Scott Johnson: FYI /// And more revelations about Glenn Beck's fiasco of a rally

Well. I'm listening to Scott Johnson's talk for today, skipped the first parts to hear the third because according to his list of subjects he was going to be talking about Glenn Beck. He's playing audio from the opening of the Restoring Honor rally, a part of it I had missed. There's to be a pastor who keeps saying "Gods" where he should be saying "God" -- haven't heard that part yet. And there are some native Americans out on the stage in full Indian regalia, and Glenn Beck's speech is pure Mormonism.

And Scott Johnson doesn't seem to know it. This whole business of the Native Americans having the true religion is really puzzling him. Scott, you need to know that that comes straight out of the Book of Mormon. In fact Beck's opening remarks about the true God dealing with His chosen people through Moses at the same time He was dealing with people on this continent is pure Book of Mormon. And pure idiocy.

Actually Beck didn't even get the time frame right. I read the Book of Mormon in order to talk to a Mormon girl missionary years ago and was appalled that such utter stupidity could ever be taken for reality by anyone.

[Later: Just listened again to the Beck speech from Johnson's site: "The story of America is the story of humankind" he says. Huh? Then he says "Five thousand years ago, on the other side of the planet, God's chosen people were led out of bondage by a guy with a stick who was talking to a burning bush. Man first began to recognize God and God's law." [Nonsense. Humanity had known God and God's law since Eden but it had become corrupted because of the Fall. God was now beginning to train a people to carry His word for the rest of the world, and especially for the purpose of producing the Messiah He'd promised to send back in Eden, to save us from the consequences of the Fall, our disobedience to God. But Beck goes on:] "The chosen people listened to the Lord." [Well, sort of, some of the time anyway. They also made a golden calf to worship as soon as Moses wasn't around to keep them in line. Now here comes the BIG FAT STUPID MORMON LIE:] "At the same time those things were happening, on this side, on this land, another group of people were gathered here and they too were listening to God."

Uh oh. Remember, he's identified this time as 5000 years ago, which is absurdly wrong for starters for identifying the time of the Exodus under Moses, which occurred more like 3400 years ago or about 1400 BC. Abraham's time was about 500 years before that or about 1900 BC. The Flood was about 2500 BC, so Beck's time frame would put Moses before the Flood. But Beck goes cheerfully on spelling out his Mormon fiction:

"How these two people were brought together again happened because people were listening to God." [Scott Johnson interrupts here to ask "What does that mean?" Even if you don't know anything about Mormonism or even the time frame of the Old Testament, yes, you still have to ask "What does that mean?" because Beck is not making sense. Johnson points out that when the Pilgrims got to America the Indians were immersed in paganism, showing no signs of ever having learned anything of the true God. I'm leaving out a few comments here, then we get to:]

"God's chosen people, the Native Americans, and the Pilgrims . . ." [and here some people start cheering and applauding -- what on earth for?] [Johnson, who clearly doesn't know that this all comes out of the Book of Mormon, simply comments at this point, "The Native Americans weren't saved, they needed the gospel of Jesus Christ." Quite true.] Then Beck goes on to introduce a Rabbi, a couple of Indians and a pastor who he says is a descendant of the Mayflower Pilgrims. "To restore America, to restore honor, we've got to start at the beginning and look at the patterns" Beck then says. "When people came together of different faiths in the spirit of God . . . and the first thing they did was pray together." Man, if I'd heard this part of the rally the first time around I wouldn't have had to struggle to recognize that the whole thing was a bizarre religionistic fraud. Even without knowing that Beck is preaching pure Mormon lies it should be clear to a Christian, as it is to Johnson, that he's preaching ecumenical gobbledygook that no Christian should countenance for half a second.

At this point Johnson goes on to play what he says isn't a very clear audio of the prayer in which the pastor keeps saying "Gods" instead of "God." Yes, a few sentences into this you can hear "Lord Gods," and yes he keeps repeating this odd "mistake," two times, three times, over and over. Yes, very very strange.

Hey, Christians, wake up. NO attempt to restore America is worth compromising with the devil, and this is what this is. Abandon America if we must, No matter how much it hurts, if it means abandoning the true God, as in this abomination of a religiopatriotic rally it clearly means.

Anyway here's the story as I recall it from the BoM. In 600 BC [this is about the time of Jeremiah, when the Israelites were going into captivity in Babylon, considerably later than Moses . Beck himself -- along with Mormons in general? -- is confused about the timing of Old Testament events I guess. I recall the BoM saying 600 BC but there's Beck saying 5000 years ago. Maybe they rewrote the BoM since I read it? I know they have a habit of doing that when their errors become embarrassing.], some Israelites took off in a boat and ended up in South America. Or was it Central America. Somewhere south of us anyway. The leader's name was Nephi, and there are other names that may come back to me or may not. (I answered this girl among other things that God had told the Israelites through Jeremiah that they HAD to go to Babylon, He wouldn't let them even go to Egypt. So here are these renegade Jews taking a boat across the ocean? Against God's clear directives? And they survived the trip? In 600 BC?)

