New Poll Reveals How Churchgoers Mix Eastern, New Age Beliefs

Thu, Dec. 10 2009
By Joshua A. Goldberg
Christian Post Reporter

Though the United States is an overwhelmingly Christian country, significant minorities profess belief in a variety of Eastern or New Age beliefs, as revealed in a new poll by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life.

According to the poll, 22 percent of Christians, for example, say they believe in reincarnation – that people will be reborn in this world again and again. Twenty-three percent, meanwhile, believe in astrology. And 15 percent have consulted a fortuneteller or a psychic.

Not surprising, however, is Pew’s observation that white evangelical Protestants consistently express lower levels of acceptance of both Eastern beliefs (reincarnation, yoga) and New Age beliefs (spiritual energy in physical things and astrology).

Roughly one-in-ten white evangelicals, for example, believes in reincarnation, compared with 24 percent among mainline Protestants, 25 percent among both white Catholics and those unaffiliated with any religion, and 29 percent among black Protestants. the rest