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Building Bridges to the New Age WorldWhy should we read Charles Strohmer's writing? Step-by-step, a mindset based largely on occult philosophy and occult mystical experience is taking the place of liberal humanism as the dominant philosophy of our age. This mindset is popularly known as the 'New Age'. Many Christians find it hard to show compassion for people who embrace this new outlook. Maybe they think that people must be stupid to adopt such a view. Yet most leading New Agers are highly intelligent people. It goes without saying that Christians have a responsibility to get to grips with this new worldview and to show as much love to New Agers as they would to any other person whom they desire to come to a knowledge of the truth. Charles Strohmer's books can help us all. Charles himself was involved in the New Age world for nearly eight years (1969-1976) and demonstrates a great empathy with his ultimate target audience. One of the outstanding features of his writings is warmth of tone. Indeed, his books are unusually strong on two fronts: understanding of the subject matter, and compassion for those trapped in the occult minefield. What Your Horoscope Doesn't Tell You Charles's first book was What Your Horoscope Doesn't Tell You. In 1983, there were virtually no books or pamphlets presenting the gospel suitable for a Christian to give to an astrologer. That year, after the publication of my booklet The Tarot: Your Questions Answered, Mike Costello of Diasozo Trust, always a man of vision, promptly asked me to write something on astrology. I replied that the best person for such a task would be a converted astrologer. Unknown to me, at that very time, Charles Strohmer was actually in the very process of writing his book, What Your Horoscope Doesn't Tell You, eventually published by Tyndale House Publishers of Wheaton, Illinois, in 1988. Unfortunately, the original edition proved difficult to read owing to a strangely compressed typeface. By 1991, Word (UK) had 'discovered' Charles, and published an excellent revised, Anglicised edition. It is unusual to find a well-written, yet accurately cutting work on an occult topic. Works on the occult, even by Christians, often leave the reader either more confused or more fascinated with the subject than ever. But here is a book no Christian need be ashamed to pass on to anyone. The book's title reveals Charles's intention to examine vital aspects of astrology not found in astrology manuals. Charles discloses that, even while still an astrologer, he had a constant desire to know how it worked, and whether it was morally right to practise it. As he shows, astrology appeals because it is seen as fun, and because of its apparent insights into human affairs, together with its lack of moral demands. As an astrologer, Charles experienced specific insights into the lives of his clients, while studying horoscopes which he had prepared. Because of this, the author observes, astrology appears to offer revelation of the very purpose of existence - a further factor in its appeal. Then Charles explores the implications of spiritual power operating within belief-systems lacking moral integrity. His incisive reasoning makes it clear that astrology is, in effect, a false religion. Indeed, astrology's talk of 'planetary influences' is really nothing more than a cover for pagan deities. Although these are non-existent, those who submit to such 'deities' find themselves under bondage to power from a demonic source (1 Corinthians 8.4-6; 10.19-20). Therefore the human mediums of astrological revelations and their clients are at risk. Astrology presents a 'wisdom' which is a poor substitute for biblical wisdom, as Charles makes clear. It is, therefore, inherently unable to provide authentic answers to the human dilemma. As Charles concludes by presenting the biblical teaching on the beginning of human history, the problem of sin, and the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, it is an ideal gift for New Age adherents. In Charles's two most recent works, we now come to the main vision of his ministry: Wise as a Serpent, Harmless as a Dove (The US edition is called The Gospel and the New Spirituality: Communicating the truth in a world of spiritual seekers, published by Nashville, TN: Nelson-Word Books) Building Bridges to the New Age World Charles makes a vital distinction between apologetics and evangelism. The task of the apologist, or defender of the faith, is to make the differences between Christianity and other belief-systems as clear as possible. The task of the evangelist, on the other hand, is to find points of contact with the beliefs of others in order to facilitate communication of the gospel to outsiders. The vision presented in these works is evangelistic, to facilitate Christians in achieving the most effective possible communication with non-Christian spiritual seekers, usually called 'New Agers'. Wise as a Serpent is divided into three parts. The first section, 'Wise as a Serpent', is geared to helping the Christian understand the New Age mindset. The second part, 'Inter-Mission', deals with the kinds of perceptions which Christians and others have of the New Age and how these can either hinder or assist effective witness to New Age adherents. The final part, 'Harmless as a Dove', shows how both accurate knowledge of the New Age mindset and helpful models of the New Age phenomenon can be applied practically in sharing the faith with others. Charles is more than willing to admit where he may have gone wrong in his own attempts at communication with New Agers. This makes his practical advice especially helpful. It is a tremendous encouragement that Charles, who is perhaps the nearest thing to an expert on sharing the faith with New Agers, frequently himself fails, yet remains committed to this task. An overriding strength of Charles's non-confrontational approach is that people are clearly to be viewed as people, and therefore to be treated with the greatest of respect. In Building Bridges to the New Age World, the material presented in Wise as a Serpent is re-worked into a series of seminars and practical workshops to help Christians internalise the principles more effectively, and tools to assist Christians in detecting New Age themes in the media. New material is a useful section on discerning the different levels of spiritual seeking within the New Age world. Your church needs this materialThe best way of exploiting the material to the full in church evangelism is to present the situations Charles discusses in seminars and practical sessions. This will enable Christians to practise their skills and improve their personal, non-confrontational interactions with non-Christians over a wide front. And although Charles gears these principles for outreach to New Agers, their relevance to any attempt to reach people with alternative belief-systems is readily apparent. Although already familiar with the Wise as a Serpent material, I found it most refreshing to read this re-working and see it as a most useful accompaniment to the earlier book. Explaining The Grace Of God Charles Strohmer's second book is Number 30 in Sovereign World's 'Explaining' series, a range of booklets of greatly varying quality. Here Strohmer undertakes a practical exploration of the concept of the grace of God and its outworkings in our experience. Viewing God's 'grace' as a gift, Strohmer combines three aspects of grace to arrive at a working definition. These aspects are: (i) grace as God's loving provision; (ii) grace having something to do with being rescued, and(iii) grace involving God's 'coming down' into the world to be active in human history. This leads into Strohmer's working definition of grace: 'God coming down to move people to places of well-being'. I am not sure that this sufficiently stresses our failure to deserve God's gift to us, a concept which is implicit in 'grace'. But Strohmer is aware of this, for he clearly favours the word 'grace', as in the Authorised Version, over that of 'favour' in the NIV, and states: 'As a kind of universal human concept, 'favour' may be thought of as being in some way earned through merit or behaviour. Yet the favour of God that is 'grace' is different than all such human manifestations of favour, for the grace of God is utterly beyond the resources and power of man to earn, deserve or purchase' (p. 12). Evidently Strohmer's object was to keep his working definition as simple as possible. Unfortunately, this definition does tend to validate the therapeutic view of grace currently prevalent in the USA. Having defined 'grace', Strohmer moves on to look at different contexts in which the grace of God is operative in human experience. Although forensic aspects of grace are dealt with under 'post-conversion grace' (p. 19), I felt that this was inadequately covered under 'Saving Grace'(pp. 13-18). Nevertheless, despite its few minor defects, this is an excellent booklet, very ethically-challenging, and well worth re-reading several times. Indeed, it could be used as a basis for an introductory course on the Christian life and as a valuable corrective for those who have become over-theoretical in their approach to the Christian life. Mike Taylor© Evangelicals Now - August 1996 |