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Author Says Martin Luther Legend Misrepresents the Real Man

October 09, 2017
 Staff

WRITER

Christians have heard the famous story of Martin Luther nailing the 95 Theses to the door of the closest Catholic Church, kicking off the Protestant Reformation in 1517. But the real story is more complex, according to New York Times-bestselling author Eric Metaxas.

“He was a humble, obedient monk,” Metaxas said. “This was not a firebrand or a rebel of any stripe whatsoever.”

Metaxas, who has written “Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy” and other books about great people throughout history, wanted to get a real look at Luther and his motive for pointing out corruption in the Catholic Church.

Listen to the full clip (above) for more about Luther as we get ready for the 500th anniversary of the Reformation.

This article provided courtesy of TheBlaze.

STU: Joining us in the studio, an author, radio host, commentator extravaganza. It's the author of Martin Luther: The Man Who Discovered God and Changed the World. Eric Metaxas.

GLENN: Good friend. I haven't seen you since I left New York.

STU: It's been a while.

ERIC: I think quite possibly.

GLENN: How are you?

ERIC: I may have seen you in Florida at some event. It is great to see you. I love you and admire you from a distance.

GLENN: Well, likewise.

ERIC: And now from a very short distance. Glenn, thanks for having me.

GLENN: Yeah. Good to see you. Your book Bonhoeffer, it just changed me. Fundamentally changed me. And you have -- you have made a career out of going in and highlighting these really amazing people that stood at critical times.

You did Bonhoeffer.

ERIC: Wilburforce.

GLENN: Wilburforce. And now Martin Luther.

ERIC: Yep.

GLENN: Martin Luther seems distant and dusty. Dust him off.

ERIC: You obviously haven't read the book, Glenn.

GLENN: I have not. I just got it today.

ERIC: This book will blow the cobwebs off any dusty recollections you have. I have to say, in all seriousness, as it is with every one of the books I've written, it wasn't my idea. I kind of didn't want to write it.

You know, Bonhoeffer -- you know the story, writing Bonhoeffer was tremendously painful and difficult for me. I had to switch publishers. It was an agony of my life. People think I'm exaggerating. It was hell. But God spoke to me, and he said, "I have my hand on this book." And he did.

But I really wasn't gung-ho to write another biography, I'll be honest with you. But some friends, I dedicate the book to them, twisted my arm and kept saying, Eric, you wrote the Bonhoeffer book. You're the guy to write the Luther book because it's the 500th anniversary. And I actually thought, well, what 500th anniversary? I'm not paying attention.

And they explained to me, 1517 is the moment when he nailed the 95 thesis to the door of the Wittenberg Castle Church. And that's where they trace the beginning of the Reformation, was this moment. Although, talk about blowing the cobwebs off of things. People -- we see that moment in retrospect as a heroic moment, right? He's thundering against the corrupt papacy by nailing this thing. And it's just the opposite. He was like tacking something up to a bulletin board. It was like a notice, hey, you know what, I think we're going to have a little debate, a theological debate.

GLENN: You're kidding me. Really?

ERIC: Oh, yeah. If you read that part in the book, you won't even believe what it really was. In fact, not only was he not tacking something up on a bulletin board, he may have given it to the church custodian to tack it up on the bulletin board, or he may have done it himself and used paste and not a hammer. Like we have this image of him --

GLENN: So what happened? So how did that get --

ERIC: Well, basically -- I mean, to focus on that, this seminal moment 500 years ago, he was somebody who had discovered some things theologically. But let's get it straight, he was a humble, observant monk. This was not a firebrand or rebel of any stripe whatsoever. This was a man devoted to God and devoted to the church. And he saw that what was going on with indulgences -- by the way, he was a priest. So people would come to him in the confessional and say, hey, I got a get out of jail free card. Here you go.

And he would look at this piece of paper that they had bought with their money, which they didn't have, and he would say, what kind of corruption? What kind of confusion -- these people's souls are in danger. They think they can spend money and sin and pay for it. I mean, it had become very corrupt.

