-The value package registration with MP3 gets you five entries into the raffle.

We’re giving away signed copies of:

• Rough Stone Rolling by Richard Bushman
• Nobody Knows: The Untold Story of Black Mormons DVD signed by Darius Gray and Margaret Young
• No More Goodbyes and Mother Wove the Morning by Carol Lynn Pearson
• The Year My Son and I Were Born by Kathryn Lynard Soper

Pre-register online here or call the Sunstone office at 801.355-5926.

We’ll announce prize winners Monday 2 August. Winners can pick up their prizes at the Symposium!

Good luck, everyone!  And if you have any questions, please send them to mary.ellen (at) sunstonemagazine.com.

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A Civil Society?

I know no religion that destroys courtesy, civility, and kindness.
—William Penn42

You can turn on the television and see people who claim expertise that they don’t possess. And I say that, because the kind of expertise we need is not a facile grasp of policy, but a love of humanity. That’s what we need.
—Barry Lopez43

This year, former Congressman Jim Leach (R-Iowa), Chairman of the National Humanities Foundation, is on a fifty-state “civility tour” emphasizing the importance of civility in public discourse: “Little is more important for the world’s leading democracy in this change-intensive century than establishing an ethos of thoughtfulness and decency of expression in the public square.”44 Leach continues, “It is particularly difficult not to be concerned about American public manners and the discordant rhetoric of our politics. Words reflect emotion as well as meaning. They clarify—or cloud—thought and energize action, sometimes bringing out the better angels in our nature, sometimes lesser instincts.” Commenting on the latter, likely Leach had Beck in mind when he added, “Public officials are being labeled ‘fascist’ or ‘communist.’”

Beck appears oblivious to Leach’s message, given that his discourse is habitually uncivil. He calls his opponents “idiots” (one of his books is titled, Arguing with Idiots), speaks of hating President Woodrow Wilson, labels Wilson and President Franklin D. Roosevelt (and Iranians) “bastards,” and speaks of others as “dirtbags,” “nutjobs,” “crybabies,” “brownshirts,” “thugs,” and “pinheads.” As Lacey Rose writes in a recent issue of Forbes, “He’s left a long trail of words—millions of passionate, angry, weepy, moralizing, corny, offensive words—in his wake.”45

The following examples reveal Beck’s tendency to draw absurd conclusions and make outrageous statements:

• “I’m thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I’m wondering if I could kill him myself or if I would need to hire somebody to do it.”46
• “Al Gore’s not going to be rounding up Jews and exterminating them. It is the same tactic, however. The goal is different. The goal is globalization.”47
• In attempting to diminish Supreme Court nominee Sonja Sotomayor, Beck asks sarcastically, “What would Sonja do?”48
• Beck portrays Obama and Democrats as vampires “going after the blood of our businesses,” and suggests “driv[ing] a stake through the heart of the bloodsuckers.”49
• Claiming Obama is “letting our troops literally bleed and die” in Afghanistan, Beck suggests he will “pay for it” in the afterlife.
• On TV, Beck imitates Obama pouring gasoline on “average Americans” and says, “President Obama, why don’t you just set us on fire? . . . We didn’t vote to lose the Republic.”50

Whether aimed at Beck or not, an October 2009 statement on the news section of the Church’s website could certainly apply to him. Called “The Mormon Ethic of Civility,” it states, “So many of the habits and conventions of modern culture . . . undermine the virtues and manners that make peaceful coexistence in a pluralist society possible. The fabric of civil society tears when stretched thin by its extremities. . . . Civility is not only a matter of discourse. It is primarily a mode of engagement.” The article adds, “The Church views with concern the politics of fear and rhetorical extremism that render civil discussion impossible. . . . The Church hopes that our democratic system will facilitate kinder and more reasoned exchanges among fellow Americans than we are now seeing.”51

Emphasizing core gospel values in its position, “The Mormon Ethic of Civility” states, “The moral basis of civility is the Golden Rule, taught by a broad range of cultures and individuals, perhaps most popularly by Jesus Christ: ‘And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise’ (Luke 6:31). This ethic of reciprocity reminds us all of our responsibility toward one another and reinforces the communal nature of human life.”52

Beck seems unaware of or indifferent to the fact that some fellow Saints are liberal/progressives. Further, he seems insensitive to the fact that hundreds of thousands of Latter-day Saints live happily with the full blessings of Church membership in countries with socialist governments. The Church’s statement on civility recognizes the virtue of pluralism in an international church: “The need for civility is perhaps most relevant in the realm of partisan politics. As the Church operates in countries around the world, it embraces the richness of pluralism. Thus, the political diversity of Latter-day Saints spans the ideological spectrum.”53

“Hanging by a Thread”

A persistent Mormon Myth that Beck has passionately latched onto is the infamous “White Horse Prophecy,” the prediction, attributed to Joseph Smith, that “there will be confusion, revolution, and wickedness in the last days prior to the coming” of Christ. There will be “turmoil and trouble and great tribulation” and the people represented by the white horse (the Mormons) “will become rich and powerful and will see many come to them for safety.”54

The most commonly cited portion of the prophecy (which has not been officially disavowed) is that at some future point, the U.S. Constitution will “hang by a thread,” and if it is to be rescued, it will be so only by the intervention of “the elders of Israel.”55 His belief in this aspect of the prophecy was confirmed in an interview Beck conducted with Senator Orrin Hatch:

Beck: Senator, do you believe—I mean, when I heard Barack Obama talk about the Constitution and I thought, we are at the point or we are very near the point where our Constitution is hanging by a thread.

Hatch: You got that right . . .

Beck: We are so close to losing our Constitution. We are so close to losing what we have, and people aren’t thinking. The next generation, our children will look to us and say, “You sold my freedom for what?”

Hatch: Well, let me tell you something. I believe the Constitution is hanging by a thread.56

Beck appears to see himself as one of those called to “rally the righteous of our country and provide the necessary balance of strength to save the institutions of constitutional government,” to be one of those who will “step forth” to “save [the Constitution] from utter destruction,” “to rescue that great and glorious palladium of our liberty.”57 Judging from his rhetoric, Beck seems to believe he’s on a divinely appointed mission to fulfill modern-day prophecy. It is important to note that various apostles and presidents of the Church have disavowed the authenticity of at least some portions of White Horse Prophecy and have distanced themselves from some of its more extreme predictions.58

Church leaders have good reasons to fear the extreme rhetoric of someone like Beck. If Beck’s fearmongering or that of the Tea Partiers and other anti-government groups, should lead to violence against the President, then people like Beck who have fomented such anger and hatred could legitimately be held responsible, even if they attempt, as Beck sometimes does, to warn his viewers against violence.  That Beck has become concerned about his listeners’ committing violent acts is evidenced by his recent plea to have them sign a non-violence pledge and send it to him.59 The pledge, borrowed from Martin Luther King, Jr., is found on Beck’s website, along with “Five Principles of Non-violence,” many of which Beck violates almost every day on his programs:

• Walk and talk in the manner of love; for God is love.
• Observe with friend and foes the ordinary rules of courtesy.
• Refrain from violence of fist, tongue, and heart.60

Though Beck tries to wrap himself in the mantles of Gandhi and King, his behavior, like that of his followers, is far from the principled actions of such non-violent leaders. If, indeed, Mormon elders are ever called on to save the Constitution, it will not be because they are partisan, political, or powerful, but because they will act on principles of righteousness—humility, mercy, forgiveness, long-suffering, and love.

Apocalypse Now!

People should be scared! —Glenn Beck

The spirit of the White Horse Prophecy is woven into Beck’s persistent warning that the Republic is about to collapse, be invaded, or suddenly and subversively occupied from within. He also implies that his listeners and viewers are those “called” to rescue it. Night after night he uses end-of-times scare tactics. In almost every broadcast, Beck warns that the impending Apocalypse is upon us. Beck’s apocalyptic vision is often articulated by his guests. One, Damon Vickers, warned on Beck’s TV show in February:

The other side of a debt implosion, which is what we’re in the process of realizing right now, is potentially even anarchy. Anarchy in a society. And so individuals and families have to have the foresight—that’s situational awareness—to perhaps consider, maybe, maybe having a farm, maybe growing your own food, maybe you need to take up arms if you have any to protect your family. The period that’s emerging in front of us could be very, very scary.61

Vickers’ recommendations are hardly disinterested  since he is the chief investment officer of Nine Points Investment62 and, like Goldline, one of Beck’s corporate sponsors, promotes investing in gold as a hedge against the coming economic and social collapse.

For Beck, America is a ticking time bomb about to explode. He warns that we could be on the verge of “the darkest period in American history” and predicts that we will have a civil war sometime in the future. His nostalgia for the early days of the Republic punctuate nearly every broadcast. Inspired by Skousen’s view of history, Beck suggests that if we can just get back to the glorious days of the American Revolution, we will find our way out of the darkness. Of course Beck’s idealization of the founding of the United States relies on a selective, hagiographic reading of American history.63

As with his other key points of emphasis, Beck bolsters his vision of the apocalypse with scripture, end-of-times mythology, and guests who support his point of view. On a recent show he said, “If you look at the extremist Muslim version of the Mahdi, and then you read the Book of Revelation, he suspiciously looks like the Antichrist. Seeing that he’s the one that’s running a one-world government and executing everyone that disagrees with him from Babylon.” Then he added sarcastically, “I don’t know where I’ve heard that one before.”64

Beck, Romney, and Reid

Latter-day Saints can’t help wondering what influence Beck might have on Mitt Romney’s presidential ambitions. Some see Romney caught between wanting to capitalize on Beck’s popularity, especially with the Far Right whose support Romney likely needs to win a presidential election, and worrying that association with Beck might negatively impact his attempt to tack to the center. In “New and Improved Romney,” David S. Bernstein reveals what he believes to be the new Romney strategy—to surrender most of the South (which never trusted him during the last campaign), distance himself from the Far Right, and embrace what many consider his true moderate position.65 If so, association with Beck could confirm impressions many moderates have of Romney’s conservative leanings and, worse, his reputation for “flip-flopping.”

Yet, judging from some recent statements, Romney is having a hard time truly moving to the center. Some of his remarks seem to approach Beck’s extremism. At the recent Conservative Political Action Conference, Romney referred to the Obama administration as “Liberal neo-monarchism,” a tag suggestive of Skousen via Beck. Shortly after passage of the health care legislation, Beck’s website linked to Romney’s response which denounced what he called “Obamacare,” even though, as many commentators have remarked, the new healthcare bill is remarkably similar to what the Massachusetts legislature enacted while Romney was governor.66

In “Latter day Taint: How Glenn Beck Is Driven by Mormonism—and why his fellow faithful (including Mitt Romney) should be worried,” Adam Reilly of the Boston Phoenix writes, “Should members of the LDS Church be cheering or lamenting Beck’s protracted moment in the spotlight? Could Beck’s forays into stealth Mormon sermonizing make his conservative evangelical fans rethink their loyalty? And if Beck’s religiosity finally becomes a story, what might that mean for the lingering presidential hopes of 2012 Republican contender Mitt Romney?”67 Beck’s recent alienation of a broad swath of Christians over his views on “social justice” (see below), could also prove problematic for Romney. Responding to Beck’s statement, a Presbyterian friend of Mormon writer Joanna Brooks writes, “[Beck] has gone too far. The only thing that’s going to come of this is that Christians in the South will dislike Mormons even more.”68

Others, however, see Beck’s Mormonness as helping Romney. In “Glenn Beck and Mitt Romney’s ‘Dirty Little Secret,’” Dave Rosner speculates that Beck’s confrontational style will cause him to challenge any anti-Romney sentiment on the right: “Beck’s popularity has the ability to quash much of the anti-Mormon feeling from both sides of the aisle. Beck will speak in his blunt no-nonsense way about the idiocy of opposing Romney for being Mormon. No one knows who Beck will support, but Beck taking those to task for fomenting religious discrimination will pay in votes. Any airing of Beck being a Mormon will help Romney.”69

Certainly, the Beck-Romney link would help Romney among Mormons, if he needed any further help with them. Romney praised Beck in a recorded introduction to Beck’s address at the George Wythe University gala in Salt Lake City in June 2009, calling Beck “a friend and a statesman in his own right.”70
But contrast Beck’s evidently friendly relationship with  Romney to his attitude toward fellow Mormon and Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid. On 5 March 2010, Beck criticized Reid’s comments about the lower-than-expected number of job losses as “upping the idiocy ante.”71 Beck’s criticism of the Obama healthcare bill targeted Reid as well, since he was the bill’s driving force in the Senate. Beck’s Nevada affiliate heavily promoted an anti-Reid rally in Searchlight, Nevada, on 26 September 2009,72 and Beck seems to favor Reid’s opponent, Danny Tarkanian, in next November’s election.73

Given Beck’s conservative leanings, his call for the defeat of three-term conservative Mormon Senator Robert Bennett may be more troubling. On his radio program in late April, Beck said dismissively, “I may vote for a mouse over Bob Bennett.”74 By all objective measures, Bennett is a tried and true conservative. According to the New York Times, “Conservative advocacy groups have consistently given Mr. Bennett high marks, including an ‘A’ ranking from the National Rifle Association, a 98 percent rating by the United States Chamber of Commerce and an 84 percent rating from the American Conservative Union.”75 Yet Bennett was not chosen by Utah’s Republican delegates, who considered him too moderate and too bipartisan to be returned to the Senate.76

Beck seems to be applying a rigid litmus test for politicians. In this he resembles other resurgent purists on the right. As the New York Times reports, “Tea Party movement and advocacy groups on the right are demanding that candidates hew strictly to their ideological standards and are moving aggressively to cast out those they deem to have strayed, even if only by participating in the compromises of legislating.”77 Beck contributes to, rather than diminishes, the polarization presently plaguing our society.

