Are Christians Forgiving Glenn Beck for Calling Them Nazis?

[Klaatu]

Are Christians Forgiving Glenn Beck for Calling Them Nazis?
http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/thegaggle/archive/2010/03/12/are-christians-forgiving-glenn-beck-for-calling-them-nazis.aspx


Glenn Beck was in the spotlight this week for his failed interview with former Democratic Congressman Eric Massa. But he’s also caught the eye, and ire, of progressive Christians angered by his call for believers to break away from any church that preaches “social justice,” linking such churches to Communists and Nazis, and holding up cards with a swastika and hammer and sickle to drive home his point.

The Reverend Jim Wallis of Sojourners, a Christian antipoverty group based in D.C., this week issued a call for Christians to boycott Beck. Yesterday The New York Times wrote about Wallis's quest to get Christians away from Beck (who has converted to Mormonism, prompting some to question whether he was suggesting people also leave the Mormon church).

But is the boycott going anywhere? Where are the other Christians? Beck didn’t hold back in his assault, saying “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!"

Wallis is clearly outraged, but why haven’t other Christian leaders followed his lead? One blogger-of-faith writes “Come to think of it, as a hard-shell Protestant, I believe that picking on Glenn Beck is akin to slapping a slow child, but sometimes? You just have to call a person out on their nonsense.” Another blogger adds: “Beck is a special case: He is too prone to say any dumb thing that pops into his head and too ignorant about history and religion to truly understand the implications of his statement. This doesn’t excuse him, of course, but it certainly is reason not to be too shocked when a self-professed 'rodeo clown' advises people to leave their churches over Catholic 'code words' like 'social justice.' ”

Perhaps Christians aren’t yet fighting back too loudly because they’ve just decided to be Christian about the whole thing, and forgive the weak.

[Revy]

He says these things to get attention. he's a real-life troll. but anyway I'm sure many right-wing Christians agree with him on this. You know, morons like Pat Robertson who think natural disasters are "divine justice" for secular gays and pagan feminists.

[Red Commissar]

He probably'll find some way to deflect this to specifically Catholics (probably will rail against Liberation theology), while keeping the support of evangelical baptists. Mormon's I suppose to, because of his converting to it to marry one of theirs.

I was thinking about this too however. As of late he's been railing against "social justice" as the thread that links authoritarian regimes together and then links that to church establishments as some part of a large conspiracy.

[Tablo]

Glenn Beck is fucking crazy and I really do not understand how anyone is stupid enough to listen to his nonsense. I guess if anything will get people to reject him it will be because their religious leaders tell them to. :/

[Klaatu]

You know, morons like Pat Robertson who think natural disasters are "divine justice" for secular gays and pagan feminists.

Robertson and his ilk (although I can't think of anyone quite like him) warning
of "God's retribution" in the form of natural disasters, are living in a fantasy
world of their own. I've heard these disasters best described as "planetary
functionalism." This has been going on for billions of years. For example,
from earth's perspective, a volcano is but a small pimple needing popping,
not a punishment. (And who was "God punishing" 200 million years ago, T-rex?) :confused:

[RedScare]

He's probably the best troll out there, and I'm surprised that they're trying to ignore him

[JacobVardy]

Looks like the Mormons are starting to denounce him aswell

http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/2010/03/Glenn-Beck-Versus-Social-Justice.aspx

http://www.deseretnews.com/mobile/article/700016115/Christian-leaders-decry-Beck-comment-on-social-justice.html

[Jimmie Higgins]

(And who was "God punishing" 200 million years ago, T-rex?) :confused:Don't be silly - everyone knows that God placed the bones of T-Rex in the ground to test our faith. Dinosaurs didn't exist, and the earth is only 4,252 years, 3 months, 8 days, and 11 hours old. Why would God make dinosaurs, he made animals for us to rule over and enjoy but I never got to rule over any T-Rex goddamnit!
:cursing:

[Tablo]

Don't be silly - everyone knows that God placed the bones of T-Rex in the ground to test our faith. Dinosaurs didn't exist, and the earth is only 4,252 years, 3 months, 8 days, and 11 hours old. Why would God make dinosaurs, he made animals for us to rule over and enjoy but I never got to rule over any T-Rex goddamnit!
:cursing:
My creationist interpretation says that man did control dinosaurs in the early days, but God decided they were too much fun to keep around so he killed them and those that used them for committing sin.

