The 21st Century Televangelist

The National Post, a Canadian newspaper, asks whether Oprah Winfrey is a talk-show host or a spiritual guru. (http://www.nationalpost.com/arts/story.html?id=729239) I’ve always considered Oprah to be more misguided than manipulative. She is the poster girl for today’s feel good, “it’s all about me” spirituality. The adage that seems to best apply to her New Age philosophies is, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” But after reading the above article, I am reconsidering my assessment of her as genuine.

Just what exactly is motivating Oprah? Is it simply an “enlightened” desire to see people happy and “fulfilled”? Not quite, according to Kathryn Lofton, assistant professor of religious studies at Yale University . The academic says to look no further than Oprah’s commercial empire for the real inspiration: “"Her imperative is not to save souls. Her imperative is to give you a line that makes you want to return and consume the product."

That’s awfully cynical, Prof Lofton. Are you saying that behind the spiritual guru is nothing more than an opportunistic entrepreneur? How about the Katrina rebuilding and the Angel network? “"I think there is a sincere desire to give back - and you can see it on the documentaries that you can buy on the website for $29.95."

Ouch.

Jokes aside Lofton makes a good argument. Oprah’s rallying cry does seem to focus around, as Lofton phrases it, “’Buy this product, and I'll change your life.'” Chicago actress Robyn Okrant can offer one example as to how her life has changed. Okrant started a blog, “LivingOprah.com, recording her year-long efforts to live as Oprah would have her live. She watches the program, tracks what products Oprah says she ‘must’ buy, she reads the magazines, makes the recipes, buys the Favorite Things.” Okrant reports that she has spent nearly $2,000 and was forced to move into a smaller apartment after her rent was increased. (It was either move or abandon the Oprah project.)

Perhaps Oprah is the 21st century televangelist. The 20th century televangelist was a smarmy Southern man who promised that if you gave him money he would heal you and bring God’s grace down upon you. Maybe the 21st century televangelist is an intelligent, wealthy woman from a major metropolitan city who will teach you the secrets of your divinity and how to empower yourself . . . if you send her your money.


Donald Tremblay

False Saviors

In my junior year of high school I took a course in American History. Late in the semester our teacher discussed World War II and Nazi Germany. Many of the students sat dumbfounded as he explained how Germany fell under the spell of Adolf Hitler. We couldn’t understand how a nation could deify a man and follow him as if he were the return of Jesus Christ.

As I watch people embarrassingly fawn over Barack Obama I begin to understand how this can happen.

Do not misunderstand me. I am not suggesting Obama is another Hitler. I am merely commenting on the ridiculous Messiah-like attention many Americans are showering the presidential candidate with. Think I’m exaggerating?

The July 27 edition of the Sunday NY Daily News published a story about former Cincinnati Bengals linebacker Reggie Williams, who is trying to recover from multiple operations to replace his right knee. A photo of Williams walking in a leg brace accompanied the article. Written in marker across the straps of the brace is “Obama Heals”.

In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Time Magazine’s Joe Klein jokingly explained what happened when two Obama supporters visited his house: “’When two activists rang my doorbell, I wondered whether they had taken Ecstasy. I was afraid that they might hug me.’"

· In a February 13, 2008 article entitled, “Obama-The Savior Superstar”, Le Monde journalist Corine Lesnes declared, “The United States is a country that prides itself on its insistence on the merits of individualism. Nothing is more embarrassing to this country than these great moments of collective obsession (shared, of course, with Super Bowl frenzy), where every critical faculty appears to have been abandoned in the service of a universal pursuit.

Mark Steyn, in his column for the blog Falling Panda, quotes Ezra Klein of The American Prospect: "Obama's finest speeches do not excite. They do not inform. They don't even really inspire. They elevate. They enmesh you in a grander moment, as if history has stopped flowing passively by, and, just for an instant, contracted around you, made you aware of its presence, and your role in it. He is not the Word made flesh, but the triumph of word over flesh, over color, over despair."


And let’s not forget Oprah Winfrey who at a December 2007 campaign rally in Iowa referred to Obama as “The One”.


There are many, many other examples. These are just a few.

I suppose this was inevitable given the secular society we’ve become. A secular society will yearn for secular heroes and saviors. For years many have compartmentalized God in their lives—that is those who haven’t outright rejected God as irrelevant or non-existent. We have figuratively pushed God from His throne and installed Man in His place. Whether it has been through worshipping New Age spiritualities that promise to unlock your inner god, or through embracing pseudo-psychologies that preach self-empowerment and self-actualization, our society’s self-worship has risen to levels never before seen in our nation’s history.

And now we have reached a new plateau: American citizens looking to a politician to lead them to the Promised Land.

Unbelievable.

How many times does history need to repeat itself before people realize that salvation is not of this world and that it will not be brought by any human other than he who was both God and man, our Lord Jesus Christ. Americans need to be reacquainted with John’s Gospel:

But Jesus did not trust himself unto them, for that he knew all men, and because he needed not that any should give testimony of man: for he knew what was in man. (John 2: 24-25)


Donald Tremblay

Oprah and the New Age Movement

Recently I read a column that appeared on the Christian Broadcasting Network’s website (cbn.com) discussing Oprah Winfrey’s embracing of the latest New Age movements.

The column written by Andrea D. Hedlund (http://www.cbn.org/spirituallife/inspirationalteaching/Hedlund_BewareOFactor.aspx) states, “Like a chameleon, we have also watched her spiritual colors shift over the years.” She goes on to warn, “We should be alarmed by Oprah’s increasing hostility toward the truth of the Gospel and recent embrace of New Age philosophies like Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth and ‘The Secret.’”

As I read the column I was reminded of the research I did a few years ago for a priest who is writing a book on the return of Gnosticism, particularly through New Age practices and beliefs. The common denominator in all of the New Age “religions” I investigated is the embracing of Adam and Eve’s Original Sin: Pride. It is Man who should be worshipped because of our God-potential. These spiritualities teach that Jesus was merely an archetype, someone to be respected and even followed as a teacher but nothing more than that.

These New Age gurus teach we are all filled with the potential to be God and just need to unlock the divinity within us. Thus, we are all “Christ” and Jesus merely showed us one path to get there. Whether you follow Jesus, Buddha, or any other spiritual master doesn’t matter. All is Truth and no religion is more right than any other.

Because of our sinful nature it is tempting to embrace ideas that flatter ourselves. However, we must always remember that Jesus—and Jesus only—is God Incarnate. And as he said, “Without Me You Can Do Nothing” (John 15:5)

It is also important to remind ourselves of Christ’s warning in Matthew’s Gospel: “If anyone denies me here on earth, I will deny that person before my Father in Heaven.” (Matthew 10; 32-33)