While just about the entire right-wing movement has rallied behind Cliven Bundy, the Nevada cattle rancher locked in a battle with the federal government over his refusal to recognize the government’s control over public grazing lands, Glenn Beck, of all people, is refusing to do so.
This showdown ought to be the sort of thing that Beck eagerly embraces and you can tell that it is causing his extreme consternation not to be able to do so, but he is very concerned about the fact that the anti-government forces that have lined up behind Bundy are issuing threats of violence, which is why he penned an open letter over the weekend saying that he cannot side with them and, instead, calling for people to turn to God:
I do not mean to lecture you or anyone else. I am so far away from a perfect man. In fact I am very much the “dispensable man”, the opposite of the man I am striving to be, but I am working on it. I pour over my scriptures like never before. I rarely am with out them. I read them day and night, in bed, in the car, on the set, and at the dinner table and yet I am a million miles from where The Lord needs his people. For this too, I repent. ”I am sorry Lord for not being ready for your call.” I am one that is finding there is no oil in my lamp.
Never try to create your own miracles. Every time you will fail and make it worse. Moses thought he would make it better when he killed the Egyptian but it only delayed freedom.
I worry about the rancher and his family. The ranchers around him and all around the country. I was blowing the warning trumpets on this kind of usurpation long ago. But any fan of mine knows that I have also said that I will never call for arms with the state of our faith.
I, too, am a rancher but the ultimate rancher is God and we are His flock. I will follow His voice for it is the only one I recognize.
I am sorry, but as all MY real fans know, I believe Ghandi, MLK, Bonhoeffer and Jesus were right. I will follow their example. I know what that means or meant for them.
But I will stand with The Lord.
That message was not well-received on Beck’s Facebook page, which prompted him to declare that “those of you calling for violence over this Nevada standoff are not supporters or any kind of long-term fan of mine”:
Beck discussed the situation again on his radio program today, saying that he would be speaking with Bundy later in the broadcast and reiterating that he was very disturbed by the violent threats being issued by those who had rallied around Bundy, asserting that God does not support what they are doing and therefore “I will have nothing to do with you”:
