What's wrong with conservative talk show hosts?

A few weeks ago, I was listening to Mark Levin in a podcast while driving a truck on the road. I have a great deal of respect for Mark Levin as a staunch conservative warrior. He's written many books on constitutional retracement, he's worked in the Reagan administration, and his legal foundation has helped push back the tide of the sinister Leftist agenda.

But as I was listening, he was making remarks on the Iraqi Sunni's who were proceeding militantly to take back Iraq. Mark referred to them as "cock roaches" that needed to be "stomped". I turned it off and couldn't take any more and I haven't listened to him since...don't know if I ever will.

The cock roaches needing to be stomped reference reminded me too much of the Hutu's propaganda regarding the Tutsi's they were exterminating in Rwanda. The Tutsi's were also called cockroaches and it was advised they be dealt with like cockroaches.

People are not cockroaches, they're people, created in imago deo loved so much that God sent his only son to die for them. So to answer my own question, the problem with SOME conservative talk show hosts is a lack of Christ. Thankfully I never hear such rhetoric from Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, or others. And Glenn Beck is the epitome of what I'm talking about, compassionate Christ-like conservatism that teaches us to love our enemies as Christ loves them. Glenn Beck models what all conservative talk show hosts should be promoting.

Conservatism without Christ is a cruel, empty, and irascible creature, bereft of love, joy, peace, and the eternal, invincible optimism that God is in control. It becomes a very dark, ugly thing when it's not motivated by Christ's love. I'm not going to hold Levin's Jewish faith against him, but without Jesus, he's promoting a brand of conservatism that appalls and saddens me and one that I cannot enjoin myself to.

Foreigner said:

"Conservatism without Christ is a cruel, empty, and irascible creature, bereft of love, joy, peace, and the eternal, invincible optimism that God is in control."

-- This applies equally to Liberalism, as well.

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I disagree. Conservatism is based on the retention of the timeless values that build a strong society. Liberalism is based on the undoing of morality and the promotion of licentiousness that has been the undoing of civilizations for the entire history of man. Liberalism with Christ is no longer liberalism because liberalism is utterly incompatible with Christianity.

HammerStone said:

Well, what is conservatism? I'm not sure that what currently passes as conservatism is the true thing. Much of it was hijacked by the neoconservative movement which believes that the entire world must be democratized in their own version of a democratic millennium. In order to be a conservative, you should first desire to conserve something.

In regards to your comment about Levin, we definitely agree here. I don't know what has happened, but somewhere along the way, having a strong military has been confused with always needing to employ it at every turn. What I don't think people understand about the middle east is each time you go in to a country like Iraq and start killing, you tend to motivate others to do the same. That's why these groups tend to act more like hydra rather than just a snake that dies with the removal of its head.

For the average Muslim in Iraq, it does begin to look like the Crusades redux. Statements like calling them cockroaches just stokes the fire.

I think you're absolutely right about their worth as created imago Dei. I don't see how we are any better than radicalized Islam when we starting using the cockroach identifiers for people. The sins that they commit are atrocious, but people can be redeemed. It was interesting that you bring this up, as a devotion I ready this morning compared Saul (later Paul) to Usama bin Laden. I think it underscored a key point that we've forgotten in that many wars are the result of ideas, and sometimes working for hearts and minds may be the mortal deathblow rather than body counts.

I'm reminded of Charles Spurgeon's commentary:



The above is too easy to apply to a friend or family member who might be an ardent atheist. Start replacing that with people who want to kill you, and it gets a lot harder.

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I agree with all of this and I'm always blessed by quotes from the Prince of Preachers. Thank you.

aspen said:

Sure you are not Protestant, Vale?

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I don't have to be Protestant to appreciate the great evangelists like Spurgeon, Whitefield, and Moody. Why would that make me Protestant?

Wait.....


Are YOU a Protestant?