webodec3ARCHIVEPreview
Open in TheBrain

Hagee, J rev

see PPP theocracy

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/individuals/john-hagee

 ===

GONE AWHILE 3 26 BACK ON IRAN WAR

something batshit 1123?

:{---

:{

---

MMA

Christian media figures have claimed that the Iran war could signal “the second coming” or the “End Times” and said “we are watching incredible prophecy in this time come to pass”

Written by Payton Armstrong

Published 03/04/26

Right-wing Christian media are praising President Donald Trump’s decision to join Israel in launching military strikes against Iran, with some figures likening Trump to Cyrus the Great and Constantine the Great and claiming that “we are watching incredible prophecy in this time come to pass.”

Christian media figures have said the war could be a sign of “the emergence of the Antichrist, the tribulation period, the battle of Armageddon, the second coming,” claiming that he has “literally become Constantine the Great”; asserting that “God is using President Trump in a prophetic moment”; and telling audiences, “It’s all going to be happening in God's timing.”

Trump joined Israel in striking Iran — a longtime goal of right-wing evangelicals who believe in End Times prophecy

//

  1. ### Right-wing media figures are getting briefed on the Iran war before Congress

03/02/26 3:17 PM EST

  1. ### Trump and his MAGA allies increasingly embrace extreme prophetic media

05/30/24 9:00 AM EDT

  1. ### MAGA media feud erupts over Trump’s war against Iran: “We're not supposed to be running around doing this anymore.”

03/02/26

---

---}:

rww

no lnc many vids

'The Return Of Jesus Is Back On The Menu': MAGA Evangelicals Celebrate The Attack On Iran

03/02/2026

by Kyle Mantyla

When Israel launched an attack on Iran in June of 2025, religious-right activists celebrated, excited by the prospect that it could precipitate the End Times and the return of Jesus Christ.

Predictably, these same religious-right activists are once again overjoyed after the United States and Israel began jointly bombing Iran over the weekend, killing the nation's supreme leader and dozens of top military commanders.

While the attack has generated retaliatory strikes and fears of a wider Middle East war, evangelical Trump supporters are gushing over President Donald Trump's action, with megachurch pastor Jack Hibbs declaring that "for such a time as this, this man is being led by God."

During a special sermon on Sunday, Hibbs absurdly declared that "this is not regime change, this is removing the obstacle so that the people [of Iran] can pick their leadership," before marveling that the attack was carried out on 9/11 of the Islamic calendar.

"Who planned this?" he asked. "I think God planned it."

On Sunday, pastor John Hagee, founder of Christians United for Israel, delivered a special "prophetic sermon" in response to the attacks to explain "what God's plan of fury is for Iran."

"It's refreshing to know that God is in total control and he has plans that will not be removed," Hagee said.

During a service later on Sunday, Hagee led his congregation in thanking God "for the fabulous military victory over the enemies of Israel" and "for our president, Donald Trump, whose wise courage has crushed the enemies of Zion."

Christian nationalist worship leader Sean Feucht likewise praised the attacks, saying that God has positioned his own prayer team in Iraq in order to take advantage of "the End Time open doors of what he is going to do in Iran when this regime is prayerfully removed."

In a separate video, Feucht declared that the attacks represent "the greatest day of harvest" for Christians to spread the gospel in Iran.

"God is using this moment to open wide the doors for evangelism like we haven't seen in 50 years," he celebrated. "Let see the gospel penetrate this ancient land."

On Saturday, Trump cultist Shane Vaughn did an emergency broadcast to explain how Trump is a "prophetic instrument of God" who "has an assignment to protect Israel."

"Yahweh raised up a man to do what happened this morning," Vaughn proclaimed. "Donald Trump did not strike Iran today because of a foreign policy doctrine ... Yahweh, the God of Heaven, raised up Donald Trump for today."

The Christian nationalist program "FlashPoint" likewise did a special broadcast on Saturday, during which MAGA cultist Lance Wallnau insisted that Trump did not want to attack Iran but "God made the Iranians just recalcitrant" during negotiations, just like when "God hardened Pharaoh's heart" in Exodus, thereby forcing Trump to take action.

"They refused to budge," Wallnau said. "And when Trump saw that they were not going to move and that there was no sense in delaying, he went ahead and made the decision, as he always does."

Later in the broadcast, Wallnau noted that the attack fell just before the Jewish holiday of Purim, which commemorates the failure of Haman's plot to destroy the Jews as told in the book of Esther.

"Isn't it interesting that the ancient stronghold of the Prince of Persia that sought to exterminate all the Jews is now coming down again under the authority of another modern-day ruler who the prayers of God's people have been empowering?" Wallnau declared. "During their feast of Purim, when they had a reversal of a destructive threat, we're watching that reversal happen again in our day."

"Things are happening right in alignment with actual feasts," Wallnau added. "There's always a feast day manifestation because Israel and the return of Jesus is back on the menu."

---

42 min tossed out q sec twist arm, kingmaker

in god we trust req reading in LA schools

jefress:

horse on sword to execute--- judge of the world

trinity brdcast network

Why evangelicals influence US foreign policy in the Middle East | EP1 | Witness Documentary

phil king tx had tkt: called to arrenge interv, sec threw out this is tex we do not want anti anything anti israel 24 min i will report you to fbi; for what? --> 0

Phil King (Texas politician) - Wikipedia

How evangelicals influence US foreign policy in the Middle East | EP2 | Witness Documentary - YouTube

11 23 an

to many liberals and progressives — including those who identify as Catholics or Mainline Protestants — the religious right's views on Israel are a major contradiction.

Far-right white evangelicals consider themselves very pro-Israel and pro-Zionist, but they also believe that Jews will face eternal damnation unless they convert to evangelical fundamentalist Christianity before they die. The left often attacks Christian nationalists as antisemites, yet the evangelical far right believes that according to the New Testament's Book of Revelation, Israel will play a key role in Jesus Christ's return to the Earth.

Much has been written about House Speaker Mike Johnson's (R-Louisiana) far-right Christian nationalist views. But in an article published by The New Republic on November 8, journalist Audrey Clare Farley zeros in on a specific aspect of the new speaker's fundamentalism: the radical form of Zionism he embraces.

Johnson, Farley notes, shares the ideology of Christian nationalist Pastor John Hagee, who opposes a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians.

"Johnson and Hagee appear to be run-of-the-mill Christian Zionists, fueled by fantasies of a cataclysmic war in the Middle East that brings about the second coming of Christ, wherein all Muslims — and Jews, for that matter — either convert or face eternal damnation," Farley warns. "It would be easy to dismiss these evangelicals and their apocalyptic fervor, but that would be a mistake, as their conceptualizations of Judaism and Israel are shared by many who are not so overtly eschatological, nor even Christian."

Farley adds, "In recent days, narratives of Jewish and Israeli exceptionalism have proliferated, as conservatives frame Hamas' October 7 massacre as a blow, more fundamentally, to the West. These narratives go to show, rather paradoxically, the extent to which Jews remain an alien 'other' in the minds of those working so assiduously to retro-fit them into their story of 'Judeo-Christian' civilization.'"

The journalist points out that Hagee and other "Christian Zionists" are vehemently anti-Islam — a view that countless Jews reject.

READ MORE:Speaker nominee Mike Johnson is a 'virulent Christian nationalist' and anti-LGBTQ 'MAGA extremist': critics

"Many Jews, for their part, prefer to stand with the people in Palestine," Farley observes. "They realize that their struggles are interlocking, and that they can support safety and liberation for both."

