A Response to Jim Garlow Regarding Glenn Beck

If you’re not familiar with him, Jim Garlow is the lead pastor of Skyline Wesleyan Church near San Diego, California, one of the largest churches in the Wesleyan denomination. In recent years he was heavily involved in organizing support for Proposition 8 and has begun working with Newt Gingrich on an initiative called “Renewing American Leadership.” Normally I am content to live and let live when it comes to such political matters: if Dr. Garlow wants to involve himself in such things, that is his prerogative. However, on August 25, 2010, Jim Garlow posted a lengthy defense of his alliance with Glenn Beck (originally posted on Facebook, I think; you can read the same thing here), whose Mormon faith needed, shall we say, some explaining.

I should say first of all that I do not necessarily oppose making alliances with non-Christian faiths from time to time. Certainly, we should agree with others and cooperate with them when we can. And I should also say that I fully recognize that not everyone will agree that Mormons are not Christians, since they do, according to their own definition, follow Christ. But Mormons are certainly not orthodox Christians, and that is the rub.

Had Garlow simply argued that it was appropriate to work with Glenn Beck because, in his view, they had similar aims, that would be one thing. But he then crossed the line by arguing that Beck is in fact a Christian who has been saved by Christ. This is much, much too far.

Garlow’s logic is that people who know Beck well insist that he is a Christian, that Beck is able to articulate a theology of atonement, and that since “all of us are missing part of God’s full truth,” logically you do not have to have your doctrine 100% correct in order to get into heaven.

The massive problem in this is that these issues were settled, as far as the church is concerned, centuries ago. The point of the Nicene Creed, for example, was to define some boundaries of orthodox Christian faith. Accept these things, and you’re in the church; reject them, and you’re somewhere else. It’s been that way since the fourth century AD, and it’s not really up for debate any more. And the root of this whole problem is that Mormons explicitly reject the Trinitarian theology of the orthodox creeds. They may call Him Lord, but they don’t call Him God.

There is truth in Garlow’s logic. Certainly, many sincere, saved, even sanctified Christians cannot explain important concepts like atonement or Trinitarian theology, and we still embrace them fully in the church (though I trust they are growing in their understanding). But there is a difference between ignorance and rejection. Ignorance can be easily solved, but rejection places you outside of the embrace of the church. At best, we could say that Glenn Beck’s status as a Christian is uncertain and therefore we should consider his theology dubious. Is it possible to be saved apart from the church? Probably, I suppose, in unusual circumstances. Is it possible to be saved if you’re actively rejecting the church? I wouldn’t bet on those odds, but it’s not up to me. Leave it up to God to decide their status. In our judgments, let us be guided by the long-established creeds of the church instead of the opinions of sources in the know.

I normally try to remain discreet in these sorts of sensitive issues, especially when dealing with leaders in my own denomination. It is in no way my intent to insult Dr. Garlow, my brother in Christ. But these are uncivilized times we live in, and I fear we must take a careful stand lest the church in the United States sell herself to the civil religion of conservative politics. Garlow said that "If this nation collapses in the 2010-2012 time frame, historians will have to report, if they are honest, that America fell because of silent pastors and inactive pews." But since when has the Kingdom of God been tasked with being the guardian of a secular, temporal kingdom of humanity? The fall (or success) of America as a nation is not the concern of Christ's church. On the contrary, if the church in America fails in its mission in the 2010-2012 time frame, I fear it will be because of Christians who are unable to discern the difference between Kingdom values and conservative nationalism. This conflation of conservative civil religion with the church in the United States will do far, far more damage to our cause than any other threat we face. As such, let our judgments be motivated by Kingdom values rather than unholy politics.