Glenn: It’s time for an Army of Compassion

June 03, 2015

WRITER

Glenn issued a clarion call to viewers as he began to lay out plans to kick off a new movement this summer. It's the five year anniversary of 8/28 and since that time Glenn and his audience have been preparing, cleaning out their own lives and turning towards God. Now it is time to put faith into action.

Below is a rough transcript of this monologue:

I want to take you first to the ancient city of Palmyra in Syria. It was taken by force by ISIS a little over a week ago.

Palmyra is steeped in history, dating all the way back to 2000 BC. It’s mentioned in 2 Chronicles, and it’s a city built up by Israel’s King Solomon. It’s famed for its ancient ruins. ISIS has now slaughtered hundreds and chased most of the remaining 70,000 people out of the city. The only ones left are those who are physically too old or too ill to make the trek to safer cities.

They’ve blown up the country’s most notorious prison and released hardened criminals. Several beheadings have now been reported, and the city is now under the watch of masked gunmen. Those who remain in the city are begging anyone in the world for help. One Palmyra resident said ISIS is everywhere. He and 50 friends and relatives who lost their homes are afraid for their lives. ISIS, they know, could slaughter them at any moment, and to make the situation even more intolerable, their food supply is now running out.

In the midst of this human suffering, scholars and historians are pleading for the safekeeping of the ruins. As you can imagine, that hasn’t gone over well with the trapped innocents. But where are the churches? The innocents have said, “The world does not care about us. All they are interested in is the stones of ancient Palmyra.” Shame on us. If we cannot collectively muster more concern for people than old rocks, shame on us.

ISIS now controls half of Syria, including most of the gas and oil fields. They are cutting off the heads and brutalizing children, selling them into slavery. What else is required for something, anything, to stir our souls? Has the government completely killed off our compassion gene, or are we so removed from actual service, always expecting someone else to do it, that we just don’t care anymore? Or, more likely, I think, we have all been beaten down so much that we don’t think that we make a difference as an individual, and we just don’t know what to do.

We recently did a show called the “Christian Holocaust.” We detailed a lot of the Dark Age style persecution happening right now. Many people watched in horror, and then more people found ways to become actively involved. Many more, however, did not. They were easily lured back into the creature comforts of leisurely activities, and I believe it’s because we don’t know what to do. What else can I do other than pray?

Well, we can pray for our eyes to be open and our hearts to be open and our spines to be stiffened. We have shown the beheadings in all of their own edited gruesomeness. We’ve told the harrowing stories. We’ve spoken with the missionaries on the ground, and still, despite everything, most Americans just wait, put it off for another day. Someone will do something eventually.

While we wait, they remain huddled with a handful of friends or maybe all alone, trembling, afraid, hungry, looking up to the heavens, scanning the vast, empty skies crying out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” God has not forsaken them. God has not abandoned. God is not asleep. God is not dead. I believe our churches are.

God, I believe, has been busy equipping an entire army of saints for times just like these but not with guns. He’s been stockpiling them with a formidable arsenal of ability, ingenuity, compassion. I don’t know if anybody else has noticed, but God doesn’t announce his presence with a thundering voice from heaven like He used to. He doesn’t have to. His thundering presence comes from the spirit, and the spirit lives within us.

Because of this power that we now have, we can be the voice for the voiceless, defenders of the poor and needy, the help for the orphans and the widows in their distress. We are the army for which they wait, the very hands and feet of God. I’m not talking about an army with guns. I am talking about an army of compassion. The question remains, what will we do with the arsenal of which we’ve been given to fight?

Like it or not, this is a time of war. It’s a greater time of spiritual warfare than it is physical warfare, but physical warfare indeed is fierce. There are no neutral parties in this. The gifts that we have been given have been stockpiled. They were not given so we could say gee, thanks a lot, thanks for giving me more than those other poor saps overseas. That’s not what it’s about.

Our blessings are not meant to begin and end with us. I think those who think that are missing the point. We’ve been given so much so we too can give. It is for the good of the receiver, the good of the giver, and the glory of our God. So, what will we do with our arsenals?

I think most of us think that we have to grab a flight to Erbil and pick up a weapon. I have been—you saw the show if you watch regularly. I talked to one of the survivors, the nun who finally came over who was being kept out of the United States to tell her story. I said to her with tears in my eyes, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do. That’s a lie. I feel like I’m not doing my part if I’m not catching a flight to Erbil.

That’s not what’s required of me. That’s not the gifts that I’ve been given. Maybe that is a gift that you’ve been given, but most likely it’s something small, but together it’s something tangible that we all can do and will make a difference.

