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But what about McCain’s preachers?
Posted By katie allison granju
According to this Buffalo alt.weekly piece, McCain’s “spiritual advisers” are as on-the-fringe as Obama’s Rev. Wright:
First there’s Pastor John Hagee, who runs an arena-sized megachurch in San Antonio, Texas. Hagee preaches that Muslims—that’s all Muslims—have a “scriptural mandate” to kill Christians and Jews. But don’t worry. America, according to Hagee, is on top of this coming showdown with Islam. He predicts, and seems to pine for, an all-out nuclear war with Iran, as the beginning of a new global war. Writing for the evangelical Pentecostal magazine Charisma, Hagee argues that “The coming nuclear showdown with Iran is a certainty.” In his 2006 book, Jerusalem Countdown, he expanded the first theater of operations for his coming world war to include Russia. This nuclear war, according to Hagee, would eventually end with the second coming of Christ and the whisking away of true believers to the heavens.
Obama-bashers no doubt are currently sorting through parking tickets and assorted databases to determine if he was present for his pastor’s more controversial sermons—with the ultimate story-line centering on why he didn’t shout his preacher down or pelt the man mid-sermon with his prayer book. On the invisible McCain front, however, there’s no question about whether McCain was present for and aware of Hagee’s most lunatic remarks. McCain was onstage with Hagee, receiving his endorsement for president, when he ranted about Allah not being “our” god, warning that “without victory [in Iraq and perhaps Iran], there is no survival.” Rather then flee the stage and quickly call a news conference to distance himself from the end-timer, McCain went over and clasped Hagee’s hand for a photo op.
Then there’s Ohio-based televangelist Rod Parsley, whom McCain identifies as a spiritual advisor. According to Parsley, who recently appeared side by side with McCain at a campaign rally, America’s “divine purpose” is to destroy Islam. In his 2005 book, Silent No More, McCain’s spiritual advisor claims that this country “was founded, in part, with the intention of seeing this false religion [Islam] destroyed.”
Parsley’s argument is based on the historically accurate fact that Christobal Colon (Christopher Columbus) in 1492 declared that the purpose of his exploration was to find enough gold to fund a Christian reconquest of Jerusalem. Colon, however, did not found this country, nor any currently existing political entity in the Americas. The continuing celebration of Columbus, however, lays the foundation for hatemongers like McCain’s pastor to claim that our national heritage is based in hate.
When McCain’s spiritual advisor talks about war with Islam, he’s not just talking, like Hagee, about a nuclear showdown abroad. He wants the war to begin here at home. Parsley complains about the growing number of Muslims in the United States (he claims 34,000 converts since 9/11) and the number of mosques in this country (he clams “some 1,209”) as evidence that we are failing in our historic calling as a “Christian nation” and “a bastion against Islam.”
Mar 31st, 2008
I hate to be the bearer of bad news Allison they are right. The Koran states that all believers must kill all the Infedels the unbelievers if they do not convert to Islam. Iran with the Bomb as soon as they are able they will launch against Isreal . And about starting the war here at home I believe the Muslums already did that remember a little thing called 9-11. OH now I am going to here “not the whole Muslum world” lets not forget on 9-11 they were dancing in the streets of EVERY muslum city in the world EVERY. So the comments of these pastors are not far off base. The goal of this Jihad is world domonation they will use any tool avalible airplanes, suicide bombers, do you not think that a culture that would use a child as a suicde bomber would hesitate to use a nuculear bomb ????