READ MORE:'Yearns for theocracy': Mike Johnson once suggested 'religious litmus test' for politicians

{Audrey Clare Farley'sfull article for The New Republic is availableat this link.}:

---

Johnson’s 'symbol of Christian warfare' exposes his ties to aggressive Christian nationalism: report - Alternet.org

---

---

Michael Flynn is always in the news for the worst reasons.

Today, it’s because of the former Trump advisor’s feud with Lin Wood and the leaking of text messages and audio recording during which he calls QAnon “total nonsense” as well as a CIA psy-op. Last time, he was calling for a single religion in the United States. Time before that, QAnon members accused him of being a Satanist for a sermon at a church drawing from a former New Age apocalyptic leader.

Next time, it may be for something worse. In any case, everything Flynn has been doing suggests that QAnon or not, his audience, his rhetoric and his goals are far more concrete and far more sinister than the mocking media coverage suggests. Let’s start in September.

On September 17, Flynn was at the “Opening the Heavens” Conference at the Lord of Hosts Church in Omaha, Nebraska. That event claimed to be “an annual, multi-day event where the prophetic heart of God and the manifestation of His supernatural power are demonstrated to those in attendance and [those] viewing online around the world!”

READ: 'Intentional deception': Mark Meadows releases damning details about Trump ahead of hearing with Jan. 6 panel

Flynn spoke alongside a number of “prophetic” pastors, including Gene Bailey, executive director of Kenneth Copeland ministries, whose spiritual warfare preaching got the heavy-metal treatment last year.

Flynn’s speech made news due to QAnon’s reaction to it. It was said to be Satanic, ironic given QAnon’s resemblance to the Satanic Panic of the 1980s. Flynn’s speech resembled a 1984 sermon by Elizabeth Clare Prophet, founder of the Church Universal and Triumphant, a New Age apocalyptic group best known for their move to bunkers in Montana to await a prophesied nuclear apocalypse in 1990. Not only was it a failed doomsday cult, but it was a theosophic movement, something associated with Lucifer by its 18th-century founder.

Flynn said he felt called to St. Michael, the archangel and his namesake. While the link between Prophet and Flynn is interesting, the text of Flynn’s “Archangel Prayer” is all by itself not so great:

We are your instrument

Of those sevenfold rays

And all your archangels, all of them

We will not retreat, we will not retreat

We will stand our ground

We will not fear to speak

We will be the instrument of your will

Whatever it is

In your name, and in the names of your legions

We are freeborn, and shall remain freeborn

And we shall not be enslaved by any foe

Within or without

So help me God.

READ: The Supreme Court shows off its contempt for women

“Seven rays” is a concept used in theosophy and in the Summit Lighthouse. Prophet’s prayer to Archangel Michael, which people have compared Flynn’s sermon, is not only part of the theosophic movement, but an aggressively anti-Communist talk, ending:

Archangel Michael, Stand with me!

Save my child!

Save my household!

Save my nation and bind those Communist hordes!

Others can analyze the I AM movement and its issues, but the use of militant religious language and the comparison to an aggressively apocalyptic, anti-Communist doomsday cult is bad enough.

Then in early November, Flynn and Wood had a series of exchanges -- people have focused on the audio recording of Flynn calling QAnon a CIA disinfo operation — but more worrying was the fact that he told Wood, on November 3, to read an article proving QAnon is a fraud.

READ: Democrats will have a 'boatload of material' to use against 'unhinged, out-of-step' Republicans in 2022: conservative

Why more worrying? Because it was written by Hal Turner, a neo-Nazi radio host who’s promoted various QAnon conspiracies and served time for threatening elected officials -- he advocated murder repeatedly. The article is incredibly scary. It included this passage:

The Trump Anon believers want SOMEBODY ELSE to do it for them. Well, I’ve said this before and I will say it again now: Nobody is coming to save them/us. Nobody is coming to save the country. If you want something done, you gotta do it yourself. And until someone (but not me) decides that it is finally time to throw away all the comforts of this life, and brutally slaughter the people who are doing all these things, (and by “slaughter” I mean exactly that) then all these things will continue, unabated, to the destruction of our country and our oh-so-comfy lives.

This is standard Turner fare -- to preserve white nationalist power, people have to murder others, including elected officials -- but to have someone with Flynn’s background and his elite status within QAnon conspiracy and other movements promoting it is infinitely more terrifying than the entertainment value of seeing him bashing QAnon.

A week later Flynn and Wood were in Springfield, Missouri, at a “Preserving America” event billed as “Come and listen to America’s tier-1 patriot speakers and learn about preserving America under the Constitution.” Outside of the Springfield News-Leader, it garnered little press -- but one local sheriff attending claimed he had, “A great conversation with General Flynn. He wanted me to know the American Sheriff is the last line of defense for our freedom. I agree!”

READ: The real history of US anti-abortion politics began in 1662 — and is bound to the legacy of slavery

Flynn has spoken with Richard Mack for the “Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association” podcast, an anti-government extremist group that works to recruit sheriffs into the “patriot” militia movement. The comment should be taken in that light.

Then there is Flynn’s ongoing “Reawaken America” tour, the most recent news items before the Wood blowup. On November 13, the tour was at the Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, John Hagee’s church.

Hagee is an apocalypse minded Christian Zionist and his son and executive pastor of the church, Matt, was on stage for the event. The “Reawaken America Tour,” a QAnon speaking tour, has numerous pastors presenting -– Dave Scarlett, Mark Burns, Phil Hotsenpiller, Leon Benjamin, Greg Locke, Jackson Lahmeyer, Brian Gibson among them. All have pushed the Big Lie and Christian Nationalism.

On stage, Flynn said, “if we are going to have one nation under God, which we must, we have to have one religion. One nation under God, and one religion under God.” The clip got widespread media play, but it is much more important in that broader context. “Reawaken America” has events in Dallas in December at Elevate Life Church in Frisco, where Pastor Keith Craft runs men-only “Warrior Nights,” dresses in militant garb, and mocks mask-wearing and the government.

READ: MSNBC host details 'weird baroque tradition' that allowed Trump-picked justices to lie 'under oath' on womens’ rights

In January, they’ll be at Dream City Church in Phoenix, which had hosted a Trump rally in 2020 and had been sent a cease-and-desist about promoting a fraudulent air filter system that June.

In February, they’ll be at Trinity Gospel Temple in Canton, Ohio, where Pastor Dave Lombardi tweeted out on November 3: “‘King Cyrus’ will prevail! Christian principles will prevail!,” and “the ‘Walls of Jericho’ will fall tonight! The Gospel message will prevail! The March continues!”

Both ideas have violent overtones — the fall of the walls of Jericho is followed by the massacre of all inhabitants. “King Cyrus,” a reference here to Donald Trump, destroyed the empire of the Babylonians.

These events are linking congregations nationwide in a specific project -- to build an ultranationalist Christian right to control of America.

READ: The meaning of white supremacy since the rise of Donald Trump

Flynn’s fall events show it is not as simple as whether or not he’s a grifter who pretends to believe in QAnon. He is. He’s a fraud. He’s corrupt. And we already knew this. But he’s also a corrupt fanatic, who believes in overthrowing the government and imposing a theocracy. He certainly seems comfortable reading and promoting neo-Nazi articles advocating the literal slaughter of enemies while doing so.

Stop laughing at Michael Flynn.

He’s dangerous.

Driving him out of QAnon is great, but the other groups he’s engaged with, the other ideologies he’s a part of, are no laughing matter.

---

jerusalem embassy ceremony; before said catholics helped hitler exterminate jews

---

==

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/01/evangelicals-are-anticipating-the-end-of-the-world-and-trump-is-listening/

no lnx

Evangelicals Love Donald Trump for Many Reasons, But One of Them Is Especially Terrifying

End Times.

