Is following Oprah one of the millions of ways to God?

I figure it must be since, according to her, there are now “millions of ways to get to heaven”. OK, we’ve known that Oprah has been out in left field, spiritually, but according to a recent report, she has (I believe for the first time) effectively denied Jesus verbally:

According to Christian Newswire, Oprah Winfrey has recently taken up preaching – including pushing Eckhart Tolle’s new book A New Earth – on the idea there are now millions of ways to get to heaven. Now, Winfrey has in effect denied the teachings of the Bible and of Jesus by asking her viewing audience, “How can there be only one way to heaven or to God?” When a women in her audience asked, “What about Jesus?” Oprah answered by repeating the question, “What about Jesus?” She then explained she had been a Baptist until she heard a charismatic pastor say God was a jealous God. In her opinion God was simply love, and God being described as jealous made her really stop and think.

I won’t even go into how asinine it is to deny the ability (not to mention the absolute right!) of God to be jealous. As a matter of fact, because He is love He is jealous. More than that, because He is holy and just and…well, GOD…He must be jealous. OK, off the soap-box for now (tomorrow is Sunday so I can jump back on).

What concerns me as a pastor is the far-reaching impact that Oprah has on so many millions of people, many of them without even realizing it. I’m sure there are even people within my church who watch her regularly. Now, I’m not going so far as to call her THE Antichrist (as Scripture defines it), but I will say that she is very much “anti-Christ,” thereby doing the job as effectively as anything.

We must not underestimate the negative influence that she is having on the masses simply by being a “good person,” giving away millions and spreading the love. We have to remember the fact that Scripture declares our good works, apart from Christ, absolutely worthless. It doesn’t matter if she gives away her entire fortune, Isaiah declares it as “filthy rags.” It’s time that Christians, especially, start to wake up to this fact and get that influence out of their lives. It’s not an attempt to demonize Oprah, but to point to the fact that she is incredibly and sadly misguided. Why it is so important to come down hard on her, though, is because she is in a unique position of spreading her gospel to millions in one sitting.

Look, I’m going out on a limb here and say that it is impossible to passively watch Oprah and not be affected (or should I say infected) negatively. So, if you are a big Oprah fan because you like her infectious attitude or her generosity or her motivational abilities, it’s seriously time to get over it. Sweat to the oldies with Richard Simmons or something, but drop the Oprah habit. And as one great philosopher said, “That’s all I’ve got to say about that.”

Here is the video segment in question: