More Garbage From Oprah Winfrey In "A Wrinkle In Time"

The movie "A Wrinkle in Time" focuses on girls and it urges them to pursue their passions, "...Tapping into your light. Letting it shine no matter the circumstances."1 Oprah Winfrey, who stars in this movie, echoes a similar message.

How should Christians, especially young Christian girls, absorb this message? Is Oprah making sense? Georgi Boorman's article in The Federalist addresses this topic.2 Read on...

"A Wrinkle in Time" is getting panned by critics, but that hasn't deterred Oprah Winfrey from proselytizing the message of the movie as she sees it.

A 14-year-old girl asked Oprah for advice for young girls "who want to make a difference in the world." This girl raised over $50,000 to send other girls to see the movie, which Oprah stars in.

To answer her, Oprah tapped into the prophetic gift that's bestowed on all celebrities with the requisite daytime talk shows and book clubs:

"The highest honor on earth that you will ever have is the honor of being yourself. And your only job in the world is to figure out, that's what this movie is about — people think your job is to get up and go and raise money and take care of your family — that's an obligation that you have, but your only true job as a human being is to discover why you came, why you are here.

And every one of us has an internal guidance, a GPS, an intuition, a heart print, a heartsong that speaks to us. Your only job is to be able to listen and discern when it's speaking versus when your head and your personality is speaking. And if you follow that, you will be led to the highest good for you. Always."

When a sweet pile of word garbage is dumped into your ears like that, you might wonder how the daytime prophetess could possibly have the millions of followers she does. Really, her message isn't that much different than the typical self-worship your kids hear in Disney movies. "Follow your heart," and "be yourself" are the proverbs of the age.

It doesn't sound as bad when it's put into a story, because those stories all have happy endings. But when Oprah lays it out like a Sunday morning sermon, it's easier to see how terrible this advice really is.

Let's review, starting with Oprah's idea of "highest honor."

The highest honor on earth is not to be yourself, because you are wretched: You lie and you cheat and you hurt even the people that you love. You break your promises. You are selfish and greedy.

Sure, you have a few talents, a few crumbs of wisdom, a few bright spots in your totally depraved heart. But are they enough to nominate you for "the highest honor?" No. This is advice from a bubble world devoid of red editing pens and full of participation trophies — the world millennials were raised in, and that our own kids are being raised in.

Telling someone they're a double rainbow of awesomeness is not going to encourage them to improve. Actually, studies have shown that most subpar workers believe they're doing a good job. It's called the Dunning-Kruger effect, and we need less of this, not more. But this only comes with honesty about our shortcomings, not the lie that simply "being ourselves" is worthy of the highest honor.

Maybe what Oprah really means is that we shouldn't be "fake." We shouldn't try to be someone we're not. Yes, honesty is honorable, but being honest has to include acknowledging how awful we are. And if we acknowledge how awful we are, we quickly realize that being our "authentic selves" shouldn't earn us any special honors.

Oprah would have you claim that you are the highest value and set yourself up as a god. Pride is the original sin, and you might remember it didn't work out so well for the first guy who tried it. This idolatry is just the beginning of Oprah's bad advice, though. She goes on to claim that our only true job in the world is to "discover who we are, why we're here." It's not wrong to seek answers to those questions. Actually finding that answer, realizing who you are in relation to God, will ultimately lead you to eternal life. But Oprah isn't preaching the gospel here. She's already implied that this spiritual journey of sorts is personal, and so everyone's answer is unique. You only need follow your "internal GPS" to find your "highest good."