GUEST ARTICLE
The Most Dangerous
Televangelist in the World
Oprah Winfrey
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Albert Mohler, President of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY, recently wrote an article called The Church of Oprah. In it he made the statement that writing anything even remotely critical of Oprah will bring an avalanche of hate mail. Well, back up the trucks from the Post Office.
Without question, Oprah Winfrey is one of the most, if not the most, popular and influential people in our world. Shes also among the wealthiest. Her Oprah Winfrey Show is the highest rated talk show in television history. Her book club makes instant bestsellers of what are oftentimes average books. Statistics show each of the book selections shes made for her book club have sold over 1 million copies.
Her O Magazine (which features her picture on the cover of EVERY ISSUE) has become one of the most popular ladies magazines in America. HARPO PRODUCTIONS, her personal media company, develops television and radio programs, records music, and produces movies. They are responsible for The Oprah Winfrey Show, Dr. Phil and The Rachael Ray Show. Her Live Your Best Life seminars draw thousands of women, who pay $185 each, and pack out auditoriums in cities all over America.
But Oprah Winfrey is more than just an entertainer, economic machine, entrepreneur, educator, etc. Shes also an evangelist for a false gospel, full of New Age philosophy and completely devoid of Scriptural truth.
On a recent program, which you can view on YouTube, Oprah said, One of the mistakes human beings make is believing that there is only one way to live and we dont accept that. There are diverse ways of being in the world . . . that there are millions of ways to be a human being and many ways, many paths to what you call God. Her path might be something else and when she gets there she might call it the Light. But her loving and her kindness and her generosity if it brings her to the same point it brings you, it doesnt matter whether she calls it God along the way or not. There cant possibly be just one way.
Someone in the audience mentions Jesus and Oprah asks, What about Jesus? A lady in the audience says, There is one way and only one way and that is through Jesus. To which Oprah responds, There couldnt possibly be just one way.
In one of her more recent ventures, The New Earth Web Class, (week #3), Oprah is visiting with Eckhart Tolle, author of the book, A New Earth: Awakening To Your Lifes Purpose (a selection of Oprahs book club) and here is what she says, I took God out of the box. Because I grew up in the Baptist Church and there were, you know, rules and, you know, belief systems and doctrines and um, I happened to be sitting in church in my late twenties and I was going to this church where you had to get there at 8:00 in the morning or you couldnt get a seat . . . and a very charismatic minister and everybody was just, you know, into the sermon and this great minister was preaching about how great God was and how omniscient and omnipresent and God is everything. And then, he said, and the Lord Thy God is a jealous God. And I was, you know, caught up in the rapture of that moment until he said jealous. And something struck me and I was like, I think about 27 or 28, and I was thinking, God is all. God is omnipresent and God is also jealous? God is jealous of me? And something about that didnt feel right in my spirit. Because I believe that God is love and that God is in all things. And so, thats when the search for something more than doctrine started to stir within me. And I love this quote that Eckhart has. Uh, this is one of my favorite quotes in chapter one, where he says, man made God in his own image. The eternal, the infinite and unnamable was reduced to a mental idol that you had to believe in and worship as my God or our God.
Oprah then turns to Eckhart and asks, What happens to us when we die? Eckhart says he doesnt give it any thought at all. Then, Oprah says, God is a feeling experience not a believing experience . . . and if God for you is still about a belief then its not truly God. Thats what youre saying. And Eckart agrees with her.
What?
Oprah has embraced Betty Eadie, the new age, Mormon author of the book Embraced By The Light and said she wants people to see things on our show that makes them think differently about their lives . . . to be a light for people. To make a difference . . . to open their minds and see things differently . . . how to get in touch with the spiritual part of their life. However, according to Watchman Fellowship, a Christian ministry, which exposes cults, deceptive teachers and their teachings, the light Oprah offers is the angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14) which is none other than Satan, himself.
Oprah wholeheartedly endorsed and promoted the feel good, phony-baloney book, The Secret, by Rhonda Byrne, which teaches you can think anything into existence and bring success and unlimited wealth to yourself just by thinking the right thoughts. Only the latest in a long line of self-help books focused on positive thinking rather than God, the book promotes believing in the force of the universe rather than having faith in God and even states the individual reader is God.
Oprah has done a lot of good in our world. But that doesnt discount the damage she is doing to millions of people who are buying into the dangerous gospel she espouses. A gospel diametrically opposed to Scripture.
The Bible emphatically and clearly states there is only ONE WAY to Heaven and His name is JESUS! Jesus said, I am THE way, THE truth and THE life. No man comes to the Father except by Me (John 14:6). The apostle Paul was equally clear when he wrote, But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned!
Oprah is a talented talk show host and likeable person at least from a distance. But shes also a dangerous televangelist duping tens of millions of people into believing and embracing a false gospel.
Dont allow yourself to be deceived by the most dangerous television evangelist in the world and dont excuse her actions by recounting all the good she accomplishes.
No amount of good works can ever make up for a false gospel that sends people to Hell!
© 2008. Barry L. Cameron
http://www.crossroadschristian.net/blog/