Comments are still coming in on this post about Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert, so that means it’s time to Educate the Masses. 
Are you ready masses?
Class is in session. Here we go -
This is a comment from Adam. First of all, I love, love, LOVE it when normal folks leave a comment here. By normal, I mean the nonbloggers in the world. Bloggers, do you know there are people in the world that have no idea what a blog is?? I’m serious! Isn’t it shocking? I thought everyone and her mother has a blog.
No, my mom does not have a blog. The woman doesn’t even have a computer, we must remember to pray for her.
Monica… the point!
Oops, sorry. Had too much fun poking fun at myself.
Adam, nonblogger, wrote:
Seriously anyone who thinks Gilbert is trying to lead people away from Christianity has not discovered God themselves. I think deep prayer and mediation is how one connects to God and builds a relationship with him and it’s how God can change peoples lives. Just because someone doesn’t say that you have to accept Christ doesn’t make it bad.
Hold on there, mister. How does a person connect to God? You say it’s through prayer and mediation. What do you say class? Hold that thought because Adam is going to correct himself in a minute…
Adam then says:
She is teaching people how to connect to God that may not have normally discovered him and I in no way see how that is not Christlike, it is very Christ like and her book has done a world of good in showing me how I can connect to God on a deeper level.
Really? You’re a Bible-believing, born-again Christian and you think Eat, Pray, Love helps people connect to God? It’s comments like these that amaze me. (Sorry for picking on you, Adam, but if you disagree, you can start your own blog to refute me.) Gilbert is into Eastern Mediation and Yoga, dude, and a bunch of other stuff I can’t remember off the top of my head. But I’m willing to bet it’s got nothing to do with Jesus Christ.
Christ allows me to return to God and prayer and mediation allow me to connect to God and build a relationship with him. It makes me mad when people attack stuff that can help improve people’s lives just because it doesn’t fit there narrow point of view of how things are.
Look, class! The answer to my first question. Way to go, Adam, you win a star for answering correctly. It’s Jesus Christ who allows us to return to God.
You can pray and meditate, and do all sorts of goofy tricks to try and win the Lord’s favor, but it’s only through repentance and faith in His son, Jesus, that we are connected to God.
By the way, I happen to know that because I read it in my Bible. Don’t bother looking for that bit of info in Eat, Pray, Love, because it’s not there.
And as for that narrow point of view stuff – it’s not my opinion, it’s what Jesus says himself in Matthew 7:13:
Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
It’s a narrow way. Sorry to disappoint, but there you have it. Either a book points to Christ or it doesn’t. Eat, Pray, Love does not. It’s a well-written, interesting, personal memoir of a non-Christ-following woman. Does Gilbert point to Christ as the way to God? No. Read it to learn about what she believes; use it as a road map to God at your own peril.
Sigh. It’s uninformed comments like Adam’s that concern me. Christians, we don’t have time to misinformed. We must know what we believe and why, and then when we encounter false teaching, we can answer correctly.
People are still looking for information about Gilbert and her book, so I think I’m going to re-read it, and post my thoughts here; that way if anyone is interested, we can learn together and have the answers we need to have.
Okay. I think I’m done now. Questions? Comments? Smacks to the side of my head for too much sarcasm?
***
Hmmmm. I just read the next part of the chapter in Matthew. Do you know who Jesus warns us about in verse 15?
