Oprah Winfrey and Her Guru, Eckhart Tolle
Oprah has a genius for creating programs and entertainment that makes people care about the things she cares about. Her enthusiasm is infectious, her expertise in using media unquestionable. Does this ability and passion equate to being right? Of course not – not any more than it does for anyone who doesn't have a TV program with millions of viewers. So when Oprah takes to disputing the Lord Jesus Christ (not religion, but Him and His actual Words), it's a slam dunk that she's wrong. This article shows precisely how.
Oprah Winfrey has determined to be a vessel of true enlightenment in the world today. On her TV show, she teaches and promotes anti-Christ nonsense to millions of her fans and followers, using Eckhart Tolle and his book, A New Earth, for guidance.
There’s no need for us to get into the many errors of this book and Oprah’s misguided doctrines and philosophies. By addressing two essential errors Oprah makes, along with mentioning several key truths she and Tolle deny, this writing will cover all the falsehood she teaches (for more details, see the internet articles linked at the end). We do this for Oprah’s sake and for the sakes of those deceived by her religious beliefs.
(By the way, know that a sudden explosive growth of numbers of followers due to the leader’s popularity and influence is by no means an indication the teaching is of God. Indeed, Biblical doctrine and testimony declare the exact opposite. Jesus said:
“Go in through the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many there are who go in through it. Because narrow is the gate and constricted is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it” – Matthew 7:13-14 MKJV.)
The First Error: Oprah misunderstands just how God is a jealous God
According to Oprah, she was raised a Christian, and indeed, it appears she still says she’s Christian, however unbiblically she defines the term. She claims (naïvely, though honestly, so it seems) to have had a spiritual epiphany of sorts, which resulted in her seeing through the error of Christian dogma as she understands it.
Her significant “revelation” occurred when she was in her late 20’s at her Baptist church. As she was sitting in the congregation listening to a preacher, she heard him mention that God was a jealous God. That struck her, she says. “God Almighty, Who created all things, jealous – of me, of us?! How ludicrous a notion is that?” she thought. “How can God have a petty feeling like that?”
She claims that because of this concept of the jealous God of Christianity, she has washed her hands of nominal Christendom, Christ, and God as taught in Scripture. Yet she calls herself a “Christian.” But by whose definition and standard? By whose interpretation of the Bible? Her own? That of Biblical doctors and scholars of nominal Christendom? Eckhart Tolle’s?
What great error Oprah has committed against herself by a simple, uninformed, flippant, irresponsible misunderstanding and conclusive judgment of God’s declaration in Scripture that He is a jealous God! Not only does she lose herself with an unlearned notion, but by her popularity and influence, she adversely impacts the lives of many others.
How is God a jealous God? To start, there is only One God, the Scriptures declare:
“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one” (Deuteronomy 6:4 ESV).
(See our section: Jesus Christ Is God.)
When God says He is a jealous God (and yes, He says it, not men), He means there is only one God. He isn’t claiming a negative emotion as men know it, but declaring that men err and do themselves damage in presuming there are other gods worthy of worship and placing their trust in gods that are no gods. Idolaters wander, get lost, and destroy themselves in the end when presuming there is more than one God or that there are many ways to Him. His will is that men live and prosper, walking in His true way. He doesn’t will that they perish.
Thus, He is a jealous God, not for Himself, and not of us, but for us and for our wellbeing.
Said Jesus, the Only Begotten Son of God (God’s Manifestation of Himself to mankind):
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came so they may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10 ESV).
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, like a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were not willing! See! Your house is left to you desolate…” (Luke 13:34-35 EMTV).
Jesus Christ cares, and His intention for us is only good. He alone laid down His life for mankind, as proclaimed by several prophets for centuries, indeed millennia, before He came and offered Himself as a sacrifice for sin. He is jealous for His people’s sake, just as His servant, Paul, described himself on behalf of the Corinthian believers:
“I feel a divine jealousy for you, for I betrothed you to one Husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ” (2 Corinthians 11:2 ESV).
