BOSTON GLOBE EDITORIAL
Fox News performer Glenn Beck set some kind of record for combining ignorance and chutzpah when he told viewers to run away from any church where the terms “social justice’’ or “economic justice’’ are spoken. These are “code words,’’ Beck warned. He then held up a Nazi swastika and the Communist hammer and sickle, saying both represent the banner of social justice.
Christian clerics, both conservative and liberal, were commendably quick to remind Beck of the Sermon on the Mount. Members of Beck’s own Mormon faith objected that he was scorning their belief that care for the poor is a divine commandment. Indeed, an injunction to seek social justice is common to nearly all sects. And Beck was no less confused about the Nazis’ disdain for social justice and Bolshevik cynicism about the same. Beck’s fatwa on the politics of faith makes it plain he is someone who literally does not know what he is talking about.