Oprah Winfrey a Christian? “One of the mistakes human beings make is thinking there is only one way.” “There couldn’t possibly be just one way!” “What if on some remote part of the Earth someone has never heard the name of Jesus … you cannot get to heaven?” Now I want to make clear that I am not in agreement with the apologetic style of these Christians attempting to refute Oprah’s blatant relativism. Christian arrogance and pride never convince anyone of the truth, especially in a PC culture like ours. We would all do well as believers to pay attention to how no one responds well to their attitudes in the video. The arguments made in defense of Christianity are paper thin in this video and really do nothing to actually address the issue at hand (relativism). It may have been more helpful to point out that in order to state all religions lead to the same place that you must have an authoritative, divine, birds-eye view of all other religions above everyone else to be able to say that. Oprah, claiming to be open and inclusive, is claiming to have The Truth of truths, that all smaller truths lead to the one Truth and is arguing for that position against Gospel-Christianity. In an effort to be inclusive she is being very exclusive, just as the video shows. All those claiming there is one way are forced out of the conversation. This is very telling.Based on the Scriptures weighing against what she says in this video, she has denied, “the faith once for all delivered to the saints,” (Jude 3) that Jesus is The Way, The Truth, and The Life, just as Jesus said of Himself (John 14:6). John, in the book of 1 John, shows that there are certain things you can know (as much as one can know from external evidences) to determine whether someone believes or not. In addition, Jesus says multiple times in the Gospels that, “you will know them by their fruits.” (Matthew 7:15-20) It is not final or divinely authoritative in any manner. We should never conclude someone is finally lost, ever. Only God’s judgment is final and the only one that matters. We are not taking our place as God here when making these doctrinally discerning judgments (as opposed to condemning judgments as forbidden in Matthew 7, Romans 2 and other places). We’re even directed to use good doctrinally discerning judgment! (Colossians 2:8, 1 Timothy 1:3) As believers, we need not be swept away by every wind of doctrine (Ephesians 4:13-14) that blows our way (in this case a moralistic, works-based religious pluralism as proposed by Oprah).

I bring this up because I have heard something disturbing concerning some women in my church claiming that Oprah Winfrey is indeed a believer in Jesus Christ, simply because some say she claimed Christ when she was younger, the whole “Carnal” Christian thing. Nonsense. Do not true Christians persevere by God’s power in them and continue to confess and believe that He is The Way, The Truth and The Life throughout their lives, that there is no other gate to heaven but through faith alone in Christ? How does this square with what Oprah says in this video? I cannot reconcile it with the Scriptures. If I’m missing something in there, help me find it. I’m not discounting the amazing amount of good she has done in the world; way more influence than I will ever have to help people. I’m merely talking about her counter-profession of faith that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and He alone is the way of salvation, not one of many to choose from as our cultural climate dictates to us. To say she is a believer in Jesus Christ is simply fallacious. She has abandoned the faith, which means she never truly believed to begin with (because God keeps those who are saved from walking away). To her and all relativists, Jesus was simply a good teacher, maybe even one of the best, but He was not the one Way.

We cannot know her heart through and through, nor should we suppose to know it in this manner. (The heart is deceitfully wicked above all things, especially my own). We can only look at external evidences (like her counter-profession of faith in this video) and conclude her beliefs. Also, John is very clear to us about testing the spirits to see whether they are from God. “Every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.” (1 John 4:3). What does it mean to confess Jesus? Is this just mere mental assent that He existed at some time in history and was a good teacher, just as she says in the video? No, it is a confession of belief in the Gospel of Christ unto salvation to eternal life, “the faith once for all delivered to the saints.” (Jude 3) It means you embrace Jesus as The Way of salvation alone, that He accomplished everything on your behalf that was necessary to please God, through faith in Him. Oprah does not do this. To listen to Oprah and believe she is speaking Biblical truth is to stray from the very teachings of the Scriptures themselves. As John states of those who turn away from the faith, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.” (1 John 2:19) Read the verse above again and let it soak in. 1) No true believer can lose their salvation. 2) But if someone walks away from the faith, embracing secular relativism as a religion (as with Oprah), which she clearly does, that means she never truly believed. If she truly knew Christ, she would at the very least confess Him as the only way to God. She does not. She does not, as Augustine says, value Christ above all other religious teachers, which is the only way He is truly valued at all.

In response to Oprah’s question about all those who haven’t heard of Christ but who are “good moral people,” (I respond more for the purpose of giving scriptural support for believers reading this) I respond with Isaiah 64:6, “All our righteous acts are like filthy rags,” Romans 3:10, “None is righteous, no, not one,” Romans 14:23, “For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin,” and Romans 1:18-20, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” God’s judgment is His prerogative, not ours. He has chosen His people from the foundation of the world, and they will be saved. That is the hope of evangelism, because we have no idea who He will choose to save! If someone is not saved though, having never heard the Gospel, how can they successfully argue against God, being a sinner before Him? Because of their sin nature, they have offended Him on an infinite level. All that proceeds from sinners is sin (Romans 8:7-8). I do not believe the punishment will be as severe for those who have never heard Christ, but they are still culpable to judgment. However, if He chooses not to send the Gospel to a land via missions, who can argue against Him and demand Him to be merciful on judgment day? He’s God, we’re not. Who are we to question the Creator rights of the Almighty God? The arrogance of our hearts bringing the righteousness and justice of God into question at all! Does He have to save anyone to begin with? No. He would be just and correct to send us all to hell forever. It is simply by His free mercy and grace in Christ that anyone is saved at all. And all of what I have said here is unpacked in Romans 9, particularly verses 6-24, explaining why some Jews believed while most did not. What makes us to differ but the grace of God giving illumination into who Christ really is?

Also, Oprah is a big proponent of The Secret. Here’s an entry I wrote a while back pertaining to that: http://www.davidwesterfield.net/index.p … 711-151143