Questions about the Glen Beck Rally
Several Christian authors and leaders are raising thoughtful questions about the religious aspects of the recent rally led by media personality Glen Beck. these authors have led me to re-examine my own position.
Chuck Colson of Breakpoint Radio and Website, begins this way:
A lot of people are asking me what I thought of Glenn Beck’s Restoring Honor rally. As you know, on August 28, hundreds of thousands of people gathered on the National Mall for what organizer Glenn Beck called a “Restoring Honor” rally.
The stated goal of the rally was to “to pay tribute to America’s military personnel and others ‘who embody our nation’s founding principles of integrity, truth and honor.’” Beck told the crowd that “something beyond imagination is happening . . . America today begins to turn back to God.”
While I hope and pray that is the case, I do have some concerns.
See the rest of Churck’s thoughts at Which God Should We Turn To?.
Dr. Russell Moore of the Southern Baptist Seminary in Lousiville, KY, also has a good column on the issues onvolved in this rally. He begins this way:
A Mormon television star stands in front of the Lincoln Memorial and calls American Christians to revival. He assembles some evangelical celebrities to give testimonies, and then preaches a God and country revivalism that leaves the evangelicals cheering that they’ve heard the gospel, right there in the nation’s capital.
The news media pronounces him the new leader of America’s Christian conservative movement, and a flock of America’s Christian conservatives have no problem with that.
If you’d told me that ten years ago, I would have assumed it was from the pages of an evangelical apocalyptic novel about the end-times. But it’s not. It’s from this week’s headlines. And it is a scandal.
Fox News commentator Glenn Beck, of course, is that Mormon at the center of all this. Beck isn’t the problem. He’s an entrepreneur, he’s brilliant, and, hats off to him, he knows his market. Latter-day Saints have every right to speak, with full religious liberty, in the public square. I’m quite willing to work with Mormons on various issues, as citizens working for the common good. What concerns me here is not what this says about Beck or the “Tea Party” or any other entertainment or political figure. What concerns me is about what this says about the Christian churches in the United States.
Although I think Dr. Moore is a little too strident in saying this is a scandal, he makes some good points about weak discernment by some Christians who participated in the rally. His column in full is at this link: http://www.russellmoore.com/2010/08/29/god-the-gospel-and-glenn-beck/
