Posted on 09/02/2010 6:59:52 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
In the days following Glenn Beck's highly publicized rally in Washington, D.C., conservative Christians have come out expressing their concern not over the increasingly popular broadcaster, but over the apparent confusion among Christ followers.
"There is something very strange going on here. I don't understand the disconnect on the part of Christians," said Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr., president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky.
Americans from across the country converged on the National Mall on Saturday for the "Restoring Honor" rally led by Fox News commentator Beck. Reports indicate that the event drew anywhere from 87,000 to 500,000 people. Beck, a Mormon, was joined by a diverse group of religious leaders – including evangelical Christians – as he called on America to turn back to God.
Mohler, one of the nation’s pre-eminent evangelical theologians, found that Beck's rally cries were resonating with many Christians.
"What concerned me about that event on the mall was not so much Glenn Beck and the politicians in the program; it was the picture of those religious leaders standing together," he said Tuesday on The Janet Mefferd Show.
During Saturday’s three-hour event, over 200 religious leaders stood behind Beck, linking arms at certain points. Dr. Richard Land, a well-known Southern Baptist, and Bishop Harry Jackson of Hope Christian Church in Maryland were among the conservative Christians standing there.
While Land does not agree with Beck's theology, he told National Public Radio that the event was about a deep concern of Americans that the country has taken "a fundamentally wrong turn and is headed in the wrong direction."
Jim Garlow, pastor of Skyline Wesleyan Church in San Diego, Calif., who was also at the event, said the rally was about extolling virtue and honoring God.
And the event was evangelical in tone, he said in a commentary on CNN.
"Despite the pre-rally discussions of Beck’s Mormonism, the rally’s litany of evangelical speakers gave it the Jesus-centeredness of a Billy Graham Crusade. All theological references were clearly evangelical and biblically based," Garlow wrote.
After observing the rally, Mohler came away with a different take and a big concern.
"The bottom line is ... we've been used and we've allowed ourselves to be used at times by politicians and others who co-opted God talk," he said Tuesday on The Janet Mefferd Show.
"We (conservative Christians in America) … have just assumed that because they were using our language, they were talking about the same Gospel or talking about the same understanding of God or talking about the same theological structure and that's just not true," he stressed.
Mohler doesn't disagree on uniting with others on common concerns and moral convictions.
But he underscored the need to "distinguish that from standing together in the faith."
"One of the healthiest things that can happen among conservative Christians is the ability to recognize, to discern the difference between civil religion and authentic Christianity," he explained.
The conservative theologian said he and many other believers agree with Beck on many of his political views. He also expressed appreciation for how Beck identifies "many really horrible and very dangerous liberal ideas."
But "[j]ust to debunk liberal ideas does not give you then the authority to be taken at your word ... to be speaking truth when then you talk about the Gospel," he cautioned.
"We just have to be mature Christians [and say] 'let's look at the Scripture. Let's look at what is being said here. We have a problem."
Continuing, Mohler outlined the fact that Mormons hold to a very different understanding of God than that of Christian theism.
"We're talking about very different deities here," he said. "And I think many Christians just have no idea as they were watching that event."
"How many American Christians who are watching that (rally) and resonating with the call for spiritual revival know that the man who is up there speaking, using words about Gospel and God and all the rest, believes that there was a male and a female deity, that the Godhead is a reproductive pair, that eventually we will be divine ourselves if indeed we follow the path of righteousness?" Mohler added.
Since January, Beck has been working on the themes of faith, hope and charity. He said his aim is to restore history, honor, and "our faith" in the country.
The popular commentator has discussed the Gospel of Jesus Christ repeatedly on his television program, even using evangelical language such as atonement through the shed blood of Christ.
But Mohler commented, "That's bizarre language for a Mormon to be using in this light and to have evangelical Christians affirm that he's talking about the same Gospel we are ... it's the same language but it's not the same Gospel."
What both Mohler and Mefferd believe is happening is spiritual rallying on vague terms.
