Popular journalist and author Glenn Beck, a professed Mormon, sponsored two events on August 27 and 28 that focused on honoring God and honoring patriots who have served America. Since the events featured many elements of worship and Beck worships a false god, at first glance I believed the events dishonored the true God and should have been avoided by true Christians. However, after many subsequent discussions with other Christians, it became clear to me that many approved of the events and could not understand how the events could dishonor God.
The Glenn Beck events have come and gone but they are typical of interfaith services where representatives of various religious faiths unite to jointly worship or pray for a common concern. Most past interfaith efforts of which I’m aware, had liberal denominations as the main Christian participants. I don’t recall the involvement of conservative evangelicals. I always thought it was because the conservatives were more interested in biblical faithfulness and knew such interfaith efforts were prohibited by scripture. However, Mr. Beck’s events have revealed that biblical faithfulness was not restraining conservative evangelicals. When Mr. Beck proposed uniting folks of various religious faiths to honor ‘god’ for his supposed role in founding and sustaining America, the evangelicals were quick to join hands and hearts.
So how do such interfaith efforts dishonor the true and living God? First, the organizer of the interfaith ceremony must themselves have faith, one would assume. And that faith must be in some god or force worthy of worship or worth addressing in prayer. True, faithful Christians have faith in a god and know that this God is the only true and living God – any other god is a false god or in other words, an idol. Therefore non-Christian religions are false and involve serving and worshiping an idol. If the interfaith event’s primary organizer is not a Christian, they must be holding the event so that their idol can be worshiped. Or they may not have true faith in their idol so are glad to have other religions join in for the sake of unity and brotherhood. In that case, their highest goal is brotherhood so the false god or idol is humanity. Humanity is a fine thing, but it is not the God that faithful Christians serve.
So in any interfaith service organized by a non-Christian in which Christians participate, here’s what’s going on:
1) An idolater calls for a public meeting in which significant time will be spent in worship of the idol by song, prayer, and proclamation
2) The idolater invites those that serve different idols and invites faithful Christians
3) Faithful Christians gather at the meeting to sing, pray, and proclaim (that is, they worship)
So everyone present worships in one of these 3 ways
1) They worship the organizer’s idol
2) They worship an idol different than the organizer’s
3) They worship the true and living God
Most conservative evangelical Christians would agree that Christians who worship in ways 1 or 2 are clearly dishonoring God. However, many may not realize that their desire for unity, American patriotism, or political agendas may actually exceed their love for God. If they are willing to join in for unity’s sake or the greater ‘human good’ in disregard of true honor of the living God, they are worshiping an idol.
However, a traditional conservative evangelical would likely agree that 1 and 2 are sinful. So assuming the faithful Christian worships as in 3, they could do this in one of three ways. First, they could protest the idolatry and proclaim that there is no god but the living God, Maker of heaven and earth, the triune God of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and seek to persuade the idolaters to turn from dead idols and to worship the living God. This would be faithful worship that honors the living God but would break the unity of the interfaith effort and disappoint the non-Christians. This would be expected of any faithful Christian who is permitted to address the assembly publicly. Faithful Christians in the audience who had no opportunity to publicly address the assembly would be expected to protest as they had opportunity – likely after the event in reports to friends or other attendees, or on personal media platforms such as blogs and Facebook.
Second, true Christians could worship the living God themselves, but believe that God can be properly honored alongside idols being honored. They would approve of the idolatry of others but not be idolatrous themselves. This would be unfaithful, sinful worship as it breaks the first commandment where God commands than He not be worshiped alongside idols.
Third, Christians could worship the living God themselves and disapprove of anyone at the meeting worshiping idols, but keep their disapproval secret.This would be dishonest, covering the truth, but preserve the unity of the event as the organizer would think others are honoring their idol as legitimate along side any other god represented. But this is sinful for the Christian as it allows the truth about the magnificence and preciousness of the living God and His Son Jesus to be obscured. Such Christian discretion allows a public distortion of the gospel to go unaddressed when it is in their power to protest.
Now back to Glenn Beck. He is the idolater who called for the interfaith events. I take Mr. Beck at his word that he is a Mormon. So he is not a polytheist but a monotheist with a god who is not the same God faithful Christians worship. As Mr. Beck called for the rally, and he believes there is only one god, obviously he’s expecting everyone there to worship the Mormon’s god. In these events, I haven’t heard reports of any protest by Christians who were attendees, speakers, or members of the Beck’s “Black Robe Brigade”. I believe such lack of action is dishonoring to God, distorts the gospel, and weakens the church of the living God. Some Christians who approved of the events have offered several reasons why they think God is not dishonored. I’m addressing each in other articles.
Further Reading: Douglas Wilson has a good essay on the distinction between uniting for a cause and uniting as “Christians”.