Counter Culture Mama Podcast with Danielle Venables

110. I Was Wrong About New Age And Jesus

• Danielle Venables • Episode 110

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A year ago, we argued you could chase “Christ consciousness” without embracing a Bible-centered faith—and we treated religion like a control system. After a season of prayer, study, and honest self-audit, we’re back to share what changed and why the shift brought more peace, not less. This is a candid walk-through of moving from self-optimization to surrender, from theories about ascension to a relationship with a living Savior.

We open with the rebrand that led us to revisit an older episode, then unpack the core difference between making Jesus a model for perfection and trusting Jesus as the one who saves imperfect people. Grace changes the economy: instead of endless pressure to heal, manifest, and measure up, we talk about the relief of Romans 3:23 and the freedom of not being our own redeemers. We explore obedience as alignment rather than oppression, describing how a heart-level change quietly shifts habits—interests fade, compulsions loosen, and daily choices get lighter without shame or scorekeeping.

We also get practical and nerdy. Curious about canon formation and the gospel of Mary Magdalene? We trace why fragmentary, late, sparsely attested texts didn’t make it into the Bible, and how rigorous criteria aimed for coherence with apostolic witness. On the “you can find a verse for anything” claim, we show how context stabilizes meaning and how God’s character remains consistent across scripture—compassion with responsibility, mercy with moral clarity. The throughline is simple: less conspiracy, more consistency; less performance, more presence.

If you’re deconstructing, reconstructing, or just tired of spiritual hustle, this conversation offers a grounded alternative: joyful obedience, a steadier hope, and a faith that holds when your perfection doesn’t. Listen, share with a friend who’s wrestling with similar questions, and if it resonates, subscribe and leave a review to help others find the show.

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SPEAKER_00:

Hello and welcome to the second episode of the Counterculture Mama podcast. Um, since it's rebranded. I just was going through the back end of my buzz sprout and which is where I host the podcast. And I was updating thumbnails so that there was a very visual distinction between what was return to radiance and what is counterculture mama, um, because this podcast stream is just gonna keep going. And I wanted to update all the thumbnails to reflect the old and the new so that anybody following my journey, anybody who finds old episodes can easily identify where it lands in that evolution almost as like the end of a chapter, the beginning of a new chapter. Anyway, as I was going through these podcast episodes, I came across episode 80, which is titled New Age to Jesus. And in that episode, I talked about my take at the time, which is like over a year ago, of observing people going from New Age and denouncing, you know, the energy work, the oracle cards, the practices and things like that, and um basically denouncing that and becoming Christians. And in that episode, I talk about how I didn't really understand why you need to denounce everything old just to step into the new. I talked about how um, you know, the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle. I said things like, you can find a Bible quote to back up basically any stance that you have. Um there was a lot in that episode to unpack. And so I felt compelled to just come on and rehash some of that from where I'm standing today and admit that I was wrong. And also just um, you know, if you're somebody who has some of the same thoughts and opinions, and if you haven't listened to episode 80, I'm not taking it down. So you can go have a listen to that one and see your thoughts on it, if you agree with me, if you disagree with me in that episode, and then come back here and we'll talk about it. Um because I am I I am humbled to have heard myself speaking so with so much conviction and so certain. And I at one point I even said, like, I would never, I mean, I think I said never say never, but I can't see myself doing that, right? Returning to the church, returning to um the dogmatic religion, um, and kind of painting it as the devil, right? As part of the problem. And obviously, I just recorded a podcast episode about my journey and where it's brought me. And so I do need to address some of the things that I brought up in that episode in order to reconcile it with where I'm at now, right? So the the premise of that episode was really about you can have a relationship with Christ or specifically with Christ consciousness without being a Bible-believing Christian. Um, I argued that I felt like the Jesus in the Bible was made to be portrayed a certain type of way, and that that wasn't necessarily the truth. I yeah, I I said a lot, but when when we refer to Christ as a consciousness, I want to start off by saying that that once again, if you listen to my last episode, episode 109, what I said was um that my experience with new age was always like the pressure was on me. It was on me to heal, it was on me to ascend, it was on me to um, you know, manifest. And if I wasn't manifesting, then it was because my beliefs weren't in line or my thoughts weren't in line. And um, you know, it kind of created this like circle of always having to um not only take ownership, but really just this fundamental belief of there's something wrong with me if I'm not getting what I want in the world. And um the same could be said for those who are seeking Christ consciousness. If you start to look at him as a consciousness instead of a savior, there's a very big discrepancy, right? You could see him in the Christian Christian mysticism lens of he just showed us how to ascend. He just showed us the way to, you know, hack the system basically to break the matrix is kind of, I mean, that's not the language they use, but that's kind of the gist of like what Christian mystics believe. And um, you know, when we see that as the goal, then that once again puts pressure on us as humans to be perfect, right? In order to ascend, we have to be perfect. In order to reach Christ consciousness, we have to show up a certain way, heal a certain way, be a certain way. Um, or we have to have mastered meditation, or we have to, you know, like whatever you believe that you have to do in order to embody Christ consciousness. Um and the reality is that's still putting the pressure back on our own shoulders. And I'm not saying that out of a place of fear, of um, you know, responsibility. I I'm taking ownership and responsibility for the things that I said right here, right now, right? Like I am all for accountability, I'm all for doing better, being better, learning every day, all of that. Like I'm here for that. Um, but the issue with seeing that as like a goal to ascension is that we all fall short. I'm gonna look it up, but I believe it is Romans 3.23 that says for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. That's exactly what I was looking for. Um, and so we all fall short. We are humans, we are flawed, we are imperfect, and no amount of attempting to ascend is going to override that flawed nature, and we all fall short. So when you think about the kingdom of God, when you think about the glory of God, when you think about all of that, if you are putting all of that on your own shoulders to get there because you're trying to ascend to Christ consciousness, are you ever going to get there because you are still a flawed human? And there's no way to escape that in this lifetime. So when we distort Jesus like that and chalk him up to just being a consciousness, it actually hurts our ability to experience the peace and the glory that comes from cultivating a relationship with Jesus. Because we have to be something to be worthy of it once again. And we all fall short. And so when we accept Jesus into our lives as our savior, when we look at him as a real person, the Son of God, who came to earth and died to pay the ultimate price for our imperfections, for our fuck-ups, then there's a freedom in that, right? Because we're all equally unworthy. We all fall short, we all mess up, we all make mistakes, we all have moments where our heart posture isn't right. And knowing that you have access to the kingdom of God regardless is rather liberating. That's mercy, that's grace. And so I wanted to address that first and foremost. The next thing that I said is I was talking about how they omitted the gospel of Mary Magdalene in the Bible. And I have dug into that since. Obviously, there's a lot that you learn in a year. Um, and not only is that manuscript incomplete, but it is also not dated back to when Mary Magdalene would have been alive or close to it, which is why it was excluded, as well as being incomplete, I'm sure, because it's hard to include an incomplete manuscript in something. But because there were so few copies found, because it was incomplete, and because they couldn't date it back to where they needed to date it for it to actually be of Mary Magdalene, that's why it was excluded. Now, whether she wrote it or not is obviously still a big mystery that we won't have the answers to. And I wish I did have those answers because I love Mary Magdalene. I find her iconic and inspiring. Um, but ultimately I respect the decision to leave that out of the Bible for that reason. And, you know, it is possible that she wrote it, and it's also possible that she didn't. So why would it be in the official canon of like verified and verifiable um sacred scripture? So I I made peace with that and I realized that okay, maybe it isn't a war on the feminine. Now, that being said, if she did write a gospel or if she had a gospel written in her lifetime, the attitude towards women, even the attitude towards Jesus were letting her learn from him and other women learn from him, um, historically at the time, that was really a taboo. That was really frowned upon. And so even if she did have manuscripts, it is very possible that the people of that first century were tracking those manuscripts down and destroying them. And that that's why there's no real surviving manuscripts. So it could have been written by her. Like I said, but we have no way of knowing that. And so, because of that and