Personally I despise religion.However this is a well written and informative article.Thank you sir

I think that people forget that Glenn Beck is a Mormon and therefore is bound to misunderstand certain principles of the Christian faith… Much less the Catholic faith.

I don’t think Glenn Beck had ever claimed that he knows everything and he is perfect.  Who do you trust more? Glenn Beck or Doris Kearns Goodwin the plagiarist caught in the act or Michael the “Obama’s IQ is off the chart but I don’t know what his IQ is” Beschloss?

Mark,

Why not send Glenn some reliable information about the Council of Nicea and Constantine so he can learn the truth?  He may not be open to it, but it’s worth a try.

Lisa

How about just sending him this article?  I agree Glenn is ignorant about religious history, because to study and learn it ultimately leads one to the inevitable conclusion: accepting the truth.

Not looking to defend Miss Goodwin but when charged with plagarism she acted honorably.  She made her notes public, apologized and corrected the compromised book.  She also limits her conversations to what her areas of expertise such as presidential history (and baseball).  Mr. Beck, however, goes on and on and on about whatever he feels with either entertain or incite without any regard to history or impact.  I have never heard of him correcting himself, apologize or even really caring if he is correct.  He just wants to spew without care of where it may land.

I do not even listen to his religious things, just what is happening now. Actually, I do not like listening to him too much anymore, since I know that this administration is a danger to the country and do not need to keep hearing things over and over, in a different direction, every day.  Pray for his conversion.  He has overcome much in his life and could use the “Truth.”

Glenn Beck may be vague about his religious history but he is providing a valuable counterpoint to the “lame stream media” who are doing their level best to lead the USA down the road to bigger government and socialism.

If you want to keep straight on your Catholic Faith watch EWTN. If you want to get most of the truth about US history and politics read the books Beck recommends.

“But you see, that’s the problem.  You learn from him.  And he’s a crank who doesn’t know what he’s talking about as he spews forth his paranoid fearcasts and quack analyses of history that make people dumber than they were before they listened and “learned”.”

Amen, Amen, AMEN!  Thank you so much for calling him out.  I do fear that many of my Catholic Brothers and Sisters have grown too attached to the American Right for their own good. I mean, when I hear people quoting Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh to attack the Bishops’ position on Immigration, for example, I start to get a little nervous.

“Glenn Beck may be vague about his religious history…”

Not vague… dangerously wrong. Just flat, 180 degrees wrong. That does not give me any confidence that his grasp of civic history is any better.

It is understandable why Glenn Beck got the history of the Catholic Church wrong after all he’s a Mormon. 

I worry more about Catholics who claim to be “faithful” to Church teachings and publicly twist the Truth for their own political ends, ie. Nancy Pelosi just to name one. 

As far as the historical record being distorted, that is par for the course rhetoric that is taught in protestant seminaries and some “catholic” publications.

It’s important to remember that Glenn Beck, for all the lip service that he gives to marriqage, is a former Catholic who left the Church to become a Mormon so that he could get divorced and remarried.
His knowledge of church history consists of the stuff they teach in fundamentalist Sunday schools, true or not, and not much more.

Whether one agrees with Glenn Beck’s view of religious history or not, he is not a spokesman for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon).  If anyone is really interested in the Mormon view of Trinitarianism and the Council of Nicea, one good place to start is at:

http://en.fairmormon.org/Nature_of_God/Trinity/Nicene_creed

I would love to hear his theory on the “great apostasy”.

Beck’s bizarre version of history is straight out of The Da Vinci Code. If he’s too incompetent or lazy to check out these opinions, why would you expect him to be accurate on other subjects?

I would say that Beck’s history of Progressivism and its infection of U.S. politics is pretty accurate.  Anyone who has been following the history of the Catholic Church in the last century also knows how much Progressives have infected the ranks of the Church hierarchy and seminaries.

This is the root cause for the interior crisis of the Catholic Church leading to a not-so-silent dissent in marriage, contraception, homosexuality in both pulpit and seminary resulting in the Church homosexual sex scandal.

Anything Beck says on religious matters is either biased and skewed from a Mormon perspective, or flat out wrong. He exhibits an anti-Catholic bent every time the subject of religion & history is discussed. He seems to link the present-day issue of “social justice” directly to the Catholic Church, and he completely misunderstands that the modern progressive version of social justice is a corrupted form of proper Catholic teaching.
I was an early supporter of Mitt Romney but the disqualifier for me was his Mormon faith. Now it is not that I have anything against Mormons at all, (I’ve had hours of very polite and interesting conversations with many Mormons). But the fact that Romney (and Beck), for all his otherwise intelligent gifts, lacks the judgment necessary to see that Mormonism is a cult and a fallacy, makes me doubtful about his judgment in other areas as well.

One thing I hope everyone is aware of is that Glenn Beck was raised Catholic; even went to Catholic grade school.  He only became a Mormon recently.  What does this say about his Catholic education? 

I blame those progressive nuns who were running the Catholic school system and ran it into the ground.

Wow.. so critical.. So he said Apostles Creed rather than NICENE Creed.  Lets tie him to a pole and whip him for that mistake.  :-)

The name of the Creed comes from the probably fifth-century LEGEND that, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit after Pentecost, each of the Twelve Apostles dictated part of it.  It is traditionally divided into twelve articles.

The title, Symbolum Apostolicum (Symbol or Creed of the Apostles), appears for the first time in a letter from a Council in Milan (probably written by Ambrose himself) to Pope Siricius in about 390: “Let them give credit to the Creed of the Apostles, which the Roman Church has always kept and preserved undefiled”.  But what existed at that time was not what is now known as the Apostles’ Creed but a shorter statement of belief that, for instance, did not include the phrase “maker of heaven and earth”, a phrase that may have been inserted only in the seventh century.

It is know that at the Council of Nicea.. it was called so that the Church could get it straight what they were teaching about the divinity of Jesus Christ.  You see.. there was not a common thinking and teaching on this doctrine.  What is really interesting to know is that The Council of Nicea - the first Ecumenical Council, is convened by the Emperor Constantine (not the Pope, Sylvester I, who was not invited).

The debates went on between those that believe Jesus was a individual.. as the Father was an individual.. but others believed in this 3 in one.. thrown in the blender type of God.  The vote of the new whipped up God became the new standard for the church.

But here is a very interesting point.  Even after all that.. and more “Councils” that were convened..  Here are some end results:

Acceptance of the councils

Assyrian Church: accept #1, and #2
Oriental Orthodoxy: accept #1, #2, #3
Eastern Orthodoxy: accept #1-#7; some also accept #8(EO), #9(EO) as ecumenical
Roman Catholicism: accept #1- #7, #8-#21(RC)
Anglicanism: accept #1-#7, but not unconditionally
Lutherans and Methodists: accept #1-#7 with reservations
Nontrinitarian churches: accept none

So.. still after all this time.. people still can’t agree and that is why there are so many religious denominations all based on ONE little book called the Bible.  One God.. and so much confusion.  This is what you get when man is at the helm.. and not God.  I always thought revelation flowed down from Heaven.. not up to it.  It is very obvious that God must be giving everyone a different revelation and a different doctrine to follow… Right?

Seems as if everyone has their own bias on the subject of religious matters. (Especially from a forum called the National Catholic Register) So many churches pointing the finger making claims that so and so isn’t Christian because they don’t believe this.. or they don’t believe that.. so we don’t recognize them as such.  Who gave these people the right to determine if one is “Christian” or not?  (Some Council of something I bet.)

America was born Protestant.  Given that, the Constitution didn’t just spontaneiously pop out of the Protestant Chruch, it was the culmination of thousands of years of Western thought.  A recent guest on his show, Peter Lillback with Phd credentials and the author of George Washington, Sacred Fire said that Western civilization began with the Reformation and Erasmus.  OOPS.  I think Glenn is doing a service by highlighting aspects of U.S. History that we’ve lost contact with, but I do think he has an anti-Catholic bias.  Spending three hours in a Mormon Church each Sunday probably doesn’t help that.

I quit listening to his spew the day he said the terrorists should be allowed to build their sign of dominance on the site of the 9-11 massacre.  He’s wrong about the Church, the Scrolls, Nicea, and our current enemy!

The problem with Marks’s article (But I Learn So Much from Glenn Beck!)is that it claims to contain quotes of Glenn Beck’s but there is not one reference about when and where Mark obtained the material. Mark, please provide your sources so that your readers can know the date Beck said these things, and so that we can better understand the context he said them in…

I think a lot of people don’t “get” Glenn Beck.  He uses humor and sarcasm and I wouldn’t be the least surprised if he was using those tools in the quotes Mark has above (really?  “off with their heads”?)  He’s right on target when he talks about the connections between Obama, Ayers, Alinsky, etc., and the radical left goals of the current administration.  We ignore that information at our peril.  But I don’t go to him for theology, for heaven’s sakes.

I do not listen to Beck on the radio and have never heard him talk about the history of religion and the Christian church.  If he is doing this on the radio show, I am sorry because it is so very wrong, to abuse his reputation as a lover of the Constitution and American values to pulverize the truth of the Christian Church with his own mixed up version it’s history.  However, Catholics learning church history from Beck is no different than the Catholics who devoured the trash of DaVinci Code.  I have been in organizations where religion and business were mixed and it is dangerous.  People who were revered in business, parlayed that into a reverence for everything they said and believed and a lot of people who were not discriminating were taken in and left the Church. We know that false teachers are everywhere and we need to do a better job of teaching and nourishing our own.  Anyone who listened to Beck when he spoke about faith, hope and charity, knew that he used the same words but meant something quite different.  Social Justice as well, but then most Catholics don’t’ understand Social Justice as the Church teaches it.  It has become to imbued with the entitlement mentality and sentiments ( can we hear a chorus of “Feelings”) of the 60s.  Like Beck, I do not believe that charity and entitlement go hand in hand.

It is interesting that people think he is anti Catholic.  He works closely with Andrew Napolitano who is a devout Catholic and also a devout lover of the Constitution.  He has Fr. Jonathan, the Legionnaire ‘speaker’ priest on and too many others to name who are all not only practicing but devout Catholics.  It is a leap to say, his history is wrong therefore he is anti-Catholic.  Or to say he became a Mormon so he could remarry.  Any Christian denomination would let him remarry, even the Orthodox churches.  In an television interview a year or so ago, he said specifically, that his then girlfriend, now wife, told him no relationship unless and until he found a church.  He shopped like all ‘good’ Americans these days and found one where he heard preached the values he was taught (American and Catholic?).  It was a Mormon church.  I think that says more about the state of the Christian denominations and the Catholic Church these days and far less about Beck.

I have to say, I agree with a lot of what Beck says.  He isn’t wrong and he knows that the average American is as ignorant of American and European history as many Catholics/Christians are of Church history.  I can only take him in small doses because like another commentor, I understand who Mr. Obama is and where he wants to take us. I studied European political and economic history (blessed to have been in a great high school, just before the 60s revolution) and where Mr. Obama wants to take us is down the road to our demise.  I don’t need it pounded into my head. 

Very good article, Mark.  And I for one, would love for you to send it to Beck or for you to call in and set him straight right on the air.  We all know that you are preaching to the choir here.  You may say that it isn’t worth your time, but that is wrong.  If Catholics are listening to Beck and saying they are ‘learning’ from him, then your time cannot be better spent than disabusing them of the value of what he says.

The Apostles’s Creed is not what it purports to be. Lorenze Valla, in the 15th Century, showed that it did not contain the actual writings of the Apostles. Valla also proved that the Donation of Constantine, in which Constantine purported to give the Catholic Church ownership of the western kingdom, was a forgery. The document was not from the hand of Constantine in the 4th century, rather was written by forgers in the 8th century. Ten Popes relyed on the forged document over a span of 700 years.

Mark - I think you’re falling into the fallacy of attacking the person rather than the message.  Because Beck says one thing (the one bit cited in your article) wrong (and admittedly, HORRIBLY wrong) you infer that the majority of what he says is wrong.

Having studied history throughout college and nursing it as a hobby ever since, I’ve been surprised about how much he gets right about US History given the public outcry against him.  On political science, he should be viewed differently than on religious teachings.  Hit him on progressivism if you cite alternatives to his progressivism rants… but not because of his religious misinformation.

He is Mormon.  He is simply recounting the neo-Arian historical view.  Yes, it’s wrong.  But attack the point and not the target.

When I was growing up in California, my parents had an acquaintance who was a heavy drinker, a serial adulterer, and a Catholic.  Should I have concluded from this that alcoholism and adultery are typical Catholic traits, or that Catholicism fosters such behavior?

Glenn Beck’s remarks about Constantine and the Dead Sea Scrolls were, without question, spectacularly wrong and misinformed.  And it’s true that Mr. Beck is a Mormon convert.  But Mark Shea’s leap from the amateurish errors of a single talk show host to this column’s vast and hostile generalization about Mormons in general is gratuitous and wholly unjustifiable.  (How much does the average Catholic-in-the-Street know about the Scrolls, by the way, or about the origins of the biblical canon?)

I am a Mormon scholar of Islam at the flagship university of Mormonism, Brigham Young University.  I can promise Mr. Shea and his readers that I know what the Dead Sea Scrolls are and where the Bible came from.  More to the point, my four BYU colleagues who serve on the international Dead Sea Scrolls editorial team don’t share Glenn Beck’s notions about the Scrolls.  (If you wish, you can check their work in the official Oxford publication series for the Scrolls, or the books they’ve published on the subject with E. J. Brill in the Netherlands, in order to verify my claim.)  Nothing like what Mr. Beck says about the Scrolls has surfaced in any of the international conferences on the topic that my university has hosted (the proceedings have been published, and can be examined), nor are Mr. Beck’s views reflected in the Dead Sea Scrolls Electronic Library that we’ve produced here at BYU:

http://brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=227&pid=25695

Mark Shea’s remarks about my faith were offensive, gratuitous, and utterly misguided.  He owes me and my co-believers an apology.

Finally, on the assertion that I’m not a Christian, please see Professor Stephen Robinson’s “Are Mormons Christians?” or my own book “Offenders for a Word: How Anti-Mormons Play Word Games to Attack the Latter-day Saints.”

I don’t know why, but that first comment made me chuckle.

“Personally I despise religion.However this is a well written and informative article.Thank you sir”

Vince:

Sorry.  I had embedded the broadcast but there was a glitch.  It’s there now.  I don’t make this stuff up.

Mr. Nirom:

Thanks for that bulletin from the Dept. of Mormon Agitprop.

Mark - I think you’re falling into the fallacy of attacking the person rather than the message.  Because Beck says one thing (the one bit cited in your article) wrong (and admittedly, HORRIBLY wrong) you infer that the majority of what he says is wrong.

I disagree.  If I had written, “Glenn Beck got history egregiously wrong, therefore he is a thief, ugly, and a bad dresser” that would be attacking the person.  What I said was, “Glenn Beck got history egregiously wrong, therefore he is not a reliable guide to learning about history.”

But Mark Shea’s leap from the amateurish errors of a single talk show host to this column’s vast and hostile generalization about Mormons in general is gratuitous and wholly unjustifiable.

I made no vast and hostile generalization about Mormons.  I said Mormons are not Arians and “have their own agenda in dismissing Nicaea”, which is perfectly true.  They may dismiss it in different ways and with different reasoning than Beck, but dismiss it they do or they would not be Mormons anymore.

BTW.  FRancis Beckwith, the Evangelical convert turned Catholic Revert edited and contributed to a very good book about Mormonism and the fact that we do and should work together on those issues that we agree.  From a social point of view, my friends, that would be many! 

I said this was a good article, it is for teaching history, but I have to agree that the attack on the Mormon religion was a bit over the top.  I do not believe they are Christian; Christians believe in an eternal uncreated God, who is father, son and holy spirit.  Mormonism believes the ‘Father’ was a human creature who married a human woman and sired Jesus.  These creatures became gods.  Matter is ‘eternal’; the difficulty in any discussion with Mormons, is where does it all come from?  My guess is Beck hasn’t wrapped his head around all of their theology either.

I suppose what I can’t fathom is why Mormons want to be thought of as Christian.  Jewish people do not want to be thought of as Christian, nor do Hindus or Jehovah’s Witness.  So why this need is what I am always curious about.  The JW believe Jesus was an angel, the Mormons a human become a god of this earth, can’t we leave it at that and respect one another and teach the truth as we know it in love?

That said, it doesn’t make Mormons bad in any way. There is good and bad in every faith.  I believe there is only one truth and that is Jesus Christ, the second person of the HOly Trinity.  But I would direct people to Mark Shea’s own enlightening article “It didn’t Go out with Vatican II”.

Glenn Beck and others like him, for instance Rush Limbaugh, serve to fan the flames of hatred and mistrust of various peoples and groups that they disagree with.  And they have both been well rewarded monetarily for their brand of incendiary attack, which is very telling and consistent with how society as a whole is largely tuned into noisy sensationalism versus classic truths.  Thank you, Mark, for pointing out not only the distortions from Glenn Beck, but let’s face it, the out and out lies against the Catholic Church (this isn’t the first time).  Honestly, I feel sorry for the man.  So much opportunity at his fingertips, yet so much interior confusion.  Pray that the Truth finds a way into his heart and mind and eventually comes forth from his mouth.

