Chopra's Christ: The Mythical Creation of a New Age Panthevangelist | Carl E. Olson | Ignatius InsightChopra's Christ: The Mythical Creation of a New Age Panthevangelist | Carl E. Olson | A review of The Third Jesus: The Christ We Cannot Ignore, by Deepak Chopra | May 5, 2008

http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/features2008/colson_chopra_may08.asp

I'll begin with a positive note: Deepak Chopra's new book, The Third Jesus, has a well-designed, eye-catching dust jacket.

Now the negative: the rest of the book is not nearly so attractive. Not even close.

In fact, it is often downright ugly, in a New Age fundamentalist, Christian bashing, intellectually vapid, historically dismissive sort of way.

Chopra, a one-time medical doctor who was described in 1999 by TIME magazine as "the poet-prophet of alternative medicine," subtitled his book, "The Christ We Cannot Ignore." Would that we could ignore this book and the false Christ it presents. But Chopra, who has authored some fifty books and has earned millions of dollars from his particular brand of neo-Hindu monism for the masses (he studied under Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, founder of Transcendental Meditation), is quite popular. And it appears that The Third Jesus, published in February 2008, has sold well, having spent several weeks on The New York Times top ten bestsellers list for "Hardcover Advice" books. [1]

Worse, The Third Jesus has been praised by a number of Christians, some of them well known "progressives" such as John Shelby Spong and former Catholic priest Matthew Fox. A few of them are Catholic. For example, Father Paul Keenan, the host of "As You Think," a program on The Catholic Channel/Sirius 159, says, "In The Third Jesus Deepak Chopraunfolds for us the spirit of Jesus and with a reverence that is at once simple and profound makes his spirit accessible to us in our everyday lives." Perhaps Fr. Keenan didn't actually read the book. I hope that is the case, for if he thinks the Jesus conjured up by Chopra has anything to do with the historical, biblical Jesus worshiped by orthodox Christians, he needs to find a copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church and shore up his knowledge of Christology 101.

At least Miceal (or Michael) Ledwith, former president and professor of theology at Maynooth University, seems to understand the need to choose from among the various incompatible Christs. Ledwith was ordained a Catholic priest in 1967 and served from 1980 to 1987 on the Vatican's International Theological Commission "under Pope John Paul II when Cardinal Joseph Alois Ratzinger was president," as his mini-bio in The Third Jesus states. The obvious implication is that Ledwith is a well-respected Catholic priest. But it's not clear what Ledwith's official status is at the moment, for he resigned in disgrace from his presidency at Maynooth after a series of accusations of sexual abuse dating back to the early 1980s were finally made public. Ledwith is now a lecturer with the Ramtha School of Enlightenment, a New Age center based in Yelm, Washington, for which he has produced videos, including one titled, "How Jesus Became A Christ". Ledwith offers this praise of Chopra's book:
The message of Jesus was clear, simple and direct. But within a generation of his passion it was compromised in order to accommodate the widely conflicting views among those who claimed to follow him. ... In contrast to a message originally intended to inspire people to the wonders of a world reborn in God, the emphasis nowadays makes it almost impossible to think of Jesus or even Christianity itself except in terms of the suffering savior who died to appease God's anger against us. The terrible toll this emphasis has exacted on the message is sensitively treated in a most compelling way in this very valuable new work.
Simply put, the Christ of Christianity is not the Christ of Chopra. The use of Ledwith's bio is misleading, giving the impression that a Catholic priest of some repute and in good standing with the Church readily endorses Chopra's book. This small but not insignificant instance of misusing facts is but a tiny taste of the sort of misrepresentations, distortions, and outright "did he really write that?" howlers soon to follow.

