a thing about Hugh Hewitt

I listen to Hewitt’s show occasionally. Occasionally he’s brilliant. When his brilliance renders him obtuse I want to call the show and say so. I never get through, shouting at the radio is obtuse, so now I am blogging Hugh Hewitt’s radio show. I would email his web site, but I have to ‘join’ or ‘log in’ to do so. That’s lame, isn’t it? Hewitt doesn’t have to log in to comment on this blog. Is it a lawyer thing?

A thing about Hugh Hewitt. Wickipedia identifies him as a conservative radio talk show host. So far, other than the war hawk position, I have not heard a conservative breath escape his lips. I guess it takes one to know one, because Hewitt doesn’t know he isn’t conservative.

Do you recall that Hewitt wrote a book about Mormonism and Mitt? That was discussed on his show and some Christians called to say “hey, mormonism is a cult, it’s different than Christianity”, or something to that effect. Hewitt called them bigots to their face and refused to listen to their views. If you’re brilliant, or if you think you are, then simple believers who know what they believe and why they believe that way are threatening and must be squished with the bigot card. Why is that? Is it a lawyer thing?

<thought-balloon>”I am so brilliant. I’m an educated man. I am a Pharisee, uh, er, I am a lawyer. I am so brilliant that I wrote a book [ISBN 1-59698-502-X] about mormonism. Everybody who disagrees with me is less educated than I am and additionally is a bigot.</thought-balloon>

This cracked me up. Whatever Hewitt believes, it apparently doesn’t depend on divine revelation. Perhaps Hewitt thinks he is so brilliant that he believes he is the source of truth, eh? It was obvious from everything he said that he has no need to examine himself.

I could go off on a tangent and explain how, in the context of saving faith, being a bigot is the only viable alternative, but of course this would go over Hugh’s head. Or get the bigot rejoinder. At the very least it appears that Hewitt is in no need of any external sources to inform his opinion.

Being a lawyer helps him in dealing with callers because he has a quick caustic tongue and can repartee with the best of them. He does this by cutting off the caller and pontificating on what a bigot the caller is, and why of course mormons are Christians, because he says so. He cannot say WHY it’s so, he can only say that he says so. It’s his show and he’s entitled to his opinions and he’s entitled to distort and disrespect the caller’s opinions. That’s what he gets paid the big bucks for, besides the allure of his brilliance.

Mormons differentiate themselves from Scriptural Christianity by calling themselves “latter-day” somethings. That in itself will tip off any but the most brilliant that there is some kind of difference between the two deals. It comes from the mormons themselves. I suppose he could call them bigots then, eh? Mormon apologists don’t have any difficulty enumerating the differences when given an opportunity. Consider for a moment the following blog exchange with a mormon:

practicalreasoning

July 8th, 2007 at 10:53 am

“Read the Bible…”

Yeah, read it. I’ve also talked to about a hundred different people about a hundred different scriptures – including the one in Galatians – and they all have a hundred different interpretations. That’s the beauty of religions. If every person looked at the Bible and came to the same interpretations, there would be one Christian Church. Do Mormon’s believe in “another gospel?” Well, hard to say. They certainly don’t believe in your gospel – or else they’d go to whatever church you do. But I’m willing to bet there are at least 100 other Christian denominations who also don’t subscribe to your gospel. The question is, where do we draw the line of what is Christian? Al Mohler, and presumaby you, too, would draw the line in such a way as to exclude Mormons, becasue they don’t subscribe to some Roman creeds enacted by Constantine.

I certainly don’t subscribe to Al Mohler’s gospel, and he doesn’t subscribe to mine – but we both say we have the gospel of Jesus Christ. Here, we have a problem with labeling. Mohler wants to be able to label Mormons non-Christian. Why? I don’t know, maybe just for kicks, or maybe he truly doesn’t like Mormons. Perhaps a Mormon bully beat him up and stole his lunch money as a kid – it’s not my job to speculate. The point is, Mohler has an agenda: exclude Mormons at all costs. Baptists, Methodists, Pentacostals, all fine. Mormons, bad. If I had to guess, I’d say Mohler, and his Evangelical buddies, might be worried at the explosive growth of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints – and about the diminishing returns of parish-going tithe payers.

I’ve never understood why people do this. Go to your church, teach what you believe, and leave everybody else the heck alone.

Do I believe Christ was the “half-brother” of Satan? No, I believe he was the full brother of Satan. God created everything, right, including both Jesus and Satan. The are brothers the say way you and I are brothers (assuming you’re a dude). There’s a reason we call him the Heavenly Father – he’s the Father of all things, and the creator of our spirits.

Of course, this is not a blog on Mormon apologetics. If I wanted to argue about Mormonism with anti-Mormons, I would find myself doing that all day and nothing else – those folks are particularly rabid. But I have other things to do, including making fun of Al Gore, watching TV, and washing my hair.

You want to split hairs about Mormonism, go to this site: http://www.romneyexperience.com – but I know better than to let this site (which no one should ever really take seriously, anyway) devolve into religous squabbling. If you’re looking for a fight, I’m sure you’ll find one – just not here.

There you have it then. Straight from the horse’s lips: “Do I believe Christ was the “half-brother” of Satan? No, I believe he was the full brother of Satan. God created everything, right, including both Jesus and Satan. The are brothers the say way you and I are brothers …”

You have to be blinded by your own brilliance not to know that NO CHRISTIANS believe that Christ was created by anybody. Christ is uncreated because CHRIST IS GOD. Christ in the flesh died because “he made himself equal to God” by saying “I and the Father are One.” This could not be more diametrically opposed to “…God created everything, right, including both Jesus and satan.” If this is so then Christ CANNOT HAVE ATONED FOR ANYONE’S SIN, and therefore there is no Salvation. Thus, even for the brilliantly blinded, mormonism is not the same as Christianity. It cannot be. The only way mormons can believe they are Christians is by altering the Truth about Christ. The Christ they believe in is a created being, no different than satan really. Theirs is a religion of works that CANNOT include the atoning work of Christ on Calvary’s Cross. Why not? Because no created being can atone for his own sin, much less the sins of the world. The supernatural nature of Christ’s sacrifice is absent from the mormon story. When you have to redefine basic terms to win adherents you’re not able to claim to be the genuine thing. It’s a distinction with a difference. A latter day anything isn’t Christianity, it’s an amendment.

This is the little thing that Hewitt’s callers wanted him to get, but he refused instruction from the obviously less than brilliant telephone fodder.

These few words bring me to the current events point I want to ask Hewitt about. Here’s a burning (pun intended) question: is that pope a bigot by Hewitt’s reckoning? Who is the bigot Hugh? Is turn-about fair play? Is Hewitt as incensed about the pope’s claim as he is about the callers’ claims? The real crackup is that the pope is as wrong as Hewitt is, for the same reason the reluctant mormon apologist quoted above is wrong.

In case someone thinks I am alone in my point of view, and therefore automatically wrong, this writer has examined more of the differences with distinctions that apply directly to this subject.

Redefining basic terms and understandings and claiming that verily verily they mean something different today than they meant in Christ’s day is a simple and effective trick for damning everyone involved. It’s not enlightenment, it’s obfuscation so you can gain adherents that you can control. Every religion operates the same way with the same defect. But child-simple-faith in the work Christ accomplished on Calvary’s Cross and child-simple-faith that what God said is true is the only promised gate to heaven, and the only impediment to getting there. All the rest is WRONG, regardless of how impressed the purveyors are with their own brilliance.

Jud 1:3 Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort [you] that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.

It’s not the latter-day one, but the ONCE-DELIVERED faith that we are exhorted to earnestly contend for. For the brilliant who might miss the import of this, note that Jude did not exhort Christians to earnestly contend for mormonism or any other …ism. We are exhorted to earnestly contend for the faith that was once delivered unto the saints. The once delivered one is the one we are to earnestly contend for. It’s pretty simple, really.

Jud 1:3 Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort [you] that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.

aye aye Sir,

citizen