Avdat

Choke me in the shallow water before I get too deep

I keep getting email forwards warning me about Oprah's new course on a New Age Jesus.  So does Ben Witherington.  He copied and pasted the email into his blog, if you care to read it.

Some people have asked me what I think about this course.  Of course I think it's claptrap, but I'm not bristling with indignation about it the way that the author of the email is.  These heresies are best knocked down with laughter, not with anathemas.

For instance.  Just read this little lesson by Oprah's partner in this project, Marianne Robinson, about how you can loose yourself from the prison of the past.  Here's a woman who's thrown some of her vague recollections of college philosophy debates about universals in with TM jargon she picked up from, I don't know, the Free Expression Tunnel (?), to create a "lesson" that sounds like she's either mocking meditation or the stupid things you debate in philosophy class.  Except that it's entirely earnest.

This guru is ripe for a You Tube send up.  Any takers out there?  No?  Maybe an SNL sketch?

Is there a philosopher in the house?

I'm not sure who's got the better of it.  Nietzsche?

Or Johnny and the Sprites?

What say you?  Brandon?  Seth?

Via Crooked Timber.