Sunday, June 22, 2008

Evangelicals Still Targeting Oprah

This started last month, and before that with the video on YouTube. Seems the fundies aren't pleased that Oprah thinks there can more than one way to salvation (however you want to define that term).

You can always identify an immature worldview because it thinks its way is the only way.

From the Kansas City Star:

Oprah’s book club picks draw a lot of attention, but some observers think her influence is dwindling.
Oprah’s book club picks draw a lot of attention, but some observers think her influence is dwindling.

Oprah Winfrey has offended evangelical Christians, and they are fighting back.

For the first time, 23 Christian newspapers across the country united for a joint investigative project. Their aim was to explore the spiritual beliefs of the popular entertainment mogul.

An article titled “Oprah’s God” ran in all the papers’ May or June issues, along with each one’s local input. Among the papers was Kansas City’s Metro Voice.

“The issue has produced the most feedback of anything we have run,” said Dwight Widaman, Metro Voice publisher and editor.

The effort is a result of mounting discontent over statements Oprah has made. Evangelicals believe her remarks are not in line with biblical Christianity.

Some of these statements were shown on a widely circulated YouTube video called “The Church of Oprah Exposed.” This came to the attention of Lamar Keener, a Christian newspaper publisher and president of the Evangelical Press Association.

“Personally, not being a viewer of any daytime television, I was unaware of both the magnitude of Oprah’s audience and the influence as well as the full nature of her message that is decidedly New Age and very much in conflict with biblical Christianity,” he said in a Christian Newswire report.

This came at a time when Oprah’s loyal fans were reading her latest book club selection, Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth. Also, the May issue of O: The Oprah Magazine focused on spirituality. The first feature set the tone for the many articles that followed: “Welcome to the Banquet” was the headline.

Oprah’s empire also was the subject of a recent New York Times article that examined various reasons for an apparent dwindling in her appeal.

It noted that while Tolle’s book “sold faster than any of the previous 60 selections of Oprah’s Book Club, it also has attracted some criticism for Ms. Winfrey on her Web site, where some of her fans have said that the book’s spiritual leanings go against Christian doctrine.”

One segment of the YouTube video, taken from Oprah’s show, is a prime example of what angers many evangelical or traditional Christians.

“There are many paths to what you call God,” Oprah says.

When someone in the audience challenges that Jesus said he was the only way, Oprah retorts, “There couldn’t possibly be just one way.”

Read the rest.

This was the video that started circulating this spring.




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