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.
Buffoonery in the Name of Jesus…
August 19, 2010
It is one thing—one appropriate thing, of course—to stand for Christ and His truth. It’s quite another to do what these people are proposing, which constitutes, not a stand for Jesus, but a needlessly offensive, counterproductive affront to people of another faith. Never mind the fact that that other faith is, as Christians believe, a false religion—our purpose as followers of Jesus must be to love and to win to Christ, not to stick our thumbs in their eyes. These people aren’t quite in the league of the “God hates fags” loons from Topeka, but you can see ‘em from there.
Why We Will Lose the “Gay Marriage” Debate
August 7, 2010
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but this one, it would seem, is over. Not immediately, and maybe not even with the eventual first decision of the Supreme Court (right now, I think that the loony judge’s decision overturning Prop 8 would be overturned at the level of the Supremes; new Justice Elena Kagan has written—correctly, in this case—that the Constitution does not contain a “federal constitutional right to same-sex marriage). But eventually, we’re going to lose this one. An upcoming post will detail my intended response to such a development, but I won’t get into that here.
Here, though, is why we are going to lose:
- We’re not arguing the point correctly. I watched O’Reilly and two ladies spar over the subject; O’Reilly and one of the ladies were correct, but neither challenged the ridiculous notion that marriage discriminates unfairly against gay individuals. It patently does not; every individual in America has always had the exact same rights to marry, but it occurs to seemingly nobody to bring up what ought to be an obvious truth. If you want to call it “discrimination” that two people of the same sex cannot marry, then you have to in the next breath call it “discrimination” that I cannot marry an already-married person, three women at the same time, my sister, or a combination of six men and nine women. All of those items are equally “discriminatory” to the “discrimination” that occurs under current law. This thing, I will reiterate, has exactly nothing to do with “equal rights”, and everything to do with the very definition of marriage itself (at least in the eyes of the state). Nobody argues the point this way, though, and as long as our arguments come down to (as they did on O’Reilly) the “will of the people” versus the courts, we’re going to lose.
- Our justice system is increasingly becoming a joke. The Constitution has been so consistently abused by judicial activists that we can hardly say that we are a constitutional republic anymore; it really comes down, not to what the Constitution says, but to what nine people say it says, and as things currently stand, four of those nine people want it to say whatever comes to their minds, and a fifth seems schizophrenic.
- Liberalism (which spawns such aberrations as “gay marriage”) is a progressive disease. One of my final posts will talk about how easy it is to be a liberal—and it certainly is. Without giving too much away, it’s easy to be liberal because liberalism plays to several of our worst traits as humans: intellectual laziness, the elevation of emotions over intellect, an obsession with warped versions of such character traits as tolerance and fairness, and the like. Our media is in the tank for liberalism, and as young generations come down the pike, these factors will likely combine to create a climate in which we go beyond “live and let live” to “live and demand the state sanction”, “gay marriage” being a precursor of such a sorry turn of events.
So sorry to break the truth to you, but it seems to me that we’re whistling in the wind if we think otherwise. More later on what Christians ought to do about it…
The Rise of Interfaith Marriage
August 2, 2010
So Chelsea Clinton, ostensibly a Methodist, wed Mark Mezvinsky, described as a Conservative Jew, over the weekend. I wish ‘em all the best; goodness knows Chelsea’s been through a lot in her short life.
The wedding gave rise to this article in USA Today on the increase of interfaith marriages in America. The article describes religiously-mixed marriages as “a category that’s growing rapidly among U.S. couples”. OK.
But here’s the truth: religiously-mixed marriages are only on the rise among people who don’t take their faith particularly seriously—as the article itself illustrates to the discerning reader. Disclaimer: I’m not talking about a committed evangelical from one tradition marrying a committed evangelical from another. I conducted such marriages in PA, and while there has to be some give-and-take and negotiating in such arrangements, the differences between evangelical faith traditions that agree on the basics is one of secondary concerns, and while navigating those differences might cause some discomforts, it can be done.
But a Jew marrying a Methodist? Can’t work, unless neither takes his/her faith particularly seriously (or if his/her version of faith has so compromised its basic theological tenets as to be effectively meaningless); sadly, it’s hard not to suspect that this is the case with Chelsea and her beloved. Christian faith—not the anemic, watered-down variety that many profess today—teaches that Jesus Christ is the exclusive way to Heaven, that all of life must revolve around one’s relationship to God in Christ, that it is lived under His Lordship. I take the position, of course, mentioned with regard to the Baptist pastor in the article: I never marry an unbeliever to a professing believer in Christ. I take the position—though I respect those who differ with me on this—that I do not marry two unbelievers to each other either; though I find nothing legally or ethically wrong with such an arrangement, I refrain.
