Glen Beck's Rally for Restoring Honor

Glen Beck hosted a rally on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial this past weekend. Estimates vary according to who is doing the telling but most will tell you that there were about 500,000 people at the Washington Mall waiting to hear from Glenn Beck. Why?

That is the big question. Everyone has their own answer to that but I will share with you what I thought about the rally. Restoring Honor was the theme and Glen has stressed this message on his radio and TV show for many weeks and months. He started the 9/12 project which helped to spawn many other groups and started at a time when Americans who felt alone in their opposition to much of what Washington was doing. They were looking for others who felt just like they did. The Tea Party movement and AsAMom.com are among some of the groups that formed about the same time as the 9/12 project.

Restoring Honor is more than just a cliché. Beck sincerely is asking Americans to remember their roots.  Although many today would like to deny the religious history of this country, we truly cannot.  Our founding fathers were strong believers in the providence of God.  They incorporated that belief into our laws while allowing for the freedom to express one’s religion intact.   What many in Washington know but twist to their own advantage was that the freedom expressed in the Bill of Rights was to keep the state out of religion and not so much to keep all mention of God out of the state.  We know this is true from the other writings of the founders.

Glen Beck, along with many other Americans, feels that Washington has lost its honor.  How many of have laughed at jokes about the truthfulness and honesty of our politicians.  We know they have no honor. We know they lie to us.  Beck thinks it is about time that we expect some honor from our politicians.  And judging from the result of this weekend, apparently, the American people do too. 

Naturally, this goes against the grain of the politicians, and the media who feed off of the crumbs from their table. So this message has been trampled and lost in all the hype in the coverage of Glen Beck’s rally. After all, isn’t the number of people at the rally more important than the message?  I mean Beck talked about God.  The papers can’t print that stuff.  They can’t report that on the news for Pete’s sake. Some liberal or an atheist might get offended.  Al Sharpton was offended because Beck quoted Martin Luther King on the very anniversary of the day King spoke the words, almost accused him of hijacking King’s message.  But how silly, I mean really, wasn’t King’s message for all Americans?

Ok, I get it, Beck has opposed this administration and those in the media and the left, do not like Beck. We all get it.

But to bash everything the man says or does without knowing or understanding what he is saying is doing exactly what you claim Beck is doing – opposing for the sake of opposing.

Now Beck doesn’t ask you to agree with him on every stance he takes.  What he does ask of you from this rally is to restore honor in your own lives and once you have done that, carry it through and demand a higher level of honor from the people around you and then of course, from your elected officials.  After losing his own honor for many years, Beck, with help from God, has restored his honor.  So he now urges all Americans to restore their own honor and says with God’s help, all things are possible.

Although the message at the national mall on Saturday was not a political rally, the future ramifications to our political arena will be easily be affected if people start demanding truth. Can you imagine what our elected officials will say or do when half the country calls them out and won’t stand for their lies and inactivity anymore?

Can Congress get away with telling us that they won’t know what is in a bill until they pass it if they really and yet sincerely claim to have honor? We don’t allow that kind of business dealing from anyone else, why should be allow it from people we elected, people that work for us?  Would you seriously sign a mutli-billion dollar contract that you didn’t know what the details were until after you signed?

Of course not.

It isn’t honorable.

So critics may say what they want about Glen Beck and his rally.  But the truth will be found by the American people.  We, the people are not satisfied with the status quo.  We want elected officials who have honor. If God is not how you may find honor, that is fine, but if you believe that honor needs restoring in this country, then it is up to all of us to restore honor, starting in our own lives.

Before the event, the media warned against the hate that they thought Beck would incite, they warned against the violence that would ensue.  They wrote articles after article about how this would be a Tea Party event and how Beck is trying to influence the elections, second guessing who the speakers would be.  So now that the rally is over, do we hear from them about the message that given on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial?  NO, we hear that there is a controversy about how many people were actually there.  We hear that there is controversy because Sharpton held his own rally nearby.  We hear controversy, that’s about it.

The newspapers may mention that the Martin Luther King’s niece, Dr. Alveda King, spoke as well as Sarah Palin. They may mention that the event was peaceful and they may even show surprise that the hate didn’t happen. But they aren’t telling you about The Black Robe Brigade.  Did they mention the heroes that were honored for their Faith, Hope and Charity? Did any of the media stories tell you about the fly over in perfect formation, straight up the mall – by geese - as the first notes of the National Anthem started? 

They told their story their way. It was not however, Glen Beck’s story. His message was about God. His message focused on the need for every one of us to restore honor in our own lives so that we may expect it from those around us. If you live your life with lies, you can’t expect the world to tell you the truth. So it is with this clear message - if you demand honor and honesty from others, start with restoring honor within yourself - that Glen Beck, befuddled the media once again. I don’t know what they were hoping for but I don’t think a message of turning to God was what they expected.

Do not be fooled for a minute though. If Americans restore their sense of honor and then demand truth and honor from their elected officials and politicians, change will happen. It will have to. The deceit, double dealing and closed door policies that seem to be the way things are done in Washington right now, cannot survive under the scrutiny of honor and truth.

Glen’s quote from our Bill of Rights that he reiterated from the stage bears telling here, “And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.”