The Influence of the Alternative Religious Tradition on New Religious Movements Part Seven

Alternative Religions Continued. . .

Page Seven

Another change in the religious atmosphere in the 18th century was the forming of revivalist, conservative Evangelical Christianity, the “New Lights” and the rejection of Puritan Christianity in the form of the liberal “Old Lights.” The New Lights endorsed conservative theology and the born again type experience. They promoted no just knowing in your head who God was and attending services, but actually feeling and knowing God in an emotional and experiential way. The Old Lights on the other hand were more rationalistic, emphasizing education and wanting to change some interpretations of the Bible. They supported the idea of predestination, which said you couldn’t even choose God, He chooses you. And that there was a big gap between God and humans because of the depravity of man (his sinfulness) (Christensen). Congregations once Puritan started to dislike Evangelical and Calvinist views and embraced Unitarian and Universalist ones. Out of the Old Lights then came a further distancing from traditional, orthodox Christianity in the schism of Unitarian and Universalist Christianity. Unitarians rejected the trinity and Universalists espoused the belief that anyone can be saved and that salvation was available to all. Unitarians and Universalists rejected the idea of God as judgemental and condemning and saw him as a good and loving God who was merciful. They also rejected the literalization of the Bible seeing it more at symbolic/metaphorical, humanity was good not inherently sinful and saw Christ as just a human with a profound connection with God who was a model of how we should or can be. Christianity being exclusively true was also denied. These changes paved the way for religious experimentation and exploring, especially of the Eastern traditions and created openness to explore new ideas and ways of thinking (Christensen).

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