Heaven Help Us!

Here's a sure sign we had better be praying for our country...an article entitled "The divine Miss Winfrey?" I have made comments in past sermons about the "Oprah society" we live in, but I was talking about the fact that we think we have to listen to everybody's opinion about everything. I was not talking about Oprah being some kind of modern-day guru. Here's the list of 'titles' that have been given to Oprah by this artcile or quoted in this article:

• guru
• spiritual leader for the new millennium
• moral voice of authority for the nation
• a really hip and materialistic Mother Teresa
• a symbolic figurehead of spirituality
• a moral monitor
• America's pastor
• today's Billy Graham
• The Church of Oprah

You can read the article for yourself, but here are few quotes that made my blood boil:

• "She's a moral monitor, using herself as the template against which she measures the decency of a nation," Lofton says.
• In those days Israel had no king, so the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes. (Judges 21:25, NLT) How can so many Christians think Oprah is so great when she is her own standard? Granted, Oprah did not say this about herself, but listen to what she does say! She doesn't claim the Bible as her standard of decency. She throws "God" into the conversation from time to time, but as we'll see in a moment, she has all kinds of 'spiritual teachers' on her show and in her life. Oprah is her own god. She picks and chooses from all of the 'religious options' and comes up with her own spirituality. This is exactly what happened to the nation of Israel in Judges and it is exactly what too many Christians are doing today.
  
• What this article is saying is that Oprah has now achieved the status that some people are actually taking from 'the Church of Oprah' and mixing it with other 'religions' to come up with their own spirituality. To many, even in the Christian Church, Oprah has become equal to the Bible when defining their 'Christian theology'. They may not say it, but it's what they are living.
  
• Last fall, at the start of this 20th season of The Oprah Winfrey Show, guest Jamie Foxx said much the same thing, but he wasn't joking. "What you have is something nobody can describe," Foxx said to Winfrey on the air. Then he explained about how he told Vibe magazine: "You're going to get to heaven and everyone's waiting on God and it's going to be Oprah Winfrey."
• The article points out that Oprah went on record as saying "I am not God" for a story in 1989, but to even sit there while somebody makes a blasphemous statement like this is too much for me. Did she stop Jamie Foxx in mid-sentence? She's thrown others off of her show for offending her...I don't believe Jamie Foxx was thrown off the show for this.
• "...and an appointment with Herod was granted. When the day arrived, Herod put on his royal robes, sat on his throne, and made a speech to them. 22 The people gave him a great ovation, shouting, "It is the voice of a god, not of a man!" 23 Instantly, an angel of the Lord struck Herod with a sickness, because he accepted the people's worship instead of giving the glory to God. So he was consumed with worms and died." (Acts 12:21-23, NLT)
  
• In a November poll conducted at Beliefnet.com, a site that looks at how religions and spirituality intersect with popular culture, 33% of 6,600 respondents said Winfrey has had "a more profound impact" on their spiritual lives than their clergypersons.
• If you go to a Bible-preaching church, I don't care how low your pastor's ability to preach falls on his lift of gifts...if you read the Word of God for yourself, this will NEVER be you because you'll see that Oprah's message is contrary to that of the Bible.
  
• Cathleen Falsani, religion writer for the Chicago Sun-Times, recently suggested, "I wonder, has Oprah become America's pastor?"
• Oprah can only be a 'pastor' for those who don't read the Word for themselves!!
  
• At the seminar, according to AP, Winfrey repeatedly spoke of her relationship with God. She even sang a chorus of I Surrender All. "I live inside God's dream for me. I don't try to tell God what I'm supposed to do," she told the crowd. "God can dream a bigger dream for you than you can dream for yourself."
• Why do 'Christians' think just because Oprah makes statements like this that she is a 'Christian'? I'm not sure Oprah would even call herself a Christian. She certainly doesn't fit the Bible's criteria of a Christian.
  
• Marcia Nelson says that it's not going too far to call her a spiritual leader. "I've said to a number of people - she's today's Billy Graham."
• Blah! {please excuse me while I clean up...I just puked!} What disrespect for this great man of God.
  
• One of Winfrey's most appealing subtexts is that she's anti-institutional, says Chris Altrock, minister of Highland Street Church of Christ in Memphis. He says Winfrey believes there are many paths to God, not just one. After doing his doctoral research three years ago on postmodernism religion, a religious era that began in the 1970s as Christians became deeply interested in spirituality and less interested in any established church, he came up with what he calls "The Church of Oprah," referring to the culture that has created her. "Our culture is changing," he says, "as churches are in decline and the bulk of a new generation is growing up outside of religion." Instead, they're turning to the Church of Oprah.
• There you go people. How can you be a Christian and still 'admire' Oprah?!!?
  
• "I think at the time when she had me and Gary Zukav and a lot of the other spiritual teachers on her show, it was her own journey, and she was taking all of the world on that spiritual evolution," Ford says.
• OK, I'll leave you with this one. Read the Bible...you cannot pick and choose from this and that to create your own spiritualilty!
• Jesus told him, "I am THE way, THE truth, and THE life. No one can come to the Father except through me. (John 14:6, NLT, emphasis mine)

Heaven help us!

- Rob