Join in the "Energy"

I'll have to admit that I was put off by Fr. Baron's statement that the Kingdom of God "is not something to be admired from the outside, but rather an energy in which to participate." p. 3. He says "the Gospels want us, not outside the energy of Christ, but in it. . ." Ibid. He says, "But when we surrender in trust to the bearing power of God, our souls become great, roomy, expansive. We realize that we are connected to all things and to the creative energy of the whole cosmos." Ibid. p. 5. "To have faith is to allow oneself to be overwhelmed by the power of God, to permit the divine energy to reign at all levels of one's being." Ibid. p. 7.

What's wrong with the use of the word energy? Here are some thoughts:

1. God is not inside the Cosmos, but radically transcends it. Energy, as in E=Mc2, is part of the Cosmos, so not part of God. Wait a minute, God is incarnated in the world in Jesus and yet still God. So His "energy" is in the world, accessible to us. But Christ is not incarnated as "energy," unless we use the term metaphorically for a non-cosmic and non-material power. "Creative energy of the whole cosmos" leads to thinking of the energy as part of the cosmos. I don't think that's correct.

2. Energy, as part of the cosmos, can be manipulated and controlled through technique, to gain power. In fact, energy is another word for power. But the true man of God is not a man of power. In Rieff's Triumph of the Therapeutic, there is a chapter called "Reich's Religion of Energy." In it Rieff says, Reich fancied love "as something like electricity, bouncing off the inside of metal-lined boxes and so to be captured by a technique, like other forms of energy." p. 187.
God's "energy" cannot be captured and used like magic out of a genie's bottle.

3. Energy is not personal. It's an impersonal component of the cosmos which humans can "tap into." This is a characteristic of New Age pantheism/gnosticism.

In Jesus Christ, the Bearer of the Water of Life, the Vatican commented on the differences between Christian spirituality and New Age spirituality:

4. Christian mysticism and New Age Mysticism

For Christians, the spiritual life is a relationship with God which gradually through his grace becomes deeper, and in the process also sheds light on our relationship with our fellow men and women, and with the universe. Spirituality in New Age terms means experiencing states of consciousness dominated by a sense of harmony and fusion with the Whole. So “mysticism” refers not to meeting the transcendent God in the fullness of love, but to the experience engendered by turning in on oneself, an exhilarating sense of being at one with the universe, a sense of letting one's individuality sink into the great ocean of Being.

This fundamental distinction is evident at all levels of comparison between Christian mysticism and New Age mysticism. The New Age way of purification is based on awareness of unease or alienation, which is to be overcome by immersion into the Whole. In order to be converted, a person needs to make use of techniques which lead to the experience of illumination. This transforms a person's consciousness and opens him or her to contact with the divinity, which is understood as the deepest essence of reality.

The techniques and methods offered in this immanentist religious system, which has no concept of God as person, proceed 'from below'. Although they involve a descent into the depths of one's own heart or soul, they constitute an essentially human enterprise on the part of a person who seeks to rise towards divinity by his or her own efforts. It is often an “ascent” on the level of consciousness to what is understood to be a liberating awareness of “the god within”. Not everyone has access to these techniques, whose benefits are restricted to a privileged spiritual 'aristocracy'.

The essential element in Christian faith, however, is God's descent towards his creatures, particularly towards the humblest, those who are weakest and least gifted according to the values of the “world”. There are spiritual techniques which it is useful to learn, but God is able to by-pass them or do without them. A Christian's “method of getting closer to God is not based on any technique in the strict sense of the word. That would contradict the spirit of childhood called for by the Gospel. The heart of genuine Christian mysticism is not technique: it is always a gift of God; and the one who benefits from it knows himself to be unworthy.

For Christians, conversion is turning back to the Father, through the Son, in docility to the power of the Holy Spirit. The more people progress in their relationship with God – which is always and in every way a free gift – the more acute is the need to be converted from sin, spiritual myopia and self-infatuation, all of which obstruct a trusting self-abandonment to God and openness to other men and women.

All meditation techniques need to be purged of presumption and pretentiousness. Christian prayer is not an exercise in self-contemplation, stillness and self-emptying, but a dialogue of love, one which “implies an attitude of conversion, a flight from 'self' to the 'You' of God”.

(Emphasis added)

I don't claim Fr. Baron is a New Ager. But his use of New Age lingo is troubling. His emphasis on escaping "fear" (p.4) also seems to be an earmark of the New Age (see above). Rather, isn't the problem usually complacency rather than fear? And aren't we to experience God in "fear and trembling"?

The Vatican selection stresses that there is no cheap way to salvation, no "technique" to tap into "divine energy." Salvation is the way of the cross, and proceeds through humiliation, renunciation, continual self-examination, and re-dedication (i.e., ascetic work, practice, discipline), not a glass of wine on the patio. Self-awakening is initially shameful and only then joyful. Joy comes only by way of the cross.