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This past weekend The Last Exorcism hit theaters and Glenn Beck held a rally in Washington, DC… same day, same spot where MLK delivered perhaps the greatest speech in the history of our country. On the surface these two events have little in common but when we dig a bit deeper we see that they couldn’t be more similar.
Now I’m the first to say the media pays way too much attention to this blow hard Beck and I’m hypocritically doing the same thing here, but this blog has five followers, so be it.
In the film we follow the Reverend Cotton Marcus, a showman that traverses the Deep South and preys on weak minded, superstitious people. With a bit of smoke and mirrors and the slimy charisma of a late night television evangelist, he makes these people actually believe that he is “exorcising their demons”. In reality there was never a possession or a problem in the first place, outside of their own thoughts racing around their own small brains. Naturally in the film we encounter Nell Sweetzer, a sweet kind of girl that would have been Facebook friends with Regan MacNeil in another life, but I digress.
Turns out this girl actually is possessed by a spirit of hell, Ambalam to be exact. This particular demon apparently rides around Hades on a camel with a crew of demons behind him playing flutes and trumpets and what not. Has to be true, Wikipedia told me so.
Of course Cotton has to come to grips with the realization that this demonic little lady is out to brutally slaughter him and his friends, none of his propaganda will work this time around.
Beck is Cotton Marcus. In a sense, he is truly the last exorcist. What’s scary is Beck’s business is booming.
In America today we have a lot of people that are scared, much like Nell’s family in the film. Except they aren’t scared of knife wielding, pajama clad school girl. Instead they are scared of our foreigner President, who may or may not be a Muslim and/or hanging out with terrorists, and also a socialist, or perhaps a communist, can’t keep up really. Definitely a racist though. Beck said so himself.
These same types of people are also up in arms because of the “Ground Zero Mosque”, can’t stand Mexicans, gays, taxes, teachers, literature, museums, books, etc…I kid of course, but not really.
Glenn Beck feeds off these people and much like Reverend Marcus, he doesn’t even believe his own message, and it’s clearly evident every time the guy opens his fat mouth. What’s worse is that he is now using religion as a way to sugar coat his message of intolerance for everyone he doesn’t find acceptable or following his “Beck Life Rules" or whatever other garbage he puts out there.
This man and his whole movement is the furthest thing from Christianity and what Jesus taught. If Jesus was living today I could guarantee you he’d be on The Ed Schultz Show speaking negatively on Beck. Perhaps in his spare time he would remove Beck’s ability to speak and strike him down blind.
Seriously though there are a lot of people that still need religion(any form) in this country and around the world today and don’t need half assed zealots like Beck using it as a tool for publicity while staining its message. All religions take a hit in the credibility department when men like this are around.
Also for a guy that spews mouth vomit on a nightly basis about “freedom” and “liberty”…he literally tells people how to act and think. And for the most part his audience follows his lead, like the Sweetzer family follows Cotton Marcus. But instead of using nifty trickery like phony, prerecorded sounds of demons and smoking crucifixes, Beck uses a headset mic and chalkboard.
The problem is simply this. All facades come to an end, usually when a true predicament arises. In the film, the Reverend must actually become what he pretended to be for so many years. Ultimately when he does, it’s a terribly bleak scene.
The time will come when Glenn Beck will realize that what's on the horizon isn't the bogus day of reckoning that he spouts about, rather real problems. Real problems that are going to smack him on his ass and bring him back to reality. Real problems that people in this country face every day. Problems that some people who attended his rally face.
(out of the 100,000 or so…not half a million like originally reported)
Not problems that are fabricated by and solved by the same person. Eventually they will need to seek true leadership and a true message. They will need real answers to real problems.
Reverend Cotton Marcus couldn’t provide any of those things.
Glenn Beck can’t either.