[Here's another thought: If the Mormons believe that the 600 BC time frame of their Book of Mormon is the same time frame as Moses' bringing the Israelites out of Egypt, they are going to have to explain how it is that so much of the book of the prophet Isaiah is reproduced in that same Book of Mormon. Isaiah precedes Jeremiah so the "Nephites" could conceivably have taken it with them to America, timewise anyway, but if they think it all happened at the same time as Moses there was no Isaiah yet. Of course such facts wouldn't have stopped Joseph Smith. Faced with such a disparity he would no doubt simply have claimed that those passages of Isaiah were given to them direct from God. Even in the exact English of the King James of Smith's era, not even in Hebrew, which presumably the "Nephites" should have spoken -- except I think Smith has them speaking some sort of Egyptian -- that's what the BOM was written in anyway. Only absolute total ignorance of history and of the Bible could make any of this seem remotely believable].

I'm fuzzy about the rest of the story but at some point there were warring tribes of these new "Americans" and many died and their religion was lost, and they eventually became the Native Americans, who according to Mormonism are Jews. Jesus Christ supposedly came and preached the gospel to them directly (they say that's because Jesus said He had "other sheep" to tend, ignorant of the fact that He meant the Gentiles to whom the gospel was taken by Paul, at least, and many others of the apostles according to tradition if not scripture. The idea that Jesus would have made a completely secret trip to some other "sheep" across the world is ridiculous. He ascended into heaven, there to remain until His return.)

So these people wrote stuff ("scripture") down on golden tablets and Joseph Smith found them centuries later. There are so many absurdities in the story I couldn't get through it all, but I found enough contradictions with scripture in the first couple chapters to write pages against it for the girl missionary. Who of course didn't take any of it seriously. Or so I suppose since I never heard from her again.

So right off Glenn Beck is preaching Mormon doctrine at his rally. How many recognized this? People cheered at one point when he identified the Native Americans as believers in God. Something very strange about all this. (Perhaps there were a huge number of Mormons in that audience?) About that time any knowledgable true Christians in the audience SHOULD have started walking out.

If I'd heard that part I would have been immediately alerted, but I started listening later when it was mostly a lot of gospel talk of a fairly unobjectionable sort. Even that of course is wrong, as I eventually recognized, because a Mormon doesn't use the words the same way a Christian does. So already there were problems with them all sharing the stage. If it had been just a political rally, no problem. But it turns out that Beck has been getting more and more "spiritual" recently, and that's where we have to part company with him. But I had missed the first part where his Mormon beliefs were overt -- and nobody objected!

So at least thanks to Scott Johnson I got to hear that part.

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But Scott did get something else wrong that really needs to be corrected, because it amounts to wrongly accusing someone.

Before getting to Glenn Beck he responded to somebody who'd written him that Del Tackett of the Truth Project seemed to be promoting contemplative Christianity because he used the term Unio Mystica.

I saw all the Truth Project teachings and not once did Del Tackett say a word about contemplative Christianity unless I suffered a brain paralysis during that segment. I've been wracking my brain to remember what he DID mean by that phrase and I'm not sure. He used various Latin type phrases to characterize different phases of the teachings. ALL of the Truth Project is about cultural Christianity, and how it is derived from Biblical wisdom -- how to develop a Biblical worldview.

I think the term simply refers to the fact that Christian believers are united with Christ through faith, though I don't remember the context in which that came up. In any case, it had nothing whatever to do with contemplative Christianity. But Scott hung this on him with no evidence whatever, simply the use of that Latin phrase which is apparently also commonly associated with contemplative Christianity.

I thought the Truth Project was excellent. Tackett covered every facet of a Biblical Worldview from science to law to government to education to art and so on.

Since watching the Truth Project I signed up for their newsletter and I don't like it as much. In a recent issue on the Biblical Flood, although he did a good job of showing the evidence for the Flood, he went on to allow that an Old Earth is possible although it violates the Bible. That bothered me. Old Earth Creationism is a compromise with worldly evolutionism that denies the Book of Genesis.

In this same talk Scott Johnson also listed some of the problems with James Dobson's Christian beliefs, which I was at least vaguely aware of myself, enough to have wondered how the Truth Project got associated with Dobson's Focus on the Family. I decided there didn't seem to be much connection, and there may not be, but it's hard to know. It may turn out that Tackett shares some of Dobson's errors too.

I wonder who is going to be left standing in the end? Anybody at all?

If you think you're too smart to be duped by the devil Part 2

[Note: The radio broadcast linked in my previous post should be heard by everyone who wants to understand why Christians cannot stand with Glenn Beck on religion.]

