Wednesday, April 9, 2008

The Church of Oprah

Okay, so I get a lot of strange emails. But today's email took the cake, the icing, the platter, and ran out the door with it. There's a movement to boycott Oprah because -- get this -- she doesn't support Christian values and her religious tolerance is "dangerous." You have to understand, before watching this, that I post it while *laughing*. I believe in religious tolerance. But the paranoia behind someone sending this note to me makes me shiver. Every email I get these days suggests something is out to "get us." What is the Christian community so afraid of? If the faith is as strong as we suggest, why do we believe that anything -- even as silly as an Oprah show, or a book with magic in it, or being exposed to opinions different than ours -- could break us down? In my opinion, a foundation that weak had cracks in it already.

The video claims that Oprah does two particularly "frightening" things: 1. She claims that all religions lead to the path of God and 2. She reviews a book that teaches openmindedness and has, in the past, supported the power of positive thinking (I have in mind The Secret). So far, in my book, that makes her just fine -- hardly the antichrist this youtube post makes her out to be.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the premise behind this email and the video to follow is that the sender (and the creator of the clip) believes Oprah is some sort of Christian watchdog meant to guard the sentinel that is religious faith. Um, might I remind everyone that she runs a -- TALKSHOW. She's not a religious leader. Not only is it her right but her job to avoid isolating large groups of people (say, all of Islam or Judaism, just for example).


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