The Apostles’s Creed is not what it purports to be. Lorenze Valla, in the 15th Century, showed that it did not contain the actual writings of the Apostles.

The Apostle’s Creed does not purport to be written by the Apostles.  It purports to summarize the teaching of the Apostles which, you know, it does.

Mark.. LOL Agitprop.  According to Wikipedia.. it states that word in the Western world, has a negative connotation.  Department of Mormon???  Is there such a department? or is this something you just made up?  Sometimes it is the truth that hurts the most.. even though it sets you free.

First, I wouldn’t recommend Fr Stanley Jaki to anyone not well versed in Science, especially physics. Thomas Aquinas is an easier read. Jaki is extremely difficult. I’m glad you are warning us about Beck. He is obviously prejudiced in matters of Faith. It does not follow however that he is equally wrong in his political, social, economic analysis. Isn’t every writer, blogger, commentator prejudiced in some way?

@ Chis

You said: Mormonism believes the ‘Father’ was a human creature who married a human woman and sired Jesus.

Nope.. this is NOT what Latter Day Saints believe.

As soon as I saw the title of this article and who was writing it, I immediately blurted out an “OH NO!!!” (and I am alone right now). Mr. Shea’s hubris has become quite predictable. Frankly, I do not understand the criteria CMR is using here in choosing such arrogance.

Why do Mormons consider themselves Christians?  Because we revere Jesus of Nazareth as the divine Son of God, believe that he rose bodily from the dead on the third day, trust that his atonement pays the price of our sins, regard his as the only name under heaven whereby we can be saved and our only avenue of approach to the Father, believe him to be the ultimate judge of humankind, etc.  Just that.  And we regard it as misleading (to say the least of it), when others suggest that we’re not Christians.

I’m happy to see Mr. Shea apparently acknowledging that Glenn Beck’s views on the Dead Sea Scrolls have no particular relationship to the fact that he’s a convert to Mormonism.  I wonder if he would similarly recognize the fact that Mr. Beck’s inaccurate understanding of Nicea and of the origins of the biblical canon has no specific connection to Mr. Beck’s being a Mormon convert.

If so, though, I wonder why Mr. Shea felt it necessary or advisable to mention Mormonism at all in this column?  Why the mischaracterization of us as “polytheists”?  Why bring us up?

BTW believes Jesus is the second person of the trinity. Yet, it is my understanding that Catholics and Protestants believe the trinity is without body, parts or passion. Do I have this right? Jesus left the trinity to come to earth, was crucified and resurrected in a physical body. Does Jesus still have that physical body today?  Is He back in the trinity again, with out body, parts or passion? What does Jesus look like today? On Mormons being Christians—-there are 6000 verses in the Book of Mormon—-4500 refer to Jesus Christ. I’d say Mormons are the most Christian church in the world.

I listen to Beck (for a month or two) and Limbaugh (15-20 years) and haven’t felt any flames of hatred being fanned within me, as was suggested earlier.

Anyway, when I heard Beck say this about the Dead Sea Scrolls/Nicea, I immediately knew he was wrong. Was I surprised? Yes, but not because he was wrong. Even Limbaugh admits to being wrong .5-1% of the time. I was dumbfounded because he was so wrong that I could hardly beleive it. When I then learned about his religious history, it was not as surprising.

The way I listen to anyone’s comments is one at a time. I don’t know of anyone who would suggest that we should accept a statement simply because so-and-so said so. I even use that approach when I read blog posts at NCR, inlcuding those of Mr. Shea. I imagine he wouldn’t want blind acceptance of his opinions and I also imagine the same is true for Glenn Beck.

This article seems to suggest that Glenn Beck is a fair representation of the LDS Church.

Point 2:  What is more important, fine factual nuances, or life improving principles? 

The article focuses on two facts, one commentator, and one audience member. Absolutely terrible in terms of analysis.  If I presented this at work, I would get fired.

This article seems to suggest that Glenn Beck is a fair representation of the LDS Church.

No.  It doesn’t.  It says (not “suggests”) that Glenn Beck has no idea what he is talking about when it comes to the Council of Nicaea and that somebody who gets history so egregiously wrong here is likely not a reliable guide to history elsewhere.

Point 2  Getting the basics of early Christian history is not a “fine factual nuance”.  It is to get completely wrong the meaning of Jesus Christ, and therefore to found your “life improving principle” on sand.

Holy smokes. I know very little about Beck, but this is one eye-opening salvo. Anyone capable of talking through his hat which such assurance on any subject where he is so massively mistaken shouldn’t be taken as a reliable guide of his own sidewalk, let alone anything controversial.

It appears the majority of the comments are being made by liberals who obviously feel threatened by Glenn Beck.  He may have this wrong about the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Council of Nicea, but he is right on about the progressive agenda and how they changed our country’s history.  If Glenn is proved wrong - and Mark is one who has called him on this - and he is made aware of this - he will apologize.  In fact, almost nightly, he begs viewers and especially this White House to call him and point out how he is wrong.  One time he actually apologized for a remark.  Everything he speaks about are not his “opinion” as he uses quotes and video proof of what he speaks.  They use their own words for Glenn to “connect the dots”.  Liberals are running scared and want people like Glenn, Rush and conservative radio and TV silenced.  But they have done a favor and woken up the majority of conservative Americans to the truth!  Keep it up, Glenn!

Yes.  That’s it.  It’s not that Glenn Beck’s historical claims were documentably and disastrously wrong.  It’s because liberals are feeling threatened.

As I say, pay heed to Paul’s warning about listening to what your itching ears want to hear.

Patti:  Feel free to contact Beck, send him a link to this piece, and demand a retraction.  Ask him to document his claims.

If I want to get history lessons from listening to the radio, I’ll chose Catholic Answers Live as a source over Glenn Beck any day.

Have you sent Glenn Beck a copy of this history lesson?

Ok, so Glenn Beck may not be an authority on Religion. That is not why most people watch him. The facts that he gives concerning the radical agenda of the Obama administration is another animal entirely. His research on Obama’s associates and czars, radicals all, some avowed communists(i.e.Van Jones)has not been challanged or refuted.
That is why most watch Glenn beck…as afra s I know the man never claimed to be an expert or authority on Religion.

as afra s I know the man never claimed to be an expert or authority on Religion

Dude.  That’s exactly what the guy is doing in *this very clip*.  He is holding forth with magisterial authority to instruct his caller, and Stu and all those ignoramuses who don’t know what the Dead Sea Scrolls are and why they were there.  He is claiming the mantle of expertise here and he has no freakin’ idea what he’s talking about.

I think Mark’s point is simply that anyone who can be so wrong on so many points of history is not a reliable source on anything. The sad fact is that too many Americans are ignorant of history and accept things as true simply because they hear it on TV or read it in a book (“The DaVinci Code” is riddled with historical error aside from the nonsense it asserts, yet many people really do believe it is accurate). Whether it’s the Crusades, the Inquisition, etc., etc., Catholics go on the defensive because they don’t know the full story.

The bottom line is that we need to read up on history, especially church history to defend where there is a defense. We have enough real scandal, unfortunately, without manufacturing more.

Mr. Shea, an excellent expose on the media-clown that is Glenn Beck, which is not to say that some of his supposed view-points don’t gel with mine. I don’t care what the man may seem to get right sometimes, however, because he is a charlatan, just like every other talking-head on any of the MSM networks, from left to right. Stop watching TV, people! Better to read a book, one on the Dead Sea Scrolls, for instance. If you have enough time to watch TV more than one day a week, maybe you should consider going out and evangelizing for the Kingdom of God.

Quick note: “Personally I despise religion.” - Ingyrd—> Everybody has “religion” Ingyrd, even you. You despise a part of yourself. How about you figure out what your religion is, then compare and contrast with what the Church believes?

Really excellent article, thank you so much!  Although I must say, I do love reading Glenn Beck’s hatemail. ;)

Mark Shea:
Dude, I don’t care about Glen Beck’s take on the Dead Sea Scrolls…get it. I spent 25 years in law enforcement and am a natural skeptic when it comes to politics and related pundits. Glen beck has painted a dire picture of the radical/socialist Obama administration which has yet to be challanged or refuted. Thing is, It does not surprise me, as I did all of the research when the largely unknown Obama was a candidate. Something didn’t smell right about his acsendency to the nation’s highest office with so little experience and a lifetime surrounded by the most radical, anarchist types. Beck only confirms what I already knew. Because Beck was wrong about the Dead Sea Scrolls doesn’t make him wrong on every issue.
His research on the Obama machine has been immpeccable. He even challanges those mentioned to call and prove him wrong…still waiting for the call. And hey dude, your repeating my previous typo shows real class. Let me guess, you’re an Obama supporter?

You article is just brilliant. I like Glen Beck, but his cavalier attitude, and arrogance, will make me think twice in the future. He has great insigts, bur his coments on the Deed Sea scrolls, that I heard
it, and the clear explanations that you make, are earth shattering. I read your coments all the time at New Advent wabe page.Thank you

And hey dude, your repeating my previous typo shows real class. Let me guess, you’re an Obama supporter?

It’s called “cutting and pasting”.  Re: my supposed support for Obama:  Not in the slightest.  But nice tribal response.

Look. You can make excuses for the guy all you want.  But the reality is that he *does* set himself up as an expert on things about which he knows absolutely nothing, despite your claim that he doesn’t claim expertise in religion.  The fact that he, ‘ow you say, “only confirms what you already knew” is, yet again, a reason to pay attention to Paul’s warning about false prophets who tells you what your itching ears want to hear.  There are lots and lots of sound people out there from whom you can get an education in history that can equip you to deal with the disastrous policies of the Obama Administration.  Reasoning “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” and anointing a crank like Beck as a reliable guide to history is just a train wreck waiting to happen.  Why not learn from somebody who knows what they are talking about?

Shea:
Well let’s wait for the train wreck. So far it hasn’t come. Believe me, there are surely a multitude of Obama minions working overtime to dig up dirt on him. The point is, Dead Sea Scrolls aside, his research on the Obama radical train is right on. Anyone who does an ounce of research On Obama’s mysterious rise to power, his associations,(Rev Wright, Saul Alinsky student, Bill Ayers…even his own Books, has to agree that something smells here. To deny that is to be less than honest. Obama is a self-confessed globalist with the backing of george Soros et al. He cares little for the founding values and the constution. He was weened in politics by the corrupt Chicago machine. How about this quote from his book Audacity of Hope…“I will stand with the Muslims if the political winds shift in an ugly direction”. There is more, much more, but you just keep focusing on Glen Beck’s misguided take on the Dead Sea Scrolls. The train wreck will come but it won’t be the one you expect.
“Contra factum non argumentum est” ...Thomas Aquinas
Against the truth there is no argument.

Dan:

Somehow you keep talking as though criticizing the quack history of Glenn Beck constitutes an endorsement of Obama.  Why do you do that?

Shea:
You know as well as I that under the surface that is exactly what this is about. To discredit Beck and his expose of Obama. Are the Dead Sea Scrolls and Beck’s take on them so important otherwise? Read between the lines there Shea, I know that you are capable…

No, Dan.  It’s not.  What it’s about (for me) is the embarrassing spectacle of Catholics who are *drowning* in good resources for learning about history (many from reliable Catholic sources) choosing to batten on some guy who knows nothing and exalting him as a leading intellectual and guide.  Beck’s twaddle about the Dead Sea Scrolls is of a piece with Dan Brown’s twaddle.  That you don’t see this and instead choose to shoehorn everything into a prefab Culture War scenario full of shadowy “Obama supporters” motivated by partisan malice and not by a simple interest in getting facts straight is sad.

Ok Mark, I’ll take your word for it but if you don’t think that many of those criticizing Beck on here have other motives then I would have to say that you are naive. After all, how many shows does beck do on religion? His focus has been, and is, on corrupt government and where it is taking us.

Hmm, Glenn Beck and torture - two things that seems to rob Mark Shea of clear thought and charity.  I wonder why that is?  I suppose we all have our hot buttons.  Thing is, I am not shure why he thinks others are so interested in his diatribes.  Glenn is doing important work, he doesn’t have to get everything right.  He is digging into history and coming up with some great stuff about our country’s roots.  I do like to hear Bill Federer more, but Glenn is connecting the dots about what is happening to day.  Give him credit for having the courage to speak out.
We have a pasture who holds some views that are herectical.  However, he is a deeply prayerful priest and offers much spiritual insight.  Maybe I should just through him under the bus because he has some things, important things, wrong.  What do you think?

“Hmm, Glenn Beck and torture - two things that seems to rob Mark Shea of clear thought and charity … Glenn is doing important work, he doesn’t have to get everything right.”
 
Beyond parody. Glenn Beck goes Dan Brown Cloud Cuckoo-Land on the Council of Nicea, but he’s doing Important Work so who cares if he makes forgivable little mistakes? It’s kind of like saying who cares if my brain surgeon thinks that my lungs are in my abdomen? What does a mistake about my lungs have to do with his ability to operate on my brain? But when Mark writes that torture is bad, clear thought goes out the window! As for charity, Blake, the measure we give is the measure we get.
 
“We have a pasture who holds some views that are herectical.  However, he is a deeply prayerful priest and offers much spiritual insight.  Maybe I should just through him under the bus because he has some things, important things, wrong.”
 
Depends on two things. First, how important? The standard of more good than harm isn’t perfection, but that doesn’t mean there’s no standard. Second, what exactly do you mean by “throwing someone under the bus”? That’s a metaphor that’s gotten quite a workout lately. Is deciding that you don’t want to be pastored by a heretic and going to another church “throwing someone under the bus”?

You can say whatever you like about Glenn Beck.  Some of it many be true and some may not.  But you have to give him credit for exposing the progressive liberals, socialists, Marxists, and communists in the Obama administration and elsewhere in this country.  Who else was willing to do so?  Not anyone in the mainstream media.  They are totally biased.  Beck has done a service to the American people by waking them up to what is going on in our government.  For that, I thank him.

Point well-taken (your article).  Agreed.  Really, it’s a mistake to take pretty much anything one hears or reads in the media as fact.  But, on balance, I think perhaps it’s better to have Beck “out there” than to not have him “out there.”
 
1)  Most people have neither the time nor the inclination to “do the work” necessary to really learn the facts from more trustworthy sources.
2)  IMO, there is a significant, liberal bias in the media and Beck at least usually helps to balance that.
3)  IMO, the left in this country is more harmful than the right at this juncture.

That being said, I do disdain the fact that people like Beck (or Maddow and Olbermann, et al on the left) tend to reflexively polarize the populace on seemingly every issue – often oversimplifying or otherwise mischaracterizing issues in the process.
 
But sometimes, things really are black and white and people need to be energized to take action against that which is wrong.  In such cases, Beck’s approach is helpful and effective.  But many (most?) of the time, things aren’t quite so simple and the polarization just makes constructive debate and consideration that much more difficult (especially when supposed “facts” aren’t really “facts” at all!).  I wish there were better commentators out there who could both simplify complex issues and make it less torturous for the “average Joe.” 

I know your article didn’t touch on these points, but I thought they were worth mentioning.

Did you know???  Constantine had invited all 1800 bishops of the Christian church (about 1000 in the east and 800 in the west), but a lesser and unknown number attended. Eusebius of Caesarea counted 220,  Athanasius of Alexandria counted 318,  and Eustathius of Antioch counted 270 (all three were present at the council). Later, Socrates Scholasticus recorded more than 300,  and Evagrius,  Hilarius,  Jerome and Rufinus recorded 318. Delegates came from every region of the Roman Empire except Britain.

So.. all in all.. if you took the largest number and divided it by 1000 that means that a small 31% of these Bishops are the ones who decided what the divine nature of Christ was going to be.  And of course you know that the vote was NOT unanimous… so there were Bishops who left the council who’s beliefs did not match the ultimate decision of the council.  Imagine going to a council meeting and being told what you believe is not what you will teach.  And this.. all because of a majority vote???  What if the majority was wrong? After all.. did not the Church at one time teach the earth was flat?

What is interesting is that for about two months, the two sides argued and debated, with each appealing to Scripture to justify their respective positions. According to many accounts, debate became so heated that at one point, Arius was slapped in the face by Nicholas of Myra, who would later be canonized and became better known as “Santa Claus”.  :-)

So when we look at all the “Councils” that were held for this or that.. is understandable that one can easily become confused.

The first “canon” was the Muratorian Canon, which was compiled in A.D. 170. The Muratorian Canon included all of the New Testament books except Hebrews, James, and 3 John. In A.D. 363, the Council of Laodicea stated that only the Old Testament (along with the Apocrypha) and the 27 books of the New Testament were to be read in the churches. The Council of Hippo (A.D. 393) and the Council of Carthage (A.D. 397) also affirmed the same 27 books as authoritative.

And for those that are not Catholic..

New Testament Books which are now accepted by Christians, but which were for a time rejected, are Hebrews, James, 1 Peter, 2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John, Jude, Revelation.

Books now excluded from the canon, but which are found in some of the older manuscripts of the New Testament, are Shepherd of Hermas, Epistle of Barnabas, 1 Clement, 2 Clement, Paul’s Epistle to Laodiceans, Apostolic Constitutions.

