Face to Face

Servant Magazine, Issue Eighty-two, 2009, Page 8
http://www.prairie.edu/documents/Servant82.pdf

Oprah Winfrey’s promotion of Eckhart Tolle’s book A New Earth has turned it into an international bestseller, influencing millions. In it Tolle asserts, “There is only one absolute Truth, and all other truths emanate from it....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.’...Jesus speaks of the innermost I Am, the essence identity of every man and woman.”

Donald S. Whitney calls Tolle’s teaching “the oldest blasphemy in the world,” and the same old lie Satan told Eve in the Garden of Eden: “You will be like God.” “One of the quickest ways to expose a false teacher,” writes Whitney, “is to examine what he says about mankind, Jesus, and the Bible… uncovering one major heresy usually indicates the presence of many others. Tolle’s heretical deification of man means that our great problem is no longer separation from God due to sin, but separation from ourselves….Tolle does mention sin, but…for him it is not the transgression of or lack of obedience to the law of God, but ‘to live unskillfully.’ And the ‘salvation’ we need is not the forgiveness of sin, but enlightenment.”

James Enns, History Professor at Prairie Bible College, calls Tolle’s message “just one more tired reiteration of New Age therapeutic psycho-babble.” Yet Enns is concerned about the widespread popularity of this teaching, believing that it reflects the basic human need for significance. “One of the most subtle effects of sin is the self-alienation we experience in our efforts to be our own god. Tolle’s solution is to proclaim the lie of our own divinity even louder. The writer of Proverbs reminds us that the fear of the Lord—not the worship of ourselves—is the beginning of truth and wisdom. It is only when we humbly confess that God in Christ is the way, truth and life, that we can truly be transformed, and discover that real meaning and significance are a gift God offers us in Jesus, not something we create.”

Servant Magazine, Issue Eighty-two, 2009, Page 8
http://www.prairie.edu/documents/Servant82.pdf