The Universalism Rally – A Spiritual Issue For Christians
By Gill Rapoza
September 5th, 2010
I have gotten several links or articles from members of this list and from other folks on the Glenn Beck rally of 08/28/10. With the exception of one article in the generally conservative venues I reviewed of what was sent me, they were all positive as to what Beck and company accomplished. However, I am not going to write a glowing report. Beck was wrong on August 28, and the rally had other serious spiritual issues.
First of all I will tell you that for the most part I like Beck for his political views, at least the ones he talks about regularly. I like his offbeat sense of humor. I like the idea that he is smart enough to hire and employ a very good research team. I have a couple of his books. His premise and delivery of the big “Restoring Honor” rally of August 28, I do not applaud at all! It was wrong.
It was quite an accomplishment to gather the huge crowd that Beck got, probably numbering in the several hundred thousands. It was wonderful to see the ability of a tremendously large group like that to peaceably assemble. The constitution speaks well of this. The patriotic flags and the pro American stance taken was great! But what was the rally about?
Beck had on stage with him some 240 religious leaders, said he, and even if that number was off, I still saw a bunch of them. Beck said we must all honor and turn back to God. I like that idea, but what or who does Beck and all those other leaders pray to and honor. While there is but one true God, it is not the same for each of them of those on stage with Beck, and Beck’s god, along with at least a few others’ god is not my God. The Mormon god has no place in prayer or otherwise with the One God.
Beck honors the god of Latter Day Saints (LDS), Mormonism. The Mormon god was the one that has physical sex with Mary the mother of Jesus Christ <www.exmormon.org/mormon/mormon385.htm>. That is not my God. The “Jesus” of the Mormon faith was/is a brother of Lucifer the Devil, but their “Jesus” had a better plan for salvation so some council or other said to go with the Mormon “Jesus” plan. In the LDS records their founder Joseph Smith claimed to do what our Jesus could not do, hold a church together <http://carm.org/joseph-smith-boasted>. The present LDS teaching is that the Bible may be a holy book, but not as perfect as the Book of Mormon (LDS – History of the Church, November 28, 1841, Vol. 4, p. 461), what they call “another testament of Jesus Christ.” I have a problem with all this.
But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed.
Galatians 1:8
If there was nothing else to go on but LDS’ Beck leading other religious leaders that would be enough for me to say “run don’t walk to the nearest exit” if I can toss my best Walter Martin imitation in there. If you get God wrong, Jesus wrong, the virgin birth wrong, Lucifer wrong, multiple gods (a wrong Mormon teaching), LDS founder Joe Smith wrong for thinking he can do better than Jesus, the Bible wrong, “another gospel” wrong, I don’t have to give Beck or anyone else that follows the LDS a whole lot of more chances at being right. This was a “we are all of the same god” Mormon like rally made to look like it was acceptable to and in line with Christianity, the faith most involved in America’s founding.
On the stage with Beck were, if I understood him correctly, among the 240 religious leaders, there were Muslim Imams, Roman Catholic priests, Evangelical Christians, Jewish Rabbis, and just about every other type represented. I tried to find a list of who was actually there in that group, but have so far only identified a few by name. I looked at the pictures Beck published of those with him <www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/44930/> and some were Native American leaders. There is one picture in the group that looked like the Native American leaders were in a collective opening prayer with some type of minister that I did not identify.
The Salt Lake Tribune had a lot to say of the recognized leaders that showed up:
Southern Baptist (SBC) executive Richard Land was pleased at how religious Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally turned out to be.
Bishop Harry Jackson, a black evangelical leader, was pleasantly surprised that the Fox News talk show host and Mormon convert said things “some of my close friends could have written.”
And Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. was among the faith leaders to enlist in Beck’s new “Black Robe Regiment.”
I suspect the Mormons had a field day with this and it will be used as propaganda. The SBC used to think of Mormons as a cult, but now in the age of “we are the world,” basic doctrines do not matter any longer for some.
As to the “Black Robe Regiment” that it says that Jerry Falwell Jr. was joining (above). I have big problems with that. Falwell, an evangelical leader, son of the preacher most associated with the term “Religious Right,” will lead by example that it is OK to be under the spiritual authority of someone who believes wrongly. And if you look up history you will see the members of the Black (Robe) Regiment were the Christian preachers of the American Revolution! And that makes it a claimed spiritual endeavor, one that long predated the Joseph Smith-LDS system. The second issue I take with it is that Chuck Baldwin already began this in a Christian (not Universal) fashion, as in “No King but Jesus,” three years earlier, www.chuckbaldwinlive.com/c2007/cbarchive_20070724.html. I posted this way back then!
