Glenn Beck: ‘I blew it’ Comparing Rabbis to Islamic Radicals

Yes, blew it big time!

Glenn Beck is apologizing for remarks he made on his radio show comparing rabbis from a major Jewish tradition to Islamic radicals, saying, “I was wrong on this and I also apologize for it.”

“In this case I didn’t do enough homework,” Beck told radio listeners on Thursday, while his website said his comments contained “one of the worst analogies of all time.”

On Tuesday, Beck said on his show that “reformed rabbis are generally political in nature.”

“It’s almost like Islam – radicalized Islam,” he continued, “in a way to where radicalized Islam is less about religion than it is about politics.”

Beck’s comments came after a group of 400 rabbis, many from the Reform movement, took out a full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal blasting him for comments he made about the Holocaust.

Beck, who also hosts a show on Fox News, had aired a radio series about financier George Soros that accused him of collaborating with the Nazis to send Jews to death camps, according to the Jewish Funds for Justice, which sponsored the ad.

Soros is Jewish.

The Reform movement, founded in 19th century Germany, counts a million and a half Jews in North America, according to the Union for Reform Judaism.

Beck sent a letter to the Anti-Defamation League, a group that works to combat anti-Semitism, to apologize for his remarks.

“I was admittedly misinformed on Reform rabbis, and made a horrible analogy that I immediately attempted to clarify – quite honestly, I blew it on this one,” Beck wrote, according to a copy of the letter released by the Anti-Defamation League.

Anti-Defamation League National Director Abraham H. Foxman says he accepts Beck’s apology.

“Glenn Beck has shown that he understands how his remarks were offensive and out of line,” Foxman said in a statement Thursday. “We welcome his words of apology and consider the matter closed.”

The Jewish Funds for Justice, meanwhile, said Beck’s apology did not go far enough.

“Glenn Beck’s apology for comparing Reform Judaism to ‘radicalized Islam’ is welcome but incomplete,” the group said in a statement.

“While we are heartened to hear him recognize his ignorance,” the statement continued, “he still has not acknowledged that the letter signed by 400 rabbis and organized by Jewish Funds for Justice represented a cross-section of denominations, including Orthodox, Conservative, Reconstructionist, and Renewal rabbis.”

True dilettantism Mr Beck.

Antonio Barluzzi

The churches he designed in Israel are really awesome - each capturing well the event they represent. Shmuel Browns of the Israel Tour Guide blog has a nice post out today on the Italian architect.

You can read it here.

Benny Hinn being Sued for 'inappropriate relationship' with Paula White

May the charlatan be humbled:

Televangelist Benny Hinn is being sued by Strang Communications, a publishing company that alleges that Hinn violated a morality clause in their contract when he began an “inappropriate relationship” with Without Walls pastor Paula White.

In August, The National Enquirer published photos of Hinn and White holding hands in Rome. Hinn was married to Suzanne Hinn at the time. His wife had filed for divorce in February 2010.

“I will not deny that the friendship has strengthened, and, while it has remained morally pure at all times, I have enjoyed the company of someone who has also gone through the trauma of a painful and public divorce,” Hinn said in a statement at the time.

Hinn acknowledged to his publisher “his inappropriate relationship” with White in August, the suit, obtained by the Orlando Sentinel, says. Strang Co. (now known as Charisma Media) says that it should receive $250,000 of unrecouped royalties but Hinn has refused to pay the amount.

Hinn had signed a three-book deal and was paid a $300,000 advance for Blood in the Sand (2009). The suit includes a letter where Strang said Hinn violated the contract by failing to work hard enough to market the book, according to the Sentinel.

He failed to make television appearances to promote it, including several on 700 Club, the television show that Pat Robertson founded.

Paula White and her husband divorced in 2007, and she left Without Walls, returning in 2009 after her husband announced his departure due to poor health. White also described the National Enquirer piece as false.

“We were never alone and were in the constant company of staff and other associates, ” she said in a statement at the time. “I value my friendship with Pastor Benny and remain supportive with a deep respect of him, his family and his ministry. My relationship with Pastor Benny is genuine and pure and should not be taken out of context.”

Hinn and White were cited in Sen. Chuck Grassley’s investigation of televangelists, which recently concluded.

Gaddafi: Protesters are on Hallucinogenic Drugs… and Nescafe

Talk about living in denial:

Muammar Gaddafi blamed a revolt against his rule on al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden on Thursday, and said the protesters were fueled by milk and Nescafe spiked with hallucinogenic drugs, in a rambling appeal for calm.