But I digress. This trend, growing as it is, constitutes further proof of the marginalization of the importance of faith in our society. And provides for committed believers yet another opportunity to shine like lights in the darkness.
How to Talk to a Liberal (And You Must!)
August 2, 2010
Ann Coulter, with whom I often agree philosophically and disagree tactically (it’s not hard to catalogue her plethora of over-the-top, even ugly, comments), wrote a book (which I haven’t read) entitled, “How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must). I write today to suggest that, at least for Christians, the word “if” doesn’t apply; if I’m going to be at all concerned about Jesus’ commission to love everyone, a decent percentage of “everyone” will be liberals. Ergo, if I love Jesus, I must not only talk to liberals, but if I’m going to love as Jesus loved, I need to…gulp…love liberals.
I could stop there and have already made a point worth meditating upon.
But I’ll take it further. Last week, I had the real privilege of talking, for two hours, with a liberal. You may remember my series of posts on homosexuality prompted by conversations I’d had with “Bob”, a new friend and a liberal. Yesterday, “Bob” and I sat down at Atlanta Bread Company and on purpose talked about the issue of homosexuality, as well as some other stuff that came up.
I thoroughly enjoyed it. And “Bob” did as well.
What, Byron? You, a conservative, didn’t feel the need to browbeat/condemn/judge “Bob”, the liberal? (In fairness to “Bob”, by the way, he didn’t categorize himself as a “liberal”, and if indeed he is one, he is certainly of the much more moderate variety. Though we didn’t mention her name, I get the feeling that Nancy Pelosi would scare the bejabbers out of him to nearly the degree she scares me.) Ummm…no. Neither did I feel the need to “win”, to score points with my delivery, or put him in his place, or to prove that I was right. No, we just…talked. And laughed. And asked questions, and tried to honestly answer them. I look forward to doing it again sometime. And from “Bob’s” follow-up email, it’s clear he does as well. In fact, he told me that there had been times in his life when he’d held back from speaking his mind out of fear that he’d get into a shouting match or ugly confrontation with someone, but that he felt that he could speak his mind with me, and not fear that I’d get angry. He’s right; I feel the same way about him; I take his words as a tremendous compliment.
So…how does all this happen? Digressing one more time, I think that this ought to happen a lot more often than it does, people of differing perspectives taking the time to listen to each other instead of lobbing hand grenades across well-barricaded lines of demarcation. Christians should, of all people, take the lead in speaking respectfully to others—yet how many of us simply fight fire with fire?
Back to the question: how do two people from differing perspectives have respectful conversations? Some thoughts finally on “how to talk to a liberal”:
- Speak with respect. I may not agree with a person’s positions, but every person is created in the image of God. I must accord sincere respect to everyone, not because of what they profess to believe, but because of the imago Dei stamped upon them.
- Listen. When we feel like we must win, we won’t shut up and allow the other person a chance to express his views. If he feels/acts this way as well, we are at an impasse where little can be accomplished saved the inflammation of passions, heat instead of light. Chances are that when a person is allowed the opportunity to express how he/she really thinks, stereotypes will fall, and while we may not reach the same ultimate conclusion, we will at least come to appreciate how people arrive at their conclusions.
- Be honest. This should be self-apparent, but the temptation, again if we’re trying to win a point, is to clip the coin a little bit in our own direction. I don’t have everything figured out; do you? It’s OK to admit this, folks.
- Don’t take yourself too seriously. If we can’t laugh—and especially at ourselves and our foibles—then we need to seriously take a pill. Big time. “Bob” is a master of self-deprecating humor, a genuinely funny guy who doesn’t take himself too seriously. How would it have come off if I’d taken some position that suggested that my way, in every way, was the only right way, if I’d failed to acknowledge my own capacity to be wrong?
- If we don’t do everything we do—everything—with love, then we’re sunk. Period.
You probably have some bullet points to add. Feel free.
Osteen on Pork
August 2, 2010
This is…well…I guess it’s to be expected:
One wonders if this man who “preaches” to millions a week has any sort of coherent theological stance other than whatever he happens to ascertain when he plops open the Bible and sticks his pointer finger into the text.
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
