'Glenn Beck': Obama's Faith

This is a rush transcript from "Glenn Beck," August 24, 2010. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

GLENN BECK, HOST: Hello, America.

We are from Washington, D.C., where this Saturday, we will be gathered here at the feet of the Lincoln Memorial and we are going to be — as you see in the corner — oops, in this corner. Can you put it back up? This corner is the merit badge. I have been wearing it. I'm all screwed up because I can't — television is backwards.

The merit badge — there it is in the bottom of your screen. It is George Washington's original Purple Heart, but it was just given for merit, for doing something of honor. We didn't even know about it until 1933 when FDR found three. There were only three of them in existence.

Join me for the rest of this story and so much more, a renewal of America, Saturday, at the Lincoln Memorial.

All right.

Now, Last week, a poll from Time magazine showed that 24 percent of Americans believe that President Obama is a Muslim. A Pew Poll found the same result: 18 percent have the belief that he is a Muslim. The numbers in both polls have gone up since Obama's election.

Now, that doesn't make sense, because as you learn more and more about the president of the United States, those numbers should be going down. Why are they going up?

Well, there's a couple of options. Maybe it's because, as so many on the left think, Americans are just stupid, ignorant or racist. I don't believe that.

Is it because, as CBS' Bob Schieffer said on Sunday, he believes the Internet — the Internet — is just a breeding ground for freaks?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BOB SCHIEFFER, CBS NEWS: The great promise of the Internet was that for the first time, great minds no longer had to be in close proximity. But what we have also learned now is in the Internet age, ignorance travels as rapidly as great ideas.

Now, not only great minds can find one another and compare notes, so too can the nuts and perverts and those who are simply looking to validate their prejudices.

So, despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary, a new poll tells us a growing number of Americans, most of them on the right, believe Barack Obama is a Muslim. No doubt, due in part to the fact that stories to that effect have gone viral on the Internet.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: OK. So, it's the Internet that is doing that. Gee, maybe we should have the government control the Internet.

Could it be something else, Bob? Could it be? Is it because the American people observed Barack Obama for 18 months now and they don't know what to believe? They realize that the change that he said that he was going to bring is not the change they thought he was going to bring. Not the change they thought they were voting for.

Let me quote the president if I may — "let me be clear" — President Obama is not a Muslim. I'm taking his word that he is a Christian. But here's where it falls apart for many Americans: It's a Christianity that most Americans just don't recognize.

I'm not spreading that rumor. I'm telling you what he has told people. I'm telling you now the people he has surrounded himself.

There are people now that are finding out that Barack Obama is supposedly a Muslim? No. No. Where are they hearing that? Well, 16 percent hear it on television. Internet is 7 percent; 6 percent from newspapers; 3 percent from magazines.

How about Obama's own behavior or his own words? What is that? Eleven percent. His own behavior and his own words?

Here's what's happening in America: I believe the American people have become confused by the president's words and his deeds over the past
18 months.

One, the apology tour. He apologizes for America all over the world. Here's what he said:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: In America, there is a failure to appreciate Europe's leading role in the world. Instead of celebrating your dynamic union and seeking to partner with you to meet common challenges, there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: All right. Now, it's this kind of ideology that we got from Jeremiah Wright, which makes sense because Jeremiah Wright is the church that Barack Obama found Jesus at — quote, "Kneeling beneath the cross of the south side of Chicago, I felt God's spirit beckoning me. I" — and key words here — "I submitted myself to his will, and dedicated myself to discovering his truth."

Even that statement is confusing — submission. Submission to his will. That's Islam.

Barack Obama discussed American imperialism and colonialism with his Marxist professors in college. Here's what he has said:

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

OBAMA: I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students, the foreign students, the Chicanos, the Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets. We smoked cigarettes and wore leather jackets. At night, in the dorms, we discussed neocolonialism, Frantz Fanon, Eurocentrism and patriarchy.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

BECK: That explains the French apology tour, doesn't it?

All right. So, you have his college, you have his professors, you have his pastor, Jeremiah Wright. It continues with a man who brought him to Jesus, Jeremiah Wright again:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEREMIAH WRIGHT, PASTOR: No, no, no. Not God bless America, God (EXPLETIVE DELETED) America. That's in the Bible, for killing innocent people.

We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon and we never batted an eye.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: This is black liberation theology, any kind of liberation theology. And he heard it in his church from his pastor for 20 years. And what it states is, is that there is an oppressor or a victim — always has to be an oppressor and always has to be a victim. America is the oppressor. The Middle East is the victim.

On this matter, it's not just Jeremiah Wright. His other close friends and other spiritual advisers, like Michael Pfleger, added some extra spice as well:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL PFLEGER, PRIEST: Then, out of nowhere came, hey, I'm Barack Obama. And she said, oh, (EXPLETIVE DELETED), where did you come from? I'm white. I'm entitled. There's a black man stealing my show!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: This man is actually more frightening than Jeremiah Wright could ever be. And Barack Obama in a 2004 Chicago Sun-Times interview, I believe, stated that he is a close personal friend and a very, very close adviser.

Now, we go to Jim Wallis, one of Obama's current spiritual and political advisers. What does he believe?

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

HOST: Are you then calling for the redistribution of wealth in society?

JIM WALLIS, OBAMA'S SPIRITUAL ADVISER: Absolutely, without any hesitation. That's what the gospel is all about.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

BECK: OK.

