Once a week on the Internet, Oprah is holding a virtual spiritual classroom. Millions are attending. But is she on the right track and what does the Bible teach about spirituality?

Oprah’s Gospel: Good Questions. Wrong Answer

There is spirituality in abundance, audio meditations, quick ways to pray and now on her website a weekly spiritual class on the internet attended by millions. Her name is Oprah and she dispenses spiritual advice. Yet even as she is a very real, very nice person is her advice to be heeded? Will her advice change your life? I’m Charles Morris and welcome to Haven Today where every day we tell the great story that’s all about Jesus. New spirituality and a brand new course. That’s what Oprah is offering and people are joining her for the once a week, 10 week course. Oprah is joined by bestselling, self-described spiritual guide Eckhart Tolle, going into his new book and Oprah’s selection of the month called, “A New Earth: Awakening to your life’s purpose”. Is this better than traditional Orthodox Christianity? Is what she and he are teaching biblical even though Tolle frequently quotes the Bible? Stay with us on this program called, “Oprah’s Gospel: Good questions, wrong answer”. We’ll listen in on the Oprah course and we’ll talk with a biblical scholar, Dr. Eric Tonnas for his advice. You know, the scriptures say there is a deep spiritual thirst in all of us. In a way, all of us need rescuing and we feel that need deep inside of us. Don’t worry. Help is on the way. Let’s open with the group New Song leading us to the one who said he is “The Way, the Truth and the Life”, leading us to Jesus.

