Church of Oprah

CHURCH OF OPRAH

In his Serious Times Web site, James Emery White (a Preaching Magazine contributing editor) talks about the latest wave of Oprah influence: as America’s spiritual guide. Here is what he wrote.? Interesting stuff.

“Much of her guidance is deeply Christian and highly commendable, pulling from her Baptist upbringing. In her book, The Gospel According to Oprah, Marcia Nelson outlines some of the commendable aspects of Oprah’s spirituality, including the themes of forgiveness and generosity, self-examination, gratitude and community.

“But there’s more to her spirituality than a few broad, generic Christian themes. It increasingly reflects currents of thought embodied by such authors as Deepak Chopra, Marianne Williamson, and most recently, Eckhart Tolle (pronounced ‘toe-lee’), whose latest book, A New Earth, has seen nearly 5 million shipped with the Oprah seal on the front thanks to a series of 10 ‘live’ Monday night Web seminars, which began on March 3 featuring Tolle and Winfrey on Oprah’s website. So popular were the webcasts the first night brought down the server when more than 500,000 people tried to log on. Now, nearly 2 million have downloaded or streamed the first class. So what are people learning?

“As Tolle writes in the foreword to his book, Stillness Speaks, his thinking ‘can be seen as a revival for the present age of the oldest form of recorded spiritual teaching: the sutras of ancient India.’

“Translation? Hinduism. Or as he packages it, an eclectic gathering of gleanings from Hinduism, Buddhism and watered-down Christianity. Result? A fresh presentation of what is commonly called the New Age Movement, which tends to have four basic ideas:

“The first is that ‘all is one, and one is all,’ which means, of course, ‘God is all, and all is God,’ which also means, ‘ ?I am God.’ In his book, The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle says he doesn’t like to use the word ‘God,’ or to talk about finding God, because it implies an entity other than you, or me.

“The second major belief is that because most people don’t realize they are god, they need to be enlightened. This enlightenment can flow from many sources, including ‘spirit-channeling.’ Marianne Williamson, a frequent guest of Oprah’s, had garnered her first bestseller ? A Return to Love ? by popularizing A Course in Miracles, which the author claimed was dictated by a spirit voice, which she says was Jesus, but not Jesus of Nazareth.

“The third major belief is everything is relative. What Tolle advocates, and what you will find advocated by many of Oprah’s recent guests, is the truth is simply within you. Tolle says, ‘The Truth is inseparable from who you are…you are the truth.’ In fact, he distorts Jesus’ famous statement, ‘I am the way, the truth and the life,’ by claiming what Jesus meant was that He was His own truth, just like we can be our own truth.

“A fourth major belief, in one form or another, is reincarnation. Toward the end of A New Earth, Tolle writes, ‘When the lion tears apart the body of the zebra, the consciousness that incarnated into the zebra-form detaches itself from the dissolving form and for a brief moment awakens to its essential immortal nature as consciousness, then immediately falls back into sleep and reincarnates into another form.’

“Of course, there is nothing new about new age thinking. It dates back further than Hinduism. Indeed, it can be found in the opening chapters of Genesis, for it was the heart of Satan’s temptation of Adam and Eve (Gen. 3:1-5).”

(Click here to read his full commentary.)