Are More Americans Turning to the Stars Instead of to the One Who Made the Stars?

Many Americans, declares an article in the New York Times (11/24/17), are “Leaning on the Stars to Make Sense of the World.” Personally I’d rather “lean” on the One Who made the stars to make sense of the world. He has revealed Himself not only in the stars, but much more clearly in His Word.

The NYT.com article states: “One appeal is that [the stars] offer some order in an otherwise chaotic city and volatile world, said Galit Atlas, a clinical assistant professor in New York University’s postdoctoral program in psychotherapy and psychoanalysis…. ‘Especially in a time when the world doesn’t feel safe, we tend to search for an order that makes sense.’”

In short, people are turning to horoscopes and astrology to help cope in these troublesome times.

I once interviewed a former astrologer, Marcia Montanegro. She taught astrology; she served on the Board of Astrology Examiners in the City of Atlanta, which licenses astrologers. She was chairperson of that board for three years and was very active in the Metropolitan Atlanta Astrological Society.

She lived by her charts and made decisions based on the movements of the planets. To give a taste of how theologically and metaphysically confused she was, consider this portion of an article she wrote about the blasphemous 1988 film, The Last Temptation of Christ: “I believe that The Last Temptation of Christ is part of the symbolic ‘second coming’ of Christ. Christ has not returned in the clouds, but in a film. It is an ingenious Piscean way of returning to the mass of consciousness…This Christ does not match the Sunday School illustrations of the sainted ethereal figure...As a society, we are the Children of Pisces on our quest of the true self, the Divine Self.”

Montenegro honed and practiced her craft and was interviewed by numerous media outlets, including CNN, as a spokesperson for astrologers. Despite all this, she began to feel an inexplicable urge to go to church---an urge which she fought for months. She finally gave in and was eventually converted by reading the Gospels, and became released from what she calls "the bondage of astrology." She discovered the joy of living by God’s Word, not by the stars.

God’s Word has all the key answers to life. Who am I? Why am I here? What should I do with my life?

As a young man, I discovered the Word of God, and I was fascinated by it. Even just in reading it, I realized that so many of our expressions and bits of everyday wisdom that are right and good come from it. Like “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” and other great truths we easily take for granted.

To my way of thinking, it makes more sense to find the answers to life’s mysteries in God’s Word than in the stars, which are mere created things.

(Newcombe, “Are More Americans Turning to the Stars Instead of to the One Who Made the Stars?, ChristianHeadlines Online, 11/30/17).