Glenn Beck the Mormon Blames Progressives for Perverting Religion

X Facebook Email Flipboard Pinterest Print Reddit

Last updated on August 10th, 2014 at 05:02 pm

Beck blames progressives and warps history to boot

In a desperate attempt to lure Fox News viewers back that have abandoned him Glenn Beck launched Founding Fathers Friday today, but instead of talking about the Founding Fathers, Beck announced that the progressives, led by Woodrow Wilson have perverted religion. Beck said, “They got into our faith and religion. They perverted it. They controlled it.”

Here is the video courtesy of Media Matters:

Beck started his Founding Father Friday by using the Founding Fathers as a jumping off point to attack progressives. Beck said, “After the past 100 years we’ve come to realize that they nothing but a bunch of old, white, rich racist heathens. The myth of our Christian founding has been obliterated, and at best we now know, maybe they were deists at best. Let me tell you how this all started, Woodrow Wilson. Woodrow Wilson wanted to transform America along with Teddy Roosevelt. They were both progressives. The progressive movement had started. It was about 1915-1920. The whole thing was falling apart, and they could get America to really go for it. They couldn’t control Americans. They couldn’t do it. They wanted to transform America, so they had to do three things, and tell me if they have accomplished them. One, undermine faith in religion. This is the point when social justice comes in. It’s no longer about equal justice or about redemption. It’s social justice. They got into our faith and religion. They perverted it. They controlled it. They convinced us that we shouldn’t be faith going people. These people weren’t. What? Really? God, that’s so yesterday.”

Let’s begin with the basic history that Beck got wrong. First, Beck is confusing the progressive movement with the modern redefinition of the term progressives, by liberals who are too scared to identify themselves as liberal. Secondly, the progressive movement began not in 1915, but in 1890. It lasted not for five years, but for thirty. Third, the progressive movement was not about controlling people. It was a movement of the middle class that organically sprung up as a response to corruption in politics and business of the Gilded Age. The progressives were interested in cleaning up corruption, which Glenn Beck is supposedly also interested in. Fourth, Woodrow Wilson was religious. He was a Presbyterian. Fifth, Teddy Roosevelt was Dutch Reformed, but he also congregated with Episcopalians.

Beck also said that Wilson wanted to transform America, which is a direct unstated comparison to Obama. It is interesting that Beck constantly tries to align himself with the Founding Fathers without mention that none of the Founding Fathers were of his own Mormon faith, because the LDS was not founded until 1830. Why does Beck continue to mislead his audience into believing that he shares their mostly Evangelical faith? Why is Beck afraid to talk about his Mormon faith? He has nothing to be ashamed of, but he also knows that the social conservatives, especially those on the far right have a very negative view of the Mormon faith.

Here is Beck discussing his conversion:

It’s a real shame that Beck, much like his fellow Mormon Mitt Romney, feels that he has to hide or minimize his faith from his viewers and socially conservative Republicans, because some strains of evangelicalism consider the Mormon Church a cult, and if they feel generous some will label the church a Christian cult. While Glenn Beck is telling his white, Bible Belt, evangelical audience that progressivism has perverted religion, he personally is practicing a religion that some in his audience consider a perversion of Christianity. Such is the hypocrisy of Glenn Beck.

Author
Recent Posts

Follow Me

Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association

Follow Me