The Glenn Beck Rally — Divine Destiny or Evangelical Scandal?

From Dr. Paul M. Elliott, of Teaching the Word Ministries

Once again, Evangelical leaders are lining up to heap "wood, hay, and stubble" on the foundation of Jesus Christ. What about you and your church?

Beck's "Black Regiment"

On August 28, 2010, in one of the most massive public demonstrations in American history, a huge crowd — by some estimates nearly half a million people — gathered at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington for talk-show host Glenn Beck's "Restore Honor in America" rally. Joining Beck on the platform were over 240 male and female clergy belonging to the ecumenical ministerial group he has formed, the "Black-Robed Regiment".

The term "Black-Robed Regiment" is a reference to clergymen of the Revolutionary War era, who were said to form an additional "regiment" of the Continental Army as they spurred revolutionary fervor from their pulpits.

As Beck told Fox News host Bill O'Reilly after the rally, the group on the memorial steps consisted of "240 pastors, priests, rabbis and imams on stage [who] all locked arms saying the principles of America need to be taught from the pulpit." Beck said that even atheists are welcome to be involved in the movement, because they know how to "self-regulate" in the same way that Christians and Jews follow the Ten Commandments.

According to published news reports, among those who have enlisted in Beck's "Black-Robed Regiment" are Liberty University president Jerry Falwell, Jr.; former Focus on the Family president James Dobson; Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention; rabbi and management consultant David Lapin; television star and columnist Chuck Norris; mega-church pastor John Hagee; a number of Roman Catholic priests; and even some Muslim imams.

Beck hosted a pre-rally "Divine Destiny" event featuring members of the "regiment" in the concert hall of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Rabbi Lapin, steeped in his Christ-denying legalism, spoke at the event without a microphone because he believes that Jews are not supposed to turn on electricity on the Sabbath.

Beck said, “These men and women here don’t agree on fundamentals. They don’t agree on everything that every church teaches. What they do agree on is that God is the answer.”

Echoing the spiritually bankrupt Moral-Majority philosophy of his late father, Jerry Falwell, Jr. said this: “Glenn Beck’s Mormon faith is irrelevant. People of all faiths, all races and all creeds spoke and attended the event. Nobody was there to endorse anyone else’s faith..."

Se also: Ken Silva On Glenn Beck's Theo-Politics