Glenn Beck and his allies in Israel

Last updated on: August 25, 2011 at 6:00 am by Gene Veith

Glenn Beck is in Israel, holding a big rally supporting that country against its Islamic enemies and calling for solidarity with the Jewish people. What’s interesting, as Sarah Pulliam Bailey shows, is the way certain media outlets are confounding Beck, a Mormon, with “Christian fundamentalists” and “evangelicals” who believe that Israel is playing a role in Christ’s second coming. See Israel a la Glenn Beck » GetReligion.

On the other hand, some ostensibly conservative Christians are indeed embracing Beck and his cause. These include David Barton, the revisionist historian who claims that America was founded as a distinctly Christian nation and who maintains that Beck is a Christian on the basis of his “fruits.” And also TV Bible-prophecy preacher John Hagee.

I think what we can conclude from this is that certain “fundamentalists” are not necessarily conservative theologically at all, that they can be very ecumenical and tolerant of other religions, to the point of theological relativism.

More important to them than theological conservatism is political conservatism. But to have politics trump theology is a characteristic of liberal theology. Theirs is a social gospel of the right, rather than the left, but it’s still a social gospel.

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