There are a few great joys in my life.
Daily Mass at the Gesu with Jesuits (from time to time
frustrating, but St. Stans daily masses are at 12pm)
Eucharistic Adoration at Mary Queen of Heaven or St. John
the Evangelist
A solid beer
But I would be remised to not say I don’t love watching and
listening to The Glenn Beck Program every weekday. It’s like an addiction, he delves into
technology, politics and the occasional spiritual bit. Glenn is an apostate Catholic, now referring
to himself as a Mormon. In general, as I
have said in the past, I think he is a decent person with a good heart, but as
Chesterton says, “a heart in the wrong place”.
People along the lines of Beck or Rush Limbaugh appeal to
many Americans because they speak to their crowd appealing to the common
denominators. Specifically speaking they
appeal to the ideals of America in how they were founded and the culture that developed
around it.
Well every once in a while Mr. Beck will get into an
emotional mood and start down the way mixing his religious views with his American
views (which is common in Mormonism, mind you they see the US constitution as a
divinely inspired document). Today was
no different and I figured I’d run through a couple things that were said and
add my own commentary to it. The context of the words spoken is in a dialogue
with a protestant pastor from Washington state. So enjoy:
“We all wanted America to succeed and we all believed in
America, but it is so troubling at this time.”
- First I think it is reasonable to want America to succeed
since most of us were born and grew up here.
We have attached a certain fondness to the American way of life, the
flag stands now for something greater then a bobble on ones desk. We attach meanings to this country, freedom,
the American Dream and the joys of Capitalism.
All of these things are neutral and shouldn’t offend anyone. There might well be many people in other
countries that attribute such things to their own homelands. Yet I don’t really believe in America like
Mr. Beck does. To him America is a
country set apart by God with divine providence as its guide. To me America is a great country but if
tomorrow it would all come to an end like Rome did during St. Augustine’s time
then oh well. America has no divine
promise of prosperity. Mother Teresa
reminded people of this when she said a country where mothers kill their own
children will not survive. I dont know
whether or not abortion will ever be ended in this country but I know that the
contraceptive mentality will not end. It
is this contraceptive mentality, which even Catholics can fall into with NFP, which
really destroys life on a generational scale making abortion look like child’s
play.
“Pastor Hutchinson has the truth and America needs to listen
because he is being lead by the spirit”
- I want to give you as the reader some background
here. Mr. Beck though not an outward
anti-Catholic clings to the typical list of lies told about the church (ie:
inquisitons, crusaides, evil Popes, burning of witches), so he is not
interested in hearing a Catholic view point of authority. The few Catholics that he has had on only
addressed things vaguely. But back to
the statement. The claim that Pator
Hutchinson has the truth might well be true to a degree. It is Catholic teaching that other religions
might well hold to Catholic truths and proclaim them loudly, yet such truths
are not their own but they are first Catholic truths. Second it would be a falsehood to say that
this protestant pastor/laymen has the truth since he rejects the whole of
Christian truth. Now the question of
whether someone is worthy of being listened to because they have the “spirit
leading them”. One has to ask what
authority does Mr. Hutchinson have in the so called church? Who gave him authority? Is it because people like what he says
because he challenges them? Is it
because he proclaims Christ crucified for all?
And what with the lead by the spirit comment? What spirit?
If he has the truth then why would Beck not leave his Mormon beliefs and
embrace Protestantism? If he is lead by
the spirit can he err? Will the spirit allow
him to err when he is giving his teachings?
Just like with all protestant beliefs there is a lack of substance to
what they proclaim. Their stances might
well be emotional and appeal to the masses, but they lack an objective
presentation of the faith that can be traced all the way back and that can be
supported with evidence. One has to ask
both people two questions by what objective authority do you preach? What objective reason do we have to believe that
every book in scripture is actually infallible?
Tired of heresy yet? James 5: 19-20
+JMJ+
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