David Barton’s Astonishingly Bad Apologetic for Glenn Beck
August 30, 2010
OK, let’s start by my acknowledging this truth: in general, I like and agree with Glenn Beck. Does he say some outrageous things? Yes. Do I agree with all of his pronouncements? Heavens, no. But in general, I agree with a significant portion of the things he says…but when he starts talking about his faith and this quest God has him on, well, I get mighty antsy. Glenn, you see, is a Mormon.
But David Barton, an evangelical Christian and founder/president of an organization named WallBuilders, has appeared with Glenn on a number of occasions, not only on Glenn’s TV program, but at rallies, etc. And some Christians have (rightly) questioned Barton as to this association, just as I questioned the decision of Liberty University (my alma mater) to have Beck as graduation speaker. Now comes Barton’s apologetic, which I’ve reproduced in its entirety below. Instead of my commenting on it—other than to say that it is an underwhelming mishmash of red herrings, misappropriation of Scripture, misappropriation of history, and blending of the spiritual with the political to a frightening degree (not that I want to bias you, dear reader…ahem)—I’ll let you read it and point out the many fallacies Barton’s argument contains. I’m frankly astonished, to tell you the truth…
By Their Fruits
by David Barton/WallBuilders on Monday, 16 August 2010 at 18:49
http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Dav…01762193194695
For all those who have asked, thanks for your inquiry and for expressing your concerns about Glenn and his faith. Allow me to address those concerns first by offering some general principles that I find helpful, and then by listing some specific facts that also influence my position.
Concerning the first area, human nature frequently causes us to jump to quick (and often wrong) conclusions based on stereotypes; there is an unfortunate propensity to judge based on what is generally perceived about a particular group rather than on what we specifically know about the individuals in that group.
Jesus provided excellent guidance to help overcome this tendency:
By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit….Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them. MATTHEW 7:16-20
“Master,” said John, “we saw a man driving out demons in your name and we tried to stop him, because he is not one of us.” “Do not stop him,” Jesus said, “for whoever is not against you is for you.” LUKE 9:49-50
Whoever is not against us is for us. MARK 9:40
What simple messages are contained in these three verses?
Judge a tree based on the type of fruit it produces, not the label that it bears. For example, if a tree is labeled as an apple tree but keeps producing oranges, which is more important: the label or the fruits? Obviously, the fruits.
Don’t impede the efforts of others if they are not attacking and trying to injure us, even if those individuals are not part of our particular religious circle.
If someone is not actively fighting against us, then consider him an ally, not an enemy.
Let me now make specific application of these verses. In recent months, I have appeared numerous times on Glenn’s program to talk about historical and political issues, particularly as related to faith and Biblical values. On those programs, I have had repeated opportunity to inform Americans about (as our WallBuilders’ motto declares) “America’s forgotten history and heroes, with an emphasis on our moral, religious, and constitutional heritage.” I have also participated in several major arena rallies with Glenn.
As a result of these appearances, I have received numerous letters and calls from concerned Christians, some of whom respectfully inquire as to why I would appear with a Mormon, while others directly attack me for doing so. As far as I can tell, most of these concerns stem from judging Glenn based by the label of “Mormon” rather than by the fruits he produces.
For example, no one has yet been to point to any instance where Glenn has attacked or undermined Christ or Christianity on any of his programs. To the contrary, on repeated occasions it has been quite the opposite. (Recall his specific programs on individual salvation, atonement, and redemption through Christ.) Nevertheless, some of his critics refuse to take Glenn at his self-evident words but instead attempt to read into them some secret and hidden meaning, thereby judging him not by his fruits or words but rather by some conspiratorial and unseen meaning they seek to impute to him.
For Christians concerned about Glenn’s faith, I would ask the following questions:
What fruit do you see produced by Glenn? Good or bad? If you judged Glenn only by the fruits he has produced, would you still hold concerns over his faith?
If you did not know Glenn was a Mormon, how would you describe his religious beliefs?
Is God using Glenn to help recover our national strength and health, both politically and spiritually? If so, why would God be using him?
Does Glenn stir and provoke us to good works? (Hebrews 10:24)
Does he bring to light the hidden things of darkness? (1 Corinthians 4:5)
Does he talk openly about atonement, redemption, and individual salvation through Christ? (I can definitely answer this in the affirmative, for I have seen him do so on numerous occasions not only on his program but also in the rallies where I have personally participated with him.)
