Oprah Winfrey: Megachurch drama 'Greenleaf' won't be 'derogatory' toward religion

NEW YORK, April 21 (UPI) -- One of the latest scripted series from the Oprah Winfrey Network, Greenleaf, will take a critical look into the "flaws" of the Christian institutions that are megachurches.

Winfrey, who will also star in the church drama, arrived at the series premiere during the Tribeca Film Festival Wednesday.

"Do you not think people in the church are flawed?" Winfrey asked reporters from People during the Tune-In event. "That's why they're going."

The drama will follow the fictional Greenleaf family and their Memphis, Tenn. megachurch. Although it will cover the issue of dirty money and secrecy in the Church, Winfrey told People it won't be "derogatory."

"I am not gonna do anything that is derogatory toward the church because I am of the church," she said.

Craig Wright, the writer behind Lost and Six Feet Under, will act as the showrunner for Greenleaf, which will premiere June 21 on OWN. He and Winfrey met while working on the original series Belief, where they discussed his being a longtime minister.

"We had this conversation about church and what the black church in particular means to our community, and we started going back and forth about it and he said, that sounds like a series -- and I said, I think it is," Winfrey said, according to Co.Create.

"Being able to do this series is a dream come true to me because when I started this network five years ago, the narrative for OWN was 'struggling, struggling, struggling network,'" Winfrey said. "What this has taught me is that as big as I have dreamed and as big as the dream that God has held for me, things get even bigger and better."

The series will star Keith David as the reigning bishop of a local megachurch, and Lynn Whitfield as his loyal, forthright wife.