[PAA-Discuss] Mormon Prophecy Behind Glenn Beck's Message

[slindahl at rounder-graphics.com]

Wow - did ya'll see this? I knew nothing about the Mormon's White Horse
Prophecy prior to reading this article. Is Glenn Beck actually using his
radio and TV show as a pulpit for his religious effort? Very scary stuff
actually - not the Mormon religion, but the incitement of this religious
group. 

MORMON PROPHECY BEHIND GLENN BECK'S
MESSAGE
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dana-milbank/post_996_b_749750.html

In
one of his first appearances on Fox News, Glenn Beck sent a coded message
to the nation's six million Mormons -- or at least those Mormons who
believe in what the Latter-day Saints call "the White Horse Prophecy."


"We are at the place where the Constitution hangs in the balance," Beck
told Bill O'Reilly on November 14, 2008, just after President Obama's
election. "I feel the Constitution is hanging in the balance right now,
hanging by a thread unless the good Americans wake up." 

_The Constitution
is hanging by a thread._

 Most Americans would have heard this as just
another bit of overblown commentary and thought nothing more of it. But to
those familiar with the White Horse Prophecy, it was an unmistakable
signal.

 The phrase is often attributed to the Prophet Joseph Smith,
founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or Mormon
Church. Smith is believed to have said in 1840 that when the Constitution
hangs by a thread, elders of the Mormon Church will step in -- on the
proverbial white horse -- to save the country.

 "When the Constitution of
the United States hangs, as it were, upon a single thread, they will have
to call for the 'Mormon' Elders to save it from utter destruction; and they
will step forth and do it," Brigham Young, Smith's successor as head of the
church, wrote in 1855. 

 Was it just a coincidence in wording, or was
Beck, a 1999 Mormon convert, speaking in coded language about the need to
fulfill the Mormon prophecy? A conversation on Beck's radio show ten days
earlier would seem to rule out coincidence. Beck was interviewing Senator
Orrin Hatch of Utah, also a Mormon, when he said: "I heard Barack Obama
talk about the Constitution and I thought, we are at the point or we are
very near the point where our Constitution is hanging by a thread."


"Well, let me tell you something," Hatch responded. "I believe the
Constitution is hanging by a thread."

 Days after Beck's Fox show started
in January 2009, he had Hatch on, and again prompted him: "I believe our
Constitution hangs by a thread."

 Large numbers of Mormons watch Beck, but
likely an even larger number of his viewers and radio listeners are
evangelical Protestants who have no idea that Beck is preaching to them an
obscure prophecy of the Latter-day Saints -- a faith many conservative
Christians malign as a cult. In addition to the coded allusions to the
White Horse Prophecy, he often brings Mormon theology into his broadcasts
(he touts the thinking of late church president Ezra Taft Benson and he
frequently promotes the work Mormon conspiracy theorist Cleon Skousen) but
without identifying them with the LDS church. 

Before the Mormons went
west, Smith traveled to Washington seeking help for his oppressed followers
and received nothing but frustration. Rather than turning on the
government, however, "They considered themselves the last Real Americans,
the legitimate heirs of the pilgrims and Founding Fathers," Pat Bagley
wrote [1] in the _Salt Lake Tribune_. "And, they believed, the very
survival of the Constitution depended on the Saints. From Smith on, LDS
leaders prophesied the Constitution would one day hang by a thread, only to
be saved by Mormons."

 A compilation of church leaders' statements over
the years by the journal _BYU Studies_ shows this strain of thinking.
Though there are doubts about whether Smith actually wrote the phrase "hang
by a thread," his successors left no doubt about the theology behind it.
Orson Hyde, a Smith contemporary, wrote that Smith believed that "the time
would come when the Constitution and the country would be in danger of an
overthrow; and said [2] [Smith]: 'If the Constitution be saved at all, it
will be by the elders of this Church.'" 

The church's fifth leader,
Charles Nibley, believed that [3] "the day would come when there would be
so much of disorder, of secret combinations taking the law into their own
hands, tramping upon Constitutional rights and the liberties of the people,
that the Constitution would hang as by a thread. Yes, but it will still
hang, and there will be enough of good people, many who may not belong to
our Church at all, people who have respect for law and for order, and for
Constitutional rights, who will rally around with us and save the
Constitution." 

The prophecy was renewed with each generation of church
leadership. "The prophet Joseph Smith said the time will come when, through
secret organizations taking the law into their own hands . . . the
Constitution of the United States would be so torn and rent asunder, and
life and property and peace and security would be held of so little value,
that the Constitution would, as it were, hang by a thread," church apostle
Melvin Ballard said in 1928. "This Constitution will be preserved, but it
will be preserved very largely in consequence of what the Lord has revealed
and what this people, through listening to the Lord and being obedient,
will help to bring about, to stabilize and give permanency and effect to
the Constitution itself. That also is our mission." 

And now it is Beck's
mission. Secret organizations? Tramping on liberties? Breakdown of law and
order? Shredding the Constitution? Betraying the Founders? This is the core
of Beck's message, in his own words: "Some people in the government seem to
have a problem, you know, shredding the Constitution." And: "You're trying
to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, friends. It's
in trouble." And: "He" -- that would be Obama -- "is going to bring us to
the verge of shredding the Constitution, of massive socialism." 

But there
is a Beckian twist in his version of the prophecy. Unlike the church
leaders' versions, Beck's vision carries the possibility of a bloody end.
On the night of Feb. 24, 2009, Beck outlined this prospect for his viewers.
People who "don't trust the government," he said, would "see the government
as violating the Constitution, and they will see themselves as defenders of
the Constitution. Not a good mix. Then they take matters into their own
hands." 

It was Glenn Beck in a nutshell: White Horse Prophecy meets
horsemen of the apocalypse. 

_Adapted from Tears of a Clown: Glenn Beck
and the Tea Bagging of America [4], released October 5, 2010 by Doubleday._




Links:
------
[1]
http://gunnyg.wordpress.com/2010/01/24/many-lds-still-think-constitution-hangs-by-thread/
[2]
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBIQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Femp.byui.edu%2Fvenemag%2FCONSTITUTIONHANGINGBYATHREAD.DOC&rct=j&q=%22If%20the%20Constitution%20be%20saved%20at%20all%2C%20it%20will%20be%20by%20the%20elders%20of%20this%20Church%22&ei=NSCrTMqVMYaglAf9y4X8Dg&usg=AFQjCNFBLwMJXrlz_KOR1cbvHNrpQZX1IA&sig2=Tso7dGRY11C_5Pkqh_BX6w&cad=rja
[3]
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBIQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Femp.byui.edu%2Fvenemag%2FCONSTITUTIONHANGINGBYATHREAD.DOC&rct=j&q=%22the%20day%20would%20come%20when%20there%20would%20be%20so%20much%20of%20disorder%2C%20of%20secret%20combinations%20taking%20the%20law%20into%20their%20own%20hands%2C%20tramping%20upon%20Constitutional%20rights%20and%20the%20liberties%20of%20the%20people%22&ei=WyCrTIuoCoWglAfA4P2cCA&usg=AFQjCNFBLwMJXrlz_KOR1cbvHNrpQZX1IA&sig2=1U6reu3I1VJ2qyqMbEFIwg&cad=rja
[4]
http://www.amazon.com/Tears-Clown-Glenn-Bagging-America/dp/0385533888/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1286299312&sr=8-1
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