Stephanie Mencimer January 23, 2020

Mother Jones

The enemies of Israel have unleashed a massive air attack on the Promised Land. Hundreds of fighter jets streak across the sky. But before Israel can be destroyed, fire rains from the heavens and the enemy jets explode in mid-air with no explanation. Hailstones the size of golf balls follow the fire. The ground shakes. Birds pick clean the bodies of the fallen attackers. The enemy is vanquished without a single Israeli casualty, and the country is saved.

These are some of the opening scenes of the bestselling 1995 book Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth’s Last Days, by Jerry B. Jenkins and the late evangelical minister Tim LaHaye. But don’t mistake this scenario for a mere action sequence: It’s based on the war of Gog and Magog, a biblical conflict prophesied in the Book of Ezekiel. In the Bible, Gog is the leader of Magog, a “place in the far north” that many evangelicals believe is Russia. According to Ezekiel’s prophecy, Gog will join with Persia—now Iran—and other Arab nations to attack a peaceful Israel “like a cloud that covers the land.” LaHaye, like many evangelicals, believed this battle would bring on the Rapture, the End Times event when God spirits away the good Christians to heaven before unleashing plagues, sickness, and other horrors on the unbelievers remaining on Earth. Meanwhile, the Antichrist reigns supreme.

The story of Gog and Magog is central to the bloody eschatology long embraced by millions of American evangelicals. In recent years, End Times has gained special political currency as believers have seen any number of Middle East conflagrations as fulfilling Ezekiel’s prophecy, notably the US invasion of Iraq and the war in Syria. Gog and Magog took on fresh relevance earlier this month, when the Trump administration assassinated Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s elite Quds Force.

On many levels, President Donald Trump’s self-created crisis in Iran seems to have no relationship to any sort of coherent foreign policy or geopolitical plan for the future. The assassination has yielded few if any tangible rewards for the US. But there is an eager constituency for Trump’s improvised policy toward the Middle East and Iran in particular: the evangelical Christians who see it as a means of ushering in the return of Christ. Lured by the promise of conservative Supreme Court justices, anti-abortion measures, and a commitment to Christian supremacy under the guise of religious freedom, white evangelicals voted for Trump in higher numbers than any other group—more than 80 percent.

He desperately needs them if he’s going to be reelected. And while some have expressed concern about the administration’s inching toward war with Iran, many of those with what were once fringe beliefs have cheered the killing of Soleimani. “Iran has this big part to play in biblical history,” says religious historian Diana Butler Bass, who grew up in the evangelical church, attended an evangelical college and seminary, and wrote her Ph.D. thesis at Duke University on American fundamentalism. “There are these particular prophecies from Ezekiel, where there is talk of a war that will happen at a very important moment in Israel’s history. And that war is going to kick off the End Times. People in this prophetic community believe Iran is going to be one of these aggressors.”

“When Iran gets into the news, especially with anything to do with war, it’s sort of a prophetic dog whistle to evangelicals.”

Bass thinks this worldview may be central to understanding Trump’s foreign policy. “When Iran gets into the news, especially with anything to do with war, it’s sort of a prophetic dog whistle to evangelicals. They will support anything that seems to edge the world towards this conflagration,” she says. “They don’t necessarily want violence, but they’re eager for Christ to return and they think that this war with Iran and Israel has to happen for their larger hope to pass.”

Not all or even most evangelicals believe in the literal truth of these sorts of prophecies, though nearly 60 percent of white evangelicals, according to one 2010 poll, believe Jesus is definitely or probably going to return by the year 2050. But those who do subscribe to this apocalyptic world view seem to be overrepresented among Trump’s religious supporters and advisers. In October, a host of influential evangelical pastors came to the White House to pray with Trump to protect him from impeachment. Among those who laid hands on the president as he stood, head bowed, in the Oval Office, was repeat visitor Greg Laurie, pastor of a California megachurch. A few days after the killing of Soleimani, Laurie made a YouTube video with Don Stewart, author of 25 Signs We Are Near the End, to discuss Iran and the End Times. “The scenario that the Bible predicted, seemingly so impossible,” Stewart promised, “is now falling into place.”

From the outset, Trump has surrounded himself with people who hail from the fringes of the evangelical community that is steeped in the language of biblical prophecy, and his administration regularly reflects that language back to them in its messaging. In March 2017, for instance, Trump issued an official White House statement recognizing the Persian New Year in which he misattributed a quote to Cyrus the Great, the libertine pagan leader of the ancient Persian empire who was anointed by God to free Jews in Babylon. Ordinary Americans probably wouldn’t have even noticed the announcement, but evangelicals knew that Trump was speaking their language. Many of them believe Trump is like Cyrus, a flawed nonbeliever who nonetheless is chosen by God to work his miracles on Earth.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who was reportedly instrumental in pushing for the killing of Soleimani, is also a master of such messaging. In March, during an interview in Jerusalem with the Christian Broadcasting Network (founded by another apocalyptic preacher, Pat Robertson), Pompeo showed his familiarity with another Iran-centric Bible story popular with End Times evangelicals. In the story, a Persian king is urged to slaughter the Jews in his kingdom at the urging of the evil adviser Haman. But his Jewish Queen Esther convinces him not to and saves her people. Asked whether he thought Trump could be a modern-day Esther, saving the Jews from Iran, Pompeo replied, “As a Christian, I certainly believe that’s possible.” The secretary of state’s End Times beliefs made headlines again after the Soleimani killing, as meme-makers circulated a quote from a speech he made in a Kansas church in 2015. A few days after the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage, Pompeo said: “We will continue to fight these battles. It is a never-ending struggle. … until the Rapture.”

The State Department did not respond to questions about how Pompeo’s religious views may affect his foreign policy decisions. But it’s not hard to see how apocalyptic evangelicalism might be influencing the Trump administration as it seeks to mobilize the millions of evangelicals reached by televangelists and megachurch pastors preaching the End Times. The most blatant appeal to this constituency came when Trump made the controversial decision to move the American embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a long-desired goal of evangelicals who see it as fulfilling a biblical prophecy necessary in securing the Second Coming. What may be less obvious is how Trump’s disdain for international governing bodies like NATO also dovetails almost perfectly with End Times theology, whether he realizes it or not.

Matthew Avery Sutton, a Washington State University history professor and author of American Apocalypse: A History of Modern Evangelicalism, says evangelicals who believe the end is near have always been hostile to any sort of international organizations. That’s because they believe biblical prophecies that say that in the last days, a world leader who preaches peace will emerge and move toward a one-world government. In fact, the prophecy goes, that leader will be the Antichrist who will force the world to accept a false religion and persecute people who don’t accept him as a Messiah. (In Left Behind, the Antichrist is a Romanian UN secretary-general.) Evangelicals love Trump’s talk of pulling out of NATO, his attacks on the UN, and his trashing of the Paris climate change accord. “They hate the UN,” Sutton says. “Trump’s unilateralism is also music to their ears.”

Trump is not the first president to surround himself with evangelical Christians with an apocalyptic bent. Ronald Reaganwas advised by Billy Graham and Jerry Falwell, andpersonally believed in the End Times and the coming apocalypse, writing about it in his journals. He appointed people like Interior Secretary James Watt, a Pentecostal fundamentalist whose disdain for environmental conservation seemed to be informed by his belief that the end of the world was nigh. In an appearance before Congress, he told stunned lawmakers, “I do not know how many future generations we can count on before the Lord returns.”

Apparently George W. Bush was also part of this apocalypse-now group. When Bush was trying to convince French president Jacques Chirac to support an invasion of Iran in 2003, he reportedly told Chirac: “Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East. Biblical prophecies are being fulfilled.” Chirac had no idea what Bush was talking about and had to consult a biblical scholar.

George W. Bush: “Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East. Biblical prophecies are being fulfilled.”

