McChurch - Get Out While the Getting is Good!

Could Christian vote desert Republicans?

By Matt Wells BBC News, New York

The process of marginalizing the Wing-Nuts of the Christian Right has begun…The way this is happening is to play on the discomfort of Evangelicals who are fed up with being taken for granted by those who are mired in an either/or construct…This goes both ways – leftist and rightists…

McChurch is going to have a tough time living down its merger with the Republican Party…Not only have they reduced their faith to a couple of wedge issues, they have reduced God to a moral code rather than a holy being…The words of God have overtaken the Word of God…

Whatever political party you have chosen, I say get out while there is still time!

Stan Moody is the author of "Crisis in Evangelical Scholarship" and "McChurched: 300 Million Served and Still Hungry

America's so-called "religious right" has been one of the pillars of Republican Party support in recent decades, but signs are emerging that those once secure foundations might be shifting.

In both George W Bush's presidential victories, he managed to secure a vast majority of the evangelical Christian vote.

In 2004, the "hot button" policies curtailing abortion and same-sex marriage were seen as being crucial to Republican electoral success in, for example, the key swing states of Ohio and Florida.

But in last November's Congressional races - where Democrats regained control of both the House and the Senate - some Republican defeats came at the hands of a new religiously-inspired movement, which some are calling the "evangelical left".

Switching allegiance?

The reality may be that the new movement is more centrist - and fed-up with being lumped in with the orthodox religious right leadership.

It is not so much that swathes of once Republican-supporting evangelicals are switching allegiance but more a question of taking a sceptical look at the narrow agenda that has defined their relationship with the Republican Party, according to John Green, of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

This whole thing is not a struggle over ideology, it's a struggle over power Pastor Joel Hunter

"Questions like climate change, poverty and international human rights are coming to the fore, in a community that didn't used to talk about these things at all," Mr Green said.

Evidence of a subtle realignment, can be seen in the main sanctuary of Northland Church, in Orlando, Florida - a space that used to be a roller-skating rink until it was taken over by Pastor Joel Hunter.

The conservatively-dressed but sprightly mid-Westerner serves a 7,000-strong congregation that broadcasts its services live to thousands more on the internet.

He recently wrote a book called "Right Wing, Wrong Bird" outlining his concerns, and hopes for the future.

"There has to emerge a new constituency and a new set of leaders for the evangelical Christians in this country," he told the BBC Heart and Soul programme.

Power struggle

"We want to build a culture of life - but that includes the vulnerable outside the womb, as well as the vulnerable inside the womb.

"We've had too long a time where we make people who disagree with us into enemies," he added.

"I think that's not Christ-like or even intelligent. This whole thing is not a struggle over ideology, it's a struggle over power."

The call to broaden the agenda as the campaign for the White House intensifies is looked on with dismay just a few miles from Northland Church by activists who still back the fundamentalist strategies of the religious right.

John Stemberger is an attorney and president of the Florida Family Planning Council, who respects Joel Hunter's conservative credentials, but not his argument.

"The institutions of marriage and the family are under attack," he said.

"The problem with the religious left is that they are helping the party that we believe is going to reverse the flow.

"None of us think the Republicans are saints ... but you have to pick a party in order to play the game, and be successful in enacting policy in our country."

I think in many cases they (the religious right) have become intoxicated with a taste of power Mike Huckabee, Republican presidential candidate

The politicians most affected by fissures among conservative religious voters, are the Republican presidential candidates vying for their support.

Mike Huckabee is a former governor of Arkansas and a Baptist minister.

Despite his religious credentials, he is trailing far behind the current front-runner, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

It is a sign of the complex new relationship between the religious right and the Republicans that Mr Giuliani, who is dubbed "America's Mayor", is doing all he can to avoid talking about his own Catholicism, mindful perhaps that thrice-married candidates can hardly be strong on personal morality issues.

'Blowing bridges up'

Mr Huckabee is disillusioned by the behaviour of the religious right leadership.

He said: "I think in many cases, they've become intoxicated with a taste of power.

"They like it - they're now looking at 'well, who's going to win, because we want to make sure that we're attached to the inevitable winner,'" he told the BBC.

He thinks the religious right could be throwing away its positive influence.

Political affiliation is not as important as what the candidate believes Gary Whitlock

"If they don't have something about which they are uniquely united ... they really serve no particular purpose," he said.

