In the wake of the most horrific, non war related disaster, to ever strike Japan, America’s preeminent political clown has the audacity of stupidity to suggest “there’s a message being sent” and that is that this event may be God’s way of telling us: , “Hey, you know that stuff we’re doing? Not really working out real well. Maybe we should stop doing some of it.” Beck in his latest act of socio-political pyromania trotted out the idea that this is God’s way of saying that we are sinful and wayward and then in a well worn manner of double talking, saying that well maybe that’s not what he [Beck] is really saying after all. Beck then went on to say that a strict following of the Ten Commandments was the antidote for a sinful and wayward world. Now that’s a great suggestion, unless your other than a Christian, what are they supposed to do?
The point of this article isn’t to take issue with Glenn Beck as he has already been dismissed as irrelevant by intelligent people on both sides of the political spectrum and is only a demigod to the far right fringe players, who are themselves effectively outside of the national discussion. The real question that arises from this latest flap is just how much longer Fox News and the Rupert Murdoch will abide this sort of boorish and bizarrely absurd behavior. At some point Beck becomes a liability to the profitability and integrity of the News Corporation and must be removed. This act of stupidity on stilts goes beyond being an affront to the intelligence of the American people as it is an insult to one of our principle allies and the timing of these comments is just so beyond the pale that something needs to be done about Beck sooner rather than later. Perhaps we should all write to Murdoch or perhaps there should be a national boycott of New Corporation media so as to send the appropriate message. When Beck merely annoys the left that’s one thing, when he insults the Japanese people at a time like this, that is quite a different matter and for that, there should be no getting off the hook.
Steven J. Gulitti
3/15/11
Glenn Beck: Japan earthquake ‘message’ from God
http://www.washingtonpost.com/…
If he were irrelevant, you wouldn’t be cross-posting about him.
SJG does not think he’s one of those people. He didn’t say “all intelligent people on both sides of the political spectrum,” so I assume he did not mean that. It does raise the question of why that sentence is in the post in the first place, but then, we should be used to that by now.
The ‘Governor of Tokyo’, which seems to be a mayor or county commissioner type of post, said roughly the same thing. Only he called it a judgement on the nation of Japan for its untrammeled greed.
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p>He has since apologized, and Beck may (should) as well. IMO, this comes of trying to explain the inexplicable while the event is still unfolding, to assign some reason to events. Another friend of mine wondered if these tsunamis were the way the Rapture unfolded in the physical world.
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p>I like the explanation of another friend better – that God does not speak in the roar of the storm, but in the silence thereafter. And if that is the case, the people of Japan are assured a place in Heaven through their conduct.
Your friend was paraphrasing I Kings 19:11-13:
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p>The interpretation of this that I have always liked most is that we often seek spiritual guidance in loud, bombastic external demonstrations. This passage from I Kings teaches us, I think, that our more reliable guidance comes when we seek quiet and solitude, so that we can hear the “gentle whisper” that comes from within us. I note that Elijah hears Yahweh in silence, and when Yahweh speaks, he does so to ask Elijah a question, a question that requires Elijah to look inward rather than outward.
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p>Perhaps if our more outwardly-religious public figures were more heedful of this ancient wisdom, we might have fewer figures like Glenn Beck and more figures like the late Peter Gomes.