A recent YouGov poll revealed that nearly 9 out of ten Americans, 87 percent, ascribe to some sort of “new age” belief. The poll was conducted online amongst 1000 American adults from August 18-22, 2022. The poll surveyed the respondents’ views on 20 “new-age spiritualism” beliefs, such as meditation, tarot cards, karma, reincarnation, and telepathy. Karma came out on top, with 55 percent of respondents stating they believed in karma, while 41 percent believed in hypnosis. Thirty-one percent believed in the idea of spiritual energy in physical objects, while 56 percent believe “evolving into greater states of consciousness” to be either very or somewhat important. Sixty-one percent of respondents identified religion as either very or somewhat important in their lives, while 22 percent said it was not important at all. 

New Age beliefs have been making headway in American life for some time now, with many churches battling New Age beliefs within their own congregations. A 2018 article for The Gospel Coalition, an article entitled “New Age Beliefs are Common in America- and in our Churches,” analyzed the data from a 2018 Pew Research Center study on America’s religious typology. Author Joe Carter noted that even the group that attended church the most regularly and identified God as the God of Bible, labeled the “Sunday Stalwarts” in the study, had New Age beliefs, with nearly a third of the group believing in psychics and 19 percent believing in reincarnation. Carter summed up the findings by writing, “We tend to assume people intuitively understand why a belief the God who revealed himself in the Bible and in Christ is incompatible with a belief in reincarnation or the healing power of crystals. Because of this assumption, we spend almost no time explaining to our fellow churchgoers why New Age and Christian beliefs are incompatible. The result is that many people in our churches have a malfunctioning plausibility structure.”

Melissa Dougherty, a Christian apologist and “ex-New Ager,” deals with New Age beliefs that have seeped into the church. One of the most popular videos on her channel is entitled “Top 5 New Age Teachings in the Church,” which details the five New Age beliefs of the Law of Attraction, Oneness, Religious Pluralism, Universalism, and Mysticism have infiltrated the church. She also aims specifically at the New Apostolic Reformation and Bethel Church in particular. Bethel Church has come under fire for its use of “Christian Tarot Cards,” which it calls “Destiny Cards.” Bethel pushed back, stating that the cards were not meant to predict the future like Tarot cards are meant to and that Destiny Cards reveal “giftings you are born within your life.” It was noted by critics, however, that Bethel’s Christalignment ministry attributes a predictive power to the Destiny cards. The website states that Destiny Cards “… are more predictive and higher than other card readings.” The website had previously compared the Destiny Cards to Tarot Cards but scrubbed the language after criticism.