Trump, who seems unable to distinguish between the New and Old Testaments, doesn’t seem particularly fluent in the prophecies of Ezekiel. But he has brought into the White House a host of people who are.Quite a few also hail from what Bass delicately describes as the “not respectable charlatan wing” of evangelical Christianity. They’re the prosperity preachers and prophets of the sort depicted by Sinclair Lewis in Elmer Gantry. “I have no doubt at all that those people are sitting right next to [Trump], giving him these Bible verses, telling him about these prophecies,” Bass says, “which means that they are kind of egging him on, [telling him] that he’s part of God’s prophetic fulfillment for these last days.”

Many of those who have become White House regulars are associated with something known as the New Apostolic Reformation, what Christianity Today describes as “a loosely connected group of Pentecostals and Charismatics.” They’re the ones who speak in tongues, scour the news for clues to biblical prophecies, engage in faith healing, and preach prosperity gospel—the notion that faith in God (or, usually, the preacher) will make people wealthy (or at least enrich the preacher). These apostles tend to embrace “dominionist” theology that implores Christians to take over of all levels of government, media, and education as a way of preparing for the End Times and return of Christ. Influential politicians like former Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), who has made several visits to the Trump White House, former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, and former Trump Energy Secretary Rick Perry fall into this camp.

Peter Montgomery, a senior fellow at the liberal nonprofit People for the American Way who has tracked the religious right for many years, says that the network of preachers who come from NAR and Pentecostal media operations “are telling people over and over again that Trump was ‘chosen,’ that God intervened in the election. Some of them say very explicitly that Trump is playing a role in God’s End Time plans to bring about the return of Christ.”

One of the most prominent representatives of the Left Behind wing of the evangelical movement is San Antonio televangelist John Hagee, who has been calling for a war with Iran for more than a 15 years. In 2005, Hagee wrote a best-selling book, Jerusalem Countdown, that claimed the Bible predicted a war with Iran. (In2011, it was turned into a movie of the same title, starring Bionic Man Lee Majors and Randy Travis.) Shortly after the book was published, Hagee created Christians United for Israel, a Christian Zionist organization that now claims to have 8 million members. It lobbies for support for Israeli settlements, military aid to Israel, and for the US to join with Israel to launch a preemptive strike on Iran.

He has said that gays caused Hurricane Katrina, referred to the Catholic Church as the “great whore,” called Hitler a “half-breed” Jew, and said that Hitler was part of God’s plan to get the Jews back to Israel.

:{

}:

Hagee, now 79, had once been popular with powerful Republicans during the George W. Bush administration, despite some of his more controversial statements. Among other things, he has said that gays caused Hurricane Katrina, referred to the Catholic Church as the “great whore,” called Hitler a “half-breed” Jew, and said that Hitler was part of God’s plan to get the Jews back to Israel. His star began to fall in 2008 after he endorsed Sen. John McCain for the GOP presidential nomination. McCain rejected his support, calling Hagee’s views “crazy and unacceptable.”

The election of Barack Obama consigned Hagee to his megachurch in San Antonio. But Trump has restored him to the corridors of power in Washington. Hagee endorsed Trump early in 2016. Once Trump was elected, Hagee met with the new president for two hours in 2017 to discuss moving the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Foreign policy experts feared the embassy relocation would destabilize the region and hamper peace talks, but Trump moved it anyway in May 2018. Israeli troops killed more than 50 people in the protests that followed.

Hagee attended the opening ceremony alongside notables such as Ivanka Trump and husband Jared Kushner, and he gave the closing benediction.“Let every Islamic terrorist hear this message: Israel lives,” he announced. “Let it echo down the marble halls of the presidential palace in Iran: Israel lives.” He later told the Texas Observer that he was looking forward to Trump confronting Iran, explaining, “The sum of Iran’s evil is greater than the whole of its parts.”

When Christians United for Israel held its annual DC confab and lobbying day last summer, Trump sent no fewer than five top administration officials to address attendees, including Pompeo and Vice President Mike Pence (both evangelicals themselves), then–national security adviser John Bolton, a special envoy to the Middle East, and the US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman. Pompeo opened the speech by telling the crowd of more than 5,000 people, “This is what it must have looked like to be part of the crowd for the fishes and the loaves. What a miracle that was.” Once more the story of Queen Esther came in handy, this time as Pompeo compared it to modern-day Iran.

:{

}:

Hagee is one of the most prominent of Trump’s evangelical supporters who see a war with Iran as a necessary step towards the End Times, but he’s far from the only one. The White House has hosted a steady stream of dominionists and NAR apostles since Trump took office, including Lance Wallnau, author of God’s Chaos President.An evangelical leader with a consulting business in Dallas, Wallnau has become famous as one of the few evangelicals who accurately prophesied Trump’s election after receiving divine inspiration to read chapter 45 of the Book of Isaiah. That’s the story of King Cyrus, whom Wallnau and many other evangelicals think Trump resembles.(For $45, Wallnau and ex-con televangelist Jim Bakker now sell a Trump/Cyrus coin that people can use to pray for Trump’s reelection.) Dr. Lance, as he’s known, has made several visits to the White House, including for a private briefing on Jared Kushner’s Middle East peace plan.

Facilitating many of these visits is Paula White-Cain, the controversial televangelist associated with the Trinity Broadcasting Network who became Trump’s spiritual adviser after he saw her preach on TV in the early aughts. White led a 20,000-strong megachurch in Tampa that was investigated by Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) in 2007 for lavish spending on private jets and big houses and possible violations of its tax-exempt status. His report did not find any wrongdoing—church leaders refused to cooperate with the investigation—but in 2012, White’s church declared bankruptcy. She went on to lead a mostly African American church in Florida where she remained until last spring, when her son took over the ministry.

Now on her third marriage, White has long been at odds with more elite, mainstream evangelicals because of her particular self-help brand of prosperity gospel. Southern Baptist leader Russell Moore called White a “charlatan” and “heretic.” Nonetheless, in late October, Trump installed her in an official post at the White House office of public liaison to do outreach to evangelicals, formalizing access for some of the more extreme members of that group. She has referred to Trump as a modern-day Esther and called his enemies “demonic.”

Bass says that evangelical elites of the sort who associated with President George W. Bush have long looked down their noses at populist preachers like White and her crowd, but Trump has elevated them to positions of power. It’s a win-win situation. The evangelicals are at last in the influential positions those who disparaged them once held. And Trump’s narcissism is receiving special nourishment by their insistence that he was chosen by God. “I think that Trump likes it when people think he’s close to God—he called himself the ‘chosen one’—and to think that all of this has some sort of divine backing,” Bass says. “I don’t think there’s ever been a president who was quite influenced by this stream of evangelicalism as Trump has been.”

:{

}:

Naturally, there are political benefits to all of this. The administration has struggled to provide evidence of any imminent threats from Soleimani, but the timing for the assassination was certainly fortuitous for someone looking to mobilize evangelicals. Not only was Trump embroiled in impeachment hearings, he was still chaffing from a recent editorial in the evangelical publication Christianity Today, founded by Billy Graham, calling for him to be removed from office on moral grounds. Trump announced the killing of Soleimani just hours before appearing at the launch of his campaign’s Evangelicals for Trump coalition in Miami.

That event took place at a Pentacostal Latino church headed by Guillermo Maldonado, who speaks in tongues and hosts a TV show called “The Supernatural Now.” He’s the founder of the King Jesus International Ministry, a Miami megachurch with upwards of 20,000 members and a large TV and radio presence. Maldonado is also another regular White House visitor who has preached that Trump has a role in God’s plans for the End Times. At the 2019 Global Prophetic Summit, he claimed that God told him, “America, I have prepared this time, I have raised somebody in office to open the doors for my gospels.”

