Crazy Reverends

This billboard was passed by the Obamessiah's bus as it passed through Goshen, IN:
Normally I would give props to Crossroads Community Church for creativity in their advertising, except that in the effort to be funny they badly misrepresented the crazy reverend situation. Obama's crazy reverend, Dr. Jeremiah Wright, was his pastor for over 20 years. Obama sat under that guy's nutso ministry week-after-week and gave tens of thousands of dollars to support it. The crazy reverends the McCain part refers to, Rev. Rod Parsley and Dr. John Hagee, were never McCain's pastors but were just a couple of prominent televangelists who endorsed him. He never attended their churches and to my knowledge never supported them financially. I realize that if they'd portrayed the situation accurately they might have lost the joke, but it seems to me that McCain is getting the worst of this one for no good reason.

As a side note, Crossroads is apparently a Nazarene Church, based only on their website URL (http://www.crossroadsnazarene.net), the same denomination I grew up in. They've gone the way of many churches by renaming themselves to remove the denominational affiliation, and have run from that denominational name so well I couldn't even find a mention of it on their website.

Thou Shalt Not Endorse Candidates

Two headlines tell the extent of John McCain's pastor problems:

McCain rejects Hagee's endorsement...

Called Parsley 'One of the Truly Great Leaders in America'...

Unfortunately for both parties, the men of the cloth who are most likely to make public endorsements are also the most likely to be controversial figures who often represent the more extreme wings of their faiths. Do they have a right to make a public endorsement? Sure, just like any citizen. Is it a good idea to do so? Probably not. Rev. Jeremiah Wright didn't do Barack Obama any favors, and the media wasn't going to allow any of McCain's pastoral endorsements to get away without scrutinizing their messages. The sermon that finally resulted in McCain's rejection of Hagee was over 10 years old.

It would probably be wise for pastors to look at the examples of someone like Rick Warren of Saddleback Church, or Robert Schuller of the Crystal Cathedral. Both are (or were) very high profile clergymen, but to my knowledge, neither has ever made a public endorsement. They let people know how they believe the church should approach certain issues, but not who they should vote for.

I also have to give some props to my friend Pastor Mark Daniels in Ohio. I interviewed Mark for the internet radio show right before the Ohio primary and he was quick to say that no endorsement would be forthcoming because he couldn't find any indication that "Thus sayeth the Lord, vote for ??" and he wasn't going to declare God's favorite. You can listen to the interview here.

Hagee Apologizes to Catholics

Many on the left have tried to equate John McCain's distant relationship to Pastor John Hagee from Cornerstone Church in San Antonio to Barack Obama's considerably closer relationship to Rev. Jeremiah Wright, pastor of Obama's church. The comparison was weak at best given that Sen. McCain was never a member of Hagee's church, but merely accepted his endorsement in the days prior to the Texas primary.

Hagee has said some rough things about the Catholic Church, and the scrutiny hasn't helped McCain. Now, after receiving the proper reeducation, Hagee is apologizing:

The Texas megachurch pastor whose past comments about the Catholic Church have caused headaches for John McCain for over two months will issue an apology to Catholics later today, according a top Christian conservative.

John Hagee, pastor of San Antonio's Cornerstone Church, will send a letter to Catholic League President William Donahue expressing "deep regret for any comments that Catholics have found hurtful."

"After engaging in constructive dialogue with Catholic friends and leaders, I now have an improved understanding of the Catholic Church, its relation to the Jewish faith, and the history of anti-Catholicism," Hagee wrote in a letter running just over two pages.

In a carefully-coordinated plan, Donahue accepted the apology with a statement of his own.

“The tone of Hagee’s letter is sincere," Donahue said. "He wants reconciliation and he has achieved it. Indeed, the Catholic League welcomes his apology."

The conservative leader who shared the letter said McCain's campaign was not involved at all in encouraging Hagee to apologize.

Donahue has been among Hagee's most outspoken critics and called on McCain to repudiate the pastor soon after Hagee endorsed the Republican in March.

Hagee has drawn fire for describing Catholicism as "a Godless theology of Hate" and, what some have interpreted as, "the Great Whore."

Hoping to knock Mike Huckabee out of the race, McCain secured Hagee's public endorsement in the days before the March 4th Texas primary. But since then, the GOP candidate has been dogged by questions over why he would accept support from somebody who not only has criticized Catholics but also asserted that Hurricane Katrina was part of God's punishment for the decadence of New Orleanians.

McCain has not disavowed Hagee's endorsement, but has said that it was probably a mistake to pursue. A spokesperson for the candidate declined to comment on Hagee's apology.

Hagee no longer believes the Catholic Church is the "Great Whore", but merely an average streetwalker. I doubt that he's become a fan of Catholics and their beliefs, but probably felt he had to make an effort to help make McCain's pastor problem go away.

Different Candidates, Completely Different Pastor Problems

The left thinks they can make a Rev. Wright type of case against John McCain because of controversial statements made by two pastors who have expressed support for McCain. They're wrong:

If turnabout is fair play, then John McCain critics believe his association with controversial pastors should be held to the same scrutiny as Barack Obama’s ties to Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

After all, they point out, one of McCain’s religious supporters, John Hagee, called the Roman Catholic Church “the great whore.”

Another, Rod Parsley, referred to Islam as a “false religion” that America was called on to destroy.

Still, when McCain’s link to both men came to light, the backlash was negligible compared with the furor Obama has faced for nearly two months over his relationship with Wright, his former pastor.

“McCain got a bit of a pass on that,” Democratic strategist Bob Beckel said.

Political analysts and the McCain campaign say it was the difference in his relationships with those pastors — more than the news media’s decision to use kid gloves — that spared him the kind of public trial Obama endured.

Hagee and Parsley are just supporters, McCain’s campaign points out. Obama’s relationship is personal, with Wright having officiated at the candidate’s wedding and baptized his two children.

“I didn’t attend Pastor Hagee’s church for 20 years,” McCain said last week, taking a shot at Obama. “There’s a great deal of difference in my view between someone who endorses you and other circumstances.”

But while Obama has repeatedly moved to reject and denounce such supporters, McCain will only go so far. And critics warn the issue could come back to hurt him.

There's no comparison between Obama who joined Wright's church, was a contributing member (tens of thousands of dollars) for over 20 years, and McCain who was never a member of Hagee or Parsley's churches, nor to my knowledge, ever gave them a dime. Obama chose to sit under Wright's preaching, McCain simply acknowledges the two pastors as supporters. It wouldn't be fair to hold either candidate responsible for statements made by supporters who are not part of the campaign and have no other connection to the candidate.

Nice try, Dems, but you'll have to come up with something else.

McCain's Pastor Problem Tries to Fix the Situation

Pastor John Hagee, who is considered by the left to be John McCain's equivilent of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, is trying to mitigate the damage he's doing to the McCain campaign with his statements about Katrina being a judgment from God because there was a gay parade planned in New Orleans:

Pastor John Hagee has revised his view of God's wrath, and chances are John McCain couldn't be happier.

Without fanfare, in an e-mail sent the latter part of Friday, Hagee backed off his assertion that Hurricane Katrina was the Almighty's punishment of New Orleans because it had planned to host a gay pride parade.

Hagee's history of anti-Catholic statements already has made his high-profile endorsement of McCain a mixed blessing. And much to the McCain camp's chagrin, Hagee earlier this week reiterated his opinion that God targeted New Orleans -- remarks coming as the presumptive Republican presidential nominee geared up for a campaign stop in the still-recovering city.

A McCain spokesman quickly stressed that the candidate rejected such statements. And then Hagee, in the e-mail billed as an "official statement" from the influential televangelist, did so, as well. He wrote:

"As a believing Christian, I see the hand of God in everything that happens here on earth, both the blessings and the curses. But ultimately neither I nor any other person can know the mind of God concerning Hurricane Katrina. I should not have suggested otherwise. No matter what the cause of the storm, my heart goes out to all who suffered in this terrible tragedy. There but for the grace of God go any one of us."

That's quite a different opinion thhan he publicly expressed in September, 2006. During an interview with NPR, he said the devastating storm "was, in fact, the judgment of God against ... New Orleans." The city, he continued, "had a level of sin that was offensive to God" because "there was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that the Katrina came."

On Tuesday, Hagee refused to disavow those comments. He told talk radio show host Dennis Prager, "What happened in New Orleans looked like the curse of God... . It was a city that was planning a sinful conduct.''

People who believe that Katrina was God's wrath on New Orleans or that AIDS was God's wrath on homosexuals have to believe in a God that's pretty ham-handed and apparently can't throw one down the middle of the plate. In both cases millions of innocent people were affected by these events who had nothing to do with either the debauchery in New Orleans or the debauchery in the gay community. I just don't think God is that careless a smiter.

In Biblical days God seemed pretty capable of directing his smiting exactly where he wanted it. Have the years taken the edge off his control? I doubt it.

Pronouncements like what Pastor Hagee said about New Orleans do nothing to further the cause of Christ, and certainly don't make his kind of religion more attractive. They haven't helped McCain much either.

The Candidates and the Preachers

Related posts: Obama responds and Rev. Wright quits the campaign. Obama's Church Blows It.