Social Justice = Socialism?

This is the one cause that ranks above all others in bringing about the social justice so much desired in governments.

—Church editorial issued during the Great Depression78

A recent episode on Beck’s program illustrates the risk he represents to the Church. On 2 March 2010, Beck outraged a broad array of Christians when he said, “I beg you, look for the words ‘social justice’ or ‘economic justice’ on your church website. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words.” Just in case his viewers weren’t able to decode the words, Beck held up a swastika in one hand and a hammer and sickle in the other: “Communists are on the left, and the Nazis are on the right.”79 (A couple of nights earlier, Beck had both placed on the left.) He said, “Am I advising people to leave their church? Yes! If I am going to Jeremiah Wright’s church [Obama’s former church in Chicago]. If you have a priest that is pushing social justice, go find another parish. Go alert your bishop.” He further said that social justice “is a perversion of the gospel.”8

Watching this, I thought, “Is he totally unaware that social and economic justice are woven into the fabric not only of American history but of the gospel itself? Does he not know a group of active Latter-day Saints has formed an organization called Mormons for Equality and Social Justice?81 I was not surprised to see a tremendous backlash to Beck’s words from everywhere—the left, center, and right. Jim Wallis, a respected Christian writer and social justice advocate, said in “An Open Letter to Glenn Beck: Social Justice and the Gospel,” “Perhaps you don’t realize that most Christians believe social, economic, and racial justice are at the heart of the gospel, not a perversion of it.”82 In another article, “Biblical Social Justice and Glenn Beck,” Wallis added, “The Bible is clear: from the Mosaic law of Jubilee, to the Hebrew prophets, to Jesus Christ, social justice is an integral part of God’s plan for humanity.” Wallis called on Christians who believe that social justice is an expression of their faith to “send [Beck] thousands of names.”83 As of April 2010, more than fifty thousand believers from many denominations had responded.

In the New York Times’s “Outraged by Glenn Beck’s Salvo, Christians Fire Back,” Laurie Goodstein observes that Beck’s attack on churches includes his own church. She quotes Phillip Barlow, the Leonard Arrington Professor of Mormon History and Culture at Utah State University, as saying, “A lot of Latter-day Saints would think that Beck was asking them to leave their own church.” Barlow adds, “One way to read the Book of Mormon is that it’s a vast tract on social justice.” Barlow also notes that Beck’s position is at variance with the Church’s recent addition of caring for the poor to its list of central missions.84

Responding to such criticism the next day, Beck tried both to spin his words and blame the Times (which he called “the organ of the Obama administration”). On his website, he said he was referring only to churches like that of Jeremiah Wright, but his original words were very different from this narrow parsing. Instead of admitting he was wrong and apologizing, Beck called Wallis “a leftist,” “an operative for the Democratic Party,” “an apologist communist for atrocities in Cambodia and Vietnam,” and “a dedicated foe of capitalism.”85 On his radio program the next day, Beck personally threatened Wallis: “The hammer is coming . . . and when the hammer comes, it’s going to be hammering hard and all through the night, over and over.”86 On his 5 April 2010 telecast, Beck said Wallis is “a political hack [who is] using his religious background to do the President’s dirty work.”

Michael Otterson, Director of L.D.S. Public Affairs, argued that the conflict between Beck and Wallis is “political, not theological,” but Beck’s statement is clearly theological even if also political. Otterson asserted that Beck does not speak for the Church and that his identification as Mormon “is irrelevant in this debate.”87 It might be irrelevant to this particular issue, but viewers who know that Beck is Mormon are likely to confuse his values with those of the Church. An indication of that possibility is seen in the following response to Beck’s social justice comments by Dan Neif, of Faith in Public Life: “I don’t know what to make of Beck’s absurd rant. The fact that a person with a multimedia platform and an audience of millions is either so addled that he believes social justice is a tool of tyranny, or so craven that he would use fearmongering and vitriol to come between people and their churches, is—to say the least—a troubling indictment of what we as a society value and reward. I just hope nobody comes to believe that the Gospel According to Beck is the word of the Lord.”88

In her Time magazine blog Swampland, Amy Sullivan asks, “Does Glenn Beck Hate Jesus?” She says Beck “managed to outrage Christians in most mainline Protestant denominations, African-American congregations, Hispanic churches, and Catholics—who first heard the term ‘social justice’ in papal encyclicals and have a little something in their tradition called ‘Catholic social teaching.’ (Not to mention the teaching of a certain fellow from Nazareth who was always blathering on about justice . . . ).”89 Peg Chemberlin, President of the National Council of Churches of Christ, weighed in: “If Mr. Beck’s rants stemmed simply from an honest lack of familiarity with Scripture, that would be one thing. But what is perhaps most disturbing about Mr. Beck’s recent statements is that he is urging his listeners to follow a piecemeal Gospel because it better fits his worldly political views.”90

Several Latter-day Saints responded to Beck’s criticism of churches that promote social justice. In the Deseret News’s “Mormons, Other Christians Decry Glenn Beck Comments on Social Justice,” Lynn Arave cites a Church spokesman as saying that Beck’s statement represents his own views and not those of the Church. Further, Arave quotes BYU Associate Dean of Religion Kent P. Jackson as saying, “My own experience as a believing Latter-day Saint over the course of 60 years is that I have seen social justice in practice in every LDS congregation I’ve been in. People endeavor with all of our frailties and shortcomings to love one another and to lift up other people. So if that’s Beck’s definition of social justice, he and I are definitely not on the same team.”91

From the beginning, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been committed to social justice, a principle supported by ancient and modern scriptures and prophets. The Church has always taught that working for social justice is the responsibility not only of individuals, churches, and organizations, but also of governments, although Beck often tries to make a contrary distinction: “I want to make this clear: Some people look at social justice as going out on mission[s] and going out and doing good works for God. That’s great—as long as it’s Jesus and the church or your synagogue or whoever it is who you are serving, not a government-bloated program.”92 How diminished social justice would be without the actions of local, state, and national governments and joint-national organizations such as the United Nations.

“None dare call it Sedition”

Beck’s response to Jim Wallis’s criticism indicates a fundamental character flaw—the inability to be self-reflective and honestly consider the validity of criticism. Although Beck presents himself as being the first to admit when he is wrong, he is in reality reactive and retaliatory. Consider Beck’s reaction to Time magazine columnist Joe Klein’s contention that Beck’s extreme and constant criticism of President Obama might constitute sedition. Klein likely had in mind such things as Beck’s frequent linking of Obama with Hitler and comparing the President’s administration with the Third Reich. Comedian Lewis Black quipped that Beck invokes the Nazis so often that he has “Nazi Tourette’s Disease.”93

In several telecasts following Klein’s accusation, Beck seemed somewhat sober and subdued, possibly genuinely hurt by the charge: “Time Magazine’s Joe Klein said I’m engaging in sedition. It was like a horse stepped on my chest.” Then, as if a simple declaration of patriotism were sufficient to counter Klein’s charge, he exclaimed, “I love my country!” His impulse is characteristic: attack Klein and defend himself by deliberately distorting the facts: “I don’t understand how speaking out now can be sedition. That’s what Klein said about me and then Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh. . . . How is it sedition to disagree with the President of the United States? How is it sedition to say the Democrats and Republicans spend too much money? How is it sedition to tell people to get involved?”

Responding to Beck and other conservative commentators who considered his remarks over the top, Klein said: “Let me be clear: dissent isn’t sedition. Questioning an Administration’s policies isn’t sedition. But questioning an Administration’s legitimacy in a manner intended to undermine or overthrow it certainly is.” He added, “It’s not illegal—unless actions are taken to overthrow the government in question—but it is disgraceful and the precise opposite of patriotism in a democracy.”94

Beck’s reaction to Klein included one of his favorite strategies—accuse his critics of baiting him: “It’s a game. They’re trying to set us up to argue and call us names and just ratchet it up and umm . . . I’m not going to play that game.” He repeated his patriotic mantra, “I love my country,” adding, as if he has been the most reasonable person in the world, “I don’t hate Obama. I pray for this president every single night with my children.” He added that he merely wants to have a conversation with the President and progressives about the Constitution—”A real debate in the open.” Looking like someone wrongly accused of a great crime, he concluded, incredulously, “If that’s seditious . . . whew!”

Beck’s describing his attacks on Obama and his administration as just a simple guy wanting to have a reasonable conversation, a guy who’s “just asking questions,” is dishonest and disingenuous, as is his statement, “I think I may be the most naïve person in America.” In this way, he presents himself as just a lone and lonely voice crying in the wilderness: “I don’t think anyone really wants to tell the truth anymore in America. . . . I . . . I . . . don’t know what it is, but I don’t think there is anyone else” (that is, anyone besides Beck). Then, like a typical confidence man, he brings his audience into his circle of virtue, “Many in America are just like me and you. We get it; we see it.” Beck casts himself and his followers as the only honest people in America: “I think there is an honesty shortage in America. I think that’s maybe what we just have to do on this program. . . . How do people not just see it, [this] lack of honesty?” Earlier, just before launching into a distortion of President Clinton’s concerns about the extreme rhetoric of the Tea Party and right wing commentators, Beck said, without irony, “The enemy is the distortion of the truth; that’s the enemy.”

The Gospel According to St. Beck

“The philosophies of Glenn, mingled with scripture”

For several weeks before 20 April 2010, Beck had been promoting “The Plan”—a plan to restore our country from its fallen state to its original greatness, to restore the pristine government and society the Founding Fathers shaped for our future, a plan of salvation for America. While many pundits offer plans to get us out of our present financial, political and social morass, Beck presents his as The Plan, revealed to him by God. After telling viewers that there is no such thing as coincidence (meaning their watching his program is no accident), he tells of a coincidence in which he and fellow Mormon Pat Gray, co-host of The Glenn Beck Program, felt simultaneously inspired to look in the Bible for the answer to our nation’s troubles. The next day, they reported having arrived at the same conclusion through different but complementary scriptures. Beck says,

God is giving a plan, I think, to me . . . I think the plan that the Lord would have us follow is hard for people to understand. . . . Because of my track record with you, I beg of you to help me get this message out, and I beg of you to pray for clarity on my part. The plan that He would have me articulate, I think, to you is “Get behind me.” And I don’t mean me, I mean Him. “Get behind Me. Stand behind Me.” I truly believe I have done years now of reading the Founders, their diaries, their letters; the Pilgrims, their diaries, their letters. . . . I have seen it with my own eyes . . . and I will tell you that God was instrumental, and they knew it! They knew they had very little to do with it. They just stood where they were supposed to stand, and they said the things that they were supposed to say as He directed. . . . That’s what He’s asking us to do . . . is to stand peacefully, quietly with anger, loudly with truth.95

Beck seems to see himself as a vessel for God’s revelation, the spokesman for God’s Plan to help us restore America’s greatness, to make it once more “a city set on a hill:”

Faith . . . is the answer. Get on your knees, don’t let it take a September 11th, get on your knees, please. I don’t care what church you go to, no church at all, I don’t care. Turn to Him.96

Doubtless for some Mormons, such language confirms that Beck is inspired, that he is called to be God’s prophetic voice to a fallen America, and the one (or at least one of the ones) to save the Constitution. Other Latter-day Saints are disturbed by such language because they distrust a divisive and polarizing spokesman and because they’ve been taught that if such a plan were to be revealed, it would be to the Prophet, not to a Fox television commentator.

