I haven’t wasted any time exploring it, but I gather the current furor has to do with the fact that Oprah is actually sharing her beliefs online in some sort of a virtual classroom setting. I’m not sure I grasp why that upsets people. One can find a host of spiritual material of all different sorts online. Why wouldn’t Oprah do the same if it’s something that actually matters to her?

As far back as I can recall, Oprah has been open about her pluralist beliefs. She prefers her pluralism with some Christian symbols. I preferred mine with pagan symbols. However, as every study I’ve seen illustrates, most Americans prefer Oprah’s path of pluralism to the one I took. The Christian names and symbols are culturally familiar and comfortable to many.

Or were some under the delusion that pluralism of one sort or another is not the dominant system of spirituality in America today? Has the use of familiar names and symbols actually fooled people into believing we are some sort of “Christian” nation?

I don’t see how our people are to blame, though. They’ve thoroughly absorbed the lesson Western Christian pluralism, with its multiplicity of denominations, fractured identity, and often contradictory statements about God in all his persons, actually teaches. I hardly think they are to blame when they simply carry that lesson to its logical conclusion: It’s up to each of us individually to decide who and what God is, who and what Jesus is, who and what the Father is, who and what the Spirit is, and how it all fits together.

Oh, you say that’s not the lesson you intended to teach? Well, you know what they say about good intentions ….

The present harvest of radical pluralism is the fruit of centuries of Christian pluralism. I seem to recall someone talking about reaping what you sow …

But once again, it’s probably mostly just me.