The most serious rival to Christianity in the world today is not Buddhism, Islam or Hinduism. In fact, it is not a religion at all.

The real competition is plain old secular humanism, the view that we can 'do life' without religious belief.

Whilst this comes in many guises, one of the most influential today is Oprah Winfrey and her media empire, headed by the flagship afternoon TV show.

Oprah is in the business of interpreting life for people. She is like a contremprary prophet of her generation. From time to time, to be fair, segments of her program contain helpful advice. Yet religion, God, Jesus and the Bible have little or no role to play in her take on how to get through life.

Rather, her philosophy can be summed up as 'finding your authentic self'.

Oprah, of course, is not the only exponent of this worldview but she has certainly been relentless in exegeting its core doctrine -- so taken for granted today - that 'you are the captain of your own ship'.

It is difficult to over-state Oprah's influence. The statistics are amazing. Her show has been on air now for some seventeen years and is syndicated in 107 countries. It is the number one daytime TV program in the USA with a following of 22 million.

Her magazine, launched a couple of years ago was an instant global success, while the website gets a quarter of a million visitors every week. Oprah receives 10,000 emails a month.

Newsweek magazine named Oprah 'woman of the century', while Time called her 'one of the hundred most important people of the millennium'. Vanity Fair said she is 'more influential than anybody today, with the possible exception of the Pope'.

Her name carries superstitious significance for many: as a newborn she was named after the biblical character Orpah (Ruth 1:4) but a spelling error on her birth certificate left her name 'Oprah'. Today her private company is called 'Harpo', which equals Oprah spelled backwards. Many see in her life story a kind of pilgrimage quality, from poor Mississippi family to Queen of Therapy, helping to create a larger-than-life image. Oprah does nothing to discourage the overall myth-making effect: she is on record as saying, quote, 'all my life I have always known I was born to greatness'.

Increasingly, the whole exercise has taken on quasi-religious overtones. Oprah talks often, for instance, about 'nourishing your spirit'. And reportedly, the next big plan is to build a mega Spiritual Health Centre in Hawaii.

What is her message? The city-by-city Live Tour of motivational talks is called "Live Your Best Life', and the daily TV program reinforces this, with titles such as 'Uncovering your authentic self' and 'What's your limiting belief?'.

With sermon-sounding titles like these, the TV show is clearly more than simply light entertainment. By themselves, these topics may be just curiosities, but the danger lies in the total effect.

The cumulative message is akin to a carefully crafted creedal statement. Oprah, like secular humanism in general, consistently tells us to look within ourselves for answers. In this philosophy humans are ultimately the measure of all things, and to be truly fulfilled you need to 'get in touch with who you are'.

Yet in the final analysis, humanism can never satisfy, because God has made us for relationship with himself and has 'put eternity into man's heart' (Ecclesiastes 3:11). The humanist 'gospel' is merely what its name suggests: an empty human invention.

At the end of the day, Oprah is just another sinner, like you and me. Like the chaff which the wind drives away (Psalm 1:4), she and others like her do not stand the test of time.

We do well to take heed of the apostle Paul's warning in Colossians 2:8 :

See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.

The apostle's advice is instead to 'follow the pattern of sound words' in his Gospel, 'in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus' (2 Timothy 1:13).

Warmly in Christ,

Kim Hawtrey

(Reprinted with persmission from Impact Evangelism Bulletin)
27 October 2002