In the Western world there is a growing sense of need to have some spiritual orientation in life. However, those who pursue this quest for spirituality are uncomfortable with institutionalised religion. They are also disturbed by explanations of life that are based on scientific reductionism, as well as the consumerist tenets of society. As a result many Westerners have adopted practices and worldviews from other religious and spiritual traditions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism as well as from the Pagan past of Europe and from various shamanic traditions.
We are grateful to our predecessors for recognising and communicating this. However, this insight is still to be appreciated and acted on by most evangelical Christians.
There has been little actual meeting with spiritual seekers and participants in the new spiritual and holistic movements, sometimes popularly called New Age. In the years since that Lausanne conference, the challenge of new religions and the rise of Alternate Spiritualities have accelerated. Since there has been much debate on the encounter between Christians and the New Spiritualities.
The dominant method for meeting the New Spiritualities has been grounded in apologetics by confronting and refuting their teachings. While we are heirs to this heritage, we suggest a fresh pathway.
We are not abandoning the tool of apologetics but incorporating it into another way of doing outreach. We are urging the church to reconsider relying solely on confrontational apologetic methods when responding to new religious movements and alternative spiritualities. Our call entails shifting confrontational styles to a relational form of outreach that missiologists call a critical incarnational approach.
