Some Times You Feel Like A Nut

I wish I could listen to Glenn Beck's show, I really do. When he's talking about the rabid fatuousness that is pervading the current political climate he's dead on. Anyone that can make "Squirrel Worshiping Socialists" like James Cameron suffer stress incontinence just by reading said watermelon's exact quote on the air is all right by me. However when Glenn gets on the subject of the church it starts to get ugly.

Oh, sometimes he gets it right, a couple of years ago  on his TV show he said:

 "I beg you, look for the words social justice or economic justice on your church web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words. Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes! If you have a priest that is pushing social justice, go find another parish. Go alert your bishop and tell them, 'Excuse me are you down with this whole social justice thing?' If it's my church, I'm alerting the church authorities: 'Excuse me, what's this social justice thing?' And if they say, 'yeah, we're all in that social justice thing'--I'm in the wrong place."

Ok, he's right. How do I know he's right? For one he angered Roger Ebert into spasms of corybantic hate that echoed through the pages of the Chicago Sun Times for ages. Any time a conservative is right Roger Ebert blows a gasket, if a conservative said that the sky is blue Roger Ebert would become furious. And secondly Glenn is exactly right about the social justice and economic justice thing, except maybe for the wrong reasons. Social justice and economic justice truly are buzz words for the left, and that's why Glenn is against them, because they're liberal ideas designed to crush democracy. However my stand is that these things are for government, not the church. The job of the church is summed up properly by James 1:27

Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.

Feed the poor, clothe the naked, heal the sick and spread God's word, that's our job. Social justice and economic justice are social policies, and that's a function of government. Making sure that part time janitors make the exact same pay as corporate executives (the liberal dream called economic justice) is not the province of the church, helping those that suffer the inevitable results of this social experiment is. We, as a church, can petition government for social and economic change, that's our right as citizens, but we are to bow to our leadership, that's our duty as Christians   

However recently Glenn Beck and Keith Ablow released a book titled Seven Wonders That Will Change Your Life, in which Glenn glorifies the exact same new age nonsense he disparaged when talking about social justice and economic justice, this time it's emergent church groupthink that would make Rob Bell stand and cheer. According to Glenn there's no sin:

“As Keith likes to say, ‘There’s no original sin left in the world. Everyone’s just recycling pain now.’” (Pg 154)

 But when we look in the bible to verify that there is no original sin left in the world we find

For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous. (Romans 5:19)

He's dabbling in theological areas he would have ignored. He must have had no idea where he was going. Of course if Glenn was paying attention to what he was saying he'd never have written

“People are inherently good.” (Page 165)

People are inherently good? So Jesus died on the cross for nothing Glenn? Why bother with repentance if we're good? But the bible says

Indeed, there is not a righteous man on earth who continually does good and who never sins. (Ecclesiastes 7:20)

 "We are not sinners because we sin. We sin because we are sinners." - RC Sproul

One of the more ignorant statements Glenn put into this tome was

“There is no infant delivered evil, out of the womb. There never has been. Not even one…Charles Manson was not born evil. Ted Bundy wasn’t. The BTK killer wasn’t. Hitler wasn’t.” (Page 162)

REALLY? Seriously?

Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,And in sin my mother conceived me. (Psalm 51:5)

The wicked are estranged from the womb;These who speak lies go astray from birth. (Psalm 58:3)

Beck likes think warm squishy thoughts that everyone is good because God is in everyone. This is called the heresy of the divinity of man. Simply stated the heresy of the divinity of man means that God is in everyone so everyone is divine. This is also called pantheism, the belief that everything is God. This is new age philosophy being passed off as deep thought by new age guru's such as Oprah Winfrey... and now by Glenn Beck

