Recently, someone I follow on Twitter directed me to a blog that took on popular Fox News Network talking head Glenn Beck for comments he made about social justice and Christianity. With Beck, there is no middle ground — you either like the guy or you hate his ever-loving guts. And those who hate him really hate him.
Roger Ebert (yes, that Roger Ebert) wrote a blog called “Jesus was a Nazi. So’s your preacher” where he took Beck to task about controversial comments he made regarding Christian churches that preach social justice. Naturally, this post’s title (it’s important to note that the quotes were included) above a photo of one of Beck’s goofy smiles had me intrigued. I never watch his TV show or listen to his radio show but I have read two of his books, and his take on politics — while a bit Chicken-Littley at times — generally seems sensible to me.
The essence of this most recent controversy is that Beck told listeners to his radio show that if they go to a church that preaches social justice or economic justice, that they ought to leave that church immediately and find another. On the surface this sort of statement does seem wildly rash, and if we choose to go no deeper than the surface, anyone could find plenty of nasty things to say about the man who uttered it. And Roger Ebert did just that.
First, let me just clarify that Ebert’s quoted title is automatically misleading. As far as I can tell from reading the post itself, neither those words nor anything like them have been uttered by Beck. None of Ebert’s other posts have quotes, so this was obviously either a ploy to get readers to think that Beck actually said that, or to mock him as if that were totally the sort of thing that he would say if we could really hear his thoughts. Either way, it reeks of misdirection.
Second, the way in which Ebert engages Beck’s statement shows me that he is not interested in being clear on the issue. Rather than attempting to clarify the (admittedly) odd-sounding advice, Ebert takes it completely at face value and then neatly dresses Beck’s motives in his own assumptions. Then he uses those assumptions to mock the man as a fringe zealot. Glenn Beck is a freak. Case closed.
But wait…
If you do a little bit of research (and it really only takes a little), it is possible to get a clearer idea of what Beck is really advocating. Let me try to sum it up:
Beck is saying that if a church takes the position that its members should support the government in its efforts to help the needy, then that church is violating one of its most compelling commandments by allowing its people to shrug off their God-given duty to be the hands and feet of Jesus, and to go out and meet the needs themselves. That’s it in a nutshell. Rather than allowing the government to do the job of caring for people, we are called to do it, and anyone who gives us a way out of this arrangement is not leading us well.
Here are a two additional comments made on Ebert’s post that I found refreshingly clarifying:
The state can’t act in love as the state uses “coercion” via the sword or the AK47 to implement it’s policy. Jesus lived in a day of slavery but never spoke out against it. He lived in a day of oppressive misogyny and never spoke out against that. Greed, violence, poverty, disease, ignorance were rampant and there was no such thing as a middle class. In His day either you were an owner or a slave and Jesus never addressed this. Instead He called for His FOLLOWERS NOT THE STATE to live out His principles which then changed the world.
It amazes me that people don’t get it. Anyone that listens on a regular basis to Beck understands that his problem is with the government being a solution. The government is the problem. As a “clergyman” myself, I know that it is the church’s responsibility to take care of the poor and those less fortunate. If a church is advocating that the government do this through “social justice”, Beck is in fact correct.
In the end you have to look at all the evidence and decide what is true and what is conjecture. Does Glenn Beck actually oppose the idea of church-goers helping the needy (as Roger Ebert believes), or is he really saying that a church who allows its divine calling to be annexed by the government is not a place where dedicated Christ followers should want to be? To me, that answer is clear.
Does my take on this issue persuade you? If you heard Beck’s comment, what was your initial reaction? Do you see things differently now?
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