Tuesday's Glenn Beck -- revealed (and debunked)!

On his Monday Fox News show, Glenn Beck provided a little preview of what he plans to do tomorrow:

BECK: Barack Obama has his new faith-based initiative where he is literally merging faith with the EPA -- your church with the EPA. I'm gonna tell you all about it tomorrow. It is horrifying.

Much as we hate to spoil things by telling you what's going to happen before it happens (even though Beck was guilty of spoilerism earlier in his Monday show by pretty much giving away the ending to Titanic while fear-mongering about the economy), we have a pretty good idea of how Tuesday's Glenn Beck is going to go down.

Here's the background: In March, the President's Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships issued a series of recommendations “on how the government can better partner with faith and neighborhood based organizations.” Among them:

  • Providing greater clarity on guidelines for how religious charities receive and utilize government funds to provide social services;
  • Encouraging government to work with faith and community-based groups to streamline access to benefits for the unemployed and the most vulnerable;
  • Promoting strategic partnerships between Fortune 500 companies, community organizations, domestic violence groups, veterans and those in the Fatherhood field to promote responsible father engagement in the lives of children; and
  • Bringing the power of 370,000 houses of worship across the country to the fight of climate change by greening buildings and promoting environmental stewardship in their congregations.

Guess which one Beck will be focusing on?

From the full report, here's the complete list of recommendations regarding “Environment and Climate Change”:

Energy Efficiency and Green Jobs:

Recommendation 1: Form an Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and assign Faith- and Community-Based Liaisons to EPA regional offices.

Recommendation 2: The Administration should provide guidance to State and local governments on how to partner with faith-based and nonprofit organizations to retrofit and green buildings.

Recommendation 3: Encourage the Department of Labor, Department of Housing and Urban Development, and other Federal agencies to work cooperatively with faith-based and neighborhood organizations to ensure that low-income communities and workers with barriers to employment are targeted when creating green job training programs.

Environmental Education and Communications:

Recommendation 4: The Administration should sponsor a public educational campaign on the environment, utilizing a centralized Website, such as Environment.gov.

Recommendation 5: The White House should sponsor regional conferences to mobilize faith- and community-based organizations to promote environment sustainability and energy efficiency.

Sustainable, Community Gardening and Small-Scale Agriculture:

Recommendation 6: Support partnerships and collaboration for sustainable, community gardening and small-scale agriculture.

Climate Change Adaptation:

Recommendation 7: Provide the opportunity for Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and Private Voluntary Organizations (PVOs) to apply for funds to implement international adaptation objectives.

Recommendation 8: Set up a taskforce to study how emission offsets can maximize climate-resilient development and the participation of PVOs in such efforts.

Recommendation 9: Active engagement of the NGO sector in the review and design of domestic and international adaptation strategies.

We're pretty sure you aren't going to hear on Beck's show about the utterly benign nature of making churches and nonprofit buildings more energy-efficient, or of streamlining issuance of benefits, or of promoting the involvement of fathers in their children's lives, or of encouraging community gardens. Nor will you hear that Obama's task force includes such high-profile evangelical Christian leaders like Joel Hunter, Richard Stearns, and Frank Page.

You also won't hear that dozens of evangelical Christian leaders support the fight against global warming as part of being God's stewards of the Earth; as Rev. Hunter said, “As Christians, our faith in Jesus Christ compels us to love our neighbors and to be stewards of God's creation. The good news is that with God's help, we can stop global warming, for our kids, our world and for the Lord.”

What will you hear about from Beck? Lots of ranting about “green jobs,” with a likely bonus mention of Van Jones. You will hear that the task force includes longtime right-wing nemeses like Jim Wallis, Harry Knox, and Dalia Mogahed. You will hear the term “social justice” being twisted and linked to communism. You will hear Beck's inane theory that carbon dioxide can't be a pollutant because we exhale it, and probably something about his “Crime, Inc.” conspiracy.

Oh, and there's one more thing you won't hear from Beck: any actual evidence that Obama will be “literally merging ... your church with the EPA.” But then, Beck has never been one to let the facts get in his way.