During his month-long public meltdown over Egypt, Glenn Beck has somehow managed to become progressively more incoherent -- moving from fearmongering about an Islamic caliphate and Code Pink to claiming that the Bush State Department was “in bed” with “communists” and “radical Islamists” to warning his viewers not to do Google searches, because Google is “in bed with the government” and is “working way too close with hardcore leftists.”
The journey down the rabbit hole will continue tonight, when Beck will host End Times-obsessed author Joel Richardson, according to WorldNetDaily, which published his most recent book. Beck previously featured Richardson as an expert in his documentary Rumors of War.
In 2009, Richardson published The Islamic Antichrist, in which he puts forth his theory that “Islam is indeed the primary vehicle that will be used by Satan to fulfill the prophecies of the Bible about the future political/religious/military system of the Antichrist that will overwhelm the entire world just prior to the second coming of Jesus Christ.”
Here he is explaining the book's thesis at the end of its first chapter:
So maybe you now agree that it is important to become informed regarding Islam, but you may wonder why it is important to understand Islamic eschatology specifically. That's a good question. Please think through some of these points carefully: The Bible makes it clear that the Devil's primary plan for the last days has been, for the past few thousand years, to raise up two men, the Antichrist and the False Prophet, as his primary instruments to deceive the inhabitants of the earth. How do you suppose that Satan has planned to include the world's 1.5 billion Muslims in his grand end-time deception? Did Satan fail to foresee and strategize regarding the global spread of Islam? Or has Satan included the Muslims of the world in his end-time strategy? Will Islam, the world's third monotheistic religion, also undergo the persecution of Satan along with Christians and Jews as they all resist the Antichrist together? Or will Islam -- the religion that prides itself on resisting any form of idolatry -- simply submit to a demonic and false religious leader without putting up any real fight? For years, I questioned the Lord about these issues. In time, as my knowledge of Islam deepened, the answers to my questions became very clear. This book is my attempt to share with you what I have learned. I understand that this may sound like a strong statement to make, but I believe that the information presented in this book will establish the fact that Islam is indeed the primary vehicle that will be used by Satan to fulfill the prophecies of the Bible about the future political/religious/military system of the Antichrist that will overwhelm the entire world just prior to the second coming of Jesus Christ. [The Islamic Antichrist, Pages 11-12 (italics in original)]
Sounds reasonable.
Hosting Richardson on his TV program and featuring him in a documentary are not the only ways Beck has given Richardson a platform lately -- Richardson's work has also started to pop up on Beck's Blaze website.
Earlier this month, Beck hosted “expert” Joel Rosenberg to push apocalyptic talk about an Islamic caliphate. And that was far from the first time Beck has promoted End Times prophecy.
Last year on his radio show, Beck hosted Rosenberg, who he said “has a biblical look at things,” and asked him if we are in “those times.”
Last July, Beck hosted pastor John Hagee and labeled him one of the “leaders in the faith community” and an example of “people that need to start standing up.” Beck also plugged Hagee's “excellent” book, Can America Survive? 10 Prophetic Signs That We Are The Terminal Generation, in which Hagee offers a wide variety of “evidence” -- mostly in the form of biblical soothsaying, about how the world is fast-approaching biblical Armageddon.
Going back a bit further, in 2006, while he was hosting his CNN Headline News program, Beck stated that he believes “in the second coming of Christ” and floated the idea that August 22 of that year could possibly represent the beginning of “all-out Armageddon.” (It wasn't.)
Beck frequently chastises the media for not giving the full story on what is happening in the Middle East. As he continues to give a platform to people like Richardson, it is becoming increasingly clear what he thinks is the proper context for current events: Armageddon.
UPDATE:
It's not a good sign for Beck that he has to turn to people like Richardson to validate his theories about the Middle East.
WorldNetDaily explains in its post announcing Richardson's Beck appearance that Richardson's “work exposes Western readers to the traditions of Islam and predicts that the end times may not be that far away.”
If you are wondering how Richardson came to become an expert on end times, he explains it in the below interview with Sid Roth of “It's Supernatural!”
In response to Roth saying that he “can see how you've been hand-picked literally by God to give revelation of the end time,” Richardson claims that “just before” he met his wife, a “prophetess” “prayed over” her and “said, 'Your husband, you will marry someone that will have significant insight into the end times, and he'll release new prophetic understanding concerning the end times to the church and to the world.' ”
So, Richardson has essentially declared himself a prophet.
WATCH:
ROTH: Hello, Sid Roth here. Welcome to my world, where it's naturally supernatural. My guest, Joel Richardson, has such amazing insight into the end times. The prophet Daniel, in the twelfth chapter, talks about the end times. Explain what he says.
RICHARDSON: Well, in the conclusion of this incredibly prophetic book, the prophet Daniel made clear -- in fact, it was revealed to him by an angel -- that all of the things revealed to Daniel, the primary message of this entire book, would literally be sealed up until the end times. And he makes this very clear, that when he's speaking about the end times, he's saying the time when the dead, those that sleep in the dust of the earth, are resurrected. This is talking about the end of the age, that at that time, the understanding of this book would be opened up to the church.
ROTH: And I can see how you've been hand-picked literally by God to give revelation of the end time. In fact, you were sitting among 7,000 people. Get this, he's sitting among 7,000 people, and the man that is speaking has a word of knowledge, but he starts out by even saying Joel's name. What did he say?
RICHARDSON: Well, let me just back up a teeny bit and make mention of something else. Just before my wife and I met, there was a prophetess that prayed over my wife and one of the things she said, was she said 'Your husband, you will marry someone that will have significant insight into the end times, and he'll release new prophetic understanding concerning the end times to the church and to the world." And so my wife and I are sitting in this meeting, 7,000 people, large civic center type of situation, in the very back. And before he spoke, he said, 'I want to share a prophetic word in order to show that what I want to speak on is from the Lord.' He called us out by name, and then he spoke things to us that no man could know. Things that we had been praying about. Things that only we know, that only the Lord only God could reveal to a man. And that gets your attention.
And then one of the things that he said, was he said that the Lord was gonna bring me into a season of divine revelation, which I knew intuitively was tied into this word about understanding the end times. And of course, I had no interest in the end times -- I'm an incredibly unlikely candidate. My heart has always been to -- I love sharing my Christian faith with Muslims, and I love reaching out to the poor, and I thought if I ever had a ministry, that that's what it would be geared toward. But somehow the Lord has managed to bring together this love for Muslims, as well as this call to speak about the end times, and he's joined those two together.