But he didn't say, oh, I want to tear the church down. He thought to myself, it is my duty as a theologian, because he was not just a monk and a priest, but a fine theologian, one of the finest.

He said, I need to bring this to the attention to the academic establishment, to other theologians, because if we don't begin to deal with this issue of indulgences, it's going to bring us down.

This is one of the most terrible excesses that we've experienced. And so he said, let's have an academic debate. So in Latin, he prints up 95 statements, which when you wanted to have an academic disputation, that's kind of the way you did it. And you tacked it up some place. And people would say, oh, that's interesting. I'd like to participate. And you would gather and have an academic debate. Maybe in Latin. Probably in Latin.

So he tacks this up, having no clue that in retrospect it will look like, you know, Neil Armstrong planting the flag on the moon, Columbus planting the flag in the American soil. I mean, it's a moment in history that has grown out of all proportion. Because in retrospect, we understand the significance. That moment led to everything that followed.

GLENN: So that is bizarre. Because it is -- you do look at that as a moment of courage.

When did the moment of courage hit him?

ERIC: Well, I would say there are -- as with anybody of true courage and faith, that they're -- it's a continuum of courage. In other words, it's not like at one moment, he girds his loins and is --

GLENN: Yes.

ERIC: He is a man who -- what I talk about is that before this moment, when he had become a monk, for example -- why did he become a monk? He became a monk because he took the idea of salvation and heaven and hell so seriously that he said, I need to devote my whole life to this. And this was against his father's wishes. His father had sent him to the finest schools, wanted him to become a lawyer. And just as he begins law school, it all kind of gets to him. This is in 1505. He's 23 years old. And he kind of realizes, I don't know where I'm going to spend eternity.

Some lawyers had just died and had shared on their deathbeds, I wish I had become a monk. Where am I going now? Really, he was rattled. I think a lot of people were rattled. But he was a very intense, passionate person. Brilliant.

So he decides in a moment that -- that's his own story, that he's the middle of a lightning storm. And he fears for his life. And he blurts out to St. Anne, who is the patron saint of miners -- his father was in the mining business.

He says, St. Anne, if you save me, I'll become a monk.

But it wasn't like he just blurted it out and hadn't been think about this. Let's face it, he had been thinking about this for years. So he becomes a monk and devotes his life in the monastery to praying harder, to confessing more, to fasting more. He was skin and bones. The whole experience was, how do I earn my way?

GLENN: He must have -- he must have hated the popes.

ERIC: Well, no. Not until later.

GLENN: How? It was before Leo.

ERIC: All.

GLENN: And the one before him was also nasty.

ERIC: These dudes, they were -- I mean, every educated, devoted Catholic is properly ashamed of this period of the papacy?

GLENN: Yeah.

ERIC: It's like the church -- and people know I'm a very pro-Catholic non-Catholic. I didn't write this book to bash the Catholic Church. When you look at this history. You see, what this is the tendency? And this all goes back to what we believe about freedom and the nature of man.

GLENN: Uh-huh.

ERIC: What is the nature of any institution? It is the nature of power. It is to consolidate more power. How can I get more power?

GLENN: Yeah, yeah.

ERIC: And the church had become hugely powerful. So Luther, while he's a monk, he's not thinking about this. He is a devoted monk. He's thinking about his own salvation. All that other stuff comes later. But at this point, he's devoted to saving himself, in a way, right? And a lot of people think that's what Christianity is. You save yourself.

You work hard, you don't sin, you keep your nose clean. Don't screw it up, and you might get into heaven. So he's working the program -- right? To use a 12 steps reference, harder than anyone who ever lived, and he's becoming more miserable. He's not getting closer to God. And so he starts cracking up. Why -- if I am doing everything right.

He would confess -- at one point, he confessed six hours straight. His father confessor Staupitz, who was in the book, literally says to him at some point, enough. Bring me adultery. Bring me murder. Otherwise, get out. Leave me alone. You're torturing me.

He would confess a moment of pride. I prayed so hard, that I had a moment of pride for having prayed so hard, and I have to confess my pride.

