Glenn Beck, James Cone, Personal Salvation and Social Transformation
by: Andrew Rosenthal on July 29th, 2010 | 7 Comments »
James Cone
Though I’m a white non-Christian I experienced Glenn Beck’s recent diatribe against “dangerous” Black Liberation Theology as a personal insult. I went to Union Theological Seminary, the home of James Cone, and a founding author of Black Liberation Theology. As a Jewish student entering Protestant Union Theological Seminary I was a minority. Not surprisingly it waswith Union’s black evangelical students that I felt the greatest measure of acceptance. Many of these students came to Union to learn how to integrate their evangelical faith with Cone’s theology.
Prior to my time at Union like many liberals I associated the term “evangelical” with two things: conservative politics and angry white people from the red states. I assumed that the being “born again” meant that you became a registered Republican. It was my encounter with black evangelical students that changed my views. I quickly learned that one could be a self defined “evangelical” and also an advocate for social justice.
The crux of Evangelicalism is a belief in the need for a personal conversion or “born again” experience. Even though I’m not a Christian I connect with the evangelical emphasis on a personal experience of God. However, unlike Beck and other conservatives my personal faith is the genesis of my belief in social justice.
Union student Onleilove Alston, an African American from Brooklyn is an emerging progressive evangelical leader, a contributing writer to Sojourners Magazine and a member of the Poverty Initiative. She incorporates Black Liberation Theology into her evangelical faith. She says, “When I read God of the Oppressed by James Cone I automatically saw my personal faith journey in his words. I identified with Black Liberation Theology because I saw a Jesus that walked with me through the projects of Brooklyn and who had a personal concern about my total salvation. This belief in total communal salvation has led me to the vocation of justice.” For progressive evangelicals like Alston being “born again” brings with it a responsibility to work toward helping the “poor and oppressed.”
Beck’s personal story is compelling. “I am a man who needed the atonement,” Beck admits. A recovering drug addict and alcoholic Beck “conquered” his addictions just as his Jesus “conquered” death. It should be noted that Beck is a Mormon and some of Beck’s harshest critics are evangelicals who disagree with him attempting to “co-opt” their tradition. I believe that what Beck is concerned with primarily is this “born again” aspect of conservative Christian dogma. His salvation was his choice and based upon his individual merit.
It seems that for Beck faith is solely a vertical experience, between him and God. For me being a spiritual progressive means that faith is also expressed horizontally. Black Liberation Theology and theology at its best helps us to understand and contextualize our personal experience of God into our lived experience. Beck’s primary concern is to save people from the heresy of Liberation Theology and the evils of “socialist” politics. But faith does not have to be a choice between vertical and horizontal. Spiritual progressives (including progressive evangelicals) are able to have a vertical relationship with God and live out a horizontal expression of their faith. Liberation Theology posits that God participates in our suffering and we then must participate in the healing of others who are suffering. It is clear that Beck has suffered; what is unclear is whether or not he is healing.
Andrew alerted me to the this open letter to Glenn Beck by Serene Jones, the President of Union Theological Seminary: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/serene-jones/an-open-letter-to-glenn-b_b_650604.html. It’s a cute post in one way, explaining to Beck that she and her students will be sending dozens of bibles to him with the texts about social justice marked, in case he hasn’t actually got a bible and hasn’t actually read it. She also says she’s raising money to offer him a scholarship to study at the seminary and adds: “It is true that in your case you may need some remedial study before Master’s level work can commence, but we are willing to work with you as you come up to speed with the rest of our student body.”
It’s just the kind of way we liberals love to put down conservatives. Beck of course is much more scathing of liberals, but do we have to be condescending in return? Maybe it’s all in good humor. Or maybe it’s just another way we try to feel superior… or both, as humor often has that kind of edge. Isn’t the constant theme of liberal “elitism” on the right fueled by constant liberal contempt and condescension? I have to say I much prefer Andrew’s take here. (Plain outrage would work too, if framed as “this is how I feel.”) Getting over addiction, as Beck has done, is a big deal. Getting to empathize with the hungry, thirsty, and imprisoned as Jesus said we should isn’t easy in our culture, and I certainly can’t claim to be much good at it myself. These days I’m trying to wean myself off condescension and learn more about expressing empathy or outright anger.