But back in Florida, the evidence on the ground is that voters who identify strongly with the religious right cannot be taken for granted and will not be told what to think anymore.

Sitting with a glass of iced-tea in the spacious home of Gary Whitlock - whose family all worship at Northland Church - he talked about how he had worked tirelessly to get out the vote for George W Bush.

Old certainties have changed and he is not certain that he will be voting Republican in 2008.

He said: "I'm not so sure the political affiliation of the person that's elected is important, so much as what the person who's elected believes.

"What the political process needs to have more of is bridge-builders, rather than people who are blowing bridges up and trying to create chasms between us."

* You can hear this second part of Matt Wells's documentary series on religion and politics in the US, on the BBC World Service's Heart and Soul programme, which airs on July 28. Check your local World Service schedule for transmission times.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/6917947.stm

Published: 2007/07/27 08:52:41 GMT

© BBC MMVII

McChurch - John Hagee's Floor Mat

Weekend Edition

http://www.counterpunch.org/werther07292006.html
July 29/30 2006

Rev. John Hagee's War

The Manchurian Clergyman

By WERTHER

This guy nails it! “Why,” he asks, “is John Hagee amassing fortunes if he is about to be raptured? Can he take his war chest with him?”

His point about Elmer Gantry with a foreign policy hits the nail right on the head…

“Oh, McChurch, you’ve done it again!”

Stan Moody is the author of "Crisis in Evangelical Scholarship" and "McChurched: 300 Million Served and Still Hungry

In the 1920s, explaining the growing phenomenon of religious fundamentalism and how it battened Prohibition upon a suffering nation, H.L. Mencken described Southern Baptism as "a theology degraded almost to the level of voodoo." Eighty years on, we could remark, "plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose," but we would be wrong.

Things have not remained the same, they have deteriorated. For if there is one thing worse than Elmer Gantry, it is Elmer Gantry with a foreign policy. Not content with polluting the fields of evolutionary biology and stem-cell research with Stone Age dogmas, these zealots have now tried their hand at statecraft.

The latest specimen in Barnum's traveling museum of oddities is John Hagee, director of Christians United for Israel. As profiled in The Wall Street Journal [1], this dervish from the West Texas wastes seemingly lives, breathes, and excretes but one obsession: his love of Israel, above and beyond anything else, including, apparently, the country of which he is nominally a citizen.

We will not provide a comprehensive summary of the article other than to note that he and his followers are particularly active in cheering on the carnage in Lebanon. To that end, he was in the imperial capital of Washington last week to hound Congressmen about their duty of fealty to Israel ­ as if those gunsels of AIPAC needed any instruction. Apparently, the bigger and bloodier the war, the closer the day of Armageddon looms. And the end of the world is what he seeks. [2]

Two revealing details stand out. The first is that the President of the United States actually sent a message of congratulations to Hagee's Washington clambake. Paradoxically, the chief executive stated that Hagee and his acolytes are "spreading the hope of God's love . . ." This statement is somewhat difficult to square with the fact that Hagee, who held one of his previous séances in an Israeli Air Force hangar, seems to positively lust for bloodshed. He is not only a strong supporter of the Iraq fiasco and the leveling of apartment blocks in Beirut, but has also written a book fomenting readers to put political pressure on their government to attack Iran.

This is a new development in the annals of American politics. While the head magistrate is expected to belong to an organized religion and show ceremonial piety when the occasion demands it, it is unprecedented for a president to take such public interest in a fringe cult. It is doubtful whether the genial, (bootleg) whiskey-drinking Warren Gamaliel Harding ever sent a congratulatory telegram to the spirit-rappings of Aimee Semple McPherson. Nor can we picture Silent Cal bestowing his best wishes on a congregation of snake-handlers in the hollows of the Cumberland Ridge. But, as we have observed, these are different times.

The second interesting detail was the fact that Hagee's convention had a Democratic speaker: Rep. Eliot Engel of New York. Nominally a liberal (with an ADA rating of 90), Engel instructed the multitude of Armageddon cultists that Israel's enemies "do the work of Satan." Just the right words to inflame halfwits; who says the American political system is rigged?

