Date: Wed, 20 May 2009 17:16:28 +0300 [05/20/2009 09:16:28 AM CDT]
From: vincent okello
Subject: Re: The secret

I am copying herebelow a factual rebuttal of some of the hype behind
“The Secret”, by Rhonda Byrnes, by Donald S. Whitney, who has been
Associate Professor of Biblical Spirituality at The Southern Baptist
Theological Seminary. It is a long post, but be patient enough to read
it to the end. I have posted it on this forum before, but I think it
was long enough ago for most people to have forgotten it.

VO

A Review of The Secret by Rhonda Byrne
by Donald S. Whitney

I had never watched an entire episode of Oprah until her program on
The Secret. In the promo for the show, Oprah announced that the
program would present “the secret” to making more money, losing
weight, finding the love of your life, and achieving job success. Who
could resist hearing more about such a claim, especially when it is
made by the most influential woman in America and touted as the key to
all her success? Apparently I wasn’t alone. After the show, Oprah’s
website was overwhelmed, emails poured in, and within hours The Secret
had become the best-selling book in the nation.

A week later, while unpacking in a hotel room, I powered up the TV.
Oprah and two guests from the week before appeared on the screen,
effusive about the transforming power of The Secret. Her website
called the episode, “A follow-up to the show everybody is talking
about!”

People are not only talking about The Secret, they are buying it. I am
writing this review in a Barnes & Noble bookstore, and this particular
branch has completely sold out of the book—again. Only two days ago—so
I am told—a storewide announcement assured a horde of anxious shoppers
that another large shipment of the book had arrived and would be
brought to the sales floor momentarily. Readers quickly grabbed every
copy. Almost impossibly, The Secret is even outselling (at this
writing) the final Harry Potter book. And if that weren’t enough, the
audio edition of the book follows these two as the nation’s
number-three seller.

The Australian author of The Secret, Rhonda Byrne, introduces the book
by admitting, “A year ago, my life had collapsed around me” (p. ix).
Through searching for answers in a variety of books new and old, she
began to trace what she believed was a common thread in them all. She
dubbed it the “Great Secret—The Secret to Life” (p. ix).

Byrne became convinced that this was the key to explaining the success
of “the greatest people in history” (p. ix). As she started practicing
this secret, Byrne says that her life immediately began to change in
ways nothing short of miraculous. She decided to make a video called
The Secret to share her discoveries with others. In March of 2006 it
was released on the Internet, but soon went to DVD. By late autumn,
the phenomenal success of the video placed it on two episodes of Larry
King Live. Shortly after, two of the teachers featured on The Secret
were guests on Ellen Degeneres’ daily TV show. Before Christmas, The
Secret DVD had spun off a book by the same title which Oprah Winfrey
catapulted to the top of the charts in February of 2007.

The essence of The Secret is “the law of attraction.” According to
Byrne and the twenty-nine co-contributors whom she quotes extensively,
everything in the Universe (which is always capitalized and usually
synonymous for “God”) vibrates on a particular frequency. When you
think in harmony with the frequency of something, you attract it to
you. If you think about wealth, you will receive wealth. If you think
instead about your debt, you will receive more debt. You attract what
you think about; your thoughts determine your destiny.

Byrne restates the law of attraction in various ways: “Nothing [good
or bad] can come into your experience unless you summon it through
persistent thoughts” (p. 28). “Your thoughts are the primary cause of
everything” (p. 33). “Your current reality or your current life is a
result of the thoughts you have been thinking” (p. 71). According to
the product description on the DVD, “This is The Secret to
everything—the secret to unlimited joy, health, money, relationships,
love, youth: everything you have ever wanted.

Byrne promises with ironclad certainty: “There isn’t a single thing
that you cannot do with this knowledge. . . . The Secret can give you
whatever you want” (p. xi). By it “you will come to know how you can
have, be, or do anything you want” (p. xii).

In the final analysis, The Secret is nothing more than Name It-Claim
It, Positive-Confession, Prosperity Theology (without God and the
Bible), built on a foundation of New Age self-deification. In other
words, the book is just another version of what some TV preachers have
taught for decades, namely, if you will sustain the right thoughts,
words, and feelings, you will receive whatever you want. But The
Secret adds this important twist: your thoughts can bring anything
into your life because you are god.

Books that promise health and wealth for their practitioners are
published every day. But few associate such promises with Byrne’s
breathtaking audacity. She proclaims to her readers,

You are God in a physical body. You are Spirit in the flesh. You are
Eternal Life expressing itself as You. You are a cosmic being. You are
all power. You are all wisdom. You are all intelligence. You are
perfection. You are magnificence. You are the creator, and you are
creating the creation of You on this planet (p. 164).

If that weren’t blasphemous enough, realize that the book your
neighbors and coworkers are reading more than any other also tells
them,

The earth turns on its orbit for You. The oceans ebb and flow for You.
The birds sing for You. The sun rises and it sets for You. The stars
come out for You. Every beautiful thing you see, every wondrous thing
you experience, is all there for You. Take a look around. None of it
can exist, without You. No matter who you thought you were, now you
know the Truth of Who You Really Are. You are the master of the
Universe. You are the heir to the kingdom. You are the perfection of
Life. And now you know The Secret (p. 183).

