Glenn Beck's "pure personal truth," Part 2

By Marsha West

Glenn Beck is a charming, witty, well-spoken, well-informed, transparent individual who has some unique gifts, one of which is his ability to unite people for a common cause. From my observation Beck believes he has the truth. And, although he claims to be a Christian, he doesn't base his "pure personal truth" on the Bible. Read The Seven Wonders That Will Change Your Life, a book Beck co-authored with Dr. Keith Ablow, and you'll find that his truth comes from a hodgepodge of Mormon/New Age/New Thought/occult/pagan beliefs. Contrary to what the Bible teaches, that man is born into sin and in need of a savior (Rom. 5:12), Glenn believes "people are inherently good."

He also believes:

You have a polestar inside you. It is connected with all the energy in the universe. When you begin to follow that star you align yourself with immeasurable, inexplicable forces that will actually help you manifest your best intentions. (Page 79)

Um, I think by polestar he means energy. Energy + universe = New Age mysticism.

I won't attempt to explain Glenn's magical mystical worldview. Instead I'll include excerpts from Marcia Montenegro's book review. Marcia was involved in the New Age movement (NAM) for many years. For 8 of those years she worked as a professional astrologer. In the late 1990s she became a Christian. Since then she has earned a Masters in Religion from Southern Evangelical Seminary. As a New Ager her journey included involvement in dangerous occult practices such as contacting the dead, meditation, spirit guides, raising the kundalini, astral travel, numerology, Tarot cards, plus she hung out with witches!

So you can see that Marcia has firsthand knowledge of what the NAM is all about. In her review of Glenn's book she informs us:

Early in the book, Beck states the false assumption that God is "in everything and everywhere and inside me, too" and that God "will not let me rest until I took the journey to find my pure personal truth and full potential." Beck does not give a basis for this conviction except to quote Exodus 3:14 where God gives his name as "I AM." Beck also gives a rendering of this as "He who is ever becoming what He is," a phrase repeated throughout the book by both Beck and Ablow.

Well guess what? Glenn's dead wrong! Here's the quote from Exodus 3:14 Glenn's referring to:

And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.

Wesley's Notes on Exodus 3:14 offers insight into what God meant:

[This is] a name that speaks what he is in himself, I am that I am — This explains his name Jehovah, and signifies, 1st, That he is self-existent; he has his being of himself, and has no dependence upon any other. And being self-existent he cannot but be self-sufficient, and therefore all-sufficient, and the inexhaustible fountain of being and bliss. 2dly, That he is eternal and unchangeable, always the same, yesterday today, and forever: he will be what he will be, and what he is. 3dly. That he is faithful and true to all his promises, unchangeable in his word as well as in his nature, and not a man that he should lie. ...

Marcia sheds light on the beliefs held by Beck and Ablow:

Despite the God talk and references to Jesus, this book is all about you. You have a vast potential that has its very source in God. This remains untapped until you realize it and make use of it. "God Wants You to Have Your Moment," writes Beck (220).

Ablow refers to "the miracle of spirit, of God, that has lived inside you from long before you were born" and you must now connect with that (85).

Misquoting the biblical statement, "You are the temple of the Holy Spirit" as "You Are the Temple of God," Ablow uses this to bolster his message that everyone is a temple of God, meaning that everyone has God in him and her (283). That everyone is divine and is part of God and/or has God in them is a core New Thought and New Age doctrine and is a major theme of the book. "Every single one of us has magic inside us that can transform our lives and the lives of others" declares Ablow (283).

Faith and truth are the two most distorted of the seven wonders in this book. There is nothing in the book about man's need for redemption because man's inner divinity is assumed, and everyone is innately connected to God and part of God. There is no message about faith in the true Jesus Christ, and it would be surprising if there were since neither Beck nor Ablow are Christians.

"I AM" is God's name, not a name for man, and it has nothing to do with man reaching his full potential or having an inborn divine nature. But since Mormons believe that God was once a man and that man can evolve toward godhood, and since New Agers have a belief about being in process of uncovering their true God Self, Beck and Ablow together forge a harmonious but poisonous message. Unfortunately, this message ignores the holiness and other-ness of God, and denies man's sinful nature and need for salvation. God is undermined and man is built up, principles that are twin cornerstones of New Thought and New Age philosophy.

(Online source)

Here's what Beck said to the Restoring Courage audience:

There are three faiths, three paths to God. And while the paths sometimes take us away from each other, they always return here, to Jerusalem. (Video)

True Christians reject the idea that there is more than one path to God. Jesus said there is one way:

I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man commeth unto the father but by me. (John 14:6)

Listen to what else Jesus taught on the way to get to God:

Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbs up some other way, he is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is a shepherd of the sheep. (John 9:41-10:2)

Abide in Christ explains what Jesus meant by this:

As the Door, Jesus is the one and only way of entrance into salvation. As the Good Shepherd He is the one who cares for the sheep and provides for their salvation at the cost of His life. He lays down His life for the sheep. On the other hand, the two figures bring out strong contrasts. When Jesus considers Himself as the Door He brands those who do not use the Door as thieves and robbers. ...

