Reincarnation Goes to Church

Gene is in his early 70s and attends his local Presbyterian church. Spend a little time discussing religion with him and you’ll learn that he also believes in reincarnation, a view he’s held for most of his adult life.

As a young adult, Gene immersed himself in the California hippie culture and joined the Hare Krishnas. He even took a Hindu name. Eventually, he became disillusioned with the movement’s leaders and opted out.

Gene, who was raised a Christian, still believes some of what he learned with the Hare Krishnas. As Gene sees it, there’s some good in all religions; no one group has a monopoly on truth.

This “salad bar spirituality” is typical of Gene’s generation. Reincarnation is only one of many beliefs vying for space in their modern pantheons.

It used to be that people who believed in reincarnation lived primarily in Asia. Not anymore! The belief that your soul or life force lives on after death in another life form is now popular in Western societies. In the US, a 2009 poll revealed that 24 percent of those who declared “Jesus is risen” expect to overcome death through reincarnation.¹

Why has reincarnation become so attractive in traditionally Christian countries? And what does its popularity tell us about the beliefs of Christians?

A Generation Adrift

Teenagers growing up in Western nations during the ‘60s and ‘70s encountered a new idea about truth foreign to their parents’ generation: there’s no absolute truth, so everyone and every group has something valuable to contribute to the great pot of spirituality. As it relates to God and spirituality, there are many paths to the same place.

In a nutshell, this is “postmodern thinking”—a radical departure from what previous generations believed.

It spawned a generation of Christians who questioned traditional views about good, evil, heaven, hell, God, Christ, Satan, salvation, death, and life. If they had turned to the Bible, they would have received solid answers. But for many, the concept of absolute truth was under fire, and they simply concluded, “It really doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you love Jesus.”

Is it any wonder that a growing number of Bible-toting Christians who claim to love God and who pray to Him daily also believe in trendy, non-biblical ideas like reincarnation?

The Roots of Reincarnation

Reincarnation is an ancient Hindu concept based on “karma”—a cosmic law that rewards or punishes each person in one incarnation according to his deeds in a previous incarnation. Because of karma, we pass through endless cycles of rewards or punishments. People who suffer in this life are merely paying for something they did in a previous life.² Doing good deeds, participating in religious rituals, and meditating can aid one’s progression to a higher incarnation.³

Because of their belief in karmic law, Hindu society lacks a strong motivation to alleviate suffering. The caste system of India, in which people are born in rigid social classifications, is a notable example. According to Hinduism, breaking out of one’s caste cannot happen in this present incarnation.

Reincarnation is also a tenet of Buddhism, an offshoot of Hinduism. Buddhists do not believe in a soul, but rather in personal energy or individuality. The ultimate goal of life is to break the cycle of rebirth and be absorbed into the cosmos as nothingness—nirvana. This happens through enlightenment. When one has conquered all desires and feels nothing, he is enlightened and is assured of nirvana. Buddhism became the dominant religion of Tibet, China, Southeast Asia, Korea, and Japan.⁴

Reincarnation Moves West

How did Eastern concepts like reincarnation, nirvana, and karma become popular in the West?

While university professors dismissed the biblical God and His moral absolutes in their classes, they introduced the theories of men like Carl Jung. The Swiss-born Jung (1875–1961) believed all religions were benevolent myths reflecting humanity’s shared evolutionary past. By studying these myths, we could seek our “collective unconscious,” the part of our psyche that reflects all the shared memories of both our animal and human predecessors.⁵

The hippie movement of the ‘60s and ‘70s was greatly influenced by Jung’s veiled ideas of past lives and his penchant for Eastern mysticism. A movement largely nurtured on godless university campuses, it paradoxically initiated a massive search for spirituality.

As young people dabbled in Eastern mysticism, their music, fashions, books, and leisure activities reflected and spread their new tastes. The Beatles toured India and wrote “My Sweet Lord” about the Hindu god Krishna. Classes in yoga and transcendental meditation and shops selling incense and East Indian attire sprang up near college campuses, along with signs discouraging shoplifting by reminding customers about karmic law.

