Posted on 08/28/2010 7:43:33 PM PDT by GVnana
WASHINGTON — An enormous and impassioned crowd rallied at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Saturday, summoned by Glenn Beck, a conservative broadcaster who called for a religious rebirth in America at the site where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech 47 years ago to the day.
“Something that is beyond man is happening,” Mr. Beck said in opening the event as the crowd thronged near the memorial grounds. “America today begins to turn back to God.”
It was part religious revival, part history lecture, as Mr. Beck invoked the founding fathers and the “black-robed regiment” of pastors of the Revolutionary War and spoke of American exceptionalism.
-snip-
Officials do not make crowd estimates because they are unreliable and can be controversial, but event organizers put the number of attendees at 500,000; NBC News said it was closer to 300,000, but by any measure it was a large turnout. The crowd stretched from the Lincoln Memorial to the Washington Monument.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
All we are left with is what appears on paper, and that was the work of Joseph Smith. or at least I am not told he had collaborators on the translation.
NO. She said she wouldn't marry him unless they found a church they could attend together - and so the went looking at different churches - ending up deciding on the LDS church.
The mormons are a cult. Anyone with any connection to Christianity realizes that. They are not Christian in any sens of the word. They believe in a completely made-up Jesus that Joe Smith contrived.
http://www.exmormon.org/tract2.htm Check that site. The mormons believe God was once a man who was such a swell guy he grew to become a God. The mormons believe in multiple gods; they believe man can become a god. And what's this "no drinking alcohol" BS when Joe sold beer from his home? Beware of phonies.
“....but Beck’s a mormon.”
Don’t you think that Beck speaking, working with and befriending all those dozens of Evangelical pastors just might have an influence on his Biblical and theological understanding - and away from mormonism?
Today’s was not a rally of the National Association of Evangelicals nor a commissioning of the Nicene Council - it was a rally to point people back to Faith, Hope and Charity.
Let’s give credit for what it was!
The doctrine in dispute was provided by God himself, not by us. God may be “bigger” that the doctrine he has chosen to reveal to us, but he has not asked us to believe in anything that flatly contradicts those revealed doctrines. Given a consistent and equal use of terms, the polytheism of Mormonism and the monotheism of Christianity cannot both be true at the same time. One or the other is false. It is therefore misleading for Mormons to use monotheistic terminology, as Beck does, because it conveys a sameness of belief that isn’t really there.
Now doubtless many Mormon faithful have thought as little about serious doctrine as your average back row Baptist or your one-a-year Catholic, but that does relieve us of the problem that there are critical differences that make Mormonism a genuinely different religion from traditional Christianity.
On the other hand, as a Christian monotheist, I believe that God is free to use whosoever he wishes to accomplish his purposes, and it is clear that Beck is promoting key virtues essential to the civil society, and in that we are and should work in common purpose with him.
Furthermore, I would remind my fellow “fundies” that Paul teaches natural law, that all humans, regardless of religious belief, have a law written on their heart, a law that teaches them murder is wrong, stealing is wrong, breaking a promise is wrong, etc. These are ideals that inspire every human being to better themselves morally, or that condemn them when they fall short. It is natural law that the one true God will use to judge those who never heard the Ten Commandments, or any other advanced moral code, and it is a valid basis for making common cause with those who would uplift those values, even when we disagree with them on the underlying theological basis of those values.
"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." - Declaration of Independence
Are there any pics of the Sharpton rally?
Correction to the previous post:
Now doubtless many Mormon faithful have thought as little about serious doctrine as your average back row Baptist or your one-a-year Catholic, but that does NOT relieve us of the problem that there are critical differences that make Mormonism a genuinely different religion from traditional Christianity.
What's tragically sa dt is you bashers of the Church of JESUS CHRIST of Latter day Saints.
Your pontificating, judgmental, holier than thou condemnation based on your misguided belief in your omnipotent knowledge is what is NOT CHRISTIAN.
That said - name ONE un-Christian, un-Jesus thing or word that Beck said or did today?
Truth is truth. Good works are good works.
I was watching the CBS Evening News and they said that attendance was estimated at 87000.
I’m not sure how they arrived at the number - but given it was a prediction made by the MSM, they definitely lowballed the actual figure by 100,000 - minimum.
“I had to crack up earlier when ABC was claiming 87,000....they finally bit the bullet and said it was in the “100s of thousands”
Those dolts must know that they are a patent JOKE with about 75% of this country.
The bible says God can raise up believers from the stones on the ground.....he wasn't too much on judging the sinners only the self righteous of his day that looked down upon the others....be careful with your comments about others if your going to use religion...
AMEN
I suppose that given the choice, you would have attended Al Sharpton’s rally today, since the “reverend” is a Christian, and Glenn is not.
