It is New Age teaching that Oprah Winfrey embraces while still calling herself a Christian. But can one buy into believing Eckhart Tolle while still believing in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior? New Age apologist Richard Abanes says, "No way!"

A New Earth…An Old Deception, Part 2 w/Richard Abanes

Welcome to Haven Today. I’m Charles Morris telling the great story that’s all about Jesus. This is the second program with New Age specialist Richard Abanes called, “A New Earth…An Old Deception”. It started in March. Oprah Winfrey hosting a 10 week online class in cyberspace reaching hundreds of thousands in 139 countries, the interactive webcast featured New Age spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle. Oprah, who says she’s a Christian, was promoting a theology by someone who would deny he’s a Christian. We’ll be joined in studio in a few moments by Richard Abanes who has just released the first book to counter this New Age teaching advocated by Oprah. Later, I’ll tell you how to get a copy of this brand new book from us. And I want to also say, “Thank you,” to all the many listeners who’ve responded to help send a tent in the name of Jesus Christ to China. 5 million people are homeless after the recent earthquake and we’re working with a Kingdom Company that makes tents in China and a Christian relief agency on the ground in Sichuan province. You can still provide help by going to our website at haventoday.org. Drawing on lyrics written by Charles Wesley, Caedmon’s Call opens our program with a song from their “Back Home” album.

Song:
Performed by: Caedmon’s Call

Welcome again to Haven Today. I’m Charles Morris in Southern California and in our studio today is Richard Abanes who we just had on with us yesterday. He’s the author of a brand new book and our phones have been ringing and people have been getting online with us wanting a copy of his brand new book “A New Earth…An Old Deception”. It’ll be in Christian bookstores in a few weeks but we have it right now at our warehouse and we’d like to get you a copy as well. And I know, I don’t always promote a book but this is a book worth promoting. So, Richard Abanes welcome back to the program.
RA: it’s good to be back with you.
CM: We are talking about Oprah Winfrey and her good friend Eckhart Tolle. It was a spirituality course that began oh, I don’t know, early this year and it was online, people from 139 countries, people numbering in the millions every week would go to this website. It was sponsored by Lexus and other vendors. And it was a spirituality course and you actually have written your book to counter this new bestselling book by Eckhart Tolle which is called, “A New Earth” and it comes on the heels of his last bestseller which is “The Power of Now”. For someone who didn’t join us, and we’ll post yesterday’s program on our website as well, quickly Richard, can you just kind of give us a little thumbnail sketch of how do we understand Eckhart Tolle, what it is that he’s teaching.
RA: Well, basically he has taken a lot of self-help, practical living skills and teachings about how to get through life, how to sort of let go of the past and not worry about the future and just simply be in the moment now, in the present. And that’s very important in his teaching, it’s central to it. And in that way, he says people can live better, fuller, happier lives.
CM: That’s very appealing
RA: Very appealing and in fact, you know, as Christians we ourselves even say, “Look, the past is the past. You know, you can be healed of those things that have happened to you, those terrible wounds that you have. You can go forward, you can trust the Lord for tomorrow because he’s going to take care of you,” and all these things. So, you know, some of that stuff is compatible there and that’s why it appeals so much to Christians. However, on top of those teachings, Tolle, the reasons why he gives all of these teachings is based upon issues such as who is God? And he says we are God. He says teachings about how we can look to Jesus Christ as an avatar or a teacher of teachings but not the unique Son of God. The way of salvation is within us, we are the truth, not Jesus Christ. So he blends this practical self-help stuff with theological teachings and that’s where the problem lies. And unfortunately the way he does this is he actually quotes quite a bit from the Bible to do it.
CM: More than any other source
RA: More than any other source in “A New Earth” and you have Oprah Winfrey, of course saying she’s a Christian and she has no problem with these teachings. And so it’s sort of sucking in a lot of maybe young Christians, Christians who are not rooted and grounded in scripture and many people who are maybe just looking at Christianity and think, “Oh, this is, this is compatible with Christianity so I’ll follow this and I’ll be a Christian.”
CM: My wife, Richard, I think makes a very good point. She says that the questions Eckhart Tolle poses are very valid and they’re very accurate. But the other shoe falling there is that it’s the answers that aren’t right. He doesn’t get the answers right. I mean, I always agree with my wife but wouldn’t you agree with my wife?
