If you haven’t already seen the recent headline about the ever present class clown Glenn Beck, see this: Glenn Beck Urges Listeners to Leave Churches That Preach Social Justice.
“I’m begging you, your right to religion and freedom to exercise religion and read all of the passages of the Bible as you want to read them and as your church wants to preach them . . . are going to come under the ropes in the next year. If it lasts that long it will be the next year. I beg you, look for the words ‘social justice’ or ‘economic justice’ on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words. Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes!”
Now, the irony here is that, according to wikipedia, Glenn Beck grew up in a Catholic school: “Beck was raised as a Roman Catholic and attended private Immaculate Conception Catholic School in Mount Vernon.” However, he certainly does not see himself as Catholic anymore. In fact, he has apparently converted over to the most famous American denomination: the mormons.
I guess this just goes to show, Catholic Social Teaching may still be Catholicism’s best kept secret. I wonder if Beck knows he just called all Catholics to leave, not to mention Methodists, Episcopals, etc. Probably not. And I wonder if he realizes that it was the social gospel that pushed through such things as child labor laws because God would want a just society — social justice. I suspect not. Oh, and then there is Jesus. I suppose Jesus never, ever cared for justice in society — ’cause redemption has nothing to do with correcting a broken society. Riiiight.
Frankly, Beck is a small fry. However, I’m sure many of you, like myself, have family that swallow this profound incompetence and so I wanted to take this opportunity to note how off his rocker he is — here is a good place to make the theological argument that flips Beck and the like on their heads.
flying.farther 