{"id":728,"date":"2011-05-25T19:53:23","date_gmt":"2011-05-25T23:53:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/?p=728"},"modified":"2011-05-25T21:57:52","modified_gmt":"2011-05-26T01:57:52","slug":"oprahs-last-show-praises-jesus-elizabeth-smarts-last-court-appearance-affirms-faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/05\/oprahs-last-show-praises-jesus-elizabeth-smarts-last-court-appearance-affirms-faith.html","title":{"rendered":"Oprah’s Last Show Praises Jesus; Elizabeth Smart’s Last Court Appearance Affirms Faith"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s a strange juxtaposition of long-awaited faith-related news this afternoon, with Oprah’s final network TV show talk show episode, and the much-delayed sentencing of Brian David Mitchell, the homeless man who kidnapped and raped Mormon teenager Elizabeth Smart in 2002<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Oprah Winfrey (whose\u00a0show has helped lift the taboo on reporting sexual abuse<\/a>, coincidentally),\u00a0thanked God and Jesus for her success, <\/a>which had the Christian blogosphere buzzing, given that the talk show host and media mogul has tended to be more publicly New Age-y spiritual than devoutly religious.<\/p>\n

As for Mitchell, whose trial was repeatedly delayed due to questions about his mental competency and his penchant for bursting into hymns in the courtroom, no surprise: the former street preacher and self-proclaimed prophet was sentenced to life in prison<\/a>. In her last words to him at the sentencing,<\/a> Smart, now 23, told him that he would pay for his crimes “in this life or the next.”<\/p>\n

Here’s the 2008 clip of Oprah’s show featuring Elizabeth Smart:<\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/div>\n
Elizabeth Smart Interview on Oprah<\/a> – Click here for more home videos<\/a><\/div>\n
\n

Got closure? Feeling anti-climactic?\u00a0Share your thoughts in the Comments section below.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

P.S. As Smart notes in her recent video interview with The Salt Lake Tribune<\/a>, today is also National Missing Children’s Day<\/a>. Prayers all around…<\/p>\n

Click here to\u00a0subscribe to Belief Beat <\/strong><\/a>and\u00a0click here to <\/a>follow Belief Beat on Twitter<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s a strange juxtaposition of long-awaited faith-related news this afternoon, with Oprah’s final network TV show talk show episode, and the much-delayed sentencing of Brian David Mitchell, the homeless man who kidnapped and raped Mormon teenager Elizabeth Smart in 2002. Oprah Winfrey (whose\u00a0show has helped lift the taboo on reporting sexual abuse, coincidentally),\u00a0thanked God and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[224,14,223,225,227,229,226,228,220,232,222,221,230,231],"class_list":["post-728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-brian-david-mitchell","tag-christianity","tag-elizabeth-smart","tag-immanuel","tag-jesus","tag-lds","tag-mormons","tag-new-age","tag-oprah","tag-oprah-winfrey","tag-oprahs-final-show","tag-oprahs-last-show","tag-polygamy","tag-sexual-abuse"],"yoast_head":"\nOprah's Last Show Praises Jesus; Elizabeth Smart's Last Court Appearance Affirms Faith - Belief Beat<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/05\/oprahs-last-show-praises-jesus-elizabeth-smarts-last-court-appearance-affirms-faith.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Oprah's Last Show Praises Jesus; Elizabeth Smart's Last Court Appearance Affirms Faith - Belief Beat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It’s a strange juxtaposition of long-awaited faith-related news this afternoon, with Oprah’s final network TV show talk show episode, and the much-delayed sentencing of Brian David Mitchell, the homeless man who kidnapped and raped Mormon teenager Elizabeth Smart in 2002. Oprah Winfrey (whose\u00a0show has helped lift the taboo on reporting sexual abuse, coincidentally),\u00a0thanked God and…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/05\/oprahs-last-show-praises-jesus-elizabeth-smarts-last-court-appearance-affirms-faith.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Belief Beat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-05-25T23:53:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-05-26T01:57:52+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Nicole Neroulias\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Oprah's Last Show Praises Jesus; Elizabeth Smart's Last Court Appearance Affirms Faith - Belief Beat","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/05\/oprahs-last-show-praises-jesus-elizabeth-smarts-last-court-appearance-affirms-faith.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Oprah's Last Show Praises Jesus; Elizabeth Smart's Last Court Appearance Affirms Faith - Belief Beat","og_description":"It’s a strange juxtaposition of long-awaited faith-related news this afternoon, with Oprah’s final network TV show talk show episode, and the much-delayed sentencing of Brian David Mitchell, the homeless man who kidnapped and raped Mormon teenager Elizabeth Smart in 2002. Oprah Winfrey (whose\u00a0show has helped lift the taboo on reporting sexual abuse, coincidentally),\u00a0thanked God and…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/05\/oprahs-last-show-praises-jesus-elizabeth-smarts-last-court-appearance-affirms-faith.html","og_site_name":"Belief Beat","article_published_time":"2011-05-25T23:53:23+00:00","article_modified_time":"2011-05-26T01:57:52+00:00","author":"Nicole Neroulias","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/05\/oprahs-last-show-praises-jesus-elizabeth-smarts-last-court-appearance-affirms-faith.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/05\/oprahs-last-show-praises-jesus-elizabeth-smarts-last-court-appearance-affirms-faith.html","name":"Oprah's Last Show Praises Jesus; Elizabeth Smart's Last Court Appearance Affirms Faith - Belief Beat","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-05-25T23:53:23+00:00","dateModified":"2011-05-26T01:57:52+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/42dac2ebd149a02dfe91f0f93e36761b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/05\/oprahs-last-show-praises-jesus-elizabeth-smarts-last-court-appearance-affirms-faith.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/05\/oprahs-last-show-praises-jesus-elizabeth-smarts-last-court-appearance-affirms-faith.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2011\/05\/oprahs-last-show-praises-jesus-elizabeth-smarts-last-court-appearance-affirms-faith.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Oprah’s Last Show Praises Jesus; Elizabeth Smart’s Last Court Appearance Affirms Faith"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/","name":"Belief Beat","description":"BeliefBeat - Nicole Neroulias","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/42dac2ebd149a02dfe91f0f93e36761b","name":"Nicole Neroulias","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/caf\/caf1ad99f5fc2a063b8e935cf82f65fdx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/caf\/caf1ad99f5fc2a063b8e935cf82f65fdx96.jpg","caption":"Nicole Neroulias"},"description":"Nicole Neroulias is a correspondent for Religion News Service, a secular news and photo service devoted to unbiased coverage of religion and ethics. A graduate of Cornell University and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, she has previously written for The New York Times and other media outlets. She and her family live in Seattle.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/author\/nneroulias"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=728"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":737,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728\/revisions\/737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}