• “Reach out to people to steady them and enrich them and reflect back to them the light that comes from God inside them.”  (Page 283)
• “If God is everything and everywhere and inside everyone, then I figured He had to be inside me, too…” (Page 58)
• “You won’t doubt your ability to achieve what you want to achieve in this life because you won’t doubt that God is not only by your side, but inside you.” (page 254)
• “As you commit to unlocking and bringing forth the truth inside you, don’t be afraid to pray for help. Don’t be reticent to sit with yourself in silence and meditate. Connect with the miracle of spirit, of God, that has lived inside you from long before you were born.” (Page 85)

So in reality, Glenn's god is a pedophile, rapist, murderer, liar, thief, pervert, because Glenn's god is in everyone, and this is what people do. My God isn't like that. I, as a sinner, am not allowed in God's presence because of my sins, only the blood of Christ will allow me to enter His presence. 

So if you will, Mr. Beck, some questions if I may: If God was inside each and every one of us, why did Christ have to come and die for our sins? If God was inside of me, why would I have to repent of my sins? If God was inside every one of us how could we ever sin? Sin is turning away from God, so how could I sin if God is inside of me? If I became righteous in the sight of God through the blood of Jesus Christ, and if God is inside of me, can people that have sinned but haven't repented see themselves in a mirror?

Beloved this is Spiritual Cancer, this isn't just legalism, this is heretical teaching of the worst kind. These are the soul damning lies that are being spread by people like Brian McLaren, Jim Wallis, Tony Campolo, Marcus Borg, Dallas Willard, Leonard Sweet, Erwin McManus, Phyllis Tickle, Rob Bell, Dan Kimball, Doug Pagitt, Tony Jones, Scot McKnight, Eddie Gibbs, Ryan Bolger, Jeff & Sherry Maddock, Peter Rollins. What's going to happen when you go home to Jesus and find out the only thing inside of you was sins and pride?

²¹ “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. ²² Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ ²³ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’ (Matthew 7:21-23)

Throughout the book Beck steers wildly into the path of the emergent heresy with his constant pandering to the new age nightmare of subjective truth. Objective truth is the basis for Christianity, when Jesus said "I am the way and the truth and the light" He nailed to the wall our truth, the one divine truth from which we evaluate all other truths. Christians are not called to pick and choose truth based on “what works” – we are called to internalize the objective truth of the Scripture, which is our only infallible source for that truth. Beck delves dangerously into subjective truths, the truth that's true for you and you alone. This is a dangerous, dangerous path to follow. 

• “It is never too late to embrace your truth.” (Page 124)
• “What is your truth whispering?” (Page 130)
• “Use compassion to stay on the path to your own truth… (Page 161)
• “…determination to unearth and embrace my truth.” (Page 215)
• “The fact that I am always attempting to honor my truth… (Page 216)
• “There is only your truth.” (Page 220)
• “You must use courage and faith to empty the hard drive of your soul and then fill it with your truth.” (Page 288)

Ok, Glenn, MY truth is to knock you over the head and take your money, your 25 year stock of food and your collection of Scooby Do lunch boxes then open a grocery store in Pagosa Springs. Who are you to judge me? Just because my truth is whispering to me that the right thing to do is to hurt you, you're attempts to block my truth is selfish and evil! Don't be judging on me man! Or is this example too extreme?

Subjective truth (also known as relativism) is your own personal truth regardless of what reality says. It's the denial that anything could possibly contradict what ever you want to say, do, or feel. Subjective truth is the reason why we had the Nuremberg trials.

Beloved this is just newage post modern drivel that Glenn really should know better than to be promoting. His claims that his search for the truth lead him to some odd places:

“I questioned everything I could think to question about the faith. I went over my doubts again and again with the church bishop. I read everything there was to read on their website and every word of Mormon Doctrine…I went to anti-Mormon literature for hints, but I found most of it to be unfair or just plain wrong. I tried every trick I could think of to find a contradiction. The problem was that I couldn’t." (Page 149)

Glenn: Maybe if you stopped looking for contradictions in doctrines and websites and actually read the Bible without the mormon addendum you'd have found what you were looking for. The Real Truth.