So, if Glenn Beck is an evangelical Christian as he claims, he has no choice but to separate from the LDS Church. The reason the Apostle Paul gives for this is "the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils. Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord' table, and of the table of devils. (I Corinthians 10:20-21)

Back to the book. Here's what Beck says on prayer:

Pray to whatever higher power you believe in...Praying that God or Nature or the Cosmos or your own internal, immeasurable reservoir of spirit allows you the courage and faith to find and then face the truth... (Page 132)

Pray to your higher power...to nature...the cosmos? First off, nature and cosmos are not proper nouns and should not be capitalized so I'm a little suspicious. New Agers do this with being as in "the universe is a living breathing conscious Being." Earth to Glenn! Christians don't pray to the creation, we pray to the Creator. (Col 1:15-21, John 1:10, Heb 1:2-4) Secondly, I looked up "higher power." According to Wikipedia.com,

"In current twelve-step program usage a Higher Power can be anything at all that the member believes is adequate. Reported examples include their twelve-step group, Nature, consciousness, existential freedom, God, science, gravity, Buddha. It is frequently stipulated that as long as a Higher Power is "greater" than the individual, then the only condition is that it should also be loving and caring."

Nature, science and gravity are loving and caring? Try praying to gravity when you're in a tight spot!

Based on what Glenn Beck says he believes about God and Jesus Christ proves that he's a counterfeit Christian. Historic, orthodox Christianity does not hold to Beck's view that God is "in everything and everywhere and inside me, too."

So — I have to ask his fans: If this man cannot see the faulty logic in the Mormon/New Age/New Thought/occult/pagan religious stew he has concocted why on earth do people trust him with anything that has to do with critical thinking on such complex subjects such as religion, philosophy, history, politics and psychology?

Regardless of the absurd New Age view Beck holds on God and Jesus, his Church clearly teaches that God is an exalted man of flesh and bones and lives on a mysterious planet called Kolob and that every form of life was created spiritually in Kolob. (Moses 3:5-7, Pearl of Great Price.)

Joseph Smith, Jr. is the founder or the Mormon Church. Smith who is supposedly a prophet of God claimed he was commanded to organize the church. (D&C 20:1,2) Smith wrote that God, "said unto me: Behold there are save two churches only; the one is the church of the Lamb of God [LDS], and the other is the church of the devil [Christendom]; wherefore, whoso belongeth not to the church of the Lamb of God belongeth to that great church, which is the mother of abominations; and she is the whore of all the earth. (1 Nephi, 14:10 Book of Mormon)

Those who hold to historic Christianity "belongeth" to the "whore of all the earth"? I think Joseph was talking about the devil — he's saying that anyone who reject the LDS teaching belong to Satan and his minions. Since Glenn Beck's a Mormon in good standing, he believes this too.

While I'm on the subject of the LDS Polygamist-in-Chief, you should also know that he taught that all humans are gods. He declared, "I have always and in all congregations when I have preached on the subject of the Deity, it has been the plurality of Gods." (History of the Church 6:474)

Speaking at the King Follett sermon Smith said, "You have got to learn to become Gods yourselves, the same as all Gods before you have done."

According to the History of the Church, Smith also declared, "I have more to boast of than ever any man had. I am only man that has ever been able to keep a whole church together since the days of Adam.... Neither Paul, John, Peter nor Jesus ever did it. I boast that no man ever did such a work as I." (Vol. 6, pages 408-9)

But that's just Joseph. Mormon "Apostle" Orson Hyde taught that Jesus had three wives, Mary, Martha and Mary Magdalene, and that through these wives Jesus fathered many children before he was crucified. "Apostle" Orson Pratt agreed with Hyde. He said, "If all the acts of Jesus were written, we no doubt should learn that these beloved women were His wives." (The Seer, page 159)

So, Jesus was not only married, he was a polygamist? And he had a brood to boot? Who knew?

What about God the Father?

On page 172 of the same book, Pratt wrote,"We have now clearly shown that God, the Father had a plurality of wives, one or more being in eternity, by whom He begat our spirits as well as the spirit of Jesus His First Born... We have also proved most clearly that the Son followed the example of his Father, and became the great Bridegroom to whom kings' daughters and many honorable Wives to be married." (Online source)

Like father like son, both were full-fledged polygamists — according to the LDS, that is.

The LDS also teaches this doozy. After Jesus was crucified he came to the Americas to preach to the Indians. Jesus then established his church in the Americas as he had in Palestine. The Indians, they say, are really displaced Israelites. This brings me back to Glenn Beck's Restoring Courage rally in Jerusalem. According to W. D. Davies' essay Israel, Mormons and the Land :

Mormons believe themselves to be Israelites in a literal sense and also to be closely related to the [American] Indians, who [they believe] are also physically descended from Israelites. The Mormons, then, are a continuation of what the Fathers of the Christian Church were to come to call the old Israel. But for Mormons there is no old Israel. They simply regard themselves as Israel in a new stage of its history. ...

But according to a statement by the prestigious Smithsonian Institute: "There is no evidence whatever of any migration from Israel to America, and likewise no evidence that pre-Columbian Indians had any knowledge of Christianity or the Bible."

I'll wind this up with a severe warning from the Apostle Paul:

But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. (Gal 1:8)

Read Part 1

Recommended Reading:

Latter-day Saints — links to articles — On Solid Rock Resources

New Age Movement & Spirituality — links to articles — On Solid Rock Resources

The Mormon Tabernacle Choir sings If You Could Hie to Kolob — Listen to the lyrics.

© Marsha West