The Zionist "Christian" phenomenon has three interesting aspects, psychological, religious, and political. It is taught in most curricula that man is a mammal, and, that like all others of his phyla, indeed all living things, his most basic instinct is for survival, an instinct that trumps even his incurable vanity. Yet these specimens that we have described evidently welcome physical extinction, indeed, they devote much of their emotional energy to it, as the rest of us look forward to food, or sex, or taking a day off work with an iron-clad and phony excuse. What accounts for this?

To Hagee's motives we may apply a discount. As the Journal article describes, Hagee's IRS filings have been subject to some revision, and he is most assuredly not poor. Which leads to the question: if Armageddon lies at hand, why does he accumulate such earthly dross as mere shekels (to use his preferred unit of currency)? Can the process of Rapture, whereby the saved one is drawn up into the ether, allow him to bring his treasure chest along? Or is he merely a figure squarely in the Gantry tradition, along with his colleagues Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson? The reader will have to draw his own conclusion.

His followers are a more difficult case. They make no material profit from their peculiar obsession; rather, one would wager it is a net expenditure on their financial balance sheets. Why do they do it?

It is certain that being a propane retailer in Plano, Texas, is a transcendently horrible experience. Perhaps such miserable creatures long for the soaring narrative of blood and fire, satanic beasts, and climactic battles, purely to dispel the pointless quotidian grind. But why Armageddon, rather than, say, a Shriner's banquet? Eight decades ago, the burghers of Sinclair Lewis's Saulk City became Elks or Rotarians, rather than Wahabbites devoted to a foreign power. We leave it to psychohistorians to divine why these times are different.

The religious aspect also intrigues us. Zionist "Christianity" dates to no earlier than the 1830s, when the English scam artist John Darby inflicted his dispensation upon the world. The word "rapture," needless to say, exists nowhere in the King James Bible. The bloodlust of our End Times fanatics is the polar opposite of the Sermon on the Mount, the summa of Jesus' earthly teachings, an element of the Scripture which fundamentalists seem oddly reluctant to proclaim.

What they profess to believe is a measurably anti-human theology. While Buddhists claim to deny the importance of sensory reality, these anchorites go further, actively welcoming destruction and mayhem. A more accurate comparison might be to the death cult of the Aztecs.

Finally, there are the political ramifications. The crucial plot device (even more significant than brainwashing) in John Frankenheimer's The Manchurian Candidate is the identity of the traitors. Those who would subvert the government were able to place themselves strategically to do so by wrapping themselves in the flag and playing the hyperpatriot.

Hagee's mummery is similar, with one important difference. He lauds every disastrous policy of a self-styled patriotic and conservative administration, and plays the yahoo cultural hick on the home front, a sure sign of 100 percent Americanism. Yet unlike Angela Lansbury, the villainess of the Frankenheimer epic, he takes no pains to conceal his real loyalty. It is perhaps a measure of the difference between 40 years ago and now that someone can declare his obeisance to a foreign power and lobby openly on Capitol Hill. But it is downright troubling that such a person should receive encouragement from the President.

When the definitive psychopathology of the American experiment is written, "the Rev." John Hagee may well merit a lengthy footnote.

Werther is the pen name of a Northern Virginia-based defense analyst.

[1] "A Texas Preacher Leads Campaign to Let Israel Fight," The Wall Street Journal, 27 July 2006, p. A1.

[2] Some choice quotes by rapturists enthusing over the war can be found in a recent column by Ken Silverstein of Harper's.

McChurch - Twisting Its Shorts!

Copyright 2007 Time Inc.

Friday, Jul. 20, 2007

Does the Bible Support Sanctuary?

By David Van Biema

The legalists continue to paint themselves into a corner…Once you begin “prooftexting,” you are vulnerable to all kinds of variations on the theme…

One of the first that comes to my mind is that of Christian Zionism supporting Israel because all the land from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River was promised to Abraham…But what about the 800,000 Palestinians who have been pushed out of their homes?

Now we have a two-headed dragon to slay…The “New Sanctuary” movement? Pop-Christianity at its best!

Stan Moody is the author of "Crisis in Evangelical Scholarship" and "McChurched: 300 Million Served and Still Hungry

To understand the role that scripture plays in debates over the New Sanctuary Movement, it helps to be familiar with an insider term: prooftexting — the cherry-picking of Biblical quotations out of context in order to claim scriptural authority for a particular proposition.