Books accepted as canonical by some Jews, and for most part by the Greek and Roman Catholic churches, but rejected by the Protestants, are Baruch, Tobit, Judith, Book of Wisdom, Song of the Three Children, History of Susanna, Bel and the Dragon, Prayer of Manasseh, Ecclesiasticus, 1 Esdras, 2 Esdras, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, 3 Maccabees, 4 Maccabees, 5 Maccabees.

There are lost books of the bible, which should have been included into the canon. These books are cited by writers of the Bible, and they are: Book of the Wars of the Lord, Book of Jasher, Book of the Covenant, Book of Nathan, Book of Gad, Book of Samuel, Prophecy of Ahijah, Visions of Iddo, Acts of Uzziah, Acts of Solomon, Three Thousand Proverbs of Solomon, A Thousand and Five Songs of Solomon, Chronicles of the Kings of Judah, Chronicles of the Kings of Israel, Book of Jehu, and the Book of Enoch.

But hey.. who knew?

What ever happened to the Gospels according to Jade, Peter, Thomas, James,  and the Gospel of the Hebrews, of the Preaching of Peter, of Perfection, of the Infancy, of the Egyptians,  of Judas, of Thaddeus,  of the Shepherd of Hermas, the Epistle of Barnabas, the Pastor of Hermas, the Revelation of Peter, the Revelation of Paul, the Epistle of Clement, the Epistle of Ignatius, the Gospel of Nicodemus and of Marcion, or the Gospel of Mary? They were all not considered inspired (or inspired enough). They did not get the votes they needed to be included. There were also the Acts of Pilate, of Andrew, of Mary, of Paul and Thecla, and many others. Had the bishops at the Council of Laodicea in 365 voted differently, millions of Christians would have believed differently.

The vote of the one is the belief of all the others.

Mark,
After the last comment, isn’t it about time to close on poor Glenn?  Let’s try praying for him so he comes home again to his Catholic faith.  He exhorts everyone each night to “get down on your knees and pray for this country” and “searches for the truth that our founding fathers gave their lives for that all our rights come from our Creator (God!) and not the government” and that we must look to the virtues of faith, hope and charity.  He encourages his audience to read about the founding fathers.  He challenges his audience to not believe what he says, but to research for themselves.  How bad can that be?!

I wholeheartedly concur with Patti!

Amen Patti, point is: noone claims that Beck is a prophet. Hence Paul’s warning doesn’ apply. He is a news commentator who supplies useful insight and information into where the radical Obama administration intends to take this nation. We should all be paying attention.

I don’t get my info on the Catholic faith from Glenn Beck. I am intelligent enough not to get it from Mark Shea either.

Bing, just wanted to correct you with the Catholic understanding of God, the Blessed Trinity.  The Trinity is defined as three Persons, One God.  Being pure spirit, there was no body until Jesus took flesh.  He was “in the beginning” with the Father and the Holy Spirit.  At a particular time time in history, he became true man while at the same time remaining true God.  (The technical term being “hypostatic union”).  He did not cease being God or “part” of the Trinity.  (“Do you not know that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me?”).  After the crucifixion, Jesus’ physical (and now glorified) body rose from the dead, so one Person in the Blessed Trinity does have a body.

I’m not sure what you mean about not having passion.  I have not heard that phrase, so I don’t know what definition of the word you are using.  However, since “God is Love”, using the definition of “feelings”, you would have an incorrect understanding of the Catholic belief.

Now, getting a bit away from my knowledge level, I do believe that the mainstream Protestants share the above belief of the Trinity with Catholics and use that belief as the “minimum” definition of “Christianity”.

Seems like an easy enough mistake to make and didn’t warrant the comment “he’s a crank who doesn’t know what he’s talking about”. Is that all you got Mark Shea?

“I don’t get my info on the Catholic faith from Glenn Beck.”
 
Funny, Mark wasn’t calling Beck on misinformation about the Catholic faith. He was calling him about misinformation—Dan Brown Cloud-Cuckoo-Land level misinformation—about HISTORY.
 
“Seems like an easy enough mistake to make”
 
Like eating poison mushrooms, maybe. It doesn’t make the consequences any less devastating. And it’s enough to disqualify Beck as any thinking person’s field guide to pretty much anything, certainly in the realm of HISTORY. Not to say he doesn’t find a truffle now and then. Like, you know, a blind pig.

“Mistake?”  A mistake would be “The Council of Nicaea was held in 325 BC” followed by an accurate account of the Council and its proceedings.  This was a man confidently announcing he would instruct the ignorant masses and then getting everything—absolutely everything about the history of the Council and of the Dead Sea Scrolls—completely wrong. 

Saying “Washington surrendered to Cornwallis, oops!  I mean Cornwallis surrendered to Washington” is a mistake.  Saying “Abraham Lincoln had Washington executed for the crime of hiding secret messages to the Confederacy in a little known set of documents called the Federalist Papers, which were hidden away in caves after Lincoln attacked Germany in World War I” is not a mistake.  It’s evidence of complete incompetence and untrustworthiness.  Beck’s uber-confident pronouncements about the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Council of Nicaea are just as ridiculous as if I were to make the foolish claims above about Washington and Lincoln.  They should set off alarm bells for people who are hoping to get an education in history.  The reason they don’t is because Beck appears to be an ideological ally who tells us what we want to hear about contemporary political enthusiasms, so we reason “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” and just don’t bother to care too much when he demonstrates that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about and is a very frail reed for Catholics to lean on if they are in search of an actual education in history.

“Saying “Abraham Lincoln had Washington executed for the crime of hiding secret messages to the Confederacy in a little known set of documents called the Federalist Papers, which were hidden away in caves after Lincoln attacked Germany in World War I” is not a mistake.  It’s evidence of complete incompetence and untrustworthiness.”
 
Spot on.

Mark, your last post in this thread is a perfect rebuttal of why Beck isn’t trustworthy, ultimately.

Look, while he may, occasionally, shill books (eg: The Forgotten Man) that get history right, his lack of historical consistency must be serious cause for one to stop to think, critically, about everything the man says. I watch Beck very occasionally & I take everything he says with an ENORMOUS grain of salt; the same with all the TV political talking heads.

News Flash: They are entertainers first! Their shows are, as all TV shows are, ratings driven. The bigger the ratings when certain subjects are discussed, the more of those discussions the likes of Beck, O’Riley, Olbermann, Matthews, etc, will have in hopes of getting more big ratings.

Mainstream media, in general, just isn’t trustworthy, on either side of the political spectrum.

I was turned on to Beck by a devout Catholic but there was always something that did not feel quite right. Maybe some of us (big maybe)can tell fact from fiction with these guys (Beck types)but some can’t and I just can’t support that. On the other hand I have found Mark Shea reliable(truth can be a real buzz kill sometimes). I see a lot of people disagreeing with Mark but not much in the way of factual rebuttal.

I do not look to Glenn Beck for Catholic or any other religious teachings. However, I think he is an extremely credible source as to what is going on in our Government. Why don’t you try to prove him wrong on political matters? Beck is exposing the ugly truth that is the Obama Administration and no one seems to care about that.

You should be more concerned about our so-called Catholic elected officials spewing untruths about the Catholic Faith.

Beck likes to quote the founding fathers and I believe John Adams said something like “Truth can be a stubborn thing”.

If Beck is just being careless with his facts he needs to be more careful but because of his arrogance it seems he’s just plain wrong. And for the record- I am what people would call conservative and not an Obama supporter.

“I do not look to Glenn Beck for Catholic or any other religious teachings.”
 
People keep saying this. It’s not RELIGIOUS TEACHINGS. It’s HISTORY. Reread Mark’s Washington/Lincoln analogy ... it’s accurate.

Sir, Your comment “but neither are they Christians.’ regarding the Mormans seems to run contrary to The Catholic Book Of Knowledge, copyright 1958 Imprimatur Samuel Cardinal Stritch, Archbishop of Chicago Jan 6, 1958, page 481 states the “They are a Christian sect———-”.  How do we deal with this??

By not endowing obscure reference texts with the charism of infallibility.

You should be more concerned about our so-called Catholic elected officials spewing untruths about the Catholic Faith.

Actually, I am.  But I am also concerned that Catholic seem to think they can deal with this problem by educating themselves via quacks who are manifestly incompetent to educate them in actual history.  It’s like treating Dan Brown as your ally against Richard Dawkins.  He’s not an atheist and he does mention Jesus, so let all sit at his feet and learn from him.  And anybody who criticizes him must *really* be a supporter of Dawkins.

How about this instead:  Don’t make yourself a disciple of Pelosi *or* Beck.  Try learning about the Faith and the Public Square and History from people who know what they are talking about.  Stop assuming that opposition to Beck’s quackery constitutes support for your ideological enemies.  Think it possible that some of us just want history to be competently taught by people who know what they are talking about.

@Dan McNeil: 

“How about this quote from his book Audacity of Hope…“I will stand with the Muslims if the political winds shift in an ugly direction”.”

No such quote appears in that book, Dan.  You’re repeating misinformation found in email forwards.  You should apply some of that vaunted skepticism you supposedly gained from 25 years in law enforcement to the email forwards that appear in your inbox.

Here’s an analysis of that silly “I will stand with the Muslims” falsehood: 
http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/did_obama_write_that_he_would_stand.html

There’s plenty of rational reasons to disagree with Obama’s centrist policies—why make stuff up?

“IMO, there is a significant, liberal bias in the media and Beck at least usually helps to balance that.”

Really?  My Dad always taught me that two wrongs don’t make a right, and if you believe that there’s a “liberal media” out there skewing things, I don’t see how Beck skewing things helps balance anything.  Seems we’d be better off researching facts ourselves than blindly repeating the misinformation that, for whatever reason, happens to appeal to us.  (and that goes for anyone, wherever they may fall on the political spectrum)

kcpunky:

Precisely my point.  If Beck is such a quack when holding forth magisterially on the Dead Sea Scrolls, Nicaea, and the early Church, why are his devotees so dead certain he’s a reliable fount of information on their political enthusiasms?  People wind up citing authoritative “quotes” and urban legends, not because they are true, but because they are useful.  Then, somebody comes along and shows that the “quote” is rubbish and you are faced with a choice, admit you don’t know what you are talking about or go on saying things like “Well, I don’t care cuz I know Obama’s bad!” (which looks silly and ill-informed) or passing from making mistakes to promulgating useful lies.

In the words of Mark Twain, “Tell the truth.  Then you don’t have to remember what you said.”

Part of what makes telling the truth easier is “getting information from sources that are both useful *and* reliable.”  There are lots of ways to critique the Obama Administration that don’t commit us to getting our information from a crank who doesn’t know what he’s talking about when he confidently assures us that he is going to educate the ignorant masses about History.

@ kcpunky:

“There’s plenty of rational reasons to disagree with Obama’s centrist policies—why make stuff up?”

What????????  Obama a centrist? That’s like saying Hitler was uncomfortable around Jews.  Can you at least be honest about president Obama’s rush to socialism?  Just because he hasn’t turned over 100% of our economy to the Almighty Federal Government doesn’t mean he’s a centrist. A centrist?  Only a far left loony liberal/progessive would consider Obama a centrist.  Please be intellectually, if not ideologically, honest.

Not to be a pest, but emulating the Beckian tendency to invoke Hitler at the drop of a hat (in this case in order to shout down somebody who pointed out that Beck has uncritically regurgitated a fraudulent quote) does not really help make the case that Beck is a healthy teacher for Catholics trying to learn about history.

Just as one can oppose Obama with out likening him to Hitler, so one can actually oppose his policies without relying on people who don’t know what they are talking about and who uncritically regurgitate documentably fraudulent evidence.  The commandment against bearing false witness against your neighbor isn’t intended just for the neighbor who happens to belong to your political tribe.

How often to you watch him, Mark?  I watch every day.  He doesn’t invoke Hitler “at the drop of a hat” as you state.

He is not a theologian nor is his program about theology.  Does everyone you listen to have to be a saint?  If that were the case your uncharitable article would disqualify you from being read by anyone.

An educated Catholic can see where there are holes in some his positions (as there are in even your positions) as a result of him not being grounded in the Catholic faith.

But he nonetheless does a good job researching and explaining secular matters with regards to the history of progressives in America and their agenda in contemporary politics.  Is he right about everything?  Of course not.  But then, neither are you.

Your article reads like something one might expect from the huffington post.

It’s a bit amusing (and also a bit sad) to see just how many responses here essentially just mirror the title of the post.

Also, if you want a funny look at Beck’s rather insane and off-kilter invocations of Hitler, Lewis Black makes hay here:

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/lewis-black-glenn-beck-uses-more-nazi-imagery-than-the-history-channel/

Beck even manages to invoke the Nazis when attacking the Peace Corps, weirdly enough.

Glenn Beck is perhaps doing the most important work of any individual in the country at this time. No one can match his impact in terms of bringing to our attention the anti-American, anti-Christian motives and maneuverings of this administration, and in terms of galvanizing national focus on the Constitution and the Founding Fathers. Mark Shea shows his pettiness, his supercilious pedantry, as per usual. Mark Shea’s puerile attack makes one wonder: Is Shea Maureen Dowd in drag?

Cuz Maureen Dowd is all about expecting accuracy from self-anointed Teachers of the Masses who radically distort Catholic history.

Tribalism lives!  Who cares if Beck knows what he’s talking about, just so long as he lands some punches on Dave’s ideological enemies.

Glenn Beck is perhaps doing the most important work of any individual in the country at this time.

Nope.  Nobody anointing Beck as a magisterial authority.  Critical intellects fully engaged.

Quite excellent. I am not in agreement with all the conclusions found in your other articles, but his one hits the nail right on the head. Thank you for furthering the cause of intelligent, informed, discourse with such aplomb.

Tribalism. A Dowdian flourish, that. My ideological enemies? Aren’t they yours as well? Are you contending that he is wrong in his year-long expose of this cabal harboring evil plans for our nation? So out with it: what are your views on this administration?

@Dave

The very fact that you consider such people to be your enemies rather than folks of differing opinion entirely backs up Mark Shea’s mention of tribalism.

Discussion should be the search for truth, or a solution, not a battle of wills where victory is attained by cheering on repugnance as a means to an end. Ignorance is still ignorance, and Mark has the integrity to call it out even when it is exhibited by his ‘ally’ in a given debate.

Beck is a fraud, nothing more, making money via the manipulation of public ignorance. Indeed, his incoherent ramblings and shockingly inaccurate assertions merely adds fuel to the fire of his (and your) opponents. He embarrasses Christians, libertarians and conservatives alike. If you truly value the views you feel he champions, then you will stop perpetuating the blind adoration which sets him up as a poster-child in the first place.

Tribalism lives on, so long as you continue to do this.

Lodatzor & Shea are utterly dismissive of Beck, so I come to his defense. I ask Lodatzor & Shea: What are your views of this administration? In regards to the constellation of individuals and organizations that Beck has been exposing & linking, always using their own words, do you see them as a danger to the Republic? Can you specify where Beck has been in error in regards to this multitude of individuals and organizations? Lodatzor says: “Beck is a fraud, nothing more…” Shea says Beck is a “a crank who doesn’t know what he’s talking about…” so I take that to mean you both disagree with all that he has raised about this cabal. I must conclude that you are Liberal Progressives? I say this because comments like yours are easily found across the internet espoused by Liberal Progressives. I find it incongruous that Catholics faithful to the Magisterium could defend this administration in any way. This administration champions abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, homosexuality, and atheistic socialism. For the life of me, I cannot understand how you are unable to say: Beck’s theology is warped so I will pay no attention to it, but Beck’s unmasking of this anti-American network is valuable information that the public is not hearing anywhere else. Think for a moment of the constant stream of authors and experts that he brings on, the books he promotes, the discussions he has fostered across the country. Do you, Shea & Lodatzor, find no value in any of this? Do you see no danger from this administration? Yes, Fr. Jaki is the authority for that intersection of science and religion, and St. Peter Julian and Father Hardon are the authorities for the Real Presence, and Warren Carrol is the authority for Church History, and Fr. Stravinskas is the authority for rubrics of Holy Mass, and Joseph Scheidler is the authority for prolife issues. Glenn Beck has nothing to offer a Catholic in areas of our faith. Can you not give him credit for revealing things about the people in this administration, putting himself and his family at risk?

Please could someone tell me why so many of my Catholic brothers and sisters constantly quote Glen Beck, Rush, and other conservative talking heads and NEVER quote any recent encyclicals or remarks from Pope Benedict, John Paul II or Pope Paul regarding the economy, social justice, war etc.?

That’s a good question, Anne.  A really good question.

It’s also simply odd how diligently they trade in misrepresentations and outright falsehoods in painting the Obama administration as a boogeyman, rather than offering an honest counterposition to actual policies they may disagree with.  It’s always easier (and lazier) to paint their perceived “enemies” with a broad brush, demonizing them as “the other.”

Beck certainly does that—but at least he has the justification that he’s making money hand over fist telling people what they want to hear, truth be damned.  Why are so many lapping up whatever drivel he dishes out, and paying him for the favor?

