Beck: Help us restore traditional American values

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Mijoy2 said:
I do not think the evangelical will follow. Like the catholic the evangelical believes the LDS to be seriously flawed in thier theology.

Unlike the catholic many evangelicals takes this belief much further. Many to the point of believing the LDS to be condemned if they are not born again etc etc.

I can’t see how an evangelical could support a member of a faith they felt so strongly against. Even if they follow much the same moral code.

My opinion only.

Same reason I believe Romney will be at a big disadvantage. Regretfully so.
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Not only that but I’ve heard that Beck is not against same sex unions which is against what Mormon’s think.

And yes, Romney will have a big disadvantage if he is nominated. Not only is he a good Mormon but his ancestors were polygamists which the media will pounce on as well as some of their other beliefs.

Beck has some good points, but you have to remember that ALL Mormons believe they get “revelations”. Their leaders get these and then change their doctrine, or example in 1977 or 78 declared that blacks could hold the priesthood where before they were forbidden.

We should all get together, Catholics especially, and not only turn to God but Mary and the Rosary, and get the incumbents who are pro-abortion, pro gay marriage, etc. out and good candidates in. Furthermore, the Bishops should get on the ball and begin excommunicating these so-called “Catholic politicians” who refuse to adhere to Catholic teachings. I’m sure many other faiths would welcome them in.
 
article:
Whether or not Beck has such political aspirations, Balmer said his efforts to draw evangelical attention could end up creating exactly what Falwell’s father envisioned – a powerful coalition of politically conservative evangelicals, Catholics and Mormons.
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Beck has been correct in focusing his message here on God, rather than on himself.
As long as his question to us continues to be “What does God want”, then it is a challenge to us all to find the common answer.

It is really not about him so far. It is about God.
And God is one. He is unique. There is no god of the Jews, or Muslims, or Mormons, or Catholics or Evangelists. God is God. He speaks to us all with the same essential, unique, and non-contradictory message. That is what life ins the Spirit is all about.

He doesn’t seem to take himself too seriously on the other hand. He seems to enjoy his own personal role as a lightning rod for leftist contempt for him. His humor on his show is all about attracting the self-righteous indignation of his political enemies to himself, and then deriding it for the ridiculous, mostly mean-spirited, usually baseless ad hominen that it is.

But the other part of his show is more like a plaintiff wail of a really average Joe, openly wondering, and desperately searching out what God wants from him. He is certainly not a Jerry Falwell, a beacon of Christian righteousness, pontificating to us as if from above as to what is right and wrong. He is rather a very fallen, very vulnerable individual in that respect, not leading us, but only doing his very best to follow what God wants of him.

Paradoxically, this vulnerability that he shows serves as a protection against leftist attacks like Falwell and the rest of the religious right of the eighties never had. The religious leaders of the last generation set up God’s moral standard of behavior as their own, and inevitably they fell far short of that measure. Beck is a man already fallen. For the left to seek to trip him up and kick a man when he is down does him no harm, but only makes that strategy of ad hominem, which has served them so well in the past, seem mean and hateful and petty to the extreme.
 
The fact that Beck really believes that this country needs to get back to God is a huge plus regardless of what religion he is. He is absolutely right, the only way this country can be saved is to return to God, and if he is the one saying it then God bless him. W e should all pray that he comes home to Catholicism.
 
Catherine_D said:
Today I looked at some of the pictures from the 8/28 rally.
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Did you happen to see this picture? A prominent place indeed for the Rev. John Hagee.

http://static01.mediaite.com/med/wp...een-shot-2010-08-31-at-6.26.24-PM-300x204.png

mediaite.com/online/chris-matthews-unacceptable-that-glenn-beck-was-sharing-company-with-hagee-at-rally/
Catherine D:
This wasn’t some sort of intra-Protestant squabble as has been suggested in an earlier post. (Actually, it didn’t appear to be a squabble of any sort at all.)
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The “squabble” I referred to was the dustup between Beck and Al Sharpton over the legacy of the civil rights movement.
Catherine D:
I think it’s wonderful that the purpose of this rally was to restore honor and to encourage Americans to put God back where He belongs ~ in the center of their life. I can’t imagine why anyone would find fault with that.
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As a Catholic, I find it extremely hard to work up any enthusiam for events at which anti-Catholic bigots like John Hagee are given prominent places. Look at the picture I posted. Hagee wasn’t just a face in the crowd who just happened to be there. He was right up front.