Christians concerned about Glenn’s faith should judge the tree by its fruits, not its labels. After all, Nancy Pelosi and Bill Clinton openly call themselves Christians, as do Evangelical Christian ministers such as Jim Wallis and Joel Hunter. Although these individuals have the right labels, they have the wrong fruits; yet many Christians have a more visceral reaction to Glenn than to Pelosi, Clinton, or Wallis. This is wrong; it is not Biblical.
(Incidentally, a recent poll on American religious affiliations and beliefs [1] shows that Mormons are more pro-life and pro-traditional sexuality than Evangelicals: 70% of Mormons oppose abortion but only 61% of Bible-believing Evangelicals do so; and 68% of Mormons believe that homosexuality should be discouraged in society but only 64% of Bible-believing Evangelicals believe this. Furthermore, in the 2008 vote on the California Marriage Amendment, it was Mormons and not the Evangelicals who gave most of the money and workers needed to protect marriage in that state.
In fact, polling affirms that if the marriage issue had been left only to Evangelicals, the marriage amendment would have failed. We Evangelicals definitely need to get our own house in order.)
Recall the incident in Acts 10 where God shattered the thinking and paradigm of the Apostles by manifesting himself to and through Cornelius. In the Apostles’ thinking, this was definitely not supposed to happen, for Cornelius was part of the wrong group. Nonetheless, God moved through Cornelius, making clear that His blessing was upon him.
Significantly, that Cornelius passage from the book of Acts became the basis for one of the most famous sermons in the remarkable American revival called the First Great Awakening (1730-1770). That sermon, known as the “Father Abraham” sermon, was delivered repeatedly by the Rev. George Whitefield over all parts of America.
The text of that sermon was recorded by John Adams (who was among the eighty percent of Americans who physically heard Whitefield preach a sermon during the Great Awakening [2] ). About that sermon, Adams recounted to Thomas Jefferson:
He [Whitefield] began: “Father Abraham,” with his hands and eyes gracefully directed to the heavens (as I have more than once seen him): “Father Abraham, whom have you there with you? Have you Catholics?” “No.” “Have you Protestants?” “No.” “Have you Churchmen?” “No.” “Have you Dissenters?” “No.” “Have you Presbyterians?” “No.” “Quakers?” “No.” “Anabaptists?” “No.” “Whom have you there? Are you alone?” “No.” “My brethren, you have the answer to all these questions in the words of my next text: ‘He who feareth God and worketh righteousness, shall be accepted of Him’” [Acts 10:35]. [3] God help us all to forget having names and to become Christians in deed and in truth. [4]
Whitefield’s “Father Abraham” sermon based on the Cornelius incident had a profound effect on Americans. In fact, the message of that sermon was directly put into practice on September 6, 1774, when a seemingly innocuous motion was proffered to open America’s first Congress with prayer. [5] Surprisingly, that apparently harmless request met unexpectedly stiff resistance – resistance by some of the most devout Christians among the delegates. As explained by John Adams:
It was opposed by Mr. [John] Jay of New York and Mr. Rutledge of South Carolina because we were so divided in religious sentiments – some Episcopalians, some Quakers, some Anabaptists, some Presbyterians, and some Congregationalists – that we could not join in the same act of worship. [6]
It was devout Christian Samuel Adams who broke through the religious objections when he “arose and said he was no bigot, and could hear a prayer from a gentleman of piety and virtue.” [7] Significantly, Samuel Adams (an ardent Congregationalist – a Puritan) supported having a clergyman from the Church of England (a denomination literally hated by Adams’ Congregationalists) deliver the original opening prayer in Congress. What Adams required was that the prayer be from a “gentleman of piety and virtue,” thus recognizing Jesus’ teachings in Luke 9:49-50, Mark 9:40, and Matthew 7:16-20.
Glenn fits well into both of those historic parameters, and hopefully, so, too, will those American Christians who might disagree with his label but find nothing to fault among his fruits.
