Maybe you’re an evangelical and voted for Donald Trump.  A lot of evangelicals did throughout the Deep South, real estate that was supposedly Cruz Country.  Or maybe you’re a mainline protestant or a Catholic who cast ballots for… Trump.  Shame on you, said talk show host, Glenn Beck, because you’re out-of-step with your Christianity.  You’re part of the problem, the problem being the coming scourge of Donald Trump.

Or you were, until Beck walked back his criticism on Friday.  The backlash to Beck’s remarks has been of biblical proportions. 

Beck has candidly proclaimed his support for Ted Cruz, who he not only says is the solution to the Trump problem and America’s but some part of a prophecy.  Beck, a Mormon, is informed by his teachings, passionately so.  It seems the rest of us should be, too.      

Per the Salt Lake City Tribune via Real Clear Politics:

Beck said that he, like many Mormons, believes in a prophecy that the Constitution will 'hang by a thread' in the last days. He said he believes that now is that time, and people like Lee and Cruz will save it.  

Joseph Smith, Jr., who began the Latter-day Saints, made the prophesy.  Smith claimed that the imperiled Constitution would be saved by a “White Horse.”  The white horse is symbolic, of course, akin to a “shining knight on a…” who saves the damsel.

It’s the last days, Beck says.  Signs, one supposes, but signs can be open to interpretation.  Good Christians may disagree and, not infrequently, do.  Never mind that the Book of Matthew (24:36) chronicles Jesus’ words: “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.”  

There’s no Constitution-saving without a savior (of sorts).  Enter the junior U.S. senator from Texas, Ted Cruz, a constitutional conservative and a man of faith.  But a man, nonetheless.   

The fly in the ointment is that not enough Christians are going along with Smith’s prophesy.  Cruz can’t save the Constitution unless he makes it to the White House.  Christians need to get their shoulders behind Cruz’s campaign and push -- hard.   

Say dissenting Christians: “Troubled times, but end times?  A decayed -- and decaying -- culture?  In fact.  A dangerous world, indeed.  But Trump, a minor antichrist or precursor?”  No, say these Christian voters.  No, says a solid plurality of voters from among the many GOP contests.  

The Hill quotes Beck as having said:

“No Christian, no real Christian — I don’t mean a judgmental Christian, I mean somebody who is living their faith — no real Christian says, ‘I want that guy, that guy is for me,’” he said during a broadcast of his radio show. "Nobody. Nobody.”    

That Beck adheres to a prophecy that’s part of his church’s teachings makes him faithful.  That honest men and women -- good Christians, among others -- don’t embrace Mormon prophecy is, well, the way it is. 

Let’s agree on this: Since the Progressive Era, the Constitution has been made a chew toy.  The dominant judicial philosophy is pretty much make-it-up-as-you-go, which invariably favors expansive big government and leftist social schemes.  That Beck sees the peril in all this is right.  He’s not alone among the friends of liberty.    

The Constitution needs restoration to something that better approximates the Founders’ intent.  Liberty-loving Christians stand together in wanting to rein in the courts and drive a stake through the heart of a destructive judicial philosophy.  But Christians can disagree honestly as to whether or not the Constitution hangs by the slenderest of threads; that the crisis has arrived, and that the man of the hour is Ted Cruz.  Good and honest Christians may rightfully take offense that Beck sets himself up as a decider of who real Christians are and how their faith should translate into politics.

One wonders how a Mormon, whose church shares teachings with Christian faiths, but whose tenets diverge in significant ways from Protestant and Catholic dogma, so willingly makes judgment of Christians who don’t hold the Book of Mormon in any way central to their following of Jesus Christ.  Or who presumes to know that a Roman Catholic really isn’t true to Catholicism if he backs Trump.  Or that a Methodist supporter of Trump must be a hypocrite in his church. 

Beck’s initial judgment had more than a whiff of sanctimony.  Zealotry -- it appears a Beck affliction -- can blind the best of men. 

Impending doom is a topic of Beck’s.  He not infrequently talks about or suggests cataclysm, as relates to national and world events.  Survivalist fare is routinely advertised through his enterprises.  His regular talk of coming disaster makes Beck prescient on the order of the fellow who everyday says it’s going to rain; sooner or later, he’s proven right.  But disaster of biblical scale, no one knows. 

Is Trump the ogre that Beck wants Christians to believe?  Is Trump the bad player that fulfills a prophesy?  Are Trump’s Christian backers really enablers of cataclysm?    

Donald Trump comes loaded with questions.  As with just about everything related to Trump, there’s very little middle.  A Trump presidency -- far from a certainty -- could be a debacle or a triumph.  In terms of policy and governance, there could be plenty of zig in his zag.  Or, if Trump does as he says about his signature issues -- securing the border, robustly countering Muslim jihad, making trade fairer, streamlining government, and appointing a Scalia-type Supreme Court justice -- his presidency could forge a new, durable governing majority.

Trump has an impressive -- and growing list of prominent endorsers and supporters.  Sarah Palin backs him.  Rudy Giuliani, too.  The brilliant Diana West.  Ben Carson.  Lou Dobbs.  And many more from various walks of life. Even retired Air Force General Robert C. Oaks supports Trump.  Oaks, a Mormon, serves his -- and Beck’s -- church as a “general authority.”

Are accomplished Americans who back Trump dupes and hypocrites, Christian or not?  Are they and millions of Americans who support Trump in the grips of some Hitler-like spell cast by The Donald?  Really?

Vitriol and rancor are thick as sludge in the Republican contests for the presidential nomination.  Passions run in overdrive.  Hyperbole and mudslinging are the order of the day.  This merely previews the General Election, which promises to be a humdinger.  To elect whoever’s the Democratic nominee (Hillary appears more an uncertainty with the passing days), Democrats and the left will take low to a new high.        

If not now, perhaps very soon, it’s best to step back and take a breath.  The real enemy isn’t within the GOP contests, but without. 

Democrats, led by Obama and bolstered by a gaggle of hardcore leftists, continue to infiltrate Washington government, propagandize America through the arts and education, debase the culture, and do whatever else needs done to “transform” the nation.  They, not Trump, are better bets to bring Smith’s prophecy to pass.    

Unity with the Republican nominee -- either a guy named Ted or Donald, in all likelihood -- is what’s needed to stop the left.  Very soon, the cause of liberty will gain more from the Prophet Beck transforming himself into a Good Sheppard.  Let’s pray he does so.