Thanks for your comment Bill…I feel disenfranchised in this country because neither party reflects the true wisdom of Catholic social teaching. Traditionally, Catholics were Democrats and I understand why they left the party in droves after abortion was an approved part of the party’s platform. However, there has been a frightening turnabout in the rejection of so many truths found in the venerable teachings of the Church and in its place an acceptance of the magesterium according to extreme right wing philosophies.

I like Founding Fathers Fridays.  If that makes me a stupid idiot lemming, so be it.  It would only be so anyway because some other self righteous idiot had to say it about me.  And that my friends is hateful.  So I’d rather be part of the “looked down upon” crowd for believing the possibility that we are heading for serfdom and keeping my eyes open, than sitting on a high horse and “looking down”.  Mr. Shea I really like you.  Please don’t look down on me because I watch Glenn Beck and find him entertaining and informative at times.  I don’t look to him for my faith.  I leave that to people like you.

After spending over 20 years in Evangelical Protestantism and finally coming back home to my Catholic Faith I too can honestly say that many times I do feel at a lost because much of what Beck shares sounds true but then because of his Mormon faith (and in my mind a false foundation) I question whether he has the rest of this stuff right.  Much of what he says I have heard over and over again throughout the years in the Protestant denominations which don’t take too kindly to Catholics I might say.

I am not happy that there doesn’t seem to be much talk within the Catholic Church about what is happening with our country (other than immigration and abortion) and I am grieved that such a large percentage of Catholics voted for Obama. How could they have been so shallow and blind to him?

Nevertheless I love being back home in my faith and nothing will ever pull me away again. As for Beck, every now and then I listen but each time I do I HEAR more clearly his skewed thinking. I pray for him to find his way back HOME to the Catholic Faith.

@Dave:
You see, when you say things such as: “This administration champions abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, homosexuality, and atheistic socialism” you merely show how far down Beck’s rabbit hole you have strayed. Not a single point in that sentence is true. The Obama Administration (nor indeed the Democratic party) have pushed for any expansion of abortion rights, there has been no issue raised over euthanasia, there have been no edicts about homosexuality or gay marriage and there is nothing whatsoever to substantiate this accusation of atheistic socialism.
It’s all bunk, sir, and has been debunked countless times over by people with a demonstrably better grasp of the facts than Glen Beck.
If you disagree with Obama over the proper role of government, then that is fine. If you disagree with the Democrats over regulation of Wall Street, then that is fine. If you feel that the tax burden is placed inappropriately upon the rich, then that is fine. You will not find me agreeing with a single one of those objections, but you are at least perfectly able to differ in opinion and present your argument as best you can.
But when you (by you, I really mean Beck, Hannity, Limbaugh and co) flagrantly lie about things to sensationalize them and get the most outrageous bang for your rhetorical buck, then you invalidate the conversation. Beck does this on a daily basis, and is full of just as much rubbish when it comes to politics and history as he is when it comes to religion. Sorry.
Both Bill and Anne above have given far more measured reasons for their dislike/distrust of Obama without having to resort to the hysterical bull that Beck exhibits. That, again, I do not agree with some of their concerns is irrelevant; their concerns are valid and grounded in reality.
As I said before, any person who truly values their faith and their views knows better than to get behind a fraudulent buffoon who is seeking to get rich. As THEY said before, you would do far better to seek out the words and statements of venerated figures such as John Paul II for guidance.

Lodatzor: How can you claim that “not a single point in the following sentence is true”:  ‘This administration champions abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, homosexuality, and atheistic socialism.’”?

Obama promised Planned Parenthood and other pro abortion groups—and he’s been recorded on video tape stating this—that he would make the Freedom of Choice Act a priority. Are you not aware that this would expand abortion by eliminating current restrictions on abortion passed by the states? Do you not remember the postcard campaign of the USCCB immediately after his election that asked Congress not to pass FOCA?

On Homosexuals: he likewise promised the Gay rights groups—again, captured on video—expanding rights for them. By Presidential Proclamation, June is Gay pride Month!!!

More subtle are his championing government healthcare that would ration care for the elderly—if not outright euthanasia, a step toward it.

Infanticide: as a state senator in Illinois he single-handedly knocked down a bill that would have saved babies who survived abortion!

This is not Glenn Beck saying this, but the USCCB and words out of his own mouth!

I don’t need Glenn Beck to tell me the above. but you need to wake up if you think the above sentence is not true on a single point.

@Joanne S:
Well, for one thing the Freedom of Choice Act has still not even come to the table, despite this famous promise of candidate Obama, so I’m guessing it isn’t his highest priority. Indeed, it seems it was a ploy to buy votes. ;)
Personally, as a person who is himself Pro-Choice, I have encountered nobody on that side of the issue who thinks Obama is working towards their wishes. Simply being open to something (and doing relatively little about it) does not make one a ‘champion’ for it. If you feel that even considering FOCA is grounds enough to hate the man, well, that’s your business, but to claim that he is some kind of leading figure to the slaughter of babies is sensationalist nonsense.
On homosexuals: promises, promises, eh? You’ve not noticed how angry the Gay community appear to be that not a thing has changed for their rights since he came into office? And naming a single month, in a single year, on the 40 year anniversary of a famous advancement in liberty for this community once again hardly constitutes championship. As with the FOCA matter, if you feel that because Obama does not appear to be anti-gay this is a cause for revulsion, then that is your opinion. It does not make him their White Knight.
Euthanasia: I am sorry, but that is poppycock. Rationing of care for the elderly is a time-honored tradition in America—it’s called being dropped by your insurance company because you are too old. Secondly, this healthcare bill does not achieve any rationing of healthcare for the elderly at all. I challenge you to provide me with information to the contrary. The death panels were a myth, friend. If they had really been there Fox News would have broadcast the exact language from the bill 24/7. Instead they, like everyone else, were curiously unable to point to it when they were asked to. ;)
Infanticide: You’re not being honest, here. The bill that Obama voted against in Illinois was a bill which was being presented to further limit the ability of doctors to make judgment calls. There was legislation already in place which directed that doctors were required to protect the life of any infant who showed vital signs outside of the womb. The legislation which Obama ‘struck down’ would have forced doctors to favor the life of infants which were not medically expected to survive over the life of the mother. That is not ‘infanticide’. Sensationalism rears its garish head once again.
Sorry, the sentence was still not true. It was pure demonization based on very shaky interpretation of events. If you disagree with any of Obama’s decisions, then cool beans, but labels are poor fare by way of argument.

Poppycock is right:

Health Insurance Reform will end current forms of rationing, not expand it.

First, there is widespread rationing in today’s system. Right now, decisions about what doctor you can see and what treatment you can receive are made by insurance companies, which routinely deny coverage because of cost or the insurance company rules. Health reform will do away with many of those rules that result in rationing today.

Health Insurance Reform will prevent insurance companies from denying coverage because you have a pre-existing condition; prevent them for canceling coverage because you get sick; ban annual and lifetime limits on coverage, which often force people to pay huge sums out of pocket if they develop a serious illness; and prevent discrimination based on gender.

With health insurance reform, we will also put treatment decisions back into the hands of doctors in consultation with their patients.

One of the reasons we spend too much on health care today is that our incentives are perverse: Doctors are paid by the procedure, rather than for quality. We want reform that rewards quality of care not quantity of procedures. Having dozens of procedures doesn’t necessarily make you better. In fact they can make you worse. Right now roughly 100,000 Americans die every year from medical errors, which, in many cases, were the result of treatments that were wrong for them. We want to reduce preventable hospital re-admissions that are frequently caused because patients are not getting the right care in the first place. We want to give doctors the ability to make the best treatment decisions for you and your family.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/faq#r1

Dave:

So out with it: what are your views on this administration?

I think Obama an incompetent and amateur President and did not vote for him.  I don’t vote for candidates who promise to involve me in intrinsic grave evil.

However, that’s neither here nor there, despite the fact that you want to don your Grand Inquisitor hat and make this conversation about your suspicion that I am vehemently suspect of heresy against Fox News.  My point is that Obama could be Stalin and you’d still be ill-advised to make yourself the disciple of a somebody who presumes to act as Educator of the Masses and then lays such a spectacular goose egg of ignorance.  Your fact free response is to call names and to accuse Beck’s critic (who has produced, you know, facts and stuff to rebut his historical quackery) is to say, “I bet you’re one of THEM.  Prove you ain’t!”

Get out of the ideological bubble.  Just because the guy is useful to your particular tribe doesn’t mean he knows what he’s talking about.

Lodatzor:

You have to be kidding.  Obama is not an ardent proponent of abortion?  Just because he hasn’t signed FOCA does not mean his views and actions are compatible with Catholic teaching.  Or do you really suppose Elena Kagan was chosen because he hopes she will overturn Roe?  But then, you don’t care about Catholic teaching on this matter either.

I don’t think Beck is a fraud.  I think he is a self-taught would be intellectual who is working through his own issues and demons, all while trying to cobble together an understanding of history without knowing how to do it.  He would have been well-served by getting a real education, but instead he went into radio and TV.  Now he’s in the eye of a huge audience and is walking a tightrope between working through those demons, playing crude games of “connect the dots” with various factoids he happens to find (“The Mercury Dime proves Woodrow Wilson was a fascist!”) and trying to impress his audience which now treats him as a Magisterial Authority on whatever he happens to hold forth on today.  Personally, I think the guy is going to flame out one of these days.  He’s not stable.

Jennifer:

I’m sorry you feel “looked down upon.”  In fact, I’m looking up to you.  I’m saying, “You are a daughter of God with a functional brain.  Why fill it with the dubious pontifications of a guy who shows himself to be a spectacular quack when it comes to his knowledge of history?  Why not learn history from reliable historians?  Why eat Big Macs when you can have porter house for free?  All it would take is a little elbow grease.”

Anne really captures my concern:  “Please could someone tell me why so many of my Catholic brothers and sisters constantly quote Glen Beck, Rush, and other conservative talking heads and NEVER quote any recent encyclicals or remarks from Pope Benedict, John Paul II or Pope Paul regarding the economy, social justice, war etc.?”

If this were the National Catholic Reporter, I would say exactly the same thing about those who constantly listen to the ideological prattle of Nancy Pelosi, or the Obamamessiah crowd (though that’s dwindling), or their favorite lefty talking head.  But nobody here does that.  The danger *here* is that people spend so much time treating Glenn Beck or their fave Talk Radio star as pseudo-bishop that they never bother to inform themselves about what the Church teaches concerning the issues of the day.  And when you point that out, they very often react by saying, “So!  You must support Obama!” instead of considering the possibility that some of us just want Catholics to be formed by the Church and not by talking heads who purport to be experts in history and teachers of the masses while making Dan Brown look like Eusebius.

@Mark:
“Just because he hasn’t signed FOCA does not mean his views and actions are compatible with Catholic teaching.”
They don’t have to be. Just because someone does not agree with discrimination does not make them a ‘nigger-lover’, and just because someone questions the atomic bombing of Hiroshima does not make them a ‘Jap-apologist’.
Obama may not adhere to Catholic views, but that does not make him an ardent pursuant of rampant abortion. To take this line or argument is to emulate Beck.
As for Beck, I do not believe that even he believes his rubbish. This is borne out in my mind by the blatant inconsistencies from say he says one month to the next, and the fact that many of his assertions are SO ludicrous that anyone with any kind of access to the information could not possibly have reached this conclusion.
With that in mind, he peddles his lunacy as though it is informed opinion, or daring expose, or whatever he dreams up next, merely for political and lucrative benefit.
I call that a fraud, and have a feeling that Jesus would have cast him out of the Temple in anger.

I’d also make the point that attacking Planned Parenthood as “pro-abortion” muddies the issue unnecessarily.  To be “pro-choice” is not to be “pro-abortion,” and that’s a distinction that we need to make in order to make progress in reducing the number of abortions. 

While I may not agree with the availability or choice of abortion, I believe there’s much common ground that we need to use to meet with our pro-choice brethern, particularly when it comes to working with them to help combat the conditions of poverty and despair and lack of social support (e.g., affordable childcare and healthcare) that make women more inclined to choose abortion, whether legally or illegally.  Working with pro-choice activists to reach the common goal of reducing the frequency of abortions is something we should be doing, even while voicing our strong opposition to abortion itself.

I agree 100% with Bill. Leaving the philosophy and political debates aside to look at mere practicality, there is no evidence to suggest that complete prohibition of abortion will achieve any reduction in its frequency. Indeed, it merely forces those who seek it into a criminal underground.
Prostitution endures and thrives even though it is illegal, and we all know how well prohibition of alcohol worked out. There are many Pro-Choicers out there, like myself, who frown upon abortion itself, and would gladly work with Pro-Lifers on the cause of discouragement. Unless I have misunderstood Mark, I too feel that tribalism is counterproductive in achieving this goal.

Mark Shea & Lodatzor: Now that I have learned more from both of you, I can dispense with my discussion with Lodatzor - I didn’t know pro-abort Libs went to orthodox Catholic sites. But Mark Shea interests me. Could we take ourselves out of this for a moment, and focus on Beck’s bringing to light this cabal of atheistic socialists? Is he in error on these revelations? You have yet to address this point. I concede your point of his inaccuracy on theoliogical points; that’s why I gave the litany of people I do read, do truly admire. I know two of the people on that list personally. I am simply trying to ascertain why you dismiss Beck’s work in totality.

“Just because he hasn’t signed FOCA does not mean his views and actions are compatible with Catholic teaching.”
They don’t have to be.

Yeah.  They do.  At least if you are serious about Catholic social teaching.

By the way, the notion that Beck, for all his faults, is guilty of graver evil than support for the murder of innocent children is, itself, a specimen of tribalism.

By the way, your argument, “Prostitution endures and thrives even though it is illegal, and we all know how well prohibition of alcohol worked out.” is also an excellent argument against all law.  I mean, hey!  Murder’s been illegal since the Cod of Hammurabi.  Rape and theft too.  There’s no point in outlawing them.

And Bill:  Come on:  “To be “pro-choice” is not to be “pro-abortion,””  Of course it is, just as being “pro-choice” on slavery in 1861 was to be pro-slavery.

I concede your point of his inaccuracy on theoliogical points

For the umpteenth time: the *history* of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Nicaea is not a theological point.  It’s a claim about History.  And it’s spectacularly ignorant while parading (as he tends to do) as Magisterial Authority and Educator of the Masses on all things historical.

Having seen him pull these sorts of boners before, as well his constant resort to the Argumentum ad Hitlerum, I pay no more attention to him then I do to Dan Brown.  So I have not analyzed his supposed expose of any “cabals”.  I am allergic to conspiracy theories, especially when they are articulated by somebody whose Dead Sea Scroll Conspiracy Theory is so spectacularly wrong.  I get my history from real historians.

Mark, as anyone could see by the numerous posts I have placed on NCR since it has erected its comboxes, I most certainly do not live my faith diet on strictly Big Macs (Glenn Beck).  I am also an avid reader and consumer of works by Pope B16, Pope JPII, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Dr. Scott Hahn, Jeff Cavins, and Mike Aquilina as well as a subscriber to This Rock, First Things, and Magnificat just to name a few of my favorites.  And I almost forgot, a listener and supporter of Relevant Radio.  And B16 is the one person whom I like to quote the most.  My favorite quote is “reason without faith leads to empty materialism and faith without reason leads to extremism”.  By watching Beck I do not in any way lose my dignity.  And if this is what you believe about people who do, then I would say that my “feelings” of being looked down upon are justified.  Brother, it is okay for you to dislike him.  I am grateful for your apologetic response to his erroneous diatribe about the Dead Sea scrolls.  I knew he was wrong but I most certainly did not have the facts as you have provided for us.  I learned more by listening to both of you than I would have if I had just listened to one or the other, all arrogance aside of course.  If Beck bothers you so much, please by all means continue to show us where he went wrong.  Encourage us to listen to you instead of discouraging us from listening to Beck.  I will continue to read your articles even if I do feel looked down upon.  It’s okay.  I’m used to it, I’m Catholic.  I just offer it as a sacrifice. ?

Lodatzor, you almost had me convinced to take a longer look at Beck, until you revealed your inability to reason when you claimed to be both pro-choice and pro-life.  Now that’s a real oxymoron.

@Mark
“Yeah.  They do.  At least if you are serious about Catholic social teaching.”

