Glenn Beck comes full circle

Glenn’s digression into religion was largely triggered by his assertion “beware if your religion teaches that Jesus was all about Social Justice”, and the resulting pushback.

Today, he again mentioned the “Jefferson Bible” in positive terms. A brief summary of what it is, which I wrote about earlier.

Jefferson was cautious about discusssing his religious beliefs, because there were no shortage of people wanting to play “gotcha”. Until the passage of the Constitution and Article Six that says:

“…no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”

People tried to pass laws requiring people to state a specific religious creed in order to hold office (excluding Jews and Catholics was a common motivation). Even with the protection of the first amendment, saying you weren’t a Christian (in the sense most people understand it) still was dangerous. Based on his private letters which were later exposed and the Jefferson “Bible”, the core of what he believed was:

There is a Creator that created the Universe and controls the Universe through Divine Providence
Jesus was a man who lived and taught many important things.

Jefferson believed that Saul was a usurper of the Christian religion. After being unable to kill all the Christians, he realized that Christianity could be useful to the ancient Roman Empire, so he declared himself to be the 13th Apostle and wrote a series of letters that hijacked the teachings of Jesus and were used as the basis of the Roman church. He rejects all of the books of the New Testament other than the gospels as being unreliable, and didn’t believe that the spirits and supernatural things mentioned in the gospels were true. He views an important aspect of Jesus is that Jesus rejected the Jewish laws of the Old Testament which had created a cruel and corrupt society.

So he rejects almost point by point the entire Apostles Creed..
– there was no Virgin birth, there is no Holy Spirit, no Trinity
– there was no resurrection, no forgiveness of sins, no eternal life

So if you strip out the code of Moses, the Divinity of Jesus, the miracles and anything inspired by Saul/Paul or the other unreliable books of the New Testament, what is left?

– Love your neighbor as yourself
– Help people in trouble as the Good Samaritan did
– Don’t stone adulterous women to death
– Woe be unto the Rich
– the meek will inherit the Earth
– Looking at a woman with lust is the same as committing adultery
– Turn the other cheek
– Love your enemies, do good and lend, expecting nothing in return
– Don’t worry about tomorrow, it will take care of itself
– The story of the prodigal son
– The parable of the unjust steward who cheats his rich master by giving to the poor
– a poor widow giving a paltry sum is giving more than a rich man who gives much…. [To each according to their ability….]
– feed the hungry, clothe the naked, take in strangers,visit people in prisons

There is still time to answer the poll “Was Jesus a Liberal?”