I’ll give Beck the benefit of the doubt and say he didn’t have Hagee there out of deliberate malice. He probably just didn’t care. But he should have known about Hagee’s anti-Catholic rants.
 
Most of those posting here were not there. There’s a lot of incorrect second hand info floating around.

I was there.

The purpose of this rally was really two fold.

1 - To counter moral relativism with the basic principals of God’s law.

2 - To return to our original form of government relying upon freedom and subsidiarity(as directed by the catechism) thus protecting the basic principals of God’s law.

To be able to do that we do not need to agree on all of the theological details. Just because someone has differing views(no matter how bad they express them) it does not mean that they are void of the basic truths and principles neccessary to govern.

A government controlled by religion can be just as tyranical as an atheist one. This is not what Beck or I am advocating. What is important for the success of society is freedom. The freedom to choose to do the right thing. Otherwise, the success of a society is meaningless no matter how perfect it is because if it is not free to choose right over wrong it is not truly doing the right thing. If we all agree on freedom and the protection of those freedoms we will then go in the right direction regardless of whether everyone has the same theological beliefs.

Catechism #1884 - God has not willed to reserve to himself all exercise of power. He entrusts to every creature the functions it is capable of performing, according to the capacities of its own nature. This mode of governance ought to be followed in social life. The way God acts in governing the world, which bears witness to such great regard for human freedom, should inspire the wisdom of those who govern human communities. They should behave as ministers of divine providence.
 
gnjsdad said:
The “squabble” I referred to was the dustup between Beck and Al Sharpton over the legacy of the civil rights movement.
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Beck isn’t Protestant, he’s Mormon, so saying that it was an intra-Protestant squabble makes no sense.

As for Mr. Hagee, I wouldn’t recognize him if he was standing in front of me. I’ve never seen him before in my life and I’m still not sure who he is based on the picture.

Beck was promoting unity at this rally and all were welcome. Did you see Mr. Hagee and one of the Catholic priests get into some sort of dustup? I think not.
 
Can we all pray for Glenn Beck to come back home to the Catholic Church?
 
First of all:
As he may or may not have known, the tenets of “social justice” encourage one not only to help the poor, but also address the conditions that keep them poor. He called that “communist.”
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It’s a bunch of BS. Conservatives on average, and I’ll include Beck and many libertarians, donate more to charity than the average liberal. Even though they, on average, make a lower income. They are being misleading by making it out as though Beck is calling people who donate time and money are communist.

As far as liberation theology, the artcile openly admits there are many definitions. Beck is talking about certain Churches and groups of people, such as the new black panther party, who preach hatred towards white people as if all white people are involved in somehow making their life a miserable port-o-potty.
“I hate white people! All of them!” You want freedom you gonna have to kill some crackers…
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If I’m not mistaken, did he not go on to say something about killing white babies?
 
Via_Dolorosa said:
There are many threads discusssing Glenn Beck, social justice, and even liberation theology. Here’s and article that addresses these issues and more.

huffingtonpost.com/rev-james-martin-sj/glenn-beck-vs-christ-the-_b_698359.html
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I note that there is a prominent header ad for the “Jesus Seminar”, that hoary old 1980s attempt at deconstructing Jesus from Savior into a motivational speaker and all around good guy. I do not much care for Beck’s hyperbolic presentation, although he presents much that is factual and observable. His dismissal of all social justice concerns within faith is not grounded in Christianity, because Beck is not Christian.

