By now you know about Barak Obama and his pastor problem. Yet he is not alone.
New York Times writer Frank Rich put televangelist Rev. John Hagee in his literary crosshairs. Hagge endorsed John McCain back in February over Mike Huckabee.
I'm no fan of Hagee. In fact I think his a false teacher. At the same time Hagee is no fan of the Catholic church and has called the church “the Great Whore” before his television audiences.
The purpose of the Rich article attempts to draw a parallel with Hagee & McCain and Obama and Wright. While I certainly don't think Hagee will help McCain with the Catholic vote, we must understand that Hagee is NOT McCain's pastor. If we were electing the nuttiest pastor, then the Hagee - Wright race would be a good match up.
The real story here is not about presidential candidates and pastors. It's the millions of Americans embracing, accepting and welcoming these wackos who claim to be legitimate clergy. THEY ARE NOT.
Why do politicians accept endorsements from pastors? Because they want the congregation to vote like the pastor. The sad fact is the pastor needs to a recognizable personality who is a television star in order to have any value to a candidate. If your own pastor endorsed a candidate do think that candidate would show up to accept? Not unless your pastor has a high profile mega-church and best selling book and a huge viewing audience.
Wright claims the government invented AIDS. Hagee claims God created Hurricane Katrina to punish New Orleans for its sins. Both men present these claims as fact when it's merely a personal theories and nothing more. In Hagee's case, he appears on multiple religious networks, including Trinity Broadcasting, which reaches 75 million homes. Millions of people are being fed this garbage from the pulpit.
We must question what we as Christians hold up and present to the rest of the world as representative of our Christian faith. What do people see? They see Joel Osteen who can't explain the basic way to get to heaven smiling in his arena church. They see John Hagee preaching opinion. They see Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, blame the Sept. 11th attack on abortionists, feminists, gays. They see Benny Hinn, TD Jakes, Robert Schuller, Marilyn Hickey, Paul & Jan Crouch, Rod Parsley, RW Shambach, Carlton Pearson, John Avanzinni, Kenneth & Gloria Copeland, Jessie Duplantis, Oral Roberts, Richard Roberts, Kenneth Hagin Sr., Kenneth Hagin Jr., Frederick Price, Creflo Dollar, Rodney Howard Browne, Jack Van Impe, Rinehard Bonnke, Texx Marrs, Joyce Meyer, Morris Cerello, John Kilpatrick, Clarence McClendon, Kent Hovind, Rick Joyner, Hal Lindsey, Charles Capps, Robert Tilton all asking for money and all marketing salvation to the poor souls who don't know any better. We need to scrub the airwaves of this deceptive trash.
While we should rightly exercise great care in choosing a person to represent our country to the world, should we not do the same with our faith?
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