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Christianity Today, August, 2008 |

GOOD QUESTION

Nothing New

Popular spiritual author and Oprah favorite Eckhart Tolle quotes Jesus a lot. Is he a Christian?

James A. Beverley | posted 7/23/2008 09:50AM

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Ultimately, Tolle's system undercuts the person and work of Jesus, the most quoted teacher in both of Tolle's books. At the beginning of A New Earth, he denies the deity of Jesus and grossly distorts Jesus' teaching about himself: "The Truth is inseparable from who you are. Yes, you are the Truth. If you look for it elsewhere, you will be deceived every time. The very Being that you are is Truth. Jesus tried to convey that when he said, 'I am the way and the truth and the life.'"

For Tolle, ascribing any unique significance to Jesus of Nazareth is ultimately wrong-headed. The Power of Now states: "Never personalize Christ. Don't make Christ into a form identity. Avatars, divine mothers, enlightened masters, the very few that are real, are not special as persons." In Tolle's system, "Jesus" is little more than a cipher for "awakened consciousness." The particular God-man Jesus and his saving acts in history are of no concern to Tolle. In fact, Jesus only becomes "the way" when the crucified, risen, and exalted Lord of history is put aside.

James A. Beverley is professor of Christian Thought and Ethics at Tyndale Seminary in Toronto, and associate director of the Institute for the Study of American Religion in Santa Barbara.

Related Elsewhere:

Previous Good Questions are available on our site.

On his website, Eckhart Tolle answers a reader's question on his view of the New Testament.

USA Today has an article on Oprah's involvement with Tolle, as well as an excerpt from the book.

Christianity Today published a cover story on Oprah in 2002.

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August 2008, Vol. 52, No. 8

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Teresa

Posted: August 05, 2008 1:50 PM

Tolle is going to hell because he has rejected the one and only person that came as God in human flesh to pay for the sins of the world. He came to reverse the curse, where as Mr Tolle beleives that it is humanity that is divine as not Jesus Christ. That reject will be allowed in the Lake of Fire. I am not saying that I am happy about his denial and the consequnce of such, but no, Tolle is no more Christian then the Anti-christ is or Brian Mclaren for that matter. God bless, Serve your king!

George T.

Posted: August 02, 2008 9:15 PM


It is a "good selling"anything that some people write to make us doubt our Christian Faith. The "Dan Browns" will multiply in various forms. They make lots of easy money!!

A Hermit

Posted: July 29, 2008 5:46 PM

Jesus did not come to bring the one and only belief system or a series of intellectual dogmas that one gives assent to to be 'saved'. When he says, I and the father are one- may they be one 'in us', it refers to a living transcendent reality. How do we experience that? How does one 'lose one's life'? How do we experience the Reality of "not I, but Christ in me?" Christians are called to live the reality pointed to by Christ, to 'do the will of God in the gift of the present moment'. Living the reality, being in Messiah, living as Messiah lived, is far better than arguing over words and concepts. If what Tolle says is helpful, use it. St. Paul calls us to 'test everything, retain what is good.' Beliefs point us to the reality of Christ/Messiah. They do not subsitute for a living encounter.

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