I care even less for members of the clergy who are still propounding the ideas of the “class struggle” as the basis for all justice. Their views are only marginally or tangentially consistent with Catholic teaching, and have lead to numerous alliances over the decades with agents of violent revolution. Sad it is that many Jesuits have fallen from educators to propagandists in clerical garb.

I visited El Salvador several times (1986-1991) during their civil war. This was a war which was funded by the Soviet Union through Cuba and Nicaragua. Many in the Church became dupes, sad to say, rather than being Christ’s narrow path between violent government and violent guerrilla. They chose sides rather than offering their lives up for the sake of the Kingdom. Class struggle was preached from the pulpit in some cases.

There was violence and bloodshed by both government and guerrilla - the guerillas being supported in a wink-wink fashion by liberation theologians and segments of the Church. What utterly amazes me is that liberation theology still clings in the increasingly re-radicalized Latin America, much of it being supported by Hugo Chavez’ efforts at regional domination.

This article will appeal to liberals whether political or religious, and remains only one man’s opinion - it is not the teaching of the Church.
 
I’ll respond to it. It’s yet another naive piece written by someone who has no clue about the progressive and, quite frankly, evil forces shaping our world and culture. The fact that it is a priest is sadly unsurprising.

The article boils down to 3 main points:
  1. Beck attacked social justice. The Bible mandates social justice for the poor.
  2. Beck attacks liberation theology, which is an instance of social justice.
  3. Therefore, Beck is against Christ, the Bible, and the poor.
The reason the author is naive or willfully ignorant is that Beck has argued for helping the poor using your own time/money thousands of times. The disagreement is often over using government to seize your hard earned money and apply it to the poor., an often corrupt and terribly imprecise method of helping the downtrodden (ending up funding abortions and viagra ‘medication’), rather than letting individuals help each other according to the dictates of their consciences. The author would know this if he actually paid attention to the debates and such.

The author would also know that the US was an experiment trusting Christian virtues and consciences of the individual to do the moral thing of helping the poor. Every other country tends to use government as the primary vehicle of “helping the poor”.

I seem to recall Paul “asking” members of each church to donate funds to the less well off. It was a choice in accordance with free will. When we die, God will ask us what we did for our fellow man and the downtrodden. He will also ask why we willfully supported systems with our votes and arguments that use our money/fruits to support evil causes (embryonic stem cells, abortion, gay marriage).
 
The eventual Pope(before he was our pope) from his book “Truth and Tolerance” about liberation theology…

“Wherever politics tries to be redemptive, it is promising too much. Where it wishes to do the work of God, it becomes not divine, but demonic.”

Also, “collective salvation”(as Obama frequently likes to site) is completely inline with “liberation theology” and completely out of line with Christianity.
 
I think Glen Beck was talking about liberal/leftist catholic *Social Justice *groups when he made his comments. There is Social Justice, and then there is mere social justice. Its obvious which one this Jesuit author is in support of. “Social Justice” is largely political in nature and usually includes a group of people in a Catholic church or university dedicated to promoting the values of socialism. Get the government to redistribute wealth and spread it around. Encourage government control of healthcare, etc. Talk a lot about “diversity”, rights of the oppressed peoples, minorities, GLBT, etc. For example, at a Jesuit run Seattle University there is a *Social Justice *group dedicated to establishing, " a more equal distribution of power and resources in society through social justice advocacy and politically conscious interventions and strategies. We endeavor to accomplish this goal by using social advocacy and activism as a means to address inequitable social, political, and economic conditions that impede on the academic, career, and personal/social development of individuals, families and communities

Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good has links to other* Social Justice *oriented web sites:

The Beatitudes Society. "*Strengthening the progressive Christian network for justice, compassion, & peace *

Center of Concern: "*a Catholic organization working in collaboration with interfaith networks to challenge structural injustice and promote innovative economic alternatives through analysis, education, advocacy, and **capacity building *** (I always thought we needed more capacity building in our society.

