Yes, Glenn Beck is Wrong

I watch Glenn Beck and thank God for his voice in the wilderness.  However, he has fallen short on connecting some dots.  Ok, he is not wrong, just not complete.  But, I wanted to get your attention on the importance of connecting these dots.  


He started the 9/12 project and then hammered home the idea of Faith, Hope and Charity. Although I love these ideas, he fell short (in my opinion) of explaining the connection between our Christian faith and the reason for our unprecedented success.  It is great to talk about our Judeo-Christian ideas and then creating a list to represent them, but he is no different from progressives, if first, he does not fully re-connect the dots to our Christian Faith. 


I get the concern of alienating some. But, it was the weaving of Christian faith within government and culture that created this amazingly successful society.  Nowhere else in this world was there a consistent recipe of liberty, work ethic, education, competition, and strict adherence to a Christian Faith through its Natural Law and Virtues.  Look at the differences between the US and Europe.  While the US still has a thriving religious community (over 40% attend service every Sunday), most of north-western Europe does not (less than 20%). Those that do in the south of Europe never developed the idea of limited decentralized government.


Christianity gave us Hope, Faith and Charity, called the Theological Virtues.  I do not recall Glenn Beck referring to them as Theological Virtues, quoting St. Paul in his letter to the Corinthians and connecting those dots.  While he seems ready to quote Gandhi, King, Bonhoeffer, our founders, and soooo many other people, it is a shame he does not spend a little time quoting other great writers, especially those whom God Himself used as vessels for his message.  Perhaps again, it is a concern for "turning off" people.  Many people that watch Glenn Beck might not know where these 3 ideas came from so they either think Glenn summarized a Judeo-Christian philosophy or took them from our founders. While the founders did exalt them, it was because of their Christian Faith and knowing these as Theological Virtues as handed down by God through St. Paul.


Likewise, the founders knew of the 4 Cardinal Virtues and in his autobiography the "non-religious" Ben Franklin added to the 4 Cardinal Virtues. Those Virtues are, with definitions:


Prudence - able to discern between appropriate actions and timing of those actions
Justice - proper moderation between self-interest and the rights of others
Temperance - practicing self-control, abstention, and moderation
Fortitude - forbearance, endurance, and ability to confront fear and uncertainty


Connecting these dots with the Book of Wisdom, Plato, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas would do great service, as understanding how they were developed and intertwined into the Christian religion and became the foundation of Western civilization. 

Providing this education to his viewers and connecting the dots would have been more in the "conservative" or traditionalist sense.  People love history and how dots are connected, thus the reason Glenn has such huge ratings when he does one of his historically based shows.  


Perhaps rather than the 12 values in the 9/12 project, it would have been more enlightening to look at the 7 Christian Virtues, then at Ben Franklin's 13 moral Virtues and explain those in historical context.  One must never forget their past as Glenn so eloquently reminds us.  I understand Glenn's mindset, so I understand where and how these things all came about.  It has been a journey for him as it is for all of us.  Some of his reluctance is perhaps concern for "turning off" people, perhaps ignorance, perhaps selective education.  Let's hope it is ignorance that has caused his neglect of not quoting historical figures in the Christian church.  If that is the case, I look forward to him discovering his Catholic roots and discovering very profound ideas such as the 4 Laws, Just Price and distributism.