If you were asked to name America's most influential spiritual advisor
for the past 25 years, what would your response be? Billy Graham? Robert
Schuller? Perhaps Rick Warren or Joel Osteen? It may surprise you to
learn that none of these men have been as successful numbers-wise as
Oprah Winfrey! Her programs drew a daily audience as high as 12.4
million and averaged 7.4 million in 2007, diminishing only slightly when
she touted Obama during the 2008 election year. Her closing program had
its highest-ever rating, with 16.4 million viewers.
All of this adds up to an incredible amount of influence.
What do I mean by including Oprah in this group of "spiritual advisors"?
What religion might she have been promoting? Oprah hinted at the answer
to those questions on her final program:
"People often ask me, 'What is the secret of success of the show? How
have we lasted 25 years? I non-jokingly say, 'My team and Jesus.'
Because nothing but the hand of God has made this possible for me"
(https://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/The-Oprah-Winfrey-Show-Finale_1/1).
She then further identified the God to whom she referred:
"I'm talking about the same one you're talking about. I'm talking about
Alpha and Omega, the Omniscient, the Omnipresent, the Ultimate
Consciousness, the Source, the Force, the All of everything there is,
the One and Only G-O-D".
(link)
If it's still not clear to you exactly who or what this "One and Only
G-O-D" is, you're not alone. All the commentaries that I've read
regarding Oprah's farewell program have noted that reviewers also were
confused about the deity to whom she paid homage. What should be clear
is that the "Jesus" and the "God" whom she describes are not the
biblical Jesus and God. But that may not be so clear for some -
especially those who consider themselves Christians and who think that
Oprah is talking about the same Jesus in whom they believe.
No matter what anyone has in his or her mind about Jesus, only the
Scriptures can set the record straight, and here's why. Mankind has only
three options when it comes to our knowledge about God. Either God has
revealed Himself to humanity in both general (His creation) and very
specific terms (His words), or man has conjured up his own ideas about
God. The third option is by far the most common: it's a mixture of the
two that includes bits and pieces of God's revelation combined with
mankind's opinions and speculations. Of the three, which one will be the
most accurate? Obviously, communication from God himself would be best.
Is that a reality? Well, that's what the Bible claims. More than 4,000
times throughout the Scriptures, God's prophets have written phrases
such as "Thus saith the Lord" and "The word of the Lord came to me." If
that isn't the case, then they were all lying. That would be amazing
because the "lies" were consistent among all 40 who wrote the Scriptures
- men who lived during different cultural times over a period of 1,600
years and who reflected quite diverse occupations in life: Moses was
raised in the court of Pharaoh of Egypt; others were fishermen or
shepherds; one was a tax collector, another a physician, and a few were
royalty.
Further proof that God has communicated to mankind through His Word are
the miraculous aspects of what He says, especially through prophecy:
"Behold, the former things are come to pass, and new things do I
declare: before they spring forth I tell you of them....Let all the
nations be gathered together, and let the people be assembled: who among
them can declare this, and show us former things? let them [pagan idols]
bring forth their witnesses, that they may be justified: or let them
hear, and say, It is truth. Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, and my
servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and
understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither
shall there be after me" (Isaiah 42:9; 43:9-10).
Only God is omniscient, and He challenges any gods that humans have
concocted to demonstrate their ability to foretell the future. In
contrast to the failed prophecies of the idol worshipers, the record of
the Scriptures contains hundreds of prophecies accurately detailing
events foretold by the God of the Bible that would take place days,
months, and even hundreds or thousands of years from the time they were
issued. Fulfilled prophecy is the foremost verification that God's Word
is just that, the Word of God.
Oprah's widespread influence on America's spirituality can be attributed
to many factors, from the popularity of the New Age Movement (of which
she was a chief promoter, by featuring wannabe gurus such as Shirley
MacLaine, Marilyn Ferguson, and Marianne Williamson), to the national
rush to psychotherapy as the solution for all of life's problems, to our
historic Yankee love affair with self-help theology and practice. All of
these, Oprah dished up daily.