In the next coming weeks, beginning Monday, I’m going to announce something because I believe my entire life has led to this point, and we’re going to provide as many opportunities as we can find for you to get actively involved, because humans are suffering. Human rights are being taken away. Whether they are for the Christians or for the Muslims who aren’t Muslim enough, for the gays that are being thrown off of the roofs of buildings, human rights are being lost, trampled. People are dying, and we’re arguing about politics.

Meanwhile, others look to the heavens, cry out to God in their distress as their women are raped and the throats of their babies are slashed. And in the face of this injustice, the rest of the world has chosen to answer the call, the silent call, of ancient rocks.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.” So, who is it that will step up? Who is it that has the courage to stand, especially for those who are most unlike you, to use their God-given arsenal and bandage the wounds? Who will drive a spoke into the wheel of injustice?

We put on the set this quote from Martin Luther King. I don’t know if you’ve seen this, but this is important. “We are not makers of history, we are made by history.” The people that we read about now, the giants like Martin Luther King, they weren’t giants at the time. They were just people just like you who answered the call of their time. Now is our time. The slumber can last no longer.

Me personally, I’ve been preparing for five years. It seems like it’s been 100 since we sojourned together to go to Washington DC when I said to you with Restoring Honor, we have to rid ourselves in the junk of our own lives. We have to stand together. We have to pick up our own staff and know what we were born to do.

Five years ago, I asked you to turn your gaze toward God. We stood at the feet of giants in the mall in Washington, and together we vowed to begin living the lives we were meant to live. Somewhere I read that it takes five years to change a man. I’m no longer the man I was when I stepped up in front of that crowd. I’m not.

The moment for which you have prepared for, the moment of which you were born for, is at hand. Persecution now of biblical proportions is happening, and the seeds of it are being planted all over the world. It is not just the innocent blood that is crying out that is happening overseas. Those same seeds of hatred and vengeance and revenge are being planted in the streets of San Francisco or St. Louis or Baltimore, Maryland.

We are the ones equipped to answer that call. Now is the time to unleash the arsenal of love and reconciliation. That doesn’t mean that we’re going to be mamby pamby. This summer, I’m also—we’ll tell you more probably on Monday or next week—I’m releasing a book called It is About Islam. Just because you stand with the faith and fear of God does not mean that you don’t turnover a few tables. We must begin to speak the truth, but the truth is we’re better than this. The truth is politics and politicians will never solve our problems.

This summer, 8/28, is the fifth anniversary of Restoring Honor. Everything that I personally have been living for and building towards has led to this point. I’m going to be real honest with you, I don’t pretend to know what big plan He has. We see dimly what the master painter sees clearly. There are times that I feel that can’t be right because history doesn’t happen like this. This happens with giants. We’re just all schlubs. We’re all the same. We’re not giants. Yes, we are, if we answer the call now, if we all say to ourselves, “In the end, I just want to go home with honor.” In the end, I want somebody in my family to be able to say my father or my mother stood for what was right.

I answer to God. I do not answer to man. We all have a reason for being, and that reason is not to build a network so I can enrich myself or for you to go get a better job so you could have a great 401(k) or stockpile a toy or a new car or whatever. There’s an old saying, and it’s true, I’ve never seen a hearse towing a U-Haul trailer. I’ve never seen a hearse towing a U-Haul trailer with the political bumper sticker on the back. Politics are not going to solve this.

God has a purpose for you and for me, and it is much bigger than we can possibly imagine. All we have to do is open our eyes, open our hearts, and then say, “Okay, I’ll do my best.” This summer is a call to action. As the details continue to unfold, I will share more with you. Monday, I’m going to make an announcement. For now, all I can say is if you’re ready, good, I’m not. Good. If you’re like me and you’re not really ready, continue to prepare, because mark my words, never again is right now.

'Rage against the dying of the light': Charlie Kirk lived that mandate

PHILL MAGAKOE / Contributor | Getty Images

Kirk’s tragic death challenges us to rise above fear and anger, to rebuild bridges where others build walls, and to fight for the America he believed in.

I’ve only felt this weight once before. It was 2001, just as my radio show was about to begin. The World Trade Center fell, and I was called to speak immediately. I spent the day and night by my bedside, praying for words that could meet the moment.

Yesterday, I found myself in the same position. September 11, 2025. The assassination of Charlie Kirk. A friend. A warrior for truth.

Out of this tragedy, the tyrant dies, but the martyr’s influence begins.

Moments like this make words feel inadequate. Yet sometimes, words from another time speak directly to our own. In 1947, Dylan Thomas, watching his father slip toward death, penned lines that now resonate far beyond his own grief:

Do not go gentle into that good night. / Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Thomas was pleading for his father to resist the impending darkness of death. But those words have become a mandate for all of us: Do not surrender. Do not bow to shadows. Even when the battle feels unwinnable.

