Glenn Beck's hollow piety

Planned for Aug. 28, Glenn Beck has organized the "Restoring Honor Rally" with the stated purpose of gathering people to "celebrate America by honoring our heroes, our heritage and our future." With an assist from David Barton, Beck's preparation for the event has included increasingly overt emphasis on reverence for God. Beck has started the Glenn Beck Morning Prayer and paid for a gala event at the Kennedy Center on the day before the rally, with the theme Glenn Beck's Divine Destiny.

In the MSM-scripted version of the tea-party political drama, Glenn Beck has emerged as one of the center-stage characters. Thanks to that focus, I've frequently been asked, "What do you think of Glenn Beck?" or "Why doesn't Glenn Beck have you on his program." I can understand the questions. In addition to conveying a mood of staunch opposition to the Obama faction's arrogant political thuggery, Beck has made it a point to present himself as a defender of the Constitution. In both these respects, it would seem that we are of one mind.

Yet there has always been something about Glenn Beck's stance that left me in doubt. As I made clear in a previous column here in WND, there is a disturbing inconsistency between the posture of constitutional integrity Beck assumes and his careless dismissal of the issues raised by Obama's evident refusal to show respect for the Constitution's clear eligibility requirements for the office of president of the United States. But that wasn't my only misgiving. For a long time, I think I was not so much put off by what Glenn Beck said as by what he didn't say. He appeared to be one of those so-called conservatives who at the very least gives no priority to issues that involve the vital moral premises of our constitutional liberty, beginning with the Declaration principle that our unalienable rights are a natural endowment from the Creator, God.

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Well, God is much on his lips these days, and some would suppose I should be satisfied. Glenn Beck has apparently won the confidence and good opinion of David Barton, who is deservedly well-known for his fruitful efforts to restore America's knowledge of its godly heritage. If there are others like me who question the reliability of Beck's conservative, pro-Constitution stance, surely this frank display of piety has laid our doubts to rest.

Yet, like the scholar in the story, I "know only too well where the devil hides his tail." As I understand it that old expression refers to the maxim that, though the Great Deceiver can appear in many alluring human disguises, the discerning can see through them because he must always have a place to hide his tail. It's his "tell," as the poker players might say. I was reminded of that when I read of Joseph Farah's reason for dropping Ann Coulter from the list of speakers at WND's Taking America Back National Conference. Of course, it also came to my mind as I read of Glenn Beck's careless belittling of the "gay marriage" issue during an interview on Bill O'Reilly's show. (By the way, O'Reilly's "tell" is his so called "pro-choice" position on the unalienable right to life.) For Coulter, Beck and other acclaimed so-called conservatives, the gay agenda is their political "tell."

As I pointed out in a recent blog post, "It is no accident that the elite forces seeking to overturn government of by and for the people are using issues like homosexual marriage and abortion to challenge and overturn the American people's assertion of the God-endowed right to sovereignty over the Constitution. These are issues that involve the assumption that a right is an arbitrary exercise of freedom which in no way depends for its existence on respect for God or the natural law arising from His will as our Creator." (On my blog I have written extensively on the corrosive effect the acceptance of "gay marriage" must have on the foundations of America's constitutional, democratic republic. I have collected these writings in the series "Free to be Slaves" for the benefit of readers who want to explore the subject further.)

Whatever his outward show of piety, by joining with those who decline to battle this insidious destruction of the basic premise of liberty, Beck reveals that, for political purposes, his piety is hollow. He also shows that his supposed staunch advocacy of the Constitution is hollow as well. For "If the foundations be destroyed …" what will the patriots do? And if he is willing to let them be destroyed, what is Glenn Beck really doing?

One last observation: Beck's display of contempt for the "gay marriage" issue is clear evidence that he has no respect for the political authority of God. Is it just a coincidence that it comes shortly before an event meant to promote him as a pious and principled advocate of the Constitution? The "Restoring Honor Rally" is clearly meant to cement his MSM-scripted role as the spokesman for that majority of tea-party patriots, who sincerely revere God's place as the author of all unalienable right. The MSM will undoubtedly tout attendance at the event as evidence of support for his patently false view that promotion of "gay marriage" poses no threat to our Constitution, sovereignty and liberty; that the majority of Americans are willing to allow the legal abandonment of the natural family and a redefinition of rights that makes them figments of government power rather than authoritative assertions of God's will for justice.

It will be tragic if sincere grass-roots enthusiasm for an apparent message of constitutional integrity lures people to build the credibility of a spokesman who has already publicly abandoned its most essential principle. You know the problem with Glenn Beck's show? That's all it is.