The reason for the incredible acceptance of her spiritual teachings,
however, must be credited primarily to her ability to make even the most
far-fetched Hindu/Buddhist concepts appear to fit with Christianity - a
mix that she has fed to viewers who, for the most part, profess to be
Christian yet are largely ignorant of the teachings of the Bible. This
has effectively disabled their ability to recognize God's direct
revelation as the authority for spiritual truth and has opened the door
for any mixture of thoughts one has about God (e.g., opinions,
speculations, guesses, or whatever a person "feels" regarding the nature
of God).
Oprah's own "Christianity" leans heavily upon the Christianity of the
Mind Sciences, including New Thought, Religious Science, Christian
Science, and Unity School of Christianity, all of which incorporate into
their teachings ideas drawn from Eastern mystical religions. Although
some feature the Christian name, they are diametrically opposed to
biblical Christianity. Oprah is a latter-day composite of Madame
Blavatsky and Mary Baker Eddy, the former a co-founder of Theosophy, who
popularized Buddhist occultism in the West in the last half of the
1800s, and the latter, who founded the Christian Science cult in New
England in the same century.
She claims that her eyes were opened to the fact that "God" was bigger
than the doctrines she had been taught, and she later was excited to
discover views that taught that there were many ways to God besides
through Jesus. The Cross, to her, was not a matter of Jesus'
reconciliation of man to God through His payment for the sins of the
world but rather a preeminent lesson in overcoming the obstacles in
one's life. She recalls that transition period in her life as the time
when she began her search for more than Bible doctrines. She turned to
those who have Westernized and homogenized Eastern religious concepts
for the American consumer, such as Eckhart Tolle, Gary Zukav, Deepak
Chopra, IyanlaVanzant, Carolyn Myss, and Elizabeth Lesser.
According to the Scriptures, when people like Oprah either drift away
from or reject biblical doctrine, they have turned from God's
instructions to the rationalizations of men, at least, and/or to the
doctrines of demons at worst (1 Timothy 4:1). She raised false spiritual
teaching to new technological heights when she began her series on A New
Earth with Eckhart Tolle. The initial program reached 139 countries with
simultaneous, interactive worldwide instructions and grew from there.
Another attraction that drew the multitudes were her celebrity guests
with "spiritual insights" that she paraded before her audience (80
percent of whom were women) day after day, including Scientologists Tom
Cruise and John Travolta, Unity minister Della Reese, Eckhart Tolle-disciple
Jim Carrey, and Kabbalah devotee Madonna, among a litany of others.
Tragically, for untold millions, she's paved the broad road that leads
to eternal destruction.
Although Oprah and her friends seem to be all over the spiritual map,
their beliefs and practices can be simplified from a biblical
perspective. They all promote......
1) the deification of self
2) salvation through good works
Here is what Oprah gleaned from her
spiritual advisors: Jesus came not to pay for everyone's sin but to
teach Christ consciousness - the idea that each person is a part of God
and needs to be conscious of that. Hindus call it "self-realization,"
i.e., realizing that one's own self is God. That was the ultimate
message of The Secret , a book and DVD
that millions purchased due primarily to Oprah's endorsement and
enthusiastic promotion.
In Oprah's words as she considers one Christian woman's view against a
non-Christian woman's path to God:
"There are 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 place it brings you, it doesn't matter whether she calls it God or
not."
This is "works salvation," and it is the foundational belief system of
all the world's religions. Only biblical Christianity rejects works
unequivocally as a path to being reconciled to God:
"Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his
mercy he saved us" (Titus 3:5); "For by grace are ye saved through
faith; and that [salvation] not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
Not of works, lest any man should boast" (Ephesians 2:8-9).