He was driving everyone insane. So long story short, Luther kind of realizes, this is not working. I'm not getting closer to God. Do I love God? No, I hate God. God is a judge who scares me, and I'm trying to jump through these hoops to please him.

And his father Confessor Staupitz says to him, you don't think that God loves you. You think God hates you. But he loves you. I mean, it was this real conundrum.

So Luther eventually realizes that nobody is studying the Scriptures. Because as you know, the printing press wasn't invented until very recently at that point.

So Luther does what no one else is doing, almost no one else. He starts digging, digging into the scriptures. And I think of it like a guy who has a disease. And he says, I have to find the cure to the disease.

So I don't want food. I don't want phone calls. I'm just going to be looking into the scriptures because I'm trying to find the key to my problem. And so he effectively finds it around 1517. All these things coalesce. And he realizes, oh, my goodness, it's kind of like somebody tells you that, you know, you're racing up a ladder, and it's like the ladder is leaning up against the wrong building. You can come down now. You've been wasting your time. He says, what I've been looking for is given to me freely by God as a gift of grace.

The righteousness of God, which I was scared of, is God gives that to me as a loving gift. I don't need to do anything. He gave it to me.

It's in a -- in an account in my name, all I have to do is go get it. But nobody told me that it was there. You want to talk about a mind blower. This blew the mind of Luther. But this kind of was like the bomb. The explosion from this creates the future in which we live. Freedom. Everything that we take for granted in the modern world comes from that.

GLENN: And we'll get into that here in a second.

STU: He's @EricMetaxas on Twitter. And EricMetaxas.com. The book is Martin Luther. The man who rediscovered God and changed the world.

GLENN: I am so thrilled to have Eric Metaxas not only on the show, but in the studio with us. He wrote a game-changing book for me, called Bonhoeffer. If you haven't read that, you need to.

And I just last week finished some books, and I thought, I'm only going to start reading stuff that will fill me up with good, solid, rock solid information. So this couldn't come at a better time for me. Martin Luther is his latest book. The Man Who Rediscovered God and Changed the World. Tell me how he's relatable today.

ERIC: Oh. This is the funny thing. I take kind of a perverse pride in going into these book projects, pretty darn ignorant. And I have friends, the guys I dedicated the book to, Marcus Speaker (phonetic) and my buddy Greg Thornbury, the president of The King's College in New York City was explaining to me -- because he's a theologian -- why I need to write the book, because Luther is significant in all these ways.

And the more I went into it, the more I thought, how do we not all know this? And it happens with every one of these books I write, how did I not know this?

Luther, what he did, exactly 500 years ago, opened the door to the future. I -- I titled the epilogue, where I kind of explain all this in the book, the man who discovered the future. Because this seminal moment, after 15 years of neglect in a way, that tradition -- the accretions of history and so on and so forth, had obscured the central issue, which is called the gospel. The free gift of Jesus, which makes us all be able to have a direct relationship to God. It doesn't need to be through an institution or whatever.

It's exactly what Whitfield was preaching, you know, 200 years later, which created America. Without that, you don't have anything like freedom, the freedom of the individual to stand against the state.

GLENN: It's crazy. Last week or two weeks ago, we had two people in the media, one Meet the Press and the other on NBC that said, you know, your rights don't come from God. That's this. It's direct --

ERIC: Listen -- look, somebody interviewed me recently about what Margaret Feinstein said and whatever. Our leaders -- things are so bad that our leaders in the Senate, on the Senate level, do not understand the basics. It's like trying to write a book and you don't know the alphabet. They don't understand the concept of what freedom is. Where it comes from, that it comes from God.

That at the heart of freedom is religious liberties, this idea that I can think any dumb thought I want. And it's protected. God said you have a right to think your own thoughts.

I mean, it's so fundamental. But, as you know, for 40 or so years, we have not been teaching this in schools, so even our elite journalists and our senators don't understand the building blocks of how we have everything that we have.

And this issue of having a direct relationship to God, being all equal before God -- I mean, when Whitfield preached this throughout the 18th century, up and down the 13 colonies, it was a revolution. People thought, really?