RA: Absolutely. You know one of the things that, some of the answers that he gives are very, very interconnected with how do we stop suffering? How do we let go of the past and things that have happened to us? And a lot of people need this, desperately need this. And his answer is we need to understand that the things that happened to us really didn’t happen to the real self. It happened to this illusion of form on the outside that we see. When the “real us” is this inner essence of cosmic stuff that is divine, the essence that is all things. We are one with all. And that is our real self, so he says that when something bad happened to us, traumatic, it didn’t happen to the real us, and so we don’t really have to deal with it or recognize it we can just let it go and be in the present moment understanding our divinity.
CM: because it probably wasn’t true.
RA: Right, exactly
Cm: And that sounds like it’s coming out of Hinduism then.
RA: It absolutely is. All the world is an illusion even – and this is one of the most tragic and offensive things to me – even evil things that we see done are not truly evil. They are not absolutely evil or wrong because there is no good or wrong in Tolle’s paradigm, in his world view.
CM: which means of course, that even though he quotes the Bible so frequently, he would not believe in a biblical concept of sin.
RA: That’s right. Sin is rejected by Tolle as we know it. And of course if sin is rejected then there needs to be no forgiveness for sin because even the concept of forgiveness is an illusion. There is no one in Tolle’s world view that we are accountable to, there is no real justice, there is no real forgiveness. And yet these things are so necessary, we as human beings long to see forgiveness for things we’ve done wrong. I’ve done things wrong, you’ve done things wrong. We long to see justice given to those who’ve hurt us and others and yet this is not to be found.
CM: Well, and I guess if there’s one thing you can find in scripture it is that not only is there good but there also is evil. And you can’t say that there is not one but there is the other, the fact is there are both. And if you just look through clear lenses at the world in which we live today there’s got to be sin.
RA: Absolutely.
CM: And you can look in the mirror but you can just look at the evening news cast or the drudge report online or whatever and you know that things are not going right in this world.
RA: Right and you know that’s one thing that Christianity offers. Christianity is very, very cut and dry and is very plain when saying, look there is good, there is evil. And there’s a war and a struggle going on in the world and for those who want to be slaves to righteousness rather than slaves to sin you can come to Jesus Christ and he can give you forgiveness through his death on the cross and through faith placed in him. It’s a free gift of God and as you experience that uniting with the Lord in salvation, you experience forgiveness and then you give that forgiveness to others. And this is how the world changes. You know, we’re supposed to be known by our love.
Cm: No human being can change the world.
RA: No
CM: Only the Spirit of the Lord at work in the world can change hearts and change lives. And you know, Richard I guess I’m going to set you up for this, but our slogan here on Haven Today is “telling the great story, it’s all about Jesus”. It’s the story of all stories; it’s the romance of the ages. Eckhart Tolle is trying to lead people who’ve lived painful lives and have had bad things happen to them and he’s trying to tell them, “Forget it. It’s not true. Just live in this ethereal world today and something that you can kind of just make up in your imagination.” But the reality is that Jesus Christ came and died. He died because he loved us. He died for our sin. He died for the sake of getting rid of evil. How does that work its way out not just in truth but also truly, God is a God of love, it’s all about Jesus?
RA: It is about Christ and the thing that Eckhart Tolle says is that we need to escape suffering. In Christianity it’s a very different message and that is God will be there through the power of Jesus Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit to get us through suffering. Look, suffering, pain and hurt is part of this life we live. We’re not going to get away from it. But God has come so that we can get through it with his strength, his comfort, his guidance, his peace, his joy, knowing that as we go through life, this great adventure we call life, there is a purpose to suffering. It changes us, it molds us, it shapes us. You know, when I was younger and I used to work out at the gym a lot my favorite, and everybody’s favorite saying was “no pain, no gain” and in life it’s the same thing! We don’t change sometimes unless we feel that pain and suffering and it builds character, it molds us and shapes us, the Bible says, to actually make us more like Jesus Christ. And knowing that as we go through this life there is a day on the other side when the suffering will stop. Every tear will be dry. There will be no more disease, there will be no more hunger, no more poverty. We will be reunited with loved ones. We will have complete joy in the presence of God. And that’s what we as Christians look forward to.
CM: That’s right and it begins now. It’s going on now today if you are in Christ Jesus as your Lord and Savior.
RA: That’s right.
