W. Cleon Skousen: Glenn Beck’s Crackpot Mormon Guru

4:35 pm EST September 16th, 2009 | News | 6 Comments

Of course, the religious right nutjobs who comprise so much of Beck’s army have no idea what ideas they’re really following and pushing.

What has Beck been pushing on his legions? ‘Leap,’ first published in 1981, is a heavily illustrated and factually challenged attempt to explain American history through an unspoken lens of Mormon theology. As such, it is an early entry in the ongoing attempt by the religious right to rewrite history. Fundamentalists want to define the United States as a Christian nation rather than a secular republic, and recasting the Founding Fathers as devout Christians guided by the Bible rather than deists inspired by the French and English philosophers. ‘Leap’ argues that the U.S. Constitution is a godly document above all else, based on natural law, and owes more to the Old and New Testaments than to the secular and radical spirit of the Enlightenment. It lists 28 fundamental beliefs — based on the sayings and writings of Moses, Jesus, Cicero, John Locke, Montesquieu and Adam Smith — that Skousen says have resulted in more God-directed progress than was achieved in the previous 5,000 years of every other civilization combined. The book reads exactly like what it was until Glenn Beck dragged it out of Mormon obscurity: a textbook full of aggressively selective quotations intended for conservative religious schools like Utah’s George Wythe University, where it has been part of the core freshman curriculum for decades (and where Beck spoke at this year’s annual fundraiser).

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6 Responses to “W. Cleon Skousen: Glenn Beck’s Crackpot Mormon Guru”

  1. Duros62 says:
    September 16, 2009 at 5:49 pm

    ‘Leap,’ first published in 1981, is a heavily illustrated and factually challenged attempt to explain American history through an unspoken lens of Mormon theology.

    Sounds hilarious.

  2. rdale says:
    September 16, 2009 at 6:09 pm

    Whoops, I put this comment in the wrong place, sorry!

    Wow, you got me on that one; I’ve lived Behind The Zion Curtain (Utah) for more than 30 years and this is the first time I’ve heard of George Wythe U. Not surprising that it’s down’ta Cedar (as we say here); Cedar City, while not as bad as some parts of Utah, is in the southern part of the state and that’s the home of polygamists, waaaay fundie Mormons, anti-UN resolutions, and masturbatory gun love. W. Cleon Skousen is considered a crackpot even here in Utah, so any place that uses his jabberings as a textbook has got to be beyond the pale.

  3. jr says:
    September 17, 2009 at 1:04 am

    He sounds like the Smithite Jack Chick

  4. JustJohn says:
    September 17, 2009 at 6:28 pm

    Cicero was a Christian?
    Did he have a time machine?

  5. Indeed says:
    September 17, 2009 at 7:21 pm

    No one could have predicted that Glenn Beck’s mentor was a batshit crazy loon.

  6. SteveSadlov says:
    September 22, 2009 at 8:56 pm

    The Skousenites are actually quite dangerous.

    Their actions discredit legitimate patriots who have real concerns about anti Western totalitarianism and other very real existential threats.

    Therefore, I must conclude that either A) The Skousenites are really stupid, or, B) The Skousenites actually are false flag recruits of said anti Western fiends.