This would be beautiful if it were addressed to the God of Heaven. But
as Byrne thinks this is what we should say to the person in the
mirror, it is the heresy of heresies. Her “Secret” is nothing less
than Satan’s original lie in the Garden of Eden, “You will be like
God” (Gen. 3:5).

It is no exaggeration to say that this book implicitly (and sometimes
explicitly) denies virtually every major doctrine in the Bible. For
starters, the authority of Scripture is undermined in The Secret,
because the Bible apparently has value only insofar as it (according
to Byrne) teaches The Secret.

Moreover, the Bible is neither unique nor supremely authoritative, for
Byrne maintains that the holy book of every religious tradition
contains The Secret. Thus Byrne’s teaching is eclectic, that is, she
believes that all religions and their scriptures are equally valid in
their authority and basically teach the same thing.

Without mentioning Jesus, she quotes Him in Matthew 21:22 and Mark
11:24, claiming that the teaching to ask, believe, and receive in
prayer is the way to “create what you want in three simple steps” (p.
47). And of course, it is not God we’re to ask, but “the Universe.”
Thus The Secret is pantheistic, that is, it teaches that God is not a
Person; rather He is to be equated with the totality of everything.

Despite this brief nod to the Bible, Byrne’s book is marketed upon the
implication that readers probably would never discover The Secret on
their own. “It has been passed down through the ages, highly-coveted,
hidden, lost, stolen, and bought for vast sums of money. . . . Now The
Secret is being revealed to the world” (from the back cover). Thus the
book is Gnostic, that is, it makes you dependent upon a small, elite
group (namely, Rhonda Byrne and her panel of enlightened experts,
“avatars,” and relatively obscure historical sources) to tell you what
you need to know. In fact, in true Gnostic style, Byrne and her
illuminati expressly refer to what we need to know as a secret—”the
Great Secret.” And of course, you must pay—in this case, the price of
the book or the DVD—to learn The Secret.

There’s no mention of sin in The Secret. The cause of all the problems
in the world and in our individual lives is merely bad thinking,
specifically the failure to recognize and appropriately use the law of
attraction. Therefore the solution to everything lies within us. And
that, of course, eliminates the need for a Savior, a Substitute, or a
Sacrifice. The cross and resurrection of Jesus become irrelevant.

Curiously, there’s not a single reference to death or the afterlife in
the book. Apparently this is a non-issue for contributors to The
Secret, for one of them assures us, “no one will stand in judgment of
[your life], now or ever” (p. 177). Another, when questioned about
this on Oprah’s second show on the book, suggested that Heaven and
Hell were present experiences, not future destinations.

So as with nearly all false teaching, the flaws of The Secret are most
visible when you examine what it has to say about the Bible and Jesus.

If I had to commend something about The Secret, I would mention its
emphasis on gratitude and the importance of the thought life. Byrne
devotes several pages to “The Powerful Process of Gratitude” (pp.
74-80). Though she does not base it on the Bible, Byrne nevertheless
encourages just what the Bible teaches in 1 Thessalonians 5:18, “in
everything give thanks.” She says that regardless of the situations
awaiting her, “By the time I am ready for the day, I have said ‘Thank
you’ hundreds of times” (p. 76). Remarkably, she never says to whom
thanks should be given. Nor is her motivation kindred to the one
stated in the verse above: “this is God’s will for you in Christ
Jesus.”

Regarding the thought life, The Secret reminds us that there is a
powerful connection between our thoughts and our actions. While the
thoughts Byrne wants us to repeat are typically contrary to Scripture,
she rightly observes that the thoughts we constantly affirm influence
our feelings and our behavior. This conforms to the declaration of
Scripture that Christians are “transformed by the renewing of your
mind” (Romans 12:2). For us to live for the glory of God and in
increasing conformity to Christ requires not only that we grow in our
knowledge of God’s Word, but also that we constantly reaffirm specific
truths of Scripture, despite feelings or circumstances that contradict
them.

The problem with The Secret is that it focuses our hope selfward and
not Godward. It is all about self-empowerment, self-fulfillment, and
getting whatever we want. But Jesus warned, “For what will it profit a
man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?” (Matthew
16:26). The Secret disregards the fact that God has a Law and we have
broken it (James 2:10). What Byrne fails to realize about her law of
attraction is that our sinful hearts deceive us (Jeremiah 17:9) and
attract not only more sin and guilt, but ultimately, the wrath of God.

However, God in His mercy sent His Son to receive this wrath as a
Substitute for all who will repent of their selfishness and believe in
Him. And “through the true knowledge of Him”—not Rhonda Byrne’s
book—”His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life
and godliness” (2 Peter 1:3).

“The Secret to everything” (to use Byrne’s term) is God Himself. And
God, the “Great Secret,” has been revealed in Jesus Christ, “in whom
are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians
2:3). God has freely told us in the Bible everything we need to know
about discovering the unlimited “treasures of wisdom and knowledge”
found in Christ. And He remains an unknown Secret only to those who
will not look for Him there.