Blog
LatestArticlesVideos
Radio
LivePodcastSerialsStations
TV
Podcasts
The Glenn Beck ProgramThe Glenn Beck PodcastThe Beck Story
Fine Art
Real Estate
Shop
More
AboutCharityBooksSponsorsContact
SEARCH
Live Radio

©2024 MERCURY RADIO ARTS.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

TERMS OF USE | PRIVACY POLICY

Live

Glenn's Show Prep

Pastor EXPLAINS: Does Voting Go Against Christianity?play icon
RADIOOctober 28, 2024

Pastor EXPLAINS: Does Voting Go Against Christianity?

Should Christians vote in the 2024 election? Some argue that they can't support either Kamala Harris or Donald Trump. Others say Christians should stay out of worldly politics. But Pastor Josh McPherson of Grace City Church joins Glenn to explain why he has "a fundamental conviction that we cannot be Biblical unless we ARE political." It's time for followers of Christ - both in the pews and at the pulpit - to stand up, speak out, and VOTE: "When the Church goes silent, a culture loses its conscience and government loses its mind and everyone suffers."

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Josh McPherson is a guy I found online, I don't even know how long ago.

And just I love his sermons.

He's a lead pastor of Grace City Church. Founder of Stronger Man Nation, which is a movement to help men get stronger every day in every area of life, and helping dads raise boys to be stronger men, which is one of our problems, in society today. We are teaching everybody to be weak, and helpless. And that is not the way that God would have us to be. Josh, welcome to the program. How are you?

JOSH: I'm very good, Glenn. Thanks for having me.

GLENN: Yeah, thank you. So I have been hearing from a lot of Christians, that are saying, I just can't vote for either.

JOSH: Yep. Yep.

GLENN: And I don't even know how to -- I don't even know where to start on that.

JOSH: Yep.

GLENN: This is so clear to me, that we are not battling Democrat/Republican.

We are truly battling light and dark. Life and death.

JOSH: That's right. Yep. Yep.

GLENN: Good and evil.

So how do you convince people?

JOSH: It's -- it's -- what COVID revealed in terms of our shallowness in thinking, in relationship to our role as citizens in our nation. This election is revealing it at a deeper level.

I think Christians have been misled and wrongly discipled in relationship to their responsibility, as citizens of heaven, to be engaged here, as citizens of earth.

GLENN: Right.

JOSH: And so with bad teaching.

The kingdom of God is spiritual, not physical. Nowhere in the Bible does it ever say, the kingdom of God is spiritual. The closest it gets is Jesus saying, my kingdom is not of this world when he's speaking to Pilate.

And he's not using that as an excuse to disengage from the world. He's using it as an apologetic to lean into the world.

He's saying, my kingdom is not of this world, which means I'm above your pay grade. And I don't have to answer your petty questions. The kingdom of God does not hover, Glenn, a mile above the earth. It lands in our sex lives, in our marriages, in our dysfunctional family systems, in our relationships, in our entertainment. In our food. And, yes, in our politics. When Jesus says, my kingdom is not of this world, what he's saying, is my people have the authority from heaven to step into the broken systems of earth and be salt and light.

The most basic texts of the Bible. Which Jesus explains how to think as Christians.

You're light. Light exposes lies. In darkness. You're salt.

Salt works against the natural decay of sin in the world. And right now, a pastor trying to convince Christians to be salt, while they're still in the box.

GLENN: And people think, that that adds flavor. No. It stops corruption.

It stops the corrupting of the meat.

BIANCA: That's exactly right.

GLENN: That's the way it was used back then.

JOSH: Yeah, there's this demonic gaslighting, that says that Christians should be political.

I have a fundamental conviction that we cannot be Biblical unless we are political. The entire story line of the Bible, is a story of God against governments. Rogue, empiric governments. Tyrannical. Abusive. Heavy-handed, oppressive governments like Egypt, like Persia, like Babylon, like Rome. And the story is those -- because when you remove God from a society. What replaces it typically is that which is biggest and most powerful, mainly government.

GLENN: God calls governments to submit to his rule of law, just like he calls individuals. And it's the church's job to function as the conscience of a society. And when the church goes silent, a culture loses its conscience. And the government loses its mind. And everyone suffers.

GLENN: I can't understand, when we have -- I mean, when we have one party that is putting up abortion vans for free abortions.

I mean, I wouldn't go to a concert that was doing that. Let alone a political party.

JOSH: No. No. No. Here's what I would say to Christians to wrestle with seriously -- I did five sermons to my church. You see them online if you want. GraceCityChurch.com --

GLENN: I'll tweet them out today.

JOSH: Okay. I wrote a small PDF to help people think through three questions. Should I vote? How should I think about politics? And then how should I vote as a Christian. So I can walk through that very quickly.

Should Christians vote? Here's the deal. 40 million Christians didn't vote in the last election. The last election was decided by 42,000 votes. Your vote matters. When the salt stays in the box, the meat rots.

GLENN: Jeez. Uh-huh.

JOSH: When Christians hold their voice back, culture goes into massive decline. Do you people wish the church would have gotten more political when Hitler squeaked through in an election? And 12 years later, 11 million people were dead.

GLENN: And do you know what the church did?

It stayed silent, and then it went into cahoots.

