Eckhart Tolle

I’ve had lots of inquiries over the past several months from people looking for speakers to help “protect” their congregations from the dangerous teachings of Eckhart Tolle. Since I haven’t had the time to read his books, and don’t know anyone who is teaching on him, I’ve not been very helpful. (And frankly, I don’t think very highly of “inoculation” approaches anyway.) But here’s an interesting exploration of his work by preeminent theologian and Franciscan priest, Richard Rohr. One of Rohr’s points is that:

Although Tolle is not a Christian teacher, we must not assume that makes him an anti-Christian teacher. Today we need whatever methods or help we can receive to allow the Christian message to take us to a deeper level of transformation. Our history, and our guidance of Western history, shows this has clearly not been happening on any broad scale. This is an opportunity for us to understand our own message at deeper levels. It would be a shame if we required him to speak our language and vocabulary before we could critically hear what he is saying-that is true and helpful to our own message.