The Paris Project

Nothing new (thank goodness)

In Christianity Today Online, James Beverly questions whether Eckhart Tolle is a Christian in an article unfortunately titled "Nothing New." Based on the title alone, I guessed and was right: Beverly concludes that Tolle is not a believer, nor are his ideas very compatible with Christianity.

Tolle doesn't claim to be a Christian, and I don't know of any Christian communities that claim him. But so what -- maybe there's another question to be asked: "How could Eckhart Tolle help Christians be better Christians?" Tolle had a powerful spiritual experience of insight that revolutionized his down-and-out life, and he is now a spiritual light/guru/presence who has apparently just been kicked through the goalposts of fame by Oprah. When I read him about four years ago, I wasn't concerned about his views of Jesus or the Bible because I wasn't taking him on as a Christian teacher. I didn't come to agree with some of his ideas and I never fully understood others. I see him as a fellow human being who has been spiritually transformed. I'd like to hear his story and be changed by it.

I read The Power of Now and Silence Speaks just after my triplets died -- some women in my fertility support group said Tolle's writings had been meaningful for them. Tolle helped me think about what was real in my life, and in what sense it was real. He validated the profundity of grief and physical pain, even if at the same time he says those things are illusions we create ourselves. Ultimately, he helped me find acceptance. Life is as it is; pain comes from wishing it were, or believing it is, otherwise.

God got my attention through Eckhart Tolle during a time when I was so angry I couldn't listen very well within my own tradition. Now there's something refreshingly not new: God pursues us any and every which way, even in silence and in the now.