The Third Jesus Is a (New Age) Charm

The Third Jesus consists of three main parts. The opening part, "The Third Jesus," presents Chopra's Christ and urges readers to abandon the Jesus found in the Bible and Church teaching. It is this section, less than fifty pages long, which outlines the essential points of Chopra's understanding of Jesus. (It goes without saying that this "Third Jesus" shouldn't be confused with the "Third Quest", which reflects some of best New Testament scholarship of the past few decades. If there is one thing this book shouldn't be confused with, it is good New Testament scholarship. Or any sort of good scholarship.) The second part, "The Gospel of Enlightenment," interprets various sayings of Jesus, including some from the Gnostic "Gospel of Thomas, and concludes with a section titled, "Who Is The 'Real' Jesus?" The final part, "Taking Jesus As Your Teacher: A Guide for Seekers," offers fifteen steps to "God-consciousness" and concludes with a withering attack on orthodox Christians—"fundamentalists," in Chopra's simplistic estimation—titled, "What Would Jesus Do?"

Chopra begins by saying that Jesus left a "riddle" that "two thousand years of worship haven't solved." The riddle: "Why are Jesus's teachings impossible to live by?" For Chopra, traditional, orthodox Christianity has not only failed to helped people follow Christ, it has created a false Christ who keeps Jesus' true intentions hidden. What Jesus really intended, we are told, was "a completely new view of human nature, and unless you transform yourself, you misunderstand what he had to say. ... He wanted to inspire a world reborn in God" (2). [2]

There is a sense, of course, in which Jesus did indeed intend a new understanding of human nature, but it does not flow from man's self-transformation, but from a transformation wrought by God through Jesus Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit. But Chopra insists man can save himself if only he recognizes what made Jesus stand out in the crowd: "What made Jesus the Son of God was the fact that he had achieved God-consciousness" (3-4). And, a few pages later, in what is clearly a thesis statement (emphasized by italics): "Jesus intended to save the world by showing others the path to God-consciousness" (10). [3]

To better appreciate what this means, we need to back up and consider the three versions of Jesus described by Chopra— two false and one true, he claims. The first Jesus "is historical and we know next to nothing about him" (8). Chopra employs contradictions in striving to do away with this Jesus. "The first Jesus was a rabbi who wandered the shores of northern Galilee many centuries ago. This Jesus still feels close enough to touch." And yet, while he seems so close and knowable, he is completely unknowable. Why? "This historical Jesus has been lost, however, swept away by history" (8).

You might rightly wonder: Whatever does that mean? Does it really mean anything? (In most cases the answer is simply "No, it doesn't.") It is apparently intended to be pithy and devastating, but it actually sounds like something a high school freshman might write in a thousand-word essay titled, "What I Learned From The Da Vinci Code This Summer." Granted, Chopra's remark about history is absurd, but it is also significant: absurd, since it makes no sense (imagine someone writing, "The historical Julius Caesar, Richard the Lionhearted, and George Washington have been lost, however, swept away by history."); significant, because it sets the tone for the entire book, which overflows with these sorts of squishy non sequiturs.

Not that Chopra is consistent on this point. Far from it. Over two hundred pages later, readers are informed, "History may blur Jesus' biography, but it can't put out the light" (217). So, which is it: swept away or merely blurred? [4] Chopra's argument—using the term with deliberate looseness—is that "the first Jesus is less than consistent, as a closer reading of the gospels will show" (8). He is either unaware or dismissive of the fact that Christians have long grappled with the "baffling contradictions" personified by Jesus, and have concluded (putting it very simply for sake of brevity) that if we could fully understand everything about Jesus, it would strongly suggest he was not divine at all. Besides, it's not as though "consistency" is much of a concern for Chopra.

