Oprah and her religious beliefs feelings
April 6th, 2008 ~ Pop goes the culture
Remember the bad feeling I got back HERE about Oprah’s planned Webcasts? Well, she’s done a couple of them now, and my bad feeling has become a downright awful feeling.
I knew that she wanted to do these Webcasts so that she could reach and teach a large audience about a book she loved called “A New Earth.” I kind of figured that this wasn’t going to be excerpts from St. Basil the Great or anything, but I didn’t know she was going to go off into the real tinfoil-hat-wearing stuff.
And that’s where she’s gone, judging from this YouTube video with excerpts from the Webcasts. It starts off with a little background from Oprah’s show that demonstrates that she was already an adherent of the New Age-y baloney-speak that there are millions of paths to God. She even says that it’s impossible that there would be just one way. I think it’s pretty darn precious that she gets pushback on that from her own audience:
Woman: What about Jesus?
Oprah: What about Jesus?
Woman: There is one way and only one way, and that is through Jesus. (scattered applause)
Uh oh. Dissent in the ranks. Time to cut to a commercial.
But that part wasn’t as pitiful as the segment of the Webcast where a woman asked Oprah how she has reconciled the spiritualist teachings from “A New World” with her Christian beliefs. (What Christian beliefs? Well, never mind.) Oprah’s answer really amounts to a kind of “anti-witness” — a narrative of one person’s apostasy. She tells about being in the Baptist church in her late 20’s, hearing a minister say that God is a jealous God and how that didn’t “feel right in my spirit.” (Did she know that that passage isn’t just one pastor’s opinion, that it’s what God said about Himself in Exodus? I couldn’t tell.) She sat there in church and thought “God is jealous of ME?” Wow, how narcissistic can you get?
But if Oprah found an original passage to stumble over, she is a textbook case of how to fall away altogether:
- Get a mistaken notion about one verse, get a “bad vibe” about how tough Christianity is or how mean or how uncool. Allow yourself to get terribly offended.
- Make sure you don’t talk to anyone who could actually set you straight. That’ll enable you to get to …
- Think it over all by yourself and decide that if there is a God, He surely means you to understand everything about Him and be comfortable at all times. So obviously you have to …
- Leave your faith, and feel wise and self-righteous about it in order to …
- Come up with a whole lot of very strange, implausible and unreasonable ideas and believe them completely
And what does Oprah believe? Well, you can’t say exactly, because she says that …
God in the essence of all consciousness isn’t something to believe — God is. God is. And God is a feeling experience, not a believing experience. And if your religion is a believing experience, if God for you is still about a belief, then it’s not truly God.
Not a believing experience, a feeling experience. Right.
Well, I hope a lot of people are going to feel like she leaves a lot to be desired as a spiritual instructor. She should stick to talking to movie stars. At least when she interviews Tom Cruise, he’s the one that seems like the weirdo.
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April 7th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Yeah, I am not surprised either.
April 7th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
My wife showed me this video yesterday - I was blown away that people are buying in to this. My wife said over 500,000 people signed up for Oprah’s webcast. When then sat down to eat dinner and she asked me to pray. I said “I don’t know, I don’t really “feel” God right now - He must not be there.” But, I took a leap of faith and prayed anyway, because, somehow, I’m not sure how, God is beyond my feelings, (What?, Wha…no, really? God is that big?)
As we talked about this video I said, “You know, God is jealous because He knows all other gods are false, and it is you that will be hurt and disappointed if you follow them, not God.” But, yeah, Oprah’s perspective was certainly twisted.
April 8th, 2008 at 9:30 am
I’d tend to take a more compassionate view. What Oprah is rejecting is protestant Christianity, but sees no alternative except self directed mysticism. She actually touches the hem of the garment that God IS indeed the source of all conciousness and He is not merely an intellectual construct but ultimately to be experienced. That’s Orthodox. Its too bad the Church didn’t get a hold of her in her twenties, she might be Greek by now. :)
April 8th, 2008 at 10:07 am
Nicodemus:
Yep, definitely can’t start to pray until you get the God-feeling. It reminds me that the American Sign Language sign for Quaker is twiddling thumbs. Why? Because Quakers have to sit there and wait until someone feels moved in the spirit to begin preaching.
See? You learn something every day.
April 8th, 2008 at 10:18 am
s-p:
I don’t know. She certainly is trying to avoid error in one direction, but I wish she didn’t have so much influence over so many people. Because there seems like a lot less chance to me that anyone would get from this “New Earth” paradigm to Orthodoxy Christianity, or even (lower-case-o) orthodox Christianity.
Because with all its faults, Protestantism does at least say that Jesus Christ is Lord and God, that He is our Savior, etc. etc. So aren’t they at least on the same playing field? Oprah and this author definitely refute that Christ is the only way to God — I don’t know whether they give Him any singular attention, except maybe as the “good teacher” type of thing that C. S. Lewis refuted so well.
April 8th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Ok, so now I’m curious, Grace - what is the ASL sign for Orthodox? Do you know?
April 8th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Mimi:
Had to Google it, but HERE YOU GO.
Mind you, I don’t know if that’s necessarily Orthodox Christian, but you could probably combine the sign.
Not that I expect to ever need this information, but you never know.
April 8th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
Cool! Thanks!
April 8th, 2008 at 11:58 pm
Good thoughts, Grace. I guess I often see people who reject the “pen sub” angry God who kills Jesus instead of us and turn to new age “all you need is love” and wonder which is really worse? Appeasing the volcano pagan deity or feeling good about your godness? Its true they acknowledge Jesus, but how “real” is the Jesus they acknowledge? I dunno. In my mind its degrees not black and white. I guess Idon’t worry so much about her influence, she’s just tickling people’s ears… if you’re not in the market for it you won’t buy it and she’d go out of business. KnowwhutImean,Vern?
April 9th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
I *think* so. I confess, I don’t understand the “pen sub” reference. And I’m having to guess a lot about the theological construct of the non-Orthodox I know. I didn’t know so many were fully involved in a juridical understanding of salvation — I thought they just wanted to consider that God had stamped a big smiley face over everything and they didn’t have to think about *anything* *ever*. Maybe I just don’t know enough non-Orthodox religious-thinker types. Or any, now that I think of it.
It seems to me that most people I meet — religious and non-religious — aren’t interested in anything remotely theological, which means they end up believing a lot of odds and ends of things they’ve heard (or thought they heard): vague impressions of Bible verses, bumper stickers, bon mots from the Matrix series, etc. etc. The reason this Oprah thing raises some hackles is that it’s Theology Light for the Theologically Challenged and may reach people who didn’t want to go to all the bother of figuring anything out.
On the other hand, you’re probably right that people probably still won’t care overall.
April 18th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
Pen sub: I think it’s short for “penal substitution.”
April 21st, 2008 at 6:19 am
My pastor shattered that with one powerful statement this weekend: GOD IS A LOVING EXPERIENCE!!! Remember, God so LOVED the world. Greater LOVE has no man than this…. GOD IS A LOVING EXPERIENCE. Let’s not be fooled!