Beck Gets Religious

Written by Noah Kristula-Green on Sunday August 29, 2010

As with most things Glenn Beck, the hokey overtook the serious at the “Restoring Honor” rally held on the footsteps of the Lincoln Memorial.

If Beck can’t have politics, he’ll try to have religion. That seemed to be the lesson from Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally, held at the footsteps of the Lincoln Memorial.

For three hours, thousands stood in the National Mall. Most could not see the man they came to hear so they looked at the giant screens. The crowd overfilled onto the sides of the mall where the mega-speakers were not positioned and no speech could be heard. The heat was oppressive and water was in short supply yet the crowd was peaceful. There were no political signs. There were flags, but the event was ultimately positive.

While there was a lot about the rally to be critical about, there were also elements that were positive and a fair presentation of the rally must acknowledge that. The rally was held to promote a charity, The Special Operation’s Warrior Foundation. The Foundation provides the children of special ops soldiers who have died with the funds they need for a four-year college education. The cause is worthy, and there is no harm done if Glenn Beck is asking the crowd to make a donation to the fund with their cell phones.

So was the rally entirely harmless? That depends on how you feel about a rally where Glenn Beck comes out onto the steps of the podium and announces: “America today begins to turn back to God!” There was a lot of a God at the rally. Beck recounted how “5,000 years ago, God’s people were led out of Egypt by a man with a stick who listened to a burning bush” setting up the link between that exodus, and the exodus by the pilgrims to America.

Beck then introduced a rabbi, a pastor, and most unexpectedly, two Native Americans. The pastor then opened up the ceremony with a plea for America to seek repentance from Jesus, as the two Native Americans held onto him. Mormon theology and the unique importance it gives to Native Americans doesn’t usually make it onto Glenn Beck’s show, but it was hard not to see this part of the spectacle as reflecting that aspect of the theology.

The rally was “non-political” but with most things that surround Glenn Beck, he dances close to the line. Consider his introduction of Sarah Palin:

I didn’t want to have a member of Congress or someone running for anything. I wanted to have someone who was a dad or a mom [of someone in the military], so I called a mom, Sarah Palin!

Sarah Palin of course has a PAC, recently endorsed a candidate who seems set to achieve an upset in Alaska’s senate primary, and regularly speaks about political issues on television.

In this case, Palin did speak as a mom, "Say what you want to say about me. I'm the mom of a combat vet and you can't take that away from me," referring to her son in Iraq. Even the skeptical and the cynical had to be taken aback as Palin made only a few dog-whistling references to “restoring, not transforming” the country, and used the bulk her time to honor three military veterans.

She relayed the story of Marus Luttrell, a Navy SEAL who was stationed in Afghanistan. In June of 2005, Luttrell’s team ran into some Afghan goat herders. The team held them captive but couldn’t determine if they were dangerous and didn’t know whether to keep them prisoner or let them be released. They voted to release them and tragically, the herders likely told the Taliban about their location, leading to an intense battle that only Luttrell survived. Anyone who realizes the extreme level of personal danger that U.S. soldiers face by having to be excessively mindful of civilian casualties understands why this story is significant.

However, as with most things related to Glenn Beck, for every moment that spoke to a genuine concern, it backtracked into the hokey and the kitsch. Beck presented three “Merit Medals” to civilians who exemplified the “Faith, Hope, and Charity” values that Beck is constantly discussing on his show. Does Albert Pujols — a baseball player with the St. Louis Cardinals -- really needs to receive a medal for “Hope” for his own personal journey towards Christianity and his current efforts to evangelize?

The presentation by Dr. Alveda King, the niece of Martin Luther King Jr. had its own way of showing that even the “non-political” rally could not avoid political issues. “Our material gains seem to going the way of our moral foundation” she proclaimed. She made clear that the famed check that Dr. King said in 1963 was returned and marked with “insufficient funds” would only be fully payable when prayer was “returned” to the public places and schools. She gave similar points on gay marriage (or as she referred to it, the threat to the sanctity of marriage) and abortion. At times, the speech was indistinguishable from the rhetoric of any other social conservative.

As for Beck’s final speech, it covered many topics but its central theme was that some sort of national revival was needed. Beck is notorious for monologuing and he did not disappoint on that front. Among the pearls of wisdom: go to the Lincoln memorial and read the second inaugural address, it’s important! Why does the Washington monument change color as you look up it? Because they stopped construction during the Civil War but then they finished it! He even discussed his own rhetoric, “I do talk about frightening things” but as Beck notes, so did the person who noticed that an iceberg was heading towards the Titanic.

And of course, “God is the answer, he always has been.”

Beck’s rally was long, and as I left, many members in the crowd were napping in their lawn chairs. But there was a reason they came out to endure the heat: “We’re here because he tells the truth” as one tea partier put it. The rally was called “Restoring Honor” because Beck and his speakers believe that honor has been lost in America. How will honor be restored? By focusing on the good things in America, and not just the “scars.”

What was the ultimate disappointment with the rally? It had a positive and important message about assisting America’s soldiers, but after nearly three hours of the extravaganza, it got lost in the muddle of social conservatism, political winks-and-nods, and the never-ending Glenn Beck version of American history. Beck would have an easier time convincing the media that his rallies there non-political if they didn’t make a point of getting intertwined with the anxieties he pushes on his television show.

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