Scripture is emphatic that no loving act, no kindness, no generosity, or
any other "good" deed qualifies anyone for eternal life with God. The
problem is sin, regarding which every human (except the sinless God/Man
Jesus Christ) is guilty (Romans 3:23), and for which no sinner can do
anything to pay off the penalty that God established. Why not? The
penalty is eternal separation from the presence of God. Oprah and all
her spiritual teachers may reject the biblical teaching concerning sin
and its penalty, but the absolute fact is - it must be paid in order for
God's divine justice to be satisfied and for one to receive the gift of
everlasting life with Him:
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that
whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life"
(John 3:16).
Their "many paths" statement is a rejection of the most unfathomable act
imaginable. In fact, it is so incredible that none of the non-Christian
world religions have ever even hinted at such a deed: the Creator of the
universe Himself would pay the penalty for His rebellious creatures and
would offer the free gift of eternal life to them on the basis of their
simply receiving it by an act of faith. Charles Wesley immortalized
Jesus' astonishing achievement in song when he wrote, "Amazing love, how
can it be that thou, my God, should die for me?"
It's doubtful that Oprah Winfrey will be giving up her pulpit; it is
more probable that she'll seek effective ways and means to spread her
gospel in other venues. Of her many "apostles" (a.k.a. Oprah's
All-stars)
whom she has established over the years, it will very likely be
Dr. Oz
who will fill the gap and keep the bastion of false spirituality
thriving on daytime TV.
Mehmet Oz is highly qualified for the job. He is a Sufi Muslim, given
more to the metaphysical and experiential than to the legalism of Sharia
law, which is practiced by most Muslims. His medical expertise lends
credibility to his religious offerings, which reflect the Indian guru
Mahesh more than Mohammed.
Dr. Mehmet Oz is a national spokesperson for Transcendental
Meditation, or TM, which was introduced to the U.S. in the late '60s by
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (guru to the Beatles) as The Spiritual
Regeneration Movement. It was pure Hinduism packaged for the West.
However, legal issues related to the introduction of religion into the
schools prevented its spread until the name was changed to TM, and it
was subsequently repackaged and promoted as a scientific stress reducer
that employed the use of meditation.
TM is currently back in the limelight not only for millions on daytime
TV but also for evangelicals. Oz and two other medical doctors have been
drafted by Rick Warren to "shape up" himself and his Saddleback
Community Church, as well as all the thousands of evangelical churches
that partner with Saddleback. Warren's "Daniel Plan" is an attempt to
give biblical support for improving the physical welfare of overweight
and out-of-shape believers. The "Daniel" reference is to the young man
described in chapter one of the book of the Old Testament that bears his
name. This is one more example of the biblical illiteracy that has
infected the church through marketing, seeker-friendly, and
purpose-driven programs that have weaned Christians off the Word of God
and have all but completely eliminated their ability to discern what's
biblical and what's not. Daniel was hardly an overweight teenager in
need of an exercise, nutritional, and meditation program but rather a
godly youth whose fear was that he would defile himself before his holy
God.
But that doesn't sell today. All three doctors to whom the shepherd of
Saddleback has turned his sheep over for their physical well-being
feature occult meditation in their
programs under the pseudo-scientific labels of TM and the Relaxation
Response.
The spiritual climate in the 21st century is neo-pagan in
general, neo-gnostic among most professing Christians, and severely
lacking in biblical discernment among those who may well be true
believers. We are in the throes of rampant spiritual delusion. What can
be done to stem the tide? Nothing that the Bible seems to indicate. On
the other hand, God has given believers marching orders for these times
- orders that appear to be designed more for a rescue operation than for
a reversal of widespread apostasy:
"And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all
men, apt to teach, patient, in meekness instructing those that oppose
themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the
acknowledging of the truth; And that they may recover themselves out of
the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will" (2
Timothy 2:24-26).
Furthermore, the Apostle Paul exhorts us to, "Preach the word; be
instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all
longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not
endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to
themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their
ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. But watch thou in
all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full
proof of thy ministry" (2 Timothy 4:2-5).
"Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast,
unmovable, always
abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that
your labour
is not in vain in the Lord" (1 Corinthians 15:58).