T3

Pastor Oprah

Last Thursday's USA Today carried an intriguing story about the power of being Oprah Winfrey and how many Americans (particularly women) see Oprah as a spiritual leader who is changing the world. Here is what actor/entertainer Jammie Foxx said as a guest on her show ...

Last fall, at the start of this 20th season of The Oprah Winfrey Show, guest Jamie Foxx said much the same thing, but he wasn't joking. "What you have is something nobody can describe," Foxx said to Winfrey on the air. Then he explained about how he told Vibe magazine: "You're going to get to heaven and everyone's waiting on God and it's going to be Oprah Winfrey."

He told her she has "different gears" than most people. "You're on the top of the world, and we really do watch and listen for everything you do and say to kind of get our lives together. It's the truth."

In a November poll conducted at Beliefnet.com, a site that looks at how religions and spirituality intersect with popular culture, 33% of 6,600 respondents said Winfrey has had "a more profound impact" on their spiritual lives than their clergypersons.

Cathleen Falsani, religion writer for the Chicago Sun-Times, recently suggested, "I wonder, has Oprah become America's pastor?"

What do you think? Is Oprah America's new spiritual leader? Does the fact that 33% of 6,600 respondents say the Oprah has had a more profound impact on their lives than their clergy person say more about Oprah or about today's clergy person? Something to think about ...

A Revolutionary Standard!

This morning in my reading I was headed for Matthew 26, but got stuck on Matthew 25:31-46. It is Jesus telling his disciples about the final judgment right before they go to celebrate his last passover. Jesus very plainly says that when he comes in all of his glory, and all of the angels with him, and he sits upon his glorious throne, he will gather the nations before him and then separate them as a shepherd separates the goats from the sheep - sheep on the right, goats on the left. Then he will summon the sheep and say, "Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." And the basis of this selection is how the sheep treated the hungry, thirsty, alienated, naked, sick, and imprisoned people of the world. It is not a passage we hear preached much in our churches today; and no wonder, it is quite convicting. Jesus seems to be saying that how we deal with the marginalized of the earth is a true reflection of our relationship with him. It is a sobering standard of true spirituality. And yet, for how many of our churches is this a PRIMARY concern? Do we see as our primary mission on earth Loving Jesus by genuinely loving and engaging with the hungry, thirsty, alienated, naked, sick, and imprisoned people of the world? What will it take to reorient the evangelical Church to this revolutionary standard? What can each of us do to help reorient our own community of faith and give leadership to a vibrant, church-wide ministry to "the least of these" among us?  Any ideas or thoughts?

A Radical Solution

The Scriptures say that we, as humans, are created in the image and likeness of God. As a result, we can attain to a relationship with the Creator through Jesus Christ. In fact, the Westminster Catechism states that that is our chief aim; to know God and love Him forever. Yet it seems sin has so corroded our aspirations for God that we are too often willing to settle for a life of banality. Louis of Granada says that, "Men have so perverted their natures that, like brute animals they seek nothing but the goods of the body. What greater disorder than that so noble a creature, capable of the happiness and glory of God, should live and act like an animal and not have any other occupation or seek any other end than to meet their bodily desires."  Such radical sickness called for a radical solution!  "Anyone who considers these things will not be surprised at the incarnation of the Son of God, because so great an evil demanded an extraordinary remedy." Let's make sure that these weeks of Easter we turn toward our true calling and live mindfully in relationship with the God who made us and redeemed us through Jesus! Blessings!

Compromising With Capitalism

It is absolutely amazing to me how we as the Church of Jesus Christ have become so adept at rationalizing and justifying our idolatry of wealth. We live in deep denial of our addiction to acquisitiveness and the constant desire we have for more. In an effort to avoid the issue we use defenses like, "Capitalism may have problems, but show me a better economic system." Well, there are plenty of potential alternatives, but they would require us to sober up real fast and actually engage in denying ourselves. For starters we could reexamine the economic thinking of Thomas Aquinas, John Locke and R.A. Tawney. In fact, according to Tawney, "social transformation requires most basically a change in attitude. The attitudes of governments to social questions is wrong, profoundly wrong. but it is wrong because the attitudes of individuals to each other is wrong, because we in our present society are living on certain false and universal assumptions ... what we have got to do first of all is to change those assumptions and principles." Moreover, Tawney states that, "Compromise is as impossible between the Church of Christ and the idolatry of wealth, which is the practical religion of capitalist societies, as it was between the Church and the State idolatry of the Roman Empire." What will it take to shake us out of our denial? What does it actually mean to "love our neighbor as our self?"