Revealing the New Age Jesus: Challenges to Orthodox Views of Christ

Douglas Groothuis' book about the many unorthodox views about Jesus Christ is a must read. We live in times wherein people prefer what "works" rather than what is true. Christianity, which is centered on Jesus Christ, is primarily a Body of Truth about Jesus Christ. However, we live in times wherein it's no longer enough to merely say that you believe in Jesus. The question really is "which Jesus"? Recent scholarship have unearthed many writings like the Nag Hammadi writings and the Dead Sea Scrolls. While we celebrate the value of these archaeological findings, we have to at the same time be aware that many prejudiced opponents of the orthodox views of Jesus are actually using these writings as the basis to form all sorts of quirky theories that supposedly substitutes the true Jesus with a Gnostic Christ. Groothuis examines the origins of many of the modern Gnostic (or revived-Gnostic) ideas and compares them objectively against the historic documents of the Christian church, namely the canonical Gospels and the Epistles. Arguments from both sides are subjected to the acid-test of veracity, reliability and historicity. I highly recommend a careful study of these chapters in the book for anyone facing challenges in these areas (for example, through the propagation of the same ideas in novels such as "DaVinci Code", etc.) In addition to the "documentary" and Gnostic challenges to orthodox faith, Groothuis also examines other sub-movements and cultic views presenting an Eastern-Mystic Jesus, a channelled Jesus, a sorcerous Jesus and ultimately the Jesus of the New Age movement who is merely a man with a heightened sense of the Divine in himself (and who came to tell us to realize the same divinity in ourselves). Jesus Christ is still the central figure of our existence. In the past, He confronted the disciples on Caesarea Phillipi with the question - "Who do people say that I am?" This book introduces us to some of the quirky ideas that people today say about Jesus. But ultimately, the question that each and every one of us MUST answer is this: "Who do YOU say that I am?"