I'm sorry, Glenn Beck is not a Christian.

Well, I'm torn. Really torn. I saw a couple hours of the Glenn Beck Restoring Honor rally in Washington D.C. I thought Beck did a great job, I thought the overall presentation was coherent and effective, the patriotic themes moving and true. I was glad to see so many out for the event -- 500,000 or so it looked like to me just because the crowd covered the entire area around the reflecting pool, but of course I'm just guessing.

But Mormonism isn't Christianity and the fact that Beck is a Mormon just grates and grates and grates since he's up there doing this IN THE NAME OF GOD. Talking politics is one thing, but talking God is quite another. He never says anything objectionable, he uses Christian talk quite convincingly, but I know what Mormonism teaches and it's got heresies within heresies.

Is Beck duped and doesn't himself know what they teach? I do have to wonder, since he never spells out his theological position {Turns out I'm wrong about that. See next blog post}. But I've had conversations with Mormons enough to discover that they can talk it like any evangelical and then you find out those words don't mean the same thing to them they mean to evangelicals.

But even if he is duped he represents a heretical church, and a Christian CAN'T, I mean absolutely CAN NOT, fellowship -- as a Christian -- with a heretic. Scripture forbids it, Titus 3:10.*

That's got to be why there weren't any big name Christians up there with him. I love Alveda King and I'm sure those who did stand with him are quite sincere Christians. But they are playing with a compromise we are forbidden to play with. You CAN'T have unity with heresy. Can't can't can't.

This is a horrifically hard one because it puts one in the position of choosing between the best of conservative America and scripture, and I identify with conservative America, and with the tea party movement, and I want America to return to God. But not a false idea of God, not even if we are superficially united around "Amazing Grace" and other Christian themes. It's got to be scripture. But what a choice to have to make. I can't join with Catholics when it comes to God talk either. Or Jews. Or Muslims. As long as we stick to political patriotic themes I can join in, but not when we're talking God.

So now I guess even Glenn Beck and some of my favorite conservatives will have to classify me with the "haters." I wish it didn't have to be so.

* Here I must point out that the modern Bible versions obscure the real meaning of Titus 3:10, which is a warning against HERETICS. Most of the new versions, perhaps all of them, replace the KJV word HERETICK with "divisive man" or "factious man" which gives fuel to the heretics themselves to condemn those who would warn against them. I discussed this verse on my blog about the Bible versions.