My source? The Flintstones.

[Jimmie Higgins]

My creationist interpretation says that man did control dinosaurs in the early days, but God decided they were too much fun to keep around so he killed them and those that used them for committing sin.

My source? The Flintstones.Oh yeah you're right - I forgot that humans used the dinosaurs. Pterodactyl beaks make the best record needles and brontosaurus are great as escalators.:lol:

[Tablo]

Oh yeah you're right - I forgot that humans used the dinosaurs. Pterodactyl beaks make the best record needles and brontosaurus are great as escalators.:lol:
They sure as hell do! Think how much fun that would be! ...nevermind. Do not think how much fun it would be. It is sinful and our lord may see need to punish us for such thoughts.

[Kléber]

It could have been the end for Beck, maybe it will be. McCarthy went down because he stepped on the toes of the Army brass.. Beck made the same mistake, thinking he was so big he could run headfirst into a different pillar of American capitalism, the church. Too bad they are all hawking that prosperity gospel shit and don't really care.

[Dermezel]

He says these things to get attention. he's a real-life troll. but anyway I'm sure many right-wing Christians agree with him on this. You know, morons like Pat Robertson who think natural disasters are "divine justice" for secular gays and pagan feminists.

Well from a subjective perspective it makes sense according to their religion. The Bible, contrary to what many believe is not really as much about forgiveness and tolerance and generosity as many here think.

As Michael Shermer notes in his groundbreaking compendium The Science of Good and Evil (http://www.amazon.com/Science-Good-Evil-People-Gossip/dp/0805075208) religion has been very much modernized and liberalized by secular morality. Go back to the Middle Ages, or the days of Slavery and you will see religious people emphasizing different parts of the Bible then they do today.

Also see Landover Baptist's Jesus was no Sissy (http://www.landoverbaptist.org/sermons/nosissy.html) on how brutal even the more "compassionate" and even tempered New Testament God was. Landover Baptist may be a joke, but it backs up every literal interpretation with quotes directly from the Bible. And other sites like the Skeptic's Annotated Bible confirms this.

The Bible is not a book of tolerance and love like people think, and seeing as God did one day flood the entire world for demons mating with humans, and destroyed a whole city for having too much homosexuality, and has offered to torture people forever for what they believe, given all that the idea of inflicting damage on large groups of people for sin doesn't seem all that far fetched.

From an objective perspective Christianity is a Desert Religion:

http://discovermagazine.com/2005/aug/desert-people


n the 1960s, Textor pursued a radically different approach to cross-cultural research. He collated information on some 400 different cultures from around the world and classified them according to nearly 500 traits. What sort of legal system did each culture have? How did its people make a living? Did they believe in an afterlife? Did they weave or know about metallurgy? When at play, did they prefer games of chance or of strategy? Then he fed all these variables about all these cultures into some gigantic paleo-computer, cross-correlated everything, and laid out the significant findings. The result, his monumental A Cross-Cultural Summary, offers table after table indicating, among other things, which cultural differences are statistically likely to be linked to ecological differences. While not the sort of book you toss in your knapsack for beach reading, there is something irresistible about thousands of pages of correlations. Where else could you discover that societies that don’t work with leather very well are disproportionately likely to have games of skill? How do you explain that one?

The study found that Desert cultures, like Abrahamic religions, tends to be more militaristic, authoritarian, sexist, absolutist, and monotheistic:


From these various anthropological approaches, a basic dichotomy has emerged between two types of societies from very different ecosystems: societies born in rain forests and those that thrive in deserts. Think of Mbuti pygmies versus Middle Eastern bedouin, or Amazonian Indians versus nomads of the Gobi. There turn out to be consistent and permeating differences between the two. Obvious exceptions exist, some quite dramatic. Nonetheless, the correlates are unnerving.

