What is a Christian to make of Paulo Coelho? He is a former dark magician, now a practising Catholic, who writes books combining a veneer of Christianity with new age mysticism and occult practices. It might be tempting to ignore him, yet he is one of the best-selling authors of all time, and his books continue to dominate the self-help and new-age sections of bookshops. He is an important author promoting powerful ideas, and so we need to interact with him.
The Witch of Portobello is the story of Athena, a Romanian orphan adopted by Lebanese parents. As a child Athena is unusually intuitive, and she grows into a devout young lady who is firmly committed to her Marionite faith. But she is badly let down by the church at a critical moment in her life and she leaves. Athena then commences a spiritual journey, slowly finding the answers she seeks in paganism and new age spirituality.
The book is structured as a series of interviews, given by the people who knew Athena best. They trace her life from birth to the moment of her untimely death. It is an interesting device, although it doesn’t quite work " the characters never really find individual voices. Still, the flaw is not fatal, as the story itself is simply a vehicle for Coelho to present his spirituality.
The worldview Coelho promotes is classic pantheism, the idea that everything is part of a single divine unity. This unity is given various names in the book " the Universe, God, the goddess, the Earth Mother and so on. By becoming attuned to “the Universe”, a person attains a higher state of self-knowledge, and the Universe in its turn generously grants the person the desires of their heart.
You will doubtless note the similarity between Coelho’s ideas and those presented in the recent bestseller, The Secret. And the same concepts can be found in the books of Wayne Dwyer, as well as in earlier self-help classics such as Think and Grow Rich. There is nothing new under the sun.
How should we respond? A friend of mine dismissed Coelho as “typical New Age tripe”. The comment is understandable, but we need to ask why Coelho has sold 100 million books. Is it because people are naive and stupid? I don’t think so. The real reason, I believe, is because people lack hope and direction. Anyone claiming to make the journey of life a little easier will receive a grateful hearing.
The popularity of such books really highlights a failure in our pulpits. Two errors seem common today. First, many seem to preach a message that is barely distinguishable from the new age literature itself. The preacher, perhaps unwittingly, has simply put a Christian gloss on ideas deeply rooted in eastern pantheism.
Conversely, the more orthodox pulpits often seem to preach a message that consigns all hope and blessing to the age to come. People hear that life in this world is to be endured, but not enjoyed. It’s a message that leaves them wondering if they should bother getting out of bed every morning.
But is this latter view really what the Bible teaches? Must we feel "hopeless' about today in order to be "hopeful' about eternity? Or can we be hopeful about both? I’ve found John Piper extremely helpful in this matter. In Don’t Waste Your Life, he talks about struggling with this issue as a young man:
"What was life about? What was it for? Why do I exist? Why am I here? To be happy? Or to glorify God? Unspoken for years, there was in me the feeling that these two were at odds. Either you glorify God or you pursue happiness. One seemed absolutely right; the other seemed absolutely inevitable. And that is why I was confused and frustrated for so long."
He then adds this devastating line "
"Compounding the problem was that many who seemed to emphasize the glory of God in their thinking did not seem to enjoy him much."
Piper found his answer in the writing of Jonathan Edwards. Edwards showed that God, far from forbidding happiness, actually "commands" us to seek it in Him. And the happiness He offers is better than the world’s happiness. It is richer, fuller and more secure, because it is rooted in the person of God rather than in our circumstances.
I suppose most orthodox preachers would affirm this. Yet I wonder if there has not been a failure to personally apprehend this idea, and a lack of conviction about it in the pulpit? A Christian friend recently read The Secret. He had been feeling down and the book gave him a "lift'. It gave him hope that things could be a little better. I was honestly glad that the book helped him feel better, but I was saddened that he did not find his hope in the proclamation of the Word. Some would place the fault in the listener. Yet to my mind, the challenge here is for our preachers.
As far as the Witch of Portobello is concerned, I would recommend caution. It is not an especially well-written book, yet it does present a compelling and attractive world view that is at odds with Christianity. It's far better for us to spend our time discovering with fresh eyes the good things that the one true God has for us, both in the next world and also in this.
UPDATE: Author Paulo Coelho responds to Craig Schwarze:
Yes, it is a very good review. I read it yesterday (I was notified by google alerts) and at least you don’t dismiss my work on the basis other people do (and that you mention in the article). Neeedless to say that I am a Catholic.
You are welcome to share your views in [url=http://www.paulocoelhoblog.com]http://www.paulocoelhoblog.com[/url] with my readers. There is no censorship (there is a moderation because we need to avoid spam). I will copy this to my staff, to be sure that you have freedom to speak whatever you feel.
May God bless our quest,
Paulo Coelho
