Marianne Williamson

Marianne Williamson is a New Age author and minister.

Williamson is the author of “A Return to Love,” in which she described how A Course In Miracles (a channeled book on which she has also lectured) changed her life.

In a 1992 article on Williamson, the Los Angeles Times wrote:

[T]his self-described “Jewish unwed mother” has become the foremost interpreter of “A Course in Miracles,” the 1,200-page tome she first noticed on a friend’s coffee table about 15 years ago, not long after it was published. “Students” of the course, which has sold 750,000 copies, are told that it was dictated by Jesus Christ himself over a seven-year period to an emotionally tortured psychologist named Helen Schucman.
– Source: The Power, the Glory, the Glitz; Marianne Williamson, an ex-nightclub singer, has attracted many in Hollywood with her blend of new-time religion and self-help–and alienated more than a few, Los Angeles Times, Feb. 16, 1992

Published in 1992, A Return to Love catapulted Marianne Williamson to fame when Oprah Winfrey bought 1,000 copies to hand out, telling her television audience she had experienced 157 miracles after reading it. The book was on the New York Times bestseller list for 35 weeks.

The media has often misidentified Williamson as a Christian minister.

Williamson has been spiritual director of Renaissance Unity, formerly called Church of Today, in Warren, Michigan from 1998 to 2002.

Renaissance Unity is affiliated with the Unity School of Christianity, which is – theologically – a cult of Christianity:

The Unity School of Christianity is a classic new age cult. It has the appearance of being Christian; however, it holds pantheistic or new age beliefs at its core. Unity was founded by Charles and Myrtle Fillmore in 1889, and was later incorporated as a church in 1903 by the Unity Society of Practical Christianity in Kansas City. Unity is best known by its publication The Daily Word, used by many who are unaware of its doctrinal positions.
– Source: Russ White, Probe Ministries: Unity School of Christianity

Time Magazine got it right when it wrote:

Yoga, the Cabala and Marianne Williamson have been taken up by those seeking a relationship with God that is not strictly tethered to Christianity.
– Source: TIME, Dec. 2003

Williamson resigned from Renaissance Unity in 2002. Her resignation led to some controversy within the church.

After her resignation, Williamson devoted herself to lecturing and peace activism.

Marianne Willamson is the founder of Project Angel Food, a meals-on-wheels program that serves homebound people with AIDS in the Los Angeles area.

Williamson also founded The Peace Alliance, a grassroots lobbying effort to create a U.S. Department of Peace.

In September, 2006, she will start a radio show on Oprah Winfrey’s new XM radio channel.