The Fall of Glenn Beck: Did the Controversial Fox Host Become an Economic Liability?

Fox News host Glenn Beck announced Wednesday in a carefully worded press release he will "transition off of his daily program" later this year in order to pursue solo projects. Fox News Chair Roger Ailes denied economic pressure played a role in Fox’s decision to let Beck go. But major advertisers have stayed away from Beck’s show since 2009, when he claimed President Obama has "a deep-seated hatred of white people, or the white culture." We speak with James Rucker, co-founder of ColorOfChange.org, a group whose economic boycott of Beck prompted as many as 300 companies to abandon the right-wing pundit’s program.

Tides Foundation CEO Urges Advertisers to Boycott Fox News

What you say matters.... Saying crazy things is going to inspire crazy people, Mr. Beck.

In media news, the founder and CEO of the Tides Foundation has written to advertisers of Fox News asking them to remove all of their ads from the network or risk having blood on their hands. In July, a fan of Fox News broadcaster Glenn Beck was arrested for plotting to assassinate employees of the Tides Foundation and the ACLU. The gunman, Byron Williams, admitted Beck’s show inspired him to plot the attack. For months Beck has railed against the Tides Foundation, accusing the San Francisco-based non-profit of being part of a secret left-wing plot to take over the government. In his letter to advertisers on Fox News, Drummond Pike of the Tides Foundation wrote, "The next 'assassin' may succeed, and if so, there will be blood on many hands. The choice is yours. Please join my call to do the right thing in this regard and put Fox News at arm’s length from your company by halting your advertising with them." Recipients of the letter included JPMorgan Chase, BP, GEICO, Chrysler and GlaxoSmithKline.

Conservatives rally in DC

Tens of thousands have gathered in Washington DC for a rally organised by Glenn Beck, a talk show host, at the site and on the anniversary of the iconic 1963 civil rights demonstration.
Civil rights leaders have protested the event, scheduling a march not far from Beck's gathering.
Beck, a commentator on Fox News and daily radio, has called Saturday's event a faith-based show of thanks and support for US military families, honoring "heroes, our heritage and our future."
Beck said the date of the rally in front of the Lincoln Memorial, the same location where Martin Luther King made his 'I have a dream' speech 47 years ago, is only coincidental.
He called it one of "divine providence".
Beck was joined at the rally, among others, by Sarah Palin, who was Senator John McCain's vice presidential running mate in their failed White House campaign against Barack Obama two years ago.

History According to Glenn Beck

Viewers tuning into MSNBC at 5 p.m. on Friday would have seen Chris Matthews riffing on President Barack Obama's speech in Ohio, while CNN's "The Situation Room" led with the earthquake in Haiti.

But Fox News wasn't focusing on the day's news. Instead, host Glenn Beck ran through the atrocities of Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Ernesto 'Che' Guevara — "the true unseen history of Marxism, progressivism and communism" as Beck described it — with some implied lessons for today.

Over the past year, Beck has used images from Nazi rallies or the Soviet Union when stoking fears of creeping socialism in the United States. And he's often placed historical figures into the far-out theories he diagrams on his chalkboard. But in Friday's hourlong documentary, titled "The Revolutionary Holocaust: Live Free ... or Die," Beck doubled down on the use of imagery pulled from the 20th century's totalitarian past to make a point about citizens needing to be wary of government overreach in the present.

(re)Born in the USA

Glenn Beck Finally Listens to the Lyrics: 'Born in the USA'

Glenn Beck Calls out Churches the Preach Social Justice

Glenn Beck talks a lot when he doesn't have someone to dialogue with
--The Rev. Jim Wallis [-SoJourners]

When someone, who a lot of people listen to, can cailm, publicly, that Jesus Christ did not preach Social Justice, with out much negative repercussion we are in serious trouble. This is like saying that Pres. Willson was not into ideogical thinking or George Washington was not into a unfragmented union. to claim that a person, religious or real, is seperate from their central message and passion is an injustice in and of itself. Jesus is the founding father of socail justice-- the beatidtues, the good someritain the list is vast--he is the model of socail justice and to pevert that is a crumbeling pain. I think mr. beck, his freinds at FOX and his "firends" at CNN are a telling symptom of our condition, ask youself how's your media?