Like Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck seems to have a deep well of rage within him. It’s interesting to see which targets he picks, especially those who are devoted to serving the powerless through social justice work. And it’s also interesting to think about whose purposes his targeted rage serves beyond his own ego needs. Mormonism puts a high premium on self-suffciency, and it’s not particularly kind to those who are not financially successful. Most recently, we’ve learned that it helped underwrite Prop 8 in California. And of course it’s long been a patriarchy of old white men. I’ve heard Beck showed some restraint on the doctored Shirley Sherrod tape; if it’s true, ought to be applauded for getting out of his groove.
As for James Cone, you have to wonder why he never got discovered by talk radio. I find him mesmerizing.
Having come from a Mormon background myself, I want to call your readers to a recent, remarkably thorough and balanced article called “Glen Beck, Rough Stone Roaring” by Robert Rees, a former Mormon bishop, in Sunstone Magazine, an independent liberal Mormon publication: https://www.sunstonemagazine.com/glenn-beck-rough-stone-roaring-part-i/. Rees takes the title of his article from a recent biography by Historian Richard L. Bushman of Mormon founder Joseph Smith called “Rough Stone Rolling”.
Aha – thank you! I never knew Glenn Beck was a recovering drug addict and alcoholic. That for me explains everything. The type of tight zeal with which he holds and spouts out his convictions is typical of someone who needs their type of faith to hold their life together.
As you say, he has suffered and now, thanks to his faith-in his view-he is indeed healed. This is typical of what I call the “Faithful” level of spiritual development.(http://www.exploring-spiritual-development.com/The-Faithful.html) If Beck’s faith has helped him “heal” from the addictions that caused major chaos in his earlier life, we can now see why his pronouncements are so strident. He would like to save everyone else from the same chaos-and the only way he knows to do that is to try and make everyone believe like he does.
The problem is that huge numbers of people in our nation are above the “Faithful” level of spiritual development. To most of us, a faith like Beck’s sounds ridiculous. This is because his worldview is far more limited and less mature than most. To Beck the more liberal, and perhaps more mature, types of faith common in our society-those with a “horizontal” component-are extremely threatening.
Now that we know Beck needs his strictly “vertical” tight, ethnocentric type of faith to keep him from falling back into his former chaotic lifestyle, perhaps we can view him with more compassion-even as we dismiss his worldview as overly limited and his message as largely immature.
I appreciate Andrew Rosenthal’s thoughtful and honest response to Glen Beck’s attack on James Cone and Black Liberation Theology. The problem with Beck’s diatribe as with so much that he and others like him spew is their cursory glance at texts without understanding their context. Anyone who lived through the social revolutions of the 1960’s understands the social context in which various movements for social change emerged. To understand Cone and others, we must grasp the long history of racial oppression in this country. We must also fathom the biblical context, the Exodus liberation tradition of the Old Covenant as well as the liberation ministry of the Jewish Jesus. To cast aspersions on a movement in such an irresponsible and unstudied manner reveals not only the ignorance of people like Beck but also gives insight into how such propaganda can adversely impact low information citizens by limiting their understanding of the true value of those movements.
I intend no condescension, only an appreciation of the forces that offered an expansive viewpoint on life, and sadness for those who are so fearful as to lock out everything except their distorted (as in a nightmare) conception that temporarily soothes their fear by displacement.
Not being an adherent of religion, I understand that need and perspective, but wonder if the next level will occur before humans have destroyed everything.
All in all, I like the guy. Yes, I think he is dramatic at times, but it seems like everyday communication includes a little showmanship to convery your message. I’ll tell you, he seems to be calling it accurately so far. If nothing helps, he make everyone think just a little bit more!