POLL: Fewer Than 1 In 5 Americans Say Glenn Beck Is The Right Person To Lead A Religious Movement

When Fox News host Glenn Beck held his Aug. 28 Restoring Honor rally on the National Mall, many observers noted that it seemed more religious than political, comparing it to a "revival" and saying Beck "sounded like Billy Graham." But a new poll finds that the vast majority of Americans aren't quite ready to walk into the church of Glenn Beck quite yet.

Fewer than one in five Americans (17 percent) say Beck is "the right person to lead a religious movement" according to the PRRI/RNS Religion News Poll, conducted Sept. 9-12. Even his biggest supporters are skeptical. "Among white evangelical Protestants, the religious group registering the highest favorability for Beck, only about 1-in-4 (26 percent) say Beck is the right person to lead a religious movement," notes the Public Religion Research Institute. "Among Republicans, the overall group registering the highest favorability for Beck, only 29 percent say he is the right person to lead a religious movement."

Beck's appeal may be hampered by his own Mormon faith, even though only 17 percent of Americans know his religious affiliation. While people who "know Beck is Mormon and believe Mormons have similar religious beliefs to their own" support him leading a spiritual movement and have a favorable view of him, people "who know Beck is Mormon but believe Mormons have different religious beliefs from their own" are overwhelmingly against the idea that he is the right person. Beck is hampered by the fact that 64 percent of Americans "perceive Mormon religious beliefs to be different from their own."

As ThinkProgress's Faiz Shakir has noted, although Beck has been preaching that President Obama's worldview is "a perversion of the gospel of Jesus Christ as most Christians know it," many conservative evangelicals have been reluctant to embrace Beck's version of the gospel. Bill Keller, the leader of the world's largest interactive Christian website, has said that Beck isn't really a true Christian. "The fact is, the beliefs of the satanic Mormon cult are totally inconsistent with Biblical Christianity," Keller stated. "It's politically convenient for Beck to be attacking Obama's religion, while rarely ever mentioning his own." (During the 2008 campaign, Keller also said that a vote for Mitt Romney, another practicing Mormon, was a "vote for Satan.") Some evangelical leaders such as Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. have embraced Beck and created controversy within their own communities for doing so.

Comments

[as promised]

02:28 PM on 10/04/2010

That "Faith Hope and Charity" was so obviously a last-minute put-together theme. Those two, Beck and Palin, are the LEAST charitable people imagineable. I am not a member of any organized religion but my parents taught me well: morality, honesty, tolerance, charitable (did I mention TOLERANCE? lol), compassion....... most of these far-righty so-called "Christians" display NONE of these most basic qualities of human-ness.

[Sardonica]

12:52 AM on 09/22/2010

He didn't believe any of that claptrap he spouted at his rally. Much like he joined the Mormon church to bang his very religious wife, he's only spouting holy jibberish because he is getting something out of it - ratings and money.

[as promised]

02:31 PM on 10/04/2010

As well, though many might know he joined the Mormon church, most do not know that it is a very extreme sect of LDS.

[DudleysPa]

11:10 PM on 09/21/2010

29% of Republicans believe Beck is "the right person to lead a religious movement."

Good Gravy! Almost a third! That's both sad and scary but it's right there with the numbers who believe the President is a Muslim, a Kenyan, the antichrist, a space alien, etc, etc.

If one out three people who turned up to my parties was a complete Whacko, I would have to stop throwing parties.

[logic-a-go-go]

10:41 PM on 09/21/2010

About 20% of the population are mentally ill. So even a portion of the mentally ill recognize that he is a huckster.

[TheQuestion]

09:56 PM on 09/21/2010

I don't get it how is it that anybody sees this guy as any kind of a leader ??

[blueinannarbor]

11:46 PM on 10/01/2010

Count me in your camp. I don't understand why anyone listens to anything he says anyway; that is unless Beck's reclined on a couch and he's paying the person top dollar to do it.

[SolarArray]

07:09 PM on 09/21/2010

Glenn Beck = L.Ron Hubbard.

Both are scam artists.

[nofriendofrepublicans]

04:46 PM on 09/21/2010

4 out of 5 people think he should be the leader of a bowel movement.

[RV1025]

06:53 PM on 09/21/2010

5 out of 5 toilets reject your idea.

[blueinannarbor]

11:47 PM on 10/01/2010

The fifth person thinks he is a bowel movement.

[Strobe74]

04:31 PM on 09/21/2010

I guess i'm disturbed that more than 0% thought he was the right guy.

[AmericanLeslie]

03:31 PM on 09/21/2010

I'd be more interested in a poll that reported what people really think Glenn Beck is as opposed to one that asks what we think he is not.

[nixrox04]

03:12 PM on 09/21/2010

I'd be shocked, even by a poll and fox standards, that 1 in 1,000,000 people believe he is a religious leader, unless it's like the Oregon Bagwan and his confused followers. In addition, I doubt that Beck's followers could come up the cash to keep buying him Rolls Royces like the Bagwan.

[comment from Ron]

02:55 PM on 09/21/2010

This makes it sound like "less that 20%" is a good thing. That is still millions of people with really simple minds, and I find that scary.

[StopMakingSense2]

01:36 PM on 09/21/2010

Wow! That's a lot of fools!

[SegoLily1]

11:27 AM on 09/21/2010

Since when did Americans persecute and revile people beacuse of their religious identity? Isn't this a slippery slope that the Jews taught us about?

[StopMakingSense2]

01:40 PM on 09/21/2010

Only if your selective. Point out the ridiculousness of all of them and your on solid ground. I'm GOD and have spoken. Have faith in me... Don't bother asking for proof. It's not required..

[Robin J]

02:07 PM on 09/21/2010

We ridicule L Ron Hubbard regularly...and honestly Beck is even less believable.

[logic-a-go-go]

10:43 PM on 09/21/2010

And less likeable. And less accomplished.

[RedDog79]

09:36 AM on 09/21/2010

What's that "less than 20%" thinking? YOu'd think that 20% would be fearful of the false prophet before them

[Sean777]

12:01 AM on 09/21/2010

"When a Religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its Professors are obliged to call for help of the Civil Power, it is a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one."

Benjamin Franklin 1780

"As to religion, I hold it to be the indispensable duty of government to protect all conscientious protesters thereof, and I know of no other business government has to do therewith."

Thomas Paine, 1776

"The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretence, infringed.''

James Madison, 1789

"As the Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Musselmen; and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."

Treaty of Tripoli, 1797 - signed by President John Adams

In just few months Tea Party leaders like Glenn Beck and Christine O'Donnell destroyed centuries of our Founding Fathers’ legacy.

[JaxReader]

12:51 PM on 09/21/2010

Great posts! I also try to remind people as often as possible who the founding fathers really were. I would only add that the Treaty of Tripoli was also signed by George Washington in 1796 as well as the entire US Congress in 1797. F&F

[Me atlast]

09:53 PM on 09/21/2010

F&F, excellent quotes.....