Super Soul Special: The Rev. Ed Bacon – "Do You Recognize Grace?"

Podcast: Oprah’s Super Soul
Host: Oprah Winfrey
Guest: Reverend Ed Bacon, Rector of All Saints Church, Pasadena
Release Date: December 31, 2025

Episode Overview

In this insightful and heartfelt episode, Oprah sits down with the Reverend Ed Bacon, a progressive and deeply spiritual leader. Together, they explore the profound role of grace in our lives, the distinctions—and intersections—between spirituality and religion, and the challenge of moving beyond ego and fear. With candor and warmth, Oprah and Rev. Bacon address listener concerns about reconciling traditional Christian beliefs with broader spiritual experiences, offering stories, scripture, and practical wisdom for finding deeper connection with the divine and one's best self.

Key Themes & Insights

1. Spirituality vs. Religion: What’s the Difference?

• Essence of Spirituality
  Rev. Bacon defines spirituality as “the experience of feeling unconditionally loved so much...that you know there is some power greater than you are loving you.” This love overflows, inspiring you to love others. (06:39)

  • Memorable moment: Rev. Bacon shares a formative childhood story of feeling completely enveloped by unconditional love, feeling both uniquely loved and recognizing all are equally beloved. (07:12)

• Religion’s Role
  While All Saints Church is “very Christ centered...when you are in the pew at All Saints, what you’re hearing emphasized more than those rather doctrinal and dogmatic issues...is about your connection with God, your connection with the cosmos, with other people, with your deepest self.” (03:21)
  The church serves both those who are “abused religiously and spiritually” and those seeking comfort, challenge, and empowerment.

2. Fear, Ego, and the House of Love

• The House of Fear vs. Love
  Rev. Bacon explains, “We choose to live at any particular moment in our life either in the house of fear or the house of love. And the house of fear always drives us to put God in a box...” (10:10)

  • People who react with anger or defensiveness to new spiritual ideas are “living in the house of fear,” which leads to exclusion and rigidity.

• On Ego as ‘Satan’
  Oprah asks if Satan and the ego are one and the same. Rev. Bacon responds, “I do. Save us...from people who think the devil is purely external. For us to talk about evil doers as though evil exists outside of us, instead of [accepting] we have to struggle ourselves with evil within us…” (17:41)

  • Oprah: “The evil within us, individuals, becomes a collective evil when all of us agree to allow human rights or not to allow human rights...That is the manifested evil inside of us coming into the collective to become one that you could call the devil.” (18:22)

3. Reconciling Faith, Doctrine, and Spiritual Awakening

• The Role of Grace
  For reconciling new spiritual awareness with old beliefs, Rev. Bacon insists: “Did you follow grace? It’s important to understand what grace feels like. It’s where you feel all of a sudden overwhelmed by God’s goodness and you didn’t deserve it…” (19:38)

  • Quote: “To the degree that we follow grace, instead of trying to get out ahead of it and explain everything, grace will lead us to the reconciliation point.” (19:40)

• Judging Faith by Its Fruit
  Drawing on scripture, “Jesus said, you can judge a tree by the fruit that it bears.” (20:34) Are you feeling the fruits of the spirit—peace, joy, love, generosity, self-control—or are you feeling bitterness, judgment, and fear?

  • On Tolle’s teachings: “The great thing about Tolle’s point, which is that we are more than our thoughts, there is a being behind or beneath our thoughts.” (21:04)

• Choice and Self-Awareness
  When confronted with anger or attack, “Simply stop. Say, I am an observer of myself.” (21:53) Bring yourself to stillness, observe, and choose love or forgiveness instead of retaliation.

4. Authority and Intuition

• Developing the Inner Voice
  Rev. Bacon tells his son: “Use all those voices...but you’re the president. And the way you have to obey is to obey this voice inside. And people who don’t practice listening to that voice, that’s a voice that has to be exercised. Just like you go to the gym.” (22:32)

• Rejecting External Authority
  Rev. Bacon recounts a parishioner saying, “I expect you to tell me everything to think.” He responds: “You’re going to be very disappointed in me. My job is to do the opposite.” (23:39)

5. Spiritual But Not Religious?

• Can you be spiritual and not religious? “Yes...Let’s respect everybody exactly where they are, and let grace lead them where grace needs to lead them.” (24:06)

• Does he want everyone in church? “No, I don’t. I want everybody to know God...to know the love that fills their hearts so much, that they are joyful and peaceful and respectful of every human being. What I want, Oprah, is to turn the human race into the human family.” (24:42–24:46)

6. The Radical Message of Jesus

• Inclusivity
  “Because [Jesus] would say, the homeless person on the street, the Iraqi mother who just lost her child, the man in Iran...They all have the kingdom of God within them. God is in them. And they’re just as valuable as you think you are.” (25:49–26:22)