JOSH: The church abdicated its voice. And then aligned with evil out of fear and deception, and millions of people died.

I have a distinct sense that there are millions of people, the over.

Praying to God Almighty that Jesus Christ would wake up his church in America. Because if America goes off the rails, we haven't seen anything like it historically.

GLENN: Oh, I have heard it from a Chinese dissident, that was in prison in China.

Just because she believed in Jesus. She said, what you know we were praying for in China?

We were praying that you would be humbled so you would wake up to who you are.

JOSH: That's right. Should Christians vote? Here's what I would say, God made three spheres of human sovereignty. The family, the church, and the state. If Christians won't lead their home, Satan will.

If pastors won't lead their church, they become synagogues of Satan.

And when it comes to our constitutional republic, we need to almost stop using the word democracy. We don't want a democracy. We're a constitutional republic.

Which means we're guided by the moral absolutes outlined in the Constitution. Then we vote for men and women to represent us.

To make laws that will reflect the values of that Constitution. If we fail to do our duty in this Constitutional Republic, we are failing our children. And we will pass on to them, a social inheritance. That will bury them.

Right? So when I think about whether or not I should vote. If Christians don't -- if godly voices don't rise up, to speak up.

Godless voices will. And we will be held responsible for what happens. Christians need to carry a burden.

GLENN: People don't understand.

JOSH: For what God holds us accountable for.

I look at it like this.

Christians -- and I want to be sensitive to those who are like, well, I don't want to be partisan. Brother, listen to me. Sister, listen to me.

You cannot follow Jesus. And not be accused of following Jesus.

Because Jesus draws lines, and Jesus takes sides.

Look, I haven't asked the GOP into my heart. I'm a Bible guy. I'm a Jesus guy.

That's my lane.

If a political party happens to step into that lane, I am cheering them all the way. If they step out of that lane, I am prophetically calling them to obedience and submission to God's word. So this isn't me cheering on one particular party.

But let's be honest, one political party is explicitly advocating openly for demonic, horrific, perverse sin, and the other is not.

That's the bottom line. That you have to wrestle with.

What I find most Christians. I find very few Christians.

I'm going to vote for -- I hear a lot saying, but I can't vote for their side. But I don't agree.

Here's the deal. You don't do anything else in life. Was your spouse perfect when you married her or him?

No. You married him anyways.

We don't apply the same standard, where you're using Donald Trump to anywhere else in life. So no matter who is running for office, unless it's Jesus. You would have to hold your nose and vote at some point.

So here's what I would say for Christians to consider who are on the fence. Think of politicians in terms of three tiers.

Tier three is in the category of opinions. In this category, we -- we discuss, and we decide.

This is where the Bible is silent on these issues. And this is like, should Taiwan be granted favored trading status.

GLENN: Yeah.

JOSH: Should feds lower or raise interest rates. Should the post office use planes or horses to go to deliver the mail?

I don't know, but let's discuss. And let's decide.

The Bible will speak to it. I won't stick my nose into it. That's tier three. Tier two is in the category of wisdom.

Okay? We should debate and discern. The Bible speaks to it. But not clearly, how we should go about it. We agree on the goal. But we debate. Have the means. Should we care for the poor?

Yes. We should all agree on that. How do we do that?

Let's have a good debate. Let's pull each other on the extremes, walk in the middle, find the path. We can robustly disagree and debate and then go out and have a beer afterwards.

GLENN: Honestly, that's where we were at one point in our nation.

JOSH: That's Reagan and "Tip" O'Neill. Right?

Where it's like, no. Yes. What? Are you kidding me? I'll buy you a drink.

GLENN: Yeah. Because they had the fellow in common. They vehemently disagreed on how to accomplish it.

The goal was the same.

JOSH: That's right. There was a like-minded shared mindset for life. So what's happened now.

And most Christians are working from that framework. Tier three or tier two politics. It's opinions or it's issues of wisdom, which makes them feel uncomfortable to speak prophetically to it.

Here's the problem. There's a third category. Tier one.

And tier one. If the first -- the third -- the second is to have wisdom.

Tier one is, this is the realm of obedience. This is where we declare and divide. This is thus saith the Lord kind of things. Okay? Where the Bible has spoken clearly to it.

And to discuss -- we don't discuss and debate stuff. We submit to God's word. And we say yes, God, and we obey. These are issues. The sanctity of life. The sanctity of marriage. National sovereignty.

The moral law of God. The rule of law.

Religious freedom. Jurisdictional respect. These are the kinds of things, are the grid through which we think as Christians, where God is clearly and plainly without stuttering spoken, where we must say, thus saith the Lord. Not because it's our opinion.

Because of what we're calling the culture to submit to themselves God himself. Right? When we get into that category, tier one.

A Christian is obligated, I believe to engage. Here's the problem. In politics past, most of the ticket represented tier three and tier two.

And so Christians were reticent to say, thus saith the Lord. The Fed should lower their interest rates.

I agree. Don't stick your nose where God doesn't quote clearly. What's different about this election is almost every issue on the table. Representative on the ticket is a tier one issue, thus saith the Lord. And if the church does not step and up speak boldly through this moment, the vacuum we create will be filled, I believe with the godless and the demonic. Then we will be responsible for having been silent, in a moment where we needed Jesus to speak up.

GLENN: So there are two things that come through my mind, almost every day.

