A "Plumbline" I wrote that will run on KDCR Friday, 3/19

What Glenn Beck Does Not Know
Should one even bother to reply to Glenn Beck? Clearly, he does not use reason when he tries to convince folks to think like he does. Often, he attempts to frighten people by using words that carry all sorts of emotional baggage. Sometimes he talks as if he knows a lot about something, but in reality he’s not very well informed. I would hope that people would see through this sort of manipulation, but I hear that Beck has a huge following—even in a town like Sioux Center. So I am going to respond to something he recently said.

Beck said that Christians should check their church’s web pages for the words “social justice” or “economic justice” and if they find them, they should resign from the church. Why? Because those words are really code words for communism and Nazism. Now for those Christian Reformed folk listening, if you bother checking the website of The Christian Reformed Church in North America, you will discover—if you did not already know it—that it has an entire Office of Social Justice. And what are some of the concerns of that office? Things like world hunger, AIDs in Africa, creation care, immigration, and disaster relief (actually the office of Social Justice is an arm of CRWRC--Christian Reformed World Relief), All of these, in one way or another, are issues of social justice.

Now why would the CRC as well as the Reformed Church, Pentacostals, most mainline churches, the Roman Catholic churches, Lutheran churches and many more be concerned about issues of social justice? The answer is simple: The Bible calls us, commands us, to be involved in social justice. You know this if you read the Bible. The Old Testament is full of these commands. The Psalms again and again call the people do care for the widow and the fatherless. And the prophets—Isaiah, Ezekiel, Amos, Hosea, Micah, to mention just a few—all call the people of Israel to social and economic justice.

Let me quote just a few of the literally hundreds and hundreds of texts that carry this message. Isaiah 58:6&7:
Is not his the kind of fasting I have chosen:
To loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke,
To set the oppressed free and break every yoke?
Is it not to share your food with the hungry
And to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
When you see the naked, to clothe them,
And not to turn away from your own flesh and blood.

As I said, the Old Testament is full of texts like this. And the New Testament also. In fact, when Jesus says “I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, thirsty and you gave me something to drink, a stranger and you invited me in, naked and you clothed me, sick and in prison and you visited me,” he explains it by saying when we do these things to the needy of the world, we are doing it to him. This is social justice, that is, justice in society, Jesus is talking about here. And notice that those who do not do this—feed the hungry and welcome the immigrant and visit the prisoner—are condemned to everlasting darkness. Social justice is not an option; it is a command! It is central to the gospel.

Yet Glenn Beck apparently thinks it is evil because it smacks of socialism and communism. What seems apparent to me is that Glenn Beck does not know much about what the Bible actually says. He speaks as one having knowledge and authority, but he is really ignorant, at least as far as biblical knowledge is concerned. And if he is so wrong on this issue, one wonders about his accuracy on other issues.

Of course Beck’s real target is President Obama and his supposed socialistic agenda. This has been a talking point of Beck and other conservatives for the last year. Obama is a socialist and socialists are evil, they say.

Well, let’s examine both of those premises. Are socialists evil? Or is socialism evil? The socialist credo is often summed up this way: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. In other words, those that have more are expected to help those who have needs. That sounds like a Christian doctrine to me, sounds like those words of Jesus I quoted earlier. It reminds me of those words about the early church found in Acts 2: “All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone in need.” That sounds like socialism: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.

C. S. Lewis, writing in Mere Christianity, talks about what a “fully Christian society would be like,” based upon biblical precepts. He notes a number of characteristics: everyone would work, obedience and respect and cheerfulness would be hallmarks, and, he says, its economic life would be “very socialistic.”

I find it interesting and significant that one of the most highly regarded and influential apologists for the Christian faith in the 20th century, would make that judgment about a Christian society and socialism.

So, it seems clear to me that socialism is not evil but it also seems clear to me that Obama is not a socialist. He believes in some social programs as most of us do. How many of you who are listening object to social security or Medicare? Very few, I would guess. And those of you in Sioux Center, how many of you object to the library and Four Seasons Center? Both are supported by tax dollars and the wealthy of our community pay more taxes than the poor. From each according to his ability.

Obama is a pragmatist. He will do whatever he thinks will work best for the good of the American people. I wish his health care plan was more socialistic than it is. As it is, it gives lots of leeway and power to the large insurance companies.

A final observation about Glenn Beck: C.S. Lewis, in the same passage I quoted earlier says that a Christian society would regard worry or anxiety as wrong. He bases this on passages like Philippians 4:6 which give us this command: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, present your request to God.” Glenn Beck’s main objective seems to be to create fear and anxiety in the hearts of his audience. But then, as I said before, he does not seem to know very much about what the Bible actually says. Perhaps Christian should resign from watching Glenn Beck.