Friday, March 12, 2010

Charity-based churches upset with Glen Beck

Excerpts of Glenn Beck's Advice on 'Social Justice' Churches Sparks Outrage by Jennifer Riley, Christian Post
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Anti-poverty Christian groups are up in arms after popular political commentator Glenn Beck urged Christians to leave their church if it talks about social justice.

Beck, a Mormon, said the word "social justice" is code for communism and Nazism.

In his radio and television show last week on Fox News, Beck urged Christian viewers to talk to their pastor or priest about the word social justice if their church uses the term. If the church leader refuses to change the church's commitment to social justice, then they should leave, Beck continued.

"Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes!" he exclaimed.

Later in the show, Beck held up cards with a hammer and sickle on one and a swastika on the other. He said communism and Nazis both have the same philosophy and in America "social justice" is the code word for both.

Meanwhile, anti-hunger ministry Bread for the World said it does not usually feel compelled to respond to Beck's outrageous statements. But it said his recent comments had "gone too far."

"[W]e say Jesus called us to care for 'the least of these,'" wrote Jim McDonald, managing director of Bread for the World, in an e-mail to The Christian Post. "No matter where you fall on the political spectrum, it is impossible for biblically-literate people to deny the thousands of verses in the Bible about hunger and poverty."

Sojourners and Bread for the World are calling on Christians to send Glenn Beck a message to protest his comparison of church-based social justice and communism.

Notably, Beck's religious group, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or the Mormon church, is widely regarded by Christians as either a heretical Christian sect, a cult, or another Abrahamic religion.

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