Daily Caller Imports Idiocy of Team-Sports Politics to the Spiritual Arena

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The weblog of A. Barton Hinkle

-- editor and columnist at the Richmond Times-Dispatch, and contributor to Reason magazine.

Also: Recipient of the 1987 Nobel Prize for Medicine, reigning UFC lightweight champion, and two-time winner of the Pillsbury Bake-Off.

Among his many other awards, Hinkle has received the 1942 Academy Award (the Oscar) for costume design in "How Green Was My Valley"; the Wooten-Murray Fellowship in Gas Dynamics from the University of Edinburgh; designation as "Sexiest Man Alive" from People Magazine (in 2004 and 2009, and he has a good shot at it again next year since he started working out again); the Robert H. Gibbs Jr. Memorial Award for Excellence in Systematic Ichthyology from the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists; and a variety of military service decorations, including a Silver Star for nighttime air combat missions over the Solomon Islands in WWII and a Congressional Medal of Honor for conspicuous gallantry at Montbrehain, France, in 1918.

He is also a pretty good dancer.

9:40 am - Tue, Mar 5, 2013: 3 notes

Daily Caller Imports Idiocy of Team-Sports Politics to the Spiritual Arena

In its continuing quest to undermine Ashley Judd’s potential Senate run against Mitch McConnell, the Daily Caller today takes out after spiritual guru Eckhart Tolle, whom Judd thinks highly of.

The DC’s slam against Tolle is that “Christian Scholars” don’t think quite so highly of him. The piece cites all of two, but that’s enough to justify the plural.

I’ve read Tolle’s The Power of Now and thought it had some useful insights and advice, though not enough for me to shell out big bucks for some of Tolle’s other works. If you’re a Christian who cares deeply about doctrine, it’s probably not the book for you.

On the other hand, it’s also probably not the book for you if you’re a Muslim who cares deeply about doctrine. Or a Hindu, or a Taoist.

But here’s the funny part: If Islamic scholars were denouncing Tolle for his deviations from Koranic thought, the Daily Caller would make him out as a hero.

You don’t have to look very hard to find DC stories snarking about Islamic influence in the Occupy movement, for instance. Or printing columns warning about the dangers of Islamism. Or noting with raised eyebrows that Chris Christie’s attorney general has appointed Islamists. Or jabbing Nancy Pelosi for holding a fundraiser with Islamists. Or — well, you can find lots more yourself.

Five bucks says the Daily Caller really doesn’t care one way or the other about Eckhart Tolle. But since Ashley Judd said something nice about him, the magazine felt compelled to find someone on the right team — i.e., the Republican Christian team — to bash him, and thereby indirectly bash Judd for not being a very good Christian.

I bet she’s not a very good Muslim, either. And if Judd wants to get the DC off her back, the quickest way she could would be to find some imam to say so.