Brother Glenn’s Traveling Salvation Show

I couldn’t get the Neil Diamond song out of my head while reading Michelle Boorstein’s Washington Post take on “The Rally.”  Some highlights:

• A few weeks before organizing a massive rally on the Mall that had the feel of a religious revival, Glenn Beck sought the blessing of some of the country’s most prominent conservative Christian leaders. The Fox talk show host wanted their support as he shifted from political commentary to a more spiritual message, he told the group of about 20. This is where God is leading me, Beck declared, according to Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention, who was there, along with Focus on the Family founder James Dobson.

Is this a religious awakening or a career move? Maybe that’s why…

• …not everyone agreed to embrace him publicly.

• “Politically, everyone is with it, but theologically, when he says the country should turn back to God, the question is: Which God?” said Tom Tradup, vice president for news and talk at Salem Radio Network, which serves more than 2,000 stations, most of them Christian. “How much of this is turning to God? How much is religious revival and how much is a snake oil medicine show?

Tom is a good, seasoned radio man who works for one of the largest religious broadcasters in the country.

• “People aren’t recognizing [President Obama’s] version of Christianity,” Beck said on “Fox News Sunday.”…It wasn’t the first time he had derided Obama’s faith. In the days leading up to the rally, he characterized the president as an adherent of “liberation theology,” which Beck said represents “a perversion of the gospel of Jesus Christ as most Christians know it.”

That’s quite a statement from someone preaching values and trying to bring people together, someone whose own faith is not accepted by many Christians.

• …Janet Mefferd, a nationally syndicated Christian talk show host..said…”I know he means well and loves this country, but he doesn’t know enough about theology to know what kind of effect he’s having. Christians are hearing something different than what he thinks he’s saying.”

In fact, on “Fox News Sunday” Beck said, about calling Obama a racist that he had a “big fat mouth” and that he “miscast” his theology as racism.  And now he is reinvented as a spiritual leader?

• Although he doesn’t consider Mormons to be Christians, Land said he agrees with Beck’s basic premise that American society must be “rebuilt from the bottom up.”

So, Beck gave a huge platform to someone who won’t accept Beck’s own faith as Christian. Another prominent featured guest was Pastor John Hagee, who is notable for having said that God sent Hilter to the Jews to chase them back to the land of Israel. Interesting.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Neil Diamond:

By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.