Nobody likes to be accused of prooftexting, but in a soundbite culture, it's hard to resist — so darn tasty. Here's a typical exchange: Opponents of gay marriage cite Leviticus 18:22: "You shall not lie with a man as with a woman. It is an abomination." They also like Romans 1:26-7: "For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions... the men... committing shameless acts with men." But gay marriage defenders note that Leviticus also orders the faithful to stone mouthy children to death, and that the "dishonorable passions" passage can be read to equate homosexuality with sins such as envy and gossip that are practiced openly every Sunday in the pews.

On the New Sanctuary Movement, the usual roles are reversed — liberals sling chapter and verse, while conservatives argue that the true "sense" of scripture contradicts them. When Sanctuary proponents cite the verses below, they go to pains to contextualize them, both Biblically and in terms of secular morality. Nonetheless, as a religious movement, a lot of their oomph comes from being able to rattle off the following:

For Sanctuary

Numbers 35:11: "...then you shall select cities to be cities of refuge for you, that the manslayer who kills any person without intent may flee there." Activists cite this as a kind of ancient model for their movement. Various verses in the Old Testament describe "cities of refuge," where someone guilty of causing accidental death can escape the dead man's bloodthirsty relatives. Says New Sanctuary Movement co-founder Rev. Alexia Salvatierra, "This is so relevant to the question of aliens: They have committed a crime, but is the punishment [deportation, and the corresponding disruption of productive lives and families] appropriate?"

Leviticus 19:33: "When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong... [he] shall be as native among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt." Progressive Evangelical leader Jim Wallis refers to this as "the Levitical immigration policy." It reaches deep into Judaism's Exodus saga for its justification. The Israelites were (legal) immigrants in Egypt, but the Egyptians persecuted them when their numbers seemed too threatening; God brought down the plagues. Thus the verse is a warning to Jews never to turn into the Egyptians; a role Salvatierra and her colleagues feel Americans are now perilously close to playing.

Matthew 25: 35: "For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me." Probably the verse most often cited by those in the movement. In a passage known as The Great Judgment, Jesus explains who will be saved and who damned. Describing those who make the cut, he leads off with the triad quoted above.

Hebrews 13:2: "Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares." This New Testament passage is probably a reference back to Abraham in the Old Testament, who, approached by three strangers, threw them a feast, only to find that they were supernatural. Paul Lim, an Evangelical Christian and Assistant Professor at Vanderbilt Theological Seminary finds special meaning in the fact that the original Greek word for "hospitality" in this verse, "philoxenia," is actually stronger. It means "the love of strangers." Or, as he points out, the opposite of xenophobia.

Against Sanctuary

Interestingly, opponents of the sanctuary movement do not suggest that its prooftexts are taken out of context. Instead, they suggest that the movement exaggerates the obligations the verses place on the believer.

Richard Land, head of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission for the theologically and politically conservative Southern Baptist Convention, cheerfully acknowledges his duty to the stranger. "As Christians we have a responsibility to love our neighbor as ourselves and do unto others as we would have them do unto us," he says. He was a supporter of the recent failed comprehensive immigration reform bill.

But he feels that the New Sanctuary Movement goes further than the Bible mandates. "I think that's an awfully drastic step, to say that we are going to disobey the law," he says. [Actually, Movement lawyers claim it is technically legal, although others disagree. But part of Sanctuary's magnetism is unquestionably that by boarding illegals in a church, which the INS is unlikely to raid, it provides them de facto protection from the law.] Says Land, "I would never turn someone away. If they showed up, you should help them. But that's different from me saying, 'If you're illegal, then we will protect you from the government.' I don't think the Bible requires that."

To back his position, Land and almost every other Sanctuary opponent cite Romans13: 1-7: "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God."

The obvious problem with this verse is that it makes no mention of sanctuary or even immigrants. Land is simply saying you should obey the law. And he acknowledges that there are times when obeying a law — he names the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 — is contrary to Judeo-Christian morality.

Nonetheless, the passage is an important bridge to a larger — if extra-Biblical — argument. Unlike the Old Testament, the New is not overly concerned with the details of national governance. Partly because first-century Palestine was so firmly under the Roman heel, and partly because early Christianity was oriented toward citizenship in the Kingdom of God rather than of man, there's not much on how to drive down inflation or protect a border.

But as Christians became more powerful, theologians starting with St. Augustine of Hippo in the early 5th century, expanded the little there was into theories of empire and social good such as "tranquility of order," which the saint thought the state could attain through tempered justice.