The Jesuit author describes Liberation Theology (which Beck has criticized) as “other directed” and himself “espouses Liberation Theology”.

Well. I could critique the author’s defense of Liberation Theology and Social Justice, but I think I will leave it up to C.S. Lewis: *Let him begin by treating the Patriotism or the Pacifism as a part of his religion. Then let him, under the influence of partisan spirit, come to regard it as the most important part. Then quietly and gradually nurse him on to the stage at which the religion becomes merely part of the “cause”, in which Christianity is valued chiefly because of the excellent arguments it can produce in favour of the British war-effort or of Pacifism. The attitude which you want to guard against is that in which temporal affairs are treated primarily as material for obedience. Once you have made the World an end, and faith a means, you have almost won your man, and it makes very little difference what kind of worldly end he is pursuing. Provided that meetings, pamphlets, policies, movements, causes, and crusades, matter more to him than prayers and sacraments and charity, he is ours—and the more “religious” (on those terms) the more securely ours. I could show you a pretty cageful down here. *

Plain old social justice is someone volunteering at a soup kitchen, at an assisted living facility, at a homeless shelter, witnessing at an abortion clinic. One thing you don’t hear about from the Social Justice folks is any substantive criticism of abortion, because they don’t think its evil. Their cause is marxism. They are essentially leftist radicals wearing clerics. The article shows just how far the Jesuits have fallen.

Ishii
 
The “social justice” and “liberation theology” that supports abortion is the what Beck is speaking out against.
 
Liberation theology has been seriously criticized by the Church, in particular by His Holiness the Pope, before he was pope. While LT contains aspects of Catholic social justice, all too often it swings towards Marxist communism.
 
St_Francis said:
Liberation theology has been seriously criticized by the Church, in particular by His Holiness the Pope, before he was pope. While LT contains aspects of Catholic social justice, all too often it swings towards Marxist communism.
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Exactly. The Jesuits, in particular, have fallen for it in tragic numbers. Liberation Theology breeds armed conflict. By their fruits you shall know them.
 
Thanks Via for posting this. Just when I was losing hope in the Catholic Church based on things such as a priest at my nearest Catholic Church sayng his answer to the poor is to get a job. Which clearly was not Jesus’s only answer. And based on some of the things I read here on CAF. You then find a priest who actually gets the Gospel. Clearly Christ’s only mission was not only to free us from sin. But to care for the sick. To serve the poor.

Fr Martin brings the Gospel home. He correctly points out the opposite of the Gospel. He hits a HR when he says to count how many times Jesus speaks of the poor.

The article states JP2 said special consideration needs to be given to the rights of the poor. I only wish the Church would be doing that today and at least elevating Christ’s social justice issues to the importance She gives other issues. It reminded me of Beck’s denouncement of social justice. At the time I was corresponding with a Disciples of Christ pastor who told me one can not truly follow Jesus if they are not strongest on the issues of the poor and peace. And I wondered why can so many of my fellow Catholics today not seem to get this? It is my belief that only when the poor are risen to the top of the mount of important issues shall we Catholics indeed be fulfilling the Gospel of our Lord.

It always amazes me and I see it right here on CAF everyday, the many Catholics who want the govt to get involved on some issues. But when it comes to the poor Jesus advocated the most for, they scream no.

But Fr Martin probably hit a grand slam when he spoke about how part of the problem is that it can be disturbng for some to consider those whom Jesus served as understanding Him better.

Thankfully though there are the Fr Martins of the world who get the Gospel too and are still preaching it to us.

I’m still unsure there are enough Fr Martins in today’s Catholic Church. We can only pray the Gospel message sinks in to those who still do not believe. God bless Fr Martin. And God bless you Via for bringing this to our attn. Peace.
 
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