And what if one is not? Surely you see the trap you are falling into? You are implying (or appear to be) that Catholicism has a monopoly on correct morality. You are free to think this, naturally, but others are free to think otherwise, having as we do a freedom of religion in this country. The point still stands that one does not have to ‘for’ something in order to recognize the right to choose it. I am very much against the idea of abortion. Does this make me a bad person then if I am also against the idea of imposing my opinion on others? Whether you mean to or not, your argument is suggesting that I am. That’s the same issue of tribalism that we’ve been discussing.
“By the way, the notion that Beck, for all his faults, is guilty of graver evil than support for the murder of innocent children is, itself, a specimen of tribalism.”
I do not recall rating Beck’s fraudulence against the issue of abortion. Please do not invent stances for me to defend when I did not take them in the first place. I have qualified my statement about Beck being a fraud. If you disagree with it, then by all means rebut it, but straw men do not a valid argument make.
“is also an excellent argument against all law.”
I think you are upholding a false equivalence in this instance. Murder is quite obviously a violation of someone’s rights, as is rape and theft. Prostitution is clearly not, unless the prostitute has been forced into this position against her will, which only occurs when the business is illegal. Likewise drinking alcohol is not a violation of anyone’s rights. Thus the laws against murder, rape and theft are correct, whilst laws against prostitution and alcohol are entirely subjective. Would you argue otherwise?
That subjectivity is where the debate regarding such issues comes in. I have opinions on the matter, but unless invited or challenged I will not share them here—there is no need and they would be inappropriate to the conversation. If there are threads/articles of yours which deal with such matters directly, then I would gladly expound upon them. But this thread is/was about Glenn Beck. ;)

@Jennifer O:
“Lodatzor, you almost had me convinced to take a longer look at Beck, until you revealed your inability to reason when you claimed to be both pro-choice and pro-life.  Now that’s a real oxymoron.”
Um, I did not claim to be both. I stated that I am Pro-Choice. If you feel that this invalidates my opinion of Glenn Beck, then I can only surmise that it is your powers of reason which need to be examined. Please explain how my reasoning has been faulty?

By watching Beck I do not in any way lose my dignity.  And if this is what you believe about people who do, then I would say that my “feelings” of being looked down upon are justified.

Jenniferm, I never said or implied any such thing.  What you lose is not your dignity.  What you lose is time that could be spent learning history from a reliable source.

Surely you see the trap you are falling into? You are implying (or appear to be) that Catholicism has a monopoly on correct morality.

No.  That’s a standard lefty misrepresentation.  Saying that the fullness of revelation subsists in the Catholic Church is not saying the Church has a monopoly on morality.  That’s idiotic.  Natural law is present in every human culture and all human beings, even the most depraved, have some sense of right and wrong, even if it can sometimes get very distorted.

My point is not that the Church has a monopoly on morality.  It’s that I believe the Church’s moral teaching and therefore think that our social order should reflect it.  So I don’t vote for politicians who express support for things directly contrary to Catholic moral teaching.  Obama is one such.  So was McCain, by the way.

I think you are upholding a false equivalence in this instance. Murder is quite obviously a violation of someone’s rights, as is rape and theft. Prostitution is clearly not, unless the prostitute has been forced into this position against her will, which only occurs when the business is illegal. Likewise drinking alcohol is not a violation of anyone’s rights. Thus the laws against murder, rape and theft are correct, whilst laws against prostitution and alcohol are entirely subjective. Would you argue otherwise?

You made no mention of violation of rights.  You merely said that if a law fails to eradicate a crime, the solution is to abandon the law.  And, of course, destruction of innocent human life *is* murder.  That’s why the Church opposes abortion. As do I.  Which is why I don’t support pols like Obama who support the taking of innocent human life.

@Mark:
“No.  That’s a standard lefty misrepresentation.”
Um, I disagree. You were saying that in order to be correct on the matter, one must agree with the Catholic viewpoint, or else be one of THEM. I did not misrepresent what you said. The context of my statement is given clearly by the sentences which immediately followed it. At the time of your rebuttal you chose not to include such context, which comes across in exactly the way I described. Please note that I said ‘correct morality’ and not just ‘morality’. You have since backed up my assertion by declaring that you feel society should be reflective of Catholic morality, to which you subscribe. Unless, of course, you are saying that you are subscribing to a moral code which is less correct than another?
“You made no mention of violation of rights.  You merely said that if a law fails to eradicate a crime, the solution is to abandon the law.”
That’s not what I said. I simply gave two examples of occasions in which illegality has failed to achieve the desired result. Once again, the issue of subjectivity is key: abortion is not murder of a child if that child cannot be be scientifically said to be a ‘child’ yet. You, it seems likely would argue that the existence of a soul refutes this notion, but the existence of that soul is not objective fact. It is subjective to your religious views, and people in society are not required to share them. That’s why there’s a big argument about it.
As I implied in my last reply, I would be glad to offer my views on this subject on another thread, one which deals with the matter directly. I did not post on this one to get into a debate about abortion, only to discuss Glenn Beck. I am not sure why you are steering the conversation toward it, when it only came up through discussion of the inaccuracy of Dave’s assertions, which have been inspired by Beck.

You were saying that in order to be correct on the matter, one must agree with the Catholic viewpoint, or else be one of THEM.

No.  I was not.  I was saying that if somebody cares about Catholic teaching, they should vote in accordance with it.  I don’t believe in ideology and regard ideological thinking as a tendency toward heresy.  Heresy is the tendency to take bits and scraps of Catholic teaching that one prefers and exalt them over the fullness of the Faith.  Pro-choice ideology exalts the good of human autonomy over the good of human life.  Catholic teaching respects both in their proper order.  Similarly, right wing ideology exalts certain things (say, the right to self-defense) over the common good.  Hence, a defense of torture has grown up among so-called “conservatives” which is blind to the dignity of the human person.

All ideology does this, which is why I try very hard to repudiate it and stick to the full-orbed teaching of the Church—a teaching which staunchly defends the unborn from the scourge of abortion.

Once again, the issue of subjectivity is key: abortion is not murder of a child if that child cannot be be scientifically said to be a ‘child’ yet.

This is more pro-choice mystical rubbish.  There is no “scientific” definition of “child”. Science is not an oracle revealing personhood. There is, however, a definition of human: an organism that has a human genome.  An unborn baby is not a fish or an amoeba.  It is human.  And as a Catholic, I believe human life is to be cherished and protected, not torn limb from limb.  The question of ensoulment is quite beside the point.

“And Bill:  Come on:  “To be “pro-choice” is not to be “pro-abortion,””  Of course it is, just as being “pro-choice” on slavery in 1861 was to be pro-slavery.”

Again, such a position obscures my overarching point, which is that most folks who style themselves as pro-choice would like to see abortion be a much rarer occurrence, and that there is room to work with them to help eliminate the social conditions that give rise to abortions.  I see such seeking of common ground even with those with whom we disagree as consistent with Catholicism.

Thanks for listening.

@Lodatzer.

Life begins at conception, when, within a few hours, DNA unique to the individual is formed.  It becomes a unique life form.  Left alone, the tiny human being in the womb will develop into a fully grown adult human being, not a rhinocerous or a dalmation or a fern or a piece of sedimentary rock. It is alive; dividing cells on its own, building new tissue and organs, developing into a full fledged person.  As such it has all the dignity inherent in all of us, with the subsequent right to life we all have.  Some people say it’s totally dependant upon its mother to survive in the womb, true enough, but we are dependant upon constant nutrition, water and oxygen intake outside the womb.  It is merely a fact of LIFE.  Any other definition of when life begins is purely subjective.  To procure an abortion is to cut short the life of another human being.  Period.

“I was saying that if somebody cares about Catholic teaching, they should vote in accordance with it.”
Well, sure, that was obvious. But you also implied that if someone does not care about Catholic teaching, then they do not have the correct viewpoint (i.e they are a heretic). That is your opinion, to which you are naturally entitled, but you appeared to be claiming it as definitive, and not open to debate. Perhaps you felt that this was appropriate given then nature of the website, but you do also later say that you are wary of ideology, which is belied by your stance taken above. The two are not compatible; religion is by definition ideological.
“Pro-choice ideology exalts the good of human autonomy over the good of human life.”
That is your opinion. I have a different one, and could argue quite easily that is is ideological to take such a stance as you have on it. See why you have to be careful of stumbling into the same trap?
“a teaching which staunchly defends the unborn from the scourge of abortion.”
How can you repudiate ideology whilst championing one of your own? See the dilemma?

Again, such a position obscures my overarching point, which is that most folks who style themselves as pro-choice would like to see abortion be a much rarer occurrence, and that there is room to work with them to help eliminate the social conditions that give rise to abortions.

That, I can agree with.  Most people are basically muddled about abortion.  However,  attacking Planned Parenthood as “pro-abortion” does not muddy things at all. Planned Parenthood is fanatically pro-abortion.  Saying so is crystal clarity.

To those who have addressed this issue as I have: P. Liu, T J Byrnes, Raymond G, Paolo, Rita, thinker, Bill, Linus, Dan, Patti, Dan Mcneill, Lisa, Maddie, Jason, Jennifer O.

Most especially to Mark Shea:

“So I have not analyzed his supposed expose of any ‘cabals’”.

There you have it from Shea himself. Ironic?

That a man who initiates on a public forum the dismemberment of Glenn Beck by bringing to our attention a glaring error on Beck’s part on a point outside his normal parameter, outside the 95% of what he covers on a daily basis, the 95% for which he has drawn national attention, which is polical commentary, who then admits to paying scant attention to Beck’s real body of work?

That lacks both honesty and charity, Mr. Shea. Be a man and admit that you don’t know much of what Beck covers each night. But to wait 100 posts to your blog to reveal that you know very little about whom you so virulently attack is unmanly. It’s also a disservice to your readers. Allow me to rewrite your opening sentence for this article:

“Although Glenn Beck commands a vast audience on radio, TV, and at the bookstores for bringing to light the supposed dangers of Progressivism and Obama’s team of socialists hell-bent on refashioning our nation, I know of him only through cursory attention to him. I will, however, caution Catholics who follow him regularly to take heed to an egregious error he made in relation to the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Council of Nicea… ”

There. Now go and commit Hubris and Ad Hominem no more.

Excellent article, Mark. Spot on.

Anyone who wants the real story should check out Odahl’s scholarly but readable “Constantine and the Christian Empire” which is easily the most evenhanded and well-researched modern bio of Constantine.

Or better yet, go straight to the primary source material: “The Life of the Blessed Emperor Constantine” written a year after the emperor’s death by the bishop Eusebius Pamphilius.

Reading either of these will immediately reveal Glenn Beck’s utter lack of knowledge on this subject. He really should be embarrassed. Heck, I’m embarrassed for him.

@Mark:
“This is more pro-choice mystical rubbish.  There is no “scientific” definition of “child”.”
Actually, yes there is. The fetus is named after 8 weeks of development, at which point the major structures have formed. Before this stage, it is called an embryo. Embryos have no mental faculties, therefore they cannot be said to be ‘children’. They have nothing which identifies them as human, because they have no mind with which to conceive of thoughts. Even a fetus does not develop any cognitive processes until the approach of the third trimester. Your argument would only hold water if the soul exists, which as we have covered is a religious opinion.
“The question of ensoulment is quite beside the point.”
Incorrect. It is the entire point. I have never once heard a Pro-Choicer advocate the legality of third trimester abortions. Pro-Choice is not Pro-Abortion. They do not go around saying how wonderful and awesome abortion is, and think that everyone should have one. They think that the individual (namely the mother) has the right to decide for themselves whether or not the embryo is considered a human being.
@ToddC: Please see above.
I am frankly disappointed in you, Mark, because I thought you were someone who is not blindly adherent to ideology. Oh well, c’est la vie. Thankfully, because I am myself not bound to one, I am still able to acknowledge the truth of your article on Copernicus, which is the entire reason I came across this site, even though I think you are wrong about this issue.
I dislike tribalism, after all.

I have developed certain judgements about Dave based on his rambling posts here.  I’m not going to say what they are.  :-)

Well, sure, that was obvious. But you also implied that if someone does not care about Catholic teaching, then they do not have the correct viewpoint (i.e they are a heretic).

Not caring about Catholic teaching doesn’t guarantee a person will not have the right viewpoint.  Lots of non-Catholics agree with large swaths of Catholic morality.  But yes, if you *contradict* the teaching of the Church on some moral issue then chances are very high that you are wrong (bearing in mind that not all Catholic teaching is dogmatic and sometimes bishops can make prudential judgments that turn out to blunders or even sins).  But when it comes to settle teaching like the immorality of abortion, yeah, if you reject that teaching you are wrong.

religion is by definition ideological.

Some may be.  The Catholic faith is not.  It is, in fact, profoundly resistant to ideology.  That’s why it doesn’t fit into postmodernity very well.  It’s constantly being identified as an ideological ally of The Enemy by opposing ideological camps.  Lefties imagine it is a right wing conspiracy against prochoice factionalists and gays.  Righties continually complain that, as Glenn Beck instructs us, its concern for social justice is code for Marxism.

That is your opinion.  No.  That is a fact.  If it were not, then people would rather die than have or perform an abortion.

Staunchly defending the unborn is not ideology.  It is obedience to the love of God.  It is not the only or even the most important form of such obedience.

Dave:

Have you carefully analyzed Dan Brown’s “real body of work”?  Sure, he made some mistakes with the Da Vinci Code.  But you are cowardly and unmanly if you focus on that whole “Jesus was a dead rabbi with a girlfriend” thing and don’t pore over the rest of his “body of work” for the impeccable research all his reviewers say he has done.

And how about Nostradamus?  Some of his predictions may have been a little off.  But a lot of people say he got some right.  Isn’t it unmanly not to devote your free time to carefully researching everything he says before criticizing faith in the guy as a reiable guide to History?

I’m done here.  Got work to do.

From Robert George on the embryo debate:

http://article.nationalreview.com/347682/embryonic-debate/robert-p-george-christopher-tollefsen

“
Consider any adult human being—William Saletan, for example.  He is the same whole living individual human organism—i.e., the same human being—that was at an earlier stage of his life an adolescent.  And the adolescent Will was the same whole living individual human organism that was at earlier developmental stages a child, an infant, a fetus, and an embryo. By contrast, he was never an ovum or a sperm cell.  The gametes whose felicitous union brought the embryonic Will Saletan into existence were parts of other organisms, his mother and father.  But Will was once an embryo, just as he was once a fetus, an infant, a child, and an adolescent.  From the embryonic stage forward, Will was a complete (though in the beginning developmentally immature) and distinct (both genetically and functionally) organism.  He developed by an internally directed and gapless process from the embryonic into and through the infant, child, and adolescent stages and ultimately into adulthood with his organismic determinateness, distinctness, and unity intact.
“

Thought experiment:  for any adult human being who can conceive of a thought such as that “embryos are not human”, if that same adult human had been killed during its embryonic human development stage then it could not have developed to maturity to conceive of any thoughts whatsoever.  IOW, a human being killed during its embryonic development stage is a dead human being.

Mark, thanks for this article on Beck.  Well done!

@Lodatzor

You just managed to ignore every single point I just made; you even ignored the context in which I made them.  I wasn’t talking about the soul, or even a child, as Mark was. A child is merely a stage of life in the development of a human being, just as adolescence, adulthood, toddler and all the other stages you described are. When the soul enters the body of a human is irrelevant to the fact that a human life is growing shortly after conception.  From a purely objective, scientific point life begins there; therefore to procure an abortion is to take a human life.  Any other definition is pure subjectivism.  There are over 6 billion people in this world.  If each had their own opinion on when life begins we would have 6 billion definitions.  That’s hardly practical nor defensible. Should we then say murder can be subjectively defined?  By the way, if you don’t agree with my definition, when does life begin? Please be as objective about it as your are about other things.

Mark. Just FYI. You wrote:

“Also, just to be clear: Constantine did not agree with the Council of Nicaea.  As Caesar in charge of an Empire that was being rocked by controversy over the Arian heresy, he demanded the Council meet and settle the question for the sake of keeping peace in his dominions, but when the time came for him to be be baptized (people often delayed baptism till the end of their lives at this time), he chose to be baptized by an Arian priest.”

Constantine actually did accept the Council of Nicaea 100%. If you read his letters to the various bishops, Constantine continually decries their obscure theological squabbling and demands that they put aside such arguments and make peace with each other for the greater good of the Church. Reading such letters, it’s hard not to sympathize with Constantine, who used persuasive correspondence to try to bring about unity when he very easily could have just purged the offenders with the sword as previous emperors did.

Constantine was baptized by the bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia (not the same Eusebius as the Church historian) who actually signed on to the Council of Nicaea, though he was a fierce opponent of the Council afterwards. Eusebius of Nicomedia never openly declared himself an Arian and was never excommunicated during his lifetime.

The Catholic Encyclopedia calls him a “worldly bishop”, but many of us have been baptized or confirmed by worldly prelates. That doesn’t make us any less Catholic.

“But when it comes to settle teaching like the immorality of abortion, yeah, if you reject that teaching you are wrong.”
If you do not believe that this is an ideological statement, then I am not sure where else this conversation can go. I mean, seriously.
“No.  That is a fact.  If it were not, then people would rather die than have or perform an abortion.”
No, it is not a fact. Pro-Choice certainly exalts the good of human autonomy, but as I have shown, it does not imply elevation of that good over the good of human life. It is your opinion which defines that life, and therefore it is your opinion which leads to your conclusion.
The argument about the soul is religious. The argument about autonomy is political. The argument about effectiveness of legislation is pragmatic. The argument for Pro-Choice may include any or all of these facets, depending on which direction the discussion takes.
“It is obedience to the love of God.”
See? Pure ideology.
A good article about this can be found at: http://8e.devbio.com/article.php?id=162
Enjoy.