Begin with religious beliefs. A striking proportion of rain forest dwellers are polytheistic, worshipping an array of spirits and gods. Polytheism is prevalent among tribes in the Amazon basin (the Sherenti, Mundurucu, and Tapirape) and in the rain forests of Africa (the Ndorobo), New Guinea (the Keraki and Ulawans), and Southeast Asia (the Iban of Borneo and the Mnong Gar and Lolo of Vietnam). But desert dwellers—the bedouin of Arabia, the Berbers of the western Sahara, the !Kung of the Kalahari Desert, the Nuer and Turkana of the Kenyan/Sudanese desert—are usually monotheistic. Of course, despite allegiances to a single deity, other supernatural beings may be involved, like angels and djinns and Satan. But the hierarchy is notable, with minor deities subservient to the Omnipotent One.

This division makes ecological sense. Deserts teach large, singular lessons, like how tough, spare, and withholding the environment is; the world is reduced to simple, desiccated, furnace-blasted basics. Then picture rain forest people amid an abundance of edible plants and medicinal herbs, able to identify more species of ants on a single tree than one would find in all the British Isles. Letting a thousand deities bloom in this sort of setting must seem natural. Moreover, those rain forest dwellers that are monotheistic are much less likely to believe that their god sticks his or her nose into other people’s business by controlling the weather, prompting illness, or the like. In contrast, the desert seems to breed fatalism, a belief in an interventionist god with its own capricious plans.

Another major difference was brought to light by Melvin Ember. Desert societies, with their far-flung members tending goats and camels, are classic spawning grounds for warrior classes and the accessories of militarism: military trophies as stepping stones to societal status, death in battle as a guarantee of a glorious afterlife, slavery. And these cultures are more likely to be stratified, with centralized authority. A cosmology in which an omnipotent god dominates a host of minor deities finds a natural parallel in a rigid earthly hierarchy.

Textor’s work highlights other differences between desert and rain forest societies. Purchasing or indenturing wives is far less prevalent among rain forest peoples. And in rain forest cultures, related women tend to form the core of a community for a lifetime, rather than being shipped off to serve the expediency of marriage making. In desert cultures, women typically have the difficult tasks of building shelters and wandering in search of water and firewood, while the men contemplate the majesty of their herds and envision their next raid. Among rain forest cultures, it’s the men who are more likely to do the heavy lifting. Rain forest cultures also are less likely to harbor beliefs about the inferiority of women; you won’t be likely to find rain forest men giving thanks in prayer that they were not created female,

as is the case in at least one notable desert-derived religion. Finally, desert cultures tend to teach their children to be modest about nudity at an earlier age than in rain forest cultures and have more severe strictures against premarital sex.

Which kind of culture would you prefer to get traded to? When it comes to the theistic part, it’s six of one, half a dozen of the other to me. As for the other correlates, desert cultures, with their militarism, stratification, mistreatment of women, uptightness about child rearing and sexuality, seem unappealing. And yet ours happens to be a planet dominated by the cultural descendants of the desert dwellers. At various points, the desert dwellers have poured out of the Middle East, defining large parts of Eurasia. Such cultures, in turn, have passed the last 500 years subjugating the native populations of the Americas, Africa, and Australia. As a result, ours is a Judeo-Christian/Muslim world, not a Mbuti-Carib/Trobriand one.


So now we have Christians and Jews and Muslims in the wheat fields of Kansas, and in the cantons of the Alps, and in the rain forests of Malaysia. The desert mind-set, and the cultural baggage it carries, has proven extraordinarily resilient in its export and diffusion throughout the planet. Granted, few of those folks still live like nomadic pastoralists, guiding their flocks of sheep with staffs. But centuries, even millennia after the emergence of these cultures, they bear the marks of their desert pasts. Our vanquished enemies in Afghanistan, the Taliban, and our well-entrenched Saudi friends created societies of breathtaking repressiveness. In Jerusalem in recent years, Jewish Orthodox zealots have battled police, trying to close down roads on Saturday, trying to impose their restrictive version of belief. And for an American educator with, say, a quaint fondness for evolution, the power of the Christian right in many parts of this country to dictate what facts and truths may be uttered in a classroom is appalling. Only one way to think, to do, to be. Crusades and jihads, fatwas and inquisitions, hellfire and damnation.