One, we will be held responsible for all of -- are these God's rights. Not ours.

We are put in charge to protect them. Or to elect the government to protect God's rights for future generations.

JOSH: That's right.

GLENN: If we lose these rights here, it's not just here.

It's the entire world could be cast into darkness. And slavery.

And we will be held accountable.

What did you do? And say, well, I just couldn't vote for either one.

It's not going to be an acceptable answer.

JOSH: That's right. Think about the moral dilemma, some Christians are having, about who to vote for right now.

It's nothing. In comparison to the moral dilemma, you'll be facing. If we have an openly rogue demonic evil government. That is using the force of law, and military, to -- to make you disobey, God's law. You will have much bigger moral dilemmas to face then, better to deal with these little ones. Hold your nose and vote.

Rather than, do I need to stand up and do something more than just pray in this moment, like Dietrich Bonhoeffer had to wrestle with in 1940s.

GLENN: Yes. Yes.

The other thing is, when people say, well, my vote doesn't count.

For the first time in my life, I look at that, as a completely different statement.

JOSH: That's right.

GLENN: That's saying, I'm not going to be held responsible.

JOSH: That's right. That's right.

GLENN: This time. This is like 1933.

At this time, if you don't stand, and it goes awry.

JOSH: That's right. That's right.

GLENN: He's not going to accept, that I just didn't invoke.

Because I didn't think my voice mattered.

In Texas, if you want to vote for a Democrat, it may not count.

You know, here in Texas. Because it will go, hopefully, it will go red. But it does count in your first citizenship.

GLENN: When I think about, my vote doesn't matter. Here's what I think.

No, no, no. It matters, because I'm not voting to appease a candidate or a party. I'm voting in response to God's commands. I'm voting for a holy God.

I'm voting to be obedient to my duty to be an active citizen of heaven. In the current citizen, I'm abiding here on earth.

When I think about that, Glenn, no, I'm voting for the sake of keeping my conscience clear. But before God, so I can look in the mirror and say, kids, I preach sermons. I talk to friends.

I wrote stuff. I joined my friends online.

I did everything I could, to move the needle for the sake of our nation. Friends, don't vote -- if we take this pragmatic approach, well, it doesn't matter. Well, we already ceded the battle. No, no, no. It does matter. It does matter.

If not only for you to say, I will not be shaken and silenced by the lies.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote -- I'm trying to think of it. Live not by lies.

GLENN: So good.

JOSH: And in the essay, he said, look, here's the deal. You may feel small in the face of this massive, tyrannical, totalitarian regime.

But -- but you're not as small as you think. You're only as small as the silence that you embrace.

He said, so if you stand up, they may shoot you in the head of the street, but only you can secede or turn over your freedom. So you can die a free man in the street, or you can live as a prisoner in your apartment. You could be freer in prison. Than you are compromising your values living at home.

And so what he said was, essentially, silence in the face of lies, is itself a lie.

Silence in the face of lies, is to perpetuate, and participate in that lie.

We are in a spiral of silence right now.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer talks about.

Eric Metaxas talks about it.

Which means, the less we speak up, the higher the cost for the ones that do.

GLENN: We're seeing it right now.
Hang on, I have to take a break. We'll be back in just a second. You are listening to Josh McPherson.

I will, on my social media, put out on his sermons on this. Share it with every Christian that you know.

GLENN: We're talking to Josh McPherson, about why Christians need to vote.

JOSH: Yes, yep.

I will say two things. If there are those that are sitting on the fence, I get it. There's been challenging things to figure out, sift through. I understand. Three things within one. This is from many conversations, your vote isn't a Valentine.

You know, oh. I just get the warm fuzzies. That died with JFK.

Right? So like don't vote for warm fuzzies or personalities. Think -- be more sophisticated in your thinking. Think about policies. Personalities will come and go. We'll be left with policies, for the rest of our life. Don't think your vote is a Valentine. Secondly, your selection isn't a sacrament.

So many Christians, well, if I vote for them, they might do something immoral, and then I'm responsible.

No, no. Your vote isn't a sacrament. You're essentially exercising your right as a citizen, to -- to advance people, in positions of authority, that you think have the best shot of aligning most closely to a Biblical worldview.

GLENN: And if they don't, then your responsibility kicks in to speak out to stop them.

JOSH: That's right. We're in the most important in a moment our history, coming up in our election.

Then the next week will be just as important. Don't vote and then back off. Get more engaged. Speak up. Say things that are true, longer and louder. So it's not a Valentine.

How do I say it? Your vote is not a sacrament. Then lastly, this is crazy.

The ballot box isn't a mailbox. I heard a ton of Christians going, well, I'm not going to vote and send a message.

Why write an email and never hit send? No one cares that you didn't vote. The only outcome that matters is who wins.

So don't think you're sending a big message by not participating. That's a lie from the pit of hell, to silence the voice of the church. In maybe the most critical moment in the history of our nation.

And I will say this, pastors, you must be bolder. You must speak up louder and longer.

It may feel weird to talk about politics and the pulpit to you. But that's because you're living in this weird bubble and moment of history.

You're out of step with the great preachers of history in the past, who have always thundered from the pulpit, how to be engaged in politics.

GLENN: I am hungry for preachers to speak the truth, based on the Bible. I am hungry for it!