André Gagné, a theology professor at Concordia University in Montreal, says the apocalyptic worldview is concerning at such high levels of power, because believers may be rather sanguine about the possibility that assassinating an Iranian general might spur an even bigger war or nuclear confrontation in the Middle East. “If it brings the end of the world, it brings the end of the world,” Gagné says. “They’re ready. They can’t wait for the Rapture to happen. For them it’s the ultimate reunion with God.”

cnn

Monday's ceremony marking the relocation of the US Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem broke with tradition in more ways than one.

Besides the political concerns over the move itself, a pair of Christian evangelical leaders were on hand whose words have caused their own share of controversy.

Pastor John Hagee, the founder of Christians United for Israel, delivered the benediction at the ceremony.

"We thank you, O Lord, for President Donald Trump's courage in acknowledging to the world a truth that was established 3,000 years ago -- that Jerusalem is and always shall be the eternal capital of the Jewish people," Hagee said.

"And because of that courage of our President, we gather here today to consecrate the ground upon which the United States Embassy will stand reminding the dictators of the world that America and Israel are forever united," he added.

A major proponent of the embassy move, Hagee said in a recent interview with conservative news site Breitbart that he told Trump he would win "political immortality" for moving the embassy from Tel Aviv.

"I told him that the moment that you do that, I believe that you will step into political immortality," the news site quoted Hagee as saying. "Because you are having the courage to do what other presidents did not have the courage to do."

Meanwhile, another controversial evangelical pastor, Robert Jeffress, said a prayer at the embassy opening.

"We come before you, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, thanking you for bringing us to this momentous occasion in the life of your people and in the history of our world," Jeffress said on Monday.

Jeffress went on to praise the leadership of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman and Trump.

"We want to thank you for the tremendous leadership of our great president, Donald J. Trump. Without President Trump's determination, resolve and courage we would not be here today," he said.

"And I believe I speak for everyone of us when I say I thank you every day that you have given us a President who boldly stands on the right side of history but more importantly stands on the right side of you, O God, when it comes to Israel," Jeffress added.

Jeffress, a Southern Baptist, vigorously supported Trump during the final months of the 2016 presidential campaign and was a member of his evangelical advisory board. He even preached at a private servicefor the President-elect and his family on Inauguration Day in 2017, shortly before Trump took the oath of office.

Despite Jeffress' history of making contentious comments about various faith groups, the White House defended the decision to have him speak at the embassy opening, saying he has long-standing ties to US political figures.

"I think Pastor Jeffress has had a strong relationship with many people in the faith community," deputy press secretary Raj Shah said during Monday's White House briefing.

"He has a long-standing involvement with public officials," he said.

Shah also said he was not sure who had selected Jeffress to speak.

The embassy's relocation formally breaks from decades of established American policy and international practice in a move US officials say will create greater regional stability. Critics, however, say the decision to recognize Jerusalem as the Israeli capital could make a region already struggling with four ongoing conflicts all the more combustible. And they argue it marks the end of the US role as an "honest broker" in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

The move of the embassy to the city is contentious for Palestinians, who hope to claim part of the city as their future capital, and for many in the Arab world, as it is home to some of the holiest sites in Islam, as well as those of Judaism and Christianity.

Hagee's comments resurface during 2008 presidential campaign

Hagee's positive comments about Trump's decision echo those of other evangelical Christians, who hailed his announcementin December that the United States would now recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital. It was a promise Trump repeatedly made to his conservative Christian base. About 80% of white evangelicals (usually among the strongest American supporters of Israel), voted for Trump in 2016, according to exit polls.

Hagee, whose group is dedicated to organizing pro-Israel Christians in the United States into a unified voice, has had relationships with Israeli prime ministers dating back years. But he came under the national political spotlight in 2008 for comments that prompted then-Republican presidential candidate John McCain to reject his endorsement.

During the campaign, audio from one of Hagee's sermons in the 1990s was leaked that seemed to suggest that Adolf Hitler had been fulfilling God's will by aiding the desire of Jews to return to Israel in accordance with biblical prophecy.

"God says in Jeremiah 16: 'Behold, I will bring them the Jewish people again unto their land that I gave to their fathers. ... Behold, I will send for many fishers, and after will I send for many hunters,'" Hagee said, according to a transcript of his sermon. "'And they the hunters shall hunt them.' That would be the Jews. ... Then God sent a hunter. A hunter is someone who comes with a gun and he forces you. Hitler was a hunter."

In a statement at the time, McCain said, "Obviously, I find these remarks and others deeply offensive and indefensible, and I repudiate them. I did not know of them before Rev. Hagee's endorsement, and I feel I must reject his endorsement as well."

Shortly after McCain's announcement, Hagee withdrew his endorsement, citing critics who had been "grossly misrepresenting" his positions.

"I am tired of these baseless attacks and fear that they have become a distraction in what should be a national debate about important issues," he said in a statement. "I have therefore decided to withdraw my endorsement of Sen. McCain for president effective today, and to remove myself from any active role in the 2008 campaign."

Hagee also has said that "to assert that I in any way condone the Holocaust or that monster Adolf Hitler is the biggest and ugliest of lies. I have always condemned the horrors of the Holocaust in the strongest of terms."

A spokesman for Hagee's group, Ari Morgenstern, told CNN that the pastor gave the sermon based on the writings of a Jewish theologian, Rabbi Yissachar Shlomo Teichtal. Teichtal, who was imprisoned by the Nazis, wrote that the afflictions that were befalling the Jewish population of Europe during World War II were meant to spur a return by Jews to the Holy Land.

Jeffress' comments on Mormonism and Islam

Some might remember Jeffress for his frequent condemnations of Mormonism as a "cult" during the 2012 presidential campaign and his urging of Christians not to vote for Mitt Romney, a Mormon, during the Republican primary.

But Jeffress has also called Islam and Mormonism heresies "from the pit of hell," suggested that the Catholic Church was led astray by Satan, accused then-President Barack Obama of "paving the way" for the Antichrist and spread false statistics about the prevalence of HIV among gays, who he said live a "miserable" and "filthy" lifestyle.

In recent years, Jeffress has frequently denounced Islam, calling it an "evil religion" that "promotes pedophilia" because the Prophet Mohammed married a 9-year-old girl. (Many modern Muslim scholars disagree about her age.) The pastor has also said that Mormons, Muslims and Hindus "worship a false god."

Late Sunday evening, Romney tweeted that Jeffress is "a bigot" and shouldn't "be giving the prayer that opens up" the embassy.

[twt]:{

}:j:{

}:effress spoke with Fox News Radio about his participation in the embassy opening.

"In that prayer, I'm going to be recounting God's history of faithfulness to his people, the Israelites," he said. "I'm going to be thanking God for the strong leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu, who is absolutely determined to protect Israel. And I'm also going to be thanking God for our President Donald Trump, who had the courage to do what no other US President has done, and that is to officially recognize Jerusalem and to move the embassy. This is another example of promise made, promise kept."

CNN's Zachary Cohen, Nicole Gaouette and Elise Labott contributed to this report.

==

OMFG

https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/trump-assassinated-soleimani-to-gain-favor-with-key-gop-senators-vital-to-supporting-him-during-impeachment-trial-wsj/

no lnx

Trump assassinated Soleimani to gain favor with key GOP senators vital to supporting him during impeachment trial: WSJ

Written by David Badash / The New Civil Rights Movement January 10, 2020

It has long been said that President Trump only acts in his own self-interest, not the nation’s. And while in recent days President Trump has described the Iranian general he assassinated, Qasem Soleimani, as a “sadistic mass murderer,” and lambasted his predecessors for not having killed him earlier, the truth is few Americans had ever heard of Soleimani before his death, and not once had Trump, at least publicly, ever mentioned his name.