"When we see some of the talk that has come out of the rally and some of the people associated with the rally, all about God, God, God, I just have really strongly felt that it needs to be a very precise definition when we bring God into the discussion on anything," radio host Mefferd stated.
Mohler described the scenario as having all the cards on the table but turned over so that the faces are not seen.
"You're having the language, but you're not having the definitions here," he noted.
"It really is not so much a concern politically, it's a concern theologically. If we are Christians, we have to understand the name of God is not just some kind of generic noun we can throw around."
While Mohler recognized that some Christians would be irritated listening to his take on Beck and the rally, the theologian hopes they'll be irritated enough to go and look at Scripture.
Amid the theological ambiguity and confusion, Mohler reminded Christians that a revival or spiritual renewal cannot happen without a heart that has known salvation through Jesus Christ.
"You can't have spiritual renewal where biblically speaking there's spiritual deadness," he said. "The reality is we can't biblically believe that they really know the one true and living God unless they know Him through Jesus Christ, our Lord."
“I thought I heard Beck say at one time that the reason he “converted to Mormonism” was so that he could marry his “hot” wife (who is a Mormon).”
That’s what I heard, too! He seems so perceptive about politics and concerned with authenticity (our Constitution, for example), so I’m surprised he’d deviate from Scripture and go for Joseph Smith’s brand of Christianity.
I suspect a great many men (myself included) could give a similar reason for the church they attend. As I also said above, I suspect Glen appreciates the support that family and friends in the Mormon community give to avoiding alcohol.
Some good Christian sources.
http://www.irr.org/mit/is-mormonism-christian.html
http://contenderministries.org/mormonism/comparison.php
A Mormon source, (you will find little overt information here, you will have to dig deeper.)
http://www.lightplanet.com/mormons/response/general/christians/
Not so sure about that.
Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. (Mark 16:16)For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. (John 3:16-18)
Salvation apparently comes to any ... any ... who believe in Jesus (and, apparently, are willing to admit and act on that belief). Distressingly simple.
I suspect that nobody -- not Glenn Beck, nor even Dr. Mohler -- really understands Jesus well enough to believe in what He truly is. And yet I suspect that Jesus understands and makes allowances for our lack of knowledge: it is the fact of believing at all, our basic mindset, that matters, not the correctness of our personal image of what Jesus really is.
The meaning of the crucifixion is discussed in Hebrews 10: "And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." (Heb. 10:10)
Sanctification means "to free from sin: Purify."
Jesus' sacrifice was "for all" -- it's sanctification for everyone who ever lived. And yet He says that not everyone will be saved. So although sanctification is no doubt necessary for salvation (we must be clean before we can be with God), it is not sufficient.
The resurrection is interesting: Jesus, who is co-eternal with God (John 1), cannot die. The resurrection was not necessary for Jesus' sake. The resurrection of Jesus was done for our sake -- to show us, I guess, that even death cannot stand up to God.
http://www.4witness.org/index.php
All good sources of mormon doctrine, history and teachings with sound Biblical contrasts.
Your link was exxcellant in pin-pointing where Beck inserted Mormonism into his speech. But to those without understanding of Mormonism they would not at all pick up on those references. I even noted the covered wagon slide used as they presented America...”overtone” could easily have been understood to a Mormon.
I say again...caution with Beck on his beginning to preach about God....should he press the Mormonism slant much further he will loose the Christian community.
Oh, really?
Do you agree that it is “Unchristian” for the government to deny illegal aliens benefits?
Is this belief of Huckabee “grounded in true scripture”?
How about his “Soggy Bottom Boys” theology that if one is forgiven by God, they should be pardoned for their crimes?
Pete: Well I'll be a sonofabitch. Delmar's been saved.
Delmar O'Donnell: Well that's it, boys. I've been redeemed. The preacher's done warshed away all my sins and transgressions. It's the straight and narrow from here on out, and heaven everlasting’s my reward.
Ulysses Everett McGill: Delmar, what are you talking about? We've got bigger fish to fry.
Delmar O'Donnell: The preacher says all my sins is warshed away, including that Piggly Wiggly I knocked over in Yazoo.
Ulysses Everett McGill: I thought you said you was innocent of those charges?
Delmar O'Donnell: Well I was lyin’. And the preacher says that that sin's been warshed away too. Neither God nor man's got nothin’ on me now. C’mon in boys, the water is fine.
****************
Pete: The Preacher said it absolved us.
Ulysses Everett McGill: For him, not for the law. I'm surprised at you, Pete, I gave you credit for more brains than Delmar.
Delmar O'Donnell: But they was witnesses that seen us redeemed.
Ulysses Everett McGill: That's not the issue Delmar. Even if that did put you square with the Lord, the State of Mississippi's a little more hard-nosed.
**”Despite the pre-rally discussions of Beck’s Mormonism**
I wish all the media would get it correct. Beck is a Catholic, a lapsed one, at that, but, nevertheless a Catholic.
His wife talked him into joining the Mormon Church (guess who has the strong arm in that family? <sarc off)
The problem is the seeker friendly, prosperity churches that never teach the gospel or scripture..so the members are theologically, scripturally ignorant of the gospel or people that are willing to compromise their faith for politics sake..
God is jealous for His name ..and has no patience for false gods..
Sure.. we call that lost
BTTT
Becks doctrine is not Christianity
But Jesus makes it clear that it is belief that saves, even now. (see, e.g., John 3, Mark 16).
Paul makes it clear that there is a specific Gospel that must be understood and that it can only be understood if it is preached. Thus the call to evangelism in the Great Commission.
Knowing and understanding the Gospel is good and necessary. Teaching people about the Gospel helps people to know about Jesus, and therefore believe in Him. But many people who do not believe, nevertheless know and understand the Gospels -- just knowing and understanding does not confer salvation. Only belief does that.
don't believe that a correct understanding of doctrine is a check list. It isn't equivalent to legalism (saved by what we do rather than what we believe).
But it's not necessary for salvation, either.
lds use that same words but they mean completely different things. Beck as all lds is working for godhood, which is something they teach.
The crucifiction cannot stand without the ressurection.... ‘Sin brings forth death’...the crucifiction paid the price....the ressurection brought salvation to eternal life.
I'm not sure what you mean here. "Doctrine" means "anything that is taught" --- indicating all teachings, at whatever level. It is a very general term, and includes "the basics about Christianity".
****The purpose of Beck’s meeting was to bring together people who believe that America was founded on Judeo-Christian values. There are many variances in doctrine among that group, but they do share that one thing in common.****
Ahhhh, but let’s look at where Mormonism and Christianity differ, that is really more useful:
-Mormons believe that you can become your own god, Christians believe in one God.
-Mormons believe you can convert after death, Christians don’t
-Mormons deny the Trinity, Christians embrace that truth.
-Mormons believe that Jesus and Satan are spiritual brothers, Christians, well don’t
-Mormons believe the Holy Spirit had sexual relations with Mary. Christians don’t.
The above are not a couple of minor difference, but more akin to the difference between say, Pelosi and Palin.
****The purpose of Beck’s meeting was to bring together people who believe that America was founded on Judeo-Christian values. There are many variances in doctrine among that group, but they do share that one thing in common.****
Ahhhh, but let’s look at where Mormonism and Christianity differ, that is really more useful:
-Mormons believe that you can become your own god, Christians believe in one God.
-Mormons believe you can convert after death, Christians don’t
-Mormons deny the Trinity, Christians embrace that truth.
-Mormons believe that Jesus and Satan are spiritual brothers, Christians, well don’t
-Mormons believe the Holy Spirit had sexual relations with Mary. Christians don’t.
The above are not a couple of minor difference, but more akin to the difference between say, Pelosi and Palin.
Considering Christ taught us to guard our doctrine, Christians are right to call Beck out whenever he invokes God’s name.
>>I mean, what was the theology of the paradise-bound thief on the cross next to Christ?<<
Those are my thoughts also. The “believe on the Lord Jesus and you will be saved” from the Bible has been polluted by most religions in America today. They act as if you need to “add to” what was said.
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