Those who go whoring from Christ after idols destroy themselves:
“O LORD, the hope of Israel, all who forsake You shall be put to shame; those who turn away from You shall be written in the earth, for they have forsaken the LORD, the fountain of living water. Heal me, O LORD, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved, for You are my praise” (Jeremiah 17:13-14 ESV).
Only Jesus Christ had the power to raise Himself from the dead, because only Jesus Christ is God. Only Jesus Christ has the power to raise us from our spiritual deadness that results from sin. And that’s why He said He is a jealous God. He wants us to know that there are no other gods or ways to God, as Oprah, in her limited understanding, supposes must be.
So if Jesus comes to give us life and that more abundantly, declaring the truth and laying down His life freely so we might have access to Him, where does Oprah stand? There is only one option. She stands on the other side of the equation of John 10:10: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.” She stands with the thief, who denies the Lord Jesus Christ. Her religion and Tolle’s philosophy are the work of devils.
Oprah and Eckhart deny the reality of sin, though every writer in the Bible speaks of, and defines, sin from Genesis to Revelation, the first and last books of the Bible.
Winfrey and Tolle deny Jesus Christ is THE Only Begotten Son of God:
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16 MKJV).
They deny Jesus Christ offered up His life as the Lamb of God sacrificed for the sins of mankind:
John 1:29-34 MKJV
(29) The next day John sees Jesus coming to him and says, “Behold the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world!
(30) This is He of Whom I said, ‘After me comes a Man Who has been before me, for He preceded me.’
(31) And I did not know Him, but so He would be revealed to Israel, therefore I have come baptizing with water.”
(32) And John bore record, saying, “I saw the Spirit descending from Heaven like a dove, and He abode on Him.
(33) And I did not know Him, but He Who sent me to baptize with water, that One said to me, ‘Upon Whom you shall see the Spirit descending, and remaining upon Him, He is the One Who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’
(34) And I saw and bore record that this is the Son of God.”
They deny He was raised from the dead:
“Jesus answered and said to [the Jews], ‘Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.’ Then the Jews said, ‘This temple was forty-six years building, and will you rear it up in three days?’ But He spoke of the temple of His body” (John 2:19-21 MKJV).
His Word was soon fulfilled.
John 20:6-10 MKJV
(6) Then Simon Peter came following him and went into the tomb. And he saw the linens lying there.
(7) And the grave-cloth that was on His head was not lying with the linens, but was wrapped up in one place by itself.
(8) Therefore, then, that other disciple also went in, the one who came first to the tomb. And he saw and believed.
(9) For as yet they did not know the Scripture that He must rise again from the dead.
(10) Then the disciples went away again to themselves.
“And the apostles gave witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus with great power. And great grace was on them all” (Acts 4:33 MKJV).
1 Corinthians 15:12-15 MKJV
(12) But if Christ is proclaimed, that He was raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?
(13) But if there is no resurrection of the dead, neither has Christ been raised.
(14) And if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation is worthless, and your faith is also worthless.
(15) And we are also found to be false witnesses of God, because we testified of God that He raised Christ; Whom He did not raise if the dead are not raised.
These doctrines are in the Bible, clearly and constantly declared, even witnessed in blood throughout history by faithful martyrs.
In spite of all these contradictions, Oprah and Eckhart quote the Bible. If they believe anything of it, how do they decide what is accurate and true and what isn’t, what is of God and what isn’t?
Where did they hear of God or of the Lord Jesus Christ if they didn’t believe anything of the Bible?
Who or what is the source of their understanding, which is contrary to those who wrote the Bible and have faithfully instructed from it?
How do Winfrey and Tolle deal with the facts of the Bible? Hundreds of prophecies were literally and specifically fulfilled, against astronomical odds, in the coming, birth, life, death, resurrection, and effect of Jesus Christ on the whole earth. No number of men put together has had such an influence as Jesus Christ on mankind, before His appearing or after.
The Bible is all about Him, from Genesis to Revelation, written over millennia by about 40 authors, all testifying of Him and agreeing with each other. How do Oprah and Eckhart deal with that?
