Birth Pangs of a New Christian Zionism
Over the past months, the White House has convened a series of off-the-record meetings about its policies in the Middle East with leaders of Christians United for Israel (CUFI), a newly formed political organization that tells its members that supporting Israel’s expansionist policies is “a biblical imperative.” CUFI’s Washington lobbyist, David Brog, told me that during the meetings, CUFI representatives pressed White House officials to adopt a more confrontational posture toward Iran, refuse aid to the Palestinians and give Israel a free hand as it ramped up its military conflict with Hezbollah….CUFI’s advice to the Bush Administration reflects the Armageddon-based foreign-policy views of its founder, John Hagee. Hagee is a fire-and-brimstone preacher from San Antonio who commands the nearly 18,000-member Cornerstone Church and hosts a major TV ministry where he explains to millions of viewers how the end times will unfold. He is also the author of numerous bestselling pulp-prophecy books, like his recent Jerusalem Countdown, in which he cites various unnamed Israeli intelligence sources to claim that Iran is producing nuclear “suitcase bombs.” The only way to defeat the Iranian evildoers, he says, is a full-scale military assault.
In normal times, we would be able to write off Rev. John Hagee and his followers as the Right-wing nutjobs they truly are. To do so would be to completely miss the point, though. Yes, these folks ARE nutjobs, but they’re currenlty the power behind the throne. When you voted for Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader, you in effect elected these Apocalyptic “Christians” as well. Hagee has long had a catalog of powerful supporters like former Rep. Tom DeLay, and Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader’s own religious faith runs along these lines as well.
Over the past few years, and particularly since the ascension to power of Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader, apocalyptic, End TImes Fundamentalism has gained a strong foothold in official Washington. No, GOP doesn’t stand for “God’s Own Party”, but given the way that Republicans have been conducting themselves you’d never know it. Now these Evangelicals zealots, led by Hagee, are lobbying for war against Iran as a means of bringing about the End Times…and if you listen to Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader, he’s talking the talk.
Grab your tinfoil helmet and follow me:
At the center of it all is Pastor John Hagee, a popular televangelist who leads the 18,000-member Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas. While Hagee has long prophesized about the end times, he ratcheted up his rhetoric this year with the publication of his book, “Jerusalem Countdown,” in which he argues that a confrontation with Iran is a necessary precondition for Armageddon and the Second Coming of Christ. In the best-selling book, Hagee insists that the United States must join Israel in a preemptive military strike against Iran to fulfill God’s plan for both Israel and the West. Shortly after the book’s publication, he launched Christians United for Israel (CUFI), which, as the Christian version of the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee, he said would cause “a political earthquake.”
No, it would NOT be a stretch to say that Hagee and his fellow travellers are out of their ever-lovin’ minds. These knuckle-dragging troglodytes are actually advocating war against Iran as a means to hasten the End Times. That untold thousands of innocents would die in such a conflict seems entirely beside the point. No, for these trolls, what’s the lives of a few thousands of heathens when the Rapture may well be nigh?
Although Republicans would never admit it — they claim their support for Christian Zionists like Hagee is based on their own support for Israel — it is clear that they know they need the votes of this constituency to win. In the same way that Karl Rove courted conservative evangelicals in 2004 by appealing to their homophobia, Republican campaign rhetoric for 2006 and 2008 has already shown signs of playing to voters who have been hearing hype for a war with Iran for months — at church.
While Washington insiders wonder what it means when Republicans like Mehlman and presidential aspirants Gingrich and McCain finger Iran as the central player in an epic clash of civilizations, Hagee already has spent months mobilizing the shock troops in support of another war. As diplomats, experts and pundits debate how many years Iran will need to develop a viable nuclear weapon, Hagee says the mullahs already possess the means to destroy Israel and America. And although Bush insists that diplomatic options are still on the table, Hagee has dismissed pussyfooting diplomacy and primed his followers for a conflagration.
That’s right; real Christians don’t talk. They kick ass, take names, and win souls for Christ…and if you resist, well, it’s a short trip to Hell, eh? (Where’s your Allah now?)
Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader might on occasion act as if he’s trying to distance himself from Hagee and his fellow nutjobs, but in reality he’s one of them. Not only that, he is fully cognizant of the reality that much of the political power that Republicans currently enjoy is due to the ability of the Religious Right to effectively propagandize and mobilize the faithful on Sunday mornings.