[Dermezel]

It is thus not surprising that religion seems to play a major role in the rise of fascism:
http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/paul_23_4.html

Fascism does seem to consist of a periodic synthesis of various right-wing elements, especially the nationalist-religious and corporatist.

In any case, it is almost always a bad idea from a strategic and tactical perspective to ally with religious groups. The USSR tried to do this, and were betrayed by Orthodox Church's to the Whites by virtually every single Church. The Iranian leftists joined in coalition with Islamic radical, and were quickly betrayed and liquidated after the foreign bourgeoisie were removed.

Religion almost always plays a reactionary role in the world revolutionary situation.

[rednordman]

Flipping heck. I cannot actually believe what i am hearing from him. I think it says alot about his own ideology and followers, if anything that conesures 'social justice' is deemed as fascist.

How ironic that these people are always point fingers at the communists citing an image of a mundane, bland world where everyone is miserable and the same, as everything is grey and there is no diversity etc..They should look at themselves first.

I think the only thing that capitalism has going for it is the idea that it can supply social justice on its own. Obviously, we know it cannot, but atleast there are people out there who niavely believe in the market being a force for good, rather than people simply being cold, self absorbed and geedy.

[Klaatu]

The Bible itself never refers to dinosaurs or "creatures as big as buildings."
We could actually call these people heretics for trying to modify the Bible.

On the other hand, maybe they were just watching way too many dinosaur movies? :lol:

[Klaatu]

I think the only thing that capitalism has going for it is the idea that it can supply social justice on its own. Obviously, we know it cannot, but atleast there are people out there who niavely believe in the market being a force for good, rather than people simply being cold, self absorbed and geedy.

The capitalists' counter argument goes something like "A rising tide raises all boats." (Usually it is more like a tsunami crushing all boats)
Or "Wealth will trickle down to the poor." (What trickles down is not necessarily wealth.) :blink:

[rednordman]

The capitalists' counter argument goes something like "A rising tide raises all boats." (Usually it is more like a tsunami crushing all boats)
Or "Wealth will trickle down to the poor." (What trickles down is not necessarily wealth.) :blink:Yes, because people who work under capitalism will generally not work if they dont get paid lol. Problem with capitalism is however that some big buisnesses actually do believe that paying their employees is to much of an ask. No shit.

[spiltteeth]

It is thus not surprising that religion seems to play a major role in the rise of fascism:
http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/paul_23_4.html

Fascism does seem to consist of a periodic synthesis of various right-wing elements, especially the nationalist-religious and corporatist.

In any case, it is almost always a bad idea from a strategic and tactical perspective to ally with religious groups. The USSR tried to do this, and were betrayed by Orthodox Church's to the Whites by virtually every single Church. The Iranian leftists joined in coalition with Islamic radical, and were quickly betrayed and liquidated after the foreign bourgeoisie were removed.

Religion almost always plays a reactionary role in the world revolutionary situation.

This isn't true at all - look at all the Christian Marxists and communists in Latin America - bishops and other prominent clergymen supported the Sandinista government of Nicaragua in the 1980s.

And Lenin's biggest mistake was reversing his position trying to crush the Orthodox church, which as a policy Stalin had to reverse! because they were forcing the church into a right wing position just to protect itself.

However, as a Christian, I can say it IS true that the Bible does NOT promote tolerance. We draw a line in the sand and say this is right, that is wrong.

