The keynote speaker for this year’s NRA convention in Houston was a real crowd pleaser with experience riling up weak-minded right-wing sheeple. Glenn Beck’s sermon was delivered with his usual flair for phony emotion and theatrics. Here is the video if you have the stomach for it.
Beck set up his speech by fluffing the audience with praise for what awesome, charitable, courageous, sexy, patriots they all were. Of course, they lapped up this drooling approbation like thirsty puppies and rewarded Beck’s pandering with masturbatory applause. Beck gave the people exactly what they wanted and even titillated them with a teasing hint of a new project he would be announcing “in the coming days” with “major partners.”
The primary message of Beck’s program, however, was a more overarching appeal to the grand province of the Lord, with whom Beck frequently reminds folks that he is in close communication. Never mind that Beck’s interpretation of the divine is in stark contrast to that of most theologians. Take, for instance, how he inexplicably juxtaposes the mission of the NRA with that of the Prince of Peace by saying “Our right to keep and bear arms will not be infringed. We will follow the footsteps of Jesus Christ.” And while Beck never reveals where in scripture he learned that Jesus’ footsteps were fortified with firearms, he returned to the theme several times with pronouncements like this:
“Jesus was a man of God. He was a man of peace. He was a man of forgiveness. But make no mistake, Jesus Christ was also immoveable. The right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. And we will win by strapping on the full armor of God.”
Perhaps someone should remind Beck that Jesus ordered his apostles to lay down their weapons when confronted with Roman soldiers who came to arrest him in the Garden of Gethsemane. Or maybe they just dismiss it as that old “live by the sword, die by the sword” nonsense that their savior mumbled while under duress. Or, much like the 2nd Amendment, they just heed the half of the text that appeals to them and throw out irrelevancies like “die by the sword” and “well regulated militia.” And where he gets this business about the “armor of God” that he’s so anxious to strap on (an unfortunate phrasing), is anybody’s guess. The closest similar rhetoric would come from the Crusades. In the end, it belittles any notion of a divine power that certainly doesn’t need to rely on the defensive accoutrements of mortals.
Beck railed on interminably, punctuating his evangelical bluster with warnings of end-times alarmism. He insisted that we are in a “precarious situation” and that “the hour grows late.” He feverishly hammered into the heads of his assembled masses the apocalyptic angst that is the hallmark of his nightmarish doctrine.
“Our freedom is under attack. Our liberty, our way of life is being legislated out of existence. Our rights are being diminished by a ruling class of power of elites. They’re growing out of control. We have a government of radical revolutionaries actively working against the Constitution and the American people.”
And after that upchucking of fear and darkness, Beck was steadfast in his determination to fight the left’s tactics of fear and darkness – with love. Because, as we all know, love is best expressed behind the muzzle of an assault weapon that was acquired without any background check. Just ask the children of Sandy Hook, the students of Virginia Tech, the movie fans of Aurora, or even the church-goers of Oak Creek, Wisconsin.
