The Christian worldview teaches that the heart is deceitfully wicked and that transformation happens when our minds are conformed to the truth. According to the New Age worldview, the mind is a trickster, so we should follow our hearts. This is a complete inversion of the truth. The New Age teaches the opposite of Christianity on this. Our students saw the absurdity of this view and exposed it by asking good questions.

“You probably should kill yourself.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. An adult woman encouraging a teenage girl to commit suicide? What would possess someone to suggest such a horrible act? One word: worldview.

Last month, I led a group of sixty high school students on a New Age worldview mission trip to northern Arizona. The students had completed fourteen weeks of training in worldview and apologetics. They were ready, equipped to converse with others about Christianity and truth.

Part of the trip involved having a shaman, a New Age clairvoyant, and an atheist present their beliefs to the students, with the students asking questions afterwards.

Both the shaman and the New Age clairvoyant shared a shocking core belief. The human mind is a trickster, they said, and can’t be trusted. Our minds overthink things, which only leads to trouble. Instead, always follow your heart. “If your heart is telling you to do something, do it,” the clairvoyant said. “Don’t even think about it.”

“Follow your heart” was the instruction we repeatedly heard from our New Age friends, but it’s the complete opposite of what Scripture teaches. Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?” Jesus himself had this to say about the evil of the human heart.

For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness. All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man. (Mark 7:21–23)

According to Scripture, human beings are broken because of sin, and our evil desires, inclinations, and appetites must be restrained.

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