You mean if the minister is preaching something that's not right, I have the right to go to another church or to object? Or if the magistrate or the governor or the king is behaving in a way that's not right, according to God, I have the right to protest or something? This was an earth-shattering thing. And it began for sure with Luther.

And as we know, freedom comes with a price, right? Freedom is not always good in the sense that you are now free to do the wrong thing, okay? You're free to start a crazy church. You're free to start the Church of Scientology. Not just a good Protestant Church. You're free to start loony stuff and cults. That's the price of freedom. But which of us would trade that freedom --

GLENN: You have 30 seconds.

ERIC: -- for the slavery of being under an institution, that's going to tell you the meaning of truth and you cannot dissent?

GLENN: I think more and more people are getting to that point to where they're willing to do that. They're willing to trade -- they take their freedoms so for granted, they don't even really understand it. They won't until they lose it, until they lose it.

The name of the book is Martin Luther: The Man Who Rediscovered God and Changed the World. Eric Metaxas, the best-selling author of Bonhoeffer. Always good to have you in, Eric.

ERIC: My joy. Thanks, Glenn. Appreciate it.

GLENN: God bless.

'We'll get through it...it's in our American blood': 95-year-old WWII vet who survived coronavirus shares powerful message of hope

William "Bill" Kelly is 95-year-old World War II veteran from Oregon. He lived through the Great Depression.
He served in the South Pacific during World War II. And now he has just fought the coronavirus -- and won.

Bill joined Glenn Beck on the radio program Thursday to share his experience and a hopeful message about why the younger generations can overcome this crisis.

"I want to tell the people, it wasn't pleasant, but on the other hand, you know, if you do what you're supposed to do, and you have some loved ones around you, and do a lot of praying, why, you'll come through okay. We [American's] have been through a lot. We've been through Pearl Harbor. We've been through the Great Depression, and who knows what else. We're tough. We'll get through it. Hang in there," Bill said.

"You know, it's just -- it's in our American blood," he added. "We're that type of people. We take care of each other, and we are not going to break down. We're going to make it through, every time. Every time."

"There are people that don't think we are those people anymore. That it was the greatest generation -- your generation -- that did it, but now we're not the same people. Do you agree with that? Glenn asked.

"No," asserted Bill. "And the reason I say that is because I remember when I was a young kid, you know, and people, the older people, said 'all those young kids are soft' ... but when we were attacked at Pearl Harbor -- sneak attack, you know -- it's surprising how those so-called goofy kids turned into mighty fine fighting people. And they're very loyal. I have lots of faith in them ... no, I don't have any problems with this new generation. They'll take care of us. We're Americans."

Watch the video below to catch more of the conversation:

In response to the COVID-19 quarantine, BlazeTV is offering our BIGGEST discount ever! Get $30 off your subscription when you use promo code GLENN. Claim your special offer at https://get.blazetv.com/glenn/.

Want more from Glenn Beck?

To enjoy more of Glenn's masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution and live the American dream.

CORONAVIRUS UPDATE: April 2nd

Glenn gives the latest coronavirus numbers, updating YOU on everything needed to know as Americans and officials monitor China's new COVID-19 virus:

Daily Stats as of 5:30 AM CT (from John's Hopkins)