Not coincidentally, one of Beck’s next books is called The Plan and will soon be available for purchase. Of Beck’s promotion of his “plan,” liberal commentator Bob Cesca says, “It’s classic televangelism, which is commonly seen as nothing more than an exploitation of religious naiveté with the goal of making the televangelist rich.”97

Perhaps the most salient question to ask about Beck is—does he believe the things he says, or not? Either answer is disturbing. If he does believe them, then we should at least  question his judgment if not his stability. If he doesn’t, if it is all a Wizard-of-Oz-behind-the-curtain-manipulated show, then the situation is much more serious. Michael Harrison, publisher of Talkers, a magazine devoted to talk radio, says of Beck, “I don’t necessarily believe that [what Beck says] is reflective of his own personal politics—I don’t even know if he has personal politics. I see him as a performer.”98

The 1 March 2010 Forbes cover displays a photo of Beck, dollar signs scribbled in chalk all over his grey pinstripe suit, looking like a smug Wall Street tycoon. The lead article is titled, “Glenn Beck Inc.: Inside the Cash Machine.” A report of the Forbes article in the New York Daily News titled, “Cash from Controversy: Glenn Beck Made $32 M In the Last Year,” avers, “Beck insists he’s not political, even after leading the charge against health care reform, feeding the frenzy of the Tea Party members, and telling his loyalists President Obama has ‘a deep-seated hatred for white people.’ Speaking of his company, Glenn Beck, Inc., he says, ‘I could give a flying crap about the political process. We’re an entertainment company.’” Beck adds, “I aspire to Walt Disney’s never-ending quest to try to improve the quality of what he’s doing, his never-ending vision of, ‘Yes, it can be done.’”99 A startling confession. If Beck is playing with his audience, and if individuals are hurt by the fury he unleashes then, to quote from one of Emily Dickinson’s poems,

Would not the fun
Look too expensive!
Would not the jest—
Have crawled too far!100

Responding to criticism of his comment in Forbes (“I got all kinds of heat for telling Forbes magazine my company is an entertainment company, but only after they printed half of the quote from that conversation”), Beck launched into  his shape-shifting revisionist mode: “My company is an entertainment company, but now I find myself in the position that I believe my country is on fire. . . . The reason I tell you this is because I believe our lives are about to change. . . . I find myself talking more and more about God these days because that’s where our solution lies.”101 In other words, if people see Beck as just an entertainer, then they may stop listening to and watching his programs and stop buying his products.

Beck seems to be saying, I used to have the luxury of being a funny man and an entertainer, but now that our President has shown he is a Marxist and our country is going to hell, and I have been called to save it, I must put away foolish things. In this vein, Beck launches again into his prophetic mode. Speaking of why he introduced his trinity of Founding Fathers—Samuel Adams (representing faith), George Washington (hope) and Benjamin Franklin  (charity)—Beck says, “I introduced them on TV because I felt led. I felt led by the promptings of the Spirit or whatever you want to call it.” He adds, “I’m being completely honest with you . . . I’m not sure where this is going to lead. I don’t know how this ends. I really don’t.” Seemingly as surprised as a Galilean fisherman called from his nets, he continues, “I’m just a guy who happens to be sitting in a chair. It doesn’t seem to me anybody else is going to do it, and it makes me . . . It’s changed my life.” Then, acting as if the past year of broadcasts had been delivered by some other “guy,” he says,

I sat down with my family one-and-a-half years ago, and we got down on our knees and prayed, and we had a family conversation, and I said, ‘You guys believe your Dad, don’t you?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘If I say these things and if I start to do these things on television and radio, it’s going to change our lives, and not for the better. . . . And we made a decision as a family that we didn’t really have a choice.102

If we are to understand that the whisperings of the Spirit, the “call” to save the Republic, and the family council’s decision to courageously accept opprobrium had transformed Beck from clownish entertainer into a sober prophet, the programs broadcast since that supposed turning point offer no evidence of it. Beck continues to cultivate his sardonic sideshow persona: criticizing the President, demonizing progressives, castigating his critics, mocking everyone on “the Left,” lampooning those who disagree with him, moving photos around on his blackboard in a flurry of fury to unmask the conspiracy he sees as a cancer on the body politic.103 Beck seems as unrepentant and out of control as ever. I wonder if he is even able to stop himself.

In a 2007 interview with Doug Robinson of the Deseret News, Beck seemed to acknowledge the disconnect between his public persona and his religious identity. Robinson writes, “Outspoken, blunt and confrontational on the air, Beck wrestles continually to reconcile the man he is on the radio and the Mormon he wants to be.” Robinson quotes Beck as saying, “At first I told people on the air that I was a Mormon all the time, but as I became more and more converted and saw others in the Church I wanted to be like, I stopped saying it. I didn’t want people to think that’s the way Mormons are.”104 (Contrary to this claim, Beck has since referred to his religion numerous times on the air.) Beck added, “The show is such a balancing act. I do stuff on the show every day that I regret or question. My language is loose. I’m just different. Every day I get off the air, I think, ‘Lord, help me be better. How do I balance this and be a good reflection of you?’ I don’t think I hit it very often.”105

The Beck Problem

The problem for Mormons is that Beck is unlikely to change his aggressive, bombastic, confrontational style or to be deterred from his self-appointed mission to rescue the nation and set the world aright. Since Beck is a recovering alcohol and cocaine addict, one might propose that he has replaced substance abuse with the adrenaline rush of celebrity and notoriety. Having grown up in a family of addicts, I recognize some of the signs in his behavior.

Another reason Beck is unlikely to change tactics is that they have made him fabulously wealthy, earning him an estimated $32 million in the twelve months between February 2008 and March 2009,106  thus making him one of the most highly paid people in the political/publishing/entertainment industry. Although much he does and says seems at variance with his new-found religion, Beck is unlikely to surrender his fame and fortune or modify his style in any way that would diminish his colossal media power.

Beck has become such a giant on the entertainment/media landscape that he cannot help impacting the Church and its central missions. Many of Beck’s non-Mormon followers, who include evangelicals and fundamentalists, may have difficulty reconciling their devotion to him with his religion. Yet some may be willing to overlook his being Mormon because of their fervor for the cause he represents. Because of the Church’s past history of racism, its recent involvement in Proposition 8, its connection in the public mind with Mormon fundamentalists, and its general conservatism, the moderate-to-liberal populace may see Beck as confirmation of what they are already convinced is Mormonism’s extremism. Thus Beck’s identification with Mormonism could hardly be positive for the Church.

Some have argued that Beck’s conservatism led him to Mormonism, but in “How Mormonism Built Glenn Beck,” Mormon writer Joanna Brooks argues, “The extent to which Mormonism has given Beck key elements of his on-air personality and messaging—and how it may shape the future of American conservatism.”107 Brooks quotes from Beck’s conversion narrative: “‘I was baptized on a Sunday and on Monday’—Beck’s throat tightens again; he wipes tears from his eyes with his index fingers—‘an agent called me out of the blue.’ Three days later, Beck was offered his own political talk radio show at WFLA-AM in Tampa, Florida, the job that put him on the road from ‘morning zoo’ radio prankster to conservative media heavyweight.” Brooks comments: “Spiritual narratives of the I-once-was-lost-now-I-am-financially-sound variety are commonplace within Mormonism, which, like most of American Protestantism, has never been allergic to wealth.”108

A recent Beck telecast shows how completely the “gospel of wealth” has infiltrated Beck’s consciousness. In encouraging viewers to invest in gold through Goldline, one of his show’s corporate sponsors, Beck touts the virtues of gold as the soundest investment against what he sees as the coming financial collapse: “When the system eventually collapses, and the government comes with guns and confiscates, you know, everything in your home and all your possessions, and then you fight off the raving mad cannibalistic crowds . . . , don’t come crying to me. I told you: get gold.” On radio and TV, he not only promotes Goldline, he tells his listeners and viewers they should pray about whether to invest in Goldline! The problem, as some critics have pointed out, is that Beck has a clear conflict of interest in this case, because, as Media Matters reports, he is (or at least was at the time) “a ‘Paid Spokesman’ for Goldline International, which has an ‘exclusive’ sponsorship deal with his radio show and bills itself as ‘Glenn Beck’s Choice for Gold.”  Goldline is also listed as “the exclusive sponsor” of Beck’s “Common Sense Comedy” tour.109

Some feel Beck’s commingling of fear and financial advice is unethical and possibly illegal. In an article on Politico, “Rep. Anthony Weiner targets Glenn Beck and Goldline International,” Weiner (D-NY) is quoted as saying, that “Goldline rips off consumers, uses misleading and possibly illegal sales tactics, and deliberately manipulates public fears of an impending government takeover – this is a trifecta of terrible business practices,”110 Weiner says that Beck “should be ashamed of himself” for scaring his audience into investing with Goldline.111 Again, typical of his response to criticism, Beck has launched a savage and mean-spirited attack on Weiner, even starting a website called WeinerFacts.com.112

Instead of reflecting the messages of the New Testament, the Book of Mormon, and the more enlightened teachings of the Restoration, Beck has latched on to some of the worst ideas from the Mormon fringe to shape his political and social persona. Where in Beck’s universe do we find the messages of the Sermon on the Mount, King Benjamin’s address, or the 121st section of the Doctrine and Covenants? Where are the long-held Latter-day Saint principles of respect for civil authorities? Has Beck read the 134th section of the Doctrine and Covenants which states, “We believe that all men are bound to sustain and uphold the respective governments in which they reside. . . . We believe that every man should be honored in his station, rulers and magistrates as such”? (D&C 134:4–5) There is a dramatic disconnect between these texts and the critical, pejorative, mean-spirited labeling, name calling and demonizing characteristic of much of Beck’s broadcasts and writing.

The extent to which Beck and Mormons can be identified with virulent right-wing hate groups is seen in a video posted online by AmericaForever.com, a Utah-based super patriotic, anti-homosexual, anti-government organization. The video, called “Obama Killer Song,” which sets new words to the Paul Simon song, “The Sounds of Silence,” shows a figure wearing a mask of President Obama strangling an old woman in her sleep, stabbing a pregnant woman in the stomach, hanging a CIA agent, brain-washing children, stealing money from taxpayers, cross-dressing, shooting Representative Joe Wilson with an assault rifle, and forming a shadow army. Three times in the video there is a cut to Beck’s TV program.113 Beck likely had nothing directly to do with the video, but his ideological fingerprints are all over it.

Where do we go from here?

Glenn Beck poses a challenge for the Church. Because its publishing company has produced a DVD describing Beck’s conversion, and because a significant number of Mormons follow his radio and television shows faithfully and identify closely with his political views, the Church may have difficulty distancing itself from so prominent and visible a figure. Beck is especially popular among Utah Mormons. He has been the speaker at Provo’s Stadium of Fire celebration and its Freedom Festival’s Annual Patriotic Service. He was the keynote speaker at the Mormon-associated George Wythe University gala in Salt Lake City in June 2009, and he will be appearing at his American Revival show in Salt Lake City on 17 July 2010 titled “The End of America and Looking Back to the Founders as a Plan to Find a Way Out.”

Beck’s Mormon conversion seems genuine and appears to have profoundly impacted his and his family’s life. Apparently, he serves faithfully in his ward as a priesthood instructor, ward missionary, and—with his wife—in the Church’s addiction counseling program. I understand he holds a temple recommend and, one would guess, pays a gargantuan tithing. However, the difference between Beck’s Sunday demeanor and his weekday media personality makes him a Mormon Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which may portend trouble for the Mormon community and beyond since religious incoherence (or, worse, hypocrisy) does not engender trust or confidence.

