Glenn Beck believes that our nation’s moral turpitude and the current persecution of Christians are the results of our unwitting worship of the ancient Levantine pagan deities Baal and Moloch.

In an interview on his Blaze TV program with evangelical preacher Samuel Rodriguez, Beck said, “I think people think that I’m nuts, and they think that if you think this way, there’s something wrong with you. But let me ask you this, have you spent any time seriously considering, gosh, the time period we’re entering in, I may have to make the same kind of choices that [Dietrich] Bonhoeffer did?”

Rodriguez agreed with Beck’s suggestion that Christians might face persecution not unlike the kind endured by the famous anti-Nazi dissident pastor.

“There’s a great probability that in our lifetime – not just our children or children’s children, but our lifetime – that we may have to be imprisoned and suffer great persecution, prosecution, as a result of our commitment to biblical truth, to Jesus, to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,” Rodriguez said. “We are there, my friend. That’s not hyperbole. The writing is on the wall. The proverbial writing is on the wall.”

Rodriguez then compared two potential general election candidates to the biblical villains Jezebel and Ahab, the royal couple that led the ancient Israelites astray by spreading the worship of the Phoenician god Baal.

“At the end of the day,” Rodriguez explained, “we have in this election the probability of possibly voting in – without mentioning any names now, I’m not mentioning any names – we may, I’m speaking spiritually and metaphorically, we may be voting in a Jezebel or an Ahab.”

“What happens? You know, it’s Asherah poles and the altars of Baal and the government requiring me to sacrifice truth on the altar of Baal,” Rodriguez concluded, alluding to the poles used by the ancient Canaanites in the worship of their fertility goddess Asherah and to the pagan altars that Jezebel required the ancient Israelites to worship at.

Beck agreed with Rodriguez’s assessment and made the biblical comparison even more explicit. “If people would just look up Baal and Moloch from the Scriptures. We are worshiping them right now, we just don’t know it, just in a different way,” he said.

“You used to have to sacrifice your children,” Beck explained. “It was promoted to have sexual intercourse, and if you got pregnant, you brought the baby to the altar and you killed the baby. I mean, it’s the same thing. It was worship [the] god of finance, god of war and god of the earth. I mean, we’re there!”

“We’re there,” Rodriguez agreed.

Though Rodriguez declined to name which presidential candidates he was comparing to Jezebel and Ahab, it’s perhaps safe to assume that Jezebel was an allusion to Hillary Clinton, the only woman still in the race, and Ahab was a reference to Donald Trump, who has come under intense criticism from Beck.

The radio talker has, at various times, compared Trump to Hitler and called him “a pathological narcissistic sociopath” and “a narcissistic psychopath” whose presidency “will lead to civil war or worst.”

Beck has been one of the most vocal surrogates for GOP candidate Ted Cruz, who he believes to be “anointed” by God to serve as president. He campaigned side by side with the Texas senator in Iowa, South Carolina, New Hampshire, Nevada, Arkansas, Michigan, and Utah.

However, the Blaze TV host came under intense criticism from evangelical Christians for comments he made last month in Utah chastising Southern evangelicals for supporting Trump over Cruz.

“All throughout the South, the evangelicals are not listening to their God,” Beck told a largely Mormon crowd at a Cruz rally in Utah.

Despite the censure he received from evangelical leaders for these comments, Beck doubled down on them, declaring that “no real Christian” would support Trump.

There are now signs that Cruz might be distancing himself from Beck, who was largely absent from the Cruz campaign trail in Wisconsin. Even Beck’s own employee, TheBlaze editor Oliver Darcy, seemed to notice the space the candidate was putting between himself and Beck. Darcy recently tweeted, “Cruz on CNN again touted Mark Levin’s endorsement. He’s left Glenn Beck’s endorsement out of talking points recently.”

Cruz on CNN again touted Mark Levin's endorsement. He's left Glenn Beck's endorsement out of talking points recently pic.twitter.com/i5UQhFZ1nq — Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) April 7, 2016

It’s hardly surprising that Cruz, who is currently trying to win over voters in New York’s primary, might want to distance himself from what some voters might see as Beck’s eccentric brand of fire and brimstone sermonizing.

Follow Rebecca Mansour on Twitter @RAMansour