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Published January 14, 2015
This is a rush transcript from "Glenn Beck," July 14, 2010. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
GLENN BECK, HOST: OK, here is my challenge, America, and I started this last night. And I want to bring in Stephen Broden. He is a senior pastor at Fair Park Bible Fellowship in Dallas. He is also running for Congress in Texas.
I don't want to talk to you about politics. I want to talk to you about the pulpit and the role that pulpit has played in every great period from the pilgrims to Martin Luther King. Every great period there was an enlightenment, there was an awakening. And it was the spiritual side of America that woke up and took the bull by the horns.
What should pastors — and America listen to this, because you have to ask can your pastor to get off his butt if he is not doing it right now and make a choice, because there is one choice to make: You are either with the radicals and Saul Alinsky and the collective redemption, or you're with the Founders and their understanding of human, individual rights, right?
PASTOR STEPHEN BRODEN, FAIR PARK BIBLE FELLOWSHIP: Absolutely.
When you talk about the Founders, you cannot detach them from the Judeo-Christian ethic that under-girds everything that has made America great. And when you say Judeo-Christian ethic, you're talking about the Bible.
And so pastors need to recast, in the minds of their congregation, that this nation was founded on principles that are sourced within the word of God. When you talk about liberty, you cannot escape liberty given to every man, because we're made in image of God.
When they — the Founders — said in the Declaration of Independence, "We hold the truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator," they were saying that our liberties, our freedoms are sourced in the divine. And that needs to be recast again in America in the church.
BECK: See, they are already — they are already saying this. There is new — I love this. Where is it? The eco-theology. They're already talking about eco-theology in religions. Here is one, "Reverend Wallis calls for the new financial reform bill."
Here is one, "Houston's clergy unites to urge support for immigration reform." You're getting these things into the press. And they are telling their congregation, "You must vote for social justice."
And social justice can be blurry, because social justice, if you understand it as God saying, "Hey, you've got to help serve," that's OK. But social justice the way it's intended by Rev. Wallis, et cetera, et cetera, is not. It is, give that power to the government and they will redistribute and they will provide collective salvation, right?
BRODEN: Oh absolutely. Yes. That's — collective salvation is an idea that is foreign to salvation as it is presented in a theological frame within the scriptures. We know that Paul tells us, "Work out your own soul's salvation with fear and trembling. "Your own" meaning it is my responsibility, my obligation to enact and appropriate and exercise biblical principles in my life because I will ultimately stand before God and give an account.
BECK: So explain —
BRODEN: Individually.
BECK: Explain how the president can talk about — explain away the president saying, "My salvation is linked. My salvation will not happen unless there is collective salvation."
BRODEN: I think that is a perversion of the gospel. I think that does not represent a biblical idea. That collectivism is more sourced in Karl Marx and Engels and Lenin. That is a communistic, socialistic idea which, by the way, is the antithesis of what we get in scripture.
It is a godless system that is founded in a godless idea and it cannot mix with the bible. There is an unholy mixture going on here. And I don't think it's by accident. It's by design.
BECK: OK, America. I'm going to ask the pastor to be very specific on what you need to go ask your pastor to do and ask him what he believes.
And we're not talking about politics here. We're talking about principles, principles that founded this country.
Back in just a second.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BECK: OK. So what should your religious leader be preaching right now? Black Robe Brigade is — really helped the American Revolution because it taught the principles that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.
Pastor Broden is here. He is a senior pastor at Fair Park Bible Fellowship in Dallas. He is also running for Congress in Texas.
I want you to ask, if you go to your rabbi or your priest or your bishop or your pastor or your cleric, whoever, what is it that you say to them? Let's say you're in one of these eco-theology churches but you're not really sure. You are hearing social justice. What do you have to ask?
And then, if you are not in a social justice church the way Saul Alinsky meant it, what do you ask your pastor or rabbi or whoever? What do you ask him to do?
BRODEN: I think the question remains the same in either of those churches, is what thus sayeth the Lord about our environment, what thus sayeth the Lord about our liberties and our freedom. What thus sayeth the Lord?
So we are casting within our congregation a view God's perspective on life and living and on our stewardship responsibilities to maintain this globe. I think we do have a stewardship responsibility, too. However, it does not come under the auspices of the government. It comes from the — yes.
BECK: Really, the problem is I believe we have — we're going to be held responsible, as individuals —
BRODEN: Absolutely.
BECK: Individuals.
BRODEN: Absolutely.
BECK: So we have to do our part. We have to stand for the right. We have to vote the right way, one way or another. It doesn't matter. But you have to use your intelligence and not be a schlep. You have to use — exercise your agency carefully every step of the way.
BRODEN: Oh, absolutely.
BECK: But when they teach it, it's, again, about collective salvation, because they'll do it and save us all, right?
BRODEN: That is an exclusion of what thus sayeth the Lord. We need to — the starting point for the believer is what does God have to say about these issues? And we develop our perspective on life and living from the perspective of the divine.
BECK: But they'll say we can't do it unless we all do it together. We have to do it, because it won't happen any other way.
BRODEN: Well, listen, individual responsibility and duty, and we see that coming out of the scripture as it says work out your own soul's salvation. Also, it says that each man has to stand and give an account. That is an individual responsibility.
Now, what we can do is challenge culture. We can challenge our congregations to be involved, challenge them to grid of the faith.
BECK: Isn't that our —
BRODEN: Our faith becomes the action for why we do what we do.
BECK: Isn't that what Whitfield did? Isn't that what Martin Luther King did?
BRODEN: Oh, absolutely.
BECK: Isn't that what the preachers did? We're so afraid — preachers are, I think — of the tax-exempt status, that — because they're challenged if they say anything.
But I'm not talking about — talking about who to vote for. If I hear a preacher say to me, "You've got to vote for the Republicans. You've got to vote for the Democrats," I'm done.
BRODEN: But they have a right to do that under the Constitution. It's called the First Amendment.
BECK: Yes, they do. I don't have to sit there —
(CROSSTALK)
BRODEN: You don't have to like it, but they have a right under the First Amendment of the Constitution. I think what is happening, what is insidious about what is going on in America today and what is happening to the church is called P.C. — political correctness.
Political correctness has muted the church and the pastor's ability to be the salt and light agent in the marketplace, to be the prophetic voice of God representing what thus sayeth the Lord about what is just and fair, what is right and what is wrong, what is morally correct or what is morally incorrect.
Our voices have been muted because of political correctness.
BECK: America, I would urge you before every great period in America, in the world, there was enlightenment that preceded it. I think we are at the beginning of an enlightenment.
Again, it happened before the Civil War. It happened before the revolutionary war. It happened with Martin Luther King. It is happening again.
Please, plug in to this because it really is the way it's going to be solved, through peace and through God.
All right. I want to tell you a year ago, I designed something called the "American Revival." And we have had 10,000 people every city we've gone to. This is the last one. It is happening this Saturday in Salt Lake City.
You can get your tickets for the "American Revival" — I warn you, it's an all-day event. It is seven hours. It's about restoring faith, about hope and charity in America. This is the last chance to see it. Go to "GlennBeck.com" for ticket information, Salt Lake City this Saturday.
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