"Conform to the patterns of this world no more, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind" - Jesus

By John Blake, CNN

• Evangelical leader calls for boycott of Fox personality Glenn Beck
  
• Beck said Christians should leave churches that preach social justice
  
• Minister says Beck perverts Jesus' message
  
• The Rev. Jerry Falwell Jr: Pastors who preach economic justice are preaching socialism
  

(CNN) -- An evangelical leader is calling for a boycott of Glenn Beck's television show and challenging the Fox News personality to a public debate after Beck vilified churches that preach economic and social justice.

The Rev. Jim Wallis, president of Sojourners, a network of progressive Christians, says Beck perverted Jesus' message when he urged Christians last week to leave churches that preach social and economic justice.

Wallis says Beck compared those churches to Communists and Nazis.

Wallis says at least 20,000 people have already responded to his call to boycott Beck. He says Beck is confusing his personal philosophy with the Bible.

"He wants us to leave our churches, but we should leave him," Wallis says of Beck. "When your political philosophy is to consistently favor the rich over the poor, you don't want to hear about economic justice."

Wallis says he wants to go on Beck's show to challenge the contention that churches shouldn't preach economic and social justice.

Social and economic justice is at the heart of Jesus' message, Wallis says.

"He's afraid of being challenged on his silly caricatures," Wallis says. "Glenn Beck talks a lot when he doesn't have someone to dialogue with. Is he willing to talk with someone who he doesn't agree with?"

Beck did not answer numerous requests for an interview.

But a prominent evangelical leader says he, too, is suspicious of churches that preach economic and social justice.

Jerry Falwell Jr., president of Liberty University, a Christian college in Virginia, says Jesus wasn't interested in politics. He says that those pastors who preach economic and social justice "are trying to twist the gospel to say the gospel supported socialism."

"Jesus taught that we should give to the poor and support widows, but he never said that we should elect a government that would take money from our neighbor's hand and give it to the poor," Falwell says.

Falwell says that Jesus believed that individuals, not governments, should help the poor.

"If we all did as Jesus did when he helped the poor, we wouldn't need the government," says Falwell, the son of the late evangelical leader, the Rev. Jerry Falwell.

What is economic and social justice?

The term "economic and social justice" is not easy to define. It has different meanings for different people.

For some Christians, practicing economic and social justice means that churches should practice charity: setting up soup kitchens, assisting victims of natural disasters, and helping people find jobs.

For other Christians, practicing economic and social justice also means trying to change the conditions that cause people to be poor or unemployed. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. subscribed to this definition of biblical justice.

Marty Duren, a Southern Baptist Convention pastor, says some conservative Christians have traditionally thought churches shouldn't get involved in economic or social justice.

"For a long time, Southern Baptists and evangelicals were so focused on the return of Christ that what was happening in the real world was almost incidental," says Duren, who blogs at martyduren.com.

But within the last two decades, Duren says, more evangelical Christians have come to believe that the Bible calls for economic and social justice.

William Wilberforce, for example, is a 19th century British politician who helped abolish the slave trade in his country. He is now regarded as a hero for some evangelicals because he applied his faith to the economic and social justice issues of his day, Duren says.

Did Jesus preach about social and economic justice?

The Bible cares about social and economic justice, Duren says.

"The Old Testament is replete with examples of God threatening to judge a nation because of a lack of justice or carrying out that threat of judgment against a nation,'' Duren says.

He believes Beck was wrong to tell Christians that they shouldn't belong to churches that seek justice.

"If I had any authority at Fox News right now, Glenn Beck would be seeking economic justice," Duren says.

That concern for justice is what helped convert him, says Wallis, president of Sojourners. Wallis, who counts King as one of his faith role models, says the Bible isn't just concerned with feeding the poor -- it's concerned about the conditions that create the poor.

Wallis also evoked the Christians who fought against slavery as well as civil rights activists.

"The Bible just didn't say take care of the victim -- it talks about justice," says Wallis, who is the author of "Rediscovering Values: On Wall Street, Main Street and Your Street."

Meanwhile, Wallis says he's waiting for that public debate with Beck.

"I'll have it," Wallis says, "anywhere he wants."

Tell Glenn Beck the I'm a Social Justice Christian- SoJourners

Definition of Social Justice (wiki for what it's worth)

SorryMr.Beck Jesus Preached Social Justice