In conclusion, I have been with Glenn in numerous settings; I have watched him up close and can heartily endorse both his public and his private life. I have witnessed his tender heart, his love for God, and his passion to keep God in America. Glenn and I have prayed together on numerous occasions; he has sought God for specific guidance on numerous situations and I have personally not only seen God answer him but have also seen Glenn completely change his plans after feeling the Lord was leading him to move in a different direction or address a different subject. I judge Glenn by his fruits, not by his labels, and I am honored to call Glenn not only an ally and a fellow warrior (and a General) in the culture war, but especially to call him a good friend.
God bless!
David Barton
Update: Russell Moore has an excellent piece on this aberration that David Barton embraces; click here.
Live Like Jesus?
July 22, 2010
I’m driving through downtown Atlanta yesterday afternoon and I see a billboard featuring Bishop Eddie Long. Bishop Eddie is pastor of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, a megachurch in Lithonia, GA (an ATL suburb). Bishop Eddie was one of the six mega-pastors who were on the receiving end of Senator Chuck Grassley’s investigation into televangelists and their extravagant lifestyles (an investigation about which I have truly mixed emotions, by the way; that’s not the point of this post anyway).
Bishop Eddie makes nearly a cool million a year. Bishop Eddie drives a $350K Bentley, and lives in a mansion with nine bathrooms on twenty acres. Defending this (indefensible) lifestyle, Bishop Eddie told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 2005 that,
“I pastor a multimillion dollar congregation. You’ve got to put me on a different scale than the little black preacher sitting over there that’s supposed to be just getting by because the people are suffering.”
Uh-huh.
What makes this interesting is what the billboard said. It read,
“Love Like Him, Live Like Him, Lead Like Him”
I assume Bishop Eddie means that we ought to love, live, and lead like Jesus.
And so I find myself wondering if anyone in his mega-congregation sees the irony…
And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” – Luke 9:58
On Using Words Carelessly
April 15, 2010
As a communicator, there’s sometimes a fine line between using strong language to make a point, on the one hand, and throwing words around carelessly and irresponsibly. I’d like to report that I’ve never crossed that line…but while I might like to report that, it wouldn’t be true. As I wrote a couple weeks back, I’m trying to redouble my efforts to check my wording on some things more carefully before I go public.
There is a “controversy” of sorts that has brewed in the evangelical world over the course of the last few weeks, ever since John Piper, darling of the conservative and Reformed branch of evangelicalism, invited Rick Warren to appear at his Desiring God conference this fall. Warren is viewed with downright scorn by at least a certain vocal segment of this movement, and predictably, many were up in arms, reacting with horror to Piper’s invitation extended to this man they view as a pragmatist who waters down the gospel, who represents so much of what they abhor about the contemporary evangelical movement.
An aside: though I have benefited from some of Warren’s writing, I have increasingly viewed a lot of what he says and does with skepticism myself. I understand a lot of where these folks are coming from, and I sympathize with it. Some of the positions Warren takes have a level of, I believe, danger inherent in them.
But one of the things that has been thrown around is the word “heretic” to describe Rick Warren. Seriously. Folks, say what you will about Mr. Warren, and there are some things to say, to be sure, but Rick Warren is no “heretic”. And I wrote all this to make a point that Trevin Wax makes in this article about the controversy:
When you use the word “heretic” to refer to anyone who disagrees with you, you don’t have a good word to use to refer to someone who actually fits the bill.
Couldn’t said that better myself. Wax references Jerry Falwell, who a few years back used the “H word” to refer to folks who believe in the Calvinist doctrine of “limited atonement”. Do I disagree with “limited atonement”? Absolutely. Are people who hold to it “heretics”? Please. Spare me.
We’d all do well to remember—particularly if we “c0mmunicate for a living”—that words mean things, and we do no service to anyone when we cheapen those words by over-speaking.
“Christian Voodoo”: OK, NOW I’ve Seen Everything
February 8, 2010
A friend sent me info about a family that is attempting–with the encouragement of their “church”–to incorporate voodoo (or, more technically as they call it, “vodou”) into their “Christianity” for the sake of two adopted kids from Haiti. Now, of course it’s great that these folks adopted a couple of kids from Haiti–well, let’s put it this way: it’s great that they had it in their hearts to do so–but what kind of silliness is this?
