Eckhart Tolle and the Death of Truth

It is insightful to recognize that Eckhart Tolle is a number one best-seller. Even now we can see him on the New York Times Best-Seller List in the Paperback Advice books for two books in a row, the number one and two book, A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle, who is dubbed a "spiritual teacher who is going to help end conflict and suffering," as well as The Power of Now, which is allegedly a guide to personal growth and spiritual enlightenment.

Eckhart Tolle is a man who believes that if you go deep enough in your religion then you will all get to the exact same place. In other words, all roads lead to the same destiny.

Do all religions lead to the same place? Before I answer that question, let me issue a warning. Anyone who answers in the negative may well be ostracized for being narrow-minded and intolerant. That being said, here's my answer: no. Not all religions lead to the same place. It is incorrect as well as illogical to maintain that they do.

When you begin to examine world religions, religions like Judaism or Hinduism or Buddhism, you will immediately recognize that they directly contradict one another. Moses taught that there was one God. Krishna believed in many gods. Buddha was agnostic. Logically they can all be wrong, but they cannot all be right.

Not only that but the road of religion leads steeply uphill. The road of Christianity descends downward. What I mean by that is religion is fallen humanities attempt to reach up and become acceptable to God through what we do. Christianity, on the other hand, is a divine gift based on what Christ has done. He lived the perfect life that we could never live and He offers us His perfection as an absolutely free gift. Jesus taught that there was only one way to God. "I am the way and the truth and the life" said Jesus. "No one comes to the Father except through Me."

Tolle, who is promoted by people like Oprah Winfrey, says that all religions offer only glimpses of truth and no religion has total truth. In the final analysis his final arbiter of truth is subjective experience. As I've said many times on the broadcast, experiences are notoriously unreliable.

Eckhart Tolle says the moment you say "only my belief is true" and you deny other beliefs, then you've adopted an ideology.

That raises the question: What is truth? That was the very question Pontius Pilate asked Jesus Christ. In the irony of the ages he stood toe to toe with the personification of truth and yet he missed its reality. Unfortunately we today, as postmodern people, are in much the same position. We stare at truth but fail to recognize its identity. That's why people like Eckhart Tolle can deceive us. We have to recognize that truth, at its root, is an aspect of the nature of God. So if we're going to put on truth we've got to put on Christ, because Christ is truth and we, as Christians, are called to be the bearers of truth.

Christianity is not true because it works. It's not true because if feels right. It's not true because it's my truth. It's true because it's anchored in the Person and work of Jesus Christ who demonstrates that He is God - the one who spoke and the universe leapt into existence - through His resurrection. Truth is anything that corresponds to reality. It doesn't yield to the size and strength of the latest lobby group. It's not a mere matter of preference or opinion. Truth is true even if everyone denies it, and a lie is a lie even if everyone affirms it. Truth is essential, as such, to a realistic worldview. When sophistry and sensationalism and superstition sabotaged truth our view of reality is seriously skewed.

The bottom line is that the death of truth spells the death of civilization.