CM: Let me just say, if you’ve joined us, these 2 strange guys talking together on the program, it’s called Haven Today and Richard Abanes is with us today, I’m Charles Morris. And we are talking about his new book “A New Earth…An Old Deception: Awakening to the dangers of Eckhart Tolle and his #1 bestseller”. And the ink is still almost wet on your book. We actually have it in our warehouse right now. It’ll be showing up in Christian bookstores soon. You can get it by going online to one of the online services and ordering it there but we have it as well and we’ll tell you how to get it in just a moment. Let’s back up just a little bit here. Richard, would you describe Eckhart Tolle as part of what has been called the New Age movement?
RA: Absolutely. Theologically speaking, Eckhart Tolle would be a New Ager. He teaches many of the tenets of the New Age movement, also Hinduism, which is a big part of New Age
CM: Yes
RA: that would be pantheism, for instance.
CM: Yes
RA: pantheism is a big word for simply believing that all is one, god is all and we are god. Basically everything we see is an illusion, you, me, the microphone at our faces, the rock at our feet, it’s all the illusion of form and everything beneath the form, beyond what we see in the metaphysical realm is all just the same stuff, it’s made out of the same stuff and that’s why we’re all one. That’s what pantheism says and that we’re all god because we’re all of this one essence. Also as we were, I think, speaking earlier about how evil and sin and good and bad is all just an illusion. There’s nothing that’s truly good or bad because it’s just something we’re thinking, we’re connecting with it as good or wrong. And so, yes he would be a New Ager. And what I’m seeing too is this new spirituality that we have to be very, very careful about today, not to be over reactive, not to be paranoid, not to be excessive, but to understand that there’s this sort of blending trying to occur between what used to be just the straight up New Age movement and Christian terminology. So we have to be very careful that these things don’t merge and blend and become this unified hybrid of some sort of new belief system.
CM: good and evil, we talked about good and evil, truth and lies. What you’re saying is that what Eckhart Tolle is teaching is not truth so that would be, by inference, a lie
RA : Absolutely.
CM: or lies that he’s teaching. Standing back away from this just a little bit, I think it’s kind of hard for those of us who grew up in a more traditional Judeo-Christian setting that there’s a new “church” – may I use that word in quotation marks? – there is a new spirituality at work in North America today. It’s bigger than most of us think, isn’t it, and Eckhart Tolle is just a part of that?
RA: Absolutely. You know, Eckhart is the one we just see the most but it’s in many, many places where you’re seeing individuals take the Bible because, you know, even people who don’t believe the Bible, it has sort of an air of power behind it and that’s because it’s God’s Word and people can feel that. And so you’re starting to see now these New Agers quoting the Bible quite a bit and infusing the verses they quote with different meanings so they can sort of have the best of both worlds. And this is what this new spirituality is, this blending of all kinds of things because in the world today, I think many people are just, to be blunt, sick and tired of the religious wars, the hatred, the attacks and so, in some ways it’s an attempt on the unbeliever’s part to say, “Let’s stop fighting. Let’s not disagree so much. Let’s take the best of everything and –
CM: Can’t we just all agree on the same thing?
RA: Exactly. Let’s just take the best of everything and put it all together.” And the problem with that, of course is that, you know, if you look at the different religions, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, Judaism, there are some things that are similar but there are many things that are mutually exclusive and you can’t blend them!
Cm: You stir that pot and you’re not going to have world peace.
RA: No, not at all, not at all. So I think we as Christians have to come to a point where we, yes, stand firm in our faith, do not compromise on the essentials of Christianity and yet understand that we’re at a time in the world where we are no longer isolated. You know, we’re going to be working with and seeing and meeting and conversing with people of all different faiths and we need to be able to accept them, to tolerate their views and to share with love and gentleness and kindness and respect what we believe and simply says, “Look, this is what Christianity is. If you want it come along with me for the ride because it’s awesome. But if you don’t, I’m still going to love you,
CM: Yeah, yeah
RA: I’m still going to be your friend. I’m still going to care about you.
CM: Yes
RA: And I’m going to pray for you.
CM: That’s a good, a very good point. Richard, you’ve been telling me that Eckhart Tolle doesn’t teach the true Jesus. Who is the true Jesus? And how does someone who’s listening to us and who maybe has been reading Eckhart Tolle and other New Agers, how do they find and meet the true, real Jesus of the Bible?