What if we got a Mormon President?

They're such nice moral conservative (except for Harry Reid) patriotic people, what a relief it would be compared to Obama?

One of the speakers on that radio program I refer to above was Ed Decker, a former Mormon who has worked extensively to educate people on the true nature of Mormonism. Here are some excerpts from a chapter of his book My Kingdom Come, The Mormon Plan for America and the Rise of Mitt Romney

You think Obama's Marxist commitment is going to destroy the nation? (It is.) You think Muslim commitment to the Koran and to Shariah law would destroy the nation if Islam gets a foothold? (It would.) But now consider that if a Mormon gets into the Presidency, another set of commitments in the form of an oath against this nation and Mormon prophecies about a Morman Presidency would go into effect with just as destructive consequences.

When George Romney, Mitt's father, made his aborted run for President in 1968, there was a lot in internal LDS talk about the last days prophecies that the US constitution would hang by a thread to be saved by the elders of the LDS church. Many felt that the day had finally arrived for the actual "Kingdom of God" to be established.

This pure form of theocratic, prophet led government would prepare the way for the ushering in of the millennium, the time when Jesus would return to earth, sit in his temple in Missouri to reign over the earth, with the center of His government operated as the "Kingdom of God" on earth.

The actual background for all these whispered conversations came from much of the historical documents of the church and the speeches of many of the early church authorities.

It goes something like this. Joseph Smith implemented a program called the United Order in the church -- It was a plan of sharing... everything in common, all properties and wealth turned over and owned by the church and dispersed by the Brethren to the people on an as needed basis with a requirement for good stewardship or loss of use.

It was called the "Kingdom of God." It was people living as God ordained under the United Order. However, it failed.

It was later determined that it could only work when both the secular and ecclesiastic functions operated under one authority... An LDS prophet ruling over a theocratic government where eternal commandments like the United Order and plural marriage and blood atonement would function within "The Kingdom of God"

That Theocracy would come into existence when the US Constitution would hang by a thread and the Mormon elders would be there to save it and the country and thereby usher in The Kingdom of God, the prophesied Mormon theocracy.

...Now we jump ahead 40 years to 2007 -- and the 2008 Presidential election. A whole generation has passed and the son of George Romney has risen to the top of the list of Mormons who would qualify to take that run at the Oval Office and perhaps be in the right place as President or Vice President as the Constitution hangs by that foretold thread -- and be there to call upon the elders, the Brethren to save the nation and soon usher in the "Kingdom of God."

Far fetched... I would agree that I sound like a man shouting fire in a theatre, but, as you will read, I am talking about valid LDS end-times teachings...

You will also see that Mitt Romney has been raised and trained for this day. His family has been in the church for generations. He is the great grandson of polygamists Gaskell Romney and Anna Amelia Pratt.

Mitt Romney is a Temple Mormon, a High Priest, and as such he has sworn blood oaths of sacrifice, obedience and consecration to the church and the "Kingdom of God." His perfect obedience to these laws will allow him to become a god in the next life, the literal father of the peoples of a new and different earth. He is truly a Presidential candidate with an actual, definable god complex.

...Mitt Romney is a nice looking man, successful in the business world, with core values of family, church and faith. He does not smoke, drink or even touch coffee or tea. He has been married to the same woman for decades. He seems like the cure for dealing with the corruption of our national leadership. What could possibly be wrong in having such a man as our President? Let's look at some of the reasons his presidency could be the end of America as we know it.

...It is hard to imagine that well-educated Mormon men of such political stature like former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Utah Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah or Senator Harry Reid of Nevada could bring their thumbs to their throats and swear a blood oath that they will '˜suffer' their throats slit from ear to ear should they not "sacrifice all that [they] possess, even [their] own lives if necessary, in sustaining and defending the Kingdom of God, as defined by the Mormon prophet.

These LDS oaths are taken directly from the rituals of Blue Lodge Masonry, the source of much of the LDS Temple rituals. It is no wonder, since the first 5 presidents and prophets of the LDS church were Masons.

These high level Temple Mormons clearly know that this Mormon "Kingdom of God" is, in reality, a Mormon one-world government, a theocracy, soon coming to America, that will be run by the strong arm of the Mormon Brethren, headed up by the only true prophet of God on earth. However, it is clear that they did swear such an oath.

...Mormon leaders call their empire the "Kingdom of God." However, their "God" is an extraterrestrial from Kolob, definitely not the God of the Bible; and the "Zion" to which their spirit-brother-of-Lucifer Jesus Christ will return to reign is Independence, Missouri.

...Mormonism seems as American as apple pie, and Mormons seem to be the perfect citizens with their close families, high morals, patriotism, Boy Scout programs, Tabernacle Choir, and conservative politics. A Los Angeles Times article implied that Mormons have recently gained the image of "super-Americans . . . [who] appear to many to be 'more American than the average American."

