The most positive lasting revelation from the election campaign of 2008 may be the exposure of the hatred hidden within Christian Zionism!
Professing followers of Jesus’ teachings, regardless of church, mosque, or denomination, should examine the deliberate and calculated words of these two pastors who have recently made the major news by endorsing John McCain for President, and in being rejected by the pragmatic McCain. Their statements, as correctly quoted by the Washington Post, have become a political mortification to him, and we examine why.
This essence of Christ’s teachings is abandoned by John Hagee, Rod Parsley, and many Judeo-Christian pastors like them, in their undisguised hatred for Islam, and their open political campaign to destroy Iran. They defy Jesus’ most basic tenet, His one Commandment, to love one’s brother, even one’s enemy, as you would love yourself.
The Washington Post quoted McCain in a May 22nd story, McCain Rejects Pastor’s Backing Over Remarks, “I just think that the statement is crazy and unacceptable,” adding that while “Pastor Hagee is entitled to his views, he does not want to be affiliated with them.”
The Post reported: “Hagee has called the Catholic Church a ‘false religious system’ and a “false cult system” and has suggested that the church played a role in the Holocaust.”
Hagee is well known for his support of all wars against Muslim countries, for his recent call to bomb Iran, and for his unwavering apology for, and support of Israel’s brutality in occupying Palestine. He is the founder of Christians United For Israel.
McCain was also publicly endorsed by mega-church pastor Rod Parsley. According to the Post story, in one sermon, posted on YouTube, Parsley described what he said is “our historical conflict with Islam,” adding that “America was founded, in part, with the intention of seeing this false religion destroyed.”
The Washington Post story reported, “Asked about the two preachers Thursday, he (McCain) said: ‘I’ve never been to Pastor Hagee’s church or Pastor Parsley’s church,’ adding: ‘I received their endorsement, which doesn’t mean I endorse their views.”‘
The Post reported: “Sen. John McCain on Thursday repudiated the presidential endorsement of the Rev. John Hagee after learning about a sermon in which the mega church pastor from San Antonio declared that God allowed the rise of Adolf Hitler because it resulted in returning Israel to the Jewish people.”
Post continues: “Hagee issued his own statement Thursday, saying that he was withdrawing his endorsement to prevent any further damage to the presumptive GOP nominee’s candidacy.”
Both John Hagee and Rod Parsley are on record as favoring and even campaigning for a preemptive strike on Iran for the benefit of the state of Israel.
It would take a lot of space to examine the distortions and outright contradictions of Jesus’ teachings found in the writings of Hagee and Parsley, and this writer has already written a great deal about Hagee. We Hold These Truths has led public vigils defending the truth of Jesus’ words at no less than five of Hagee’s events. Parsley‘s church in Columbus, Ohio has yet to be scheduled.
It is fitting that we add one revealing experience with Pastor Rod Parsley that took place five years ago which reflect on his character and general credibility. One of our senior advisers deliberately invested $35.00 of his own money for a donation to Rod Parsley missions in order to document the amazing fact that this pastor was using commercial telephone solicitors to panhandle money for the stated purpose of freeing slaves in Sudan. We knew at the time there were no slaves there to buy, and if by chance there was one, the price tag for a slave would be a lot more than $35.00.
The funds raised in some US churches to free “slaves in Sudan” was revealed to be enormous. Money given was shared between the soliciting missionaries and the revolutionary soldiers in Sudan who acted out the role of slaves traders for a day. The soldiers involved were controlled by John Garang de Mabior, who then operated a revolution in southern Sudan. They were ready for a quick cash profit in US dollars.
Garang’s lieutenants staged phony slave swaps for the benefit of the church cameras, pretending to be Arab government agents from the “north.” Those good hearted church goers who put up the money were told the slaves were “Christians” (black), and that the slave traders were Arab Muslims (also black). Thus the phony slave trade was billed as a Muslim vs. Christian war. Local Sudanese villagers, some with chains and ropes around their necks, filled the bit part role of slaves for a day, presumably for a stipend.
These films clips were later shown in US churches, like that of Rod Parsley, to pry loose even more dollars from sympathetic Christians, and were circulated in US government circles to gain support for the revolution in Southern Sudan. To this end Parsley’s hatred for Islam came into play.
Garang was acceptable to Christian Zionists because he was not Muslim, calling himself either an atheist or a Christian, depending on who you asked. The Government of Sudan was and is predominantly Muslim, so Paisley and other Muslim hating Christian Zionists received the added satisfaction of undermining an Islamic government while they filled the plate.
Before “Shock and Awe“, We Hold These Truths spent much time proving the slave trade to be a scam. Our adviser, Travis Steele, volunteered to buy a phony slave from Parsley for the record, and did so with his Visa card. Years later several involved American “Christians” and some churches finally came clean and stated there had been no slaves to free in Sudan…they “had been fooled.”
The slave illusion was boosted, if not originated, by a well-funded British citizen calling herself Baroness Caroline Cox, whose interest was clearly furthering a revolution in southern Sudan in quest of its oil wealth. The Clinton Administration promoted the slave rumors, as a tool to discredit the Sudanese government and justify placing sanctions on it. It worked; eventually John Garang was accepted as a “Vice President” of Sudan, he later died in 2005 in an air accident.
Thus, un-Christian hatred of men like Parsley toward Muslims, was used by our own government to foster revolution against the Government of Sudan. Far from freeing slaves, the “Mail-order Missionaries,” as we called them in our own report, Missionaries, Mercenaries, Missiles and Money, instead caused the death and misery of black tribesmen in Sudan.
Project Strait Gate suggests that followers of Christ do, for moral if not for Christian reasons, what politician McCain is pragmatically doing. We should all abandon Hagee, Parsley, and other false teachers whose distortion of Jesus’ words would lead us to race hatred and war against Islam because it is Islam.
Project Strait Gate’s volunteers have staged interventions, Vigils for Peace with Justice at several of John Hagee’s Night to Honor Israel meetings, and his Sunday services at his church in San Antonio, Texas. As we said, Parsley’s mega-church in Columbus, Ohio has not yet been scheduled. We are looking for a vigil team leader in Ohio. Project Strait Gate’s most recent intervention was held by an all volunteer team at an avowed Christian Zionist church In Paramus N J. *
The eventual results of the Presidential election of 2008 will probably prove to be less important than the vital question of whether or not 70 million “Christians” can rescue their faith from the corruption called Christian Zionism.
End notes:
Washington Post: on McCain Rejects Pastor’s Backing Over Remarks:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/22/AR2008052203141.html?wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter
Slavery in Sudan*
Intervention: Project Strait Gate (a companion mission)
Christian Zionist church In Paramus N J. *
https://whtt.org/straitgate/index.php?id=14&news=1
Missionaries, Mercenaries, Missiles and Money, by Charles E. Carlson, https://whtt.org/index.php?news=2&id=236
Oil for the Taking – Part II
Charles E. Carlson Oct 01, 2000
https://whtt.org/index.php?news=2&id=214
