The Misuse Of The Term "New Age"

The “New Age” is a term that largely varies depending on the context and who’s speaking.

Evangelical Christians see basically any spirituality that is non-Christian as New Age.

Rational skeptics, who are usually atheists, see anything too “woo” as New Age.

Spiritual seekers who value more critical thinking and dislike the B.S. see mainstream spirituality as New Age. I tend to use the term New Age for shorthand in this context as well.

One of the concerns I have with the term “New Age,” though, is that it can be used to dismiss and undermine alternative spirituality altogether.

There is a difference between the New Age, meaning the superficial mainstream spirituality rampant the world, and alternative spirituality and it is important to keep this in mind because, otherwise, what can happen is that people throw the baby out with the bathwater. Every spiritual teacher or community can get lumped together with the “New Age” and we don’t see the valid truths across various spiritual disciplines and practices.

Though the term “New Age”can be useful, it should also be used with care and nuance. When it becomes a blanket label for anything outside mainstream religion or materialist thinking, it stops being descriptive and starts being dismissive. Not all alternative spirituality is shallow, uncritical, or commercially packaged, just as not all organized religion or scientific skepticism is closed-minded.

If we want meaningful conversations about spirituality, we have to look beyond easy labels and engage ideas on their own merits. Otherwise, we risk losing valuable insights from diverse traditions simply because they’ve been grouped together under a term that was never meant to capture the full complexity of spiritual exploration.