Chopra's lack of interest in the many writings of Christian theologians and scholars is readily apparent in his dismissal of the "second Jesus," who is "the Jesus built up over thousands of years of years by theologians and other scholars." This Jesus, Chopra flatly states, "never existed" and "doesn't even lay claim to the fleeting substance of the first Jesus" (9). At this point Chopra provides some comic relief, saying that this supposedly non-existent Jesus created by the Church "is the Holy Ghost, the Three-in-One Christ, the source of sacraments and prayers that were unknown to the rabbi Jesus when he walked the earth". (9) Some questions come immediately to mind: If the historical Jesus has been "swept away by history" (just three paragraphs earlier!), how do we know what was known or unknown to him? Where does the Catholic Church teach that Jesus is the Holy Spirit? What does Chopra mean by "Three-in-One Christ"? Is he referring to the Trinity? Has he read even one basic manual of Christian theology? Considering that the only post-apostolic Christian thinkers named in his book are Dante (in passing) and Kierkegaard (a brief mention of Either/Or), I'd place bets on, "No. Never. Absolutely not."

A mere nine pages into his nicely designed tome Chopra makes some inadvertent but strong arguments for deserving to be awarded and named "New Age Fundamentalist of the Year." Fundamentalism, as it has come to be generally described (for better or worse), is characterized by a simplistic world-view, an arrogant sense of moral superiority or self-righteousness, a refusal to take seriously other viewpoints, a dislike for scholarship and nuanced thought, a selective and often tenuous relationship with reason, chronological snobbery, and a dislike for the Catholic Church. All of these qualities are here, overflowing and in abundance. I'll highlight just two here.

First, Chopra contemptuously tosses aside theology and metaphysics: "Theology shifts with the tide of human affairs. Metaphysics itself is so complex that it contradicts the simplicity of Jesus's words." In Chopra's world, mind-baffling theology and complex metaphysics are, oddly enough, used by intellectually-stunted, hate-mongering Christian fundamentalists who are incapable of understanding complicated concepts such as the Golden Rule, anthropomorphism, separation of Church and state, and the infallible genius of Deepak Chopra. ("Trying to find 'the real Jesus'", Chopra later assures readers, "is basically a fundamentalist effort" (139), which must surely be amusing to highly educated New Testament scholars such as N.T. Wright, Richard Bauckham, Craig Blomberg, Craig Evans, and numerous others.)

But I'm fairly confident that even the most dense of these backwoods Bible-thumping rubes would recognize that you cannot praise "the simplicity of Jesus's words" and then, half a book later, say, "Anyone can devise a new interpretation of the New Testament. Unfortunately, this great text is ambiguous and confusing enough to support almost any thesis about its meaning" (139). The reason for Chopra's disdain for theology—from the Greek words theos (God) and logia (discourse or discussion) seems simple enough: he doesn't like thinking logically about God—or at least the personal God of the Jews and the Christians. And when Chopra encounters an argument or position he disagrees with, he simply dismisses it: "Theology is arbitrary; it can tell any story it wants, find any hidden meaning" (136). Chopra's own arbitrary methods and findings are apparently exempt from any such criticism.

Another notable mark of Chopra's fundamentalism is his disdain for the Catholic Church, and especially for Church authority—a dislike that takes on a decidedly anti-Catholic flavor. (Chopra, it should be noted, spent some of his childhood attending a Catholic school, and he dedicates the book "to the Irish Christian Brothers in India who introduced me to Jesus...") So the second Jesus—described as "the abstract theological creation"—"leads us into the wilderness without a clear path out" (9). Christianity is marked by division and sectarianism, endless argument, and an unhealthy appeal to authority: "But can any authority, however exalted, really inform us about what Jesus would have thought?" My best fundamentalist guess is that the good doctor is not referring to the authority of the local First Non-Denominational Community Fellowship, or even Emmanuel Lutheran Church, but to The Catholic Church. And yet this remark is followed by over two hundred pages that declare, in an authoritative and sometimes exalted tone, what Jesus did think, would have though, and must have thought about a host of topics. So, yes, I guess that some self-exalted authority by the name of Deepak Chopra does attempt to do the unthinkable. (Spoiler alert: he fails miserably. But, as I've taken pains to point out, the cover is nicely designed.)

