Lately I've been getting a lot of e-mail from conservative Christians and organizations lambasting what they believe are the Christ-denying evils of Oprah Winfrey's obsession with A New Earth author Eckhart Tolle. I'm not familiar with Tolle or his books, some of which have sat atop best-seller lists for months (thanks, undoubtedly, to being Oprah book club picks) but I wasn't surprised by the objections, given that his work appears to be new-agey, inclusive, and universalist. I wasn't paying that much attention -- is it surprising that conservative Christians find this sort of thing heretical and cult-like? But after watching the leading anti-Oprah YouTube video, which has been viewed more than five million times, I see that it's not just about Oprah. It's about Obama.
Most of the video was what you'd expect -- she denies that Jesus is the son of God, questions whether there's a hell, participates in deep-breathing and visualization exercises with Tolle, and recounts how she began to doubt the doctrine of her Baptist church. (The pastor described God as "jealous.") OK, this seems like a classic spat between theological orthodoxy and new age babble, right? But at the end, the video plugs the book by fundamentalist Christian writer Carrington Steele, Don't Drink the Kool-Aid: Oprah, Obama, and the Occult, and suggests that Winfrey's endorsement of Obama is part of a grander plan to lead Christians astray from biblical teaching. Another video (both are available on Steele's web site) goes even further, intimating that Winfrey, Tolle and/or Obama are the Anti-Christ, brainwashing the American public into following a false prophet. "The pieces of the puzzle are coming together," the video concludes. "Christians are being deceived."
--Sarah Posner
