In the fall of 2005, Oprah Winfrey entered her 20th season as the celebrated host of The Oprah Winfrey Show. In those two decades, she has amassed over $1.4 billion, assembled a U.S. television audience of more than 49 million viewers each week (not including her broadcasts in 122 other countries), and informed her viewers on matters ranging from genocide in Rwanda to the best-tasting oatmeal cookies.

According to a 2006 article in USA Today, however, Oprah's influence entered the spiritual realm at the turn of the century: "By the late '90s, Winfrey's focus was Change Your Life TV, and a New Age message was more prevalent. She preached making the message of her life—take responsibility, and greatness will follow—the substance of the show. Keep a personal journal, purchase self-indulgent gifts, take time for you because you deserve it. The notes rang true to millions of viewers."

Going even further, Cathleen Falsani, religion writer for the Chicago Sun-Times, suggested: "I wonder, has Oprah become America's pastor?" There is evidence to support this theory. A November 2006 poll conducted by Beliefnet.com—a site that looks at how religions and spirituality intersect with popular culture—found that 33 percent of its 6,600 respondents said Winfrey has had "a more profound impact" on their spiritual lives than their clergypersons. Christ Altrock—minister of Highland Street Church of Christ in Memphis, Tennessee—claims: "Our culture is changing as churches are in decline and the bulk of a new generation is growing up outside of religion." Altrock claims that people are turning up at what he calls "The Church of Oprah" instead.

Jim Twitchell, a professor at the University of Florida, believes that Oprah reverence makes sense. "Religion essentially is based on high anxiety of what's going to happen to you." Winfrey pushes the idea "that you have a life out there, and it's better than the one you have now, and go get it…. It has to do with this deep American faith and yearning to be reborn. To start again."

In her book titled The Gospel According to Oprah, Marcia Nelson claims that Miss Winfrey's integrity has also influenced her spiritual stature: "One of the things that's key is she walks her talk. That's really, really important in today's culture. People who don't walk their talk fall from a great pedestal—scandals in the Catholic Church, televangelism scandals. If you're not doing what you say you do, woe be unto you."

The USA Today article also notes that, in the eyes of some, Oprah is almost beyond human:

In Ellen DeGeneres' stand-up comedy act several years ago, she included a joke about getting to heaven and finding that God is a black woman named Oprah. Last fall, at the start of this 20th season of The Oprah Winfrey Show, guest Jamie Foxx said much the same thing, but he wasn't joking. "What you have is something nobody can describe," Foxx said to Winfrey on the air. Then he explained about how he told Vibe magazine: "You're going to get to heaven and everyone's waiting on God and it's going to be Oprah Winfrey…."

Clair Zulkey, 26, an Oprah follower who has written about Winfrey on her online blog, says, "I think that if this were the equivalent of the Middle Ages and we were to fast-forward 1,200 years, scholars would definitely think that this Oprah person was a deity, if not a canonized being."