This issue asks–What was Glenn Beck’s Restoring Courage Event Really All About?
SINCE YOU ASKED
I was recently made aware of an article written by Jan Markell of Olive Tree Ministries. She was featuring a gentleman who participated in Glenn Beck’s recent Restoring Courage even in Israel, including the bus tour. He is Jack Kinsella, who writes the Omega Letter. According to the article, “Jack and others came away feeling that the ‘Restoring Courage’ event was first about Mormon issues and secondarily, about Israel. Appreciate Glenn Beck for what he does right…but he put together an event that had serious ulterior motives…”
 
In the words of Jack Kinsella:
“By concealing the relationship between Voyager Travel and the LDS, many well-meaning Christians were duped into contributing to the LDS Church and their efforts at LDS evangelism. We were deceived into contributing to a religious system than cannot save and a god who is neither eternal nor Biblical, and a created, rather than Divine Jesus whose only qualification for the job was being a better planner than Satan.  
 
“We were tricked into providing money for use by Mormon missionaries that will lead people away from salvation rather than to it, and loaned our legitimacy to that cause by appearing together with thousands of others in a show of support that was supposed to be for Israel but was manipulated into a night to honor Glenn Beck’s ‘courageous’ stand of faith in a god who cannot save.
 
“The entire premise of the tour was that of having the courage to stand for what we believed in. It began by deceiving the bulk of those attending who certainly would NOT have signed up with an outfit called LDS Travel by disguising it as something else…”
 
“…If the LDS really is just another Christian denomination, as its apologists insist, then why the deception? The answer should be obvious. People don’t hide something unless there is something to hide.”

AS I SEE IT
Considering the credentials of Mr. Kinsella, I have to take him at his word as to what he observed. I have stated on many occasions that I have been a Glenn Beck fan except when he ventures into theology. I have wondered in amazement how he can be so close and yet so far. I have tried to show how his movements and events have been based solidly on Mormon theology and how Mormonism and Christianity are vastly different despite his claims that he is a Christian. Check out my related articles.
 
According to Mr. Kinsella, Mr. Beck made a point to publically say in an accusing tone, that of all the groups present at the event, it was only the Christians who questioned his salvation. He was insinuating in no uncertain terms that those Christians who questioned his salvation were more intolerant and less Christian than the two thousand or so Americans sitting in that open-air theatre in Caesarea. I can’t help wondering how David Barton, John Hagee, and Mike Evans, who shared the stage with him, feel about his comments. Do these respected leaders think he’s a Christian? Do they inwardly agree with Kinsella that Beck had ulterior motives?
 
Whatever the case, I’ve got a lot to think about and now, so do you.

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ON THE LIGHTER SIDE
Long ago, when men cursed and beat the ground with sticks, it was called witchcraft. Today, it’s called golf.
–Will Rogers