Who would have thought in this enlightened age we live in that the presidential campaign would come down to dueling pastors. Barack Obama and his pastor Jeremiah Wright have gotten huge coverage the past couple of days (previous posts here, here, here & here). This story is not going away any too soon. Just look at this piece in the Wall Street Journal:

In a sermon delivered at Howard University, Barack Obama's longtime minister, friend and adviser blamed America for starting the AIDS virus, training professional killers, importing drugs and creating a racist society that would never elect a black candidate president.

The Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., pastor of Mr. Obama's Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, gave the sermon at the school's Andrew Rankin Memorial Chapel in Washington on Jan. 15, 2006.

"We've got more black men in prison than there are in college," he began. "Racism is alive and well. Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run. No black man will ever be considered for president, no matter how hard you run Jesse [Jackson] and no black woman can ever be considered for anything outside what she can give with her body."

Mr. Wright thundered on: "America is still the No. 1 killer in the world. . . . We are deeply involved in the importing of drugs, the exporting of guns, and the training of professional killers . . . We bombed Cambodia, Iraq and Nicaragua, killing women and children while trying to get public opinion turned against Castro and Ghadhafi . . . We put [Nelson] Mandela in prison and supported apartheid the whole 27 years he was there. We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God."

His voice rising, Mr. Wright said, "We supported Zionism shamelessly while ignoring the Palestinians and branding anybody who spoke out against it as being anti-Semitic. . . . We care nothing about human life if the end justifies the means. . . ."

Concluding, Mr. Wright said: "We started the AIDS virus . . . We are only able to maintain our level of living by making sure that Third World people live in grinding poverty. . . ."

Considering this view of America, it's not surprising that in December Mr. Wright's church gave an award to Louis Farrakhan for lifetime achievement. In the church magazine, Trumpet, Mr. Wright spoke glowingly of the Nation of Islam leader. "His depth on analysis [sic] when it comes to the racial ills of this nation is astounding and eye-opening," Mr. Wright said of Mr. Farrakhan. "He brings a perspective that is helpful and honest."

After Newsmax broke the story of the award to Farrakhan on Jan. 14, Mr. Obama issued a statement. However, Mr. Obama ignored the main point: that his minister and friend had spoken adoringly of Mr. Farrakhan, and that Mr. Wright's church was behind the award to the Nation of Islam leader.

Instead, Mr. Obama said, "I decry racism and anti-Semitism in every form and strongly condemn the anti-Semitic statements made by Minister Farrakhan. I assume that Trumpet magazine made its own decision to honor Farrakhan based on his efforts to rehabilitate ex-offenders, but it is not a decision with which I agree." Trumpet is owned and produced by Mr. Wright's church out of the church's offices, and Mr. Wright's daughters serve as publisher and executive editor.

Meeting with Jewish leaders in Cleveland on Feb. 24, Mr. Obama described Mr. Wright as being like "an old uncle who sometimes will say things that I don't agree with." He rarely mentions the points of disagreement.

The left, sensing a weakness in the Obama campaign thanks to his radical pastor, has gone looking for what they consider to be radicals on the other side who support John McCain, as shown in this previous post and this article from Mother Jones Magazine:

Senator John McCain hailed as a spiritual adviser an Ohio megachurch pastor who has called upon Christians to wage a "war" against the "false religion" of Islam with the aim of destroying it.

On February 26, McCain appeared at a campaign rally in Cincinnati with the Reverend Rod Parsley of the World Harvest Church of Columbus, a supersize Pentecostal institution that features a 5,200-seat sanctuary, a television studio (where Parsley tapes a weekly show), and a 122,000-square-foot Ministry Activity Center. That day, a week before the Ohio primary, Parsley praised the Republican presidential front-runner as a "strong, true, consistent conservative." The endorsement was important for McCain, who at the time was trying to put an end to the lingering challenge from former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, a favorite among Christian evangelicals. A politically influential figure in Ohio, Parsley could also play a key role in McCain's effort to win this bellwether state in the general election. McCain, with Parsley by his side at the Cincinnati rally, called the evangelical minister a "spiritual guide."

The leader of a 12,000-member congregation, Parsley has written several books outlining his fundamentalist religious outlook, including the 2005 Silent No More. In this work, Parsley decries the "spiritual desperation" of the United States, and he blasts away at the usual suspects: activist judges, civil libertarians who advocate the separation of church and state, the homosexual "culture" ("homosexuals are anything but happy and carefree"), the "abortion industry," and the crass and profane entertainment industry. And Parsley targets another profound threat to the United States: the religion of Islam.

