{"id":2933,"date":"2010-03-12T10:16:00","date_gmt":"2010-03-12T10:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2010\/03\/e-mails-to-god-and-glenn-beck\/"},"modified":"2010-03-12T10:16:00","modified_gmt":"2010-03-12T10:16:00","slug":"e-mails-to-god-and-glenn-beck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2010\/03\/e-mails-to-god-and-glenn-beck.html","title":{"rendered":"E-Mails to God and Glenn Beck"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><div style=\"border-bottom: medium none;border-left: medium none;border-right: medium none;border-top: medium none\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.randomstew.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/11\/fullmailbox.jpg\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" height=\"155\" src=\"https:\/\/www.randomstew.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/11\/fullmailbox.jpg\" width=\"200\"><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.politicsdaily.com\/2010\/03\/08\/glenn-beck-urges-listeners-to-leave-churches-that-preach-social\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Glenn Beck\u2019s<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/2010\/03\/hey-glenn-beck-listen-to-jesus.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">advice<\/a> to Christians to leave churches that <a href=\"http:\/\/pastorbobcornwall.blogspot.com\/2010\/03\/yes-i-believe-in-social-justice.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">emphasize<\/a> that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/jim-wallis\/biblical-social-justice-a_b_493875.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">all-pervasive Biblical theme<\/a> of <a href=\"http:\/\/thechurchofjesuschrist.us\/2010\/03\/glenn-beck-defends-the-indefensible-his-ignorance\/?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheChurchOfJesusChrist+%28The+Church+of+Jesus+Christ%29&amp;utm_content=Google+Reader\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">social justice<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/thechurchofjesuschrist.us\/2010\/03\/should-christians-boycott-zondervan-over-glenn-beck\/?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheChurchOfJesusChrist+%28The+Church+of+Jesus+Christ%29&amp;utm_content=Google+Reader\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">has<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/afeatheradrift.wordpress.com\/2010\/03\/10\/3230\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">been<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.faithinpubliclife.org\/2010\/03\/the_gospel_according_to_beck.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">getting<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.shuckandjive.org\/2010\/03\/fpc-elizabethton-is-all-about-social.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">a<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.hackingchristianity.net\/2010\/03\/glenn-beck-v-united-methodists-part.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">lot<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/zwingliusredivivus.wordpress.com\/2010\/03\/10\/jim-wallis-eviscerates-glenn-beck-sign-the-petition\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">of<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.episcopalcafe.com\/lead\/media\/glenn_beck_further_troubles_th.html?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+episcopalcafe%2Flead+%28The+Lead%29&amp;utm_content=Google+Reader\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">attention<\/a>. I tried to add my voice to the others who have e-mailed Beck as part of <a href=\"http:\/\/go.sojo.net\/campaign\/glennbeck_socialjustice\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Sojourners\u2019 campaign<\/a> to get this point across to him. But, perhaps not surprisingly, Beck\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/article\/mg20527505.400-automatic-secretary-can-tame-a-bulging-inbox.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&amp;nsref=online-news\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">mailbox was full<\/a> and the e-mail did not get through. It was just a short e-mail, recommending that he read the Book of Amos, or if he prefers something in the New Testament,\u00a0Mary\u2019s song (the Magnificat) and the beatitudes in Luke.<\/div>\n<div style=\"border-bottom: medium none;border-left: medium none;border-right: medium none;border-top: medium none\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"border-bottom: medium none;border-left: medium none;border-right: medium none;border-top: medium none\">I found myself thinking about this again after reading a post at Friendly Atheist about a \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/friendlyatheist.com\/2010\/03\/12\/how-should-we-react-to-their-prayers\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">prayer marathon.<\/a>\u201d I remember in my younger days engaging in this sort of all-night prayer vigil, and when not doing so, admiring those who did.<\/div>\n<div style=\"border-bottom: medium none;border-left: medium none;border-right: medium none;border-top: medium none\"><\/div>\n<p>But I will be the first to admit that at that time I had never given much theological thought to the view of God presupposed by such actions. I wonder whether\u00a0this very widespread view of\u00a0prayer is shaped by our culture of letter-writing and, nowadays, e-mail campaigns. I wonder whether somewhere deep down there is the idea that if we can make ourselves a nuisance to God, we\u2019re more likely to get a response.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, this is just me making one of my\u00a0typical connections between things that might otherwise seem unconnected. Anyone else out there willing to admit that they approached prayer in this way, and what, if anything, has changed since then? It seems to me that these two subjects are connected in another way: many of those of us who emphasize social justice are acknowledging in doing so that simply praying about something, without actually doing something to try to change the situation, simply isn\u2019t good enough.<\/p>\n<div class=\"blogger-post-footer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/7622297540113836091-1270376597823633028?l=exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com\" alt=\"\"><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Glenn Beck\u2019s advice to Christians to leave churches that emphasize that all-pervasive Biblical theme of social justice has been getting a lot of attention. I tried to add my voice to the others who have e-mailed Beck as part of Sojourners\u2019 campaign to get this point across to him. But, perhaps not surprisingly, Beck\u2019s mailbox [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>E-Mails to God and Glenn Beck<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Glenn Beck&#039;s advice to Christians to leave churches that emphasize that all-pervasive Biblical theme of social justice has been getting a lot of\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2010\/03\/e-mails-to-god-and-glenn-beck.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"E-Mails to God and Glenn Beck\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Glenn Beck&#039;s advice to Christians to leave churches that emphasize that all-pervasive Biblical theme of social justice has been getting a lot of\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2010\/03\/e-mails-to-god-and-glenn-beck.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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