Jesus and "God-consciousness"

Which brings us, at last, to The Third Jesus, or Chopra's Christ. This is the Jesus who "taught his followers how to reach God-consciousness." This Jesus was "a savior", but "not the savior, not the one and only Son of God. Rather, Jesus embodied the highest level of enlightenment. ... Jesus intended to save the world by showing others the path to God-consciousness" (10). Then, having already claimed that the historical Jesus cannot be known and that the second Jesus is a nasty lie, Chopra offers an unconvincing olive branch: "Such a reading of the New Testament doesn't diminish the first two Jesuses. Rather, they are brought into sharper focus. In place of lost history and complex history, the third Jesus offers a direct relationship that is personal and present" (10). But if the historical Jesus cannot be known and Jesus of doctrine and theology is a fabrication, how can they be "brought into sharper focus"?

And upon what evidence does Chopra construct his portrait of Jesus? As noted, Chopra doesn't reveal much about the sources he used, but I suspect they are a combination of Jesus Seminar-like works, radical feminist texts, neo-Gnostic tomes, and a Google search for praises such as "homophobic fundamentalist Christians" and "fundamentalist Christian zealots." Whatever Chopra's sources (there are no footnotes, nor a bibliography), they apparently aren't much interested in the first-century context in which the Gospels are written, especially the Jewish context, which any and every biblical scholar of any heft acknowledges as essential. Yet apart from occasionally mentioning Jesus' conflicts with various religious leaders and some comments about Jesus' forty days in the desert, the explicit Jewish character of the Gospels and the Bible at large is given short shrift. Chopra simply assumes that large chunks of the New Testament are historically inaccurate, written by followers of Jesus who eagerly distorted and manipulated their master's words for their own ends. Of course, no evidence is provided for these important assumptions: no arguments are given, no scholars are quoted, no effort is made to show how and why Chopra accepts one verse as authentic while dismissing others as somehow distorted or corrupted for ideological, dogmatic ends. Call it a low level variety of the "hermeneutics of suspicion." Or call is convenient, self-serving, and dishonest. Either works.

In addition to his strange claim that Christians believe Jesus is the Holy Ghost, Chopra makes other glaring errors. For example, "Jesus calls himself the New Adam" (15). No, he doesn't. In fact, the only use of "Adam" in the Gospels is in Luke's genealogy. The term "new Adam" doesn't appear in the New Testament; rather, Paul compares the "last Adam" (Jesus) to the "first man, Adam" (1 Cor 15:45). Yes, Jesus is understood to be the New Adam (see Catechism of the Catholic Church, pars 504, 505, 539), but the Gospels don't record Jesus referring to himself in such a way.

Having quoted from John 8 ("I am the Light of the world..."), Chopra attempts to provide the context: "Jesus had entered Jerusalem for the last time. Within hours he would be arrested by the Romans..." (22) Wrong. That was still some time away, as the Feast of Dedication had yet to take place (Jn 10:42), as well as raising Lazarus, (Jn 11), the triumphal entrance into Jerusalem (Jn 12:12-19), and the Last Supper discourse (Jn 13-17).

Chopra claims that "Jesus railed against the law..." (23). Wrong. Jesus praised the Law—it was the misuse and abuse of the Law that angered him. He said, "Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished" (Mt 5:17-18). And Jesus, insists Chopra, "didn't dramatize the End of Days", which will come as a surprise to those familiar with Matthew 24 and 25, Mark 13, and Luke 21. He describes the pre-Christian Paul as "a worldly skeptic," which directly contradicts Paul's clear testimony about his zealous adherence to Judaism (Acts 26:4ff; Phil 3:4ff;).

More importantly, Chopra has little interest in what Christians have always understood to be the heart of the Gospels: the Passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He makes the strange remark that "with the resurrection a flesh-and-blood man was transformed into completely divine substance—the Holy Spirit" (136), and implies that the early Christians, desperate to have Jesus back with them, created the belief in the Resurrection (179). Otherwise, nothing. There is much talk of Jesus pointing man toward "the divine" and "God-consciousness," but it is invariably ephemeral and vague. Reading Chopra trying to explain the nature of his Jesus' life and work is like watching a madman shooting fog with a shotgun. He claims to have hit the target every time, but the fog remains and nothing has really happened, even while the shooter's cockiness grows with every blast.

Chopra's Christ disregards the material world. He has nothing to do with Christianity or the Church, or with the God of the Jews and the Christians. He has no interest in faith, concerned only with enlightenment and a higher state of consciousness: "Once we see Jesus as a teacher of enlightenment, faith changes its focus. You don't need to have faith in the Messiah or his mission. Instead, you have faith in the vision of higher consciousness" (62). This Jesus does not ask us to believe in him, but to seek out "his essence, which is the light of pure consciousness" (63). Divine intelligence, the mad shooter opines, "manifests whatever we can imagine" (65). Perhaps all of this nonsense is best summarized in a statement found on the back of Chopra's "Magical Mind, Magical Body" audio tape: "Inside every person is a god in embryo. It has only one desire. It wants to be born."

Chopra says he is not a Gnostic, but there is much about his Christ that is in keeping with ancient Gnosticism, and he approvingly cites Gnostic texts in several places. But more than Gnostic, Chopra's beliefs—however inconsistent and self-contradicting—are pantheistic. This is the monism for the masses, where pantheism and televangelism meet and become one: panthevangelism. And what is taught is not just different from the teachings of the real Jesus and His Church, but is deliberately opposed to them. To focus on Jesus and our response to him, says Chopra, is to miss the point. When one achieves God-consciousness "wholeness prevails. There is no more going in and going out of God, coming to God and moving away. The experience of God turns into a constant for one reason alone: 'I' and 'God" become one and the same" (212; emphasis added). Jesus may be a good example, but he is not the goal: "But Jesus is the very thing you and won't be like once we arrive at God-consciousness" (213).

The New Age (Anti)christ

In the end (and in the beginning and middle as well) Chopra's Christ has nothing to do with the Jesus described in the Gospels, declared in Church teaching, and witnessed to by the mystics and saints. Despite teaching out of both sides of his mouth, Chopra clearly presents his Jesus as the real Jesus: unique, fresh, and newly recovered after centuries of dark oppression on the part of the Church. Yet this Jesus is hardly unique or fresh; he is actually identical or nearly identical with a host of New Age Christ's who have been created, recreated, reincarnated, and otherwise regurgitated over the past century by authors such as Levi Dowling, Jose Silva, Edgar Cayce, Richard Bach, Matthew Fox, and many others.

In his 1996 book, Searching for the Real Jesus in an Age of Controversy (Eugene, OR: Harvest House), Evangelical apologist and philosopher Dr. Douglas Groothuis outlined several common traits of the New Age Jesus [5]. All of them are found in Chopra's book, including:
• Jesus is a spiritually advanced being who provides an example for us to achieve our own "spiritual evolution." He is often compared to, or paired with, Buddha. Thus, Chopra insists, "the Christian seeker who wants to reach God is no different from the Buddhist. Both are directed into their own consciousness" (87). [6]

• As we've seen, the historical Jesus "is separated from the universal, impersonal, eternal Christ or Christ Consciousness, which Jesus embodied but did not monopolize." And the orthodox Christian understanding of Jesus as the Incarnate Word and unique Son of God is "dismissed as illegitimate" since this "is viewed as too limiting and provincial." Or, in Chopra's words: "Clearly Jesus did not have a provincial view of himself. Although a Jew and a rabbi (or teacher), he saw himself in universal terms" (20).

• Jesus death on the cross and his Resurrection are of little or no importance. Thus, a significant part of the Gospels (roughly a quarter of those texts) are simply ignored or dismissed as unimportant.

• Jesus' second coming is not a literal, visible event at the end of the age, but "a stage in the evolutionary advancement of the race..." As Chopra states, "the Second Coming will be a shift in consciousness that renews human nature by raising it to the level of the divine" (40).