Jean Bethke Elshtain, a professor at the University of Chicago Divinity School, shares Land's conviction that the Bible doesn't mandate Sanctuary participation. She writes that the prooftexts refer to a situation where "there is a terrified, perhaps bleeding, usually hungry person at one's door and one takes him or her in. It has nothing to do with countries or nation states, and once one starts to move to big collectivities it gets much trickier."

Nonetheless, Elshtain, an Augustine expert, is willing to project Biblical morality into circumstances when denying entry to groups of immigrants is flat wrong, such as Franklin Roosevelt's unwillingness to admit a boatload of Jewish refugees from the Third Reich, resulting in their almost certain doom. But this, she writes, "is completely different from uncontrolled border crossing by people whose motivations are not life and death in the sense I am describing it but, rather economic."

In such cases, she feels, we may weigh philoxenia against other values. One is fairness — "there are people lined up waiting ... 10 years on lists to enter the country legally." The other is the integrity of national borders: "Hannah Arendt argued that if the state means anything, it means a territorially bounded place, a civic place that sets up terms for citizenship," and where Augustine's "tranquility of order" can be established.

Elshtain also questions the Sanctuary advocates' use of prooftexting. "When the religious conservatives do it," she observes, "liberals go bonkers. But when the left does it, they are being good Christians."

Well, that depends largely on to whom you're talking. But being on the wrong side of a prooftext battle may actually not be such a bad thing: It stretches the interpretive muscles and makes the Gospel a bit more real for having been questioned, even in soundbite form.

McChurch - "Rectal Cranial Inversion!"

Hagee, Israel backers push a get-tough policy
Abe Levy, San Antonio Express-News Jul 22, 2007

Hagee, Israel backers push a get-tough policy

Web Posted: 07/22/2007 01:29 AM CDT

Abe Levy
Express-News

This is one of the more idiotic rationales that I have seen in a long time…”Just because they share the same End Times beliefs does not mean that they are being influenced by that!”

Let me get this straight…Christian Zionism is a belief that Israel is entitled to all the land (and more) from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River because it was promised to Abraham…Dispensationalists/Christian Zionists believe that many or most of the Old Testament prophesies are yet to be fulfilled…Therefore, is God’s promise to Abraham not influencing their politics?

This is typical denial from the Christian ghetto…When is one of these Senators going to stand up and say, “I’ve had enough of this BS?” McChurch continues to astound with its failure of grip on reality and its deceit…

Stan Moody is the author of "Crisis in Evangelical Scholarship" and "McChurched: 300 Million Served and Still Hungry

WASHINGTON — Inside a reserved Senate room, several hundred evangelical activists who came by plane and bus Wednesday waited for the arrival of Texas' two senators.

As their leader, Pastor John Hagee, entered the room, they erupted in cheers, snapping photos of the face of modern Christian Zionism, a movement that promotes Israel as a biblical mandate.

The room turned silent as Hagee greeted Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn near the stage. Hagee looked the senators in the eye and said: "These people are from Texas — and they are voters."

That message came through loud and clear last week as Hagee and 4,500 like-minded Christians visited the Capitol to lobby for Israel and a get-tough policy against Iran. Motivating them is their belief that Israel's fate is tied to that of the free world.

"We didn't come to Washington to figure out what Washington thinks," Hagee said. "We came to Washington to express our views, and we came as people. People hold the power in America."

Pastor of the 18,000-member Cornerstone Church in San Antonio and a world-reknowned TV evangelist, Hagee organized the lobbying blitz (the second in two years) to try to exert political power in Middle East policy, including consideration of a pre-emptive strike on Iran. He founded a non-profit organization, Christians United for Israel, 18 months ago, to give a louder voice to Christian Zionists, who are among the 60 million to 100 million evangelicals in the U.S. Many of them believe they are living in the final days described in prophetic books of the Bible and that standing with Israel assures them of being on God's side when it is all said and done.

Known for his fiery apocalyptic sermons and books, such as "Jerusalem Countdown," Hagee, 67, is no stranger to conservative Republican politics and mobilizing Christians to vote.

Last week, along with the visit to Congress, CUFI conducted a three-day summit for 4,500 delegates that included seminars on the evils of militant Islamic groups, lessons on effective lobbying, the showing of pro-Israel documentaries, banquets for donors and its signature event, Night to Honor Israel, which was broadcast on Israeli TV.

