Glenn Beck Misrepresents Desperate Americans and Christian Teachings

I have no doubt that Glenn Beck is a nice man and that he is sincere in his reasons for advising people against violence. I too hold that the insurrectionist-type violence is a sure means of alienating other patriots was well as a sure bet for one who wants to lose.

I have asserted on numerous posts that The People need to find a way to unite with the aim of ending our steady slide towards a Socialist dystopia. This needs to be a coalition of religious and secular-minded people who want no part of - not only the economic disaster and consequent enslavement to which we are being led, but also the radical agendas of tyrannical atheists, gays, feminists, anti-gun, Fundamentalist Christians (such as Westboro Baptists), and so-called Liberal Catholics and Mainline Protestants who are Christian in name only.

The movement must be political and not reliant on physical force.

My problem with Glenn Beck is that he so abhors the thought of any possible armed action (even as a last resort) that he seems to feel compelled to misrepresent both the attitudes of some individuals and groups and the teachings of Christianity to make that religion a faith that requires its adherents to be sheep towards men as well as God.

Never put words, be they explicit or implicit, in other people's mouths.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/04/15/if-you-find-yourself-believing-this-glenn-beck-wants-you-to-unfriend-him/

"Glenn Beck has a message for anyone who is “crying for revolution, insurrection … and a call to arms”: He wants nothing to do with you.

“This morning I got up and I saw some more news reports, and more people in America that are standing up now and crying for revolution, insurrection, arming yourself, and a call to arms,” Beck said on his radio program Tuesday. “I will tell you I believe in the Second Amendment, and I will defend myself. I believe in the rights that we have. But I will tell you more than I believe in my rights, I believe in the responsibilities that we have to God. And God does not call anyone to anger. God does not call anyone to vengeance ever, ever, ever...."

Why does Mr. Beck think that it is OK to accuse desperate people of  feeling angry and vengeful, and who told him that these people believe that God is desirous of acts of anger and vengeance? The vast majority of those involved in the Nevada standoff were peaceable citizens, and I can't find one act of violence that occurred during that period. This is a far cry from Occupy Wall St.

God does want us to turn the other cheek - in regards to each other, and it should be made clear that this has to do with insults or wrongs, not attacks. One should not take this to mean that others should be able to harm you at will. A woman, for instance, should not allow herself to be harmed if she has the ability to defend herself. If you want to allow others to harm to you, that is your business, but allowing a government or another nation to harm yourself only encourages the bad guys to assume that everyone else will be like you.  

God has never taught his people to allow other nations or internal tyrants to walk all over them*, and as I noted yesterday, the Church rightly has a share of blame for so rigorously supporting the feudal order in Medieval Europe. Beck cites the example of Joseph Smith to justify his call  work only through legal channels, but the feudal order was also the legal channel of that time, and the oppressed often had not choice but to fight back. In some cases, the fighting had to be done against Church leaders such as bishops or abbots. 

*Excepting the times when God used other nations to punish his people - a specter that should hang over the heads of all of us.

I do also have a bit of a problem with Beck's use of the example of Joseph Smith (in an article I read yesterday), who founded the Mormon religion. He is free to believe whatever he wants, but he can use Joseph Smith as an example when speaking with his coreligionists. Christians believe that Joseph Smith was very much a false prophet, and although he too may have been a nice guy, his example is not one that Christians should emulate in matters of faith. 

Mormons, incidentally, at least were able to flee to Utah after being chased out of New York and Illinois. We Americans do not have the luxury of moving en masse to a new home (at least not at this point), so we have no choice but to do what we can right here.