What I've noticed with new age spirituality is that it's very often self-centered. It's all about your enlightenment; but of course, once you're "enlightened" then you can enlighten others. But I just see a lot of self-centeredness in most of new ageism.
The new secular political ideologies also come off as trying to replace traditional sources of "spirituality" with a kind of self-absorbed virtue signaling and making oneself feel purer and more holy above others.
This is where I think authentic Christianity shines, and is truly powerful when actually practiced. I think that when you separate authentic Christians from fake Christians one can see that a good way to summarize Christianity is that it is really a relational-spirituality, rather than a typical tribal religion. For example, there are tons of Scriptures that basically associate worship of God with loving other Christians; because other Christians have basically become a body part of God's body (as Paul explains it); or as the Gospel of John explains it, if God were a tree, Christians are branches on the tree, and so how you treat the branches is how you worship and treat God. 1 John 4:20 (NET) goes so far as to say:
If anyone says “I love God” and yet hates his fellow Christian, he is a liar, because the one who does not love his fellow Christian whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.
One of the footnotes for this verse reads:
the author again describes the opponents, who claim to love God. Their failure to show love for their fellow Christians proves their claim to know God to be false: The one who does not love his fellow Christian whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.
This is the clearest verse on how Christianity is really a relational-spirituality. Then there is the much quoted scripture whatever you have done to the least of these you have done to me, that is done to God.
In fact, this whole new idea of having a "personal relationship with Jesus," as a kind of imaginary friend is not found in the New Testament. You can kind of put together some scriptures that kind of sounds like it, but really the consistent message is that of Christ as more like the sap in a Vine that interlinks the branches on the Vine; or Christ is like the Stoic pneuma (pronounced nooma), this fluid energy that glues Christians together as if they share the same blood flow as the very body parts of God. So that just as you would not take a hammer to your own hand, if you see other Christians as the body parts of God then you will not mistreat them anymore than you would smack your hand with a hammer.
This relational spirituality is really quite powerful in unifying people around a shared spirtual ethos. For example, if you've ever had a falling out with a friend or family member and then reconnected with them, if you're anything like me, it kind of feels like you are refilled with well-being energy as if you had been drained of vitality before that reconnection.
This is why atheism is so unattractive to me now and unappealing, because it's basically voluntarily making yourself an orphan in the universe and disconnecting yourself from the Divine Source. So that even if you can't prove the existence of God, I believe that merely imagining the possibility of a fatherly deity or motherly energy can have a reconnecting effect on your psyche, a feeling of returning home so to speak; in that you can feel a greater sense of well-being and existential vitality by merely entertaining the possibility of there being a God and reconnecting with that idea of God.
I kind of agree with the spiritual movement that sees most "religion" as dogmatism, tribalism and moralism, a way to feel more pure and superior to others or control people with shaming mechanisms; whereas "spirituality" is different, and so I kind of agree with this, except I would add that relational-spirituality is different than tribal religiosity.
This is what the historical Jesus was trying to explain to the pharisees, Jesus himself was a religious man according to the texts, following the Torah, and yet he was trying to explain to his fellow religious Jews that the core underlying ethic of the Torah is a relational spirituality based on loving the other as you would love yourself. The resurrected Christ then moves beyond Judaism and declares a new relational-spirituality: where Christ, as the resurrected Lord and Life-giving nooma implants this new seedbed of ideas, this relational spirituality, into Christians.
Relational spirituality is better, in my mind, than philosophical atheisms because my experience in trying out various atheistic philosophies is that in the end you end up being given permission to be more selfish. For example, reading Nietszche I found myself having a tendency to look down on others and be more selfish. Some atheists will counter that maybe you were already selfish to begin with. Fair enough, but aren't we all prone to being selfish? I think those same atheists, if honest, would admit that stories do affect us and influence us. For example, when the movie Natural Born Killers first came out, I remember an acquaintance saying that after watching that movie, she was prone to road rage driving home from the movie; whereas, someone who watched the movie Pay It Forward likely found themselves feeling more kind and generous. Christianity can thus be seen as an anti-killing movie script and pay-it-forward storyline.
So when I read Christian Scripture, it's stories has an effect on my mind that centers me more into a relational spirituality, which has a positive effect on my actual relationships in real life. For example, if I'm having a squabble with a friend or coworker and I had been reading an atheistic philosopher or a new age spiritual teacher, I'm going to have a completely different mindset and attitude than if I just got through reading the New Testament.
I remember listening to one of the historians of The Joseph Smith Papers project, and him talking about how reading the Book of Mormon makes him a better husband. I believe that is the case because I have tried out atheism for several years and then after absorbing Jordan Peterson and Marcus Borg, I started to re-read LDS scriptures again and I can say that very clearly, for me at least, that it had a positive effect on me and influenced my approach to communication in my relationships. So Christianity is very much a relational spirituality.
What this means for me is that LDS Scripture is ultimately a positive effect on my life because it not only gives me a meaning in life but it motivates me to produce more happy and healthy relationships with others. It makes the very purpose of life forming more loving and trusting relationships within genuine friendships; which generates a positive feedback loop as energy begets energy, and love begets love.
Biologically, we are relational mammals so this kind of relational spirituality makes us happier as biological beings. When you combine that with the Scriptures being a more affirming philosophy that matches our own biology, for example our masculine and feminine instincts and rolls as mothers and fathers, then one can see that everything fits together to affirm biological life and our relational instincts.
