Being a ‘Crunchy’ Christian and avoiding New Age Influences
By Elizabeth Prata
Doreen “Dee” Virtue is a former New Age adherent who used to write books about angel spirituality. She converted to Christianity 9 years ago and with the scales having fallen from her eyes, now is a Christian. Virtue has renounced all her New Age beliefs, books, and practices, and is happily and unashamedly a Christian. She has a Youtube channel, here.
Ashley Sheatz, wife to Trevor and his ministry On the Mount, mom to 3, has several social media accounts. Facebook, Instagram, On the Mount ‘s Youtube.
Angela Mitchell’s ministry is called Raising Apologists. She is a married stay-at-home-mom, who writes on Instagram, Facebook, and her blog called Raising Apologists, on the topics of discernment, homeschooling, and encouraging mothers and women.
These three ladies, well versed in a biblical worldview and walking uprightly in Jesus, discussed “Crunchy Christians Avoiding New Age Deception“. They talked about what is crunchy Christianity, discerning good wellness advice vs. unhealthy advice, and how New Age ideas can seep into even the most well-meaning mother’s worldview, corrupting it with syncretism.
Doreen Virtue has a knack for asking insightful questions, illustrating her skill to deeply listen then follow up with a question that elicits even more information. Her choice of guests is also wise. The two ladies here explain themselves so well I decided to transcribe portions of the discussion that impacted me, and interspersed with my own thoughts. I urge you to listen to the entire conversation. It will be even more impactful when you hear it in context.
In this first quote, I loved what was being said. Social media has risen to levels that greatly affect us. People with large followings are even called “influencers”. The influence is to entice listeners to buy their product, read their book, heed their advice. Many times their books or advice is good. But sometimes the advice is unfounded, unscientific, or unChristian. We must learn to research widely, and confirm what we hear or see from social media from credible sources.
For example, many people know of Dr. Josh Axe. He usually places the honorific in front of his name. People use the honorific when speaking of him. But he is not a Doctor of Medicine. He cannot diagnose or treat medical conditions or prescribe pharmaceutical drugs. He holds a Dr. of Chiropractic degree, a Dr. of Natural medicine and is a certified nutritionist. But not a medical doctor. Some people don’t research, see the ‘Dr.’ and believe all his advice is trustworthy. It isn’t.
Many social media accounts either purposely or unintentionally add other spiritualities into their advice. Even practicing Christians do this.
2020 was hard on us all, and we lost our trust in the medical profession. Ashley and Angela both speak to this. Nature abhors a vacuum, so the hole has to be filled with something else. Hence, the rise of social media medical advice from people who may or may not be credentialed professionals, or even credible.
ASHLEY SHEATZ:
My warning is don’t get all of your health advice from Instagram because you’re probably going to be led astray. You need to back it up with also your own research and googling stuff and verifying it. There’s a lot of false information on Instagram. But I think one of the key takeaways if you are on Instagram and you are getting a lot of good health knowledge- because there is a lot of it out there- is sticking to accounts that are focusing on just whole foods or more ingredient focused rather than bringing their spirituality into it. So I think that’s a good way to guard your mind is to not even as a Christian to not even follow accounts that are talking about a false spirituality or are saying things that contradict the Bible.
There are so many great Instagram accounts that are just very health food focused. And if you are a Christian, there are also great biblical Christians who are in the health world and who do bring their faith in to the word of God. We just have to be really cautious with following people who are saying they’re spiritual, right?
If you’re married, talk to your husband with what you’re reading about and what you’re ingesting because God has placed your husband as your spiritual head to protect you. And if you’re just on your phone and you’re researching all these things and you don’t ever talk to him about it, I feel like there’s already like an open door for the devil and demons, honestly, to attack you there if you’re not open with your husband.
It’s hard for some people to let go of the teacher/advice/books etc from a favored teacher or influencer if told they aren’t the healthiest for your soul. They have invested and do not want to let go. They invest time, money, or reputation in this teacher or influencer and they don’t want to hear they have been deceived. Deception by investment has a powerful pull.
Often I’ll hear back that “But this teacher is good because his method worked… But my prayer came true… But my thing resolved…”
ANGELA MITCHELL
They’ve really put some trust in this method and they’ll say, “But it works.” And my push back to that is always we’re not pragmatists, which means we don’t just do something because it works. We’re Christians. We have to ask why. We have to ask, ‘Is this ‘glorifying the Lord?’ ‘Is this changing my worldview?’ And so, a lot of the times what I’m seeing is women is, their worldviews are changing.
