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Image by Story Accents via FlickrYou know, I always thought Oprah was a little "New Age-y."  Well, actually, I always thought she was VERY "New Age-y."  I can't say I watched more than a dozen of her shows in full over the years, but I occasionally caught one when changing channels and finding an interesting guest or topic being discussed.  I'd think she was Christian, then maybe-kinda-sorta Christian, then I'd think she surrounded herself with magic crystals that affirmed her as human being and kept her in relationship with all of her followers in a little Oprah-cult.  Perhaps not that bad, but I think she's been purposely hard to pin down when it comes to her beliefs.  My guess is that's one of the things that makes her so accessible to millions of viewers.

Maybe she's a seeker who embraces the call to love and to serve and accept (some things those of us who call ourselves Christian everyday can struggle with).  And yet I can't help but think she'd have a hard time with some of standard beliefs of Christianity...such as the words of the Apostles' Creed.  Moreover, I know that she's ruffled more than a few Christian feathers with all of her various nods to self-help and individualism and her comment at one point, I believe, that Jesus isn't the ONLY way of salvation.  She always seems to be appealing to a much larger base than traditional Christianity would allow.

Regardless, when she speaks, she has a large audience.  Her words are taken seriously by lots of folks out there.   So, it is with some surprise that I read her comments on her final show yesterday.  You can read the whole thing over here. 

“People often ask me, What is the secret of success of the show? How have we lasted 25 years? I nonjokingly say, ‘My team and Jesus.’ Because nothing but the hand of God has made this possible for me. … I know I’ve never been alone, and you haven’t either. And I know that that presence, that flow—some people call it grace—is working in my life at every single turn. And yours too, if you let it in. It’s closer than your breath, and it is yours for the asking.
…

“I have felt the presence of God my whole life. Even when I didn’t have a name for it, I could feel the voice bigger than myself speaking to me, and all of us have that same voice. Be still and know it. You can acknowledge it or not. You can worship it or not. You can praise it, you can ignore it or you can know it. Know it. It’s always there speaking to you and waiting for you to hear it in every move, in every decision. I wait and I listen. I’m still—I wait and listen for the guidance that’s greater than my meager mind.
…

“The only time I’ve ever made mistakes is when I didn’t listen. So what I know is, God is love and God is life, and your life is always speaking to you. First in whispers. … It’s subtle, those whispers. And if you don’t pay attention to the whispers, it gets louder and louder. It’s like getting thumped upside the head, like my grandmother used to do. … You don’t pay attention to that, it’s like getting a brick upside your head. You don’t pay attention to that, the whole brick wall falls down. That’s the pattern I’ve seen in my life, and it’s played out over and over again on this show.
…

“So, audience, I want to keep in touch. I want you to jot down my new email address: Oprah@Oprah.com—easy to remember, huh? This is going to be my personal email account for all of you. When you get something in your in-box from me, it will be from me directly, and I’ll be reading as many of your emails as I can as I move to my next life on OWN. I want you to know that what you have to say matters to me. I understand the manifestation of grace and God, so I know that there are no coincidences. There are none. Only divine order here.
…

Until we meet again . . . to God be the Glory.”

"My team and Jesus."  "I've felt the presence of God my whole life."  "God is love and God is life."  "Divine order." "To God be the Glory."  There's a lot here.

Yet, I can't help but think it would be an interesting process to sit down and talk theology with Oprah.  I wonder just how dissimilar our understandings of God would be.

Image via Wikipedia

(From Jared Wilson's Blog, The Gospel-Driven Church)

This is not my letter.   This is a letter from the vigilante hacker group "Anonymous" -- the folks who are targeting the sites of businesses who have worked against WikiLeaks.  Anonymous has, in the past, attacked the Church of Scientology and even the government of Egypt.  They consider themselves militant proponent of free speech.  So it's interesting here that they are willing to threaten a group who's very existence tests the limits of free speech.

The Westboro Baptist Church, as you may or may not know, is a group famous for picketing military burials and for their "God Hates Fags" signs and website.  They are religious activists led by Fred Phelps and the members include many of Phelps' family.  They make me want to throw up and they force other Christians into an apology that persons who claim to be Christian can spout the things they spout.

Well, "Anonymous" has issued a threat against their group.  I found the full letter, below, over at Digital Trends:

So, what do you think? Is this a way to go after the folks at the Westboro Baptist Church? I'm kinda' holding out hope that Anonymous goes through with the attack. While I believe in free speech, and think that WBC should "legally" be allowed to spew their hate, I'd love to see them shut up by someone...you know, someone else. Then again, perhaps my own limits of free speech are being tested here.

Image by jacdupree via Flickr
Jason Linkins writes over at Huffington Post (the emphasis is mine):

For my part, I found Stewart's last commentary to be extremely effective, if only because it inspired me to take a searching self-inventory. Here's the question I asked myself: Pick a political opponent, someone you really hate, in terms of political positioning. Yeah, it might be knives out between you and them, in terms of cap and trade or tax policy, but ask yourself: would you celebrate their daughter's graduation from college? If they told you their father had died, would you lend a consolatory embrace, or would you take a secret glee? If they were broken down at the side of the road, would you pull out and offer up your jumper cables, or drive on by....

So, while I wasn't too terribly impressed with the comedic content on this occasion, I was nevertheless plenty moved by Stewart's soliloquy on decency and how the overamplification of our worst impulses and arguments tend to overshadow it. It's a tough remember at election time. We're taught to think of democracy as two sides that want a chance to steal the other's birthday, instead of a democracy in which ideas compete with one another. But we go on with life together, once elections end. When's the last time someone you disagree with actually came through for you when you needed it? For me, it was this morning. Keeping that in mind would be an eminently sane and decent thing to do.