So why was he assassinated, and why now?

The administration and President Trump on and off have claimed there was an “imminent threat” of an attack against the U.S. personnel or U.S. Armed Forces. Vice President Mike Pence on Thursday insisted any evidence to support that claim is far too sensitive to share, even with top members of Congress, sworn to secrecy, in a classified briefing.

Numerous reports put Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, an end-times Christian extremist who believes the Middle East is a hotbed of Biblical proportions, as the driving force behind the killing of Soleimani.

“We will continue to fight these battles,” Pompeo said in 2015, insisting there is a “never-ending struggle” until “the rapture.”

But like all things Trump, it boils down to self-protection and self-interest.

The Wall Street Journal published a deep dive Thursday night, headlined, “Trump’s New National Security Team Made Fast Work of Iran Strike.”

And buried in the center of the article, dozens of paragraphs in, is the devastating revelation that President Trump ordered the assassination of a top Iranian general to gain favor with key Republicans whose support is vital to winning his impeachment trial:

Mr. Trump, after the strike, told associates he was under pressure to deal with Gen. Soleimani from GOP senators he views as important supporters in his coming impeachment trial in the Senate, associates said.

Some have just started to weigh in on the grotesque news.

Michelangelo Signorile

@MSignorile

Let’s be clear re: this WSJ story:

Trump assassinated Soleimani based on no imminent threat to please GOP Senators who were pressuring him & who he needed re: impeachment.

Terribly corrupt and, well, impeachable. https://twitter.com/JoeSudbay/status/1215636962079657984 …

Joe Sudbay

@JoeSudbay

So, yeah, it was about impeachment --> "Trump, after the strike, told associates he was under pressure to deal with Gen. Soleimani from GOP senators he views as important supporters in his coming impeachment trial in the Senate, associates said" https://www.wsj.com/articles/trumps-new-national-security-team-made-fast-work-of-iran-strike-11578619195 … via @WSJ

Dennis Mersereau

?

@wxdam

It takes until the 29th paragraph in this story to mention that Trump told people his looming impeachment trial was a factor in his greenlighting the strike against Soleimani.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trumps-new-national-security-team-made-fast-work-of-iran-strike-11578619195 …

Trump’s New National Security Team Made Fast Work of Iran Strike

White House advisers were cohesive and less inclined than their predecessors to push back against the president’s wishes. They also were less likely to consult in advance with others, including...

wsj.com

ets

Eric Columbus

?

@EricColumbus

And there it is. https://www.wsj.com/articles/trumps-new-national-security-team-made-fast-work-of-iran-strike-11578619195 …

PPP

ref

https://washingtonmonthly.com/2020/01/07/pompeo-aligns-u-s-foreign-policy-with-the-christian-zionists/

According to the Washington Post, it was Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who talked Trump into the assassination of Qasem Soleimani, with an assist from Vice President Mike Pence. They report that Pompeo first proposed the idea months ago, which is at odds with the administration’s claim that the strike was based on intelligence about an “imminent threat.”

While the authors of that piece chronicle the fact that the secretary of state has been obsessed with Iran throughout his career in Congress, the CIA, and now at the State Department, they failed to address the question of what motivates his interest.

As Kathryn Joyce pointed out last March, “even amid an administration stacked with evangelical staffers and advisors, Pompeo stands out.” At about that time, the secretary of state was in Jerusalem and sat down for an interview with reporters from the Christian Broadcast Network.

Chris Mitchell asked Pompeo, “could it be that President Trump right now has been sort of raised for such a time as this, just like Queen Esther, to help save the Jewish people from the Iranian menace?”…

“As a Christian, I certainly believe that’s possible,” Pompeo said.

On that occasion, Pompeo was reacting to a question from a reporter. But a few months later, he gave a speech titled “The U.S. and Israel: a Friendship for Freedom.” He used the occasion to bring up the Biblical story of Esther himself.

A lot of people get spun up with the wrong ideas that American evangelicals want to impose a theocracy on America.  I wish they would be concerned about the real theocratic takeover that has been happening in Iran for the last four decades.  The ayatollahs have grievously deprived the Iranian people of that most basic, simple, fundamental right, their right to worship.

That same twisted, intolerant doctrine that fuels persecution inside Iran has also led the ayatollah and his cronies to cry out, quote, “death to Israel” for four decades now.  This is similar to a cry that came out of Iran—then called Persia—many, many years ago.

It was in the 5th century B.C.  There was a wicked advisor named King Xerxes.  A fellow named Haman hatched a plot to kill all the Jews in the Persian Empire.  He secretly wrote letters with the king’s seal to all the provincial governors, ordering the people to rise up and attack the Jews.  This edict, once issued, could not be revoked.  But thanks to the courageous intervention of Queen Esther, who begged the king to show mercy to her people, Haman’s plot was exposed and the Jews were ultimately spared.

I wanted to tell this story today for a couple of reasons, because similar threats to the Jewish people have marked other eras as well… Thank God we have a leader in President Trump—an immovable friend of Israel.

Pompeo went on to articulate the Trump administration’s pressure campaign on Iran as a demonstration of its support for Israel.

The secretary gave that speech to a group known as Christians United for Israel (CUFI) that was the brainchild of John Hagee. Here is what Sarah Posner wrote about him back in 2006:

Hagee, who serves as head pastor of the 18,000-member Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas, hosts his own television program that is seen twice a day on TBN. He argues that the United States must join Israel in a pre-emptive military strike against Iran to fulfill God’s plan for both Israel and the West… With CUFI, which Hagee has said will cause a “political earthquake,” the televangelist aims to put the political organizing muscle of the conservative evangelical movement behind his grand plan for a biblically prophesied end-time confrontation with Iran, which will lead to the Rapture, Tribulation, and Second Coming of Christ.

Vice President Mike Pence addressed the same group in 2017.

One of the things Hagee is known for is the elaborate charts he has created to predict the rapture and events leading up to the end times. He also has a history of making bigoted statements about Catholics, Jews, and Muslims. John McCain was forced to distance himself from the pastor after he received an endorsement for his presidential campaign in 2008. Clearly, neither Pompeo nor Pence share those concerns about Hagee and his organization.

What we are witnessing is a secretary of state who is conducting U.S. foreign policy in alignment with Christian Zionism, with the support of the vice president. While neoconservatives like John Bolton have their own twisted logic for wanting regime change in Iran, it is the belief that events in the Middle East align with Biblical prophecy about the end times that motivates Christian Zionists like Pompeo, Pence, and Hagee.

As I noted when the same crowd celebrated Trump’s decision to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, rising tensions in the Middle East are a feature, not a bug, for these folks. That’s because all of this was prophesied thousands of years ago as a prelude to the rapture. In other words, they welcome the escalation.

==

rww

Right-wing political operative Newt Gingrich is warning that the 2018 election results are proof that “the Left is waging—and winning—a linguistic war.” In a commentary first published at Fox and distributed via email over the weekend by Gingrich Productions, Gingrich wrote that “the linguistic war of condemnation, hatred, and intimidation being waged every day by the Left”is just part of what he claims as the problem.

“The efforts to steal the governorships of Georgia and Florida and the Senate seat in Florida are only the tip of the iceberg of illegality and hostility that the Left now practices routinely.”

Gingrich’s amped-up rhetoric about the “illegality” and “hostility” of “the Left” is evidence of his own long expertise in waging linguistic warfare. As People For the American Way President Michael Keegan wrote back in 2011 when Gingrich decided to run for president, “Gingrich is an enthusiastic participant in the right wing’s divisive and destructive McCarthyism, portraying his political opponents as enemies of America’s very existence.”