How do I apply these 2000-year-old teachings to what's happening right now?

JOSH: That's right. It's disingenuous to expect the pastors in their church to be bold in the marketplace, when they're failing to be bold in the pulpit.

GLENN: It is so great to see you.

JOSH: You too, Glenn.

GLENN: I actually will meet with the president tonight. And I'm hoping to convince him to do something with TheBlaze and Trinity Broadcasting. And I would love to invite you to be a part of it, if it actually comes through next week. I would love to have you be a part of it.

Because I have seen your social media, and you are right, spot-on.

JOSH: Thank you, sir. I appreciate it.

Ten seconds. We just started a school. Guard City Academy. There's 286 kids in class, listening right now, learning to become Christians and patriots. I want a huge shout-out to those guys. Go Farmers!

GLENN: God bless you. You guys are great.

Thank you, Josh.

Why Biden's Corrupt Pardons CANNOT Stand... And Why it STILL Matters!play icon
RADIO

Why Biden's Corrupt Pardons CANNOT Stand... And Why it STILL Matters!

A new wave of sweeping “pardons” has triggered one of the most urgent constitutional alarms Glenn Beck has ever raised — not because the individuals involved are controversial, but because the actions themselves may not even qualify as pardons at all. Glenn Beck breaks down how these broad, immunity-style declarations can bypass investigations, rewrite laws by fiat, and push executive power into territory the Founders explicitly warned against. With mass clemency increasingly used as a political shield and executive actions replacing the legislative process, America is drifting toward a model of governance that no longer resembles a constitutional republic. This episode exposes how the pardon power is being stretched beyond recognition, why Congress has surrendered its role as a check, and what must happen before the nation crosses a point of no return. The question now is unavoidable: Who will stop this before the Constitution becomes optional?

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

CALLER: I wanted to talk about the pardons. Hunter's pardon was legitimate. He was actually accused of a crime. I know you're plugged in with the president. I haven't heard anybody say this anywhere. I have been watching everything.

These pardons. Forget the auto-pen. The auto-pen doesn't even matter. Because these were immunity deals. These were not pardons. None of these people were under investigation. None of these people had any crimes they were accused of.

So you can't pardon somebody for something they may have or may not have done. That's an immunity deal.

Again, I've watched everything. I don't hear anybody bring that stuff -- I don't think the auto-pen matters. I just think those things are null and void from the jump.

GLENN: Who --

CALLER: Like I said.

GLENN: Who do we have besides Mike Lee? Because Mike is always hard to get a hold of at this time. He's like, I'm working on Senate stuff, Glenn.

Who do we have that is a Constitutional scholar that we can call real quick, and see if we can get an answer on that before the end of the show? At least put a call out to Mike Lee, will you?

But I would like to know that happen at that. Because the president has. And Stu and I have talked about this for a while. This has gotten out of control. These pardons are out of control. Out of control.

It's something Constitutional. It's been there since George Washington. The President has always had this right, and it's a privilege of his. But you're right.

These things where, wait. I can't investigate this? What that does is if you're as a president doing something that you shouldn't be doing, all you have to do then is say, I pardon everyone in my administration for anything that they might have done wrong.

That can't stand. You're absolutely right on that.

STU: Yeah. You have the immunity deal. Which again, I think is -- I don't see -- I don't see how a pre-pardon is even possibly covered.
Like, it's just such an insane concept.

The way that Biden. He's right that Hunter Biden actually committed a crime and pardoning him from that in theory, obviously, outside the family interest was the way that that was supposed to work.

But they also pardoned him for multiple years of question marks, whether he committed crimes or not. Right? That was all included on that.

To go a step farther on this, I am on a bit of a personal jihad against the pardon. I'm done with it. I'm done with it personally. There's reasons the Founders were very, very smart. But the Founders were smart enough to also have a process for Constitutional amendments. And I would support one, getting rid of the part in power completely. I'm done with it.

GLENN: Wait, may I just interrupt for a second. I just want to point out. We now have verification, not only is Stu a Canadian spy, but he's also a hidden Nazi. Noticed the word he used, jihad, which translates to my struggle. Hitler's book, My Struggle, Mein Kampf. I just want to point it out.

JASON: Exposed.

STU: Just to be clear, I'm not planning a genocide on the power of pardons.

But I'm against it, strongly. But the other part I would say that I think is every worse and is never discussed, are these types of pardons where they say, you know, all marijuana crimes. They're -- everyone -- there are 17,000 people.

That is just you legislating. If I wanted to New Jersey and say, hey.

I think marijuana should be legal. I could theoretically be president.

Saying, everyone convicted of a marijuana-related crime is now pardoned.

And that's just you making laws. It's you going completely around Congress. And the entire process we have there.

At the very least. It should be massively restricted from the way it's being utilized. Not only -- several presidents in a row, I would argue.

But it's -- it should just -- I think it should just go away completely. It's the most king-like power the president has. And it doesn't make any sense to me.

GLENN: Yes. Yes.

So I'm looking this up here.

Barack Obama did this.

He gave clemency for anybody who was convicted of a non-violent federal drug crime.

With no significant criminal history, while serving extraordinarily long sentences. And anybody who was a violent offender was not eligible.

And it was -- it wasn't a -- a true mass pardon. But it was pretty close to it. You know, it was -- it was mass in scale, but not blanketed.

