the way of Christ, and being born anew, that I took everything to a zero point. I threw out a lot of books that just felt too floaty and vague, and don’t even get me started on the card decks.
I did however, intuitively keep a lot of books that I inherently knew, were not to be thrown out. These weren’t Christian books— but there were solid, truthful, and wise.
Over the last 3.5 years I’ve gone through the stereotypical contemplations, including ‘should I let my kids read Harry Potter?’ And ‘is halloween demonic?’.