Glenn Beck is a fool. (Before anyone wants to get all Matthew 5:22 on me, you might want to read it first – and no, Glenn Beck is not my Brother).
Granted, not the first words with which I wanted start my meager, sporadic contributions to Gospel Spam, but the level of idiocy that bombarded me on my drive from Pennsylvania to Kentucky last week has left me with little choice.
Thankfully I missed the first hour of Mr. Beck’s 3 hour talk-show on April 7th and mercifully the reception dropped out at the beginning of the third hour, but the time spent with our Mormon friend was enough to motivate this non-writer to write. You have him to thank, or blame.
I know very little of Glenn Beck, save that he is a Mormon and that some Christians that I am familiar with have linked arms with him – or at very least not repudiated him for his false claims. As with many Mormons, Glenn Beck claims to be a Christian. Glenn Beck is not a Christian. Mormons are not Christians. Mormonism is a polytheistic cult which claims that Jesus and Lucifer are brothers, that God was once a man, and that men can become “gods.” If I need to explain the difficulty with those views, you are reading the wrong blog. This is not an exposing of the cult of Mormonism, but a window into the thinking of one of its adherents.
Mr Beck was recalling a recent business meeting and expounding the virtues of his staff for agreeing not to take the “easy,” “slimy” path that “any other company” would have taken given the same situation. What was the source of their moral excellence? Why they apparently knew “what was true” and knew “who they were.” They didn’t allow themselves to be ruled by emotions, and what they thought they wanted, hence Mr. Beck’s nugget of advice:
We have to start pursuing the things that are eternal, that are true principals, and all the other opportunities will follow.
Knowing Mr. Beck’s religious affiliation, I grant that I was already cringing in anticipation of the source of those principles:
You have to be led by the Spirit.
That’s when my conversation with my radio started: Okaaaaaay, but you’re a Mormon Glenn, what do you mean by that?
You were given a gut for a reason.
Okay, I knew about the whole “Kolob” thing, but being led by the Spirit is following your gut? Perhaps you’d better expand on that Mr. Beck:
You’ve got to exercise that awareness, you have to exercise the Jiminy Cricket in you.
Your inner Jiminy Cricket? Seriously? What does that have to do with “true principles?” What if your staff’s inner Jiminy Cricket was a Jiminy Madoff, or an Adolf Cricket? Surely you would not be urging them to follow their gut then? And wasn’t their not being “ruled by emotion” exactly what you praised them for? How do you get true principles from your gut?
It is a muscle, and the best to do it is when you have that thought “I’ve got to do something” do it, do it. And you will see, and it will prove it out, and it will get stronger, the more you resist that, the smaller the voice of Jiminy Cricket gets.
What about the voice of Jiminy Dahmer, or Mao Tse Cricket, or Jiminy Amin? – Okay, you have discovered the real reason for this post, just a few more to get it out of my system – or Saddam Cricket, or Jiminy Stalin, or Osama Bin Cricket? Phew, thanks for indulging me.
That’s what happens when you give up Jesus Christ as your ultimate authority, and ultimate standard of truth. You get nonsense. That is the option I present to people when I preach in the open air: you have Jesus Christ, or absurdity. But most people choose absurdity because they love their sin.
Apart from the saving work of the Holy Spirit in Glenn Beck’s life, he may continue to spout the need to know truth, but he will never know it. Until my reception dropped out, I could only shake my head at Mr. Beck’s continued and unfounded claims to truth:
People are going to need to know that truth is real, that there is truth, there is universal truth, and you can hang on to that truth no matter how bad the storm gets.
What is the source of that truth Glenn? This from a conversation he recounts with his father:
Dad, you just have to be willing, if it’s a space octopus, great, I’ll embrace the space octopus, but when you get to the other side and whatever it is, you’ve got to embrace it, just embrace it. Let go of what you think or what you want to happen.
Yes, that’s right, he said “space octopus.” Perhaps not too far off from what Mormonism teaches but not a foundation for what is true, what is good.
Any religion that says be peaceful be more kind, be more generous, those things, those are all good.
The Westboro Baptist church, there’s a group of so-called Christians, very clear… clearly wrong.
Clearly wrong? Yes, when you hold them up to the standard of God’s Holy and Perfect Word. But Glenn, what if they were following their inner Jiminy Phelps? Sorry, had to do it. Pray for Glenn Beck.
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How To Answer The Fool – Trailer from Crown Rights on Vimeo.
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