More disheartening is that the pastors of a Baptist church would tolerate this instead of (lovingly) offering the family the kind of counsel they need to put away the works of darkness as they embrace the saving gospel of Jesus Christ. What fellowship does the light of Christ have with the darkness of voodoo? None. And the most loving thing that Revs. Thompson and Haak could possibly do would be to disabuse this misguided family of any notion to the contrary–rather than affirm their idolatry.
John MacArthur on Oral Roberts
December 21, 2009
This is a sobering post on the legacy of Oral Roberts:
Measuring Oral Roberts’ Influence
One certainly hopes that Oral Roberts is now rejoicing with Jesus in Heaven, and there is little doubt in my mind that some very good things happened as a result of Mr. Roberts’ influence. At the same time, there is little doubt in my mind that much harm was done through his spurious Prosperity Theology teaching (I always had associated such with the Kenneths–Hagin and Copeland–as well as Benny Hinn, Smilin’ Joey, and a few others, but MacArthur points out the difference between Prosperity “Theology” and Word-Faith “theology”, and it’s clear that Mr. Roberts must assume a lot of responsibility for this awful movement). The gospel of Jesus doesn’t square with Prosperity teaching, and we must never, ever be fooled by the size of one’s ministry as an indicator of the blessing of God or of the rightness of one’s theology.
Why I Can’t Sign the Manhattan Declaration
November 30, 2009
Recently, a group of evangelicals, Roman Catholics, and Orthodox folks came together and drafted what has been called the “Manhattan Declaration”. In it, these leaders pledge to stand together and refuse to accommodate themselves, or the religious institutions they represent, to the encroachment of pagan society with regard to human life issues, issues of the fundamental definition of marriage, and issues of religious liberty. In short, there is much to agree with in this document, and a number of folks whom I deeply respect have chosen to add their names as signatories to the document. Charles Colson, whom I admirea dn respect deeply, but who seems committed to these types of ecumenical, gloss-over-the-issues types of things, spearheaded this one. Christian pastors are being called on to sign; indeed, any Christian can “sign on”.
I won’t.
In a nutshell, this document glosses over the gospel. And the gospel cannot be compromised for anything. Not for anything. Because if we don’t have the gospel, we got nothing. Zero. Bupkus. At several points, the document lumps together all of the above group under the name “Christians”. Granted, in one sense of the word, that is true–just as in some sense of the word, we could use that term to refer to pseudo-Christian cults like the Mormons and the Jehovah’s Witnesses. At other points, it uses terminology such as “proclaim(ing) the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in its fullness, both in season and out of season”, and suggests that this is our common mission.
The problem ought to be obvious: while I am certainly sympathetic with the overall gist of the document (apart from the issue of the gospel), I cannot agree that I share a common mission with Rome, for instance. I’m not “doing the same thing”. My goals, my mission, my preaching, my teaching, my life is not devoted to a “gospel” which is no gospel, which glosses over the fundamental differences that divide these branches of “Christendom”. The gospel is the issue–and rather than linking arms with Roman Catholics as brothers/sisters in Christ (though on a different basis, we could stand together); rather than smoothing over the unsmoothable differences in our beliefs, it is incumbent upon me to stand first and foremost for the gospel.
Now, when it comes to the particular social actions advocated by this document, I would find myself in substantial, if not total, agreement with its aims. But I refuse to act as if the Reformation didn’t matter; I refuse to compromise sola fide; I refuse to embrace any “greater good” than the specifics of the gospel–because without its specifics, we have no good. And I thus refuse to sign the Manhattan Declaration.
Just to give you a little more food for thought, here are two respected Christian bloggers who have written on the subject:
Tim Challies on The Manhattan Declaration
Pyromaniac’s Dan Phillips on Nineteen Questions for Signers of “The Manhattan Declaration”
And here, further, are the responses of John MacArthur and Alistair Begg.
Most Christians Think Jesus is Lying
November 9, 2009
“Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” That’s Luke 12:15–and most Christians think that Jesus is mistaken–at least by the way they behave.
This is going somewhere.
Talk amongst yourselves….
UPDATE: Apparently, it’s going nowhere…
This phrase comes from the 1978 "Jonestown massacre" in which most members of the Peoples Temple cult, blindly following their leader Jim Jones, committed suicide by drinking cyanide-laced Kool-Aid.
Osborne: A Contrarian's Guide to Knowing God
Schlossberg: Idols For Destruction
