Dr. Maya
Angelou (d. 2014) was a powerful creative and poet who stood strong for hope
and human potential. You can read my
interview with her from 1980 here.
According to IMDB:
Maya Angelou was an American poet, singer, memoirist, and civil rights activist. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, and is credited with a list of plays, movies, and television shows spanning over 50 years. She received dozens of awards and more than 50 honorary degrees. ... [she was a] journalist in Egypt and Ghana during the decolonization of Africa. ... In 1982, she was named the first Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She was active in the Civil Rights Movement and worked with Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. ... Angelou recited her poem "On the Pulse of Morning" (1993) at the first inauguration of Bill Clinton, making her the first poet to make an inaugural recitation since Robert Frost at the inauguration of John F. Kennedy in 1961.
One might
think that she is a fairly traditional believer from this report for the LA Times:
The one-hour documentary follows Angelou’s visit inside San Francisco’s rough Tenderloin district, where she goes inside Glide Memorial Church, which has an ethnically and economically diverse Methodist congregation. She also briefly attends Mount Zion Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, N.C., which is steeped in a tradition of African-American belief and faith.
Maya had
been a member of Glide for around 20 years.
She spoke of her journey:
I have studied everything. I spent some time with Zen Buddhism and Judaism and I spent some time with Islam. I am a religious person. It is my spirit, but I found that I really want to be a Christian. ... I really believe that Christ made a sacrifice and for those reasons I want to be a Christian. But what kind, I don’t know.
One wonders
if this statement of Maya's was a typo? “It’s a wonderful thing to know that
there is something to know there is something greater than I am, and that is
God itself.” The true God who made the
universe is personal and a Trinity (Mt. 28:19).
In an
interview with Oprah, Maya spoke of how she became an adherent to the Unity
School of Christianity (Unity) while she was in her 20's. Unity denies
that God is personal; thus, they deny the Trinity. They reject the substitutionary atonement of
Christ on the cross. Unity accepts
reincarnation and based on Mt. 22:42, claims that Jesus was the reincarnation
of David. [1] The teaching that souls return
into new bodies flatly contradicts Hebrews 9:27,28:
Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.
Eric Barger
(Take a Stand Ministries) had this to say about Maya:
So she [Hillary Clinton] has Jean Houston and Marianne Williamson [fmr. presidential candidate] and Maya Angelou pushing New Age spirituality and [Rabbi Michael] Lerner pushing Marxism to her at the same time and mixing these things together.
Note:
1) The Kingdom of the Cults by Water Martin
(Bethany House, Minneapolis, 1985, rev. ed.), pp. 284-286.
