Our New Spiritual Leader….

So, who is our nation’s spiritual leader? Franklin Graham? Rick Warren? The Pope? Joel Osteen? Me(not!)? Well, you’re wrong on all counts. Its (drum roll, please)……OPRAH WINFREY!

So says an article written by Ann Oldenberg in the May 10 USA Today. You can read it here while I go get a towel to catch the blood spurting out of my eyes.

The premise of the article is that Winfrey has evolved from talk-show host, to self-help guru, to finally, spiritual giant. The finalizing moment was her mea culpa on the James Frey book scandal earlier this year. Her statement ” I left the impression that the truth is not important…. I am deepy sory about that, because that is not what I believe”, has, in the eyes of one observer, put here right up there in the land of spiritual giants.

The most telling statment in the article was a quote of commentator Debbie Schlussel:

Schlussel says Winfrey followers “are incredibly gullible, bandwagon-jumping trend-slaves.” Winfrey, she says, “acts as if her show has ‘evolved,’ but in fact, she still has the salacious sex and deviance stories, with a psychologist in the audience to make it seem highbrow and give it the kosher seal of approval. If this is the person whose morals we are putting on a pedestal, then America’s moral compass is in much need of retuning.”

For among them are those who enter into households and capitivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various inpulses always learning, but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so theses men also oppose the htruth, men of depraved mind, rejected in regard to the faith.(2 Timothy 3:6-9)