When Beck takes positions such as denying global warming and warning viewers against having their children vaccinated for swine flu, when he indicates that he doesn’t believe in evolution and says he refuses to complete the required information on the Census survey (contrary to the First Presidency’s specific directions that Latter-day Saints should complete the survey114), he risks endangering those who accept his positions as enlightened.

Were I called to counsel Beck, I would urge him to be more temperate in his expressions, more moderate in his style, more sensitive to the ways his positions and language might affect others and the Church itself. I would also counsel him to be more attuned to political and social diversity within the Church and the culture at large. I would ask him to be more respectful of our leaders, including those in government, treating them the way Beck himself would like to be treated. I would encourage him to read more broadly than he apparently has; in addition to the scriptures and the writings of General Authorities, I would suggest that he read Mormon writers such as Lowell Bennion, Eugene England, Terry Tempest Williams, Claudia Bushman, Levi Peterson, and Margaret Young. I would also recommend he rely on more reputable and mainstream historians than Skousen and the like, read the best books from other spiritual traditions, and good novels and poems as well. In brief, I would like the more expansive, compassionate, and inclusive voices among us to be part of his regular reading fare. Most of all, I would encourage him to read deeply and thoughtfully the words of Nephi, King Benjamin, Alma, Moroni, Joseph Smith and, especially, Jesus. I would hope he would take such counsel into his heart.

As I watched General Conference on Easter Sunday 2010, I hoped that Beck was also watching—and listening—especially to those who spoke about the core principles of the gospel and how those principles should govern our relations with one another and our behavior in the world. I particularly hoped he heard the following words of Apostle Quentin L. Cook:

As we listen to the messages of this conference, we will be touched in our hearts and make resolutions and commitments to do better. But on Monday morning we will return to work, school, neighborhoods, and to a world that in many cases is in turmoil. Many in this world are afraid and angry with one another. While we understand these feelings, we need to be civil in our discourse and respectful in our interactions. This is especially true when we disagree. The Savior taught us to love even our enemies. The vast majority of our members heed this counsel. Yet there are some who feel that venting their personal anger or deeply held opinions is more important than conducting themselves as Jesus Christ lived and taught.115

But in watching Beck’s first broadcasts after Conference, I was disappointed to see the usual sophistry, fear-mongering, and demagoguery. Holding up a “Chairman Mao” doll bought at Disneyland, he asked, “What in the hell is going on in our country? We’re selling Chairman Mao dolls at Disneyland!” He instantly segued to a photo of President Woodrow Wilson and said, “I hate this guy.” Pointing to the photo, he added, “That guy was one of the most evil dudes ever.” Then, indicating that his viewers didn’t know the truth about the real Woodrow Wilson, he said, “We didn’t learn anything about him for a reason—the Progressives controlled the history books.” He accused Wilson of abridging free speech and controlling the media and then connected Wilson with President Obama. Arguing that we now have a “new anti-free speech government,” he asked, “Why is our government teaching people all over this country to shut up and sit down?”

As usual, Beck stirred up a witches’ brew of photos, film clips, and diagrams to warn his audience of threatening conspiracies: “The free ride our grandparents gave us—it’s all over! Our rights are slipping away. They are trying to squash free speech through mockery, intimidation of advertisers, the Internet, any way they can.” He warned his viewers that they are the target of the administration’s nefarious campaign: “They think you’re dangerous . . . They want to teach you a lesson . . . They want to convince you that you can’t make a difference . . . They want you to believe that your vote doesn’t matter, that your voice doesn’t matter. They want to silence your speech by silencing my speech.” Positioning himself on the side of the angels, Beck pointed to three, large, captioned photos referred to earlier (Samuel Adams—”Faith”; Washington—”Hope”; Franklin—”Charity”). “This is about the Founders,” he intoned. “It’s about the Constitution, it’s about our country and our children.” Indeed it is, Brother Beck; indeed it is.

Postscript

When I began my study of Beck, I regarded him as a comic curiosity. The more I have listened, watched, and read from his books, the more my attitude has shifted from curiosity to concern. The more I have learned about Beck’s life story, the trajectory of his professional career, his conversion to Mormonism, and his gravitation toward the extremes of Mormon and American culture, coupled with his growing popularity, the more my concern has turned to alarm.

Instead of being just another charismatic, wacky, out-of-control entertainer or news personality, Beck has evolved into a dangerous figure. I find it difficult to reconcile his values and his behavior with the Church to which we both profess allegiance.

I suspect that many fellow Mormons will be displeased by what I have written here. I ask them to consider how they would feel were a powerful, prominent radio and television host to be as critical of President Monson or Mitt Romney as Beck has been of President Obama. Should Romney run for the presidency again, as most people assume, he will get his share—perhaps more than his share—of negative publicity. Some will distort his record and disseminate misinformation about his religion. Should he eventually become president, I hope he would not be subject to the kind of savage criticism and personal attacks Glenn Beck has unleashed on President Obama.

In writing this article, I have been aware of constant tension between my wish to be fair to Beck as a human being and fellow Latter-day Saint and my concern for the damage I feel he is doing and will likely continue to do to the country and the Church. Endowed Latter-day Saints make a covenant in the temple not to “speak evil of the Lord’s anointed.” While most Latter-day Saints tend to understand this charge as referring exclusively to General Authorities, like Titus who admonished, “Speak evil of no man” (Titus 3:2), I feel it refers to all who have been anointed by the mercy and grace of God. And for me, that includes Brother Glenn Beck.