STU: Right.

GLENN: And I think there were like 2,000 people that he parted on that.

STU: It was a law. Creating a new law.

GLENN: Yeah. You're saying, oh, by the way. That law that I personally disagree with.

We're not going to -- it's gone.

STU: The whole law doesn't count at him. We have a whole process to make laws. When someone -- when they pass a law, you can't say, eh. And shrug your shoulders. And say, I don't particularly like it.

And for some reason, that's the way the pardon power has been translated.

GLENN: The problem is the President can. The President has just always had the restraint not to do that.

STU: Right.

GLENN: Because it was bad for the country. And bad for laws.

You know, you don't just -- you don't do this. We're becoming more and more of a king. In our administration.

And it's not Donald Trump.

This has been about to go for a long time.

Barack Obama I think got really, really bad.

But this was going on before him. Obviously.

But Barack Obama kind of set something off.

And then because we couldn't get any legislation passed. We had Donald Trump try to do executive orders, to combat Barack Obama's executive orders.

Then Biden did it. And Trump. It's got to stop.

Because here's the problem. One of the things I said in our special on Wednesday.

Which was, biggest stories of the year.

And predictions for next year. I said, you will start to see rolling brownouts in places like Texas in 2026. Texans, wake up. Wake up.

But you're going to start to see rolling brownouts. But I also made another prediction. And I've just lost what I was going to say was the prediction.

Oh!

This massive swing. We're getting whiplash.

You can't -- you can't run a country like this.

You can't run a country where it's all being done by executive order.

Because look, we were all the way over to one side. When Trump was here. Then we swung way farther than that. With Biden.

Now Trump is bringing us back this way. If you don't pass laws, it's just going to swing.

And you can't -- you can't run a country like that.

This has got to stop!

We have to pass laws. Congress must do its job.

Why the Australia beach shooting should terrify EVERYONEplay icon
RADIO

Why the Australia beach shooting should terrify EVERYONE

Two shooters opened fire on Bondi beach at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration. Glenn Beck reacts to this horiffic act of evil and also to the heroic act of a man who tackled one of the shooters.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: So let me just cover the headlines really quickly: Brown University, yesterday, there was a shooter. Two are dead. The only one that has been named so far is the Republican Club Vice President Alec Cook. There have been nine that have been injured. They thought they had the shooter. But turns out, it's not him. He has been released. And there's just some questions on this one that are weird.

Also, al-Qaeda struck and killed US soldiers over the weekend in Syria. There will be a military response to that, I am sure. And yesterday -- yesterday, on the beach, Sydney's eastern suburbs. Sydney, Australia, it's summer there. There's locals. There are people that are coming from all over the country, all over the world, for the warmth of summer and the community celebration of the first night of Hanukkah. The rest of the world is the darkest days of winter. On the other side of the globe, it is still sunlight because it is in the middle of sunlight. But it was a dark, dark day yesterday despite the sun being up.

There were families with children. They were chasing the waves. The smell of grilled food that was drifting across the sand. Music, conversation, laughter in the air. And then around 7 o'clock, laughter was replaced with screams of terror. Two men dressed in black and armed with high-powered firearms positioned themselves atop a small concrete pedestrian bridge. It arched over the Campbell parade near the Bondi pavilion. They stood on top in the center of this bridge and rained bullets as they fired into the crowd. Shots rang out. Astonished the crowd.

VOICE: Get down. Get down. Boys, get down. Oh, my God.

GLENN: It just went on and on and on. Thousands had been gathered for Hanukkah by the Sea. They're now ducking for cover. Some trying to push children to safety, others frozen in disbelief as friends and strangers alike fell all around them.

The carnage was unbelievable. For ten minutes, these guys fired off this bridge. The beach, usually alive with surfers and sun seekers, just transformed instantly. Bodies were trampled. Frantic dash for some sort of shelter and protection, as the waves just continued to lap innocently at the shore while people were screaming for help.

Now, in the chaos, there were acts of individual courage. A fruit vendor, later named by the media as Ahmed al-Ahmed. He saw one of the gunmen firing his weapon. And in a moment of pure resolve, he vaulted from behind a nearby car, tackled the shooter from behind, and wrestled the rifle away. It was an unbelievable scene. Witnesses say -- and it was all captured on tape. There he is. Witnesses say, his bravery likely saved countless lives.

Police arrived, they started shooting at him. They shot at the two that were up on the bridge. They wounded both of them.

15 people had been killed by the time it was over. Dozens wounded. Young children to the elderly. Cherished members of the Jewish community, including Rabbi Eli Schlanger, a British-born assistant rabbi. He helped organize Hanukkah by the Sea.

The beach won't be looked at the same ever again. As the suspects went down, people from Australia just ran up on to the bridge.

And what I thought was an amazing, amazing moment that spoke volumes of our culture! The police were on top of these men, trying to administer care to keep them alive. While citizens, understandably, came up on the bridge and just started kicking them.
Police jumped on those people and pushed them away. And said, stop, stop, stop. And they did.

Because we're not a culture of death. First suspect, 50 year old, Sajid Akram, 50 years old. He's a dad. The second suspect is his 24-year-old son. Both in critical condition. Now in the hospital under police guard.