  • Total Confirmed Cases Worldwide: 950,638 (up from 872,891 Yesterday)
  • Total Deaths Worldwide: 48,289 (up from 43,271 Yesterday)
  • Total Confirmed Recovered Worldwide: 202,631 (up from 184,588 Yesterday)
  • 5% of Active Cases are considered serious (requiring hospitalization) Steady from 5% Yesterday, but down from 19% high back in February
  • Note that 12% of US Confirmed Cases require Hospitalization, roughly on par with Italy at 12% requiring hospitalization
  • US has 215,344 Confirmed Cases and 5,112 Deaths, up from 188,592 cases and 4,056 deaths yesterday
  • COVID-19 is now the 3rd leading cause of death in the US, behind Heart Disease and Cancer (based on daily fatalities per 1,000 people)
  • The United States of America now leads the world in total confirmed cases, with 115,000 more cases than Italy (although Italy leads the world in Deaths with 13,155 officially dead)
  • US is 25th in Total Confirmed Cases per 1 Million Population, with 651 cases per 1 Million people. Spain has 2,583 Cases per 1 Million people.
  • US is 23rd in Total Confirmed Dead per 1 Million Population, with 15 Dead per 1 Million citizens. Italy has 218 Dead per 1 Million.
  • US has 5,112 Dead vs 8,878 Recovered and 5,075 in Critical Condition
  • The US currently has 201,354 Active Cases of COVID-19, with still less than 1% of the total US population tested.
  • 17% of Americans who have been tested have been diagnosed with COVID-19
COVID-19 Now Killing Victims Who Don't Have COVID-19 https://nypost.com/2020/04/02/coronavirus-nyc-emts-stop-taking-cardiac-arrest-patients-to-hospitals/
  • EMTs in New York have been given a directive not to transport heart-attack victims to hospitals if they cannot be revived at the scene.
  • Prior cardiac arrest victims would have been transported to hospitals for further life-saving procedures, but with hospitals being overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients, heart attack victims are solely in the hands of local EMTs. If EMTs cannot restore a pulse at the scene, victims are to be left there to die.
  • "Artificial ventilation and/or compressions must not be delayed," the memo states, adding that chest "compressions must begin as soon as it is determined the patient does not have a pulse."
  • But the guidelines change if the patient cannot be revived before arriving at a hospital.
  • "In the event a resuscitation is terminated, and the body is in public view, the body can be left in the custody of the NYPD."
China Lied, People Died Trending on Social Media https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-01/china-concealed-extent-of-virus-outbreak-u-s-intelligence-says
  • US Intelligence Services has concluded what the Internet has known since January: The Chinese Communist Party lied about total infected and total deaths due to Coronavirus.
  • Citing a report provided to the White House last week, officials confirmed that US Intelligence concludes 'gross' underreporting of total cases and total deaths, especially from Hubei Province.
  • Many have speculated that numbers coming out of China, Iran, North Korea, Russia and other totalitarian countries have been dramatically underreported, by as much as a factor of 10 according to official British Intelligence reports.
  • The early misrepresentation of data by the CCP may have lead some Western Politicians and epidemiologists to underestimate the seriousness of COVID-19 and delayed response in Italy, Spain, the UK and the US.
  • Though why anybody would have believed anything the Chinese Communist Party had to say remains an open question...
Italy's Death Toll Far Higher Than Reported https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/italys-coronavirus-death-toll-is-far-higher-than-reported/ar-BB122vvc
  • In the town of Coccaglio, an hour's drive east of here, the local nursing home lost over a third of its residents in March. None of the 24 people who died there were tested for the new coronavirus. Nor were the 38 people who died in another nursing home in the nearby town of Lodi.
  • These aren't isolated incidents. Italy's official death toll from the virus stands at 13,155, the most of any country in the world. But that number tells only part of the story because many people who die from the virus don't make it to the hospital and are never tested, therefore they aren't included in official numbers.
  • "They were all sick, they all had flu-like symptoms and difficulty breathing," stated a nurse from one of the nursing homes. "We had no ambulance to get them to Milan."
  • In the areas worst hit by the pandemic, Italy is undercounting thousands of deaths caused by the virus, a Wall Street Journal analysis shows, indicating that the pandemic's human toll may end up being much greater, and infections far more widespread, than official data indicate.
  • As stretched and sometimes overwhelmed hospitals fight to save their patients, many other people die unseen and uncounted, including elderly people in out-of-the-way locations.