NOTES

1.    “Sunbeams,” The Sun, December 2009, 48.
2.    Deitrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Faith in Community (New York: HarperCollins, 1954), http://www.barnabas
ministry.com/review-bonhoeffer-life.html (accessed 9 May 2010).
3.    Mark Levin, “Mark’s New Note, Feb 21, 2010,” 21 February 2010, http://www.facebook.com/notes/mark-levin/marks-new-note-feb-21-2010/
322101900945 (accessed 7 March 2010).
4.    Robert Byrd, letter to the editor, Charleston Daily Mail, http://www.dailymail.com/Opinion/LetterstotheEditor/201003030609 (accessed 7 March 2010).
5.    Alex Koppelman, “What’s Beck Doing with His Bigger Audience? Promoting Birchers,” Salon, 17 March 2009, http://www.salon.com/
politics/war_room/2009/03/17/beck/ (accessed 18 Dec 2009); Mike Bates, “Former Fox News Host Rips Glenn Beck, Kicks Fox,” Newsbusters, 5 December 2009, http://newsbusters.org/blogs/mike-bates/2009/12/05/former-fox-news-host-rips-glenn-beck-kicks-fox (accessed 18 Dec 2009).
6.    According to the Huffington Post, “For the month of April, Glenn Beck suffered his first year-over-year decline since joining Fox News in January 2009, declining 7% in total viewers and 6% in the demo compared to April 2009. Moreover, Beck shed 28% of his audience between January and April in both total viewers and the demo.” Danny Shea, “Glenn Beck Hits 2010 Ratings Low,” Huffington Post, 18 May 2010, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
2010/05/18/glenn-beck-hits-2010-rati_n_580440.html (accessed 20 May 2010).
7.    “Oprah Winfrey regains Favorite TV Personality title, Glenn Beck second,” Internet Movie Database, 25 January 2010 http://www.imdb.com/
news/ni1466752/ (accessed 8 May 2010).
8.    Robert Quigley, “Poll Surprise: Glenn Beck Is Almost As Admired As Nelson Mandela?”, Mediaite, 30 December 2009, http://www.mediaite.com/
online/glenn-beck-almost-as-admired-as-nelson-mandela/ (accessed 2 April 2010).
9.    Sarah Palin, “Glenn Beck,” Time, 29 April 2010; http://www.time.com/
time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1984685_1984864_1985415,00.html (accessed 29 April 2010).
10.    Lacey Rose, “Glenn Beck Inc.,” Forbes, April 26, 2010; http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/0426/entertainment-fox-news-simon-schuster-glenn-beck-inc.html (accessed 8 May 2010).
11.    Chris Henrichsen commenting on Geoff B. “Fair and Balanced: Glenn Beck Part II,” The Millennial Star, 4 March 2010, http://www.millennial
star.org/fair-and-balanced-glenn-beck-part-2/comment-page-1/#comment-46107 (accessed 5 March 2010).
12.    Eric Samuelsen, “Glenn Beck, Cleon Skousen, Amerigo Vespucci, and Me,” Sunstone, March 2009, 18–24, https://www.sunstonemagazine.com/
glenn-beck-cleon-skousen-am (accessed 5 March 2010).
13. Joanna Brooks, “How Mormonism Built Glenn Beck,” Religion Dispatches, October 7, 2009, http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/politics/1885/how_mormonism_built_glenn_beck (accessed 8 March 2010). Mormon lore about the Founding Fathers is reflected in an 1877 vision of President Wilford Woodruff that prompted him to be baptized by proxy for the signers of the Declaration of Independence. In his last conference address, Woodruff recounted George Washington’s words to him in this dream/vision: “We laid the foundation of the government you now enjoy, and we never apostatized from it, but we remained true to it and were faithful to God.” Thus Beck’s identifying with the Founding Fathers is something that many Mormons identify with. See “Wilford Woodruff’s Final General Conference Talk as LDS Church President,” Moroni’s Latter-day Saint Page, http://www.moroni10.com/General_Conference/Wilford_Woodruff_Final_Talk.html (accessed 8 May 2010).
14.    http://www.millennialstar.org/fair-and-balanced-glenn-beck-part-2/; (accessed 8 May 2010).
15.    Margaret Blair Young, “Mormon Like Me: Black Saints, Bigots, and Beck,” TPM, October 26, 2009, http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/
talk/blogs/jason_echols/2009/10/mormon-like-me-black-saints-bi.php (accessed 8 May 2010).
16.    Ibid.
17.    Alexander Zaitchik,”Meet the Man Who Changed Glenn Beck’s Life,” Salon, 16 Sept. 2009, www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/09/16/beck_skousen (accessed 8 May 2010).
18.    Mormons will recognize this as an echo of the saying, “When our leaders have spoken, the thinking has been done.”
19.    Foreword to W. Cleon Skousen, The Five Thousand Year Leap: 28 Great Ideas that Changed the World 30th Anniversary Edition (Franklin, TN: American Documents Publishing, 2009), 6.
20.    Ibid.
21.    David Frum, “What Is Going On at Fox News?” Frum Forum, 16 March 2009, http://www.frumforum.com/what-is-going-on-at-fox-news (accessed 14 March 2010). Some contemporary Latter-day Saints have come to Skousen’s defense, including Brian Mecham, the author of “An Open Letter to Latter-day Saint Detractors of W. Cleon Skousen and His Works,” on the Latter-day Conservatism website. Mecham calls Skousen “a modern-day Founding Father” and cites President David O. McKay and Apostle Benson among those who admired Skousen. He also cites the glowing remarks President Thomas S. Monson, then a counselor in the First Presidency, made at Skousen’s funeral. Skousen may well have been a good man and a good Latter-day Saint, but he also did enormous damage, as one can see afresh through his disciple, Glenn Beck. Brian Mecham, “An Open Letter to Latter-day Saint Detractors of W. Cleon Skousen and His Works,” Latter-Day Conservative, 21 October 2009, http://www.latterdayconservative.com/blog/
an-open-letter-to-latter-day-saint-detractors-of-w-cleon-skousen-and-his-works (accessed 14 March 2010).
22.    Sam Antonio, a national spokesman for the John Birch Society, on the 25 July 2007; “The Glenn Beck Chart,” Media Matters for America, 19 October 2009, http://mediamatters.org/research/200910190048 (accessed 8 May 2010).
23.    Koppelman, “What Is Beck Doing,” Salon, http://www.salon.com/
news/politics/war_room/2009/03/17/beck (accessed 2 April 2010).
24.    Gregory A. Prince and Wm. Robert Wright, David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism (Salt Lake City Utah: University of Utah Press, 2005), 290.
25.    Ibid., 291.
26.    Ibid., 309.
27.    “Obi wan kolobi,” “Mormonism and Conspiracy Theories, From Behind the Zion Curtain,” 11 October 2007, http://frombehindthezioncurtain.blogspot.com/2007/10/mormonism-and-conspiracy-theories.html (accessed 5 March 2010).
28.    “Joseph N. Welch,” Wikipedia; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_
N._Welch (accessed 22 May 2010).
29.    Bill Press, “Glenn Beck: Joe McCarthy Lives!” LA Times, 10 September 2009, http://www.latimes.com/sns-200909101253tmsbpresstt–m-a200909
10sep10,0,2241894.story (accessed 8 March 2010).
30.    Steve Benen, “Looking Lovingly to Joe McCarthy,” Washington Monthly, 12 March 2010, http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_03/022823.php (accessed 11 April 2010).
31.    “A Conversation with Senator Arthur V. Watkins,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought vol. 3, no. 4 (1968), 115.
32.    Ibid., 116. The opposition Watkins experienced is similar to that faced by Senator Bob Bennett in his quest for reelection.
33.    “McCarthyism,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism (accessed 12 March 2010).
34.    See “Benson and the John Birch Society,” in Gregory A. Prince and Wm. Robert Wright, David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2005) 286-295.
35.    Ronald Feinman, “Glenn Beck: The Most Dangerous Demagogue Since George Wallace!” The Progressive Professor, 4 January 2010, www.theprogressiveprofessor.com/?p=10775 (accessed 17 April 2010).
36.    “Charles Coughlin,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Charles_Coughlin (accessed 2 April 2010). An important difference between Coughlin and Beck is that whereas Beck is an unapologetic champion of free-market capitalism, Coughlin was critical of the way that system led to the Great Depression and economic devastation for millions of Americans who were left jobless and homeless. He was also concerned about social justice and, as one commentator has noted, considered it “sinful—not just unfair, but a crime against God—for the poor to suffer while others prospered.”
37. Scott Horton, “The Heirs of Father Coughlin,” Harper’s, 17 March 2009,    http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/03/hbc-90004568 (accessed 2 April 2010).
38.    Ibid.
39.    “Glenn Beck, Obama Is a Racist,” CBS News, 29 July 2009, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/07/29/politics/main5195604.shtml, (accessed 7 March 2010).
40.    “CNN’s Beck to First-ever Muslim Congressman: ‘[W]hat I feel like saying is, ‘Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies,’” Media Matters for America, 15 November 2006, http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200611150004 (accessed 7 March 2010).
41.    Kate Zernike and Megan Thee-Brenan, “Poll Finds Tea Party Backers Wealthier and More Educated,” New York Times, 14 April 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/us/politics/15poll.html (accessed 14 April 2010); Charles M. Blow, “Trying to Outrun Race,” New York Times, 8 May 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/08/opinion/08blow.html (accessed 24 May 2010); Brendan Nyhan, “Disturbing Poll on Beliefs about Obama’s Birth,” Pollster, 31 July 2009, http://www.pollster.com/blogs/disturbing_poll_on_beliefs_abo.php (accessed 16 April 2010); Robert Schlesinger, “Party of Nuts: Poll Shows GOP Thinks Obama is Muslim, Socialist,” U.S. News and World Report, 24 March 2010, http://www.usnews.com/blogs/robert-schlesinger/2010/03/24/party-of-nuts-poll-shows-gop-thinks-obama-is-muslim-socialist.html (accessed 14 April 2010).
42.    http://thinkexist.com/quotes/with/keyword/civility/ (accessed 22 May 2010).
43.    Transcript of an interview between Bill Moyers and Barry Lopez, Bill Moyers’ Journal, 30 April 2010, http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/
04302010/transcript5.html (accessed 7 May 2010).
44.    E.J. Dionne, Jr., “E.J. Dionne Jr. Welcomes Jim Leach’s Call for Civility,” Washington Post, 30 November 2009, http://www.washington
post.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/29/AR2009112902014.html (accessed 6 April 2010).
45.    Lacey Rose, “Glenn Beck Inc,” Forbes, 26 April 2010; http://
www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/0426/entertainment-fox-news-simon-schuster-glenn-beck-inc.html (accessed 10 April 2010).
46.    “Radio host Glenn Beck ‘thinking about killing Michael Moore,’” Media Matters for America, 18 May 2005, http://mediamatters.org/research/200505180008 (accessed 9 May 2010). This is what Beck said on his program for 17 May 2005: “Hang on, let me just tell you what I’m thinking. I’m thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I’m wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it. No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out—is this wrong? I stopped wearing my What Would Jesus—band—Do, and I’ve lost all sense of right and wrong now. I used to be able to say, ‘Yeah, I’d kill Michael Moore,’ and then I’d see the little band: What Would Jesus Do? And then I’d realize, ‘Oh, you wouldn’t kill Michael Moore. Or at least you wouldn’t choke him to death.’ And you know, well, I’m not sure.”
47.    “Beck said Gore using ‘same tactic’ in fight against global warming as Hitler did against Jews,” Media Matters for America, 1 May 2007, http://mediamatters.org/research/200705010003 (accessed 9 May 2010).
48.    For other critical remarks about Sotomayor, see “Outrageous comments about Sotomayor,” Media Matters for America, 13 July 2009, http://mediamatters.org/research/200907130047 (accessed 9 May 2010).
49.    “Glenn Beck: Washington Vampires Out for Blood,” The Glenn Beck Program, 31 March 2010, http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/23380/ (accessed 9 May 2010).
50.    See “The Most Outrageous Media Comments of 2009—Glenn Beck Takes the Cake,” http://www.alternet.org/media/144863/the_most_outrageous_media_comments_of_2009_–_glenn_beck_takes_the_cake?page=3 (accessed 20 March 2010).
51.    “The Mormon Ethic of Civility,” The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Newsroom, 16 October 2009, http://www.newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/commentary/the-mormon-ethic-of-civility (accessed 8 March 2010).
52.    Ibid.
53.    Ibid.
54.    George Cobabe, “The White Horse Prophecy,” F.A.I.R., 2004, http://www.fairlds.org/pubs/whitehorse.pdf (accessed 19 April 2010).
55.    “White Horse Prophecy,” Mormonwiki, http://www.mormonwiki.org/
White_Horse_prophecy (accessed 14 March 2010).
56.    Adam Reilly, “Latter Day Taint,” Boston Phoenix, 10 October 2009, http://thephoenix.com/boston/news/91016-latter-day-taint/ (accessed 8 March 2010).
57.    “White Horse Prophecy,” MormonWiki, http://www.mormonwiki.org/
White_Horse_prophecy (accessed 20 March 2010).
58.    See George Cobabe, “The White Horse Prophecy,” FAIR, http://
www.fairlds.org/pubs/whitehorse.pdf, (accessed 14 March 2010). The following statement is found on the Church’s official “Newsroom Blog”: “The so-called ‘White Horse Prophecy’ is based on accounts that have not been substantiated by historical research and is not embraced as Church doctrine”; http://newsroom.lds.org/blog/2010/01/church-statement-on-white-horse-prophecy-and-political-neutrality.html (accessed 19 April 2010).
59.    “Glenn Beck: The Non-violence Pledge,” The Glenn Beck Program, http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/39574/ (accessed 27 April 2010).
60.    Ibid.
61.    David Neiwert, “The Glenn Beck Apocalypse Now Hour: Guest advises audience to buy farms, ‘take up arms’ to prepare for anarchy,” Crooks and Liars, 12 February 2010, http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/glenn-beck-apocalypse-now-hour-guest (accessed 9 April 2010).
62.    Ibid.
63.    Beck’s apocalyptic vision is the subject of a video cartoon viewable on YouTube: “The Glenn Beck Apocalypse: Supernews!”, http://www.you
tube.com/watch?v=U4NMoyarAM4, (accessed 21 May 2010).
64.    David Neiwert, “Glenn Beck’s latest looming apocalypse: Iran,” Crooks and Liars, 10 February 2009, http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/glenn-becks-latest-looming-apocalyps (accessed 21 May 2010).
65.    David S. Bernstein, “New and improved Romney,” Boston Phoenix, 12 February 2009, http://thephoenix.com/Boston/news/96976-new-and-improved-romney/ (accessed 22 May 2010).
66.    In Kevin Sack, “Romney on Health Care: A Particular Spin,” New York Times, 10 April 2010,  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/10/us/politics/
10romney.html (accessed 23 May 2010), Sack describes the delicate dance Romney is forced to make in trying to distinguish his healthcare program from Obama’s. Marc Ambinder offers a counterargument in Marc Ambinder, “Five Reasons Why Romney’s Political Career Isn’t Dead,” The Atlantic Monthly, 29 March 2010, http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/
03/five-reasons-why-romneys-political-career-isnt-dead/38182/, (accessed 2 April 2010): “It’s ungrounded to assume that health care will be the Big Issue among Republican primary voters two years from now. If it’s not the biggest issue, or the second biggest issue, then it’s not really Romney’s problem.”.
67.    Adam Reilly, “Latter Day Taint,” Boston Phoenix, http://thephoenix.
com/boston/news/96976-new-and-improved-romney/?page=5#TOPCONTENT (accessed 8 March 2010).
68.    Joanna Brooks, “‘Bringing the Hammer Down’: Glenn Beck Doesn’t Speak for the Mormons I Know,” Huffington Post, 19 March 2010 http://
www.huffingtonpost.com/joanna-brooks/bringing-the-hammer-down_b_
506282.html (accessed 20 March 2010).
69.    Dave Rosner, “Glenn Beck and Mitt Romney’s ‘Dirty Little Secret’” Political Mavens, http://politicalmavens.com/index.php/2009/11/02/beck-romneys-dirty-little-secret/ (accessed 29 March 2010).
70.    “Glenn Beck donates $25,000 to build statesmen: University program launches nationally,” GWU Newsroom, 3 June 2009, http://news.gw.edu/
?p=67 (accessed 5 April 2010).
71.    “Show Recap—Mar. 5, 2010” The Glenn Beck Show, 5 March 2010, http://www.glennbeck.com/content/show/2010-03-05/ (accessed 29 Mar 2010).
72.    “Having Tea at Harry’s (Reid) in Searchlight, NV,” The Las Vegas Glenn Beck Meetup Group, http://www.meetup.com/The-Las-Vegas-Glenn-Beck-Meetup-Group/calendar/11320830/ (accessed 2 April 2010).
73.    See VegasVoter, “Glenn Beck Praises Nevada Republican Senate Candidate Danny Tarkanian,” Reid-B-Gone, 30 January 2010, http://www.reid-b-gone.com/?p=825 (accessed 2 April 2010).
74.    “Glenn Beck Rooting Out Progressives,” PolitiFi, 27 April 2010, http://politifi.com/news/Glenn-Beck-Rooting-out-progressives-550440.html (accessed 8 May 2010).
75.    “Robert F. Bennett,” New York Times, 10 May 2010, http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/people/b/robert_f_bennett/index.
html (accessed 8 May 2010).
76.    Tim Reid, “US right-wing Tea Party ousts veteran Republican senator Bob Bennett,” Times Online, 10 May 2010, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/
tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article7121260.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=797093, (accessed 9 May 2010).
77.    “Robert F. Bennett,” New York Times, 10 May 2010, http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/people/b/robert_f_bennett/index.html (accessed 5 June 2010).
78.    “The General Welfare,” Deseret News Church Section, 7 December 1934. I am indebted to Michael Quinn for this reference.
79.    David Sessions, “Glenn Beck Urges Listeners to Leave Churches That Preach Social Justice,” Politics Daily, http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/03/
08/glenn-beck-urges-listeners-to-leave-churches-that-preach-social/ (accessed 12 March 2010).
80.    “Beck: Social justice ‘is a perversion of the Gospel,’ ‘not what Jesus was saying’,” Media Matters for America, 11 March 2010, http://mediamatters.org/
mmtv/201003110017 (accessed 9 May 2010).
81.    Mormons for Equality and Social Justice, http://gomakecontact.com/
mesj/indexpage.htm (accessed 24 May 2010).
82.    Jim Wallis, “An Open Letter to Glenn Beck: Social Justice and the Gospel,” Huffington Post, 11 March 2010, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-wallis/an-open-letter-to-glenn-b_b_495716.html (accessed 13 March 2010).
83.    Jim Wallis, “Biblical Social Justice and Glenn Beck,” Huffington Post, 11 March 2010, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-wallis/biblical-social-justice-a_b_493875.html (accessed 13 March 2010).
84.    Laurie Goodstein, “Outraged by Glenn Beck’s Salvo, Christians Fire Back,” New York Times, 12 March 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/
12/us/12justice.html (accessed 24 May 2010).
85.    Tobin Grant, “Glenn Beck ‘Leave Your Church’,” Christianity Today, 12 March 2010, http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2010/marchweb-only/20-51.0.html (accessed 14 March 2010).
86.    Ryan Rodrick Beiler, “‘Jim Wallis Loves His Enemies’ (With a Little Help From His Friends),” Sojourners, 19 March 2010, http://blog.sojo.net/
2010/03/19/jim-wallis-loves-his-enemies-with-a-little-help-from-his-friends/ (accessed 19 March 2010). Joanna Brooks, in commenting on Beck’s threat against Wallis, said, “Glenn Beck is a Mormon. So am I. During the nineteenth century, my Mormon ancestors crossed the plains to live their faith without fear of attack from the mobs that had hounded them out of Missouri and Illinois. Watching Glenn Beck threaten to “bring the hammer down” on another person of faith makes my stomach turn. I could cite a host of scriptures from the Bible and the Book of Mormon about how Beck’s attack on Jim Wallis is not in keeping with faith-based values. Suffice it to say, Glenn Beck does not speak for the Mormons I know.” Joanna Brooks, “Bringing the Hammer Down: Glenn Beck Doesn’t Speak for the Mormons I Know,” Huffington Post, 19 March 2010 (accessed 24 May 2010). Mormon writer Jana Riess also challenged Beck’s understanding of Mormonism in “Glenn Beck Versus Social Justice,” at Beliefnet, http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/2010/03/Glenn-Beck-Versus-Social-Justice.aspx (accessed 19 March 2010).
87.    Michael Otterson, “Political Not Theological,” Washington Post, 14 April 2010; http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/michael_
otterson/2010/04/political_not_theological.html (accessed 9 May 2010).
88.    Dan Nejfelt, “The Gospel According to Beck,” Faith in Public Life, 9 March 2010, http://blog.faithinpubliclife.org/2010/03/the_gospel_according_
to_beck.html (accessed 9 May 2010).
89.    Amy Sullivan, “Why Does Glenn Beck Hate Jesus?”, Time, 14 March 2010, http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2010/03/14/why-does-glenn-beck-hate-jesus/#ixzz0jZqO5LQr (accessed 24 May 2010).
90.    Peg Chemberlin, “Christians: ‘Run as Fast as You Can’ From the Church of Glenn Beck,” Huffington Post, 11 March 2010, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peg-chemberlin/christians-run-as-fast-as_b_495166.html (accesed 28 March 2010).
91.    Lynn Arave, “Mormons, other Christians decry Glenn Beck comments on social justice,” Deseret News, 12 March 2010, http://www.deseret
news.com/article/700016115/Mormons-other-Christians-decry-Glenn-Beck-comments-on-social-justice.html (accessed 19 March 2010).
92.    “Glenn Beck: What Is ‘Social Justice’?” The Glenn Beck Program, 24 March 2010, http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/38320/ (accessed 8 May 2010).
93.     “Lewis Black: ‘Fox’s Baboon’ Glenn Beck Has Nazi Tourette’s Disease!”, 17 May 2010, http://www.politicalarticles.net/blog/2010/05/17/
lewis-black-foxs-baboon-glenn-beck-has-nazi-tourettes-disease/ (accessed 4 June 2010).
94.    Andy Barr, “Joe Klein: Yes, Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck ‘seditious,’” Politico, 19 April 2010, http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0410/
36020.html#ixzz0mKD6qvZ4 (accessed 27 April 2010).
95.    “Beck explains ‘the plan that [God] would have me articulate, I think, to you,’” Media Matters for America, 20 April 2010, http://mediamatters.org/
mmtv/201004200020 (accessed 9 May 2010).
96.    Ibid.
97.    “Glenn Beck: the Televangelist Con Man Selling God’s Plan for America,” Huffington Post, 21 April 2010,  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
bob-cesca/glenn-beck-the-televangel_b_546417.html (accessed 27 April 2010).
98.    As quoted by Lacey Rose, “Glenn Beck Inc,” Forbes, 26 April 2010. http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/0426/entertainment-fox-news-simon-schuster-glenn-beck-inc_3.html (accessed 10 April 2010).
99.    Ibid.
100.    “I know that he exists,” http://www.americanpoems.com/; accessed 9 April 2010.
101.    “You’re Being Set Up America,” Glenn Beck Program, 20 April 2010, http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/39360/ (accessed 9 May 2010). The transcript of this program on Beck’s website is a slightly edited version of what Beck actually said on the program, according to what I recorded on my television.
102.    “Glenn Beck: Voter intimidation—Guess the Party,” Glenn Beck Program, 4 November 2008,  http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/196/17704/ (accessed 9 May 2010).
103.    “Glenn Beck at CPAC: ‘Progressivism Is a Cancer in America,’” Washington Independent, 20 February 2010,  http://washingtonindependent.com/
77222/glenn-beck-at-cpac-progressivism-is-a-cancer-in-america (accessed 8 May 2010).
104.    Doug Robinson, “Making a Better Glenn Beck,” Deseret News, 2 December 2007; www.deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695232408,00.html (accessed 9 May 2010).
105.    Ibid.
106.    Spencer Magloff, “Glenn Beck Raked in $32 Million in 2009,” CBS News, 6 April 2010, http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20002064-503544.html (accessed 9 April 2010).
107.    Joanna Brooks, “How Mormonism Built Glenn Beck,” Religion Dispatches, 7 October, 2009, http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/politics/1885/how_mormonism_built_glenn_beck (accessed 8 March 2009).
108.    Ibid.
109.    “Glenn Beck Promotes Gold to Audience While Profiting from Gold Investment Firms,” Media Matters for America, 2 December 2009, http://mediamatters.org/research/200912020029 (accessed 6 June 2010).
110.    “Glenn Beck Promotes Gold to Audience While Profiting from Gold Investment Firms,” Media Matters for America, 2 December 2009, http://mediamatters.org/research/200912020029 (accessed 5 June 2010).
111.    Kenneth P. Vogel, “Rep. Anthony Weiner targets Glenn Beck and Goldline International,” 18 May 2010, http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0510/37413.html (accessed 5 June 2010).
112.    See Glynnis MacNichol, “Glenn Beck Responds to Weiner’s Goldine Charges, Launches Weinerfacts.com,” Mediaite, 19 May 2010, http://www.mediaite.com/online/glenn-beck-responds-to-weiners-goldline-charges-launches-weinerfacts-com/ accessed 5 June 2010.
113.    http://americaforever.com/; accessed 9 May 2010. This website has since gone offline for “unspeakable” reasons.
114.    “First Presidency Urges Church Members to Participate in U.S. Census,” http://newsroom.lds.org/blog/2010/03/first-presidency-urges-church
-members-to-participate-in-us-census.html (accessed 9 May 2010).
115.    Quentin L. Cook, “We Follow Jesus Christ,” http://www.lds.org/
conference/talk/display/0,5232,23-1-1207-27,00.html (accessed 8 April 2010).

