Michael Beckwith

A friend just wrote me, asking what I think of some guy named Michael Beckwith who is appearing on the Oprah show tomorrow. Here’s what I think…

He is essentially a Unitarian Universalist (UU) in disguise. “Jesus said… ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’” (John 14:6) Beckwith says, any way is okay. He uses, I imagine, that tired old saying that there are many paths up the mountain. Jesus says that he himself is the path—indeed he is the mountain itself. I have seen in people’s lives that it’s possible to be on the wrong mountain altogether. In fact, I’ve been on mountains where some trails are dead ends. Beckwith and other UUs say that you can believe anything you want…that it’s all part of the same reality. The Bible teaches that there is knowable, absolute truth. Every UU I’ve ever encountered wants people to be able to believe anything and everything except that! The reason for that is that they want you to be able to follow the teachings of Jesus but everybody else’s teachings too. That just doesn’t line up with what Jesus says about himself—not to mention other statements in the scriptures.

So I guess what I’m saying is that picking and choosing what little bits and pieces of all the different religions, which Beckwith calls “reality,” makes him god. If you can choose what is truth and discount the rest—the rest being God’s revelation of himself to humanity—then that makes you smarter than God.