Rather than tackle the New Age Movement as a whole (and there’s a LOT to its all inclusive umbrella), I decided to talk specifically about reincarnation. When it comes to alternative spirituality, many Christians are woefully unarmed with any knowledge of the spiritual realm. But how could we be so blind?! With all the movies in the media about hauntings and the paranormal, I think Christians have more than enough ammo to spot alternative spirituality. We could knock these down by the dozen! Of course, that is assuming if more Christians had a solid understanding of Christian demonology, the study of demons from a Christian perspective. A key verse to the doctrine is 2 Corinthians 11:14-15, “And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works.” With that verse in mind, would it be really hard understanding anything like reincarnation? I think not. In the Christian worldview, it would be completely reasonable to say that no false spiritual belief would have occurred if Satan and his ministers of darkness had not been deceiving man all the while.
Any who, let’s get down to business. A past life is a life that one is said to have lived as somebody else in the past. It comes from the belief of reincarnation and is seen in Hinduism, Buddhism, the New Age Movement and certain Neo-Pagan belief systems. However, there’s extreme problems with reincarnation that make it impossible to actually be real. Primarily, it’s important that the Christian understand why reincarnation flies directly in the face of soteriology (the doctrine of salvation). If reincarnation was real, then EVERY attempt at salvation would be utterly worthless; Christians, whether spiritually newborn or longtime believer, would always be coming back in our sin filled world, ultimately nullifying the purpose of Jesus’ death on the Cross, and His resurrection. The Christian guarantee for eternity would be reduced to nothing more than a hope to escape the cycle of birth, death and rebirth.
Second and equally important, every religion has belief in an immortal soul, with the heart and mind being immaterial and inseparable aspects of it. If the soul is immortal then our memories should definitely be carrying over from our past lives. Why does nobody ever “remember” who they were in a past life? Are past lives picky in who they choose to reveal themselves to? Or does the whole thing simply not happen? Absent of any experiential evidence of a past life, the only thing left for the Christian to ponder about why some people “remember” their so called past life, is to go to the doctrine of demonology. It's important to remember that the demon's main goal is deception; even if they were giving true and valuable information about an individual who lived in the past, it could still be used to deceive the person who believes that individual from decades, even centuries ago, was their past life. This is certainly the case with everyone who claims to have a past life experience.
