Oprah Winfrey is expected to launch her own network in 2010 (source), called appropriately enough the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN). If you’ve been paying the slightest attention to Ms. Winfrey over the years, you may be familiar with the type of self-help, spiritual mumbo jumbo pushers she often has on and endorses. According to a NY Times article published earlier this year: With the Oprah Winfrey Network, “I will have editorial control,” she said. “I have a vision for what we want to accomplish with this network.”

If you take a browse on her Web site, you’ll notice prominent placements for new age authors Eckhart Tolle’s (“A New Earth” without Christians) and Marianne Williamson, who says “hogwash” to a question about Jesus being the being the Son of GOD (source). There’s also a “spirituality” feature with “Some of Oprah’s favorite spiritual teachers … shedding some light on the subject of spirituality.” These teachers included The Rev. Ed Bacon, rector of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, Calif.; Elizabeth Lesser, co-founder of Omega Institute; Michael Bernard Beckwith, founder and spiritual director of Agape International Spiritual Center in Los Angeles — all of whom you can view here explaining to Ms. Winfrey how “being gay is a gift from GOD.”

Ms. Winfrey states on page four of this spirituality feature:

The terms “spirituality” and “religion” are often confused, but all three spiritual teachers say you can be one without being the other. While Oprah calls the source of her spirituality God, others call it “the source” or “universal energy.” “I think God doesn’t get hung up on the titles,” Oprah says. “It’s the people that get hung up on the titles.”

Oprah’s definition of spirituality revolves around the understanding that we are more than what we can physically see. “When you begin to realize that you are more than your body, that your purpose is greater than your profession or your career—that every life, because you were born you have a right to be here and there is a calling on your life—it means you live your life without fear and you know that no matter what happens, no matter what happens, you are going to be all right. You are going to be all right. That’s what spirituality is for me.”

Last I read, Ms. Winfrey was still claiming to be a Christian.

So imagine how much more nonsense and deception will reach how many more people with this new OWN venture. A recent Newsweek article says it all:

Her audience cannot get enough. After more than two decades on the air, the Oprah franchise continues to expand. Forty million people tune in to watch her television show each week. O magazine, which features her picture on every cover, sells more than 2 million copies each month. She has her own satellite radio channel and a very popular Web site. Forbes puts Oprah’s personal fortune at $2.7 billion. Her empire is about to get bigger. Oprah has made a deal to launch her own cable television channel that will reach 70 million homes. It will be called, of course, the Oprah Winfrey Network and will include Oprah-approved programming on health and living well. In announcing the deal, Oprah said, “I will now have the opportunity to do this 24 hours a day on a platform that goes on forever.”

… Her most ardent fans regard her as an oracle. If she mentions the title of a book, it goes to No. 1. If she says she uses a particular wrinkle cream, it sells out. At Oprah’s retail store in Chicago, women can purchase used shoes and outfits that she wore on the show. Her viewers follow her guidance because they like and admire her, sure. But also because they believe that Oprah, with her billions and her Rolodex of experts, doesn’t have to settle for second best. If she says something is good, it must be.

The article goes on to state the obvious that many of her ardent fans seem to miss: … the truth is, some of what Oprah promotes isn’t good, and a lot of the advice her guests dispense on the show is just bad.

This goes for her and her guests teachings on GOD and Jesus the Chrsit — if it’s not found in the Holy Bible, it’s a lie. When Jesus says “I AM the Way, the Truth and the Light. No one comes to the FATHER but by ME” in John 14:6John 14:6
English: King James Version (1611) - KJV
6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.  

WP-Bible plugin, not much interpretation is needed. But Oprah and her spiritual teachers are known for insisting that Jesus in fact can’t possibly be the only way (here and here).

I don’t know what it’s going to take for folks to wise up and realize that if Oprah Winfrey is not a friend of Jesus the Christ, and there are undoubtedly many professed Christians gladly consuming the garbage that comes across her shows and in her magazines. It appears Ms. Winfrey is deceived, as she seems to be searching for some kind of answer… but the TRUTH is hard to take as it requires us to deny things and people that go against the Word of GOD.

Now, with a new network over which she claims she will have full editorial control, the deception will continue to spread.

By the way, the final page of the Newsweek article sums it all up quite nice… where all this searching and various voices have brought Ms. Winfrey thus far…