RUTHFULLY YOURS

This past Sunday, August 21, Glenn Beck began the series of programs leading to his main “Restoring Courage” event, in Jerusalem, Israel on Wednesdady. Kicking off “the Countdown to a Global Movement,” the Beck broadcast welcomed the world to the Jewish State.

Sunday’s “Courage To Love” program was broadcast from the Roman occupation-era amphitheater in Caesarea, Israel. 3,000 people filled the amphitheater, hearing a range of speakers which included Beck, David Barton (Aledo, Texas-based historian and minister), John Hagee (San Antonio-based pastor), Rabbi Shlomo Riskin (founding rabbi of the Upper West Side’s Lincoln Square Synagogue and currently chief rabbi of Efrat in Israel’s Judea region) and Dr. Mike Evans (Phoenix-based Christian-Zionist journalist).

In many ways, this first broadcast was geared toward drawing Christians into the meaning and reasoning behind Beck’s pro-Israel agenda. To that end, Beck spoke to his audience as Christians. As the evening continued, Glenn Beck evolved this Christian approach into an all-encompassing approach. By night’s end, it was clear that Beck could reach out to his Jewish viewers and draw them in with a sense of belonging and community.

Among the featured topics on Sunday was the Holocaust. Certainly any trip to Israel as well as any serious discussion of history and the Jewish People necessitates reflection upon this most horrific and impactful crime against man and God.

In the effort to understand the connection Beck has forged with the Jewish community throughout the world, this writer spoke with someone at the forefront of spreading Beck’s message in the Philadelphia area. Dr. Arno Weinstein, Executive Director of the Israel-America Renaissance Institute (I-ARI), heads the group behind a Philadelphia-area showing of Beck’s “Restoring Courage” this Wednesday, August 24th.

According to Weinstein: “We are at a unique place.  Because of Glenn Beck, there are tens of millions of Americans who understand that, as the philosopher Eric Hoffer wrote: ‘I have a premonition that will not leave me; as it goes with Israel so will it go with all of us. Should Israel perish, the holocaust will be upon us.’”

Weinstein elaborated on the Glenn Beck phenomenon: “It is clear that Glenn Beck understands this and much more. He understands that the very salvation of this nation rests upon the knowledge that returning to the fundamental principles upon which it was founded. This is essential to the country’s revitalization and reawakening.

According to Weinstein: “Glenn Beck has taken that extra step, he has researched, with real scholarship, and has fully absorbed an understanding of the seminal place that Jewish thought has in the development of American Exceptionalism. These ideas are not based upon chauvinism or ethnocentrism but, rather, profound ideas that are Biblically-founded notions of freedom and human dignity. That God made man in His image is the very basis of inalienable rights. And without this notion, there is no authority beyond government, no authority beyond man and the various constructs of human creation. This understanding alone is unique, and of great and equal value both to Israel and to America. This is what Glenn Beck has brought to millions upon millions around the world. I have no doubt that Beck brings a message of great value to Israel, America and the Jewish People.“

Weinstein added that “Prof. Paul Eidelberg, founder and President of I-ARI, best articulates the unique American mechanics, if you will, of government as it reflects the Biblical understanding of man.”

In this regard, Weinstein continued: “In his upcoming work, America’s Unknown Constitution, Professor Eidelberg writes: ‘American Exceptionalism affirms two interrelated sets of ideas. (1) American government was founded on universally valid principles; those embodied in the Declaration, for example individual liberty and limited government. (2) The institutions prescribed in the Constitution were designed to reconcile Permanence and Change and thereby refresh and ennoble Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. Only via these two sets of principles is it possible to unite wisdom and the consent of the governed.’”

Asked for a concluding summary, Weinstein said: “Glenn Beck is on the front line promoting these truly profound and foundational ideas. Glenn Beck has not only got the right message, he is the right man to deliver it.”

For now, video of Glenn Beck’s “The Courage To Love” program in Caesarea is available online in two parts: Part 1 can be accessed here. Part 2 can he accessed here.

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