Oprah Winfrey and The New Age Movement

An article by Ann Oldenburg dated 5/11/2006 on the USA Today website (www.usatoday.com) had the headline “The divine Miss Winfrey.” Following is part of that article.

After two decades of searching for her authentic self — exploring New Age theories, giving away cars, trotting out fat, recommending good books and tackling countless issues from serious to frivolous — Oprah Winfrey has risen to a new level of guru.

She's no longer just a successful talk-show host worth $1.4 billion, according to Forbes' most recent estimate. Over the past year, Winfrey, 52, has emerged as a spiritual leader for the new millennium, a moral voice of authority for the nation.

With her television pulpit and the sheer power of her persona, she has encouraged and steered audiences (mostly women) in all matters, from genocide in Rwanda to suburban spouse swapping to finding the absolute best T-shirt and oatmeal cookie.

"She's a really hip and materialistic Mother Teresa," says Kathryn Lofton, a professor at Reed College in Portland, Ore., who has written two papers analyzing the religious aspects of Winfrey. "Oprah has emerged as a symbolic figurehead of spirituality."

In one show (The video clip can be viewed at www.usatoday.com...), Oprah, in reference to Jesus Christ as the one way of salvation, stated emphatically, “There couldn’t possibly be just one way!”

Oprah’s next big event is a 365 day study of A Course in Miracles. This is a book written by Marianne Williamson who claims that this came from dictation she received from God. The course will be offered via XM radio and on the world wide web. The book states “This is a course in mind training” (page 16 of the book). The course states “There is no sin…,” and that a “slain Christ has no meaning.” (A Course in Miracles: Combined Volume, (Workbook), p. 183 & p. 425.) Lesson 70 of the workbook teaches that “My salvation comes from me.”

The point of all of this is that we live in a world that has forsaken the path of truth and has turned to our own selves to find the path of truth and salvation. On Oprah’s website (www2.oprah.com) the following quote was found, “The full acceptance of salvation as your only function necessarily entails two phases; the recognition of salvation as your function, and the relinquishment of all other goals you have invented for yourself.” By her fair words and smooth speeches Marianne Williamson has removed the need for Christ and placed peace, joy and salvation within each individual. This is existentialism gone to seed. The only truth is the truth that you find within yourself. She also teaches that your feelings and thoughts of the need for salvation through Jesus Christ is just an idea you have invented for yourself and you should train yourself to relinquish that idea.

There is great danger in such a philosophy. The complete peace and joy comes only with the acceptance of the idea that you are the god of you. Your thoughts and your feelings become the center of your universe. While it is true that Oprah is a very generous person, when it comes down to it, she must follow her feelings in order to achieve her happiness. But if someone else’s feelings are in opposition to her feelings than whose feelings win the day? Who will have the joy and peace? Selfishness is a sneaky snake that is so tangled up inside of oneself that it is difficult for you to see for yourself and is extremely difficult to eradicate.

Another error of this philosophy is the fact that it has no verifiable, authoritative standard of right or wrong. Each person becomes his or her own standard of morality. Anarchy is the ultimate end of such a philosophy. When you start with self and end with self then others must, by default, becomeless important.

Such an ideology also offers no hope beyond this life. They may speak of utopia, nirvana, or paradise, but they have no one who can verify the existence of such a place, and no confirmed promise of an after life, Marianne Williamson notwithstanding. On the other hand, Christianity has one who came from heaven and returned to heaven, leaving behind the promise to come again to receive the faithful to Himself and to carry them to heaven with Him to live for all eternity (John 3:13; 6:38; 14:1-3). And He proved it by various signs, wonders and miracles (Hebrews 2:4; John 14:11).

Paul was falsely accused by Festus in Acts 26:24, who said, “Paul, thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad.” But such would seem to be the case with these “New Age” gurus. Their high minded trust in human wisdom has led to a form of faith in self reliance. And it produces an arrogance described in Romans 1:21-23:

because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.

This dangerous ideology is taking many forms in the world today. At the root of it is the fact that people do not want to be restricted to the biblical code of morality. They want freedom: freedom to commit adultery and fornication; freedom to lie, cheat and steal without guilt; freedom to make themselves god. The serpent surely knew what he was doing in the garden of Eden when he told Eve, “For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil" (Genesis 3:5, emphasis added, SV). He is still using the same old trick. And people are still falling for it.

-Steve Vice