Remember the earlier post today, where I talked about Glenn’s new code words for President Obama (Liberation Theology)? I caught NPR’s All Things Considered in the car this afternoon, and Robert Siegel talkeded with Richard Land about Becktopia and how Beck has been saying that the president “is a guy who understands the world through liberation theology, which is oppressor and victim.” Richard Land is the president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, and he was also a guest at Becktopia.
Land did get to throw in the new code words a few times but when pressed by Siegel, Land admitted that in his view, Mormonism is not a Christian religion.
Partial transcript:
At 1:55 in the audio, Robert Siegel asks Land if he’s ‘concerned’ that Beck went on Fox News Sunday and said that Americans don’t recognize President Obama’s brand of Christianity and asks Land if he shares that belief:
Land: Oh, I recognize it. To me he’s a very typical mainline liberal protestant Christian. I know lots of people like the president and who have been deeply influenced by Liberation Theology – I think Liberation Theology for all. Um, I reject collective salvation as an oxymoron.
Siegel: And Mr. Beck’s assertion that most Americans wouldn’t recognize the kind of Christianity that President Obama practices – obviously you would disagree with. Because we know what that is.
Land: I do, I do know what it is, and I disagree with it but, you know, it’s a free country. And that’s one reason we have freedom of religion. There were lots of differences of religions that were present at that rally. I mean, you know, you had Jewish rabbis – and as you can imagine I’d have some differences of opinion with Jewish rabbis, and with Muslims and with Catholics. And we were all there together …
Siegel: Glenn Beck is a Mormon.
Land: Yes he is.
Siegel: Is that brand of Christianity as distant or more so from yours than the National Council of Churches mainline Protestantism?
Land: Probably more so. More so. And look, Glenn knows this. He said, “Look, I’m a Mormon, most Christians don’t think that I’m a Christian and so I’ll quote the Pope” when he’s talking about Liberation Theology. I do not think Mormonism is an orthodox Christian faith, with a small ‘o.’ I think perhaps the most charitable way for an evangelical Christian to look at Mormonism is to look at Mormonism as the fourth Abrahamic faith.
Siegel: Not a Christian faith.
Land: Not a Christian faith.
POW, Tea Party! The head Baptist guy says your guy, Glenn Beck, follows a NON Christian faith. The head Baptist may consider President Obama’s faith an “oxymoron,” but it’s Christian! Where’s your God now, Tea Partiers?
Related:
Cults according to the Southern Baptist Convention
Hint: Beck follows a ‘cult’
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He also said Jewish Rabbis and Muslim Imams were at the rally. Were they just faces in the crowd or did they have an active role somewhere?
Good question — I caught that too. I didn’t know if it was something I’d missed, or if it was never mentioned ‘at’ the rally, or if they were even really there. He made it sound like they had some kind of role, if nothing more than representing different religions… but this interview was the first I’d heard of it.