Hagee wields “a very large megaphone” that reaches “a very large group of people,” said Rabbi James Rudin of the American Jewish Committee, who has studied the Christian right for 30 years. With CUFI, the pastor has exponentially expanded the reach of his megaphone beyond his television audience. Thanks to the viral marketing made possible by the hundreds of evangelical leaders who have signed on to his new organization, his warmongering has rippled through megachurches across America for months. Hagee calls pastors “the spiritual generals of America,” an appropriate phrase given his reliance on them to rally their troops behind his message.
Interesting, isn’t it (not ro mention terribly disturbing), that Hagee resorts to military metaphors to describe his propaganda efforts? I suppose that if you can convince the faithful that they’re engaged in a battle for their very survival against the forces of Evil (i.e.- Liberal Democrats), it’s a whole lot easier to get them to fall into line and march behind you in unthinking ideological lockstep.
The CUFI board of directors includes the Rev. Jerry Falwell, former Republican presidential candidate and religious right activist Gary Bauer, and George Morrison, pastor of the 8,000-member Faith Bible Chapel in Arvada, Colo., and chairman of the board of Promise Keepers. Rod Parsley, the Ohio televangelist who is rapidly becoming a major political player in the Christian right, signed on to be a regional director.
For Hagee’s new project, his influence in Washington is probably less important than his influence over his audience. With the clout of his listeners, he can serve Bush administration hawks by firing up grassroots support for a military strike against Iran. Over 700,000 people purchased his book, “Jerusalem Countdown,” and countless more have heard him promote it on Christian radio and television programming. Dramatic, doomsday advertising has been heard by listeners of Christian media as well as on Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly’s radio programs. The pages of “Jerusalem Countdown” provide a peculiar mix of biblical prophecy, purported inside information from Israeli government officials and a mixed-up, pared-down lesson in nuclear physics.
“I wrote this book in April 2005, and when people read it, they will think I wrote it late last night after the FOX News report,” says the author without a trace of irony. “It’s that close to where we are and beyond.”
Of course, as a master propagandist, Hagee is gifted at melding Scripture with current events to create a chilling picture of End times prophecy come to fruition. This is not a pastor concerned about the welfare of his flock nor with the fate of his fellow man…not by a long shot. No, this is a megalomaniac concerned only with forcing the hand of the American government in order to creat a situation that he thinks will be conducive to incubating the development of the End Times scenario. This has little, if anything, to do with Christian charity and the love of one’s fellow man. Honestly, except for the “Rev.” in front of Hagee’s name, there is nothing about his “Christianity” that I find even remotely recognizable.
Hagee speaks simultaneously to two audiences about Iran’s nuclear capabilities: one that fears a terrorist attack by Iran and another that embraces a biblically mandated apocalypse. To impress the fearful, he mimics Bush’s deceptions about Iraq’s capacity to attack the United States with weapons of mass destruction, Condoleezza Rice’s warnings of mushroom clouds, and Dick Cheney’s dissembling about an alliance between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida. Comparing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Hitler, Hagee argues that Iran’s development of nuclear weapons must be stopped to protect America and Israel from a nuclear attack. Preying on legitimate worries about terrorism, and invoking 9/11, he vividly describes a supposed Iranian-led plan to simultaneously explode nuclear suitcase bombs in seven American cities, or to use an electromagnetic pulse device to create “an American Hiroshima.”
It gets worse from there, but you get the point, right? You might be forgiven for thinking that someone with a “Rev.” in front of their name would be preaching about how to be a better Christian, how to make the world a better place, or even about how to go about trying to create peace. You might be forgiven, but you’d also be dead wrong. If John Hagee is a Christian, then I’m the Queen of England…and I don’t look good in a tiara.
John Hagee is little more than your everyday, garden variety fearmongering Republican zealot and demagogue using his pulpit as a means to promote his own political agenda and Apocalyptic worldview. The truly sad thing is that his views have gained so much traction in official Washington, and his followers are so firmly entrenched in positions of power…like the White House, f’rinstance. Before long, we may be pushed into a needless, bloody war with Iraq to satisfy Hagee’s bloodlust and his desire to bring about the End Times.
This is Christianity??
STILL GLAD YOU VOTED REPUBLICAN??