• God’s Grace is Democratic
  The Sermon on the Mount: “God makes his reign to fall on the just and the unjust alike...God’s grace is democratic. It’s equal. And we want to say...the people who think the way I do...we’ve got a leg up on everybody else. And as soon as I put myself with a leg up...that’s the first step toward abusing those people.” (26:23–27:27)

  • Oprah adds: “And the leg up is your ego.” (27:27)

7. Practical Spiritual Living

• On Retaliation and Awakening
  When attacked or angered, Oprah and Rev. Bacon advise to “take a breath,” “step back and observe,” as “this now could be your holiest moment.” (30:13–30:34)

  • Quote: “Rabbi Heschel said, in every moment, something sacred is at stake.” (30:35)

• The Role of Breath
  Rev. Bacon’s yoga teacher: “Yoga is about whether or not you can keep this breath—slow, non-reactive breathing—when somebody flips you off on the freeway in LA.” (32:00)

8. Stories & Illustrations

• The Grits Analogy
  Bacon tells the story of a man ordering food in the South, confused when grits appear that he didn’t order. The waitress says, “You don’t order grits. Grits just comes.” Bacon: “That’s grace. You don’t order grace. Grits just comes.” (34:05–35:11)

9. Grace, Stillness, and Meditation

• Daily Practice
  Rev. Bacon spends 45–90 minutes each morning in prayer and meditation, sitting in stillness and “letting the silt settle.” (35:29–36:33)

  • “My prayer is not about, ‘Okay, Lord, I need this, I need that.’...I sit until I can be still enough for God to bring God’s needs through me.” (38:07)

• Being an Instrument
  Oprah: “My prayer is always, God, how would you use me? I want to be used for something greater than myself.” (38:30)

Notable Quotes (with Timestamps & Attribution)

• On Spirituality:
  “It’s the experience of feeling unconditionally loved so much, so powerfully, that you know there is some power greater than you are loving you. This love that you are experiencing is coming from a great power.”
  —Rev. Ed Bacon, (06:39)

• On Grace:
  “You don’t order grits. Grits just comes. That’s grace. You don’t order grace. Grits just comes.”
  —Rev. Ed Bacon, (35:11)

• On Ego/Satan:
  “Save us...from people who think that the devil is purely external...We have to struggle ourselves with evil within us.”
  —Rev. Ed Bacon, (17:49)

• On Self-Observation:
  “Simply stop. Say, I am an observer of myself.”
  —Rev. Ed Bacon, (21:53)

• On the Fruits of the Spirit:
  “Jesus said, you can judge a tree by the fruit it bears...The fruit of the spirit—peace, joy, love, generosity, self-control, magnanimity...”
  —Rev. Ed Bacon, (20:34–21:01)

• On Grace and Reconciliation:
  “To the degree that we follow grace...grace will lead us to the reconciliation point that you're talking about reconciling our minds and our hearts.”
  —Rev. Ed Bacon, (19:40)

• On God’s Love:
  “What I want, Oprah, is to turn the human race into the human family. And you don’t have to be in church to be a part of that.”
  —Rev. Ed Bacon, (24:46)

• On Awareness:
  “If you want your dreams to come true, you have to wake up. Wakeness, awareness is huge in this.”
  —Rev. Ed Bacon, (29:20)

• On Life’s Sacred Moments:
  “Rabbi Heschel said, in every moment, something sacred is at stake.”
  —Rev. Ed Bacon, (30:35)

Timestamps for Major Segments

• What is Spirituality? (05:24–09:13)
• Dealing with Religious vs. Spiritual Tension (09:13–14:01)
• Ego and Evil—Internal vs. External (17:19–19:30)
• Grace as the Path to Reconciliation (19:30–22:19)
• Intuition, Authority, and Inner Guidance (22:19–24:33)
• Spiritual but Not Religious (24:33–25:10)
• Jesus’ Radical Message & Divine Inclusivity (25:20–28:29)
• Responding to Anger and Attack (28:29–33:39)
• The Power of Breath and Stillness (33:39–35:18)
• Prayer, Meditation & Being Used by God (35:18–38:44)

Memorable Moments

• Rev. Bacon’s childhood tale of feeling God’s unconditional love as both a unique, personal gift and a universal one (07:12).
• The grits/grace story: a vivid, accessible metaphor for how grace is given freely, not earned or ordered (34:05–35:11).
• A candid, mutual confession by Oprah and Rev. Bacon that seeing God in those who attack or harm you is the hardest spiritual challenge—one neither has mastered, but both aspire to (28:29–28:31).

Conclusion

Filled with compassion, humor, practical wisdom, and memorable parables, this episode offers a hopeful, accessible vision of spirituality as living in love, openness, and grace—available to all, regardless of religious label. Both Oprah and Rev. Bacon invite listeners to seek stillness, follow grace, trust their inner guidance, and realize the radical inclusivity at the heart of Jesus’ teachings. In a world hungry for belonging, their conversation is both a call to wake up and a gentle reminder: “Grits just comes. That’s grace.”