@ToddC:
Apologies if you felt I glossed over or did not address your point. I shall do so in detail now.
“From a purely objective, scientific point life begins there; therefore to procure an abortion is to take a human life.”
This is not true. From a scientific point of view the growth of cells begins at conception. Due to the instructive nature of DNA, those cells will grow according to the model which is laid out in that DNA. This is the embryo. The embryo is certainly alive, so yes, life begins there. However, the question is over the application of the word ‘human’ to that life. Science does not define ‘human’ as possessing of a human genome. It has been categorized as the ability to exhibit human thought, which an embryo, a zygote and the early fetus can be demonstrated to not possess. Therefore while life begins at conception, science does not recognize this as ‘human life’ until those properties we associate with being human arise.
You obviously disagree, which is fine. But the above is not subjective. It is objective. I think you would benefit from reading the link I posted in response to Mark. By handy coincidence it also discusses the notion of murder.

“I’m done here. Got work to do.”

I’m sorry, Mr. Shea. Was it something I said?

Mr. Shea has gone now (whether in a huff or not I cannot say), but to anyone else still sitting at Mr. Shea’s dining room table, I will make one last point, vulgar perhaps for taking Our Host to task in His absence:

It appears that Mr. Shea is quite familiar with Brown’s book. It has a few central points which can be placed under a microscope. The thesis is clear.

It appears Mr. Shea is woefully unfamiliar with Glenn Beck’s work. It has been a 52 week barrage of information on a galaxy of characters, in their own words. Mr. Shea appears unfamiliar with Beck’s “thesis.”

I see now why he abruptly left his own dinner table

@Lodaztor

I will follow the link when I have a little more time.  Thanks.  So at what point does ‘human’ life begin?  According to your argument the early stage of the fetus doesn’t possess those qualities, but the later stages do.  So the definition becomes arbitrary.  The fact that the zygote, embryo, fetus, newborn, infant, etc., all have the exact same DNA, and that DNA is humna by definition, means there is nothing that being canbecome toher than what it is—a human.

Does your argument also mean it’s okay to take the life of a human being because they have entered into a ‘vegetative state’, or are too old to be of use to anyone, or are in pain or have a terminal illness? If so, then the slippery slope of euthanasia becomes steeper and slippery-er, until it’s okay to to remove those people in society who become nothing more than a nuisance.

I wish I could spend more time with you on this topic. Unfortunately I have to move on with my other responsibilities right now.  I have enjoyed discussing this topic with you.  Thanks for your insight and reasonableness!

Lodatzor, I think you are confusing the terms “human being” and “personhood”.  It seems to me that, “personhood” was the terminology most pro-choicers use to argue when rights to life begin or end.

@ToddC:
“The fact that the zygote, embryo, fetus, newborn, infant, etc., all have the exact same DNA, and that DNA is humna by definition”
Here’s the problem, though. That DNA is not human. That DNA is a blueprint for humans. The two are not the same, in that a building cannot be said to be a building if it has not yet been built but the plans exist. The zygote and the embryo are merely laying the foundations for what, if interrupted, will become a human.
As I said, scientific consensus follows the neurological model which declares that a human is not a human if there is no possibility of human thought.
As to the various examples of euthanasia, only one of them is applicable. Being old doesn’t cease thought, neither does being in pain or having a terminal illness. A person who has entered into a vegetative state, with no medical expectation to recover from it, is more appropriate, but still not an adequate analogy. After all, that person has entered this state having previously been human, which is a different situation. Either way, we do leave such decisions up to the family, yes. Would you advocate keeping anyone and everyone whose brain appears to cease to function alive? Would you allocate taxpayer money to this effort?
“I have enjoyed discussing this topic with you.  Thanks for your insight and reasonableness!”
The same to you. I hope we get to continue another time. Peace. :)

@Jennifer O:
Hallo. I am not sure which argument you are referring to, but I think I can at least reply to one point.
If Man gains the ability to genetically grow a human being to adulthood through genetic cloning, but the cloned body appears to have no consciousness, what would you call them? A person? A human? An abomination? Would it be moral to kill a living, breathing clone, if they exhibit no mental functions such as thought? After all, they possess a human genome, human DNA and have a human form.
There is, objectively, little difference between this clone and an undeveloped fetus. The only difference is a subjective view of the morality of its origin.
Does that make sense?

Talk about being off-topic! How we got from Glenn Beck to the phoney outrage over Obama to denial of this administration’s well-known agenda and then to what constitutes human life is quite a journey. I was never quite sure before what a troll or straw man was, so I just Googled it. It would seem from what I read that this thread has its share of both.

Don’t feed the trolls!

@Joanne S:
This is what happens when people go off on tangents, such as bringing up the FOCA, fake euthanasia allegations and Gay Pride Month. ;) Silly statements deserve to be challenged.

lngyrd
- You despise religion but you leave comments on the NC Register?

Lodatzor
You call FOCA a silly tangent and a fake allegation?

Here you go:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pf0XIRZSTt8&feature=player_embedded

Enjoy and God Bless!

Lodatzor,

“That DNA is not human. That DNA is a blueprint for humans. The two are not the same..”

I guess I’m made up of DNA, so you’re right, I’m not human.

Fetus in latin means “little one” by the way.  I guess they should’ve have meant “little building block”.

What Lodzator said was:

“Simply being open to something (and doing relatively little about it) does not make one a ‘champion’ for it. If you feel that even considering FOCA is grounds enough to hate the man, well, that’s your business, but to claim that he is some kind of leading figure to the slaughter of babies is sensationalist nonsense.”

Kind of have to agree with that.

Hyperbole and misrepresentation tend to chill honest discussion.  It’s the lazy man’s out.

“I guess I’m made up of DNA, so you’re right, I’m not human.”

Actually, you’re not made up of DNA. You’re made up of a variety of chemicals and elements, the most common by far being water, which were arranged according to the instructions in your DNA.

“Fetus in latin means “little one” by the way.  I guess they should’ve have meant “little building block”.”

Why, when the Fetus is not a building block, but a developmental stage?
Both of your semantic points have been inappropriate.

Google or Ask Jeeves search the Quote:
“I will stand with the Muslims if the political winds shift in anugly direction” It will take you to Barak Obama’s biography.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHxb_vZe7Ao&feature=email

Tragically, he is a leading figure to the slaughter of babies.  I’m sorry, I don’t know what else to call someone who wants to lift the ban on partial birth abortions.

I don’t hate him. I pray for him everyday.

@Dan McNeill:

“How about this quote from his book Audacity of Hope…“I will stand with the Muslims if the political winds shift in an ugly direction”.”

No such quote appears in that book, Dan.  You’re repeating misinformation found in email forwards.  You should apply some of that vaunted skepticism you supposedly gained from 25 years in law enforcement to the email forwards that appear in your inbox.

Here’s an analysis of that silly “I will stand with the Muslims” falsehood: 
http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/did_obama_write_that_he_would_stand.html

There’s plenty of rational reasons to disagree with Obama’s centrist policies—why make stuff up?

Dan:

Actual quote from “The Audacity of Hope” [pg. 261]: “Of course, not all my conversations in immigrant communities follow this easy pattern. In the wake of 9/11, my meetings with Arab and Pakistani Americans, for example, have a more urgent quality, for the stories of detentions and FBI questioning and hard stares from neighbors have shaken their sense of security and belonging. They have been reminded that the history of immigration in this country has a dark underbelly; they need specific assurances that their citizenship really means something, that America has learned the right lessons from the Japanese internments during World War II, and that I will stand with them should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.”

This is a problem why?  Do think the Executive should not resist a mob call to intern an entire population of people based on their religion?

“my meetings with Arab and Pakistani Americans, for example”

Should note that many Arabs are Christians and some are Jews.  They’re Arab by virtue of being Arabic speakers—it’s a linguistic/cultural designation, not a religious one. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Christians_and_Arabic-speaking_Christians

Lodatzor,

This may be more “subjective” to you, but I carried twins full-term, and they are truly human beings that were left inside me. Stretching, kicking, even hiccuping inside me (this was told by the medical professional during the ultrasound).

I disagree that a stage defines what is human and what isn’t. The embryonic stage is a stage in human development just like adolescent, menopausal, etc. I guess if a teen is in an adolescent stage, that doesn’t make him a human?

I have some friends I debate that have a science background and one thing I do notice is that propaganda is more susceptible to the more educated due to the fact they are not susceptible….savvy?

Take care and thanks for partaking in a debate!

Yes, Obama made the statement:
I will stand with the Muslims if the political winds shift in an ugly direction…Audacity of Hope. Google the quote, there are numerous references.

http://www.americanconservativedaily.com/2008/03/muslim-obama-‘will-stand-with-muslims-should-political-winds-shift-in-ugly-direction’/

@cdswike:
“I disagree that a stage defines what is human and what isn’t.”
Feel free too. You are disagreeing with the view within the scientific community which enjoys the greatest amount of consensus, just so you know.
“I guess if a teen is in an adolescent stage, that doesn’t make him a human?”
Why are you saying such things? It is clear that you either have not read what has been said, or you are deliberately ignoring it to attack a man made of straw.
“I do notice is that propaganda is more susceptible to the more educated due to the fact they are not susceptible….savvy?”
Sorry, I don’t savvy. Mainly because the sentence doesn’t make sense in English. Are you saying that educated people are more susceptible to propaganda because they think they are not? I’ll have to remember than the next time I pull out my iPod, which scientists have told me is perfectly safe and works like a charm. I mean who knows? I could get electrocuted! That is, of course, if electricity even exists. I mean, how do we know that it is not just propaganda?
“Take care and thanks for partaking in a debate!”
The same to you, but please refrain from debating points I have not made and which run contrary to the ones I HAVE made. Peace.

@Dan McNeil,

Except that it’s nowhere to be found in the book, son (or anywhere else, outside of the fevered dreams of conspiracy theorists).  Where is this skepticism of yours you tout?  You’re taking in baloney, hook, line and sinker.

Yes, Obama made the statement:
I will stand with the Muslims if the political winds shift in an ugly direction…Audacity of Hope. Google the quote, there are numerous references.

No.  He didn’t.  I provided you with the actual quote, which referred to
Arabs and Pakistanis, not Muslims.

Ever watch Monk?  Tony Shaloub is an Arab.  He’s also a Maronite Catholic.  Arab =/= Muslim.

Dan:

Again I ask:  The quote (the actual one, I mean) is a problem why?  Do you think the Executive should *not* resist a mob call to intern an entire population of people based on their religion or race?

Dan:

By the way, the extreme irony of your position is that when you Google the misquote that you provided it refers you, not to the book, but to a bunch of right wing sites are repeating the same pseudoknowledge without fact checking it.  And number two on the list is… Glenn Beck.

This is why I’m urging people who are serious about exercising their faith in the public square to get their information from reliable sources and not from quacks who pretend to be experts in history and then reveal themselves to be spectacularly ignorant.  There are plenty of sound reasons to oppose many of Obama’s policies.  But you can’t do that if you go around regurgitating fraudulent quotes that you believed because somebody with a well modulated voice told you so and you read it on a website somewhere.  All somebody has to do is produce an actual copy of the book you haven’t bothered to read and you either wind up feeling silly or, worse, persist in circulating the quote because you think that it’s okay to bear false witness against your neighbor in a good cause.

I assume your good faith, Dan.  Now that the quote is known to be fraudulent, I presume you won’t repeat it anymore.

Lodaztor,

Sorry my typing skills offended you…butyours didn’t make sense either.. :)

“I’ll have to remember than the next time I pull out my iPod “

I was debating your point, this one:
Here’s the problem, though. That DNA is not human. That DNA is a blueprint for humans. The two are not the same, in that a building cannot be said to be a building if it has not yet been built but the plans exist. The zygote and the embryo are merely laying the foundations for what, if interrupted, will become a human.

And the other point was FOCA.

So to clarify, when does a human become “conscience” and when does this building block become human?

Mark,

I just wanted to say good article.  Keep up the good work.

“Sorry my typing skills offended you…butyours didn’t make sense either.. :)”
Actually, mine did make sense. You are attempting (it seems, because you have not denied it) to conflate education with susceptibility to propaganda. I have pointed out that educated people gave us all of the marvels of our age, so either the propaganda was valid, or your assertion is easily refuted.

“So to clarify, when does a human become “conscience” and when does this building block become human?”
I have already explained this on the thread. The word is ‘conscious’, by the way. During the latter stages of the second trimester the neurological network which forms the brain has been observed to develop. This provides the ability for thought, which is the defining characteristic of consciousness, from which we derive our humanity. And, a fetus is not a building block. It is a stage of development. The building is dictated by DNA. If you ask me to explain this yet again, without offering any counter evidence, then I will simply ignore you.

Lodaztor,

I had read this some time ago and though it may be of interest to you based on your argument.

http://www.wsbt.com/health/83498122.html

It is an interesting article, yes. Thank you for sharing. It does not, however, have any relevance to what we are discussing.

You mean the Jesuit monks who founded the university system. Sure, I am thankful as having a college degree. What I am saying, however, is that everything which comes from higher education today isn’t susceptible to propaganda or an agenda.  Abortion would not have ever been made law in my opinion if it wasn’t for the redefining the life of the baby in the womb and other symantic gymnastics with words.  Plain ol’ propaganda.  And as for your argument, I err on the side of caution to say objectively the “choice” is life.  The assumption you present is an example of those who want to play God and go against church teaching.

It is interesting how much the analyses of Michael Voris and Glenn Beck overlap/have in common.  Michael is looking at the Catholic Church in America and Glenn is looking at the American political culture, yet the same conclusions are often reached independently in both.

Every human organism in order to reach maturity passes through the developmental stages of child, infant, fetus, and embryo.  Accordingly, the termination of a human organism at any developmental stage denies it any further development.  For example, anyone typing away on this comments thread about the licitness of killing developing human organisms during gestation was obviously NOT killed during gestation since they continued to develop into good human typists.  Human life is valuable in total, including during the necessary developmental stages without which human beings cannot grow to maturity.

As one of my favorite movie quotes reads (more or less), “when you kill a man you take away everything he has, and everything he is ever going to have.”

Our founders also believed in the unalienable right to life, which provides the foundation for every other right (you can’t be free to choose if you’re dead).  Thus, pro-lifers are for life at every stage, and will continue to work toward defending life in law.

There is really more to Glenn Beck than meets the eye. In fact, a crack team of scholars has been assembled to pore over Beck’s texts and subject them to rigorous philosophical exposition. See Glenn Beck’s Socratic Discourse at http://beckstudies.blogspot.com/ to discover Beck’s none-too-hidden similarities to Heidegger, Plato, twentieth-century Continental philosophy—and to learn of his depth when compared with Rush Limbaugh.

Shea’s analysis:

Beck makes a big mistake with Catholic history
Beck is not reliable
Therefore nothing Beck says is reliable

This does disservice to the fact that many of the things Beck exposes are at the same time TRUE and IMPORTANT to this nation and RARELY exposed elsewhere.

Therefore, Shea has his own credibility problem!  He should watch Beck more to make sure he understands the whole body of work he’s critiquing.

I would agree that people should check out the sources of Beck’s news.  Just like doing Google searches or using Wikipedia - use it as a first cut, not a final source.

Mr. Shea,

There have been some more comments, and we would like to know if you are you going to answer the question:

Does the mountain of information presented by Glenn Beck since the run-up to the presidential election exposing the individuals, in their own words, who are seeking the radical remaking of our nation along atheistic socialistic lines, have any value in your estmation, despite Beck’s error regarding the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Nicene Creed?

Dave:

I have a life.  Just as I’m not interested in poring over the mountain of Erich von Daniken’s “body of work” or Dan Brown’s “impeccable research”, so I do not have a burning interest in boning up on somebody who can’t even bother to have one of his assistants get a quote right from a book that’s probably available in the Fox News gift shop.  Watching Beck disciples go to the mat to insist that Obama did, he really really did, say “I will stand with the Muslims if the political winds shift in an ugly direction” when all you have to do is go find the reference for yourself and discover he didn’t does not persuade me that time wasted in chasing down all the other “quotes” and “connected dots” is time I need to waste.  I already have lots of objections to the Obama Administration (the Peace Prize winner’s extension of our bungled wars, his arrogation to himself of the power to unilaterally murder anybody—citizen or foreign—he deems an enemy of the state without arrest, trial, evidence, or appeal), his support for abortion, his sleepy response to the oil spill, his stupendous spending).  But the fevered lunacy of people who continually compare him to Hitler or Stalin is silly.  And their willingness to believe anything Beck says helps to create a climate of hysteria, not rational opposition.  Since Beck establishes that he grossly mishandles history with the Nicaea stuff and such zany crap as “Fasces were fascist symbols.  Mercury dimes have fasces on them.  Wilson minted Mercury dimes.  Wilson was a Fascist!”, and his disciples establish that they have no idea how (or else willingness to) fact check him with the hysterical “stand with the Muslims” misquote, I conclude, “Why bother?”

Before you commence your jeering at my intellectual cowardice, please take a number and get in line behind the people who jeer me for my lack of courage in really reading the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion and discovering the scholarly proof that Jews are tunneling under our houses, the folks who scoff that I won’t even *look* at the evidence that the Moon Landings never happened, and the guys who can’t believe I won’t drop everything and really look at all the sound research that the Six Day Creationists have done.

