Rush Limbaugh, liberal heretic?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The joke was old, old, old and Rush Limbaugh knew that when -- tongue firmly planted in cheek -- he tweaked it for his flock at the Conservative Political\" \/>\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\/tmatt\/2009\/03\/rush-limbaugh-liberal-heretic\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Rush Limbaugh, liberal heretic?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The joke was old, old, old and Rush Limbaugh knew that when -- tongue firmly planted in cheek -- he tweaked it for his flock at the Conservative Political\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/2009\/03\/rush-limbaugh-liberal-heretic\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Terry Mattingly\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-03-15T08:28:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"tmatt\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"tmatt\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/2009\/03\/rush-limbaugh-liberal-heretic\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/2009\/03\/rush-limbaugh-liberal-heretic\/\",\"name\":\"Rush Limbaugh, liberal heretic?\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2009-03-15T08:28:21+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2009-03-15T08:28:21+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/#\/schema\/person\/76ce2260a572ff41a28fb285de9350f1\"},\"description\":\"The joke was old, old, old and Rush Limbaugh knew that when -- tongue firmly planted in cheek -- he tweaked it for his flock at the Conservative Political\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/2009\/03\/rush-limbaugh-liberal-heretic\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/2009\/03\/rush-limbaugh-liberal-heretic\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/2009\/03\/rush-limbaugh-liberal-heretic\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Rush Limbaugh, liberal heretic?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/\",\"name\":\"Terry Mattingly\",\"description\":\"On Religion\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/#\/schema\/person\/76ce2260a572ff41a28fb285de9350f1\",\"name\":\"tmatt\",\"description\":\"Terry Mattingly directs the Washington Journalism Center at the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. 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{"id":1581,"date":"2009-03-15T04:28:21","date_gmt":"2009-03-15T08:28:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tmatt.net\/?p=1581"},"modified":"2009-03-15T04:28:21","modified_gmt":"2009-03-15T08:28:21","slug":"rush-limbaugh-liberal-heretic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/2009\/03\/rush-limbaugh-liberal-heretic\/","title":{"rendered":"Rush Limbaugh, liberal heretic?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

The joke was old, old, old and Rush Limbaugh knew that when \u2014 tongue firmly planted in cheek \u2014 he tweaked it for his flock<\/a> at the Conservative Political Action Convention.<\/p>\n

So Larry King dies and goes to heaven, where the CNN star urgently asks St. Peter: \u201cIs Rush Limbaugh here?\u201d Not yet, says his host. Finally, their tour reaches heaven\u2019s largest room, where a flashing \u201cRush Limbaugh\u201d sign hangs over a giant throne. King is confused.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought you said he wasn\u2019t here,\u201d King asks, in Limbaugh\u2019s take on this joke. St. Peter replies, \u201cHe\u2019s not, he\u2019s not. This is God\u2019s room. He just thinks he\u2019s Rush Limbaugh.\u201d<\/p>\n

The political question today is not whether Limbaugh thinks he\u2019s God, but how many religious conservatives still believe that the radio superstar is on the side of the angels. After all, a rich entertainer who for years has proclaimed he has \u201ctalent on loan from God,\u201d and that his beliefs are the \u201cepitome of morality and virtue,\u201d can expect to hear murmurs in a few pews after his third divorce and waves of headlines about Viagra and mysterious bottles of painkillers.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, Rush does have his faithful listeners,\u201d said philosopher John Mark Reynolds, head of the Torrey Honors Institute at Biola University, an evangelical campus near Los Angeles. \u201cBut the people at your local Baptist church are not the people that Rush hangs out with. When they go out to play, they don\u2019t do what Rush does when he goes out to play. \u2026 Still, it seems that his base doesn\u2019t care. What else could he do to offend them that he hasn\u2019t already done?\u201d<\/p>\n

No one would dispute that Limbaugh is a powerful Republican voice, just as no one can dispute that Oprah Winfrey\u2019s strong voice helped President Barack Obama defeat a crowded field of experienced Democrats. But in recent weeks, the White House has campaigned to anoint Limbaugh as \u2014 to quote chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel \u2014 the \u201cintellectual force and energy behind the Republican Party.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ever since, conservatives have been firing salvos at one another in bitter debates about Limbaugh\u2019s political sins and virtues.<\/p>\n

As a Christian conservative, Reynolds is asking a different question: Are Limbaugh\u2019s beliefs truly \u201cconservative,\u201d as this term would be defined historically or philosophically? In an online essay entitled \u201c Rush Gave a Bad Speech<\/a>,\u201d he underlined a frequently quoted passage in the CPAC address.<\/p>\n

Conservatives, stressed Limbaugh, do not view the \u201caverage American \u2026 with contempt. We don\u2019t think that person doesn\u2019t have what it takes. We believe that person can be the best he or she wants to be if certain things are just removed from their path like onerous taxes, regulations and too much government.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a core. I want the best country we can have. We want the most prosperous people. We want to be growing. \u2026 We want this country to be so damn great and we just cringe to watch it \u2014 basically capitalism \u2014 be assaulted and our culture be reoriented to where the people that make it work are the enemy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reynolds noted that the speech<\/a> was built on the \u201cdubious notion that \u2018the people\u2019 are always good and that they will always do what\u2019s right, if the state will just get out of their way. This is completely different than the conservative belief that we must maintain checks and balances because we live in a sinful, fallen world and it\u2019s wrong to trust either the people or the state \u2014 or the church, for that matter \u2014 with total power.\u201d<\/p>\n

Limbaugh\u2019s vision of unfettered human potential and his complete trust in corporate America is especially jarring, noted Reynolds, in light of the economic crisis unfolding on Wall Street and in communities nationwide.<\/p>\n

The bottom line: Limbaugh seems to have little or no sense of sin, which is a vital component in classic conservatism.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy isn\u2019t it,\u201d asked Reynolds, proper \u201cfor conservatives to say that pillaging our laws and economic institutions is wrong and a sin and that the government has a valid role to play in seeking justice? We should be able to say that it\u2019s wrong to tell lies and it\u2019s wrong to defraud the government. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut you don\u2019t hear Rush saying anything like that. Instead, you hear these Utopian views that are not truly conservative. In fact, they are the opposite of conservatism.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"