RA: That’s a great question and it has to be through the Word of God. The Word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword and that is where we understand and learn primarily, who Jesus Christ is. So one of the things we have to do when we’re talking to New Agers, or really talking to anyone, is get them to a place where they are at least ready and willing to read the Word of God and accept it at face value. Now this is very hard with New Agers because they believe in this esoteric way, this secret, hidden way of reading the Bible so you have to get them to say, “OK look, I will read the Bible and I will just accept what it says at face value.” If they get to that point, if you can get them to that point, then at least they can see the passages where Jesus is described as God the Son, where he is the unique Son of God, where he says, “I AM” or he says, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life”. Ok, so then they can get to the point where they can either disagree or agree with it. And I think one of the ways you can do that is to say, “Look, you read any manual, any book, any novel, any ancient text, let’s even say the Bible, you read it and you don’t interpret those things any way. For example, if you want to read the basic tax laws you can’t just read it and say, “Well, I think I’m just going to pay what I feel I should pay.” They’re not going to pay anything.
CM: there’s a standard here that you have to meet.
RA: There’s a standard. Words have meanings.
Cm: Yes
RA: We have language, that’s how we communicate. So you have to get them to the point where they read the Bible and accept it at face value, that’s the first part. And then of course there’s prayer, that’s the second thing.
CM: Yeah, you mentioned that a minute ago and the power
RA: The power of prayer
CM: of the Lord
RA: Yes, the Holy Spirit
CM: is at work here.
RA: Even, and, you know, no matter what we say, if we say it perfect or we say it imperfectly, if we’re faithful and we share the Gospel as best we can from our heart with gentleness, love and respect it’s the Holy Spirit that moves anyway. So that’s one thing, so the three things I’d say is get them to read the Word of God at face value, secondly keep it in prayer and third, when you’re talking to them don’t attack them, be kind, loving, generous, gentle –
CM: You mean be Christ-like?
RA: Be Christ-like!
CM: Wow, alright! What a new dimension here!
RA: Preach like Jesus.
CM: Amen! Richard Abanes, this has been really my pleasure having you on the program. And I think we’ve got some people listening today. We know that from the people that were listening and contacted us yesterday. Would you mind leading us in prayer and would you pray for people who are sensing maybe a warning flag has been raised, that maybe they need to go back to the Word and they need to seek and find the true Christ Jesus?
RA: I will, I will do that.
Lord God, we come to you today in faith and we pray for everyone out there right now who’s listening to this program and everyone who’s going to be touched in some way by this program and we ask in faith that your Holy Spirit would get a hold of them, open up their hearts, their minds and their eyes so that they can see truth and that they will know you, the real you in a deep and wonderful and freeing way and that you would be glorified even through these falsehoods that have been printed and spoken about through Eckhart Tolle that you would use that. You know, you said that you work all things together for good to those who love you. And we ask that you would work this out for good that many, many would come to know you as their Lord and Savior because this topic has been brought up. In your name, Oh God, we pray, amen.

Song:
Performed by: Haven

From the album “Enter In” that’s Haven reminding us of our Great God on a Haven Today called, “A New Earth…An Old Deception”. So many people have listened and then been in contact since we had New Age specialist Richard Abanes on the program yesterday and if you just heard today, go to our website and listen to yesterday’s program as well, haventoday.org, just press the button that says, “Listen” and you can easily share the program with a friend. Now when you visit us at haventoday.org, you’ll also notice we have the first book responding specifically to the teaching of Eckhart Tolle. You heard Richard Abanes talk about his new book and I’d like you to get a copy right away as our thanks for your making a gift to Haven Today. Also thanks to everyone who gives above and beyond the suggested gift amount. So go online to read more about the book at haventoday.org or call us at 1-800-654-2836. Now if you’ve also heard me talk the last few days about helping to buy a tent for those in desperate need for temporary housing in China but you haven’t responded and you’d like to it’s not too late. Not a dime to Haven, we’re passing this through with no handling fee. You’re entire gift will help to buy part of a tent, an entire tent or even several tents. Just know that your tent will be made in China by a Kingdom Company. It’ll also be distributed by a Christian relief agency and it’ll be given in the name of Jesus. We’ve left the tent information up at haventoday.org or call us at 1-800-65-HAVEN and you can still take part. When you give, just make sure and let us know what portion of your gift is going for the tent project and which portion is a gift for Haven Today. I’m Charles Morris, thanks for being with me and Richard Abanes. Would you come back again tomorrow when again we’ll be sharing the great story? It is all about Jesus and we’re going to share Jesus together here on Haven Today.