  • In addition, the health-care crisis can lead to a surge of deaths from other causes that would normally be treatable.
  • "There are many more dead from the virus than are officially declared... People died and they were never tested because time and resources are limited," Eugenio Fossati, deputy mayor of Coccaglio, says of deaths caused by the virus.
More Numbers Hard to Trust as Bodies Left On The Streets in Ecuador https://www.scmp.com/news/world/americas/article/3078077/coronavirus-bodies-are-being-left-streets-ecuador
  • Coronavirus: bodies are being left on the streets in Ecuador.
  • 'They fall in front of hospitals or in back street alleys, or in small villages…no one wants to recover them,' says the mayor of Ecuador's largest city.
  • The army is placing unclaimed bodies in refrigerated cargo containers at the port while authorities pursue plans for a new cemetery.
  • The corpses have been overwhelming Guayaquil, a port city of 2.8 million at the epicenter of the coronavirus crisis in Ecuador.
  • Over the last few days, several were wrapped in plastic and left on the streets. Others have lain unclaimed in hospitals and clinics that have been overwhelmed by infections. The city morgue is full.
  • The majority of the dead are believed to be victims of the virus, but nobody can say for sure how many. There has been little testing.
  • The country has confirmed 2,700 infections and 93 deaths - 60 of them in Guayaquil and its immediate surroundings. But municipal officials there said they have recovered at least 400 bodies in the last 3 days.
  • Mayor Cynthia Viteri, who announced that she has also tested positive for the virus, said the national government should be responsible for collecting the corpses.
  • "They're leaving them in the villages, they are stacked in front of hospitals," she said in a Twitter video message to residents late last week.
  • Many local villages in Ecuador are simply burying the dead in unmarked graves, which will make official counting of COVID-19 victims impossible in the weeks ahead.
50% of Viral Spread Comes from People With No Symptoms https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/01/health/us-coronavirus-updates-wednesday/index.html
  • Researchers in Iceland have confirmed earlier reports from Hong Kong that a significant amount of viral spread is caused by carriers who have no symptoms.
  • In the US, Doctors at the CDC have confirmed asymptomatic spread, but estimate a number of about 25%.
  • If true, then the case for all persons to wear masks, even those who don't have symptoms, becomes much stronger.
  • To prevent further spread, the top infectious disease expert in the US says health officials are reconsidering guidance on face masks.
  • Dr. Anthony Fauci said he would "lean towards" recommending that the general public wear face masks "if we do not have the problem of taking away masks from the health care workers who need them. The public can stay home to avoid infection, but health care workers cannot," he said.
  • "We're not there yet, but I think we're close to coming to some determination," Fauci said.
Ship vs Train... Ship Wins https://abc7.com/usns-mercy-coronavirus-train-crash-derailment/6069395/
  • A Locomotive Engineer in Los Angeles has been charged with 1 Count of "Train Wrecking", a Class A Felony under Federal Law, after purposely derailing his freight train while attempting to sink the US Hospital ship Mercy.
  • Eduardo Moreno, 44, intended to hit the ship, saying he thought it was "suspicious" and did not believe "the ship is what they say it's for.'"
  • Moreno admitted to crashing the train intentionally but said he did not plan it out in advance. It is believed that he acted alone.
  • He allegedly made statements to a CHP officer that included "You only get this chance once. The whole world is watching. I had to. People don't know what's going on here. Now they will."
  • Officials say video from inside the train's cab shows Moreno holding a lighted flare during the incident.
Biggest Issue With COVID-19 in Malaysia: Nagging Wives https://www.npr.org/2020/04/01/825051317/dont-nag-your-husband-during-lock-down-malaysias-government-advises-women
  • Malaysia has the largest number of COVID-19 cases in Southeast Asia with more than 2,900 and counting.
  • This week, Malaysia's government also had a serious public relations issue after an ill-conceived plan went online.
  • Malaysia's Ministry for Women, Family and Community Development issued a series of online posters on Facebook and Instagram with the hashtag #WomenPreventCOVID19. It advised the nation's women to help with the country's partial lockdown by not nagging their husbands.
  • The ministry also advised women to refrain from being "sarcastic" if they asked for help with household chores.
  • Additionally, the Ministry urged women working from home to dress up and wear makeup.
  • After some negative response on social media, the public service messages have been removed from the Ministry's Facebook page.