“bashers of the Church of JESUS CHRIST of Latter day Saints.”
Hopefully we can discuss our differences, and share truth and instruction from Scripture, and even discuss the veracity of different Texts and Scripture, without bashing.
No, it is not silly to recognize the real differences between traditional Christianity and Mormonism. Mormonism was not invented to fill in some gaps left by the Christian Scriptures. It was invented as a direct competitor to traditional Christian belief.
For example …
Mormon Prophet Brigham Young disparages the Christian teaching concerning the dual nature of Jesus Christ, that he is both fully human and fully divine:
“You may hear the divines of the day extol the character of the Saviour, undertake to exhibit his true character before the people, and give an account of his origin...I have frequently thought of mules, which you know are half horse and half ass, when reflecting upon the representations made by those divines. I have heard sectarian priests undertake to tell the character of the Son of God, and they make him half of one species and half of another, and I could not avoid thinking at once of the mule, which is the most hateful creature that ever was made, I believe. You will excuse me, but I have thus thought many a time” (Journal of Discourses 4:217).
Mormon teachers advocate that virtually all non-Mormon churches are the Babylonian whore of Revelation 17, thus the subject of damnation, not blessing:
“After the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized, there were only two churches upon the earth. They were known respectively as the Church of the Lamb of God and Babylon. The various organizations which are called churches throughout Christiandom, though differing in their creeds and organizations, have one common origin. They belong to Babylon.” (George Q. Cannon, Gospel Truth, p.324)
Mormon Prophet Brigham Young denies that Christians and Mormons worship the same God, that the Christian God is really the Devil, from a Mormon point of view:
“...brother Joseph B. Nobles once told a Methodist priest, after hearing him describe his god, that the god they worshiped was the “Mormon’s” Devil-a being without a body, whereas our God has a body, parts and passions.” (Brigham Young, JD 5:331)
You can’t write these off as inconsequential differences, or as merely filling in the gaps of the traditional Christian Scriptures. Mormon doctrine is clearly designed to contradict and undermine Christian doctrine.
So while I will support Beck’s efforts to restore honor and the basic sense of right and wrong we need to conduct the civil society, I take his words about God as either perilously naïve regarding his own church’s teaching or as seriously misleading people into believing there is greater similarity of belief than there really is between Mormons and traditional Christians.
Way to sow the division amongst fellow believers in and followers of Christ. A well known, popular conservative calls for unity and a rebirth of faith in this country and just a few hours later you?re already shooting holes in it.
Joseph Smith did not call following Christ an abomination. In answer to his prayer and his query of which of the earthly churches to join, God the Father and His son, Jesus Christ, appeared to the 14-year-old Joseph and spoke to him, telling him to join none of them. They told him that the creeds of the churches were an abomination.
For the sake of unity and furthering the conservative cause and saving our nation, we should be focusing on our common ground and our common cause, not fomenting division. Mormons believe in, worship, and follow Jesus of Nazareth, born of the virgin, Mary. Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah and the savior of all mankind. He atoned for and died for our sins. He was crucified, died and then on the third day he rose from the dead. He lives. We read the Holy Bible to learn of him so that we may better follow him and be his disciples.
For the purpose of working together to save this nation from the threats which it faces, both external and domestic, that should be Christian enough. It was for the coalition of groups who united in California to pass Prop. 8. And that should be the example of the kind of success that such unity can bring.
“NBC News said”
As if anyone is going to believe them...
Well, like you say, truth is truth. God chose to reveal truth about himself, and foremost among those truths is that there is only one God, not a multiplicity of evolving deities, as Mormonism teaches. I am sorry if this inconveniences you.
As for anything un-Christian Beck did today, I heard the whole program, and Beck advocated what neither Jesus nor the Apostles ever would, that people seek God in any indiscriminate church, temple, or mosque. His only criterion was that a religion not advocate physical violence to achieve its ends. Whereas Jesus specifically taught that anyone who rejected the Son was actively rejecting the Father. You won’t find God in a religious community that rejects the Son of God. Truth, as you say, is truth, and no one can come to the Father but through the Son. Fact. Sorry.
So Beck, in advocating Unitarianism as a route to national healing, is giving bad, un-Christian advice. Call us to virtue, yes. No problem. Promote religious universalism at the expense of the Gospel? No thanks.
Yet Christians and Jews can put aside their theological differences and come together in the name of "God." I was at the Beck rally today. I felt a unity among the various religious groups, and I think God smiled on that.
My Catholic friends consider God a "mystery." My Jewish friends don't believe Jesus is the Messiah. My Mormon friends believe the Father and Son are separate beings. Perhaps as humans, none of us has a complete understanding of God. But we do all believe in a Supreme Being or Creator. I think that it what Mr. Beck was trying to do today: bring all God-loving people together in a worthy cause.
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