because of its incompleteness, it didn't make the Bible, and I have made peace with that. So that was a point that I really wanted to talk about. Another thing I said was that you can find a Bible verse to support anything, and that's true if you take Bible verses out of context. We have seen this a lot with um, I believe it's a passage in Leviticus. I want to say it's Leviticus 19, but I could be wrong. Um, about treating uh foreigners well. It might not be 19, but anyway, um it's a passage in Leviticus about treating foreigners well, and a lot of liberal leaning people, especially in the states, are using that as a way to weaponize the Bible against Christians, saying, Well, your God said this, and so therefore you must allow illegal immigration and you must allow blah blah blah. And so, like, that's the context in which it's being weaponized. But when you actually take that passage in context, and when you take it in context of not only where it came from in Leviticus, but also the whole Bible, God never contradicts himself in the Bible. His character is steadfast, his desire to set us up for success is steadfast, and he upholds the same morals and standards throughout the entire Bible. And so, you know, there's that verse, and then there's a bunch of other verses about following laws, about being um, you know, respectful of, you know, other people, and there's also um within that context, sorry, I totally lost my train of thought there. But within that context, it's actually talking about legal immigrants. So, yes, it is possible to quote the Bible and make it sound really convincing when you take something out of context. Um, and that was my argument in that in episode 80 there. And what I've realized is that when you actually look into the context of which things are being said, and you look into the theme of the entire Bible on a certain topic instead of just cherry-picking one verse, it actually does all align. And there are no contradictions. Um, and I was wrong. I was wrong about that. Again, I I looked extensively into how the Bible was decided, how the canon was finalized, um, those types of things. And I realized that there are very strict standards and um that not everything is a conspiracy theory. Go figure. So that's where I stand with that. I'm trying to remember. I feel like there was more that I said, and maybe as time goes by, I'll come on and record another episode and dismantle more of that. But what I ultimately want to say, and this is probably the most important part, is that in that episode I said that the Bible and organized religion were a form of control. They were a form of this is how you control the people, this is how you control the world, um, is by making them think that their God said all of these things. And again, essentially calling the Bible fake, right? And that it was a tool to especially suppress. So it's not only a tool for compliance, but it's a tool for suppression. And ironically, I actually used the word obedience in that episode, and I used the term obedience in episode 109 as well as a good thing, as a righteous thing. And so I sat there and I was like listening to me talk about obedience as if it was some horrible thing. And I was like, wow, wow. Because why wouldn't you want to be obedient to the creator of the universe and the earth and everything in it? Um again, when we get past the place of believing that everything is a conspiracy theory, we we find that. But more importantly than that, is it's not obedience from a place of oh, I have to do this, and you know, it's an obligation, and you know, like it's not like a blind obedience. What I've realized about the Bible as I've applied it to my life, and I said this in episode 109 as well, is that it is actually God's design, it is actually the path that may not always be the easiest. There are challenges. I'm not gonna be like, oh yeah, convert to Christianity and everything's gonna be great, right? I'm I mean, I'm not asking you to convert to to Christianity if that's not your thing, but um when we do follow God's word, when we do follow his command, there's a lot of things in life that just kind of work themselves out. And that's my personal testimony. I talked about it in the last episode. But there is a great freedom that comes from living in obedience, it's almost like it opens these doors, and also, like I said, it's not about the legalism, and this is actually in the Bible as well. They they talk about you know, the Pharisees and stuff, and they tell you like it's not about the outward actions, it's about the posture of your heart. And so there's this really crazy thing that happens when you welcome Jesus into your life where all of a sudden your heart starts to change, and you get these convictions about, you know, oh, it no longer feels good to do certain things. Um I'm trying to think like astrology is one of them. I'm just not even interested. And that was another thing in in that podcast episode, episode 80, I was like, oh, I'll probably still look at astrology, not to like give it any weight, but just because it's fun. And like since then, I it hasn't even been fun for me. And so I stopped. And it wasn't because I felt shame about it, it wasn't because I felt like in order to be a good Christian, I had to stop looking at astrology. Of course, that is backed um by the Bible under the uh divination. But at the same time, like I was like, well, I'm gonna walk this journey in the authentic way that feels right for me. And I'm not gonna force myself to not do things out of you know, shame or fear or whatever. But literally, my heart changed. I felt convicted, but not from a place of oh, I feel convicted, so I can't do that anymore. It was literally like a shift in the posture of my heart where I was no longer even vibing with it. Like, not only was I not looking it up, but when other people talked to me about it, I'm just like, you know, like it's it's like it doesn't intrigue me the way that it used to. And that's okay. That just means that I don't have to live in conflict of like, oh, am I sinning? Am I not? Like, it just isn't of interest to me anymore, and that's okay. And if it is of interest to you, that's okay too. But that's where obedience really comes into place. It's like when you're when the posture of your heart changes, when you are in a place where you like God is going to work on your heart, the Holy Spirit is going to work on your heart, then the things that bring you joy and pleasure change. I sat down with my husband's grandma this past weekend, and she told me that they've been on a recent journey as well of, you know, reading the Bible and and exploring Christianity and stuff, and they have been like new age forever. Um and she talked about how his grandpa was no longer drinking and no longer buying daily lottery tickets, and it wasn't anything that was commanded of him, right? It it wasn't coming from a place of like, oh, you can't do that anymore. It was just a change inside of him that inspired a change outside. It inspired and led the change in his actions, and that's really what we experience as followers of Christ is like it literally changes us on a fundamental level, and that changes the way that we show up, it changes the actions we take, it changes the things that we derive pleasure from in the best way. So all of that to say, there's nothing wrong with obedience as long as you are coming from it in a place or coming from a place of like joy. Right it's joyful obedience, it's not suppressive obedience. So I'm gonna leave it at that. I feel like it's kind of hard to articulate some of this stuff, so my brain is like it's doing its best, but we're struggling to like find the right words. So hopefully this landed, hopefully this makes sense. Again, I'm just sharing my insights, my experiences, my opinions, and but most importantly, my my experiences, right? Like that's that's what informs my my insights. So um that's where I'm at with things. That's um my response to my own podcast episode. And yeah, I hope I hope it was illuminating for you. I hope that something opened up um in your awareness or it gave you some food for thought in one way or another. And just thank you for being here on this journey with me. I will talk to you in the next episode.