Glenn Beck’s path to unity a rocky road

But Jackson, along with a few other leaders, was instrumental in convincing others like Nelson that Beck was okay to be associated with. Part of this convincing took the form of blurring the line on whether Beck – who said clearly Sunday on Fox that “most Christians don’t recognize me as a Christian” – was undergoing some sort of spiritual transformation, perhaps even a conversion to Christianity.

“I think that Glenn Beck has had a transcendent spiritual experience,” Jackson said in an interview. “I think Alveda King said it best … when she said he’s like Paul on the road to Damascus.”

Nelson said he was reassured with similar language: “That is the type of language that Bishop Jackson used in speaking to some of the clergy that he spoke to, encouraging them to attend,” he said.

And other major evangelical leaders have been quoted saying much the same thing in other press reports.

Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s policy arm, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, told CNN that Beck has begun to ask him theological questions and that on Saturday the Fox News host “sounded like Billy Graham.”

“I think he’s moving – I think he’s a person in spiritual motion and has been,” Land said.

Jim Garlow, the pastor of a large church in California who has been active in organizing against same-sex marriage, did go so far as to suggest Beck has converted to Christianity.

“I have interviewed persons who have talked specifically with Glenn about his personal salvation – persons extremely well known in Christianity – and they have affirmed (using language evangelicals understand), ‘Glenn is saved,’” Garlow said in a memo written to other pastors last week and obtained by CNN. “He understands receiving Christ as savior.”

Jackson, however, said that any talk of transformation was not a claim that Beck has converted from Mormonism to Christianity.

“I’m just saying that he’s had a spiritual experience with Christ,” Jackson said. “I’m not suggesting that he’s going to change faiths.”

Alveda King said she is “not sure” if Beck has converted.

“Doctrinal disputes are like racial disputes. We are all one human race in need of a Savior!” she wrote in an e-mail.

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