Christians sadly continue to be deceived about Glenn Beck

An article at the Christian magazine, WORLD naively accepting of Glenn Beck.

But it was obvious to me that Beck wasn’t into the extra money or fame. It was obvious to me that he was a new creation in Christ. I know he’s Mormon and all that. I also remember reading a book by Professor Harvey Conn decades ago that said that you have to be very careful when judging a person’s salvation—some people with lousy theology have their hearts right with God, and some people with impeccable theology are cold toward God.

Glenn Beck isn’t cold toward God. He is red hot. He is “a brand plucked from the fire” (Zechariah 3:2). He knows what pit he was in—and he knows exactly who took him out of it. If I were his station manager I would be biting my fingernails every day, because the man just doesn’t hold back about Jesus, and I can say without hesitation that I have not heard the essentials of the gospel more clearly and boldly in any church than on his program.

I have heard all the criticisms, and I can find sympathy for them—about the Mormonism, about the dangers of religious syncretism, etc. But regarding the Mormon thing, I think we should regard Beck as an Apollos and pray for a Priscilla and Aquila in his life, to steer him better (Acts 18). I just don’t see how anyone can listen to the man for a solid week and not be as blessed as I am by his courage, his utter lack of fear of man, and his sharp and personal testimony of Christ’s transforming power.

Oh this hurts, this hurts. WORLD is a Christian magazine, there ought to be more discernment here. Beck doesn't hold back on Jesus, but his Jesus is not the Christian Jesus. He "knows" who took him out of the pit and it was Jesus, but his Jesus is not the Christian Jesus.

Beck CAN preach the gospel so that it sounds Christian, he's amazing that way, although I've known another Mormon who can talk gospel almost as well and make you think they believe what any Christian believes. If you know anything about Mormonism, though, that puts you in the position of waiting bug-eyed for the other shoe to drop. Eventually it does and the very strange and twisted Mormon version of the gospel is revealed.

At his rally on August 28th he revealed some of those Mormon beliefs that show his version of the gospel is not the Christian version. He believes American Indians are Jews, because he believes the tall tale of the Book of Mormon about some Jews coming across the ocean to the Americas back in 600 BC -- or 3000 BC or whatever -- and becoming the progenitors of the native Americans, who were then encountered by the Pilgrims when they arrived however many centuries or millennia later.

Beck's God is not the one true God. It's painful to think so many Christians are apparently so easily deceived or willing to rationalize it away and stand with a heretic for the sake of politics.

That same issue has another comment on Beck, by Marvin Olasky, the magazine's founder, Beckoning Christians, which gives good reasons why Christians should not align with him, while oddly, it seems to me, not exactly warning Christians against it:

...Let's watch the Beck movement and pray that it does not become a cult of personality.

...Bottom line: Glenn Beck is not the problem. His entertaining lectures are a slap in the face to poisonous political correctness. He's not the antidote, either. Christians should take refuge in the Lord and not in a beckoning embrace. But this country is better off with Glenn Beck than without him.

The COUNTRY is better off with Glenn Beck than without him!!! Well, maybe, maybe not. This IS the thought that keeps Christians from pulling away from him, however. The guy does a great job with all the political issues we care about most. It's like having a tooth pulled out with a wrench to have to draw back from his cause. Finally someone comes along with the guts and the message we've been craving and he's a heretic and Christians CANNOT ALIGN WITH A HERETIC. Ouch. Owwwwwwwch.

But is making Beck into a little god the problem here? The "cult of personality" danger Olasky sees in this? I suppose it could become that, but that misses the primary point that Beck is doing everything in his power to make Mormonism look like Christianity and deceiving Christians who love his politics, and THAT's the danger right now.

Again, Beck's gospel is not the Christian gospel no matter how much he can make it sound like it, and maybe even believe it himself, at least to some extent. Again, if he stuck to politics ONLY we could join with him. But he doesn't. Clearly lately he's on a mission to religionize his message.

That's what makes him dangerous.