• Extrabiblical documents, especially Gnostic texts, are used and regarded as authentic sources for the life of Jesus. Meanwhile, the Gospels are quoted selectively and often "corrected" by other sources. "Other documents may be as old as the four gospels," Chopra writes, "and therefore make their own claim to authenticity" (133).

• Bible passages are given esoteric interpretations that contradict orthodox understandings, as well as historical facts. Chopra especially enjoys reinterpreting texts about "light," ignoring (as in the Gospel of John) the context of the Feast of Lights, and the connection being made in John's Gospel to the Shekinah glory of God.
The Vatican document, "Jesus Christ the Bearer of the Water of Life: A Christian Reflection on the 'New Age'", released in 2003 by the Pontifical Council for Culture and the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, compares the New Age Christ to the Jesus of Christianity, and summarizes the differences well:
For Christians, the real cosmic Christ is the one who is present actively in the various members of his body, which is the Church. They do not look to impersonal cosmic powers, but to the loving care of a personal God; for them cosmic bio-centrism has to be transposed into a set of social relationships (in the Church); and they are not locked into a cyclical pattern of cosmic events, but focus on the historical Jesus, in particular on his crucifixion and resurrection. We find in the Letter to the Colossians and in the New Testament a doctrine of God different from that implicit in New Age thought: the Christian conception of God is one of a Trinity of Persons who has created the human race out of a desire to share the communion of Trinitarian life with creaturely persons. Properly understood, this means that authentic spirituality is not so much our search for God but God's search for us. (par 3.3)
Like so many before him, Chopra does not appeal to history, facts, or logic in presenting his version of Jesus. He is completely derivative and unoriginal, despite his attempts to appear otherwise. Which doesn't prove he's wrong, of course, but it should raise a red flag for anyone, especially Christians, who might be tempted to think Chopra's Christ is better than the real Jesus.

Some Old-Fashioned New Age Christian Bashing

Any fair-minded reader—including non-Christians—should see, I hope, that Chopra likes to have it both ways. For example, in discussing how Jesus' words should be interpreted, Chopra muses: "The trick, in fact, is to take Jesus literally. After centuries of theology, our minds find it difficult to consider him without the trappings of a messiah" (25). But later he complains, "Everyone is aware that a sense of literalism has taken over Christianity. ... We need to take special care, therefore, in showing why literalism rests on shaky ground" (131).

As discussed earlier, Chopra dismisses Christian theology and metaphysics, saying that Christians "argue endlessly over" such matters (9). A few chapters on, however, he claims that "the Church spent most of the last thousand years without needing to argue any facts at all" (131). Does he not appreciate that all of the theology he mindlessly tosses out the window contains a plethora of arguments over the facts? In a related manner, he denounces the "abstract theological creation" (9) of the second Jesus—that is, the Jesus of Christian doctrine and theology—but, two hundred page later, denounces Christians for doing otherwise: "Christianity has done everything possible to humanize Jesus, for we cannot conceive of someone so completely transcendent that even our most cherished qualities, such as love and compassion, fall short of his reality" (220).

It would seem that orthodox Christians, in the eyes of Chopra, are damned either way. This suspicion is verified in the final chapter of the book, "What Would Jesus Do?", which is nothing less than an angry screed against traditional Christianity, the sort of bombastic rant that would make Christopher Hitchens or Sam Harris proud. Christians ("fundamentalists"), Chopra snarls, claim to be about love, but are increasingly filled with hatred: "What is preached is self-righteous tolerance" (220). He points to how "Christian law schools" are (gasp!) training Christian lawyers (the horror!), many of whom go into government work (say it ain't so!). "Has anyone told them that God's word (that is, the Bible), is explicitly out of bounds in a secular state," he frantically asks, "or that God has faces other than Christian?"(221) These Christians are accused of being involved in "gay bashing" and "violent attacks on abortion clinics." These narrow-minded "reactionary forces" filled with "fundamentalist zeal" are doing so because they have "fallen back on the medieval tradition of Imitatio Christi, worshipping Christ by imitating him" (222). That's right: the evil forces of Christian fundamentalism are rooted in people seeking to both worship and imitate Jesus!

