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"All the preachers that surround the president, they are progressives and they are big government progressives," said Beck. "When you combine church and state, and you take a big government and you combine it with the church, to get people to do the things that the state wants you to do, it always ends in mass death."

Chuck Gutenson, chief operating officer for Sojourners, responded. He criticized Beck's laissez-faire politics and cited the example of progressives in the 19th century.

"They did not let the opponents dissuade them from their sense of calling and their belief that the work they were doing was simply to take seriously the idea that we are not to twist Scripture to be a support to our own self interest, but rather that we are to twist our own self interest until it aligns with God's intentions," said Gutenson. "They did not back down then, and I expect we will not now, regardless of how often the other side deploys its trite and hackneyed comparisons to Hitler."

• Michael Ly wants you to befriend a Muslim. Writing on the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good blog, Ly wrote: "I want to encourage you to make a new friend today, a friend that also happens to be Muslim. Jesus says love your neighbor as yourself … and also your enemies! I realize that for many, Muslims in America are viewed as enemies, but for those who view Muslims this way the command is still the same: Love."

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