I’m like that.  I budget my time.  I get it.  Obama’s not a good president.  I agree. (Neither was Bush, he muttered quietly.  And neither, God forbid, will Palin be if she suckers enough people into voting for her).  But one doesn’t need to say “Obama is the most monstrous semi-human thing to ever stalk the corridors of Washington DC!  Everything he has ever said or done is pure EVIL” in order to make that assessment.  Nor does one need to get one’s information from a quack who claims expertise in history while grotesquely distorting it.  There are other, better, ways of doing both history and civics.

@cdswike:

“Abortion would not have ever been made law in my opinion if it wasn’t for the redefining the life of the baby in the womb and other symantic gymnastics with words.”

Aside from the fact that abortion has been pretty much legal for the majority of Western civilization’s history, you’d have a point. However, with that fact acknowledged, your point evaporates.

“The assumption you present is an example of those who want to play God and go against church teaching.”

No, the assumption I present is that we have a freedom of religion in this country, and the law is (read: should) not bound by church teaching. Seeing then as scientific understanding designates human life as beginning after the latter stages of the 2nd trimester, the argument about before then is a religious one.

@John PA:
“As one of my favorite movie quotes reads (more or less), “when you kill a man you take away everything he has, and everything he is ever going to have.””

When you quote Gladiator (or indeed any movie), you weaken your argument. Note too that your quote includes the word ‘man’, when the entire abortion debate from a physiological sense is whether or not an embryo can be considered a ‘man’.

Your opinion on the matter is obvious, but not necessarily correct, all the same.

<<Obama’s not a good president.  I agree. (Neither was Bush, he muttered quietly.  And neither, God forbid, will Palin be if she suckers enough people into voting for her). *Nor does Beck put Bush/Palin forward as exemplary* But ...  There are other, better, ways of doing both history and civics. >>

I knew Fr. Jaki, having many delightful conversations,  have read about ten of his books, and plan to read many more.  In addition to religion and science, he displayed erudition in history and culture.  While not big on political discussions, and certainly he would have considered Beck a “clown”, he very vocally opposed the the same type of progressive agenda that Beck opposes and exposes.  Your trashing of everything that Beck says does harm to the truth that he *does* expose.

Your trashing of everything that Beck says does harm to the truth that he *does* expose.

No.  *Beck’s* trashing of what he says (by grandly posing as Master of Historical Knowledge when he has no idea what he’s talking about) does harm to whatever truth he does expose.  The boy who cried wolf was right—eventually.  But he ruined his *own* credibility.  Nobody had to do it for him.

Thank you for admitting the existence of “the wolf”.

*News Flash*  Closet Modernist Feels Threatened

Keep up the good fight, all.  Yes, posers (angels of light, and all that) present a particularly difficult challenge, but steadfastness will win out.

“There are plenty of rational reasons to disagree with Obama’s policies—why make stuff up?”

I couldn’t agree more. The “birther” nonsense, the notion that he’s some kind of closet Muslim, the notion that being from Chicago “proves” that he’s a wannabe Al Capone, and more recently, the charge that he was the “only” president not to go to Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day (for the record, there have been MANY times when both GOP and Democratic presidents didn’t go for various reasons, including simply being on vacation at the time)—all that does is make opponents of Obama look stupid, and make it harder for the genuine, rational reasons for opposition to be taken seriously.

Also, please keep in mind that Beck, Limbaugh, Hannity, O’Reilly, et al. are entertainers first and foremost. They are not political science scholars and don’t pretend to be. Their job is to get people to watch or listen to their shows—not to elect GOP political candidates, or to advance conservative causes (even though they may sincerely believe in those causes). Their success is measured by how many people tune in and how much advertising they can sell.

I used to listen to Rush Limbaugh back in the 90s until I got tired of his shtick. One of his favorite tactics is what he calls “demonstrating absurdity by being absurd”—making some outrageous statement or proposal and then later saying he was just kidding, or just doing what liberals do all the time. Well, I don’t care how much “they” do it, “we” are supposed to be better than that.

Satire, parody, and exaggeration to make a point have their place—they “spice up” public discourse the same way salt and spices make our food more interesting. However, a steady diet of nothing but heavily salted and spiced food will eventually make you sick, and the same thing is happening to our public discourse—it’s becoming indigestible due to overreliance on “spices.”

Mr. Shea,

It must be very uncomfortable for you to have been caught discussing a subject you know so little about. The subject in question is the 95% of Glenn Beck’s discourse, detailing the radical anti-American agenda of those surrounding this administration.  You don’t know about this, and yet you continue to malign Beck in the fiercest terms. That’s dishonest. It’s pretending to authority which you don’t possess.

And rather than acknowledge your ignorance on this score, you engage in inflammatory rhetoric to put down not only Beck, but also those who find value in some of what Beck presents. After all, it was you who broached the subject of Beck as a know-nothing, when indeed you know very little of the lion’s share of his subject matter.

I found value in your book: By What Authority?: An Evangelical Discovers Catholic Tradition but I cannot find value in your approach to this discussion. Yours is the schoolyard tactic of rendering a debate into a litany of gross analogies. And so my original impression of you as akin to Maureen Dowd stands justified.

“Also, please keep in mind that Beck, Limbaugh, Hannity, O’Reilly, et al. are entertainers first and foremost.”

Well-put.  And they are making a considerable amount of money telling people who are already convinced of the rightness of their position how right they are, even if no evidence actually exists to support that position.  That notion of a “radical anti-American secular socialist agenda,” with no basis in fact would be utterly silly if it weren’t for the number of people fanantically clinging to that notion, evidence be damned.

I thought I was quoting “Unforgiven”, not “Gladiator”.  Sorry if I got it wrong.

Anyway, the quote was meant to be a colloquial way of restating what I had said before, namely, that a human organism in order to reach maturity necessarily passes through the developmental stages of child, infant, fetus, and embryo.  Accordingly, the termination of a human organism at any developmental stage denies it any further development.

So if you kill a human organism in the embryonic stage of development, then obviously the organism cannot continue to develop naturally to maturity.  However, what is being killed is not a turnip or a platypus; what is being killed is precisely a human organism in an early developmental stage, that if left unmolested would continue to develop as human organisms do, to maturity (barring disease or other disadvantageous circumstance).  Just as if any of us conversing here had been terminated during the embryonic stage of our development as human organisms, we wouldn’t be advocating for any position here since we’d be to put it bluntly, quite dead.

Thus my opinion as a pro-life advocate is that human life is intrinsically valuable, and since all human organisms in order to reach maturity (aka adulthood) necessarily progress developmentally through the child, infant, fetus, and embryo stages, then human life in each necessary stage of human development should be protected in law.

I obviously don’t believe this opinion is unreasonable, and the belief that human life is valuable at every stage and ought to be protected in law is widely held and hopefully will prevail.  We shall see!

kcpunky:
Read the following. Apparently Obama, in a meeting with the Egyptian President admitted that he was STILL a Muslim. This was recorded on an Arab TV show the “round table” and reported by the Israeli Press(of course not the American media).

http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2010/06/-obama-tells-egyptian-foreign-minister-i-am-a-muslim-stealth-coup-on-the-white-house.html

Mark, please watch Glenn Beck.  Don’t let yourself be baited by things off his main point.

Beck exposes the truly horrifying statements of the Obama crowd, demonstrates the alarming ongoing connections among them, and their systematic development of dangerous ideas like cap-and-trade.

Note that by commenting on Beck, you have picked up a bunch of left-wing trolls who try to marginalize him.  Have you commented on Sarah Palin?  You’ll get a similar crew.

Closet Modernist Feels Threatened

Yes.  Nothing says “modernism” like defending the truth about the Council of Nicaea from the completely false and ludicrous preachments of an apostate Catholic Mormon.

Politics makes strange bedfellows indeed, don’t it?

Mr. Beck puts his own spin on history. He dislikes President Wilson and labels most every President from the end of the 19th century until Truman as a Progressive. Beck labels anyone who disagrees with his view of the world as a Progressive.

While Mr. Beck has done some good work in shining light upon the tactics used by the obama administration, Beck’s view of himself is every bit as arrogant as obama’s self opinion.

Beck is supported by Penn Gillette,(Penn and Teller). Penn and Teller have had a series on Showtime over the past year that attacks the Catholic Church much more viciously than Bill Maher ever considered. Beck endorses Penn’s opinions and Beck is silently endorsing Penn’s rapid Catholic smear.

While Beck has some accurate information, we must be careful of the half truths we accept from Mr. Beck.

Ron F,

Can you give us evidence that Beck supports Penn’s anti-Cathiolicism? I see that they share Libertarianism, as I see an essay by Penn on Beck’s website. Do you have anything more direct than this?

Glenn Beck had Penn on his show several times when he started on Fox. Glenn had Penn on his radio show back in March/April and they were discussing a new program Beck is running this summer. Penn told Glenn that he was behind Beck one million percent and Glenn thanked him. Sorry I don’t have the dates, but when Penn has been on Glenn’s show the two men do not try to hide the fact that they are good friends and that they see each other socially.

I was disappointed to listen to the “whipping” of Glenn Beck.  He has always corrected a mistake when brought to his attention. Maybe the Christian thing
would be to bring it to his attention prior to bashing on the radio? There are people in this world who want to do away with the freedoms that Americans hold dear and the top one on the list is religion.  We should be vigilant in that regard.  Our church also needs to define what is right and wrong.  Forgiveness is for everyone, but that doesn’t mean that right and wrong don’t exist. I’ve noticed some in the church go after so called “right wingers”, but tolerate the left.

I am a conservative and was impressed with a lot of what Beck came up with at first. He did good work on Acorn and Mr. Jones. Glenn’s success has gone to his head. He uses Progressive as a label similar to what Senator McCarthy used communist..to label people with.  Beck mixes historical fact and Beck’s opinions together quite “liberally.” A little truth is dangerous. Penn Gillette is a dangerous bigot and this bigot agrees with and finances Mr. Beck.

Two things are evident from Beck’s account: 1) he has confused Qumran with Nag Hammadi, and 2) he has learned his church history from Dan Brown.

You need only to observe our culture today to realize the impact secular relativism has had on promoting Godlessness. You need only to hear the words of individuals such as Van Jones to understand that a political coup is underway. Mr. Beck is no expert on Church history but he does reveal information about individuals close to the Obama administration in their own words. Just a comment on the response of certain bishops to Arizona’s immigration law. To compare it to Hitler’s regime (there’s that Hitler thing again)is an atrocity in itself. The citizens of Arizona have a right to defend themselves and to inquire whether or not someone is here LEGALLY.

Janet

Mr.Beck is second only to Mr. obama when it comes to ego.Beck compares himself in importance to Gov Palin. He even said Palin and he would make a good ticket since they both get picked on so much. Beck has attacked my congress person for saying something favorable about Theodore Roosevelt. Just because Beck is now a self acclaimed Historian does not make it so. President obama at least went to college.

Many of the denegraters of Beck on this site seem unable to seperate his off kilter sense of humore from the facts that he presents regarding the current Government and it’s radical agenda(can anyone disagree on that point?). Additionally, Beck is NOT an expert on religion. His perception of the dead sea scrolls aside, the fact that he left catholicism(for unknown reasons, many are leaving now because of the liberal tilt of the church evdienced in the sex abuse scandal and the gay subculture left unimpeded for decades…ala Michael S. Rose Book “Goodbye Good me…”).

Penn may agree with Beck regarding the current state of the union and still be an anti-Catholic bigot. Objectivity means being able to seperate one from the other. Even some bigots and vile people have legitimate opinions on other matters that we may agree with. This blanket labeling of anyone that doesn’t completely hold our beliefs is more indicitive of leftest ignorance than objectivity.

Mark:
R.E. Audacity of Hope
You made my point. Who exactly was Obama refering to, considering the previous paragraph that you included in it’s entirty? Arab/Muslims!
Now that he has been exposed in his recent appearance on Arab TV(the round table)admitting to the Egyptian Foreign minister that he was STILL a Muslim and would show the Muslims that once the health care problem was settled, he would show them how he would deal with Israel…
This was reported in the Israeli press and is verifiable via google search. I also provided the link in my last post.

Many of the denegraters of Beck on this site seem unable to seperate his off kilter sense of humore

By “many” you appear to mean “Ron F.”.  I agree that he is unfair to assume that Beck’s friendship with Gillette somehow automatically taints him.  The gospel reading yesterday about Jesus and the sinful woman is a strong rebuke to guilt by association thinking.

from the facts that he presents regarding the current Government and it’s radical agenda(can anyone disagree on that point?).

I can.  As we see above the alleged “facts” about the Obama’s “statement” about “standing with the Muslims” turns out to be easily documentable rubbish.  Rubbish you repeatedly refused to acknowledge even when it was easily documented.  This does not fill me with confidence that Beck is reliable in his handling of other “facts”.

Additionally, Beck is NOT an expert on religion.

Which would matter if Beck was claiming to be an expert on religion.  He’s not.  He’s claiming to be an expert on history, which he got grotesquely wrong.

His perception of the dead sea scrolls aside, the fact that he left catholicism(for unknown reasons, many are leaving now because of the liberal tilt of the church evdienced in the sex abuse scandal and the gay subculture left unimpeded for decades…ala Michael S. Rose Book “Goodbye Good me…”)......

Dunno where you are going with this unfinished sentence.  I hope you aren’t going to tell me something like “Maybe Beck has good reasons to be an apostate Catholic Mormon.”  If so, that’s not a promising way to make the case that Catholics have so much to learn from Glenn Beck’s awesome command of history.

Penn may agree with Beck regarding the current state of the union and still be an anti-Catholic bigot. Objectivity means being able to seperate one from the other. Even some bigots and vile people have legitimate opinions on other matters that we may agree with. This blanket labeling of anyone that doesn’t completely hold our beliefs is more indicitive of leftest ignorance than objectivity.

Blanket labeling is wrong, I’ll grant you.  And, as I say, assuming guilt by association is bad reasoning.  So, for instance, if I was to write a piece critiquing Beck’s claim of expertise in history and you were to respond by saying something like, oh, I don’t know, “Let me guess, you’re an Obama supporter?” I would suggest you rethink such blanket labeling.

Me: I didn’t blanket label Beck as anything other than what he manifestly is: somebody who pretends to a knowledge of history (and just as important, historiography) that he manifestly lacks.

@Dan McNeill:

“How about this quote from his book Audacity of Hope…“I will stand with the Muslims if the political winds shift in an ugly direction”.”

No such quote appears in that book, Dan.  You’re repeating misinformation found in email forwards.  You should apply some of that vaunted skepticism you supposedly gained from 25 years in law enforcement to the email forwards that appear in your inbox.

Here’s an analysis of that silly “I will stand with the Muslims” falsehood:
http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/did_obama_write_that_he_would_stand.html

There’s plenty of rational reasons to disagree with Obama’s centrist policies—why make stuff up?

Mark:
You presented the full quote above but yet seem not to make the connection that he was talking about standing with Arab/Muslims.
Funny how eveything is explained away. Taking Obama’s history in total combined with an overwhelming amount of circumstancial evidence(considering his secretiveness on many issues regarding his past), His connections to odinga In Kenya, a radical Muslim rabble rouser, his association with any number of extremists groups and organizations(Ayers, Van jones…), as well as his admission that he searched out socialist, Communists students and professors in college…now from Israeli news that he admitted on Arab TV to the Egyptian Foreign Minister that he is STILL a Muslim. I know, I know, they are all right wing conspiracy theorists. Give me a break. As far as Glenn Beck, do really believe that he would still be on the air if ANY of his accustaions against those in high places were lies or falsehoods???

http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2010/06/-obama-tells-egyptian-foreign-minister-i-am-a-muslim-stealth-coup-on-the-white-house.html

You presented the full quote above but yet seem not to make the connection that he was talking about standing with Arab/Muslims.

Dan:

As I already pointed out and you ignored:

No.  He didn’t.  I provided you with the actual quote, which referred to
Arabs and Pakistanis, not Muslims.

Ever watch Monk?  Tony Shaloub is an Arab.  He’s also a Maronite Catholic.  Arab =/= Muslim.

And for the third time I ask:  The quote (the actual one, I mean) is a problem why?  Do you think the Executive should *not* resist a mob call to intern an entire population of people based on their religion or race?

mark:
Again, I ask you: Are not Arabs and pakistanis(overwhelmingly)Muslims?
Secondly, what mob call to intern an entire population are we speaking about? I follow current events regularly and have never heard of any such effort to intern Arabs or pakistanis. You seem to have this myopic view of issues, whether it’s regarding Glen Beck or being able to connect the dots with an overview/profile. Obama’s history is replete with his affinity/connections to Islam. He was raised Muslim, went to school in Indonesia as a Muslim, Admitted(I saw the speech on youtube)that he felt the Muslim call to prayer was the most beautiful/scared experience for him.
Obama tends to say one thing in company of Muslims and another in public. Even you must admit that his version of Chritianity is so skewed as not be recognizable. Now we have the report from the Israeli press(which you ignore)where Obama purportedly stated that he was still a Muslim while on Arab TV with the Egyptian Foreign Minister. There is so much more but space precludes my offering it here. Do the research… the info is there, and no it’s not all right wing/hate Obama sources(a typical left-wing response). I’m truthfully starting to wonder about you as it relates to Obama’s cult.

