Germaniac

Couldn't really care less either way, but this is interesting if true (and provides a nice counterpoint to Obama and Rev. Jeremiah Wright...)

You may have heard of Rev. John Hagee, the McCain supporter who said God created Hurricane Katrina to punish New Orleans for its homosexual "sins." Well now meet Rev. Rod Parsley, the televangelist megachurch pastor from Ohio who hates Islam. According to David Corn of Mother Jones, Parsley has called on Christians to wage war against Islam, which he considers to be a "false religion." In the past, Parsley has also railed against the separation of church and state, homosexuals, and abortion rights, comparing Planned Parenthood to Nazis.

John McCain actively sought and received Parsley's endorsement in the presidential race. McCain has called Parsley "a spiritual guide," and he hasn't said whether he shares Parsley's vicious anti-Islam views. That's because the mainstream media refuses to ask. And so, we've taken matters into our own hands, joining Mother Jones to present the truth about McCain's pastor...
bravenewfilms.org

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Hypersonic

Hmm, scary.

Why do idiots like this never see the irony in what they preach.

So much for Christianity being about love -- I am sick of religious nuts.

Gullwing

America’s conflict with Islam goes back seven-eight hundred years. The Knights Templar were founded to watch over the Christians from Europe going to the holy land against the Muslims. Over time they acquired great wealth and were one of the first banks in Europe (some think many of the artifacts associated with Jesus: the ark of the covenant Jesus bones…) The king of France Phillip IV (Phillip the fair) owed large amounts of money to the knights and did not want to pay. Working with the Pope he arranged an ambush of the knights, stating the knights worshiped idols and succeeded in capturing about ten percent, this action happened on a Friday on the 13th day of October, (Friday the 13th). Many were killed, but before they died they told the King if they were innocent he would be dead within nine months and the Pope would be dead within forty days. Both were dead within the time frame. After this the knights split up, some took there flag (skull and cross bones) referring to them finding Jesus skull and two bones, and became pirates against Catholic ships. Others went up to Northern England and later to the US where they were known as the Freemasons. Many Freemasons were founders of the US. So many Muslims who know this (Osama) think the US is on a Crusade.

I learned this in my Terrorism class, not saying everything is 100% correct, but I do tend to believe things this instructor teaches more then other ones I have had.

Sure Both religions are at war, but I wouldn’t say Christians should go shoot it out with the Muslims. It should be done peacefully trying to convert people to your religion, but easier said then done.
I don’t think Rev. Rod Parsley and Rev. Jeremiah Wright are the same catagory, but something isn't right with Parsley.

Hypersonic

....but why does anybody need to convert anyone? Why can't it just be accepted that other people have different beliefs ...or maybe even no beliefs at all?

Gullwing

Because both religions believe they should convert anyone they can to their religion. Most people would like to convert someone to their religion, but if it doesn't happen are ok with it, everyone if free to believe what they want. You just have to watch out for are the ones (both side) that demand you believe what they do and will not stop until you believe or are dead.

Harry Plopper

Because religions (at least 3 big monotheistic ones) teach - in their most radical parts - the non-believers should be persuaded into "right & only true" religion, while the ones who believe in a wrong god (= "fake god") are sinners, and should be immediately converted, or even punished (sometimes even executed).

Just stupid.

I'm with Marx on this one: "Religion is the opium of the people."

The Diva

He sounds more like a tele-evangelist preacher than a "spiritual guide" .

And how ironic is it?

Christianity same as Islam are peaceful faiths.

It's the radicals in all parts of the world ( regardless of religion, regardless of time period) that are the troublemakers.

Just like Gullwing was saying, I don't think all crusaders were deeply religiously devoted to their God at all times.
And I doubt their ulterior motive is spreading their beliefs, but imposing a way of life to their gain,
be it getting in more donations from your followers, or making an easy living by telling other radicals what they want to hear.

Mikael

Update:




Senator John McCain on Thursday rejected the endorsements of two prominent evangelical ministers whose backing he had sought to shore up his credentials with religious conservatives.

McCain repudiated the Rev. John Hagee, a televangelist, after a watchdog group released a recording of a sermon in which Hagee said Hitler and the Holocaust had been part of God's plan to chase the Jews from Europe and drive them to Palestine.

Later in the day, he also rejected the endorsement of the Rev. Rod Parsley of the World Harvest Church of Columbus, Ohio, whose anti-Muslim sermons were broadcast on ABC's "Good Morning America" on Thursday.