Let me ask you to imagine just for a minute, what it must feel like to be Jewish today. Not in theory. Because we -- we had an incident stopped in Amsterdam over the weekend, in Germany over the weekend, in LA, somebody, a drive-by just shot at a Jewish home with the Hanukkah candles in the window, screaming, "F the Jews." You want to know what -- you want to chant, "Bring the Intifada here," this is what it looks like.

It is here now. So what does it feel like to be Jewish today?

I don't know. I can't relate. But I want you to imagine, not as a talking point. But in quiet moments, when the phone would light up with another alert, another headline, another synagogue guarded by concrete barriers, armed police.

There's a particular fear that comes with memory. Jewish people carry history. Not as abstraction, but as inheritance. And it lives in names that are whispered at dinner tables, and photographs rescued from ash. And stories that begin with, "And we thought it would never happen here."

Europe told itself, that very thing once. So did Germany. So did France. So did polite society, everywhere, right before it happened.

And the world has been saying that for decades now. It would never happen here. And here we are again. And here we are, the worst we've seen in America.

Shadows that all of us hoped were buried forever. Hatred with organization, ideology. Hatred with teeth. Violence. Justification.

They're no longer whispers. They're shouting it now in our streets. They're shouting it in the streets of Australia. They're shouting it in the streets of Germany. And England and France. And Norway. They're burning flags. They're firing guns. They're chanting not only death to the Jew, but death to the West, death to Canada, death to the US. Death to Europe. This is no longer confined to the margins anymore. And the West is tolerating it. The west has explained it away. We have minimalized it. We have said it was a lone wolf. Sometimes we even excuse it.

Just for the day, let's just stop and look at Australia for a minute. For years, Jewish communities are warned the officials.

Anti-Semitism isn't theoretical. It's here. We're living it. We're seeing it. It's not just graffiti or angry words.

It's metastasizing into something ideological and organized and deadly. And in Australia, the officials told them, calm down.
Trust the institutions. We've got it.

Somehow or another, multi-cultural harmony would manage itself, but it didn't. Because it doesn't.

Ideology doesn't dissolve when it's ignored. It consolidates. It grows he has and it has across the Western world entirely. Europe, Britain, Australia. Canada. The United States. It's the same pattern!

Violent anti-Semitism rising Jewish schools like fortresses. Your families wondering whether visibility itself is now a liability.

And yet, all across the West, officials hesitate, to name the problem. Clearly!

So let me do it. Precisely. Precisely.

Truthfully.

Islamism.

Islamists. Not Islam. Not Muslim. If you're a Muslim, you want to live peacefully, worship freely. Raise children. Continue to, you know, live and contribute to a society. You know, and you're not an enemy of the West. I'm totally good with that. Look at the fruit cart guy. He apparently didn't hate Jews. He wasn't part of the culture of death.

He stopped it.

And millions do that every single day. But Islamism, Islamists, that's something entirely different.

Islamism is a political ideology.

It's not about faith. It is about power.

It's the belief that society has to be governed by religious law. Sharia law.

That freedom of conscience is illegitimate. That women are subordinate, that dissent is heresy, and that the world and everything in it has to submit. And it's very clear about all of this. It writes it down. It teaches it. It shouts it from the public square. For the love of Pete, it's everywhere. It chants it. It doesn't hide its ambitions. It doesn't hide behind anything. But here's what it doesn't do: It doesn't co-exist with open societies.

It replaces them and has been replacing open societies for centuries.

Any culture built on individual liberty, freedom of speech, equality before the law, it can't survive alongside an ideology that views all of those principles as sins or as an affront to Allah! In that scenario, one side must yield, or one side will be destroyed!

And history is very clear on which one does. You know, we're very different people. Even the difference between us and Canada. And us and Europe.

It might be seemingly starved. It might be we're very different. But when you look at us as a civilization, we're very different. Together, we're very different from the rest of the world.

We don't understand these things. Because we project our values, on everybody else.

We assume that everybody ultimately wants to live. And to compromise. Live side by side. We assume violence is accidental. We assume that it's a lone wolf. We assume that words like to do and dialogue mean the same thing to everybody.

But they don't! And so we tolerate politicians and newscasters and everything else that explain things away. They explain the stabbings and the truck attacks and the shootings and the riots. It's isolated incidents. They're not! We talk about finding the root cause. But we won't -- we won't name the root itself!

We call it extremism, as though it sprang out of nowhere, as though it was a weather event, instead of a worldview that's been around for centuries! I ask you to think about what it feels like to be Jewish today because of the Jewish people.
But also because, you're next. Jewish communities always pay the price first.

They always do. And believe me, you're on the list. You!

Your freedom. Your children are on the list!

And history shows this, with brutal consistency.

When a society begins to rot, from ideological cowardice.

The Jews are always the early-warning system.

They're the canary in the coal mine.

When they're targeted openly. And the state responds with hesitation.

That society is already sick and in the hospital.

It's already in trouble.

And make in mistakes.

The science is not far away.

It is already here.

Synagogues attached. Jewish students harassed on campus. Jewish neighborhoods guarded like war zones. Public celebrations requiring armed protection now. This is not normal, and it's not sustainable. And the West likes to believe and understands freedom.