In a chapter titled "Islam: The Deception of Allah," Parsley warns there is a "war between Islam and Christian civilization." He continues:


I cannot tell you how important it is that we understand the true nature of Islam, that we see it for what it really is. In fact, I will tell you this: I do not believe our country can truly fulfill its divine purpose until we understand our historical conflict with Islam. I know that this statement sounds extreme, but I do not shrink from its implications. The fact is that America was founded, in part, with the intention of seeing this false religion destroyed, and I believe September 11, 2001, was a generational call to arms that we can no longer ignore.

Parsley is not shy about his desire to obliterate Islam. In Silent No More, he notes—approvingly—that Christopher Columbus shared the same goal: "It was to defeat Islam, among other dreams, that Christopher Columbus sailed to the New World in 1492…Columbus dreamed of defeating the armies of Islam with the armies of Europe made mighty by the wealth of the New World. It was this dream that, in part, began America." He urges his readers to realize that a confrontation between Christianity and Islam is unavoidable: "We find now we have no choice. The time has come." And he has bad news: "We may already be losing the battle. As I scan the world, I find that Islam is responsible for more pain, more bloodshed, and more devastation than nearly any other force on earth at this moment."

Parsley claims that Islam is an "anti-Christ religion" predicated on "deception." The Muslim prophet Muhammad, he writes, "received revelations from demons and not from the true God." And he emphasizes this point: "Allah was a demon spirit." Parsley does not differentiate between violent Islamic extremists and other followers of the religion:

There are some, of course, who will say that the violence I cite is the exception and not the rule. I beg to differ. I will counter, respectfully, that what some call "extremists" are instead mainstream believers who are drawing from the well at the very heart of Islam.

Let's take a look at these two candidates and the preachers they are being connected to, shall we? In Obama's case you have the pastor of his own church preaching a radical black nationalist doctrine that appears to hate America and encourages his congregants to share his anti-white separatist views. He believes this country is the focus of evil in the modern world. The obvious question - since Obama was married by this pastor, had his kids baptized by him, and gave over $22,000 to this church, does he also believe these incoherant rantings? Will anybody actually ask that question?

In the two examples the left has come up with for McCain, neither man (John Hagee or Rod Parsley) pastor John McCain's church (if he even has one). Hagee is accused of making statements that have been construed as anti-Catholic and Parsley is accused of denigrating Islam. Neither have anything but good things to say about this country. I'm not sure you can make an intellectually honest comparison between the preaching of these two and that of Rev. Wright.

There were instant calls for McCain to renounce Hagee and Parsley (which he has refused to do). With the exception of a few on the right, I haven't heard the same outcry for Obama to renounce Rev. Wright. In fact, the Rev. is part of the Obama campaign.

Funny thing is, nobody has been able to find a "spiritual advisor" for Hillary. What does that tell you?

McCain Has His Own Preacher Problem

Endorsements (or lack thereof) from preachers have made news several times this campaign cycle. Barack Hussein Obama's pastor has made numerous controversial statements that Obama has had to back away from, televangelist Pat Robertson endorsed Rudy Giuliani while James Dobson said he'll never vote for McCain, and now another televangelist's endorsement of John Sidney McCain is causing his campaign some problems:

PHOENIX (AP) -- John McCain is refusing to renounce the endorsement of a prominent Texas televangelist who Democrats say peddles anti-Catholic and other intolerant speech.

Instead, the Republican presidential candidate issued a statement Friday afternoon saying he had unspecified disagreements with the San Antonio megachurch leader, John Hagee. Hagee endorsed him at a news conference Wednesday in San Antonio.
"However, in no way did I intend for his endorsement to suggest that I in turn agree with all of Pastor Hagee's views, which I obviously do not," McCain said in the statement.

His campaign issued the statement after two days of criticism from the Democratic National Committee, the Catholic League and Catholics United.

Democrats quoted Hagee as saying the Catholic Church conspired with Nazis against the Jews and that Hurricane Katrina was God's retribution for homosexual sin, and they recited his demeaning comments about women and flip remarks about slavery.

"Hagee's hate speech has no place in public discourse, and McCain's embrace of this figure raises serious questions about John McCain's character and his willingness to do anything to win," said Tom McMahon, executive director of the Democratic National Committee.

McCain was pressed on the issue Friday morning in Round Rock, Texas. Hagee "supports what I stand for and believe in," McCain said.

"When he endorsed me, that does not mean that I embrace everything that he stands for and believes in," McCain said. "I don't have to agree with everyone who endorses my campaign."

Hagee's a tough nut and some of his views will not be acceptable to those who aren't in the far right of the evangelical spectrum, but candidates don't have much control over who will endorse them or speak favorably of them. I don't think it's reasonable to require candidates to pass judgement on everybody who announces an endorsement.

UPDATE: Another preacher problem for McCain.