Anyway, I'm a member of Sojourners and anyone can send a letter condeming Beck to Fox here :http://go.sojo.net/campaign/glennbeck_socialjustice

Here's Jim Wallis challenge to Beck :
http://blog.sojo.net/2010/03/12/an-invitation-to-glenn-beck/

Sojourners is a huge social group with thousands of members and its own magazine.

[The Ben G]

lol. Today I bought a Noam Chomsky book and these two women who had Glenn Beck Books were giving me the evil eye. :laugh:

[RED DAVE]

There was a time when major tian leftists, like William Sloan Coffin, A.J. Muste, Martin Luther King, etc., would have gone to the media and denounced Beck for the insane shit that he is.

Present-day social xtians, like present-day liberals, are a pale imitation of what they once were.

RED DAVE

[Jimmie Higgins]

There was a time when major tian leftists, like William Sloan Coffin, A.J. Muste, Martin Luther King, etc., would have gone to the media and denounced Beck for the insane shit that he is.

Present-day social xtians, like present-day liberals, are a pale imitation of what they once were.

RED DAVE

Whenever I hear someone like Beck go off on Obama's secret plan for black reparations or his socialism I really wish there was a modern Malcolm X or someone like that to go on TV and call the bluff: "What's wrong with reparations, there should be reparations - the Banks were never enslaved and kept in poverty, they were the ones keeping people in poverty but Obama gave THEM $700 billion in reparations!"

Michael Moore is about as close as we got right now - and he can be pretty inconstant (although in the absence of a real organized left, it's pretty gutsy to take on capitalism in the mainstream media).

Instead we largely get weak and timid establishment liberals that give the right-wing an ideological boost by then trying to prove through their arguments on TV and in print just how ant-reparations, anti-social justice, anti-progress, they really are.

[Dermezel]

This isn't true at all - look at all the Christian Marxists and communists in Latin America - bishops and other prominent clergymen supported the Sandinista government of Nicaragua in the 1980s.


Okay some of the Orthodox Churches opposed the Czar at first, but during the Civil War almost every single one of them turned counter-revolutionary. That is because the Church's generally tend to be backwards on specific social issues, and as time progresses this will outweigh the economic gains because it threatens the very religiosity of the masses (Keep in mind that the Church tends to have an absolutist world view, and which often times makes something like the "mass murder" or "holocaust" against the unborn equally as important as making sure people don't starve to death) .

This is because as society progresses, religion starts to diminish in importance: http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/paul07/paul07_index.html


The practical implications are equally breath taking. Every time a nation becomes truly advanced in terms of democratic, egalitarian education and prosperity it loses the faith. It's guaranteed. That is why perceptive theists are justifiably scared. In practical terms their only practical hope is for nations to continue to suffer from socio-economic disparity, poverty and maleducation. That strategy is, of course, neither credible nor desirable. And that is why the secular community should be more encouraged.

The religious leaders recognize this at some gut level because they have experience in converting desperate people.

Also leftism will be seen as threatening traditional values- the abortion issue, the creation issue, the gay rights issue, the school prayer issue, all of this creates an opening for any imperialist-reactionary force to exploit.

That is why under the most extreme conditions some religious groups may initially go left, but at the end they tend to go right-wing once the revolution is done. You can use them for practical reasons, but do not trust them.

[spiltteeth]

Okay some of the Orthodox Churches opposed the Czar at first, but during the Civil War almost every single one of them turned counter-revolutionary. That is because the Church's generally tend to be backwards on specific social issues, and as time progresses this will outweigh the economic gains because it threatens the very religiosity of the masses (Keep in mind that the Church tends to have an absolutist world view, and which often times makes something like the "mass murder" or "holocaust" against the unborn equally as important as making sure people don't starve to death) .

This is because as society progresses, religion starts to diminish in importance: http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/paul07/paul07_index.html



The religious leaders recognize this at some gut level because they have experience in converting desperate people.

Also leftism will be seen as threatening traditional values- the abortion issue, the creation issue, the gay rights issue, the school prayer issue, all of this creates an opening for any imperialist-reactionary force to exploit.