Illustrations by Jeanette Atwood

Through anger, the truth looks simple.
—Jane McCabe1

It must be a decisive rule of every Christian fellowship that each individual is prohibited from saying much that occurs to him.
—Deitrich Bonhoeffer2

The “Real” Glenn Beck

Ever since learning that Glenn Beck had joined the Mormon Church, I’ve been trying to understand who he is, what he does, and how his conversion to Mormonism has influenced him personally and professionally. Beck is an enigma, a chameleon, a shape-shifter, continually reinventing himself. He has gone from “zoo radio”cut-up, to stand-up comedian, to political commentator/entertainer, to Fox News firebrand, to cheerleader of a populist anti-government movement, to a modern-day Cassandra prophesying doom and destruction for a nation allegedly in the thrall of progressivism. A Latter-day Saint friend of mine calls him “a cross between a professional wrestler and a televangelist,” and some critics see him as the Barnum and Bailey of right-wing broadcast media. Conservative commentator Mark Levin remarked recently, “I have no idea what philosophy Glenn Beck is promoting. And neither does he. It’s incoherent. One day it’s populist, the next it’s libertarian bordering on anarchy, next it’s conservative but not really.”3 Senator Robert Byrd’s recent characterization of certain Republican politicians’ “rantings” as “barkings from the nether regions of Glennbeckistan”4 suggests the extent to which Beck’s notoriety has become a part of popular culture.

Beck has constructed a universe where the U.S. is under siege by progressives plotting to transform the nation into a socialist or—worse—communist or fascist state. Using innuendo, chop logic, guilt by association, conspiracy theories, progressive and liberal bogeymen, and what seems a carefully cultivated image of righteous indignation, Beck presents himself as today’s Paul Revere, warning the countryside that the enemy is at the gate (or, in Beck’s words, actually “in the house”).

In his broadcasts, Beck uses all the tools of a showman propagandist: he makes absurd comparisons, uses false analogies, tells whopping “stretchers” (Huckleberry Finn’s term for statements with little regard for fact or truth), weeps on cue (YouTube footage shows him swiping Mentholatum under his eyes to induce tears), and lapses into sophomoric lampooning, mocking, ridicule, sarcasm, taunting, and joking. At times, his TV show resembles a circus side show. Alex Koppelman observes, “He laughs and cries; he pouts and giggles; he makes funny faces and grins like a cartoon character; he makes earnest faces yet insists he is a clown; he cavorts like a victim of St. Vitus’s Dance. His means of communicating are, in other words, so wide-ranging as to suggest derangement as much as versatility.”5

What’s particularly seductive about Beck’s performance is that he wears many masks, which he deftly changes, alternately engaging, mesmerizing, and enflaming his audience, making them laugh one minute and inciting them to storm the Bastille the next. This mixture of clownish behavior and apparent deadly seriousness accounts for Beck’s appeal to a certain portion of the United States populace. His charm, boyish good looks, adolescent pranks, and jokes keep viewers entertained so that when he takes aim at the latest “progressive” crime or whatever he sees as the most recent threat to freedom and free enterprise, his audience is ready to follow him to the outer edge of outrage. Beck describes his shtick as a “fusion” of entertainment and enlightenment. And it’s effective. When he shifts into his latest example of evil or corruption in the White House or Congress, his followers are ready to beat their plowshares into swords and join his crusade. In fact, he used to open his show by repeating the words of Jesus to his disciples: “Come, follow me.”

Beck now begins his TV show with a montage of patriotic images—George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Martin Luther King Jr., the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. His carefully constructed persona, balanced precariously between respectability and irascibility, is enhanced through his wardrobe—shirt, tie and jacket, blue jeans and tennis shoes. His most important prop is a blackboard on which he scribbles, pastes photos, and juxtaposes ominous images (Marx, Lenin, Hitler, Saddam Hussein, Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, Che Guvera—and his main target, Barack Obama). Beck poses as the professor of a populist uprising, teaching the “real” American history and warning viewers how  Obama endangers their freedom and security.

It is important to note that some of the issues Beck addresses are legitimate—corruption in high places, abuse of power, misuse of federal funds, excessive governmental control, and Wall Street greed. But how such issues are addressed can either resolve or exacerbate them. Beck has a propensity to polarize rather than unify, demonize rather than humanize, and sow discord rather than promote dialogue.

