Right-wing commentator Glenn Beck and religious-right pseudo-historian David Barton teamed up for an event Tuesday that was organized by the Utah Eagle Forum on the dangers allegedly posed by “The Great Reset and ESG.”
The Great Reset is the name for a plan created by the World Economic Forum on how best to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, and ESG refers to the use of environmental, social, and governance criteria by investors when determining the worth and value of potential investments. Both issues have recently become a focus of Beck’s trademark doomsday catastrophizing.
But Beck sees hope in his fellow Mormons.
As Beck does whenever he addresses a crowd made up of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he cited the fabled “White Horse Prophecy” while declaring that the audience has the power to call down miracles that will save this nation.
As we explained when Beck cited this prophecy in 2016 while campaigning in Utah for Sen. Ted Cruz, who was then running for president, and Sen. Mike Lee.
Back in 1843, Joseph Smith, the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, supposedly delivered a message known as “The White Horse Prophecy” that declared that one day, when the U.S. Constitution was hanging by a thread, the Mormon people would rise up and save this nation.
This is how Brigham Young reportedly explained it in 1854:
Will the Constitution be destroyed? No; it will be held inviolate by this people; and, as Joseph Smith said, “The time will come when the destiny of the nation will hang upon a single thread. At that critical juncture, this people will step forth and save it from the threatened destruction.”
In 2010, the LDS church issued an official statement that “the so-called ‘White Horse Prophecy’ is based on accounts that have not been substantiated by historical research and is not embraced as Church doctrine.”
The fact that the LDS church denies the legitimacy of this supposed prophecy has never prevented Beck from promoting it, as he did when speaking in Utah earlier this week.
“Read 3 Nephi,” Beck beseeched the crowd. “I read it on the plane on the way here. You read 3 Nephi right now, and all I could see was America. We celebrate our victories, but we have not humbled ourselves in front of God. We have not asked for forgiveness for our sins.”
“Unless we humble ourselves, we will be swept off this land,” he continued. “I am a convert. Where are the rest of the Mormons that will stand up and say, ‘We have this information; we were given the prophecy for this land’? The time is here. It’s now!”
“Do you really not believe that the Lord could rain miracles down on righteous people and save our nation and our land and our people?” Beck asked. “I know if you’re a Christian, you believe that he rose from the dead. I think that one’s a bigger miracle than saving us. Let’s believe and live our lives in a way—I promise you—if we live our lives in the way that we need to live our lives, we will not only witness the very hand of God in our life—I mean real miracles, we will see them—but if we are a righteous people, we can call them down. We must be righteous and call them down.”
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