{"id":40407,"date":"2024-10-09T09:38:38","date_gmt":"2024-10-09T13:38:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/?p=40407"},"modified":"2024-10-09T09:43:35","modified_gmt":"2024-10-09T13:43:35","slug":"despite-her-criticisms-of-religion-kathie-lee-gifford-declares-her-love-of-jesus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2024\/10\/despite-her-criticisms-of-religion-kathie-lee-gifford-declares-her-love-of-jesus.html","title":{"rendered":"Despite Her Criticisms of \u201creligion,\u201d Kathie Lee Gifford Declares Her Love of Jesus"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Adobe Stock | Inset: Kathy Hutchins \/ Shutterstock.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Kathie Lee Gifford recently spoke to Fox News Digital<\/em><\/a> about her faith and reliance on Jesus. She made a distinction, however, between what she called \u201creligion\u201d and her faith. \u201cI can’t stand religion. Religion puts people in chains,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd Jesus comes to set us free.\u201d She declared the difference as finding \u201csomeplace and sit in the same pew week after week after week and hear the same stuff that doesn’t change your life at all\u201d and choosing to \u201cwalk with a living creator of all things who loves you and has a plan for your life\u2026\u201d \u201cThat’s the only thing I’m interested in,\u201d she concluded.<\/p>\n

Without her faith in Jesus, however, \u201cI could have never made it,\u201d she stated. \u201cI’d be in an insane asylum without Jesus. I’ve been through a lot of crappy stuff in my life. I’ve been blessed beyond belief as well. But I’ve had a lot of things that ended up being very public too, that would have put me away for a long time and done a lot of damage to my family, to my everything,\u201d she said. Gifford faced very public exposure when her husband, Frank Gifford, was revealed to have had an affair<\/a> with a former flight attendant. Years after the revelation, Gifford stated she chose to forgive Frank rather than divorce him. \u201cI could have let the seed germinate but I don\u2019t want to be that person, that bitter, angry, unhappy, miserable human being \u2019cause you know what you end up doing? You end up making everybody around you every bit as miserable. I have always felt from my earliest youth that I had the choice every day of my life to be a blessing or a burden and I want to be a blessing,\u201d she said. The pair remained married until Frank\u2019s death in 2015.<\/p>\n

Gifford has often been critical of \u201creligion,\u201d telling The Christian Post<\/em><\/a> in March, \u201cThe Church, to me, has never been a building. The word is \u2018ecclesia\u2019 in Greek and it really means \u2018movement,\u2019 a movement of God. That can happen in a building on a Sunday morning. It can happen in a synagogue on a Saturday morning. It can happen when you’re walking in the park, it should happen everywhere. The Bible says in Him we live and move and have our very being. That’s thrilling to me.\u201d In July, she told TODAY<\/em><\/a> she didn\u2019t want to raise \u201creligious\u201d children because, \u201cI don\u2019t like religion,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t want to go visit \u2018God\u2019 someplace once a week. I don\u2019t want to do that. I want to teach my children that in Jesus and in the Holy Spirit, we live and move and have our very being every moment of our day.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kathie Lee Gifford recently spoke to Fox News Digital about her faith and reliance on Jesus. She made a distinction, however, between what she called \u201creligion\u201d and her faith. \u201cI can’t stand religion. Religion puts people in chains,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd Jesus comes to set us free.\u201d She declared the difference as finding \u201csomeplace and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":627,"featured_media":40401,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrities"],"yoast_head":"\nDespite Her Criticisms of \u201creligion,\u201d Kathie Lee Gifford Declares Her Love of Jesus<\/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\/2024\/10\/despite-her-criticisms-of-religion-kathie-lee-gifford-declares-her-love-of-jesus.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Despite Her Criticisms of \u201creligion,\u201d Kathie Lee Gifford Declares Her Love of Jesus\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Kathie Lee Gifford recently spoke to Fox News Digital about her faith and reliance on Jesus. She made a distinction, however, between what she called \u201creligion\u201d and her faith. \u201cI can’t stand religion. Religion puts people in chains,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd Jesus comes to set us free.\u201d She declared the difference as finding \u201csomeplace and…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2024\/10\/despite-her-criticisms-of-religion-kathie-lee-gifford-declares-her-love-of-jesus.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Idol Chatter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-10-09T13:38:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-10-09T13:43:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2024\/10\/kathie-lee-jesus_credit-Adobe-Stock_Inset-Kathy-Hutchins-Shutterstock.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"900\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Cecilia Buchanan\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Despite Her Criticisms of \u201creligion,\u201d Kathie Lee Gifford Declares Her Love of Jesus","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\/idolchatter\/2024\/10\/despite-her-criticisms-of-religion-kathie-lee-gifford-declares-her-love-of-jesus.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Despite Her Criticisms of \u201creligion,\u201d Kathie Lee Gifford Declares Her Love of Jesus","og_description":"Kathie Lee Gifford recently spoke to Fox News Digital about her faith and reliance on Jesus. She made a distinction, however, between what she called \u201creligion\u201d and her faith. \u201cI can’t stand religion. Religion puts people in chains,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd Jesus comes to set us free.\u201d She declared the difference as finding \u201csomeplace and…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2024\/10\/despite-her-criticisms-of-religion-kathie-lee-gifford-declares-her-love-of-jesus.html","og_site_name":"Idol Chatter","article_published_time":"2024-10-09T13:38:38+00:00","article_modified_time":"2024-10-09T13:43:35+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":900,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2024\/10\/kathie-lee-jesus_credit-Adobe-Stock_Inset-Kathy-Hutchins-Shutterstock.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Cecilia Buchanan","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2024\/10\/despite-her-criticisms-of-religion-kathie-lee-gifford-declares-her-love-of-jesus.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2024\/10\/despite-her-criticisms-of-religion-kathie-lee-gifford-declares-her-love-of-jesus.html","name":"Despite Her Criticisms of \u201creligion,\u201d Kathie Lee Gifford Declares Her Love of Jesus","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2024\/10\/despite-her-criticisms-of-religion-kathie-lee-gifford-declares-her-love-of-jesus.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2024\/10\/despite-her-criticisms-of-religion-kathie-lee-gifford-declares-her-love-of-jesus.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2024\/10\/kathie-lee-jesus_credit-Adobe-Stock_Inset-Kathy-Hutchins-Shutterstock.jpg","datePublished":"2024-10-09T13:38:38+00:00","dateModified":"2024-10-09T13:43:35+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/f0820942b588b1bdba133d7ca3c8eb6e"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2024\/10\/despite-her-criticisms-of-religion-kathie-lee-gifford-declares-her-love-of-jesus.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2024\/10\/despite-her-criticisms-of-religion-kathie-lee-gifford-declares-her-love-of-jesus.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2024\/10\/despite-her-criticisms-of-religion-kathie-lee-gifford-declares-her-love-of-jesus.html#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2024\/10\/kathie-lee-jesus_credit-Adobe-Stock_Inset-Kathy-Hutchins-Shutterstock.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2024\/10\/kathie-lee-jesus_credit-Adobe-Stock_Inset-Kathy-Hutchins-Shutterstock.jpg","width":1200,"height":900,"caption":"Adobe Stock | Inset: Kathy Hutchins \/ Shutterstock.com"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2024\/10\/despite-her-criticisms-of-religion-kathie-lee-gifford-declares-her-love-of-jesus.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Despite Her Criticisms of \u201creligion,\u201d Kathie Lee Gifford Declares Her Love of Jesus"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/","name":"Idol Chatter","description":"Beliefnet Entertainment blog, TV blog, Movie blog, Religion in entertainment blog","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/?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\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/f0820942b588b1bdba133d7ca3c8eb6e","name":"rdewing","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/61e\/61e772313b3ddff45ee0c1a275e8dfc5x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/61e\/61e772313b3ddff45ee0c1a275e8dfc5x96.jpg","caption":"rdewing"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/author\/rdewing"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/627"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40407"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40407\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40416,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40407\/revisions\/40416"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}