Mormonism would NOT be good for this country if it ever got a political foothold and if it did, Christians would rue the day because Mormons have an agenda of their own, which I touched on briefly a few posts back. I should do more research into this and post on it again soon, but my impression is that Mormonism in political power wouldn't be much more desirable than Islam in political power, and they DO seek that kind of political power.

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P.S. Here's a good discussion of the problem with the WORLD article by Justin Taylor at Gospel Coalition, Andrée Seu’s Tragic Mistake on the Gospel of Glenn Beck.

Did you know that "America's Divine Destiny" is a specifically Mormon concoction? (Beck's version anyway)

[NOTE, 9/4: I'm pursuing topics that apply to the end times right now and posting them on the blog End Times Monitor. Recognizing the spiritual implications of the Glenn Beck rally startled me into realizing that we are definitely in a HUGE spiritual battle right now, and through the ministry of Olive Tree Views on the subject of Beck and end times questions, I got taken back to thinking more about the end times, which I think Christians SHOULD be focusing on right now.]
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Even more disturbing from a Christian point of view than Glenn Beck's 8/28 rally is the event he put on the day before, 8/27, called "America's Divine Destiny" at the Kennedy Center. You have to pay to see a video of this event at Beck's site so I'm not going to get to see it, but the description he gives of it there is enough to tell all you need to know:

Glenn Beck’s Divine Destiny is an eye-opening evening at the historic Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C that will help heal your soul. Guided by uplifting music, nationally-known religious figures from all faiths will unite to deliver messages reminiscent to those given during the struggles of America’s earliest days. The event will leave you with a renewed determination to look past the partisan differences and petty problems that fill our airwaves and instead focus our shared values, principles and strong belief that faith can play an essential role in reuniting the country.

I didn't know that the idea that America has a Divine Destiny is a Mormon belief. I learned this from listening to the radio broadcast at Olive Tree Ministries I linked in the last post (and I'll link it here again too). The belief is that America is destined to be ruled by the Mormon church, and ruled under a form of socialism too.

This ought to shake up everyone, not just Christians, but even without knowing that, Christians ought to see something to be avoided in the description of the event given above. "Religious figures from all faiths" are expected to inspire one to "focus on our shared values, principles and strong belief that faith can play an essential role in reuniting the country."

Christians with a patriotic love of America are of course attracted to the basic goal here and may at first fall for the rhetoric, but it ought to soon become clear that this is a cruel deceit, a bait-and-switch to lure the unwary into a false religion.

Then in advertising this event after the fact Beck says that those who attended "felt the spirit" there even more than at the rally next day.

WHAT spirit that might have been has to be a question, since the Holy Spirit only glorifies Jesus Christ as presented in the Bible, who was begotten of the Holy Spirit Himself, not the fake Jesus Christ of Mormonism they believe was sexually begotten by a fleshly human "Heavenly Father."

There must be a great number of deceived people who think they are Christian -- or perhaps some of them actually are Christians, since scripture does tell us that "even the elect may be deceived" -- for a time at least. But only for a time. If they soberly face the fact that "many faiths" oppose the one true God, and learn the truth about the Mormon religion, then they ought to be able to see that the spiritual claims for an event such as this are nothing but deception to be shunned like the plague.

There is something just deeply deeply sad about all this, how such a hopeful good thing that fulfills so much of what conservatives desire to see in this country turns out to be really such a dangerous and evil thing intended to deceive and manipulate.

I'm not going to say that Glenn Beck himself is doing anything underhanded since he probably believes most of what he's saying (I guess I can't say "all") -- I do think he's been less than honest about what this is all about.

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SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT: ONLY TRUE BIBLE-BELIEVING CHRISTIANS WOULD HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THIS. "Christians" who have been taught an ecumenical view that includes other "faiths" won't have a problem with it, nor would other religions that easily incorporate other beliefs. Nor would people who reject religion but appreciate Beck only for his political views, who would treat the spiritual elements as incidentals simply to be ignored.

IT'S ONLY BIBLE-BELIEVING CHRISTIANS WHO ARE GOING TO BE LEFT OUT IN THE COLD AS THE LAST DAYS GO MARCHING ON.