I don’t understand the Rev. John C. Hagee controversy. Hagee said that God wanted the Jews to move to Israel. Based on all the noise being made about it, you would have thought he had said that Allah wanted the Palestinians to move to Israel.
And I find the related Rev. Rod Parsley controversy even less understandable. He said that Islam an “anti-Christ religion.” As far as I know, that’s an accurate statement. If Muslims were pro-Christ, they wouldn’t be Muslim, they’d be Christian. Duh! I guess it’s politically incorrect to point out that people who aren’t Christian don’t believe in the divinity of Christ.
Muslims don't believe in the divinity of Jesus, but they recognize and respect him as an important Prophet.
Posted by: Peter | May 23, 2008 at 01:15 PM
By the way, you're doing some selective quoting to make it seems as if Hagee and Parsley are just poor misunderstood decent guys. Hagee didn't just say that it was God's plan for Jews to move to Israel, he said in effect that Hitler and the Holocaust were part of God's plan for Jews to move to Israel.
As for Parsley, he didn't confine himself to saying that Islam is an "anti-Christ" religion. He also said, as reported in the Times article, that “America was founded in part to see this false religion destroyed.”
Posted by: Peter | May 23, 2008 at 01:23 PM
The modern fashion in religion is to be what would have been considered in the 18th century an atheist.
If God knew that the holocaust was going to happen, had the power to stop it and chose not to that means one of four things:
1) God doesn't care enough about mass slaughter to stop it (or to influence events to stop it)
2) God doesn't care about the particular people who have been slaughtered; if your group has never been a victim of mass slaughter, you're part of God's chosen.
3) It's all part of God's master plan for humans or for your group
4) God doesn't have the power to influence events (possibly because he does not exist)
Really, stuff like Rev. Hagee's position is the logical consequence of accepting that God exists and has influence over human events. If you reject the idea that God influences human events you're an atheist whether you call yourself that or not. If you claim that he influence human events you have to come up with explanations for bad events.
Posted by: Steve Johnson | May 23, 2008 at 01:49 PM
Let's not forget that Judaism,Cristianism and Islam are all Abrahamic religions and woreship the same God of the desert. We should return to our original germanic Gods, called Zeus, Jupiter or Odin.
Posted by: Gannon | May 23, 2008 at 02:16 PM
Besides that, the constant liberal comparisons between Hagee and McCain and Wright and Obama are obnoxious. Hagee and McCain don't have a close personal relationship (neither does McCain enjoy a close friendship with Parsley). A better comparison between Hagee and McCain would be between Al Sharpton and Obama. Sharpton is a crook and a race-baiter who endorses Obama but enjoys no close personal relationship with the candidate. The media, unsurprisingly, hasn't went after Obama for this endorsement but has enthusiastically attacked McCain over Hagee. McCain has sworn off Hagee and rejected his endorsement from the time Hagee's comments became widely known. This while Obama was still claiming that he could no more distance himself from Wright than he could his grandmother -- even though Obama, by all appearances, has done a pretty damn good job distancing himself from his grandmother.
Posted by: tommy | May 23, 2008 at 02:21 PM
All along liberal sites have been whining "why doesnt the MSM run stories about Hagee" so of course the Times dutifully does. Pitiful lapdogs.
Meanwhile the Times never saw what the big deal was about Wright and wouldnt even print his "God damn Amercia" quote.
And they serve as unpaid apologists for the Obama campaign:
At the same time, as Mr. Obama’s friends and aides now acknowledge, he was aware that, shorn of their South Side Chicago context, the words and cadences of a politically left-wing black minister could have a very problematic echo. So Mr. Obama haltingly distanced himself from his pastor.
Yeah, shorn of their South Side Chicago context the cadences of "God damn America" and "the United States government created AIDS" have a problematic echo.
The Times even gets the headline wrong: McCain has no "ties" to cut. Hagee wasnt an advisor, McCain was never a member of his church, and he is not even McCain committees. Where are the ties?
Posted by: Turambar | May 23, 2008 at 02:38 PM
Steve Johnson: "If you reject the idea that God influences human events you're an atheist whether you call yourself that or not."
It might mean you're a Deist, but otherwise your analysis is excellent. Christians believe that God takes an active role in human affairs.
Jewish groups have no business being angry with Hagee who has been a strong supporter of Israel. Without the support of America's Christian right, the state of Israel would be in big trouble. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.