Song: Rescue
Performed by: New Song

The song is called, ‘Rescue” and it’s by the group New Song here on a Haven Today called, “Oprah’s Gospel: Good questions, wrong answer”. I’m Charles Morris and as we begin may I say that I know from people who know her that Oprah is a very good person and she has a deep desire for a deeper spirituality. And I personally think she has the best of desires in joining with Eckhart Tolle in holding a once a week, one hour course Monday nights on the internet about Tolle’s new book, it’s called “A New Earth: Awakening to your life’s purpose”. In that virtual classroom Oprah was asked by a caller from Illinois how she reconciles the spiritual thinking in Tolle’s new book with her Christian faith. She tells how she grew up in a Baptist church and then in her 20s there was this spiritual turning point:
OW: This great minister was talking about how great God was and how omniscient and omnipresent and how God is everything and then he said, “And the Lord thy God is a jealous God.” And I was all caught up in the rapture of that moment until he said jealous. Something struck me. God is all, omnipresent and God is also jealous? God’s jealous of me? And something about that didn’t feel right in my spirit because I believe that God is love and that God is in all things. And so that’s when the search for something more than doctrine started to stir within me. And I love this quote that Eckhart has where he says, “Man made God in his own image, eternal, the infinite and unnamable was reduced to a mental idol that you had to believe in and worship as my God or our God.” That is exactly what I was feeling when I was sitting in church that Sunday listening to the preacher.”
That’s Oprah from her virtual spirituality class being held Monday nights on the internet with Eckhart Tolle. Yesterday we caught up with Dr. Eric Tonnas, a systematic theologian at Biola University and Talbot Graduate School of Theology. Eric, you’ve been following Oprah and her spiritual teaching for a long time. What do you think about her answer that we just heard?
ET: Oprah is asked about the jealousy of God and she affirms God’s omniscience, she affirms God’s omnipotence and then wonders why in the world God would ever be jealous. I would love an opportunity to talk to Oprah. She is a bright, winsome, personable, admirable person in many ways but I’m so concerned that she doesn’t understand the jealousy of God. She thinks a God that’s all powerful and all knowing wouldn’t care what she thought of him or what she called it. And to me that’s one of the saddest things I can imagine. That God made us in his image to glorify him and to know him as he is is one of the most wonderful things we can realize. To know a God who is a personal God and not just an impersonal force that I can define anyway I want is what is at the core of my soul’s deepest cravings. And so God has instilled in us a desire to know him as he is and he is some ways and he isn’t other ways. And in the same way I want to be known as I am and not misunderstood, God wants to be as well and so he desires to have a relationship with his creation based on reality not on my own invention of who God is. And if I’m left to myself to invent God in my own image we’re all in big trouble.
CM: Dr. Eric Tonnas, thanks for joining us and you and I will talk about Oprah’s gospel, her spirituality more on our next program together. I need to mention that we’re offering a single CD of our two programs and may I invite you to get a copy by heading to our website, haventoday.org, you’ll see it there on the home page. Or you can call us at 1-800-654-2836. And let me say in advance of you’re making contact, thank you for sending your gift for that gift. And we’ll get you this special CD out in the mail right away. Read the Eckhart Tolle book all the way through. Attend the virtual classroom that Oprah is holding on the internet. It’s nothing new and it’s not Christianity. What Tolle is saying has been around a long, long time in various forms. It’s not something hot off the presses. At the heart of it are two simple things: a problem and a solution. First, the problem, we’re trapped. The touch and feel and smell world around us traps us. Our thoughts trap us, our bodies trap us, our egos trap us and we need to find a way to escape. Second, though, the solution. We escape by entering into a higher state of consciousness which will get us in touch with who we are and set us free from all the traps. Tolle says he’s had this experience. He’s been enlightened. He’s entered into a higher state of consciousness and he’ll show you the way. This kind of claim is what drew the Beatles to India to study under Mahash Yogi in the 60s. it’s nothing new, in fact it’s been around for a long time. It was around when the Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Colossae. He was writing to Christians who were being enticed by this same claim of spiritual enlightenment. The way he answered it was to drop Jesus on it. To crush it under the weight of who Jesus is, the cosmic central identity of Jesus. Tolle makes Jesus out to be just one enlightened teacher along with Buddha and others. He quotes some of his teaching and interprets them along his own lines. That’s what was happening in Colossae. Some teachers were casting Jesus in the role of an angelic being, just one more step along the way to spiritual enlightenment or wisdom. Paul warned them in Colossians 2:8, “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of the world rather than on Christ.” This is a very relevant warning for us today. Is it based on Christ? That’s the litmus test. Any teaching that claims to be the way to true enlightenment is a trap if it doesn’t have Christ at the heart of it. That’s the key. It has to be all about Jesus for it to be true. Paul warns them in that little young church not to be taken in by these ideas. He tells them in Colossians 2:18 that these people who go into great detail about what they’ve seen are actually puffed up with idol notions. The reason the Colossians must not buy into this teaching and why we mustn’t buy into Tolle’s teaching is that it diminishes Jesus. We refuse it because we know any claim of enlightenment and spiritual wisdom is false if it’s not based on Christ. In Colossians 1:9 Paul uses the term, “all spiritual wisdom and understanding.” All spiritual wisdom and understanding is gained through Jesus. Not by entering into an altered state of consciousness but by seeing Jesus by the power of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit. There’s great transforming wisdom and power in having the spirit open your eyes to see who Jesus is and what Jesus has done and by understanding what you have when you put your faith in Jesus. Paul answers these teachers’ claims to enlightenment and blows them out of the water simply by dropping Christ on them. He drops the greatness of Jesus on their foolish claims of enlightenment. Listen to what he says about Jesus. I’ll start with Colossians 1:15, “He is the image of the invisible God, the first born of all creation. For by him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities. All things were created by him and for him. He is before all things and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.” It’s all about the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s the right answer. That’s what the Bible teaches. Tolle is claiming that the universe has been evolving till this present moment when our brains have finally reached the point where consciousness can manifest itself. When that happens, he says, there will be a new heavens and a new earth. He admits that he got his term and title of his book from the Bible but he didn’t get his world view from the Bible because his world view doesn’t have Christ at the center. What he’s teaching is not Christianity. God has a very different plan for the new heavens and the new earth than Tolle’s, one that is built entirely on Jesus Christ. Paul was putting the building blocks of the new heavens and the new earth in place in the verses we just read, one mighty, glorious block at a time and every one of them is Christ. Buddha once told his followers, “If you see Buddha in the road, shoot him.” What he meant by that was, “I’m just a guide. Don’t focus on me.” But what Paul is saying is do focus on Jesus. He’s not just a guide, someone to help you down the road. It’s all about Jesus. He’s not just in the road, he is the road and he’s the destination of the road. He’s the meaning and purpose and goal of everything, creation and new creation. In God’s picture of reality it’s all about Christ both creation and new creation. Look at the creation. Paul says that Christ is the image of the invisible God. If you’re looking for the hidden reality you won’t find it through altered states of consciousness, you’ll find it by looking at Christ. Paul says he is the firstborn of all creation. That doesn’t mean he was first to be born, the firstborn is the heir. Christ is the heir of all creation. But it gets even more amazing. Paul says Christ is the one by whom the world was made. He was the agent of creation. It was all made by him and for him. He is the whole point of creation. Any teaching that makes Christ out to be one more enlightened teacher will lead you away from the truth into darkness. All things were made by Christ for Christ, including you and me. He was before all things and all things hold together in him. That’s a remarkable statement! Christ is the unifying point of al creation. It centers all on him. It holds together in him. It belongs to him. But as Tolle rightly points out, there is a problem. Things have gone wrong. We experience it in the bondage we feel in ourselves, the way we’re trapped in our egos and we see it in the way humans operate in relation to each other. It’s not surprising that every religion claims to have an answer to this problem and I think we desperately need an answer. But the answers different religions offer are not basically the same as Tolle claims. God’s answer is Christ. Through Christ is brought about a new creation. Paul says “And he is the head of the body, the church.” That “and” word means he’s changing subjects there. Christ is not only the source and center of creation, he’s also the source and center of the new creation. And Paul says that new creation is seen right now in his church. The church is his body and he is its head. We can experience right now, through him, by the power of the Holy Spirit, a recreated, liberated life. When Jesus Christ was raised from the dead he was the beginning of a whole new creation which we possess right now in him. He’s broken the bondage to the ego that totally describes so well and gives us a new life of freedom. How has it happened? Paul tells us very clearly. He says, “God located the fullness of his entire being in the incarnated man, Jesus, and through him reconciled to himself all things whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. The cross, there is no new creation, no liberation for our egos, no way to truly break out of our anxieties and depressions, no peace among people apart from what God has done through Christ on the cross. It was there, on that little patch of earth, on that very day and time that everything was put right. It was there that God reconciled himself to this rebellious world and it was there that he made peace by providing for the forgiveness of our sins. There is no other answer to the problem apart from the cross because the cross is what God has done and he’s done it through Christ alone.

