Oprah, Modern-Day False Prophetess: Critiquing The New Earth Movement, Pt. 1

At present, I have a few ongoing series on Pisteuomen (e.g. Images of Antiquity, Studies in Mark and Thoughts On Adoption) and today I am going to add one to the list. This series might be surprising to some but I think it is an important issue. The title of this series will be "Critiquing The New Earth Movement". If you are unaware, The New Earth Movement is a religious trend that is being set and established by Oprah Winfrey and her pal, Eckhart Tolle. Both are celebrities, not educated religious scholars but as you and I know, with enough fame and money, often comes the ability to can convince many gullible people. Their new movement seeks to "awaken" and "enlighten" people to the power within. They claim that at this point in human history, we are in a position like never before, because we know how to transcend our evolutionary roots. If nothing else, this alone seems quite arrogant to me.

Anyway, because so many people are reading their books and watching their meditative webcasts (it went from like 2-million the first week to over 11-million the second week) and because they have launched an all-out but very subtle attack on The Gospel, I want to do what I can to expose the movement. Thus, I am going to be working through the book (among other things) and offering critiques of it. More than anything, though, as I said, I want to expose the movement for what it is. So, in this first installation, all I want to do is show Christians how Winfrey and Tolle are slowly pulling the wool over Christians' eyes.

The way that they are fooling people is at once, subtle and devastating. For example, on Tolle's website, he readily but not in a hateful manner, leads people into doubt about the witness, authority and reliability of Jesus, the Early Christian movement and the New Testament. Here is a question that is posed to him: "Dear Eckhart, I have been wanting to ask you this for months: What are your thoughts on the New Testament? It appears that you believe certain parts were add-ons, or apart from the essence of the teaching. Are there any parts in particular? And why?" Tolle answers: "The New Testament contains deep spiritual truth as well as distortions. Those distortions are of two kinds. Some are due to a misunderstanding of Jesus’ teaching, others arose because people had an agenda (wanting to fit Jesus into their preconceived notions, wanting to make converts etc.). At some point, if there is another book, I may write about this in more detail. But you can find all this out for yourself. When you are present, you access your inner knowing and you will sense what is true and what was added on or distorted."

Assuredly, I will refer to this quote more in the future. For now, however, all I want to do is point out how Tolle 1) Attempts to cast doubt on Christ, the first Christians and the New Testament, and 2) Mixes Christian language with Buddhist language (e.g. "misunderstanding of Jesus' teaching", "you can find all this out for yourself", "When you are present", "inner knowing", etc.). Indeed, the entire New Earth Movement is, in large part, an attempt to be pluralistic (to mix ideas from various religions together), especially between Buddhism and Christianity.

Don't believe me? Here are a few quotes from the first few pages of the book A New Earth:

"Jesus tells us to contemplate the flowers and learn from then how to live. The Buddha is said to have given a “silent sermon” once during which he held up a flower and gazed at it"(6).

"The lotus flower is a central symbol of Buddhism and a white bird, the dove, signifies the Holy Spirit in Christianity. They have been preparing the ground for a more profound shift in planetary consciousness that is destined to take place in the human species. This is the spiritual
awakening that we are beginning to witness now" (8).

"The messengers–Buddha, Jesus, and others, not all of them known–were humanity’s early flowers. They were precursors, rare and precious beings" (8).

"According to the Buddha, the human mind in its normal state generates dukkha, which can be translated as suffering, unsatisfactoriness, or just plain misery. He sees it as a characteristic of the human condition. Wherever you go, whatever you do, says the Buddha, you will encounter dukkha, and it will manifest in every situation sooner or later. According to Christian teachings, the normal collective state of humanity is one of “original sin” (10).

"In the teachings of Jesus, it is salvation, and in Buddhism, it is the end of suffering. Liberation and awakening are other terms used to describe this transformation" (13).

As you can see from this handful of quotes, Tolle is trying ever-so sneakily to blend Buddhism and Christianity into one. Of course, this is logically and theologically impossible at the root of either religous group. Christians are Christians and not Buddhists because they believe and live differently than Buddhists and vice versa. As I continue to expose the many fallacies and untruths of the false prophetess Oprah and her new cult, I will have much more to say about this. In the meantime, don't be swayed.