Tragic Mistake on the Gospel of Glenn Beck

Andrée Seu’s Tragic Mistake on the Gospel of Glenn Beck [Excerpts]

Not to exaggerate, but reading Andrée Seu's latest article felt a bit like a punch in the gut. She is one of my favorite writers at World Magazine. She writes with skill, grace, wisdom, and spiritual insight.

But now she is saying that she is convinced Glenn Beck is “a new creation in Christ,” even though he is a practicing and believing Mormon.

It’s tragic that she would believe this, write this, and that World would publish it.

A few short thoughts in response.

First, we should recognize that Andrée Seu’s conclusion is a temptation that is common to all (1 Cor:10:13There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.
See All...a). It is easy to hear passion and mistake it for true spiritual zeal. It is easy to be moved by talk of having faith in Jesus, without asking who the person understands Jesus to be.

Even the great J. Gresham Machen—who became a stalwart warrior against modernistic liberalism—was initially captivated by his systematic theology teacher at Marburg, Wilhelm Herrmann. Machen wrote to his parents in 1905:

“My chief feeling with reference to him is already one of the deepest reverence. . . . I have been thrown all into confusion by what he says—so much deeper is his devotion to Christ than anything I have known in myself during the past few years. . . . Herrmann affirms very little of that which I have been accustomed to regard as essential to Christianity; yet there is no doubt in my mind but that he is a Christian, and a Christian of a peculiarly earnest type. He is a Christian not because he follows Christ as a moral teacher; but because his trust in Christ is (practically, if anything even more truly than theoretically) unbounded....”

This attraction to passionate commitment even with Bible-denying theology can be hard to combat, but we must resist it at all costs (as Machen learned to do).

Secondly, more than ever we need to be clear that Mormonism is fundamentally incompatible with biblical Christianity—starting with the most basic building block that Christians are Trinitarian monotheists (one God in three persons) and Mormons are polytheists (more than one god). It is a religion founded by a false prophet.

(Justin Taylor, Between Two Worlds blog, “Andrée Seu’s Tragic Mistake on the Gospel of Glenn Beck,” The Gospel Coalition, September 16, 2010.)