Here is something some who are supposed to be Christian leaders who praised the Beck rally forgot:
15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world. 17 And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever. 18 Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour. 19 They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us. 20 But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things. 21 I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and that no lie is of the truth. 22 Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son. 23 Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either; he who acknowledges the Son has the Father also.
I John 2:15-23
Some of these Christian on stage, with Beck leading them in prayer, forgot that Beck’s god is not their God, and that Beck’s group does not know Jesus as the Christ. By now you will have figured my biggest problem was not that others wish to practice a different religion than I, but those that claim they practice the same faith as I are willing to be led in prayer, Christian (religious) singing, and otherwise imitation Christianity (religion) by a non-Christian. Yeah, I have a problem with it. I will be, and have for a long time been very respectful to others doing any religious service different to mine. I am not good at the same when a non-Christian leads any Christian thing for me.
I saw people singing “Amazing Grace” (my favorite) <http://www.upi.com/News_Photos/Features/Glenn-Becks-Restoring-Honor-rally-in-DC/3759/8/> with people that do not believe in grace but works, and other things. And the LDS still need Joseph Smith to give them permission to be with God in Heaven <http://www.utlm.org/onlineresources/sermons_talks_interviews/jofdvol7p282_291smithholdskeystoheaven.htm>. If we need all that, it is not grace, something which God gives freely, then works will not suffice, and neither would making Joe Smith happy.
And here is a little more evidence that our own “good” is not enough, and Smith (who may be elsewhere) has nothing to do with it.
14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come. 15 But the free gift is not like the offense. For if by the one man’s offense many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many. 16 And the gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned. For the judgment which came from one offense resulted in condemnation, but the free gift which came from many offenses resulted in justification. 17 For if by the one man’s offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.) 18 Therefore, as through one man’s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man’s righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life.
Romans 5:14-18
6 But we are all like an unclean thing, And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags; We all fade as a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, Have taken us away. 7 And there is no one who calls on Your name, Who stirs himself up to take hold of You; For You have hidden Your face from us, And have consumed us because of our iniquities.
Isaiah 64:6-7
Here is a Southern Baptist that said things very right,
“A Mormon television star stands in front of the Lincoln Memorial and calls American Christians to revival. He assembles some evangelical celebrities to give testimonies, and then preaches a God and country revivalism that leaves the evangelicals cheering that they’ve heard the gospel, right there in the nation’s capital.”
“The news media pronounces him the new leader of America’s Christian conservative movement, and a flock of America’s Christian conservatives have no problem with that.”
“It’s taken us a long time to get here, in this plummet from Francis Schaeffer to Glenn Beck. In order to be this gullible, American Christians have had to endure years of vacuous talk about undefined “revival” and “turning America back to God” that was less about anything uniquely Christian than about, at best, a generically theistic civil religion and, at worst, some partisan political movement.”
“Too often, and for too long, American “Christianity” has been a political agenda in search of a gospel useful enough to accommodate it. There is a liberation theology of the Left, and there is also a liberation theology of the Right, and both are at heart mammon worship. The liberation theology of the Left often wants a Barabbas, to fight off the oppressors as though our ultimate problem were the reign of Rome and not the reign of death. The liberation theology of the Right wants a golden calf, to represent religion and to remind us of all the economic security we had in Egypt. Both want a Caesar or a Pharaoh, not a Messiah.”
Russell D. Moore – Moore to the Point – Sunday, August 29th, 2010
Read the whole article; it was great!
And if that was not enough, read the following from that same Salt Lake Tribune article,
“But, as his religious rhetoric attests, Beck has gone fishing for a new audience recently. Weeks before the rally, he gathered about 20 prominent religious leaders for a dinner at which, according to Land (Richard Land of the SBC), he said God was leading him to talk about revival in America.”
The night before the rally, he held a “Divine Destiny” event that promised to leave participants with a “strong belief that faith can play an essential role in reuniting the country.”
Now if you are a Christian leader, and you are at a dinner with a well-known Mormon personality, and he says he has got a message from God for America and you, what do you do?