But freedom is not a five! It's not a comfort. It's not the absence of conflict. Freedom is costly! And it requires moral clarity, and it requires the courage to draw a line and say, this doesn't belong here! And if we refuse to do that work now, our children will have to do it later under far worse conditions! They will have to fight, not to preserve freedom, but to recover it. And history always shows, that's much more costly. America, you're closer than you think to losing not only our country, but countries that took centuries to build!

Not through invasion. But through erosion. Through silence. Through the polite refusal to speak uncomfortable truths.

If not you, who?

If not now, when?

You're running out of time.

"You're being PLAYED": Glenn Beck exposes the TRUTH about Illinois' new MAiD programplay icon
RADIO

"You're being PLAYED": Glenn Beck exposes the TRUTH about Illinois' new MAiD program

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker has signed a bill legalizing "medical assistance in dying" (MAiD) for certain terminally ill patients. Glenn Beck rages against this "culture of death" that is sweeping America, even after it ravaged Canada.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: So JB Pritzker in Illinois signed into law a bill on Friday, that will allow doctors in Illinois to prescribe the deaths of their own patients. First, do no harm. I'm having a hard time with that, doctors. Maybe you can tell us how you're getting around this. First, do no harm.

That is a very important concept, that our doctors are to buy into. And that we all believe.

First, do no harm. If you don't have that, all kinds of things can follow. Especially when they're couched with compassion.

And that is exactly what this is always couched in. Compassion.

Okay. So this new law goes into effect in September of next year. Terminally ill patients over the age of 18 are going to be able to get a suicide drug from their doctor. This is the 12th state in the country, that is allowing assisted suicide. And there are about 25 others that are standing in line for it. What a surprise.

Illinois is the -- is the one -- the first of this -- this batch of them coming in to say, I want to kill people!

It is a culture of death. And we are -- that's what we are battling. No matter what anybody tells you, we're not battling the Republicans or the Democrats.

It's not politics.

It's not Marxism.

It is a culture of death, that we're battling. It is evil. It is evil. A culture of death.

When you look at -- when you look at what people are saying about global warming, what is the solution?

Fewer people. How do you do that? Well, culture of death takes care of that. Right?

When you look at -- when you look at, you know, just about anything now, health care, abortion, culture of death.

Islam, culture of death. Marxism, honestly, it is a culture of death. Why would I say that know.

Well, because it eliminates people who disagree with it. And first, it just pushes them off the sidelines.

But eventually it ends in camps. But also, look what's being taught to our kids. They are killing themselves, because they're so depressed. Because it has no meaning. It completely rejects the you human aspect of humanity.

Culture of death. That's really what we're fighting. Make no mistake.

Now, Illinois and Pritzker, they're saying, well, no. No, no, no. This is going to be -- we're going to be very, very careful. You have to have two doctors. Okay. That's good. That's good.

Germany had three doctors, to give you permission. You're not even up the line of Nazi Germany, but congratulations on that. And they have to be diagnosed with having six months or less to live.

Okay. Okay.

I want you to know, Illinois, America, Western world, you're being played. This is not compassion.

I'm going to be real clear with you.

This is preparation for when the system can no longer afford to fulfill its promises, that's what this is.

They are preparing the system to be able to have the way out. And they're preparing you, so you look at this as compassion and so when it gets worse and worse, up until the very end, you don't recognize it. I mean, they're beginning to a little bit in Canada, to see what's coming their way. And why is it happening? Because they can no longer afford socialized medicine. They can't afford to fulfill the promises.

Let me just say, can America afford to fulfill its promise, that it's made for generations on all of this socialized everything?

No. In fact, there are people now, trying to double down. We can't afford anything. They're trying to double down and expand those programs, which will only collapse us faster.

When they collapse, you know, nobody likes. Well, rich people can get surgery. And as I've said to you before, I don't like that either. I really don't like that. But how else do you do it? How else do you do it? Well, we have a committee. And we -- we ration things. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Here's where you're not going to like that. You're not going to like that, because that's not the way humans work. When they ration things, either people with money or the people with power, always find a way to short-circuit so they can get to the top.

So the one that you're saying now is the poor, helpless waif that's not getting anything because of the rich people, when the system changes, that poor lonely waif is still not going to get any help because the powerful, the ones that are connected, they'll get the medical care, and the waif won't get medical care. People will find a way to short-circuit the system because people generally suck.

And when you give all the power to people, it's not good. It's usually not good. So you may not like the, you know, pay for it kind of system, but it is the best one out there. And you really don't want to give a bureaucracy the -- the ability to kill you if you become expensive or inconvenient.

Now, I know that's not what they're saying. That's not what we're doing. We're giving people out of compassion, help them end their lives. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. That's exactly what happened in Canada. Let me just tell you. It was called C14. Let me just look up the facts here. C14 in Canada. It happened in 2016.

And it -- what it -- what it meant was, you could get compassionate care, if you had doctors. Three doctors approved.

You had a terminal, I don't remember what they called it.

But basically, you could see the end in sight. Okay?

There was -- there was no way for us to repair your body and heal you.

So we could see that.

Basically, you know, you were terminal.

We could see that.

In the future. Near future.

And three doctors agreed.

And then you had a waiting period after you requested it, the doctors would approve.

And then there were ten days, before you would administer. Ten days before you would back out.

That's what it started as, okay?