The ceremony drew nearly 5,000 participants inside the Washington Convention Center and 15 protesters outside.

The dissenters, part of "Project Straight Gate," based in Phoenix, held signs that read "Hagee's apostacy kills Palestinians" and "Blessed are the peacemakers." The group, representing six states, started five years ago to counter the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

To them, Hagee is the next Rev. Jerry Falwell, who they say misrepresented Christian faith through his political activities.

"The whole Christian Zionism movement is causing Christianity to be a laughing stock all over the world," said Charles Carlson, the group's founder and director. "It's bringing (Hagee) fame and fortune by putting Israel on the throne right beside Christ."

Inside the convention center, high-profile Israeli and U.S. government leaders revved up the audience with impassioned speeches by, among others, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay also attended.

At a banquet for $1,000-plus donors the night before, Sen. Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut independent and practicing Jew, praised CUFI and likened Hagee to Moses as a "leader of a multitude."

"The support of Christian Zionists is critical to Israel's security and strength," he said, "and to America's security and strength."

The average delegate found in the seminars the material they would need for lobbying and later grassroots activism. Panelists, both Jewish and Christian, promoted the use of alternative fuels as a way to wean America from Arab oil and deeper study of pro-Israel arguments to clarify biased media reports, win converts in their neighborhoods and vote pro-Israel candidates into office. There was particular emphasis on one core belief that Israel must not give up any land to Palestinians for peace, a view that comes from the Bible and history.

They also detailed the threat of militant Islamic groups who incite children to hate Jews and teach that being suicide bombers would give them the glory of martyrdom.

"It is a sick philosophy that goes by many names, but I haven't found a better name for this than islamofascism," Gary Bauer, a former presidential candidate who served in the Reagan administration and current CUFI board member, said during a workshop.

Pressing their points

Armed with talking points, CUFI delegates brought their message to a Congress largely in agreement, given that Israel was created by the United Nations in the aftermath of the Holocaust.

They reported meeting with 279 lawmakers, including 57 senators, and according to CUFI leaders, were generally well received.

Still, the suggestion of threatening Iran with a pre-emptive strike before exhausting diplomacy and the dismissal of a two-state solution in the Holy Land were not met with support from all lawmakers.

Some were skeptical that an American public growing weary of the U.S. presence in Iraq could stomach an attack on Iran. They would rather try to persuade other powerful nations in Europe and Asia to end trade with Iran and enact other economic and diplomatic sanctions.

"I've found that diplomacy sure does a lot of good," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, who didn't meet with CUFI members but was asked about them while en route to the Senate chambers. "Ronald Reagan proved that in the Cold War. He sent emissaries to the Soviet Union. We can never take the military option off the table as a world power, but we need to exhaust all diplomatic ways first."

Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., made time to meet briefly with 85 CUFI members who waited for him on the Capitol steps. State directors Mike and Jean Ann McNally stuck to four talking points as instructed during CUFI workshops: opposition to a two-state solution, support for sanctions on Iran, a U.N. crackdown on the terrorist group Hezbollah and continuing and increasing the $2.4 billion in yearly U.S. aid to Israel.

"One of their great strengths is their succinct message," Corker said after the visit, noting he took a first-ever trip to Israel during his election campaign last year. "The clarity of that message has endeared them to many people."

Several CUFI members lingered after the visit, holding hands in a circle and whispering prayers.

"We know we'll get blessed because we're blessing Israel," said Jean Ann McNally, the co-state director for Tennessee. "We're not here to lose."

In contrast, fundamental disagreements emerged during his meeting with seven CUFI members, said Bill Harper, chief of staff for Congresswoman Betty McCollum, D-St. Paul.

McCollum earlier this year was invited to attend a Night to Honor Israel in her home state. She declined in an April 25 letter, citing "repugnant" publicized statements by Hagee, including his calling Hurricane Katrina God's judgment on a sinful city and saying those who live by the Koran have a mandate to kill Christians and Jews.

After the meeting, Harper said he couldn't agree with CUFI's assertion that a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians would hurt progress in the Middle East.

He pointed to Israel's freeing of 250 Palestinian prisoners Friday and Bush's release of a multimillion-dollar aid package for the Palestinian Authority Cabinet.

"This is really frankly a radical leadership," Harper said of CUFI. "They are dangerous to any prospects of ending the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians."