That is why under the most extreme conditions some religious groups may initially go left, but at the end they tend to go right-wing once the revolution is done. You can use them for practical reasons, but do not trust them.


Well, I still think the most active communists in the world right now are the churches in Latin America.

The Orthodox church went counter revolutionary during the civil war because Lenin reversed his policy of letting the religious be and began talking about, and actually doing, a dismantlement of the church.

Look at the Russian uprising of 1905 - led by an Orthodox priest and Orthodox Christians demanding bread and better social conditions.

The left, I think, is very hostile to the religious; yet the largest social movement in the USA might very well be the Christian group Sojourners (although not explicitly socialist)

As Marxist geographer David Harvey points out, the only available spaces today to gather and plan protest are - churches.
And they're being highjacked by Glenn Beck/Pat Robinson Right fundamentalists - at least outside of major cities.

I honestly feel that the church is a major strategic player in any successful revolution - we NEED it on our side.

But I do hear what yr saying, those in power will always highjack any social institution to maintain control - I feel the Left should reach out their hands to Christians and fight this tendency.

The church doesn't HAVE to be an agent of oppression.

Sojourners could learn alot from many of the revolutionaries here! We should come together.

[Klaatu]

IMHO, by trying to reason with Beck, Wallis may have missed a good opportunity to play him out.
That is, fire back and taunt Beck to the point that his head explodes. Beck can't deal with millions
of Christians foaming at the mouth, ready to crucify him. (or at least get him off the airwaves)

But then being Christian is supposed to involve forgiveness. But you can't appease the devil.
That is in the Bible also. The story of Jesus in the desert for 40 days is all about this. Another
example is that of Neville Chamberlain's failed attempt to appease Hitler (http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWappeasement.htm) - didn't work at all.
Evil must be vanquished at all costs.

[Klaatu]

I honestly feel that the church is a major strategic player in any successful revolution - we NEED it on our side.


There is one problem: The extremist right wing has already hijacked the church on to their side. They pander to divisive issues like abortion
and gay marriage. I can't see how churches can align themselves with stealing (capitalists), pollution (industry) and other vile things which are tolerated over on the political right. Talk about "getting in bed with the devil..."

[Elfcat]

lol. Today I bought a Noam Chomsky book and these two women who had Glenn Beck Books were giving me the evil eye. :laugh:

Really gets their undies in a bundle when they actually have to pretend to respect the freedom and liberty they claim to uphold.....

But actually, Bush gave it all away in one speech when he affirmed that what the capitalists really want for the people is freedom FROM liberty. :lol:

[Robocloud]

Glenn Beck is fucking crazy and I really do not understand how anyone is stupid enough to listen to his nonsense. I guess if anything will get people to reject him it will be because their religious leaders tell them to. :/

People listen to Glenn Beck because he tells them what they want to hear.

I doubt that anyone who is genuinely and actively seeking to understand the world actually believes his bullshit.

It is capitalist media. He's nothing but a product, marketed to racist, angry, old men which claim to be christian.

[JacobVardy]

There was a time when major tian leftists, like William Sloan Coffin, A.J. Muste, Martin Luther King, etc., would have gone to the media and denounced Beck for the insane shit that he is.

Present-day social xtians, like present-day liberals, are a pale imitation of what they once were.

RED DAVE

Actually, even some right wing Xians would. I have been unable to find the clip but i remember seeing William Buckley tear Frederick Hayek apart over social justice.

[RadioRaheem84]

William Buckley would've tried to bring back some dignity to conservatism but he was being attacked by right wingers for going soft in his later years, so he probably would've been ignored.

The social conservatism is growing like a fungus over this country. The Textbook battle in Texas, the Tea Party Movement, Glenn Beck, South Park Republican/Libertarian youth, Oath Keeper Militia groups, etc.

I think that we may be headed for a clash.

[h9socialist]

Let's settle all of this reasonably and decisively: Let's crucify Glenn Beck and see if he arises three days later . . . if not, then these poor idiots got swindled by another half-wit Charlatan!