Posts tagged ‘Oprah Winfrey’

Oprah Winfrey To Launch OWN Network, Will Undoubtedly Feature New Age Nonsense

By LaVrai, 6 July, 2009, 1 Comment

oprah 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…

Oprah And Barack’s Many Paths To ‘Heaven’ Is A Blatant Lie

By LaVrai, 19 September, 2008, No Comment

By now, many know that Oprah Winfrey believes that ‘Jesus can’t be the only way,’ that is, she believes there is more than one way to get to heaven…but Ms. Winfrey still claims she is a Christian. Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama also believes there is more than one way to heaven… although he too claims he is a Christian.

According to Oprah Winfrey’s spokesperson (as revealed in a July 2008 article): “Oprah was raised Baptist and has stated many, many times that she is a Christian and that she believes in only one God,” said the spokesman, who asked not to be named. “She has also said, ‘I’m a free-thinking Christian who believes in my way, but I don’t believe it’s the only way, with 6 billion people on the planet.’” [More on Oprah Winfrey in her own words here...]

As Barack Obama said in an April 2004 article: “I’m rooted in the Christian tradition. I believe that there are many paths to the same place, and that is a belief that there is a higher power, a belief that we are connected as a people. That there are values that transcend race or culture, that move us forward, and there’s an obligation for all of us individually as well as collectively to take responsibility to make those values lived.”

It’s perhaps an unlikely theological position for someone who places his faith squarely at the feet of Jesus to take, saying essentially that all people of faith — Christians, Jews, Muslims, animists, everyone — know the same God. That depends, Obama says, on how a particular verse from the Gospel of John, where Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me,” is heard. [You can read more, up-to-date words from Mr. Obama on his curious faith here...]

There are some very confused, mixed-up folks out there calling themselves Christians and even professing that they believe in the ONE TRUE GOD, but in the same breath deny HIS Only Begotten Son…therefore denying the ONE TRUE GOD as well.

On ‘Oprah’s Gospel Influence’

By LaVrai, 17 July, 2008, 2 Comments

It shouldn’t be news to many Christians that Oprah Winfrey has embraced another gospel (the one about worship of self)…but it’s news to me that her spokespeople still insist that she’s a Christian. And what’s more, these folks are using that recent PEW study (see the image at the very bottom on left of home page) to justify her still using the term ‘Christian’ to define her faith.

Here’s the part of the article that just got me:

A spokesman for Winfrey’s Harpo Productions said the celebrity is a Christian.

“Oprah was raised Baptist and has stated many, many times that she is a Christian and that she believes in only one God,” said the spokesman, who asked not to be named. “She has also said, ‘I’m a free-thinking Christian who believes in my way, but I don’t believe it’s the only way, with 6 billion people on the planet.’”

The spokesman noted Winfrey is hardly alone; 70% of Americans said “many religions can lead to eternal life” in a recent survey from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. [...So that means those 70% of Americans aren't sorely mistaken and do not know our LORD and SAVIOR Jesus Christ? --LaVrai]

Part of the evangelicals’ concern stems from Winfrey’s recent embrace of Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth as the first spiritual book she included in her hugely popular book club. In the July issue of O, The Oprah Magazine, she said the book’s advice on “putting the ego in check” had a “profound impact” on her.

“Spirit to me is the essence of who we are,” she said. “That essence doesn’t require any particular belief. It just is.” [But from where does 'spirit' come... doesn't that require some delving into? --LaVrai]

Charisma editor J. Lee Grady said Winfrey’s recent discussions of hypnotism on her show may have prompted more people to question her views.

He has long thought Winfrey did not embrace “an orthodox belief in Jesus Christ,” but he thinks other Christians may just be starting to draw that conclusion, sparked in part by what they learn about her on the Internet.

“There’s definitely an alarm because so many people watch her, that she could lead people into New Age belief or deception,” he said.

Religion writer Marcia Nelson, author of The Gospel According to Oprah, said criticism of Winfrey by conservative Christians dates to 1998 when she included a spiritual emphasis on her TV show.

“Back then she got pretty much lambasted the way she is being lambasted now, for telling us what to believe and telling us the wrong thing to believe in, according to conservative Christians,” said Nelson.

But Nelson, who studied a year of Winfrey’s shows, differs with those who call Winfrey’s spiritual ideas “New Age.” She says Winfrey would be more related to the “New Thought” movement, which is more mainstream, focusing on positive thinking as a spiritual tool rather than crystals, for example. [So same body, slightly altered clothes? -- LaVrai]

“I absolutely regard her as a Christian but … she’s one of those capacious Christians,” Nelson said. (Source)

‘Why Oprah Left Wright’s Church’

‘Oprah And The New Age’

Must Read: ‘Reinventing Jesus Christ’

Video: Is Oprah Winfrey Leading People To Hell?

‘Why Oprah Left Wright’s Church’

By LaVrai, 8 May, 2008, No Comment

I think anyone who has been paying attention to Oprah Winfrey’s ’shift’ into the New Age gospel/delusion knows why she might have left the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s church (who of course is now Sen. Barack Obama’s ex-pastor). Anyway this article in Newsweek magazine attempts to dissect why two high profile people who were members of this embattled preacher’s church (which follows Black Liberation Theology) reacted differently to the heated sermons of their pastor. Obama chose to stay, Winfrey chose to leave. Newsweek talks to mystery sources in Oprah’s camp who say the daytime talk show diva was not only conscious of her show’s audience and her own marketability:

But Winfrey also had spiritual reasons for the parting. In conversations at the time with a former business associate, who also asked for anonymity, Winfrey cited her fatigue with organized religion and a desire to be involved with a more inclusive ministry. In time, she found one: her own. “There is the Church of Oprah now,” said her longtime friend, with a laugh. “She has her own following.”

This “inclusive ministry” Winfrey was longing for could have just be referring to the strange race-based theology of the church or it could have been also all that talk about Jesus Christ being the only way to salvation.

(Read the rest at Newsweek…)

And in this video, Oprah explains why she left the Church.

‘Oprah And The New Age’

By LaVrai, 29 April, 2008, No Comment

Chuck Colson writes: Tolle’s supposedly groundbreaking message is simply the same old New Age thinking in pretty packaging. While Tolle acknowledges something wrong with the human condition (what Christians call “sin”), he preaches the need not for repentance and salvation, but for a new “awakening.”

This involves looking deep within the self for peace and harmony, not looking to Christ. There is nothing new or revolutionary—and definitely nothing Christian—about it. It is paganism. It even seems some who claim Christ are getting caught up in the Tolle phenomenon.