Chopra also decries how "the Catholic Church has been adding to scripture since the beginning, and the literal meaning of the New Testament forms only the core of belief. A host of saints, church councils, learned theologians, and popes have altered Jesus's teachings while adopting his authority" (223). Then comes what surely is one of the most bizarre, irrational passages of The Third Jesus (no small feat):
To claim that Jesus would condemn abortion means that one has chosen a very specific Jesus, the orthodox rabbi who cautions his followers that they must obey the laws of Moses. Such a Jesus certainly exists, and since the Old Testament condemns abortion, this allows pro-lifers to skirt one significant problem: Jesus himself does not mention abortion. (223)
Get that? Since Jesus didn't talk about abortion and other issues, such as contraceptives and homosexuality, Chopra thinks it's wrong for Christians to oppose them. But if Jesus says nothing about them, how can Chopra imply that Jesus would support them? This is nothing but an "argument" from sheer arrogance, as Chopra isn't just upset that some Christians think Jesus is opposed to those things, but that those Christians are opposed to Chopra's beliefs about those things.

It gets even worse, as Chopra pits the "strict Jesus" against "mystical Jesus," using completely subjective, historically-questionably qualifiers merely reflect Chopra's beliefs, which in turn are based solely on his authority. In what way is this more convincing than two thousand years of Church teaching? He equates homosexuals with the man saved by the Good Samaritan, claiming they are a "despised class" of people, as though rejecting the supposed goodness of homosexual acts is the same as robbing and beating an innocent man. Christian conservatives are denounced for treating women like "second-class members of the church, if not worse." (225). Paul is portrayed as a misogynist jerk. And Chopra suggests that the Church's devotion to Mary is not only baseless, but hypocritical, since women cannot be ordained as priests.

Returning to the Christian law students he had insulted earlier, Chopra has the morally-stunted audacity to compare them to jihadists and suicide bombers! The common ground between Christian lawyers who obey the law and radical Islamicists who kill innocent people? Belief in truth: "Absolute truth is blind truth." (229) Dare I ask: Is that statement absolutely true? Because if it is, it's blind truth. And if it isn't, then it isn't true. And so it goes. Put simply, Chopra's arrogance is matched only by his stunningly gross illogic. And hypocrisy: "The point isn't to judge the religious right. Not only would such behavior not be enlightened, it would be totally counterproductive as a strategy." (232)

The Road to Spiritual Narcissism

An essential message of The Third Jesus is the tired but popular mantra: spirituality is good, religion is bad (as in, "I'm spiritual, not religious!"). We need, Chopra exhorts readers, to discard "the model of religion. To gather together on the path isn't the same as forming a sect. There is no need for dogma, prayer, ritual, priests, or official scripture. No one is to be elevated above the rest" (171). But if The Third Jesus (and many of Chopra's other books) is anything, it is a dogmatic work, a type of scripture that provides rituals and meditation. Chopra is a sort of priest, the spiritual leader who provides teaching, guidance, affirmation. His website prominently displays the description given him by TIME magazine: "the poet-prophet of alternative medicine." He's become a millionaire by selling his books and tapes, giving lectures around the world, and operating The Chopra Center for Wellbeing in Carlsbad, California, as well as other facilities.