Jesus Christ’s grave is empty. Not so with Muhammad’s, Buddha’s, Krishna’s, or any other’s. All these were buried and their bodies turned to dust. Tolle’s grave, with all his “marvelous” understanding and revelations, will be occupied by his corrupt remains. So why should anyone listen to him when he contradicts the One Who raised His body from the dead?
By what authority do Winfrey and Tolle suddenly decide to deny the testimony and substance of the Scriptures, while quoting from them as though they are worthy of reference?
So if they deny the basic tenets of the Scriptures, which are a testimony of God and of Jesus Christ, why do they refer to the Bible as authoritative, yet rely on their own contradictory understanding of what the Bible says?
Yes, Oprah, you greatly err in your assumptions, beliefs, and the faith in your “prophet,” Eckhart Tolle. He is a self-contradicting, ignorant, presumptuous, foolish man, now weighed in the balances and found wanting. Unless the Lord decides otherwise and grants repentance, Tolle is in for a sad end.
The Second Error: Oprah doesn’t believe it’s possible that there is only one way to God
What kind of god does she worship when she believes he can’t decide on one way to worship him? What makes her think such a thing is impossible to the Creator of the universe? Oprah, do you know more than He does? Can you even copy, never mind create, so much as a hair on your head?
Jesus declared, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life; no one comes to the Father but by Me” (John 14:6 MKJV).
Does Oprah think God can’t be so small as to have only one way to Him, or doesn’t she realize how great He is that He can make that one way applicable to all?
Peter said of Jesus:
“This is the Stone which you builders have counted worthless, and He has become the Head of the Corner. And there is salvation in no other one; for there is no other name under Heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:11-12 MKJV).
Oprah, you haven’t studied the Scriptures or heard from God. You’ve learned nothing from Him; you’ve only heard what others who don’t know Him have had to say. You’ve thought things up and allowed your selfish feelings to snare you. You wanted what you have and are pleased with it, but you’ll eventually find you’ve been deceived and are empty.
John 3:14-17 ESV
(14) And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
(15) that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life.
(16) For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.
(17) For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him.
“Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him” (John 3:36 ESV).
These aren’t the threats of a jealous God as you know jealousy, Oprah. Neither are they an unrighteous, selfish monopolization of worship. These are simply the facts.
There is only one God and to God alone is due worship, honor, praise, and glory from us, His creatures being made in His image.
He has determined to demonstrate, in the fullness of ages, His love to all mankind, every man and woman in their order, some in this life, some in another, some in this age, some in another, some in this dimension, some in another.
Thus, in the full spectrum of the ages, He will reconcile all men to Himself.
“And through Him having made peace through the blood of His cross, it pleased the Father to reconcile all things to Himself through Him, whether the things on earth or the things in Heaven” (Colossians 1:20 MKJV).
Ephesians 1:9-12 KJV
(9) Having made known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He has purposed in Himself:
(10) That in the dispensation of the fulness of times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in Heaven, and which are on earth; even in Him:
(11) In Whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of Him Who works all things after the counsel of His own will:
(12) That we should be to the praise of His glory, who first trusted in Christ.
(See our section: The Restitution of All Things.)
That’s why it’s possible to have only one way to Him. There’s only one way to God and that way isn’t by men or religion, but by God, Who manifested Himself to this world as Jesus Christ, the sacrificial Lamb for the sins of all.
And yes, He is a jealous God, but not as you so ignorantly surmised.
Oprah, how can you be so confident in thinking you know better than all the prophets and apostles of God and Jesus Christ? And for the record, those prophets and the Messiah of all mankind were of Israel, a nation that has been resurrected from the dead in our day after two millennia, according to the Scriptures. What do you do with those facts? If that isn’t a miracle, what is?
One day, Oprah, you’ll look back at how foolish you’ve been, and how vain your guru has been. You will know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, and will hang your head and blush in shame at how you had treated Him, yet you’ll be greatly thankful that He had mercy on you when you were so contrary to Him.
Some links for more information on Oprah’s “church” and its teachings:
The World’s “Most Dangerous” Spiritual Guru: Oprah Begins 10-Week Online New Age Class
Oprah Winfrey Is Not a Christian
Victor Hafichuk