Tag: Glenn Beck

Kathryn Joyce on Mormons and the Religious Right’s “Common Ground”

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“Glenn Beck’s efforts to transform himself from Fox News demagogue into a religious leader for Tea Party America has a lot of commentators discussing the feasibility of a Mormon convert leading a wary evangelical and Catholic right in a faith-driven cause. While there are significant roadblocks hindering Beck’s quest for leadership in the Christian Right, he wouldn’t be the first Mormon to advocate a right-wing alliance that stretches across faiths. Beck follows hundreds of Mormon “pro-family” activists who have united with conservative Catholics and evangelicals to form a common front in the culture wars.”

Continue reading at Religion Dispatches. Continue Reading →

The Scandal Here, The Revival Over There

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Not all Christians are down with Beck’s interpretation of the bible and their purpose for America.  Russell Moore, Dean of the School of Theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, gets some Mormon-bashing on in his recent denunciation of Beck, delivered via an article at the American Family Association’s onenewsnow.  Writes Moore:

Mormonism and Mammonism are contrary to the gospel of Jesus Christ. They offer another Lord Jesus than the One offered in the Scriptures and Christian tradition, and another way to approach him. An embrace of these tragic new vehicles for the old Gnostic heresy is unloving to our Mormon friends and secularist neighbors, and to the rest of the watching world.

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SNL's Humor Can't Top The "Restoring Honor" Rally

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Becky Garrison, who’s current feature for The Revealer looks at the ways in which “social justice” has been made a dirty term, writes to us today with a satirical piece about Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally in Washington DC.  SNL’s been outdone?  Has Beck become his own best satirist?

Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels has rejected an alleged second offer from Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin to co-host Saturday Night Live. Apparently, SNL’s crack comedy writing team is incapable of penning anything that can top the “Restoring Honor Rally” starring Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin and the Special Operations Warrior Foundation.

“Replicating Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a Dream Speech’ by having the rally on the same day and in the approximate location is a stroke of pure genius,” Michaels allegedly proclaimed. “Not since we aired the “Word Association Sketch” in Season 1, Episode 7 have I seen a comedy duo employ the techniques of satire to illuminate the racial divides that continue to plague this nation,” he added.

Upon hearing this news, Jimmy Fallon followed his former boss’s lead by canceling their adaptation of Beck’s “Helpful Tips for the Rally!” sketch. According to a spokesman, Jimmy, dressed in drag, failed to capture the Miss Corn Fest quality found in Beck’s babes.

However, Michaels said they would continue their tradition of bringing watered-down music to the masses by booking American Idol loser Krista Branch. She will perform the tea party anthem “I am America” accompanied by former SNL alum Victoria Jackson and Beck’s new BFF John Rich. Continue Reading →

SNL’s Humor Can’t Top The “Restoring Honor” Rally

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Becky Garrison, who’s current feature for The Revealer looks at the ways in which “social justice” has been made a dirty term, writes to us today with a satirical piece about Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally in Washington DC.  SNL’s been outdone?  Has Beck become his own best satirist?

Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels has rejected an alleged second offer from Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin to co-host Saturday Night Live. Apparently, SNL’s crack comedy writing team is incapable of penning anything that can top the “Restoring Honor Rally” starring Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin and the Special Operations Warrior Foundation.

“Replicating Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a Dream Speech’ by having the rally on the same day and in the approximate location is a stroke of pure genius,” Michaels allegedly proclaimed. “Not since we aired the “Word Association Sketch” in Season 1, Episode 7 have I seen a comedy duo employ the techniques of satire to illuminate the racial divides that continue to plague this nation,” he added.

Upon hearing this news, Jimmy Fallon followed his former boss’s lead by canceling their adaptation of Beck’s “Helpful Tips for the Rally!” sketch. According to a spokesman, Jimmy, dressed in drag, failed to capture the Miss Corn Fest quality found in Beck’s babes.

However, Michaels said they would continue their tradition of bringing watered-down music to the masses by booking American Idol loser Krista Branch. She will perform the tea party anthem “I am America” accompanied by former SNL alum Victoria Jackson and Beck’s new BFF John Rich. Continue Reading →

SNL’s Humor Can’t Top The “Restoring Honor” Rally

Posted on by

Becky Garrison, who’s current feature for The Revealer looks at the ways in which “social justice” has been made a dirty term, writes to us today with a satirical piece about Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally in Washington DC.  SNL’s been outdone?  Has Beck become his own best satirist?

Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels has rejected an alleged second offer from Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin to co-host Saturday Night Live. Apparently, SNL’s crack comedy writing team is incapable of penning anything that can top the “Restoring Honor Rally” starring Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin and the Special Operations Warrior Foundation.

“Replicating Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a Dream Speech’ by having the rally on the same day and in the approximate location is a stroke of pure genius,” Michaels allegedly proclaimed. “Not since we aired the “Word Association Sketch” in Season 1, Episode 7 have I seen a comedy duo employ the techniques of satire to illuminate the racial divides that continue to plague this nation,” he added.

Upon hearing this news, Jimmy Fallon followed his former boss’s lead by canceling their adaptation of Beck’s “Helpful Tips for the Rally!” sketch. According to a spokesman, Jimmy, dressed in drag, failed to capture the Miss Corn Fest quality found in Beck’s babes.

However, Michaels said they would continue their tradition of bringing watered-down music to the masses by booking American Idol loser Krista Branch. She will perform the tea party anthem “I am America” accompanied by former SNL alum Victoria Jackson and Beck’s new BFF John Rich. Continue Reading →

What Beck's Marching For: Making Social Justice Unjust

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by Becky Garrison

Look for the words social justice or economic justice on your church website. If you find it, run as fast as you can. –Glenn Beck, March 2, 2010

Since Beck uttered this and related comments on his radio show, much ink has been spilled decrying his analysis of one of the basic tenets of Christian teaching. While The Catholic League came to Beck’s defense, “progressives” like Sojourners founder Jim Wallis suggested that viewers and advertisers instead leave Beck, though they later gave Beck some PR attention by placing him on the cover of Sojourners (September 2010.) Other progressive groups like Faithful America continue to mount campaigns against Beck’s rantings in the hopes such advocacy efforts will result in strategically placed media and will increase both the nonprofit’s political profile and donor base.

But the battle to defame “social justice” is as old as the New Testament itself, a point made by Fr. James Martin, author of The Jesuit’s Guide to Almost Everything, on the Colbert Report last March. Martin describes how throughout the gospels, ”Jesus choose to be poor not only to show us what it means to live simply but also to show God’s love for the poor.” Continue Reading →

Beck Off!

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You don’t mess with the theologians, Glenn Beck.  The folks at Union Theological Seminary haven’t found Beck’s use and knowledge of the bible to be quite up to snuff so they’ve taken up a collection of the good book to send to him.  They’ve also devoted a page at their site to articles by UTS staff and students, including Serene Jones, seminary president, and Kathryn Reklis, director of Theological Initiatives.  Of particular emphasis in these articles is Beck’s denigration of liberation theology.  You can read the articles here.  (h/t Adam H. Becker) Continue Reading →

Equivocating Poverty

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From Peter Laarman’s post at Religion Dispatches, “Taking Back ‘Big Government Liberalism'”:

So here is my question for religious liberals and moderates [who] really do know what the Bible says: Do you care enough about the poor and vulnerable to declare yourself an unabashed Big Government supporter? Because equivocation on this one equals suffering and death.

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Jim Wallis, Between a Wall and Glenn Beck

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Despite calls from sponsors to disinvite Jim Wallis as keynote speaker at next week’s Lifest, an Evangelical music event in Wisconsin that attracts tens of thousands of young attendees, the organizers of the event have decided to keep him on.  One sponsor, radio station Q90 FM, chose to end their support of the event after 12 years of continuous annual sponsorship.  Said station general manager, Mike LeMay, about Wallis and his organization Sojourners: Continue Reading →

Faith in our Exceptionalism

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We are not ourselves. We no longer know what it means to be American. We are letting our secretive government fleece us. We’re broken and we are on the wrong path, at a tipping point, we’ve lost our way. From Star Parker to Sarah Palin, from Roger Ailes to Glenn Beck, the message that the Media Right is riding is that we are a country that has forgotten itself, forgotten its exceptionalism, become too complicated, gotten too far from its values; and because of this lapse of self-knowledge, we’re about to hit dire straits. While it’s a strong, simple and compelling (and rather Biblical) narrative — we must change our ways now or soon perish — some major plot points are missing. Who are “we” for instance? And whose values are being forgotten? What is American exceptionalism and how or why should we get back to it? While the Media Right works to stage a self-help intervention for our failing country, few are talking about what really ails us with detail. This “we are going down” talk serves a distinct political purpose though; as Tony Judt writes in a new, lengthy essay,“The Disintegration of the Public Sector” for SSRC: Continue Reading →