Controversy has dogged the Hagee endorsement since McCain announced it at a February news conference, and just last week Hagee issued a letter expressing regret for "any comments that Catholics have found hurtful."

In a statement Thursday about the sermon on the Holocaust, McCain said: "Obviously, I find these remarks and others deeply offensive and indefensible. I did not know of them before Reverend Hagee's endorsement, and I feel I must reject his endorsement as well."
Audio of the sermon, from the late 1990s, was first posted last week by the Web site Talk to Action, which scrutinizes the Christian right, and then reported by The Huffington Post.

In the sermon, which is also available on the church's Web site, Hagee said the Bible prophesied Hitler's brutality. "How is God going to bring them back to the land? The answer is fishers and hunters," Hagee said, referring to how Jews ended up in the modern state of Israel. "A hunter is someone who comes with a gun and forces you. Hitler was a hunter."

Hagee continued: "That will be offensive to some people. Well, dear heart, be offended: I didn't write it. Jeremiah wrote it. It was the truth and it is the truth. How did it happen? Because God allowed it to happen. Why did it happen? Because God said, 'My top priority for the Jewish people is to get them to come back to the land of Israel.' "

Asked at a news conference in Stockton, California, on Thursday why these particular remarks led him to act, McCain said, "I just think the statement is crazy and unacceptable." He added, "We reached a point where that kind of statement, simply, I would reject the endorsement of the expression of those kinds of views."

Some have compared Hagee's remarks with those of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., the former pastor of the Democratic presidential front-runner, Senator Barack Obama. But McCain said his relationship with Hagee was different.

"I have said I do not believe Senator Obama shares Reverend Wright's extreme views," McCain said in his statement. "But let me also be clear, Reverend Hagee was not and is not my pastor or spiritual adviser, and I did not attend his church for 20 years."

McCain has been courting Christian conservatives after attacking them eight years ago as "agents of intolerance." At a speech last year before Hagee's Christians United for Israel, he thanked Hagee for his "spiritual guidance to politicians like me" and said, "It's hard to do the Lord's work in the city of Satan."

The latest Hagee remarks to surface may strike at the heart of McCain's efforts to reach a critical group of voters, Jews, some of whom have viewed Obama with suspicion.

At roughly the same time the McCain campaign issued its statement on Thursday, Hagee issued his own statement withdrawing his endorsement of McCain.

"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," the Hagee statement said. "I have therefore decided to withdraw my endorsement of Senator McCain for president effective today, and to remove myself from any active role in the 2008 campaign."
Religious and political leaders critical of the sermon welcomed the news that McCain had rejected Hagee's endorsement.

"This is a perfect example of when politicians and religious leaders try to use each other, both of them end up getting hurt," said the Rev. Dr. Welton Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance, a liberal religious group. "The reason that many of us talk about separating religion and politics is that they are two different parts of life, and they operate with different values and methods."

Hagee said that his sermon had been "mischaracterized" and that he had always spoken harshly about Hitler and the Holocaust.
Hagee, 68, is not as well known as other evangelical leaders, but he is powerful among strongly conservative evangelical Christians, thanks to a vast media reach.
His prominence is partly explained by his activism on behalf of Israel. Hagee has given about $30 million to Israeli causes.

Hagee's views flow out of his adherence to what is known in evangelical circles as premillennial dispensationalism, a literalistic approach to biblical prophecy that places a special emphasis on the role of the nation of Israel in the end of history.

Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, the country's largest branch of Judaism, said that while he did not consider Hagee an anti-Semite, he found a reading of the Bible that would include a prophecy of Hitler to be "obscene."

"This is a man who has some profound ambivalence about Jews," Rabbi Yoffie said. "On the one hand, he has a love for Israel. But on the other, that was a sermon and he said Jews were punished by God for not going to Israel, that the divine plan that brought Israel into being included the Holocaust and Hitler was God's instrument."

In an interview with The Associated Press on Thursday, McCain rejected the backing of the second pastor, Parsley.

On Thursday, ABC News broadcast a segment about Parsley, noting that he has called Islam an "anti-Christ religion" and preached that "America was founded in part to see this false religion destroyed."

"I believe that even though he endorsed me, and I didn't endorse him, the fact is that I repudiate such talk, and I reject his endorsement," McCain said.


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