Indeed, before Gingrich was forced out of his position of speaker of the House, before he had repositioned himself as an advocate for “Rediscovering God in America,” and long before his former mistress and current wife was serving as Trump’s ambassador to the Vatican, Gingrich was responsible for bringing an especially toxic approach to partisan politics.  More specifically, as RWW noted in 2012:

His entire political careerhas been based on destructive, vicious, negative attacks on his opponents. In the 1990s, his GOPAC produced “Language: A Key Mechanism of Control,”an infamous list of words that Gingrich said Republicans should use to smear and denigrate their opponents. Among the suggested words was “destructive,” along with “traitors,” “sick,” and “betray.”  Gingrich perfected the kind of hyper-partisan politics of destruction that are currently making it harder to run the country, and harder to attract decent people to run for office. Obviously, decency hasn’t been a barrier for Newt’s own ambitions.

Gingrich’s recent piece aggressively promotes far-right smears against activists who challenge racism and white nationalism. “The Left claims and occupies more and more linguistic ground with each new fight,” he wrote:

Defense of the Founding Fathers becomes defense of white, racist, slaveowners.

Defense of American identity becomes an act of white male domination. …

Wanting to obey the law in counting votes becomes an effort to suppress votes and disenfranchise poor people, minorities, and immigrants.

And then things get really Orwellian—or perhaps Trumpian—with Gingrich attributing to Democrats and “liberal media” exactly the kind of behavior that right-wing activists and media are engaged in:

Every day, we are watching Democrats break and stretch the law for the sole purpose of winning, while they attack Republicans for wanting an honest count of legal voters.

Democrats and their liberal media allies know that if they repeat something often enough it begins to be accepted as truth.

However, the Left’s interest in winning the language war is only the first step toward legitimizing real threats and mob behavior.

Once they win the language fight, they can claim moral superiority. Once they have gained moral dominance, they can do anything to their opponents because they will be presumed right, and their opponents will be presumed wrong.

Gingrich doesn’t spell out the solution, but seems to be teeing things up for conservatives to turn to him for the answer: “Developing the conservative solution to the left’s linguistic war is a major step toward winning elections in 2020 – and preserving our society.”

And who better to turn to than Gingrich, Inc., right? While Gingrich has spent much of the past decade allied with dominionists and Christian-nation activists to promote his “Rediscovering God in America” books and video brand—and turning to them to promote his failed 2012 presidential bid—he has also never given up his core competence as a political smear artist.For example, at the Heritage Foundation in December 2016, Gingrich said the right should stop using the term “news media” and replace it “the propaganda media.” Before he rose to the speakership in 1996, he made a name for himself for calling Democrats “pro-communist” in late-night soliloquies he delivered from the House floor to an empty chamber, as he leveraged the new C-SPAN cable channel.

President Trump, of course, has been an ardent deployer of the “language as a weapon of control” strategy. Gingrich has praised Trump, saying that the president has “brought out into the open how truly anti-American much of the left is and how much it stands for a set of values that all of us, if you looked at it carefully, would find horrifying.”

And Gingrich has joined Trump’s efforts to discredit both the investigation of his 2016 campaign and his Democratic opponents.“Democratic dishonesty is a lot greater threat to freedom than some unproven Russian conspiracy,” Gingrich said earlier this month, adding, for good measure, “Democrats will end up stealing a lot more votes than Putin ever dreamed of taking.”

During the 2016 campaign,Gingrich warned against “those who would impose a totalitarian secularism on us.” That was a recycled version of comments he made in 2011 atJohn Hagee’sCornerstone Church, where he memorably said he was “convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time [my grandchildren are] my age they will be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists and with no understanding of what it once meant to be an American.”

Tags: Newt GingrichChurch-StateElection 2018Election 2020Republican Party

==

Matthew Hagee, the son of pastor John Hagee, he of the multi-million dollar San Antonio, Texas-based media ministry, warned on “Hagee’s Hotline” that, "The only relationship in natural law that can produce consumers is the relationship between a man and a woman. When you create a society that does not recognize this relationship as the foundation of its existence and you cease to produce what is required to sustain your economy, you will not survive."

 ===

DeLay is also a self-declared member of the Christian Zionists, an End-Time faction numbering 20 million Americans. Christian Zionists believe that the 1948 creation of the state of Israel marked the first event in what author Hal Lindsey calls the "countdown to Armageddon" and they are committed to making that doomsday clock tick faster, speeding Christ's return.

In 2002, DeLay visited pastor John Hagee's Cornerstone Church. Hagee preached a fiery message as simple as it was horrifying:"The war between America and Iraq is the gateway to the Apocalypse!"he said, urging his followers to support the war, perhaps in order to bring about the Second Coming. After Hagee finished, DeLay rose to second the motion. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "what has been spoken here tonight is the truth from God."

John Hagee

While Senator John McCain rejected John Hagee’s endorsement during the 2008 presidential campaign for his “deeply offensive and indefensible” remarks, Perry invited Hagee to join The Response. Hagee leads a megachurch in San Antonio, Texas, and is a purveyor of End Times prophesies. Like members of the International House of Prayer, Hagee utilizes language of spiritual warfare and says he is part of “the army of the living God.” He runs the prominent group Christians United For Israel, which believes that eventually a cataclysmic war in the Middle East will bring about the Rapture.

John McCain was forced to disavow Hagee for a reason as the Texas pastor:

John Hagee is a the founder and senior pastor of the Cornestone Chruch in San Antonio, Texas. He is a televangelist who has alluded to the Catholic Church as "the great whore" and linked it to Hitler.

"Most readers will be shocked by the clear record of history linking Adolf Hitler and the Roman Catholic Church in a conspiracy to exterminate the Jews" - from Jerusalem Countdown (revised edition, 2007), p. 114. [2].

Republican Presidential candidate **John McCain** sought and received the endorsement of John Hagee on Febuary 27, 2008 for his run for President.[1] [2]

Hagee is known for his strong anti-Catholic and anti-homosexual views. [3]

In a September 18, 2006, interview on National Public Radio's show "Fresh Air," host Terry Gross said to Hagee, "You said after Hurricane Katrina that it was an act of God, and you said 'when you violate God's will long enough, the judgment of God comes to you. Katrina is an act of God for a society that is becoming Sodom and Gomorrah reborn.' " She then asked him whether he still thought that Katrina was punishment from God for a "society that is becoming like Sodom and Gomorrah." Hagee answered by saying: [4]

All hurricanes are acts of God, because God controls the heavens. I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they are -- were recipients of the judgment of God for that. The newspaper carried the story in our local area that was not carried nationally that there was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that the Katrina came. And the promise of that parade was that it was going to reach a level of sexuality never demonstrated before in any of the other Gay Pride parades. So I believe that the judgment of God is a very real thing. I know that there are people who demur from that, but I believe that the Bible teaches that when you violate the law of God, that God brings punishment sometimes before the day of judgment. And I believe that the Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans.

In the same program, Gross asked Hagee if he believed that "all Muslims have a mandate to kill Christians and Jews." Hagee replied: "Well, the Quran teaches that. Yes, it teaches that very clearly." [4]

Contents [hide]

Public relations help

In April 2008, the firm 5W Public Relations announced that it was representing Hagee. The firm released a statement from Hagee, in which he denied calling the Catholic Church the "great whore": [5]

In my writings, I have never stated that the great whore is the Catholic Church. Quite to the contrary, the Book Revelation teaches clearly that the great whore will be an apostate church made up of all Christians from all denominations that stray from the path of God and embrace a godless lifestyle including the sin of anti-Semitism.The truth is, I am not now nor have I ever been anti-Catholic.... I have great love and respect for the Catholic people and Catholic Church, and hope this statement sets the record straight [3].