But why would Christians find Eastern mysticism attractive? A recurring reason is that some find karmic law more compassionate than the view of an eternally burning hell. The majority of Christian denominations teach this unbiblical doctrine, which represents God as a cruel tyrant who will indiscriminately burn both a child and Hitler equally, forever and ever. Yet a careful examination of all the Bible texts on the afterlife shows that only hellfire’s results will be eternal, not the fire itself.⁶

Another unbiblical view that leaves Christians vulnerable to the view of reincarnation is belief in an immortal soul. The Bible teaches that only God possesses immortality. See 1 Tim. 6:16. The righteous will receive the gift of immortality at Christ’s second coming. See 1 Cor. 15:53, 54. The wicked never receive it. See Mal. 4:1.

Karmic law offers no forgiveness in this life—only a chance to attempt a better incarnation in the next life.

All pagan religions share the view that some entity (spirit, soul, energy, or life force) survives the body at death. This was Satan’s original lie to Eve in the Garden of Eden, “Ye shall not surely die.” Gen. 3:4. The widespread belief among Christians that the soul is immortal can be traced back to compromises made with paganism when Christianity became the religion of the Roman Empire. Unlike Christians of earlier centuries, we have God’s Word in our own language, and we may know the truth on these subjects.

The Bible vs Reincarnation

The Bible gives very clear reasons why the gospel and reincarnation are incompatible with one another.

The time for eternal choices is now. The Bible teaches that “it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.” Heb. 9:27. It does not teach a second chance after death. Reincarnation supposes an infinity of chances.

We don’t naturally possess immortality; it is a gift which we receive by faith when we receive God’s Son. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:16. If you truly believe this simple but profound text, you cannot also believe in reincarnation. Reincarnation teaches that no one ever really perishes but continues in an endless cycle of rebirths.

God’s truth about eternal life fills this life with hope. The fate of this life is not controlled by a previous life. Jesus assures us He came that we might have life and have it more abundantly. See John 10:10. This includes our life now. Paul assures us that “if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” 2 Cor. 5:17. The Bible doesn’t teach that we must wait for another life to “try again.”

The Bible promises that if you are in Christ, you are a new creation today—not in the next life.

Buddhism gives a particularly fatal view of life. The highest aim of Buddhism is nirvana—literally, “to be extinguished,” or blown out like a candle. The Bible gives us hope that Christ will make not only this life richer, but the next life as well. For the faithful, the best is yet to come! See 1 Cor. 2:9.

With reincarnation, your feeble efforts equal your destiny. Reincarnation teaches that man reaches a better life in the next one through personal effort, but there is no supernatural help promised to reach this goal. The Bible teaches that salvation is a free gift which, when accepted, creates new life in the believer now. While God expects Christians to live as examples of Christ, this is accomplished by Christ living in us, not by our feeble efforts. See Gal. 2:20. Even good works that we perform as Spirit-filled Christians do not gain us “merit” in the next life. Anything “good” we perform is all of Christ and none of us.

A candid examination of these beliefs against the truths of God’s Word highlights the wisdom of truth. The Bible’s view of death as a sleep preceding a future resurrection is much more comforting than an infinity of rebirths. In the resurrection, our individualities and those of friends and loved ones are maintained. In reincarnation, we are lost in endless cycles, with no hope of tangibly reuniting with family and loved ones. The bleakness of such a view is what motivates grieving survivors to contact “departed loved ones” in the spirit world.

Masquerading as departed friends, family members, or famous individuals, demons bring messages and counsel about the future from the world beyond. This lends credibility to their claims, and faith in the explicit Word of God is set aside for demonic advice.

Wade Clark Roof in Spiritual Marketplace shares the sobering statistic that 25 percent of all born-again Americans born between 1946 and 1964 believe in communicating with the dead.⁷

The Bible warns us that Satan and his angels are very real and are bent on our eternal destruction. See Rev. 12:9, 12. His deceptions began in the Garden of Eden and resulted in the loss of our earthly dominion and the fall of our race. He plans to deceive humanity until the very end and take the majority with him into eternal destruction. See Rev. 13:1–15; 20:10, 14, 15.

Paul warned young Timothy, “Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils.” 1 Tim. 4:1.

Belief in reincarnation is a progression towards direct communication with demons. No Christian can safely retain such a belief.

Conclusion

The fact that a growing number of Christians are espousing views such as reincarnation reveals that the Bible is not the foundation of their faith in Christ. The only solution to this serious trend is to apply Paul’s exhortation:

“Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.” 2 Tim. 4:2–4.