There’s syncretism. Now syncretism is when you take parts of one religion and you’re mixing it with Christianity. But we know in Deuteronomy and Exodus that the Lord specifically warns against syncretism. I mean we see in Exodus where Aaron creates a golden calf and says, “We’re going to use this to worship God.” And God says absolutely not. This is disobedience. It’s the same thing when we go to something for help that isn’t of God. It’s idolatry.
I see some rigid perfectionism in this crunchy movement. Women become involved with it, then absorbed in it, then myopic about it, having tunnel vision. That’s ground ripe for Legalism. A rigid adherence to a protocol, tradition, or method that the person thinks will save them, or gain ‘points’ with Jesus (or her church).
I understand the ‘crunchy’ movement is wide, with varying levels of commitment or a variety of applications. But sometimes I hear women adhering to a rigid method and thinking that if they achieve it 100% this will somehow put them in better standing with Jesus.
DOREEN VIRTUE:
How do we guard against taking our eyes off the cross and instead thinking that if we just make everything in our house and our diet 100% perfect that that will somehow save us.
ASHLEY SHEATZ:
So as the unbeliever, they are searching and seeking to control all aspects of their life. This is the only life to them and they want to make it long and healthy. But I mean even if you are doing all the right things, some of the most healthy people in the world still get cancer. I mean even you could do all the healthy things in the world and still die in a car crash tomorrow. So there’s certain things that are just completely out of our control. And God has also given us blessings to enjoy in this life. Like if you enjoy going to Chipotle. I use Chipotle because I love Chipotle.
If you enjoy those things and you can sit down and enjoy that meal with joy…how we guard against perfectionism is realizing we’ll literally never be perfect in this life and the reason why you want to have good health and pursue good and healthy foods is to feel good today so you can serve the Lord later. It’s not about preserving your life. Our days are already numbered.
That rigidness rears its head. I’ve heard of women who won’t attend a dinner at someone’s house because their food is served from plastic containers, or their eggs are from a store. That’s perfectionism again, where your preference for something interferes with your ‘one another’.
ANGELA MITCHELL:
I think keeping in mind what stewardship looks like per family is going to be different. And now I’ve had people say that it’s more biblical to raise your own meat, to live on a farm. Kind of like a tradlife culture. Like, ‘you need to not buy eggs from the store’. I can’t do that. I live with an HOA. They won’t allow chickens. So we have to be really careful what we say is biblical and what we say is God-glorifying because we all have different circumstances.
The key word here is “preference”. Desiring to eat or feed your family farm fresh eggs, for example, or locally butchered meat, is a preference. Nothing in the New Testament commands you one way or another on that level of specificity of food or lifestyle.
ANGELA MITCHELL:
There there’s things with hospitality that we have to think- are my preferences ruling out love? I’m seeing a rise in eating disorders because of crunchy culture because it can just take over your mind. Everything becomes about what you’re putting in your body, and that can lead to idolatry. And anytime we create a disordered thinking where we’re thinking about all the time. It’s controlling our thoughts. It’s controlling our behaviors. It’s controlling our speech. We’ve created a functional God. And I would really caution women in crunchy culture to not do that to each other and to not do that to themselves.
Doreen asked about women who may be listening or watching to the video who are going through a health challenge and is becoming desperate. Many times when we go through an unexpected illness or health issue and prayer, patience, and standard medicine is not working, we become desperate. That is a risky time, because our decision making is clouded.
ANGELA MITCHELL:
I would also encourage women, if you have a woman in your life that’s suffering, she needs your prayers. She needs your friendship. She needs you to point her to God’s word before giving her crunchy advice.
I would say what do we believe about God? Do we believe that he actually means to do us good and not harm? Do we believe he’s in control? Do we believe we can trust him? Is he a good God?
I do like to ask questions. What is your desire for being crunchy? Is it a fear of death? Are do you think that you control can control getting cancer? Do you think you can control not getting disease? Do you think your good choices is going to somehow sway the hand of God even though he says you can’t add one hour to your life? I think sometimes we can have a real fear of death and crunchy culture kind of pacifies us with that. But as believers, we know where we’re going. We’re going to be with our God. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. And to live is gain and to die is gain. And I just want my sisters in Christ to remember that that God loves you and he cares for you and he cares for your health.
It was a great conversation. I encourage you all to take a listen here Crunchy Christians Avoiding New Age Deception“. All three women are a good follow. They are consistent with encouragement and advice from a biblical worldview.