That's not what it's become. 2016, that's what it was. And you had to be 18 years or older.

And you had to have full capacity. So you couldn't listen to, you know, friends or family.

You had to make the decision. And you needed full capacity.

Okay.
Then things started to fall apart.

Then we had COVID. Then we had all these expenses. Then we had people move into the country.

This is Canada. Same thing happened here. COVID. Hospitals are overwhelmed.

Medical care goes to hell.

And then you start bringing in people from all over the world.

And now you don't have hospital care. Everybody is crowded. The doctors are overwhelmed.
And so in 2021, they decided the Quebec court decided, well, you know, death in the foreseeable future. Is that really necessary?

Excuse me?

I mean -- I mean, the reasonable foreseeable natural death requirement. Do we really need that?

The court said, no, we really don't.

There are two tracks! Those who have natural death in the foreseeable future. We're going to make it a little easier for them. So beyond the request, the three doctors and the ten-day waiting period. We're going to get rid of some of that because it's not necessary.

I mean, if you're in the reasonably foreseeable future, you don't need all those safeguards. And then people whose natural death is not reasonably foreseeable. Well, we're going to make them do all of those things. Oh, okay.

And, by the way, we're removing the ten-day waiting period too. Once the doctor says, you're good, you're good.

Okay. All right.

That wasn't far enough. Now, they have a new bill, C7.

Canada bill seven.

When they -- when that removed the foreseeable requirement, they added a temporary exclusion for people whose sole medical condition was a mental disorder.

Oh, wow. So now we're into mental illness.

So your death isn't in the foreseeable future.

But you really want to die.

So does this apply to mental.

People with mental problems?

Oh, no, no, no. No. We're not going to ban it. We're just going to put a temporary ban on that one?

Why would you put a temporary ban on that?

Why would you put a temporary ban on something like that?

Let me give you the answer and you tell you what else it's done and bring it home for you here in just a second.

Okay. So why would you -- why would you remove the restriction on the mentally ill?

Remember, the first thing was -- the first thing was, you've got to be -- you've got to be fully there.

You have to be competent and aware of what you're doing.

Then they said, well, the foreseeable future thing.

Your death is inevitable. We're going to take that away.

But we're going to put a temporary restriction on mental illness.

The only reason why you would make that a temporary restriction, is because you're just trying to get the rest of the society to catch up with what you're going to do.

That's the only reason.

And that's why, it has been extended.

Okay?

It was supposed to end in 2023.

Then it was extended to March 2024.

And now, it has been pushed to 2027.

Okay?

So you're not eligible for MAID until March 2027, if you have a mental illness.

Hmm.

Huh! Now, they may push it forward again, to give it more time to convince everybody that that's what they have to do.

And how do you convince people?

Well, you convince people, because there's shortages and be that person doesn't have the capability to think they're mentally ill. They might want to tie. They're very, very depressed. They're very depressed, and so they want to die anyway.

They want to die. I need the doctor. Okay?

That's what's going to happen. That's what's going to happen.

Unless we remember who we are. Unless all of a sudden, we -- we're like, you know what, that's -- you know, that's not who we are.

That's not the West. The West is not defined by its technology.

Even by its freedom or its wealth.

Everybody thinks, oh, the West. They're wealthy.

No. That's not it.

What makes us unique in the West. The entire West Canada, included. All of Europe. This radical idea that the individual has inherent value.

That nobody is expendable.

And not because they're useful, not because they're productive, not because they're convenient.
They have an inherent right to exist, to live.
If you look at the past, you look at Athens and Rome.
Oh. I mean, they just put you -- you this put babies that were not boys, that were girls. Where they were deforming.

They throw them on a garbage barge. These barges would go down the river. With screaming babies on them. They just let them die, okay?

That's the way it does. But West through Judeo Christian ethics taught us, that's not right!

And we build hospitals before skyscrapers.

We put limits on -- on force. We teach doctors to heal. Not to calculate.

When a society like ours stops choosing life, it does not become more compassion.

It becomes more efficient. Not compassionate! Efficient!

And efficiency has never given birth 20 moral virtue.

Efficiency kills it. If that's your goal. It kills it.

Fighting this culture of death, it is the most important thing we can focus on.

A lot of people will focus on politics and everything else.

And what JB Pritzker is doing here, there, and everywhere else.

I don't even care about politics.

We have to convince one another, we have to start standing up for the principles that made the West, the West.

Because without the choice to protect life at its most fragile, we are no longer a civilization worth saving! We're just another system deciding, eh, I don't know, is that worth the trouble? And history is very clear where that society ends. That's why, last week, to me, it was so personal, and so important.

To help this woman, not just because it's the right thing to do. And because every life matters. And this happened to be a life that came across my path.

And I'm like, we've got to stop that! But because, this goes to something bigger! And it is infecting us right now. And if we buy the lies, that this is for compassion. Look! I understand. I understand pain. I understand end of life. I don't want to be in that situation.

I know, you don't want to be.

I mean, I know what it feels like with my dog, putting my dog down. It kills me. It kills me to put my dog down. So I get it on the dog level, let alone, you know, a parent level or a spouse level. I get it.

But you cannot as a society go down this road. Because once you open this door, all the other doors just start to swing open. When there's trouble!
The first sign of shortage, all those doors open up. And guess what we're headed for. Shortages.