1. Ask for the check and leave
2. Wait for desert and hear the plan out
You would need to choose option number one and also not promise support and attendance at the rally. And you best not bring your membership with you if you have your thinking hat on right! Remember, it was Joseph Smith that started off just like that, a “message” from God. Problem was he did not have any such thing, but was rather a charlatan looking to get rich and take other men’s wives in the process. Even the Blues Bothers said they were on a “mission from God,” and that was just a movie! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-xtJYIwfYo
Back in the early 1980’s, when I was driving a bus for a living, I drove a charted bus to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. The Mormon group rented the whole place for a couple of days at least. The event culminated with this tremendous full stadium of cheering, shouting, flag waving, singing “Godly” and patriotic songs. Man, it was a sight to see and hear. But it was a Mormon rally that sounded something like what a big Christian or patriotic rally might sound like. I would be the first to admit that it was exciting and fun, but even by then I understood enough of what they really taught to not be fooled by a great event. When I saw the clips of the Beck rally, I saw it as the same kind of staged event that I saw in the Rose Bowl.
It is important to know that getting people feeling good about the LDS religion is what they do. And they know how to do it well. The LDS teach that there would be a “burning of the bosom” also called “bosom burning” (LDS – Doctrines and Covenants 9:8) where they test the “Spirit” and see if it feels right. When I was at that Rose Bowl rally I felt pretty good about the patriotic music and such, as it was very well done, but I still did not change my mind and join up. I saw all those very happy looking people at Beck’s rally and wondered how many at that point thought that it was all the same.
23 “Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There!’ do not believe it. 24 For false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. 25 See, I have told you beforehand.”
Matthew 24:23-25
I will venture that many of those people at the rally, including those of the different faiths and creeds may have thought, hey we are all the same really. Nothing could be further from the truth. Some were Christians, some Jews, some Mormons, some Muslims, some pagans, and just about anyone else in a group that big. If we say we are all the same, then we deny our individual and very conflicting beliefs. Something has to give.
“Can two walk together, unless they are agreed?”
Amos 3:3
The way people try to fix it is that they drop a little of this and a little of that, so all are the same. In the end there is one big universal religion where the only ones that are wrong are those that disagree with the big group.
When a Christian lets down his guard and says everyone is going to the same place no matter what, they deny what Jesus Christ said.
1 “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. 2 In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. 4 And where I go you know, and the way you know.” 5 Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?” 6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.
John 14:1-6
Jesus also had something to say about the rest and what choice they needed to make.
13 “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. 14 Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.
Matthew 7:13-14
In the end there will be this great One World Religion, led by the Anti-Christ and the Beast. They are not going to come on the scene like mean old dogs, but nice and friendly, pleasant to the touch, and easy to hear. These two bad guys and their many deceived followers are going to be sweet, at first. They’d be your best friend if you’ll let them. But the end result will be very bad.
13 For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. 14 And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. 15 Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works.
2 Corinthians 11:13-15
15 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. 16 You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? 17 Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Therefore by their fruits you will know them.
Matthew 7:15-20
So what do you in all this? You pray for wisdom, and not good feelings. You pray for guidance that God will show you what to do or say. You first make sure you know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and it was not just a feel good exercise.
Then you continue to study, pray, and fellowship with like-minded folks. You certainly will not go wrong by praying for your nation and your leaders. But if they refuse to listen, you pray for their replacement. Failing that you pray for the protection of yourself and those around you, because you will need it about then. It will get very bad at some point. You pray for your enemies while you pray for your friends. You pray that none around you will be confused and go wrong. You pray for your own continued mercy and grace from God. And let God do the work and get the praise in anything you do or say.
As to Beck himself, I don’t know what his full intents are, other than promote a message he was taught was good, as are Mormons taught in general. Beck just might be one of the many deceived followers, one who is a very popular radio and television personality. In any case, what he preaches is still wrong, and anyone who is a Christian leader of any kind is wrong for following along. Pray for him as well. But singing happy religious songs with anyone of a wrong belief system is very detrimental to one’s Christian walk, including all those at the big rally. It would not be a good Christian testimony.
Godspeed,
Gill Rapoza
Veritas Vos Liberabit
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All of the Bible quotes were from the New King James Version
Scripture taken from the New King James Version. – Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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