Pro-Israel Jews should wait until Israel is no longer surrounded by enemies before taking a snooty attitude with people from other religions who support Israel.
Posted by: Half Sigma | May 23, 2008 at 03:36 PM
How come Al Jazeera covers how racist W. Virginia was and the MSM doesn't?
http://bloggingheads.tv/morevideo/11255
Weird. Talk about media bias for whites like Hillary and McCain!
Also, I think this Hagee thing is a blatant attempt to make a mountain out of a molehill and damage McCain. Since it pissed me off to have to listen to all the Wright stuff, I hope it works!
Obama '08!
Posted by: Vim | May 23, 2008 at 04:18 PM
Pro-Israel Jews should wait until Israel is no longer surrounded by enemies before taking a snooty attitude with people from other religions who support Israel.
The Jewish stock response to this is to whine that those evangelical Christians are only "using Jews" for their own ends. (Unlike American Jews, who are known for their deep and sincere appreciation and emphathy with white, conservative America.) They seem to genuinely fear that in the near future Jesus might miraculously descend from heaven, accompanied by a host of angels, following a number of other supernatural events portrayed in the Book of Revelations, and slaughter all of the Jews or convert them to Christianity or something of that nature.
Altruistic Israel Firsters, of course, would never think of using the United States for their own ends. ;-)
Posted by: tommy | May 23, 2008 at 04:29 PM
This is off topic, but it deserves some investigation: Barack Obama claims hate crimes against Hispanics have doubled in the last year. He blames this partly on someone named Lou Doggs who, to the best of my knowledge, is no relation to Snoop Dogg.
Question: Where, if anywhere, is Obama getting these stats? Apparently, not from the FBI hate crimes reports.
Follow-up question: How many of these crimes occurred in the 50 states we all know about versus the seven or more states of which only Obama seems to be aware?
Posted by: tommy | May 23, 2008 at 06:14 PM
I'll criticize the controversy a little differently than HS. I think Hagee's remarks are asinine. And Parsley calling islam an "anti-Christ" religion raises the specter of THE anti-Christ, not merely a non-Christian religion (which would be a simple truism).
The "controversy" is about the fact that Hagee and Parsley endorsed McCain. McCain probably didn't even know these guys when they endorsed him. But the NYT headline ("McCain Cuts Ties to Pastors Whose Talks Drew Fire") implies "ties". That headline connotes a moral equivalence to the Jeremiah Wright controversy. A false equivalence, IMO.
Posted by: Sockless Joe | May 23, 2008 at 08:24 PM
Sockless Joe: The "controversy" is about the fact that Hagee and Parsley endorsed McCain.
Yes, it's quite shocking to discover that a majority of Christian ministers prefer McCain over a Democrat. Who knew?
Posted by: Half Sigma | May 23, 2008 at 08:32 PM
I am a Catholic, so I admit to being biased, but, even if I were an atheist I would not want to live in an atheistic society.
I would want to live in a white Christian society because when white people don't believe in God they end up trying to find some other ideology to replace Christianity.
Just look at all the atheist white/Jewish people who are kissing Obama's useless affirmative action pampered ass strictly because he is a mulatto. The liberals have replaced Christianity and now worship in the church of Racial Marxism.
This is progress?
Posted by: New Anon | May 23, 2008 at 10:51 PM
I agree. Why do Westerners adopt one of three religions which originate from the Middle East? Or why least be an Atheist? :P
Posted by: Gil | May 24, 2008 at 01:42 AM
Actually Mormonism is American.
Posted by: SFG | May 25, 2008 at 07:40 AM
Actually Mormonism is American.
Isn't mormonism just another spinnoff from Christianity? Do they also believe in the great Desert God? Now, scientology, that's a true American religion.
Posted by: Gannon | May 25, 2008 at 09:01 AM
Too true. Faith in technology, belief in a polluted condition from which one can extricate oneself with hard work (and spending money), belief in a Big Bad Guy...yeah, it really is American!
Posted by: SFG | May 25, 2008 at 01:37 PM
All judeo-christian religions deny believers access to god's so called good graces. So, anyone who believes differently, is opposed to that particular faith and infact condemned by the Almighty to eternal damnation.
Thats what makes inter-faith councils so hypocritically hilarious. lol
I anxiously awake a resurgence of rational thought.
Posted by: Noah Stephens | May 25, 2008 at 05:57 PM