“Blanket labeling is wrong, I’ll grant you.  And, as I say, assuming guilt by association is bad reasoning.  So, for instance, if I was to write a piece critiquing Beck’s claim of expertise in history and you were to respond by saying something like, oh, I don’t know, “Let me guess, you’re an Obama supporter?” I would suggest you rethink such blanket labeling.”
I am not sure who wrote this, but I agree blanket labeling IS wrong. However, when the person who makes a living at blanket labeling people gets caught doing it. Isn’t that fair?
The thing is when Penn advocates the castration of the Pope and says all Catholics are fagots and then publicly advocates for and financially supports Beck in his political “campaigns” ..then yes I have a problem separating Mr. Penn Gillette and Mr. Beck. That goes beyond Beck’s warped humor. WHY DOESN’T BECK DISTANCE HIMSELF FROM PENN?  Beck rails against obama for not distancing himself from some of obama’s advisors/acquaintances. Mr. Beck has said that any church that has the words social justice on its web site you must run from. Hardly a ringing endorsement of the Catholic Church.

Again, I ask you: Are not Arabs and pakistanis(overwhelmingly)Muslims?

I take it that by asking this question, you are seeking to evade the fact that Obama did not, in fact, say the words you attributed to him, so you are attempting to impute them to him by other means without acknowledgeing that you were, in fact, wrong about the quote.

In answer to you question, so what?  Obama’s words are directed to the civil rights of Arab and Pakistani Americans (including the not-inconsiderable number of Arab Christians of Lebanese descent.  It’s not about religion.

Secondly, what mob call to intern an entire population are we speaking about?

He was speaking hypothetically.  I will quote the passage yet again:

“They (i.e. Arabs and Pakistanis) have been reminded that the history of immigration in this country has a dark underbelly; they need specific assurances that their citizenship really means something, that America has learned the right lessons from the Japanese internments during World War II, and that I will stand with them should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.”

You see, we’ve shown ourselves willing to intern a whole population of citizens on a racial basis in the past.  Arabs fret about this.  Obama says it will not happen this time if the War on Terror make American extremely angry.  And that’s a problem why?

Even you must admit that his version of Chritianity is so skewed as not be recognizable.

Sure.  So is Dick Cheney’s (if he has any Christian faith at all).  And so, a fortiori, is Glenn Beck’s ***Mormonism***.  Unless you agree with the guy who says criticizing Beck’s account of Nicaea makes the critic a “closet modernist”.  What does that have to do with the increasingly bizarre notion you seem to hold that Obama is somehow involved in a conspiracy to propagate Islam.  Don’t you think increasing troop levels in Afghanistan and blowing up jihadists is sort of counter-productive to that goal, if that’s really his goal?

Now we have the report from the Israeli press(which you ignore)where Obama purportedly stated that he was still a Muslim while on Arab TV with the Egyptian Foreign Minister.

Hmmm, what could prompt me to not take too seriously fevered and fantastic claims from guys who take forever to acknowledge that they didn’t know what they were talking about the last time they made a fevered and fantastic claim?

I’m truthfully starting to wonder about you as it relates to Obama’s cult.

Yes.  Not voting for Obama and not crediting every cockamamie rumor about him does make one an “Obama cultist” in some people’s worlds.  It’s not enough to disagree with man.  I have to *hate* him, believe him to be a devil in human form, pass along every crazy rumor I hear about him, or I am ideologically impure in the eyes of some of my more zealous brethren.

Sheesh.

Dan “I’m a Skeptic” McNeil appears to have missed the earlier post where I pointed out that many Arabs are Christians and some are Jews.  They’re Arab by virtue of being Arabic speakers—it’s a linguistic/cultural designation, not a religious one. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Christians_and_Arabic-speaking_Christians

@Dan McNeill:
“Do the research… the info is there, and no it’s not all right wing/hate Obama sources(a typical left-wing response).”

See, that’s the problem. People DO the research, and find out that it was all a load of codswallop. But, to other people, this does not matter, and they will go on blindly believing it is true because it is what they WANT to be true, often performing logical cartwheels in order to excuse the disparity between the assertion and the facts. Because, while you dismiss the notion out of hand, much of ‘info’ is indeed fabricated by those who hate Obama.

All Beck does is make use of that to get rich, because there is no reason not to. Freedom of Speech has its costs, you know. We pay them gladly, because the alternative is horrendous, but to ignore them altogether cheapens what they pay for.

As has been stated often, one does not need to resort to this level of shamelessness in order to be opposed to President Obama. That’s what the political conversation is FOR; the discussion of ideas and viewpoints. The only reason Beck/Limbaugh/Hannity etc have their audiences is because they know exactly how to prey upon preconceptions and ignorance to both raise their own profile and perpetuate the Us vs Them mentality which fuels their careers. If you think they’re ‘exposing’ anything then you really have drunk deeply of their Kool Aid. If you think they care even the slightest about the issues and the people they claim to ‘serve’, then you’ve been successfully conned.

They are the political versions of Televangelists, which I would hope any true follower of Christ would denounce in a heartbeat.

Mark, you might enjoy this article—apparently Beck’s not much of an author either:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-kelly/glenn-becks-new-novel-abo_b_613861.html

Excuse me, Mr. Shea, I have a question. When did the conversation about the Dead Sea Scrolls take place? Was it recently? Please answer my question. Thank you.

May 27, 2010

Thank you, Mr. Shea. My, you’re very fast.

I’m sorry to bother you again, Mr. Shea, but I have another question. Have you watched/listened to Glenn Beck often? Have you noticed a consistent trend? Is he this wrong often?

@Stephen Greynadus: I’m surprised at you, my friend. For someone who is usually so particular about essays being well written, you sure are going easy on Mr. Shea. After twelve torturous years of Seton Home Study, if there’s one thing I’ve learned about writing essays, it’s that you must have more than one example in order for them to be persuasive. Mr. Shea only cites one occasion where Glenn Beck mixes up facts and makes a fool of himself. I am not necessarily saying that Glenn Beck doesn’t mess up often, maybe he does, I don’t know, but this essay doesn’t prove it.
  The fact that only one occasion is cited leads me to four possible conclusions, none of which add to the credibility of this essay: Mr. Shea was too pressed for time to research further and find anymore examples, Mr. Shea did find other examples, but he’s keeping them secret for some unknown reason, Mr. Shea doesn’t know how to write a proper persuasive essay, or Mr. Shea couldn’t find any other examples. The first seems most likely to me, but I digress. What’s important is that a potentially good essay has been reduced to the status of an extremely weak one.
  It seems exceedingly strange that only one example is cited. If Glenn Beck is such an incredible meat-head who makes those who watch his show dumber, than shouldn’t there be an overwhelming amount of occasions where he acts like, well, a meat-head? I mean, c’mon, the guy has had a radio/television career that spans 33 years. There should be thousands of hours of tape, and if he’s such an idiot this should make it incredibly easy to find examples of him making a fool of himself. But no, this essay only gives us one measly example.
  I hate to say it, but even the evidence given is rather weak or at leas irrelevant. Mr. Shea cites Beck making huge mistakes about the Dead Sea Scrolls and the circumstances surrounding them. This topic clearly belongs to the Religious or Ancient World History category, a category that anyone who listens/watches Beck occasionally, knows has little or nothing to do with the point of program. Beck’s fortes are American History and politics. I’ve never even heard him mention Ancient World History or anything having to do with it even once. On the other hand, when he discusses American History he quotes from history book,  has actual historians on his show to help him out, or he quotes the words of the people involved in the history being discussed. You said:
“And it’s enough to disqualify Beck as any thinking person’s field guide to pretty much anything, certainly in the realm of HISTORY. Not to say he doesn’t find a truffle now and then. Like, you know, a blind pig.”
This is like saying Stephen Greydanus shouldn’t be trusted as a film critique because he made factual errors about the history of Kabuki theater.
  I admit that it was foolish and shameful of Glenn Beck to act like he knew so much about something he was clearly ignorant of, but how can you even be sure this happens often? This is certainly not proven by Mr. Shea’s essay, and you admitted you don’t know much about Beck, so don’t make the same mistake Beck did, (or worse, the same mistakes Van Dyk).
  One thing I can be certain of is that this essay is utterly unpersuasive in its present form. It doesn’t matter how cleverly Mr. Shea picks apart this one conversation, as long as there is only one, the essay completely lacks credibility. Without more than one example, Mr. Greydanus, how can you be sure that Glenn Beck is a blind pig who sometimes finds truffles? With the minimal information Mr. Shea has provided, couldn’t he just as easily be a pig with perfectly good eyesight who occasionally comes across moldy bread? (Pardon my cheesiness.) You yourself have admitted that you don’t know much about Glenn Beck. Maybe, before jumping to conclusions after reading one poorly written blog, you should do some extra research. You will probably find that Glenn Beck makes factual mistakes on occasion, but you might also find that the truths outweigh the errors, or you might find that he’s a total meat-head like Shea says. You never know. You have often warned your readers against throwing the baby out with the bath water, I agree with this wholeheartedly, and I would advise you to do the same in this case.
God bless you.

Glenn Beck’s disregard for truth and decency is well-documented.

See:

http://sharethisurlaboutglenbek.wordpress.com/2010/06/04/

http://www.google.com/search?as_q=Glenn+Beck&as_sitesearch=www.politifact.com

http://mediamatters.org/search/tag/glenn_beck

http://www.newshounds.us/glenn_beck/

Of course we have to take some instruction and form some opinions but of all I have watched on t.v., read in books, listened to on radio, etc., etc., I have found none to be perfect or correct 100% of the time (although some are right far more than others). I prefer to trust in Jesus… He’s right all the time, 100% ALL of the time He is right.

Ron - College does not an intellectual make. Most colleges are very liberally oriented and promote a far leftist ideology. The fact that Beck did not go to college and you cited that reveals an elitist disposition. In my estimation Beck is merely expressing the shock of the average citizen that we are in the position we face now - pseudo intellectuals spewing absurd rhetoric in the face of very real desperate situations.And hey - how will you defend Obama’s recent press conference?

Glenn Beck:  a pseudo intellectual spewing absurd rhetoric

kcpunky - Unfortunately pseudo intellectuals are exactly what certain high end universities are spewing. Do your homework.

@Janet:
Unfortunately for your case, it is not helped by the fact that Beck said that he is a self-taught man who learned everything he knows about the evils of government and taxation by studying at the library—where “books are free.”

Someone obviously forgot to tell him what a public library actually is.

As for these lefty pseudo-intellectuals, what homework would you have one do? What sites shall one peruse? Where shall one go to find out just how pseudo these intellectuals are? Or… should we just assume that the only reason you call them pseudo-intellectuals is because you do not agree with them?

Gosh, that sounds like… Glenn Beck’s sort of thinking. ;)

For the sake of argument, let’s analyze a writer as we do a work of art. In some cases, there is eroticism, or intellectual error, and it may or may not transgress accepted notions of common decency. So then we try to determine any redeeming value in the work; if there is, then we give it a pass with reservations. Schindler’s List contains a gratuitous sex scene, but certainly has redeeming features. Catcher in the Rye has a scene with a prostitute, and much disrespectful taking of God’s name, yet it’s theme of a search for God and protection of innocence redeems it. The Great Books are replete with philosophies we Catholics find abhorrent, yet we study Freud and Heidegger and Nietzsche because they have made important contributions to the world dialogue, and even within their warped worldviews are nuggets of valuable truth. This certainly does not mean that we are required to read any particular writer, or watch any particular film. What it does mean is that works that have stood the test of studied observation and time cannot be dismissed casually.

Case in point is the Ayn Rand/Dorothy Day discussion of a previous essay by Mark Shea. The discussion on that thread was very informative, and I believe underscores the difficulty dismissing too completely people who have made an impact. Glenn Beck is taken to task for saying Dorothy Day was Communist, and a promoter of “socialistic” social justice, and he is criticized for praising Ayn Rand. These two women illustrate the complexity of a Catholic’s approach to sociopolitical issues. I’ll leave you to follow those most interesting comments there without rehashing them here.

In comming to judgement on a writer, we might consider the following criteria: 1) impact 2) purpose 3) positive/negative points as relating to Catholic faith. Writers such as Voltaire or Dan Brown can be dismissed because their very purpose is the undermining of our faith. Ayn Rand we read with great caution because of her atheism, yet we can find value in her defense of personal liberty and the capitalistic system. Dorothy Day we embrace for her great virtue of humility and self-sacrifice, but we tread warily where she promotes social activism and community organizing as Catholic, per se.

And so we return to Glenn Beck. His impact is large at present. He raises things that can be problematic for Catholics, such as the historical errors related on this thread, or his association with anti-Catholic Libertarians. What of his purpose, and of those points he gets correctly? No one can dispute that his purpose is in line with the vision of our nation as espoused by the Founding Fathers, American Catholic thinkers, clergy, and citizens. Does he make correct, valuable points? There is no doubt but that the 95% of what he covers is not only correct, but valuable for bringing to light the individuals wresting control of much of our nation who clearly do share neither our love of this country as we have known it nor our belief in God.

What troubles about Mark Shea’s public scoriation of Glenn Beck without having the knowledge to make such public proclamations is that it undermines discourse. A Catholic writer/essayist/ should not succumb to the lower reaches of the blogosphere where lurks the pithy dismissive barbed retort unfettered by fair analysis.

Hmm.

“There is no doubt but that the 95% of what he covers is not only correct[...].”

Actually, there’s a considerable amount of well-grounded doubt about the veracity of much of what comes out of Glenn Beck’s mouth, as I noted above.

See:

http://sharethisurlaboutglenbek.wordpress.com/2010/06/04/

http://www.google.com/search?as_q=Glenn+Beck&as_sitesearch=www.politifact.com

http://mediamatters.org/search/tag/glenn_beck

http://www.newshounds.us/glenn_beck/

Not sure about your other sources, but citing Media Matters against Beck is pot calling kettle black, and should itself cast immediate suspicion on your anti-Beck polemic.

See:

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=23079

Susan, that’s a bunch of baloney.  Media Matters analyzes articles and cites to facts.  Glenn Beck makes up stuff out of whole cloth and people like yourself lap up what he says like so much spilled kool-aid.

I am tired of Glenn Beck.

Someone should be sounding the warning alarm regarding the insidious elements of Beck’s message.  Unfortunately, at this point, only Shea has come forward.
Even Catholic historians such as the convert from Lutheranism, Tom Woods, clamor to get on his show: http://www.thomasewoods.com/blog/glenn-beck-and-the-road-to-serfdom/  After they leave, this apostate continues to spout the same tired cliches about Church history we picked up in public school.
While not the “whole story” of American history, “Puritan’s Empire” provides a necessary balance for those with Americanist tendencies, members of the SSPV, and Beck groupies who’d like to canonize the Founders and view the Constitution as Holy Writ.
http://corjesusacratissimum.org/2010/01/book-review-puritan´s-empire-by-charles-a-coulombe/
I recommend it and endorse Mark’s suggestion of not being excessively fearful of the author’s Wrong Associations (although he probably wouldn’t follow his own advise regarding this book)

Glenn Beck endorses and is endorsed by Penn Gillette. This foul mouthed “magican” has continued unproveked foul attacks against the pope on showtime and yet Beck remains friends with him. Penn has called for the castration of the pope. Mark Shea says we are not to brand people by their associatons since Jesus ate with sinners. I really don’t think eating with a Pharasee and approving the pope’s castration are in the same league. Beck has shown to be marginal ethically by his endorsement on air and advertising for gold.

And the evidence you have that Beck approves of the Pope’s castration is….?

He merely thinks “neutering the power of the Church was essential for the progress toward freedom.”
I don’t think that counts as castration per se but does show his bigotry and ignorance of the Church he left.

Thank you, Mark, for correcting the factual errors in Beck’s analysis.  While I listen to other commentators on Fox, I do not listen to Glenn Beck.  My limited education has led me to other factual disagreements with him.  I find his range of topics to be exhausting and his ability to leap to some conspiracy theory from incorrect facts annoying and dangerous.  To follow his logic, one must put aside facts learned from your education, and accept that his interpretation of his facts lead you undeniably to his conclusion.  If his facts were true and the conclusions undeniable, then why aren’t other authorities in agreement with him? And why haven’t the authorities disagreeing with him succeeded in silencing him?  Sadly conspiracy theories appeal to many even today, when fact checking is so much easier than ever before.

You’ll be happy to know that, according to Politico.com:

Fox News host Glenn Beck announced Tuesday that he has launched an online “academic program” teaching classes in “religion, American history and economics.”

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0710/39406.html

The gift that keeps on giving, eh?

Posted by Lisa on Monday, Jun 7, 2010 6:37 AM (EST):Mark,

Lisa

Lisa, isn’t it obvious this wasn’t the intent of the author?

I will be honest with you…it was a little deep for me, however I know where I can go to see what is false and what is true. Thank you for your work.

They found the Ark of the Covenant where Moses placed the 10 Commandments, in a cave under Golgotha.

http://arkofthecovenant2.blogspot.com/