Charlie Kirk lived that mandate. He knew the cost of speaking unpopular truths. He knew the fury of those who sought to silence him. And yet he pressed on. In his life, he embodied a defiance rooted not in anger, but in principle.

Picking up his torch

Washington, Jefferson, Adams — our history was started by men who raged against an empire, knowing the gallows might await. Lincoln raged against slavery. Martin Luther King Jr. raged against segregation. Every generation faces a call to resist surrender.

It is our turn. Charlie’s violent death feels like a knockout punch. Yet if his life meant anything, it means this: Silence in the face of darkness is not an option.

He did not go gently. He spoke. He challenged. He stood. And now, the mantle falls to us. To me. To you. To every American.

We cannot drift into the shadows. We cannot sit quietly while freedom fades. This is our moment to rage — not with hatred, not with vengeance, but with courage. Rage against lies, against apathy, against the despair that tells us to do nothing. Because there is always something you can do.

Even small acts — defiance, faith, kindness — are light in the darkness. Reaching out to those who mourn. Speaking truth in a world drowning in deceit. These are the flames that hold back the night. Charlie carried that torch. He laid it down yesterday. It is ours to pick up.

The light may dim, but it always does before dawn. Commit today: I will not sleep as freedom fades. I will not retreat as darkness encroaches. I will not be silent as evil forces claim dominion. I have no king but Christ. And I know whom I serve, as did Charlie.

Two turning points, decades apart

On Wednesday, the world changed again. Two tragedies, separated by decades, bound by the same question: Who are we? Is this worth saving? What kind of people will we choose to be?

Imagine a world where more of us choose to be peacemakers. Not passive, not silent, but builders of bridges where others erect walls. Respect and listening transform even the bitterest of foes. Charlie Kirk embodied this principle.

He did not strike the weak; he challenged the powerful. He reached across divides of politics, culture, and faith. He changed hearts. He sparked healing. And healing is what our nation needs.

At the center of all this is one truth: Every person is a child of God, deserving of dignity. Change will not happen in Washington or on social media. It begins at home, where loneliness and isolation threaten our souls. Family is the antidote. Imperfect, yes — but still the strongest source of stability and meaning.

Mark Wilson / Staff | Getty Images

Forgiveness, fidelity, faithfulness, and honor are not dusty words. They are the foundation of civilization. Strong families produce strong citizens. And today, Charlie’s family mourns. They must become our family too. We must stand as guardians of his legacy, shining examples of the courage he lived by.

A time for courage

I knew Charlie. I know how he would want us to respond: Multiply his courage. Out of this tragedy, the tyrant dies, but the martyr’s influence begins. Out of darkness, great and glorious things will sprout — but we must be worthy of them.

Charlie Kirk lived defiantly. He stood in truth. He changed the world. And now, his torch is in our hands. Rage, not in violence, but in unwavering pursuit of truth and goodness. Rage against the dying of the light.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Glenn Beck resurrects the 9-12 Project to support Charlie Kirk's family

Glenn Beck is once again calling on his loyal listeners and viewers to come together and channel the same unity and purpose that defined the historic 9-12 Project. That movement, born in the wake of national challenges, brought millions together to revive core values of faith, hope, and charity.

Glenn created the original 9-12 Project in early 2009 to bring Americans back to where they were in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. In those moments, we weren't Democrats and Republicans, conservative or liberal, Red States or Blue States, we were united as one, as America. The original 9-12 Project aimed to root America back in the founding principles of this country that united us during those darkest of days.

This new initiative draws directly from that legacy, focusing on supporting the family of Charlie Kirk in these dark days following his tragic murder.

The revival of the 9-12 Project aims to secure the long-term well-being of Charlie Kirk's wife and children. All donations will go straight to meeting their immediate and future needs. If the family deems the funds surplus to their requirements, Charlie's wife has the option to redirect them toward the vital work of Turning Point USA.

This campaign is more than just financial support—it's a profound gesture of appreciation for Kirk's tireless dedication to the cause of liberty. It embodies the unbreakable bond of our community, proving that when we stand united, we can make a real difference.
Glenn Beck invites you to join this effort. Show your solidarity by donating today and honoring Charlie Kirk and his family in this meaningful way.

You can learn more about the 9-12 Project and donate HERE

The critical difference: Rights from the Creator, not the state

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

When politicians claim that rights flow from the state, they pave the way for tyranny.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) recently delivered a lecture that should alarm every American. During a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, he argued that believing rights come from a Creator rather than government is the same belief held by Iran’s theocratic regime.

