From Old School Religion to New Age

Adam's Apple? ..Or Eve's?

I've been a Student of A Course in Miracles and Unity since around 1997.  I've raised my daughter in.. for a lack of a better term.. the un-organized religion tradition.  My 91 year old grandmother only knows that I don't do church anymore.  My mother knows why.  In the beginning, her favorite words to utter were, "Lord have mercy..."  (under her breathe.. "...On her soul.")  One of my two brothers has seemingly disowned me.  Largely in part because he believes his god is bigger & better than mine.  He said as much in an email a couple of years ago.  I dated a preacher's kid off and on for years. When we finally discussed church and faith, he totally went away. 

I decided to write a book when I looked around my Unity congregation one Sunday and saw, scattered among the 1000 or so present, roughly 9 or 10 African Americans.  Most Unity/New Thought people won't admit to seeing color or not seeing it in the sanctuary.  But Black is more than the color of the People, but a culture, an attitude, a heritage.  And growing up in the Black American heritage, church was a staple, like milk and cereal and BP&J.   I, as a Black woman, can't help but see an absence of Blackness in the Unity and New Thought movement.  Is it because we just don't know it exists, or are we still just too scared?  I know what it took for me to get to my new right place and sanctuary; A total renunciation of God as I knew him!  Factoring in that god could be a her.  Admitting that god is neither.  Getting around to not being afraid of losing the protection of God and getting back to feeling worthy and most of all sinless. Then finally finding dogma repulsive - at best, and totally unrelated to the God I was getting to know.  Deep within.  And if there IS a god elsewhere, that's also where God is.  It wouldn't matter whether I believed anything else.  Or whether I went to church or not.

"From Old School.. To New Age:  Blacks in The New Church"  Will be an uncensored talk about God, Jesus, the Church, and people in it.  Featuring first person stories about African Americans raised in the old school traditional Christian "church" who had a reality check, then checked out of Bapt-ism and checked into New Thought or New Age or Practical Christianity, Unity, Zen Buddhism, Scientology, Christian Science, Unitarian and made it work for themselves for 5 years or more.  Talk about escaping to religious freedom.  Glory hallelujah!

CLICK READ MORE BELOW TO SEE A FEW COMMENTS FROM MY FACEBOOK PAGE:

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    Bryan-Carlton Flournoy very interesting...Blacks in the New Church. Makes we wonder about the Old Age ways Slaves gave up due to Christian indoctrination, and what old paths might be revisited before attributing all New Age thinking to New Age instead of being a mixture of Old Age.
    

    January 11, 2011 at 2:00pm ·  ·  2
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    James Giles 
    

    There are African-Americans and other spiritual searcher/seekers who simply resist all the labeling and titles. We simply look at the journey as a search, an unfolding. If we look carefully at the Biblical Scriptures much of what Jesus the Christ taught resonates deeply, profoundly with Science of Mind, Unity, Practical Christianity, etc. For me, it is not about cmpeting philosphies, but about truth, and I believe truth to be immenently practical. So much of traditional Christinaity is shrouded in human dogma, presumption, and arrogance. People, spend so much time determining what they don't believe that they aren't clear as to what they do believe.
    
    For instance, I spent decades of my life in contemporary Charismatic and Pentecostal churches and never once heard a sermon or teaching on meditation. Meditation has a long, rich, and indeniable heritage in Western Christianity. So does mysticism. Yet, for the most part they both are completely ignored. Yet the spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical benefits of meditation today are even being touted by medical science, including neuro-science. The churches attack positive thinking, yet it's benefits have been acknowledged in the treatment of disease and in in maintaining emotional balance and well-being. These are just a couple of very practical things that are significant.
    
    Much of what quantum physics is telling us today resonates with what the Bibles says abuot the nature of so-called physical reality, and all sorts of studies have been conducted into things such as remote viewing, hypnosis, telekinesis, telementation, etc., all mental, or parapyschological phenomena mentioned in the Bible. I really did not intend to sy this much here, but I think you get my point. I have always resisted the impulse to check my mind at the entrance to the church. To argue that God gave me my mind for anything but to use to hold fast to certain Christian dogmas has always seemed patently absurd to me! Many blessings on your project and of course you know it will come undr viscious attack from many of the Christians. I would urge you not to go on the attack. If I may, I would strongly encourage you to carefully edit your submissions for content, clarity, substance, and for the lck of vitriol. I don't think you are asking for testimonies but rather for thoughtful engagement with the subjest matter>

    
    

    January 11, 2011 at 4:58pm ·  ·  3
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    Sammie Hutchins 
    

    Interesting topic. I've always wondered why we hold dear a bible thrust upon us after being brought to a land by a people (Anglo Saxon) that want us to begin a new way (American rather than Aftrican) of life & religion. If this is the case, did we not know we were to be good christians and had to be beaten into submission and made to accept christianity. Did we loose our original faith with our original heritage, and if so, what was it?

    
    

    January 11, 2011 at 8:22pm · 
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    LaVender Shedrick Williams 
    

    Veeeery interesting topic. I use to be a very religious person and I still attend a traditional Baptist Church, yet have allowed my eyes to be opened to the God not only in the church, but outside the church and in the entire universe. After all, He created the universe! I allowed my mind to accept the vast greatness of His Being and the sovereign power that He holds. To know this God created me and lives within me is MIND BLOWING! Traditional church just isn't the same when you have a personal encounter with the living God and accept Him for who He is.
    Have fun writing and gathering, Jackie!

    
    

    January 14, 2011 at 9:31am · 

This book will pay special attention to how we've managed criticism and alienation from relationships with friends and family of the "old school" persuasion, whilst nurturing and maintaining and strengthening our convictions and personal beliefs.   

Interested?  Know someone who might be?  Leave contact information in the Comment section on this post.

 Anyone can teach you about love... but I can make you good at it!

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