June 21, 2003

Today we shall speak of two people – Oprah Winfrey and Sam Kinison. I think everyone knows who the first one is, and dedicated fans of stand-up comedy know the second.

Oprah Winfrey is, of course, a talk show host. Previously she was incarnated as an actress. But then Oprah really is more than just a talk show host is. Her business interests are quite widespread, producer, publisher, and owner of a whole cable channel (it is not an accident that ‘Oxygen, the Channel for Women’ starts with an ‘o’. I bet she is even a major player in the real estate and equities markets (you almost have to be when you have her kind of cash). Her biggest role; however, is far less concrete. She has amassed a huge fortune, allowing her to do all these things because she is some sort of "guru." She does not have fans; she has devotees, even worshippers.

Oprah is proof of the assertion that if you do not believe in God, you will believe in something. Just listen to her fans, they talk about her in the most reverent of terms. They talk about how she "helped" them. I have watched a lot of television over the years and while I find it entertaining and sometimes informative, I have never found it to be helpful in any truly significant manner.

My theory is that Oprah is the ultimate expression of the direction the mainstream churches are going. As they continue to move down the path of self-help, psycho-babble, and away from the religious basics of confession, repentance, ethics, and morality, they grow more and more to resembling the Oprah phenomena. Oprah’s business success lies, as most business success does, in spotting a trend and taking everyone down the next step of that trend. Her success similarly stokes the ‘fires’ within the churches that cause them to move in that direction, because her success ‘models’ what they seem to want to be.

Sam Kinison is an amazing story. Sam started life as a preacher. From about the age of ten he was one of those tent-revivalist, singsong, Low Church preachers. He traveled from church-to-church, tent-to-tent spreading the word for 10% of the collection. Eventually he discovered that the money was a lot better in "mainstream" entertainment and he became without question the most vulgar comic of all time. Dice Clay was vulgar but stopped just short of the edge and therefore became a millionaire. Sam again and again jumped over the edge. Despite the fact that Rodney Dangerfield found him the most talented of all of them; Sam never really moved out of the larger clubs and a few HBO specials.

Sam died in a car accident, probably fueled by substances. There have been some interesting biographies done of him. What is most fascinating is that none of them talk about any sort of conversion, or denial of God in Sam that caused him to move from preaching to comedy. The transition seems to have been some sort of natural progression. Most would argue that Sam never had faith to begin with; that he was simply an entertainer in church clothing. I find it hard to believe that one could play the role, convincingly, night after night without some sort of faith.

Here we have the stories of two people that have significantly blurred the line between religion, church, and entertainment. Think about it – where precisely does entertainment end and religion begin? Think about others that have blurred the line; Amy Semple McPherson, Earnest Angley, or fictious characters like Elmer Gantry.

When we form an organization in this country, say a non-profit, one of the first things we have to do is file papers and pay money to create a legal entity. The dictionary defines "entity" as "something that has separate and distinct existence and objective or conceptual reality." In other words, when we incorporate a congregation, we create something part from ourselves. That thing has to have something to do. So throughout the years, churches have entertained. Given this state of affairs, is it surprising that we would have people blur the line more than it is naturally? The more the line is blurred, the more it disguises the true nature of Jesus.

This is why I am deeply troubled when churches try so hard to find a way "to survive." Remember when Jesus pointed to Simon Peter and said, "Upon this rock I will build My church"? Jesus did not point to a stone, did He? Jesus did not pass out copies of some Book of Order or other constitutional document, did He? Jesus pointed to a MAN. Do you see the dichotomy that is established in the last two paragraphs?

Jesus establishes His church as something made of people. We have legally established a church as something with a ‘separate and distinct existence.’ But then I have talked time and again that by trying to save "the church" we are trying to save the wrong thing. People like Oprah and Sam, see this better than most. They instinctively realize that this separate entity is not the thing Jesus came to work with, so why not take profitable advantage of it?

Small groups are another of the waves sweeping across Christendom as the salvation of the church. This is so right and this is so wrong. Small groups come closer than most any other Christian gathering to modeling the kind of thing that Jesus was talking about. They are composed of people; they exist without constitution or incorporation. But so often now, churches try to formulate and programatize them, thus robbing them of the very thing that brings them so close to being what Jesus wanted.

A good small group is a thing without parallel – it really is a little bit of the Kingdom here on earth. They can be a source of strength, support, and growth. Or they can be a sterile, formulaic attempt to reach for glory of God. The difference is the people. Jesus came to build people.

The best we can ever hope for is to build ourselves in such a way that the light of Jesus shines forth from us. The minute we stop building ourselves and start building some other entity, we have lost sight of the Almighty.

I urge you, in prayer and with supplication, work to be more like Jesus. Find others who work only to be more like Jesus. Pray with those people. Don’t worry about the rest of it.