Glenn Beck's "Twelve Values": # 9 Hard Work

Paul Derengowski, ThM

Hard work. I think we are being led right into a place, you know where the work ethic in America really changed was with the New Deal. Historians will tell you now that that was a pivot point in America. People worked hard. Well, you know what? If you're dependent -- the opposite of hard work is dependence. If you are dependent, you'll eventually be a slave. You lower your self-esteem. You limit your growth. But if you have hard work, you are growing, you're independent, you have self-worth. You know your own capabilities. You're honest about yourself on your limitations. You have long-term thinking. When you're working hard, you're working toward something. That gives you hope.—Glenn Beck

When it comes to hard work, there are probably few people who engage in it with more zeal and success than those in Mormonism. Not long ago Richard Ostling and his wife Joan wrote a book entitled Mormon America where they reported on not only the vast network of farms and ranches owned by the LDS, but estimated that the Mormon Church brings in between $4.25 and $5.3 billion in tithes every year from its members. Mormons are clever, intelligent, and industrious, and are not immune to hard work. Moreover, just look at Glenn Beck. A drunken sop only a few years ago, he's now the third highest rated talk-radio guy in the land. It's not that what he says is actually true, but merely that Beck has put a lot of time, effort, and work into getting to where he is currently. He is a model Mormon when it comes to "hard work."

Yet, there is more to the story than that Mormons just like to work hard. To them, "work is an Eternal Principle" (Gospel Principles, 179). There are at least two reasons why they would conclude such. One, because they have seen in Scripture where God worked to create the heavens and earth, as well as Jesus doing God's work when he came (Jn. 9:4). Two, the Mormon believes that his work, whatever it might be, will garner him favor with God in respect to an eternal reward one day (preferably godhood). For work in Mormonism is not only "an Eternal Principle," it is a law. And as stated elsewhere, laws in Mormonism are like the gods in Hinduism. There is a law for everything in Mormonism just like there is a god for everything in Hinduism. Work is no exception. In Gospel Principles it continues, "In addition to being a temporal law, this was a law for the salvation of Adam's soul. There is no real division between spiritual, mental, and physical work. Work is essential to each of us for growth, character development, and many satisfactions that the idle never know" (183).

Glenn Beck, therefore, is advocating a "value" that is not only personally rewarding, but the ultimate reward is to earn one's salvation! Even Adam had to earn his salvation through legalistic means! In fact, it is a law that he work, since there is no difference between the spiritual, mental, and physical worlds. What one does in this life, work-wise, will have a direct bearing upon one's salvific welfare. If one doesn't work, then one cannot be saved. It is something that those outside the Mormon church cannot know, unless of course, someone comes along and exposes it for the nonsense that it is.

For the one in a right standing with God his work is a product of being regenerate. In fact, according to Jesus the work of God was first to believe, or trust, in Jesus (Jn. 6:28-29), and that only comes by faith. The apostle Paul then expanded on the concept of work performed by the believer to include God's providential intervention. He would write, "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them" (Eph. 2:10). Elsewhere he would tell the Philippians when it came to living their salvation, "for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure" (Phil. 2:13). In both references it is God who not only directly intervenes in the life of the sinner to redeem them, but then already has planned out the work that He desires to have accomplished through His children. The point here is not that works or working is a bad thing; it's that what Beck is assuming is completely contrary to what works are all about from a biblical perspective. Beck thinks that a person's works will merit him salvation, and God informs us that a person works because he is already saved. Such, though, is the difference between the Mormon worldview and the Christian worldview.

The bottom line is that while Beck's "hard work" value is commendable on the surface, it too, like all his other principles and values, is fraught with ulterior meaning. One must go below the surface to understand just what it is that he's really wanting to convey. Inherent in the concept of work is the idea that he's a "god in embryo" and that with enough "hard work" he can eventually progress up the Mormon evolutionary scale and become a fully developed god. Some might say, "Why do you keep coming back to that theme?" The answer is quite simply that that is what Mormonism is all about. Repeating the same lie told to Eve in the Garden, that if she would simply rely on her own self, she could become as a god(dess), and subsequently, Adam a god. And that ultimately is what Glenn Beck is trying to sell everyone on, if the absolute truth be told. All of the talk about government, politics, Barak Obama, etc. is nothing but subterfuge to distract people into agreeing with prima facie idea that is really rooted in Glenn Beck's Mormon worldview.

NEXT: Glenn Beck on Courage