... and let's wrap this up.

So, I don't want to harp on this too much but we're all going to be running into this Oprah, Tolle stuff and most people that we know will be aware of this too, so I think it's important to:
1. be aware of what they are teaching (15-20 million people watch Oprah's show every day).
2. go beyond knowing that this is nonsense to being able to articulate why it is nonsense.

But first, let's watch a little more of this nonsense:


This is synkretism (the merging together of incompatible beliefs) at it's best.

As with most synkretistic systems of thought I have seen here just enough truth integrated so as to make the rest of the tripe palatable:

Nuggets of Truth:
1. The Bigness of God
One thing that Tolle emphasizes is that God is bigger than our human understanding. This is true. God is bigger than what we can comprehend. [ie. Job 42:3; Isaiah 40]

2. The Limitations of Institutional Religion
If God is bigger than we can comprehend then He is also beyond our expressions of Him. One of the roles of formal religious institutions (ie. Churches) is to attempt to make the revelations of God understandable to God's creation. It is ultimately impossible to do this in a complete sense. Formalized religion and worship does not give us a complete picture of who God is. However, God himself chose to set up and work through such imperfect means. He, through His commands to His followers, set up worship in the Tabernacle, Temple, and (in the New Testament) His Bride: The Church.

Obviously there are many other small "nuggets" of truth interspersed throughout Tolle's philosophy. Watch for them and be aware of them. They can become bridges through which you can begin discussions with those who are following the ideas of Tolle.

The Problems:
1. Synkretism
Pluralism (the acceptance of multiple ideas) is nothing new to us in the Western World but not all pluralism is synkretistic. Tolle is merging together ideas from Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc... While there are some striking commonalities in some areas the big problem is that Christianity, Judaism, and Islam all claim to have exclusive access to Truth. Thus, someone's got to be wrong. So to take an idea or two from each and then discard the majority (which makes exclusive Truth claims) of what remains simply cannot work.

2. The Starting Point
I believe that this is where we as Christians become so thrown off by this kind of stuff. Tolle is not starting from a "Western/Christian" perspective. We've become so used to having "Western/Christian" beliefs at the core of our way of life that when we encounter something other than this we simply don't know how to deal with it other than simply saying, "well that's just wrong."

Tolle is very clearly coming from an Eastern, polytheistic background. Eastern philosophies have, for millennia, been synkretistic. Christianity has had such a terrible time in countries like India because the Indians simply accept Christ as just one more of their thousands of gods and it makes no real difference in their lives. If you come from a philosophical background that, as part of it's core beliefs, accepts contradictory modes of thought you will have no problem whatsoever adopting philosophies such as Tolle's.

What we are now encountering is a generation within North America that does not have a "Western/Christian" worldview as their default worldview. The problems that missionaries in Hindu and Buddhist societies have wrestled with for years are now coming home:
1. In Hinduism - Jesus is just another god.
2. In Buddhism - Jesus is just another "buddha" (person who has reached enlightenment).

OK, so maybe I won't be able to wrap this up this week.

What other "nuggets of truth" have you seen from this stuff?
What other problems have you seen?