Kaine claimed that the principles underpinning Iran’s dictatorship — the same regime that persecutes Sunnis, Jews, Christians, and other minorities — are also the principles enshrined in our Declaration of Independence.

In America, rights belong to the individual. In Iran, rights serve the state.

That claim exposes either a profound misunderstanding or a reckless indifference to America’s founding. Rights do not come from government. They never did. They come from the Creator, as the Declaration of Independence proclaims without qualification. Jefferson didn’t hedge. Rights are unalienable — built into every human being.

This foundation stands worlds apart from Iran. Its leaders invoke God but grant rights only through clerical interpretation. Freedom of speech, property, religion, and even life itself depend on obedience to the ruling clerics. Step outside their dictates, and those so-called rights vanish.

This is not a trivial difference. It is the essence of liberty versus tyranny. In America, rights belong to the individual. The government’s role is to secure them, not define them. In Iran, rights serve the state. They empower rulers, not the people.

From Muhammad to Marx

The same confusion applies to Marxist regimes. The Soviet Union’s constitutions promised citizens rights — work, health care, education, freedom of speech — but always with fine print. If you spoke out against the party, those rights evaporated. If you practiced religion openly, you were charged with treason. Property and voting were allowed as long as they were filtered and controlled by the state — and could be revoked at any moment. Rights were conditional, granted through obedience.

Kaine seems to be advocating a similar approach — whether consciously or not. By claiming that natural rights are somehow comparable to sharia law, he ignores the critical distinction between inherent rights and conditional privileges. He dismisses the very principle that made America a beacon of freedom.

Jefferson and the founders understood this clearly. “We are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights,” they wrote. No government, no cleric, no king can revoke them. They exist by virtue of humanity itself. The government exists to protect them, not ration them.

This is not a theological quibble. It is the entire basis of our government. Confuse the source of rights, and tyranny hides behind piety or ideology. The people are disempowered. Clerics, bureaucrats, or politicians become arbiters of what rights citizens may enjoy.

John Greim / Contributor | Getty Images

Gifts from God, not the state

Kaine’s statement reflects either a profound ignorance of this principle or an ideological bias that favors state power over individual liberty. Either way, Americans must recognize the danger. Understanding the origin of rights is not academic — it is the difference between freedom and submission, between the American experiment and theocratic or totalitarian rule.

Rights are not gifts from the state. They are gifts from God, secured by reason, protected by law, and defended by the people. Every American must understand this. Because when rights come from government instead of the Creator, freedom disappears.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

POLL: Is America’s next generation trading freedom for equity?

NurPhoto / Contributor | Getty Images

A recent poll conducted by Justin Haskins, a long-time friend of the show, has uncovered alarming trends among young Americans aged 18-39, revealing a generation grappling with deep frustrations over economic hardships, housing affordability, and a perceived rigged system that favors the wealthy, corporations, and older generations. While nearly half of these likely voters approve of President Trump, seeing him as an anti-establishment figure, over 70% support nationalizing major industries, such as healthcare, energy, and big tech, to promote "equity." Shockingly, 53% want a democratic socialist to win the 2028 presidential election, including a third of Trump voters and conservatives in this age group. Many cite skyrocketing housing costs, unfair taxation on the middle class, and a sense of being "stuck" or in crisis as driving forces, with 62% believing the economy is tilted against them and 55% backing laws to confiscate "excess wealth" like second homes or luxury items to help first-time buyers.

This blend of Trump support and socialist leanings suggests a volatile mix: admiration for disruptors who challenge the status quo, coupled with a desire for radical redistribution to address personal struggles. Yet, it raises profound questions about the roots of this discontent—Is it a failure of education on history's lessons about socialism's failures? Media indoctrination? Or genuine systemic barriers? And what does it portend for the nation’s trajectory—greater division, a shift toward authoritarian policies, or an opportunity for renewal through timeless values like hard work and individual responsibility?

Glenn wants to know what YOU think: Where do Gen Z's socialist sympathies come from? What does it mean for the future of America? Make your voice heard in the poll below:

Do you believe the Gen Z support for socialism comes from perceived economic frustrations like unaffordable housing and a rigged system favoring the wealthy and corporations?

Do you believe the Gen Z support for socialism, including many Trump supporters, is due to a lack of education about the historical failures of socialist systems?

Do you think that these poll results indicate a growing generational divide that could lead to more political instability and authoritarian tendencies in America's future?

Do you think that this poll implies that America's long-term stability relies on older generations teaching Gen Z and younger to prioritize self-reliance, free-market ideals, and personal accountability?

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