{"id":2082,"date":"2008-07-09T12:15:12","date_gmt":"2008-07-09T12:15:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/2008\/07\/reverand-oprah-or-religious-ov.html"},"modified":"2008-07-09T12:15:12","modified_gmt":"2008-07-09T12:15:12","slug":"reverand-oprah-or-religious-ov","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/07\/reverand-oprah-or-religious-ov.html","title":{"rendered":"Reverend Oprah? Or Religious Overreaction?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"oprahpicforic.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/import\/imgs\/oprahpicforic.jpg\" width=\"165\" height=\"200\" class=\"mt-image-right\" style=\"float: right;margin: 0 0 20px 20px\" \/><\/span>We&#8217;ve talked about <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cgi-bin\/mt\/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=42&amp;search=oprah\" target=\"_blank\">Oprah here before,<\/a> but we&#8217;re not in Nielson-ratings-land anymore, Toto, at least according to posts being circled and forwarded about the popular talk-show host and media entrepreneur.<br \/>\n&#8220;One of the most effective proselytizers drawing Christians away from the faith today is not a minister, mullah or rabbi. She is entertainer and New-Age guru Oprah Winfrey,&#8221; according to Mary Ann Kreitzer in her post titled &#8220;Oprah Winfrey: New-Age Guru&#8221; for the Women of Truth newsletter <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fgfbooks.com\/Kreitzer-Mary\/Kreitzer062608.html\" target=\"_blank\">and viewable here.<\/a><br \/>\nIt goes on to say that &#8220;Oprah calls herself a Christian, but she evangelizes for the New Age. For years she has intermingled false spirituality with makeovers, menus and interviews. While her television show blends the bland with the bad, her daily radio program offers the full package in the form of &#8216;A Course in Miracles,&#8217; led by her friend Marianne Williamson. The course is also available on her Web site.&#8221;<br \/>\nMs. Kreitzer, who is the President of both Les Femmes and the Catholic Media Coalition, is not the only one making such claims.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><br \/>\nAccording to <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/2008\/07\/watch-video-the-church-of-opra.html\" target=\"_blank\">a popular YouTube video<\/a> that&#8217;s had over 7.3 million views, Oprah is not just a commanding media figure or a unifying spiritual phenomenon but rather a deceitful new-age leader. It claims, among other things, that:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The &#8220;largest church in the world&#8221; had its first service on March 3, 2008, with an &#8220;attendance of over 300,000&#8221; and now has &#8220;over 2 million members.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>March 17, 2008 was the time of the first &#8220;mass trance.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Their leader believes that &#8220;My mind is part of God&#8217;s&#8230;I am very holy&#8230;My salvation comes from me&#8230;.Let me remember that there is no sin&#8230;The only message of the crucifixion is that you can overcome the cross.&#8221; <\/li>\n<li>She advises that we &#8220;not make the pathetic error of clinging to the Old Rugged Cross.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&#8220;One of the mistakes human beings make is that there is only one way,&#8221; she&#8217;s shown as saying on her televised show.<br \/>\nThe video goes on to claim that &#8220;today she has turned millions of her adoring fans over to her new age doctrine,&#8221; and &#8220;Christians are letting this into their homes and are being deceived.'&#8221;<br \/>\nIn her &#8220;New Earth Web Class&#8221; she&#8217;s quoted as saying &#8220;I took God out of the box&#8230;I grew up in a Baptist Church.&#8221;<br \/>\nTaking God out of the box is one thing. Ushering in a new kind of church while pretending not to is completely different. Intellectually speaking, Ms. Winfrey is either a prophetess of a new spiritual awakening or a powerful force against traditional Christian teaching. I&#8217;m not sure there&#8217;s a middle ground here.<br \/>\nMost of us know she moved way past a TV show and magazine cover years and years ago. However, I&#8217;m not sure we&#8217;ve all thought of her as the Pastor of the World&#8217;s fastest growing spiritual movement. I&#8217;m curious what you think, please post your thoughts below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We&#8217;ve talked about Oprah here before, but we&#8217;re not in Nielson-ratings-land anymore, Toto, at least according to posts being circled and forwarded about the popular talk-show host and media entrepreneur. &#8220;One of the most effective proselytizers drawing Christians away from the faith today is not a minister, mullah or rabbi. She is entertainer and New-Age&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[96,98,97,95],"class_list":["post-2082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-celebrities","tag-church-of-oprah","tag-mary-ann-kreitzer","tag-new-earth-web-class","tag-oprah-winfrey"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Reverend Oprah? Or Religious Overreaction?<\/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\/idolchatter\/2008\/07\/reverand-oprah-or-religious-ov.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Reverend Oprah? Or Religious Overreaction?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We&#8217;ve talked about Oprah here before, but we&#8217;re not in Nielson-ratings-land anymore, Toto, at least according to posts being circled and forwarded about the popular talk-show host and media entrepreneur. &#8220;One of the most effective proselytizers drawing Christians away from the faith today is not a minister, mullah or rabbi. She is entertainer and New-Age&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2008\/07\/reverand-oprah-or-religious-ov.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Idol Chatter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-07-09T12:15:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/files\/import\/imgs\/oprahpicforic.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Douglas Howe\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Reverend Oprah? 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