“Unlikely Mormon”

All of this might be the story of one more charismatic, right-wing media personality whom Mormons might find either persuasive or repulsive, except Beck is a Latter-day Saint—the most visible and controversial one in the nation. He’s better known than President Thomas S. Monson or football star Steve Young and more popular than Harry Reid or Mitt Romney. His daily radio program, carried on 280 stations, has 6.5 million listeners; his television program on Fox has 3 million viewers;6 and his website, GlennBeck.com, receives more than a million visitors a month. In a recent Harris Poll, Beck finished second only to Oprah Winfrey as America’s “favorite TV personality.”7 But Beck’s followers may be more politically engaged and influential than Winfrey’s. According to a December 2009 Gallup poll, Beck ranks just below Nelson Mandela and above Pope Benedict as the most admired person in the United States.8 In April 2010, Time listed Beck as one of the 100 “people who most affect our world.”9

Some of Beck’s popularity results from his shameless self-promotion. On radio, TV, and Internet, he urges people to buy his books, subscribe to his newsletter, buy his CD’s and videos, and attend his public appearances, whether live or via satellite. One recent promotion is for his new venture, “Insider Extreme,” a “new six-camera broadcast quality stream of the radio program,” with “more cameras, more truth, more Glenn.” The promotional come-on for potential subscribers (only $6.26 a month) is “Want to be happy?” Forbes magazine praises Beck for being able to “monetize virtually everything.”10

Latter-day Saints display a range of attitudes toward Beck. For some, his being Mormon is enough for them to like him; for others, his Mormon identity only increases their antipathy. As one blogger observed, “Glenn Beck is a complex figure, especially for Mormons.”11

In a Sunstone article titled “Glen Beck, Cleon Skousen, Amerigo Vespucci, & Me,” Eric Samuelsen writes, “A large number of Utahns have been watching Glenn Beck, and taking him very seriously indeed.” Speaking of the Obama/Democrat health care bill, Samuelsen observes, “For many of my LDS brothers and sisters, ‘Obamacare’ is a catastrophe, the apocalypse, the end of everything good. I’ve felt for years that the best guide to the Mormon zeitgeist is the letters-to-the-editor page of the Deseret News. If that’s true, then Utah Mormons are collectively losing their cool. President Obama is routinely described as a socialist, a fascist, a Maoist and a communist and his administration as something dark and seductively satanic. Our nation is descending into chaos and anarchy; we’re in the Last Days; we’re just about beyond redemption.”12

Although Beck’s broadcasts often reflect Mormon beliefs, practices, jargon, and symbols, he has positioned himself to speak the same language to Mormons as to conservative Christians (many of whom consider Mormonism a non-Christian cult). On a recent show, he said, “I’m a gospel-believing brother.” When Beck invokes the founders of the United States and framers of the Constitution, most viewers don’t realize that, as Mormon scholar Joanna Brooks points out, such ideas stem from Beck’s Mormonism: “It is likely that Beck owes his brand of Founding Father-worship to Mormonism, where reverence for the founders and the United States Constitution as divinely inspired are often-declared elements of orthodox belief.”13

The more favorable Mormon views of Beck may spring from his portrayal in the Deseret Book DVD Unlikely Mormon: The Conversion Story of Glenn Beck or the many verbal and graphic allusions to Mormonism in his shows. Consider these comments from the Millennial Star blog:

I watched Unlikely Mormon Glenn Beck the other night and was really moved. I loved hearing his story! Everyone in my family was really inspired. I know some people’s personalities don’t mesh with Glenn’s, but as a person who has met him face to face, I have to say he has an incredible Spirit and desire to do good. I admire this greatly. Anyone who is courageous enough to take a stand like he does is worthy of respect in my book even if I didn’t completely agree with him.

I once met Beck after one of his shows a few years ago (back before all the security when he’d do free-for-all meet and greets), and I actually did feel the spirit. Pretty strong, too.14

Two recent Internet articles by Latter-day Saint writers portray Beck in a less favorable light. In “Mormon Like Me: Black Saints, Bigots, and Beck,” Margaret Blair Young writes of growing up in Provo during the sixties, the same time as Darius Gray, her black Latter-day Saint collaborator on the Standing on the Promises novels and the documentary Nobody Knows: The Untold Story of Black Mormons. The political climate in Provo then made Darius and other blacks living there uncomfortable and sometimes fearful. Margaret recounts visiting a library with Darius in Marshall, Missouri, his ancestral home. As they left the library, she was stunned to see the 17 September 2009 Time magazine cover, with a full-color photo of Beck sticking his tongue out “like a petulant four-year-old”:

Why did Beck’s infantile sneer matter? Because Beck is a Mormon. Because his mocking presence in the small town of Marshall, Missouri, meant he was sticking his tongue out at patrons in every library in the nation. Because the city of Provo, Utah—where I still live and now teach—sometimes invites him to be part of our Freedom Festival and host our “Stadium of Fire,” as though his ultra right, self-assured conviction and his bifurcated view of contemporary issues comprise a worthy resume. Because he is a disciple of W. Cleon Skousen, whose conspiracy theories resulted in students spying on each other and on their professors at BYU and fomented terror and suspicion throughout Provo—even at Provo High—and created a climate which made Darius fear for his family’s life. Because Beck has said such race-baiting things as, “This president has exposed himself as a guy . . . who has a deep-seated hatred for white people, or the white culture.”15

She further explains why Beck’s pose offends her:

He is inviting me and any who will listen to the world I was terrified of as a child, and which, by the time I was in high school, I realized was an outlandishly hokey creation—a world which invents and obsesses on cloaked conspiracies; a world which encourages racial division; a world which loops a soundbite (“Not God bless America . . . ”) and calls it an identity. A world which reduces the president to a well-spoken, “credit-to-his-race” guy who hates white people. He exhumes skeletons from our closets and coffins, and unholy passions from our past which should stay buried—or be instantly cremated if they still happen to yet be hovering. For me as a Mormon, Glenn Beck’s invitation to return to childish things forces me to confront anew the unsavory aspects of my religion’s past, and all the things we Latter-day Saints are now attempting to heal.16

Beck, Skousen, and the John Birch Society

Certainly Beck has been influential in resurrecting Skousen, and Skousen has influenced Beck. Beck’s biographer calls Skousen “The Man Who Changed Glenn Beck’s Life.”17 Beck has touted Skousen’s The Five Thousand Year Leap as a “must read” and speaks of his discovery of Skousen in terms most Mormons would associate with divine inspiration if not intervention. He says that walking down the Avenue of the Americas in Manhattan,

The answer came to me. It was so dramatic that it made me stop in the middle of the sidewalk. . . . The answer was obvious and[,] best of all, the thinking and worrying had already been done for me.18 The questions that we face were foreseen by the greatest group of Americans who ever lived; our Founding Fathers.

In language strangely evocative of Mormon feelings about the Book of Mormon, Beck adds, “They knew we would be grappling with issues like the ones we face today. . . . They knew that we would eventually lose our way and that we would need a beacon to lead our way back.”19 Several weeks after this “revelation” (as he calls it), Beck says, “A friend—without solicitation—sent me a copy” of Skousen’s book. Beck ends by telling readers in urgent, dramatic language, “You, me, all of us were born for this day, to stand responsible before God and future generations to keep this torch of freedom lit, and bear it away from ruin.”20

Such an appeal is seductive for Latter-day Saints who believe in personal revelation, America as a promised land, and the Constitution as divinely inspired. Some, however, especially older members who recall the negative influence Skousen and other right-wing conspiracy theorists had on the Church, might be more skeptical, more hesitant about jumping on the Beck bandwagon.

Beck speaks with great reverence for the Founding Fathers. His views are simplistic and idealistic, influenced no doubt by books published by the Skousen-founded National Center for Constitutional Studies: The Real George Washington, The Real Thomas Jefferson, and The Real Benjamin Franklin. Beck frequently cites these books.

In “What’s Going On at Fox News?” conservative commentator David Frum describes Skousen as “one of the legendary cranks of the conservative world, a John Bircher, a grand fantasist of theories about secret conspiracies between capitalists and communists to impose a one-world government under the control of David Rockefeller.”21 Beck has found such ideas attractive and has given them new expression.

Inevitably, with Skousen as mentor, Beck identifies with the John Birch Society and has been instrumental in its recent resurgence. In an interview with Society spokesman Sam Antonio, Beck said, “I have to tell you, when I was growing up, the John Birch Society, I thought they were a bunch of nuts; however, you guys are starting to make more and more sense to me.”22 In the Salon article “What’s Beck Doing with His Bigger Audience? Promoting Birchers,” Alex Koppelman calls Beck’s championing of the Birch Society “a blast from the radical past.”23

Apparently Beck is unaware that in 1963, the First Presidency stated: “We deplore the presumption of some politicians, especially officers, co-ordinators and members of the John Birch Society, who undertake to align the Church or its leadership with their partisan views.”24 Summarizing a meeting he’d held with Church president David O. McKay, President Hugh B. Brown wrote, “We agreed that we had done the right thing in letting the members of the Church and the world know that the Church does not in any way endorse or subscribe to the John Birch Society.”25 Later, when the Birch Society was working with Apostle Ezra Taft Benson to get President McKay’s photo on the cover of the Society’s American Opinion magazine, President McKay said emphatically, “I do not want anything to do with it. I do not want my name associated with John Birch.”26

I confess that my reaction to Beck may be influenced by the time Cleon Skousen was my teacher and the advisor to the BYU debate team, of which I was a member. The question we debated that year was “Should the United States Extend Recognition to Communist China?” Under Skousen’s sway, I also briefly believed in the dark, conspiratorial world he and others painted. I too was convinced that our country was on the precipice of a Communist overthrow, as Joe McCarthy had claimed a decade earlier. As did many Mormons back then, including Apostle Ezra Taft Benson, Beck seems to believe “in his heart, that creeping socialism, or growth in the size and scope of government, [will] ultimately end in a communist take-over of our Republic, whether from without, or from within.”27

Beck as Latter-day Joe McCarthy and Father Coughlin

You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?
—Joseph N. Welch to Senator Joseph McCarthy, Army-McCarthy hearings, 9 June 1954 28

Some see Beck’s tactics as similar to McCarthy’s, especially his propensity to see a socialist or communist bear behind every progressive bush and his “outing” of those he considers socialists and communists. In “Glenn Beck: Joe McCarthy Lives!” Los Angeles Times writer Bill Press sees striking similarities between McCarthy’s 1950s witch hunts and Beck’s activities today. Press cites Beck’s crusade against Van Jones, the man Obama selected as his “Green Czar”: “In 14 episodes of his show, Beck . . . paint[ed] Jones as a dangerous ‘communist-anarchist radical’ heading a vast radical/environ-mental/black nationalist takeover of America from within the Obama White House.” Press adds, “It was a page ripped right out of the book of Commie witch hunter Joseph McCarthy: personal attacks on little-known government officials based on nothing but lies, smears, and innuendo (‘Are you now, or have you ever been . . . ?’)—yet ultimately, just as successful. Within two weeks, Jones was forced to resign.”29

On 11 March 2010, explicitly invoking McCarthy, Beck accused President Franklin D. Roosevelt of hiring communists as government employees and praised McCarthy for working to root out such people: “It was Republican Sen. Joe McCarthy, who shined the spotlight on the Communist Party again. McCarthy later led a Senate committee investigation into inefficiencies in the government. Critics accused him of falsely identifying Communists, and smearing their names.”30 Beck’s characterization of McCarthy’s aims as “investigation into inefficiencies in government,” reveals deliberate distortion or colossal ignorance of what McCarthy’s destructive campaign was really about—and Beck’s segue from this observation to a discussion of the “domino theory” popular during the Cold War and his ominous, “Kind of feels like that now, doesn’t it?” is an example of his propensity to invent history both to attract and frighten his audience.

Older Latter-day Saints may remember the extent to which Mormons (especially those in Utah) were divided during the McCarthy era. Mormon Senator Arthur Watkins recalled the time he and McCarthy were members of the McCarran Internal Security Committee, charged with investigating possible communist infiltration of the federal government. Watkins was convinced that there was evidence of such infiltration but objected to McCarthy’s methods: “The great issue in McCarthyism was the way he ran wild. The people brought before him were not given a chance to defend themselves. They were pawns in his effort to obtain publicity.” Like Beck, McCarthy “condemned people as communists perhaps without submitting a shred of evidence.”31 Partly because of his role in the Senate censure of McCarthy, Watkins lost his bid for reelection. One of his opponents, J. Bracken Lee, “sent a telegram to the mass meeting of McCarthy supporters in New York saying that McCarthy deserved a medal rather than a censure.” Watkins said, “That kind of thing can happen in Utah.”32

An entire website (GlennMcCarthyBeck.com) is devoted to describing Beck’s McCarthy-like tactics, which are defined as “the politically motivated practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence.”33 Beck plays as fast and loose with the facts as McCarthy did, often relying on the slimmest connection or coincidence to build his case that sinister forces are at work in the government. Beck may potentially be more destructive than McCarthy was, as he mixes Christian end-of-times rhetoric with political and social fear-mongering. Certainly Beck has a much more powerful media megaphone with which to shout his alarm.

