I was saddened and confused to see prominent evangelical Christian leaders participate in Glenn Beck’s Restoring Honor rally on August 28. Had the rally been about politics or honoring American patriots, such involvement would not be troubling. However, the rally was clearly more like an attempt to worship God with multiple prayers, testimonies, scripture readings, and urgings from the pulpit to turn back to God. Coupled with the “Divine Destiny” event the night before, it was clear that the purpose was to invoke the favor of God toward America. As none of the participants were polytheists, all participants must have believed they were joining hands and voices to call on the same God. As Mr. Beck has proclaimed himself a Mormon and none of the Christian participants clearly distinguished the God they prayed to as different from the Mormon god, the unavoidable conclusion is that prominent Christians called not on the true and living God, but on a false god at least partly consisting of the deity Mormons worship. This false god is born of the Mormon heresy against which faithful, orthodox Christian leaders had previously always warned their people.
So in this public show of unity, Jesus Christ was associated with a demon, His gospel was distorted, His church was exposed to false teaching, and enemies of His church were validated as now within that church. These false believers remain lost in sin – encouraged to remain in darkness by this false unity and now more easily embraced by true Christians though they remain wolves in sheep’s clothing. Such is the fallout of attempts at interfaith worship, of which the Beck rally is a new twist.
My expressed sadness and dismay only deepened as I discovered disagreement from friends whom I consider fellow servants of Christ that were joining in the rally’s applause. In dialog with these brothers, several common themes emerged among those who supported Mr. Beck’s events and believed that they honored Christ.
I will address these five issues in several articles:
1) God can be worshiped by true Christians at the same time and place that false gods are worshiped by others. Christians can worship the true God publicly yet secretly, and even applaud the concurrent idol worship, so that the idolaters present are unaware that Christians are worshiping a different god, thereby preserving unity and avoiding offense toward non-Christians.
2) Since there are really two kingdoms – a political, national kingdom based on government and the kingdom of God – can’t true Christians unite with unbelievers on issues of common concern?
3) Since I cannot know the heart of Glenn Beck, I cannot judge him and should give him the benefit of the doubt – after all “God can use anyone”.
4) The Restoring Honor event’s main focus was not to call on God Himself, but to call America back to the American founding fathers’ view of God – these men were not all true Christians, yet God used them to establish a great nation.
5) The Christian leaders involved in the rally have inside information that Glenn Beck has recently become a true Christian and will soon leave the false Mormon religion – so they were not uniting with a false believer.
And here’s a great article about the Beck events, from a far more qualified and gifted blogger.
Douglas Wilson has a good essay on the distinction between uniting for a cause and uniting as “Christians”.