After much controversy on the subject, on May 12, 2008, Hagee issued an apology to the Catholic Church "expressing regret for 'any comments that Catholics have found hurtful'" [4].

Beating the drums for war

John Hagee is founder and chairman of Christians United for Israel or CUFI [5], "a lobbying organization intended, he says, to be a Christian version of the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee. With CUFI, which Hagee has said will cause a 'political earthquake,' the televangelist aims to put the political organizing muscle of the conservative evangelical movement behind his grand plan for a biblically prophesied end-time confrontation with Iran, which will lead to the Rapture, Tribulation, and Second Coming of Christ.... Hagee has dismissed pussyfooting diplomacy and primed his followers for a conflagration" [6]. "Their goals span beyond supporting Israel, but also implementing a one-sided and radical approach to the Arab-Israeli problems in the Middle East. There is no nuance to their policy prescriptions and ironically (or perhaps not so ironically) the agenda of Hagee and his group would actually make matters much worse in the Middle East" [7].

Hagee once said that "the United States must join Israel in a pre-emptive military strike against Iran to fulfill God's plan for both Israel and the West... a biblically prophesied end-time confrontation with Iran, which will lead to the Rapture, Tribulation, and Second Coming of Christ" [8]. [9]. It's this skewed support of only one side in the Middle East conflict, for purely religious reasons, and which is connected to a strange attraction, even eager anticipation for an all-out apocalypse (Armageddon) that many see as ominous [10]. See also the book HOLY WAR: The Rise of Militant Christian, Jewish and Islamic Fundamentalism.

The McCain connection

According to Hagee, John McCain actively sought and won his endorsement for President of the United States, "It’s true that McCain’s campaign sought my endorsement" [11].

"This morning I had an extended breakfast with Senator John McCain of Arizona. Our topic of discussion was Israel and his candidacy for the Presidency of the United States of America. Senator McCain's comments concerning Israel are on target! He gets it! While I do not want to put the specifics of our conversation in this update I am glad to report to our leadership and supporters that John McCain is solidly pro-Israel" [12].

"All I can tell you is that I am very proud to have Pastor John Hagee's support" stated McCain in response to the endorsement. [13]

"John McCain has aligned himself with one of America's purest -- and most powerful -- haters, and that ought to be the story here" [14]. This link is especially serious, many assert. Does Hagee's theology influence McCain's stated desire to "stay the course" in the Middle East?

Some have openly questioned the double-standard of criticism of Barack Obama's ties to his minister Jeremiah Wright on the one hand while lacking of the same outrage with regard to McCain's stated embrace of Hagee on the other[15].

UPDATE: On May 22, 2008 McCain finally rejected Hagee's endorsement after more controversial remarks began to circulate on the Internet. The particular remarks were to the effect that Hitler was a tool God used so as to lead to the establishment of the state of Israel. About them McCain said "Obviously, I find these remarks and others deeply offensive and indefensible, and I repudiate them" and "I just think that the statement is crazy and unacceptable". "I did not know of them before Reverend Hagee's endorsement, and I feel I must reject his endorsement as well".

In taking a swipe at Obama McCain also said "I have said I do not believe Senator Obama shares Reverend Wright's extreme views. But let me also be clear, Reverend Hagee was not and is not my pastor or spiritual advisor, and I did not attend his church for twenty years. I have denounced statements he made immediately upon learning of them, as I do again today". This latter statement is curious since McCain has obviously known of Hagee's extremism at least since the endorsement, and rather than the unequivocal denouncement he implies, McCain continued to accept Hagee's endorsement for months after many offended groups had been urging him to renounce it. "Initially, after learning about Hagee's comments, McCain said that just because he accepts -- or seeks -- someone's endorsement does not mean he endorses that person's views. McCain later said that he repudiated Hagee's views, but continued to say that he accepted and was proud of the endorsement" [16] "I’m glad to have his endorsement. I condemn remarks that are any way viewed as anti-anything. And thanks for asking"[17].

However, Orthodox Jews have come to defend Hagee's words. Jewish allies of the Rev. John Hagee rushed to his defense yesterday to say the Texas evangelist is not anti-Semitic despite Sen. John McCain campaign's repudiation Thursday of the evangelist's endorsement.

"John Hagee is one of the Jewish people's best friends," Los Angeles talk show host Dennis Prager said on the air yesterday morning. "Identifying John Hagee with anti-Semitism would be like identifying Raoul Wallenberg, the great Swede who saved thousands of Jews in the Holocaust, with anti-Semitism."

Orthodox Rabbi Aryeh Scheinberg, of Congregation Rodfei Sholom in San Antonio, appeared at an afternoon press conference yesterday to say Mr. Hagee's "words were twisted and used to attack him for being anti-Semitic."

In actuality, Mr. Hagee "interpreted a biblical verse in a way not very different from several legitimate Jewish authorities," the rabbi said. [6]

On the other hand, J Street, "the political arm of the pro-Israel, pro-peace movement", has taken an opposite position and is asking Lieberman to withdraw his support for Hagee [18].

Notable quotes

"Pastor Hagee in the words that the Torah uses to describe Moses, he is an 'Ish Elokim,' a man of God and those words really do fit him; and, I'd add something else, like Moses he's become the leader of a mighty multitude, even greater than the multitude that Moses led from Egypt to the promised land". - Joesph Lieberman comparing Hagee to Moses.

"And we support Senator Joseph Lieberman, that it's time for our country to consider a military preemptive strike against Iran if they will not yield to diplomacy"[19] - John Hagee.

"Hagee has a long history making strange predictions about world events that are almost always wrong. His books in the late 90’s trumped up Y2K hysteria to ridiculous levels. He inaccurately predicted that the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin was the "Beginning of the End" in the book of the same name. In every book he writes, he is constantly warning of catastrophe in various forms right around the corner" [20].

Anti-Islamic Views

On several occasions Hagee has publicly denounced the Islamic faith and has propagated "several myths about Islam and American Muslims." Hagee has made the following demagogic claims about Islam:

"Radical sects, which include about 200 million Islamics, believe they have a command from God to kill Christians and Jews."

"They are trained from the breast of their mother to hate us. Radical Islam is a doctrine of death. It is their desire, it is their hope, it is their ambition, it is their highest honor to die in a war against infidels. And you are 'infidels' and there is nothing you can do to accommodate them. That's what makes them so dangerous."

"Ladies and gentlemen, America is at war with radical Islam...Jihad has come to America. If we lose the war to Islamic fascism, it will change the world as we know it."[7]

Video

-Atlas Shrugs: John Hagee's Fiery Speech AIPAC video

-Israel, Iran & Iraq - John Hagee video

SourceWatch resources

External links

References

    1. ↑ McGirk T, TIME Magazine McCain's Holy Land Pilgrimage News article. March 19 2008.
    2. ↑ TIMEThe Victor: McCain's moment March 6, 2008
    3. ↑ Associated Press/ MSNBC Hagee endorsement of McCain has risks: San Antonio megachurch leader an outspoken critic of Catholic Church March 3, 2008.
    4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 National Public Radio, Fresh Air from WHYY Pastor John Hagee on Christian Zionism, September 18, 2006.
    5. ↑ "5W Reps Controversial Pastor," O'Dwyer's PR Daily (sub req'd), April 22, 2008.
    6. ↑ Jews defend Hagee's words [[1]](http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080524/NATION/810558402/-1/RSS_NATION_POLITICS) May 24th, 2008
    7. ↑ Wajahat Ali, Eli Clifton, Matthew Duss, Lee Fang, Scott Keyes, and Faiz Shakir, "Fear, Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America, Center for American Progress, August 2011.

Articles

Categories: 

Attachments