Some Latter-day Saints find Beck puzzling and disturbing because, although in an immensely influential position from which he could present to the world a reflection of the best of Mormonism, he has instead chosen to resurrect a past many of us thought we had outgrown or hoped to have kept buried. In that past, Mormon apostle and later Prophet Ezra Taft Benson nearly became the vice-presidential running mate of a racist white governor, George Wallace.34 Small wonder one commentator has called Beck “The Most Dangerous Demagogue since George Wallace!”35

Others have likened Beck to Father Charles Coughlin, the infamous Catholic firebrand whose popular 1930s radio program launched merciless attacks on President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.36 In Harper Magazine’s “The Heirs of Father Coughlin,” Scott Horton observes, “The voices of Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh have much in common with Coughlin. But their message is distinct in many ways—they are not anti-Semitic, for example. And they have different targets for their hatred. But Beck and Limbaugh are more powerful than Coughlin ever was. They have tight ties to the Republican Party, and their messages quickly emerge as partisan political dogma.”37 “America saw and rejected this strain of paranoid politics before,” Horton continues, “but it was a test of the nation’s political mental health and stamina then. It likely will be so again.”38

A prime example of Beck’s Coughlin-like demagoguery is his unfounded characterization of President Obama as someone who “over and over again” has expressed “a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture.” When challenged, Beck replied, “He has a problem. This guy is, I believe, a racist.”39 These words are akin to those Beck said to Representative-elect Keith Ellison (D-MN), America’s first Muslim congressman: “What I feel like saying is, ‘Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.’ I’m not accusing you of being an enemy, but that’s the way I feel, and I think a lot of Americans will feel that way.”40

Such rhetoric is irresponsible and dangerous, as evidenced by the disrespectful, hateful, racist, violent language and images emerging from “Tea Party Patriots” and other groups who seem to be enlisting in Beck’s army. Signs at Tea Party events identifying Obama with Hitler, Marx, Lenin, Saddam Hussein, and other notorious despots come right off of Beck’s blackboard. Many recent polls assert that, contrary to the opinions of the majority of Americans, large percentages of those in Tea Party-type groups don’t like the President, feel he favors blacks over whites, and believe he’s moving the country toward socialism. Some of the more extreme beliefs of these groups are that Obama is a Muslim, was not born in the U.S., wants to take away citizens’ guns, violates the Constitution, and, most bizarrely, is the Antichrist.41

These polls’ emotional-based statistics reflect the tenor and many of the talking points of Glenn Beck’s various programs, publications, and outlets. He isn’t the only right-wing media personality to influence such uninformed and misguided opinions, but his is certainly one of the most persistent, mean-spirited, and strident voices. Along with others who espouse such sentiments, Beck needs to be held accountable for the increasing racist rhetoric expressed by those on the far right. As with McCarthy and Coughlin, Beck’s incendiary campaign against the government will eventually implode, but before it does, a number of good people are likely to be adversely effected, as will the LDS Church itself.

Continued in Rough Stone Roaring Part II

We’ve added some great sessions, moved a few sessions around, added details about the Saturday night banquet, gatherings for Sunstone-minded singles and our Bloggernacle friends, our fabulous Wednesday workshop offerings, and a Sunday morning worship service at the Community of Christ chapel in Salt Lake.

Don’t miss our FREE opening lecture on Wednesday 4 August: Jan Shipps and Jon Butler discussing what happens to New Religious Movements when they are no longer new. Afterward, we’re serving cake and Dolcetti Gelato to celebrate Sunstone’s 35 years of publishing. Come for the brain food and stay for the refreshments!

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For the last few weeks I have been helping out at Sunstone, preparing for the August symposium.  I couldn’t help but be impressed by the name Reverend Dr. C.Welton Gaddy, but it wasn’t until I had to track down his contact info and realized that he had a secretary and a bunch of assistants, that I started to figure out that Dr. Gaddy is something of a big deal.

I did a little inquiring and a little Googling, and discovered that I already knew about this person, and thought he was pretty terrific.  In particular I had seen him several times on The Rachel Maddow Show.  I was impressed with his interesting take on the intersection of religion and  politics in exchanges like this (his interview starts half-way through):

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

or this (the interview starts one-third way through):

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Gaddy is the president of the Interfaith Alliance.  He has a national reputation of a stature that makes him an appropriate candidate for serving as the symposium’s keynote speaker, honored and feted throughout the proceedings.  Instead, he is attending the symposium on his own dime, so that he can present a paper on the following topic, which is ever so relevant to Mormonism, politics and human rights:

SAME-GENDER MARRIAGE & RELIGIOUS FREEDOM: A CALL TO QUIET CONVERSATIONS AND PUBLIC DEBATES

While many faith traditions, including Mormonism, have grappled with issues of equality, such as same-gender marriage, much of that work has been viewed through a traditional or scriptural lens. Our goal is to shift the perspective of LGBT equality from a place of “problem” to “solution,” from a scriptural argument to a religious liberty agreement, and to address the issue of equality as informed by the US Constitution.</blockquote>

There are many great sessions at the upcoming symposium–you can check out the program as it currently stands (and hey, if you’re planning to attend, please register sooner rather than later!)–but this, in my opinion, is not to be missed.

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It’s all right here in the Preliminary Program.

Here are some of the highlights:

4 August 2010

Wednesday workshop sessions 9:00 am – 5:30 pm

• Navigating an LDS faith crisis (John Dehlin)
• Just what is a personal essay? (Phyllis Barber)
• Yoga Asana + Using Essential Oils (Brent Corcoran & Amy Clark)
• Navigating marriage when one of you loses an LDS testimony (John Dehlin)
• The Enduring Principles: The Personality of the Community of Christ (Susan Skoor)
• Meditation for Mormons (John Kesler)

Smith-Pettit opening lecture at 8:00 pm

The Fate Of New Religious Movements When They Are No Longer New: A Conversation Between Jon Butler and Jan Shipps

This lecture is FREE and open to the public.

5 August 2010 – Thursday

Concurrent sessions 8:00 am – 6:15 pm

Evening Plenary session at 8:00 pm

Double Feature: Performances by Sister Dottie S. Dixon and Mr. Deity

Don’t miss this LOL extravaganza! Single session admission available for the performance.

6 August 2010 – Friday

Concurrent sessions 8:00 am – 6:15 pm

Evening Plenary session at 8:00 pm

Pillars of My Faith, featuring Eric Samuelsen and Tracy McKay

7 August 2010 – Saturday

Concurrent sessions 8:00 am – 6:15 pm

Banquet session at 7:30 pm

LDS Women in the Twentieth Century: Witnesses to a Changing Church

Featuring Claudia Bushman, Mormon Studies students Lisa T. Clayton, Lauren Kennard, and Caroline Kline, and their and findings from the Claremont Oral History Project documenting the lives of Mormon women.

This conference is designed to explore various perspectives and methods for thinking about Latter-day Saints among the great traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Its aim will be to connect theology with practice in allowing space for Mormons to think more carefully about the activity of interreligious exchange and the possibility of mutual transformation.

Conference participants include: Elder Bruce D. Porter (First Quorum of Seventy, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), Father James Massa (Executive Director, Ecumenical and Interfaith Affairs, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops), Rabbi Gary Greenebaum (Director of Interreligious and Intergroup Relations, American Jewish Committee), Maher Hathout (Senior Advisor, Muslim Public Affairs Council), along with a variety of scholars and professionals.

The Mormon Chapter is an independent group of Latter-day Saints with expertise in religious studies, diplomacy, public administration, legal studies, organizational behavior, etc. who are committed to developing deeper and more civil forms of interreligious exchange.

The event will be held in the USC Salvatori Computer Science Center, Room 101. Sponsors include the Center for Religion and Civic Culture at USC, the Richard L. Evans Chair for Religious Understanding at Brigham Young University and the Religious Studies Program at Utah Valley University, and the Howard W. Hunter Chair for Mormon Studies at Claremont Graduate University.

As mentioned above, registration is required and may be completed by contacting Brian Birch at brian.birch@uvu.edu. Attached for your review is the most recent draft of the conference program.

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[Note: I have yet to summarize the remarks of Greg Kofford, who was the third speaker in this session--hope to upload that later]

Adam S. Miller “A Manifesto for Mormon Theology”

Adam Miller used a Buddhist text to illustrate the need for charity to inform and undergird Mormon theological explorations. A petitioner approaches the Buddha with questions that the Buddha waves off as inconsequential. He threatens the Buddha and says he’ll quit the training life if he doesn’t get answers; the Buddha responds that answering these questions creates no opportunity for charity or relieving suffering and diverts attention from real critical approaches. The petitioner can die without ever getting his questions answered or even know what questions are significant.

Miller advocates a theology based on charity, one that goes beyond smug critique to address human suffering. He says theology is an inherently collaborative endeavor, but not necessarily an institutional one.  Theology is not historical, not doctrinal, not devotional. It’s intertwined with these other areas, but theology has only charity as its object. Whatever else its merits, theology is nothing without charity.

With no professional clergy in the LDS church structure, this demands a persistent, individual engagement with scripture from members.  Miller describes reading as a core religious practice for Mormons–reading that produces a range of meanings from the texts, a creative approach, and experimentation with latent patterns therein. Charity is the force that makes theology a collaborative endeavor.

Theology must lay aside the pettiness of criticism and be careful, considerate, and compassionate.  Mormon theology needs to exercise the license charity grants it to hypothesize, heal, and to answer questions such as what is suffering, what leads to cessation of suffering? Otherwise, even if all our other questions find answers, we will in the meantime have died without recognizing what’s important.

Jacob Rennaker “Through a Glass Darkly? Biblical Studies, Mormon Studies, Parallels and Problems”

Mormons have a text centered in the ancient world. As such, what can Biblical Studies do for Mormon Studies–and vice versa? Rennaker argues that Biblical Studies can illuminate texts, display parallels in the ancient world, and validate (or invalidate) LDS beliefs regarding the historicity of scripture. It can add a range of information to Mormon Studies, illuminate other possibilities, and give Mormon scholars the chance to apply insights.

Rennaker also warns against not letting some of the assumptions in Biblical Studies limit the scope of Mormon Studies. Biblical Studies scholars can be entrenched in certain approaches and ways of thinking since they’re trained in the same academic communities/environments. Mormons are sensitized to different issues in Biblical Studies and can open new avenues for research & exploration.

Rennaker discussed Hugh Nibley as one who helped “refresh” Mormon thinking on Biblical topics, but there were also some problems with his approach (i.e. collapsing diverse cultures into one “ancient world” and treating “the ancients” as a single entity). While comparing ancient and modern texts for parallels can yield interesting, useful results, beware of engaging only to find parallels that legitimize Mormonism if that comes at the expense of looking at important areas of difference as well.

If Mormon Studies wants Biblical scholars to take their work seriously, then they will need to give Biblical Studies the same respect in order to foster greater understanding all around. Rennaker said Mormon scriptures are extraordinary and encouraged the audience to examine similarities and differences. Only when that happens, can scholars move beyond seeing through a glass darkly and instead see the potential for Mormon Studies and Biblical Studies face to face.

Chris described one way academics have approached religious studies–by bracketing or suspending judgment regarding truth claims and faith claims of the group they’re studying. Then he described what he called four bad arguments for this suspensive historiography approach:

1. Religious beliefs are theological, not empirical; truth claims fall outside of a historian’s job description. Chris argues that Mormon history does have empirical elements that can be explored–and that it’s not really possible to completely excise truth claims out of the study of religions.

2. Historians should report the facts and leave the interpretation to the reader. Chris argued that would make for pretty boring history books. More dynamic dialogue happens when people are confronted with ideas they don’t agree with and have to think about.

3. Tell histories in a way that the involved historical figures would recognize. Chris commented it is difficult to get in the minds of historical participants, even with plenty of documentary evidence.

4. The pragmatic argument–that how a religion functions is more important than whether it’s “true.” Chris points out that questions about truth claims are not the only questions of interest to historians.

Chris also made some arguments for giving up the suspensive historiography approach altogether–audiences are interested in truth claims and excluding them from examination can be considered elitist; being honest regarding religious views helps build bridges if we can be straightforward and respectful in exploring them; bracketing truth claims actually does a disservice to the religion being studied and it’s a sad commentary if a religion really is “too fragile” to withstand criticism; and lastly that questions of true/false are not a trivial matter to members of the religion being studied.

In short, suspensive historiography is not the only methodology available for asking useful questions; let’s not bracket away important parts of the historical conversation!