Song:
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We’re going into Easter. A week from this Sunday we believers in Christ will be celebrating the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Tolle is right that all religions have seen a problem. His answer is a lessening of materiality an escape into another level of consciousness. God’s answer is not to lessen materiality. He will recreate the material world. One day he will recreate this beautiful, flawed world just as the body of Jesus was recreated through resurrection. The current creation is held in bondage. In the new creation it will be liberated but it will be just as material, just as physical and we will still be able to enjoy al the delights of the beautiful world God’s made. We’ll be able to see it, hear it, taste it, smell it and feel it. It’ll be as real as the body of Jesus. Jesus told Thomas, remember, “Go ahead, touch my body. Put your hand in my side.” He was proving to Thomas that he had a real, physical body. That’s why he ate with them. Not a ghost, physical, real. Not in bondage to decay anymore. Jesus’ body was renewed, infused with the life of God, not subject to decay, never to die again. It was a spiritual body, as Paul explains it in 1 Corinthians 15. He didn’t mean it was a spiritual as opposed to a physical. He meant it was a body where the physical and the spiritual were united in a new way. The trouble with Tolle’s idea of new creation is that it’s just like the Buddhist and Hindu idea. There is never an escape from decay, never a body that isn’t going to die. We’re just trapped in an endless round of reincarnations. But in Jesus Christ there is an end to death and decay. We will inherit new bodies and a new world, a new heavens and a new earth that will truly be free, free from the bondage of death. Who will inherit this new creation? Paul makes it very clear that God has located the answer to that question in his Son. Christ inherits and those who believe in him inherit along with him, not because of anything we have done or could ever do but because of what God has done through his Son. I’m recalling Colossians 1:12, “The Father has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves.” Haven Today and the program’s called, “Oprah’s Gospel: Good Questions, Wrong Answer”. We’re going to look at this one more day together and I sure hope you can join me. But even if you can’t let me suggest this: we’ve put together a CD with both programs for you. We’ll have Dr. Eric Tonnas on with the program and we’d like you to have this CD as our thank you for your gift to Haven Today. You can go online and read more about it at haventoday.org. That’s one word, h.a.v.e.n.t.o.d.a.y, haventoday.org. Or you can call us, toll free in North America at 1-800-654-2836, that’s 1-800-654-2836. Please would you let us know the station you’re listening to when you get in touch as well? And if earlier in the week you heard our programs with Sally Lloyd-Jones reading from the “Jesus Storybook Bible” we still have that and the “Tiny Bear’s Bible” as a thank you for your gift to the ministry. They’re online at haventoday.org or by calling 1-800-65-HAVEN. I’m Charles Morris and I’d like to invite you to come back and join me again tomorrow. This is a very, very important topic. A lot of Christian women watch Oprah every week. Is she right spiritually? Well, you need to listen again. Join me again tomorrow as we tell the great story that’s all about Jesus here on Haven Today.