Oprah: Stay in your lane!

April 19, 2008 12:20 pm

— When I went to the US Army Chaplain School several years ago one of my instructors was a down to earth major named Chaplain Walker.
He was always concerned that chaplains remember who they are and who they aren’t, what they do and what they don’t do.
As he set out the parameters he would often tell stories of where chaplains blew it, which led to his repeated exhortation: “Chaplain, stay in your lane!” Whenever any of us get out of our areas of expertise and training, and get out of our lane, we run the risk of putting our foot in our mouth by revealing both arrogance and ignorance.
This week our own Oprah Winfrey did both.
I have nothing personal against Oprah. She is a very talented woman with a truly impressive story. But this past week she got out of her talent lane and defended the insidious notion that all paths lead to God - that Jesus isn’t anything special.
She had several New Age types on her show who were waxing all flowery about being a good and loving person, and that being such a a person draws each one of us closer to “god” (whatever he/she/it is).
One woman in the audience heard enough and took Oprah to task. With the candor of Bill O’Reilly and the intestinal fortitude of Ann Coulter she asked, “What about Jesus?”, and went on to make the point that Jesus is the only way and all other paths lead to darkness.
This brave woman not only left the New Age “experts” cross-eyed, but Oprah was left only to shut it down by refusing to debate.
The idea that there are many equally valid paths to God - or “universalism”- has been around a long time.
In the late 19th and early 20th century it gained momentum among theological liberals who saw it as unfair that God would only accept those who embraced Christianity. But the Bible states quite explicitly that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.
No one comes to the Father except through Him (John 14:6). To be sure God can (and has) worked through a variety of means to bring people to Himself; but this was predicated on the salvific work that Jesus would - and did - do in history. Outside of this work there is no hope.
But the manifest ignorance of believing all paths lead to God can be demonstrated in many other ways.
If Oprah and company would actually study these religions they would see the explicit contradictoriness and incompatibility of the various world religions. Many of them reject the idea of a personal God and a self-conscious afterlife.
Buddhism, for example, does not believe such things.
So what becomes of them at death? If universalists are right they go to a place they didn’t believe existed to dwell with someone they never believed in.
In other words, what they believed while alive was wrong. Yet universalists say that what they believe is just as valid as any other religion.
This ignorant and uninformed double-speak shows the manifest absurdity of such a position.
If it is so easy to see the error of universalism why do otherwise intelligent people such as Oprah Winfrey believe it? Many reasons could be given; but at the most fundamental level, it sounds good. And because - as studies show - we are doctrinally uninformed, we get carried away by what “feels right” and “sounds good” to us. Study after study shows that the contemporary church has failed in its responsibiblity to teach its people the essential tenets of historic Christianity. But that isn’t the only problem. Studies also show that many professing Christians don’t care about doctrine either, and actually view the study of theology as an impediment to heartfelt Christianity.
Perhaps the greatest irony of this is that Jesus taught us just the opposite: to truly love God as we should emotions are not enough. We must also love God by developing our minds.
We are to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength.
Otherwise we will be carried away by what tickles our ears, and get out of the Christian lane.

Marty Fields is pastor of Westminster Presbyterian Church. Reach him at pastor@westminsterepc.com.

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