America, let me ask you a personal question: If you found Jesus, and you didn't believe anything, and you found Jesus through Jeremiah Wright and sat there for 20 years and your close personal friend and spiritual adviser was Richard Pfleger and now, your current spiritual adviser is Reverend Jim Wallis, do you think your friends might be confused because that's not what they hear in their church?

When you're getting Christianity from that trio, after growing up in a family environment — no fault of his own — where your father is a Muslim, an atheist, your mother at least is not practicing any religion, your stepfather is non-practicing Muslim, your grandparents in frequent something called the "Little Red Church," I don't even — I mean, is there any wonder why so many Americans are confused by him? They don't recognize him as a Christian. No.

That's why polls show that there are more people — the same poll — more people who don't know what religion he is, than there are people who believe he's a Christian. Forty-four percent of independents, 41 percent of Democrats, 46 percent of black voters don't have any idea what religion he is.

And it's only going to get worse, because of comments that come to light now like this:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: Whose Christianity would we teach in the schools? Would it be James Dobson's or Al Sharpton's? Which passages of scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is OK and eating shellfish is an abomination or we could go with Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: I want to make this very, very clear: In America, religion is a personal decision. That's between you and God. People don't agree with my faith. I don't agree with other people's faith. That's OK. Is it leading you to be a better person? That's for President Obama to decide.

However, if it starts to affect the public policy, well then we do have to examine and question.

These — the last comments are comments that the vast majority of Christians can't relate to. Couple that with what he said in an interview on faith in 2004. He said, quote, "So I draw from the Christian faith. On the other hand, I was born in Hawaii where there's obviously a lot of Eastern influences. I lived in Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world, between the ages of 6 and ten. My father was from Kenya and though he was accurately labeled an agnostic, his father was Muslim. I probably have to say, intellectually, I have drawn as much from Judaism as any other faith."

Well, OK and now we're confused why people are confused what he is? Where did he come from? We have Christian, Eastern religion influences, Kenyan, agnosticism, Judaism and Islam. But America is expected to be solidly convinced he's a Christian.

Anyway, in the interview, he continued: "So I'm rooted in the Christian tradition. I believe that there are many paths to the same place and the disbelief that there is a higher power, a belief that we are connected as people. That there are values that transcend race or culture that move us forward. And there is an obligation for all of us individually, as well as collectively, to take responsibility to those values lived."

So, you top everything else off with there are many paths to the same place. Well, many Christians will say that's not true. That's not the church that Jesus taught about. That is the church that Oprah teaches about. And by the way, why wouldn't it be? Oprah Winfrey attended Reverend Wright's church for years.

In that same interview, President Obama was asked in 2004 Chicago Sun-Times, who is Jesus to you? He responded, "Jesus is a historical figure for me. He's also a bridge between God and man in the Christian faith and the one I think is most powerful, precisely because he serves as that means of us reaching something higher."

I know a lot of Christians of different faiths. I do. But I don't think any Christian that I know of answers the first part of that as he's a historic figure. To each his own. This is only to say why the American people might be confused.

The president apparently has a deeply held belief that his salvation cannot come without a collective salvation. He has said this on several occasions. This is critical for you to understand. Watch:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)

OBAMA: My individual salvation is not going to come about without a collective salvation for the country.

My individual salvation rests on our collective salvation.

Our individual salvation always depends on collective salvation.

Our individual salvation depends on collective salvation.

(END VIDEO CLIPS)

BECK: It does not. It does not. That is not a Christian belief. That is liberation theology.

Here is what Pope Benedict says about that theology: "Wherever politics tries to be redemptive, it is promising too much. Where it wishes to do the work of God, it becomes not divine but demonic."

It is a belief structure that obviously comes from Jeremiah Wright. Where did he get it from? From the author of liberation theology, James Cone:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES CONE, FOUNDER OF LIBERATION THEOLOGY: The only way in which your repentance, your forgiveness can be — can be authentic, your reception of it can be authentic, your repentance can be authentic — is that you give back what you took. And white people took a lot from black people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: This is why America is confused.

What Americans can't get their arms around is that for the first time, we have a president that believes in collective salvation. That believes in the U.S. is the oppressor. And Islam in this case is the victim — but just one of many victims from the big bad to oppressor, the United States of America. That's what's happening.

Don't be confused by this. Don't confuse this with "he's a Muslim." I don't believe he is. You have to learn his theology. Learn his influences. Learn who he has surrounded himself with his whole life. More knowledge, not less. More access to information, not less.

You see, it's all about victims and victim-hood; oppressors and the oppressed; reparations, not repentance; collectivism, not individual salvation.

I don't know what that is, other than it's not Muslim, it's not Christian. It's a perversion of the gospel of Jesus Christ as most Christians know it.

But as usual, the media won't look at any of those facts because most people in the media don't have any idea what Christianity really is. They would just rather disparage, mock and ridicule anyone who has any kind of doubt or differing opinion from their messiah.

Bob Schieffer, you seem like a nice gentleman. I don't know you. And I'm sure you're a good journalist. I don't know because I don't watch CBS News and, quite frankly, I don't know anybody who does. But it's not the Internet that has caused these problems. It is the president's own actions, his own beliefs and the lack of journalists who lack the integrity to the craft that created this nightmare.

Oh, and one last point here. I showed you where most people heard where they thought that rumor — you know, that Barack Obama was a Muslim — from TV. It was followed by Barack Obama's own words. At the very bottom of the list, where did that — where did that hateful misunderstanding come from? The very bottom of the list coming in with a whopping 1 percent — came in from that demon media seed: talk radio.

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