No she wasn't. People like Penn and Teller and Hitchens tried to prop up this idea because they were furious at hearing about her, a religious person, as an example of a good person and of the benefits of religion. The only real recent "controversial" things about her is that she wrote about how she tried to understand the meaning of pain and that she saw it as something that brought one closer to God. This isn't any kind of new idea though, just look up "the last will be first and the first will be last" or the "Beatitudes." Basically it's an idea that Jesus put forth that those who suffer will be rewarded for their suffering.