'I want to go right into the hurricane': MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell is NOT afraid to speak out about his faith

MyPillow inventor and CEO Mike Lindell was lambasted by the left and mainstream media after he announced at a White House press briefing on Monday that his company will start making tens of thousands of masks to fight against the spread of coronavirus. Lindell also thanked God for President Donald Trump and encouraged Americans to turn back to God in this time of crisis.

Read the details here.

Whether it was his support for President Trump or strong religious beliefs, no one has lit up the media quite like Mike Lindell. He joined Glenn Beck on the radio program Monday to talk about the president, the 'horrible, crazy media' and how he's not afraid to keep speaking out about his faith.

"I think people are going to quit being brainwashed by this horrible, crazy media -- they know who they are -- and the public is going to see the amazing job that our president is doing," Lindell said. "I've done interview after interview today. I'm taking all the bad ones on -- I think I'm going on 'The View' tomorrow I love it. I want to go right into the hurricane. Finally, I get to speak out for Jesus like I want to."

Watch the video below to catch more of the conversation:

In response to the COVID-19 quarantine, BlazeTV is offering our BIGGEST discount ever! Get $30 off your subscription when you use promo code GLENN. Claim your special offer at https://get.blazetv.com/glenn/.

Want more from Glenn Beck?

To enjoy more of Glenn's masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution and live the American dream.


The next pandemic: Suicide during COVID-19 crisis

Pixnio

News broke that German Finance Minister Thomas Schaefer reportedly committed suicide on Saturday due to the stress from the economic climate during the coronavirus crisis. Unfortunately, this headline may become more common place. Concerns are far beyond those of just hand washing, finding toilet paper and the latest White House briefings. There may be a secondary crisis growing — mental health and suicide.

Messages fill my inbox daily from parents worried about their teens showing signs of risk of suicidal ideation. Spouses concerned about the toil recent layoffs will have on their partners. Elderly family members are also vulnerable.

Last week, news a father of three dying by suicide made me want to scream to the world – "LISTEN!" We are losing too many of our human family. And I am afraid with COVID-19 on the scene, we are going to lose more than ever.

During the past six years — following the suicide of my 40-year-old sister — my mission has been to bring awareness and help prevent suicide. Everyone is exposed to suicide. You either struggle with depression/anxiety, you love someone that struggles, or like me, you have already lost someone to suicide. That is literally everyone on the planet. Bigger numbers than even the virus.

Little known fact. Springtime is a peak season for suicides. Even compared to the holidays.

Little known fact. Springtime is a peak season for suicides. Even compared to the holidays.

So, pile on the constant stream of news, stats about COVID-19 deaths and a lock down on social distancing, even the most emotionally skilled individual may be drowning in vulnerability and at risk.

What can be done?

Social distancing, not isolation

Even though we are standing 6ft apart in the grocery stores, and no longer going to church together, humans need connection to survive.

Free communication apps like Marco Polo are a great way to not hide behind a text. Whether it is on video chat or old fashion letter writing, making connection a priority is crucial for our survival.

Emotional check-in

The new normal seems to be changing by the hour. It is hard to keep up, recalibrating with all the change. Just like the importance of taking temperature to check for virus symptoms, we need to monitor our emotional temp. Try the one word check-in, at dinner time, simply by asking, "How am I feeling today?" It can be a great barometer.

Naming our feelings keep them tamed.

It's Ok to not be Ok

It is crucial to our survival to frame this crisis with a mental health back drop. Suicide, depression and anxiety concerns should be at the top of the STAY HOME and STAY SAFE list. If you find yourself feeling helpless or having thoughts of self-harm, please reach out for additional support. Therapists are using online formats to serve their clients. Call your doctor or one of the many 1-800 numbers.

No one is an extra, disposable member of our human family.

If you are reading this and struggling. Please remember, we will never be better without you. No one is an extra, disposable member of our human family. We will make it thru this COVID-19 crisis stronger and closer than before. No longer will we take hugging our neighbor for granted.

And maybe, just maybe we will someday find the vaccine that stops suicide virus from spreading.

Ganel-Lyn is a public speaker, media personality & author