Everyone loves Oprah

Everyone loves Oprah.

We’ve loved her through the skinny years, the fat years, the marathon training, the Mad Cow disease hamburger controversy, and the Tom Cruise couch performance. Oprah made us laugh, made us cry, introduced us to Spanx, and gave away cars.

What’s not to love?

The problem is that when Americans fall in love, we sometimes fall too hard. As anyone who has ever fallen too hard in love can tell you, smitten lovers run the risk of losing all sense of discernment and perspective.

Those of us who loved Oprah’s show for its food reviews, parenting tips, and fashion advice might not have noticed that her advice did not stop at the material. Especially in her show’s later years, Oprah wanted to feed our souls.

Somehow, when we weren’t looking, Oprah transformed her image into something close to a spiritual icon. Her book recommendations included not only chick-lit fiction titles, but New Age spiritual resources. Her show’s tagline became “Live Your Best Life Now,” a directive which included a spirituality based on the works of New Age notables Marriane Williamson, Betty Eadie, and Sophy Burnham, among others.

In every human heart there is a void — a longing for emotional happiness, personal fulfillment, and spiritual wholeness. Our empty, aching hearts are made for communion with our Creator. Jesus Christ, who alone is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, can make us whole.

Oprah is a funny, smart, charismatic, and real American woman who has found commercial success by tapping into a human need for “soul food.” When popular culture feeds us New Age mumbo-jumbo, feel-good speak, and words of affirmation, we might be temporarily satiated, but in the end we come away empty again.

Oprah fills our hearts and minds with fleeting feelings. Only Christ can feed our souls.

Danielle Bean  | May 25, 2011 1:01 PM