What Motivates Glenn Beck?

Or, does Glenn Beck have messianic tendancies?An article by Ben Dimiero at Media Matters suggests that maybe he does.

Earlier the same week, Beck explained that he was promoting "the plan that [God] would have me articulate, I think, to you," against "darkness." While notable on their own merits, Beck's comments were especially striking because they marked what was (at the time) the culmination of Beck's regular portrayal of himself as fighting on behalf of "good" against the forces of "evil" and "darkness."

Since then, Beck has made it abundantly clear that he does not use this sort of language metaphorically -- he quite literally believes he is fighting on the side of God against Satan.

Some of this is excusable. Mormons and many other faiths take comfort in the thought that God has a plan for them, that if they live rightly they are in some way fullfilling the plan that God has for them. This provides some comfort; when you succeed it is God's will, and when things don't go great, perhaps it is God placing you on a different path.

That said, given that Beck apparently sees liberals and progressives as evil and as essentially on the side of Satan (he even compared Obama to Lucifer), well it's not entirely healthy. It's one thing to believe that God loves you; it's another to believe that God hates or condemns someone else.