This may explain why such a high proportion of Mormons find their way into government. Returned LDS missionaries have "the three qualities the CIA wants: foreign language ability, training in a foreign country, and former residence in a foreign country." Utah (and particularly BYU) is one of the prime recruiting areas for the CIA. According to BYU spokesman Dr. Gary Williams, "We've never had any trouble placing anyone who has applied to the CIA. Every year they take almost anybody who applies." He also admitted that this has created problems with a number of foreign countries, who have complained about the "pretty good dose of [Mormon] missionaries who've gone back to the countries they were in as Central Intelligence agents."

This may at least partially explain the reported close tie between the Mormon Church and the CIA. A disproportionate number of Mormons arrive at the higher levels of the CIA, FBI, military intelligence, armed forces, and all levels of city, state, and federal governments, including the Senate, Congress, Cabinet, and White House Staff. Sincere and loyal citizens, most of them may be unaware of the secret ambition of The Brethren. What could be better than having such patriots as these serving in strategic areas of government and national security?

Unfortunately, as we have noticed in every other area of Mormonism, the real truth lies hidden beneath the seemingly ideal image of patriotism presented by Mormons in public service. In fact their very presence in responsible government positions, particularly in agencies dealing with national security, raises some extremely grave questions that were expressed in my following letter mailed to the LDS Brethren in Salt Lake City. I also published it as an open letter in the Salt Lake Tribune.

The Mormon Oath of Vengeance Against this Nation

An open letter to:

The President, First Presidency and members of the General Authorities of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
August 21, 1980

Gentlemen:
I was recently reflecting that although the actual blood oath and the oath of vengeance were removed from the Temple ceremonies sometime after 1930, you gentlemen [listing ten of the above] are of an age to have received your own endowments prior to their removal, and therefore, are still under these oaths.

I am particularly interested in your personal position on your oath of vengeance against the United States of America. As you recall, the oath was basically as follows:

You and each of you do solemnly promise and vow that you will pray and never cease to importune high heaven to AVENGE THE BLOOD OF THE PROPHETS (Joseph and Hiram Smith) ON THIS NATION, and that you will teach this to your children and your children's children unto the third and fourth generation.

Have you officially renounced this oath? Or are you still bound by it?

He didn't get an answer.

If you think you're too smart to be duped by the devil, think again.

So. We've had our eyes on Obama, we've had our eyes on Islam. We've also had our eyes on Catholicism, some of us, and some Christians have had our eyes on certain movements within Christianity as well -- The Emerging Church, Dominionism, The Kansas City Prophets and so on. If we keep up on studies of the cults we are also aware of Mormonism's bizarre teachings and ambitions. I'm one of those who have pondered how the Antichrist Religion of the last days might stack up between Catholicism, Islam and Mormonism, with some version of Hinduism and its New Age offshoots thrown in. Mormonism is usually in the mix but I have to say I had no idea until this Glenn Beck rally over the weekend just how close they might be to fulfilling their crazy notions.

I can only STRONGLY recommend this radio broadcast, titled Are Christians Selling Their Soul For Patriotism? , all two hours of it, for the best reasoning on why Christians must not support Glenn Beck, showing just how deeply Beck's ambitions for America are rooted in his Mormonism. It's a crash course in Mormonism that might cause you to rethink the current political scene or at least convince you that what is happening isn't necessarily what it seems to be. This is a discussion between three experts on Mormonism and a radio hostess named Jan Markell, who is completely new to me, and for me it's an eyeopener.

Part 1 is a good solid introduction to the situation with Glenn Beck and Mormonism in general, but Part 2 opens up possibilities anybody who thinks about the end times HAS to be aware of. Here is the description of the broadcast from the website:

Jan's guests include Brannon Howse, Eric Barger, and Ed Decker. The issue is Glenn Beck. Over two hours, the ultimate question is: are Christians selling their soul for patriotism? Most conservatives love Glenn Beck. He exposes evil and he loves America. He hates what is happening to this nation. But Glenn has another agenda as the panel proves over two hours: The subtle promotion of Mormonism. Listen and learn what is happening, why it is happening, and who are the Christians participating. While many suggest he is a "saved Mormon," the panel says that is not possible. About a dozen sound bytes are played that are revealing. The Mormons want to "save America" because it is the "promised land." God has a covenant with America. Not so. We urge you all to pray for Glenn Beck.

One point that was made on that radio broadcast was that standing with him at the rally or in any religious capacity INVITES GOD'S JUDGMENT AGAINST THE NATION. (Just as Bush's bringing together nonChristian religions in the National Cathedral to pray about 9/11 also did, as I've pointed out). The true God will not give His glory to another.