Gaddafi, who just two days ago vowed in a televised address to crush the revolt and fight to the last, showed none of the fist-thumping rage of that speech.

This time, he spoke to state television by telephone without appearing in person, and his tone seemed more conciliatory, with much of his country out of government control.

“Their ages are 17. They give them pills at night, they put hallucinatory pills in their drinks, their milk, their coffee, their Nescafe,” said Gaddafi…

More here.

The Effect of Human Sin on Apologetics and Archaeology

Part 1:

Muslims Set Fire to Christian town in Bangladesh

Via the Catholic News Agency:

More than 300 Muslims set fire to a town in Bangladesh in order to strip indigenous Christians, Hindus and Buddhists of their property.

The group of Muslim settlers set fire to the town of Rangamati in the Diocese of Chattagonag, Bangladesh on Feb. 17. According to the Fides news agency, news that the body of a missing Muslim man had been found was the pretext for carrying out what the Muslims called “an expedition to punish the town where indigenous peoples live.” 

Other attacks on indigenous towns were reported in the region of Gulishakhali.

An eyewitness told Fides that recently, Muslim colonists have been expelling non-Muslim ethnic groups in order to take possession of their farmland. He said they are often successful because local officials do nothing to intervene and to guarantee the rights of ethnic and religious minorities.

Bangladesh, located in southern Asia, is 89.7 percent Muslim, 9.2 percent Hindu, 0.7 percent Buddhist and 0.3 percent Christian.

The Big Picture: Christchurch Earthquake

Photos of the devastation in Christchurch New Zealand:

More here.

Terrible!

The Uniqueness of Christianity

Dr Peter Kreeft writes:

Ronald Knox once quipped that “the study of comparative religions is the best way to become comparatively religious.” The reason, as G. K. Chesterton says, is that, according to most “scholars” of comparative religion, “Christianity and Buddhism are very much alike, especially Buddhism.”

But any Christian who does apologetics must think about comparative religions because the most popular of all objections against the claims of Christianity today comes from this field. The objection is not that Christianity is not true but that it is not the truth; not that it is a false religion but that it is only a religion. The world is a big place, the objector reasons; “different strokes for different folks”. How insufferably narrow-minded to claim that Christianity is the one true religion! God just has to be more open-minded than that.

This is the single most common objection to the Faith today, for “today” worships not God but equality. It fears being right where others are wrong more than it fears being wrong. It worships democracy and resents the fact that God is an absolute monarch. It has changed the meaning of the word honor from being respected because you are superior in some way to being accepted because you are not superior in any way but just like us. The one unanswerable insult, the absolutely worst name you can possibly call a person in today’s society, is “fanatic”, especially “religious fanatic”. If you confess at a fashionable cocktail party that you are plotting to overthrow the government, or that you are a PLO terrorist or a KGB spy, or that you molest porcupines or bite bats’ heads off, you will soon attract a buzzing, fascinated, sympathetic circle of listeners. But if you confess that you believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, you will find yourself suddenly alone, with a distinct chill in the air.

Here are twelve of the commonest forms of this objection, the odium of elitism, with answers to each…

Read them here.

Scale of the Universe

How Far Away is the Moon?

Too Much Facebook Gets Nun Banished

from her order:

Maria Jesus Galan had 600 Facebook friends. She liked to communicate with them, to spread good news.

However, her Facebook habit has lost her something very dear–her habit.

Galan, you see, spent 35 years inside the Santo Domingo el Real convent in Toledo, Spain. It’s an introspective place that doesn’t encourage its nuns to have too much contact with the outside world.

However, according to the Telegraph, the convent allowed a computer into its midst 10 years ago.

Sister Maria saw the future that this computer offered. She digitized the Dominican convent’s archives. The computer also offered more mundane assistance…

… Her fellow nuns reportedly claimed that Sister Maria’s Facebook activity “made life impossible.” She was therefore asked to leave and now lives with her mother.

The Dominican order has refused to comment on Sister Maria’s departure. However, her Facebook page is overflowing with sympathy. Some posters tell her that now that she has her freedom, she can travel to places like Australia. Some declare themselves sad that she was the victim of such an injustice…

… At least Sister Maria understands the opportunities an online life can offer. She used to have 600 Facebook friends. Now her Facebook community numbers more than 5,000.

You can read the whole thing here.