Ross Freake, the City Editor of our local newspaper, the Kelowna Daily Courier, has just written a glowing tribute to New Age Spirituality entitled “Can’t you feel the energy?” He mixes together concepts such as Quantum mechanics , Field Theory, ancient Vedas and Cosmic Oneness. He says “The Absolute is the writer, director, actor, the makeup artist, the audience and the seats the audience sits on!"

 Wow! I never thought that as I write this blog I could actually be sitting on an eternal being!

In reply, I first commend the Daily Courier for devoting so much space to a topic that is taboo on the editorial pages of most secular newspapers. Religion and spirituality in the public square has often been frowned upon and banished to the back pages of most newspapers. But the Courier has placed it front and centre.

Second, this worldview is pure pantheism. Pantheism believes the universe is divine, thus the possibility that the chair I am sitting on is divine, since everything is divine. The problem with pantheism is that it denies the presence of radical Evil . If everything is divine, and the divine is good, then how do we account for all the evil things that happen in our world? The Gulag, the Holocaust, Hiroshima, the Cambodian Killing Fields, and the Rwandan Genocide cannot all be explained away as some crazy individuals who were simply out of synch with the “flow of the universe”. Radical Evil is a reality that cannot be denied.

Third, the Christian solution to the problem of evil is the Cross. Rather than denying  evil, Jesus bore the full weight of evil when he died for the sins of the world on the cross. In allowing evil to do it worst to him, Jesus defeated it, rendering it powerless to do more. As Ben Meyer puts it in his book The Aims of Jesus, “Betrayal, desertion, repudiation would only promote and realize his aims. By submitting to evil he would take its measure, establish its futility, and shape it to his own purposes.” (Page 218) For a fuller treatment of the defeat of Evil at the Cross read N T Wright’s series of sermons on the subject especially Evil and the Crucified God.

This is the God we serve. Not an impersonal Cosmic Absolute, but a personal God who identifies with our suffering and sorrows, who is there with us in the trenches and who lifts us out of life’s darkest moments. This is something that pantheism cannot admit since there is no personality to God, simply pure energy without form. You may be able to “feel” the energy, but I’d rather “feel” the personal presence of God.

He is also the God who raised Jesus from the dead, vindicating his sacrifice by defeating death itself. Jesus’ resurrection gives us hope for our own resurrection -- hope for a newly embodied life in a new creation free from evil and death. This is what we celebrate at Easter.

In our transition to life after death, we do not merge with the Absolute as pantheism teaches, but we retain our distinct personhood. Resurrection offers us a future eternity as the person we are. That’s a better future than pantheism offers.