James A. Herrick, in his excellent study, The Making of the New Spirituality (InterVarsity Press, 2003), writes about how the New Religious Synthesis (his term for New Age movements and related belief systems) does away with history in order to open the way "to universal religious insights." Religious belief is detached from historical events and the focus becomes inward. In this context, the gate is opened
to the self-styled mystic, the spiritual charlatan, the religious expert or just the self-deceived neighbor, each operating in a realm of private interpretation of elusive evidences largely inaccessible to their followers or any would-be critic... Shamans, gurus, scholars of religion and even laboratory scientists now intervene between the public and the divine as a new class of priests. Clearly, the movement away from history has not served to democratize spirituality. Rather the opposite has occurred. Under the New Religious Synthesis an asymmetrical relationship develops between the gifted few with unaccountable access to spiritual truth and the dependent many incapable of evaluating that truth. [7]
Chopra is one such guru, and he has certainly achieved an elevated status, not based on reason, but on a private interpretation he describes as "secular spirituality," which is, in reality, a religion: the worship and divinization of self. Herrick, further pondering the tension between those who believe in a personal God and Jesus Christ, and those who espouse an impersonal Oneness and the need to achieve a higher form of "consciousness", writes of this spirituality of self-obsession:
The New Religious Synthesis calls us to self-adoration as spirituality, to the exaltation of our own rational self-awareness—"the divinity operating within us"...—as an act of worship. The Other Spirituality's journey away from submission to a personal and sovereign deity, away from moral responsibility before a Creator God, away from community built on worship of the Wholly Other, arrives at no more interesting destination than spiritual narcissism. [8]
"Spiritual narcissism" is a perfect description of The Third Jesus. Chopra's book is only superficially about Jesus; in fact, he hardly makes any effort to find the real Jesus, having dismissed—without providing compelling reasons—the "historical" Jesus and the Jesus of doctrine and theology. On the contrary, this book is a self-absorbed exercise in pseudo-mystical navel-gazing, the sort of book whose beautiful cover disguises a hollow, empty work that is confused, vapid, and spiritually toxic.

ENDNOTES:

[1] A full treatment of New Age beliefs and Eastern pantheistic monism is not, of course, possible here. An excellent popular introduction can be found in The Universe Next Door (InterVarsity Press, 1988; 2nd edition, especially pages 136-208), by James W. Sire. Sire points out that while traditional Hindu monism emphasizes the oneness of an impersonal God ("Atman is Brahman"), New Age beliefs usually place a great emphasis on the individual person, even while believing in an impersonal, pantheistic oneness.

[2] An excellent Catholic examination of the New Age movement is the Vatican document, "Jesus Christ the Bearer of the Water of Life: A Christian Reflection on the 'New Age'", released in 2003 by the Pontifical Council for Culture and the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue.
[3] "The core experience of the New Age is cosmic consciousness, in which ordinary categories of space, time and morality tend to disappear." (Sire, 176).

[4] "Moreover, like the East, New Age thought rejects reason (what Andrew Weil calls 'straight thinking') as a guide to reality. The world is really irrational or super-rational, and demands new modes of apprehension..." (Sire, 166).

[5] This section is based on pages 64-76 of Groothuis' book.

[6] One hundred years ago, G. K. Chesterton wrote the following about Buddhism in Orthodoxy, "Buddhism is centripetal, but Christianity is centrifugal: it breaks out" and "The Buddhist is looking with peculiar intentness inwards. The Christian is staring with a frantic intentness outward." Also see, "Catholicism and Buddhism", by Anthony E. Clark and Carl E. Olson (Ignatius Insight, 2005), and Buddhist Dreams and Spiritualist Schemes", an interview with Dr. John B. Buescher (Ignatius Insight, April 1, 2008).

[7] Herrick, 256.

[8] Herrick, 259.


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Carl E. Olson is the editor of IgnatiusInsight.com.

He is the co-author of The Da Vinci Hoax: Exposing the Errors in The Da Vinci Code and author of Will Catholics Be "Left Behind"? He has written for numerous Cathlic periodicals and is a regular contributor to National Catholic Register and Our Sunday Visitor newspapers. He has a Masters in Theological Studies from the University of Dallas.

He resides in a top secret location in the Northwest somewhere between Portland, Oregon and Sacramento, California with his wife, Heather, their three children, their two cats, and far too many books and CDs. Visit his personal web site (now undergoing a major overhaul) at www.carl-olson.com.


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