Texas' two Republican senators were more welcoming of CUFI's message.

"I think this is a group that gets it from the standpoint of the threat to not only our nation but also to the Iraqis and Afghans and to Israel," said Cornyn. "And that is the threat of Islamic extremism that justifies the murder of innocent civilians in pursuit of its ideological agenda."

Hutchison described CUFI as the Christian equivalent to the Jewish lobbying group AIPAC, and credible.

But she parts company with it over, for example, her preference for a two-state solution to bring "long-standing peace and economic development."

Challenges ahead

Hagee's meeting with Texas lawmakers was one of the few public appearances he made during the week. Instead, during 12-hour, tightly scheduled days, he was immersed in private CUFI strategy meetings with pastors and lawmakers.

CUFI claims about 50,000 members from churches representing 2 million people and has directors in each state and representatives in 10 countries.

Even with Congress' strong pro-Israel leanings, Hagee and CUFI have to gain traction at a time when one presidency is nearing an end and the next is a big unknown.

As CUFI met in Washington last week, President Bush, who banked on the same evangelical base as CUFI's, announced plans to pursue a two-state solution for the Holy Land.

Also last week, the State Department appeared headed to diplomatic talks with Iran to discuss charges that it is arming Iraqi militias. Such a move runs contrary to one of CUFI's strongest convictions — that Iran's pursuit of nuclear capabilities by its president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is part of a ploy to wipe out Israel and establish an Islamic world order.

Hagee also has to convince an increasingly fragmented evangelical community that Israel should be its top agenda item, despite competing issues such as global warming, poverty, abortion and homosexuality.

Perhaps one of Hagee's biggest hurdles will be his status as a controversial end-time theologian who, with great certainty, purports to understand future events based on his reading of the Book of Revelation and Old Testament prophecies.

Israel, he says, will come under attack from Arab enemies led by the Antichrist, pitting the forces of good and evil in the Battle of Armageddon. The Jews in Israel will be killed, except for 144,000 who are spared and foretold to convert to the Christian faith before Jesus' return.

Somewhat tongue-in-cheek, Jewish leaders with CUFI have said the only difference between them and their Christian counterparts is whether the Messiah's future arrival will be his first or second time on Earth.

This end-time theology was intentionally left out of the CUFI trip last week and in all other related events, Hagee said.

"We come here and make it very clear that end-time theology has absolutely nothing to do with our support for Israel," he said. "We're supporting Israel because Israel is threatened like no other time in all of her history."

But for others, his end-time views cause them to question his motives, especially since he's outspoken about his desire to affect U.S. foreign policy.

"As a Christian, I continue to be concerned about this militant crusader projected into the world that's categorically the opposite of the message of Jesus as I understand it," said Don Wagner, a founder of the Institute for the Study of Christian Zionism.

This issue deeply divides Jews, some of whom, while they praise Hagee's work to eradicate anti-Semitism, see him as using them as pawns to fulfill Christian prophecy, including the annihilation of most Jews.

David Brog, CUFI's executive director and a practicing Jew, said Christian Zionists are not motivated by end-time prophecy, despite their belief in it. Instead, Brog said, Jews who partner with CUFI are recognizing their shared dedication to moral lifestyles, the same sacred texts and the same God and a common goal of peace by combating the modern threat of global terrorism.

"If (Hagee) wanted a war, then he'd want to let Iran get the bombs," he said. "I think (Hagee's critics) are misunderstanding Christian theology. God has no set time for the Second Coming. And there's nothing you or I can do about it." http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA072207.01B.hagee.346bf8a.html

McChurch - Propaganda in a Bag for Kids

Pastor is told no to backpack giveaway

By TRENT SPINER

Only in the land of the Frozen Chosen would one be so deeply in denial as to believe that such a ruse would not be obvious to the most mentally challenged among us…Can you imagine the outcry if the School Department decided to give away backpacks with condoms and birth control information inside?

Oh, McChurch, you’ve done it again! This is the “LifeWay Church,” of all things…If this kind of deception is the Way to Life, beam me out of here, Scotty…

Stan Moody is the author of "Crisis in Evangelical Scholarship" and "McChurched: 300 Million Served and Still Hungry

DERRY – Juan Saa, pastor of Derry's LifeWay Church, came before the school board last night with a request that was ultimately unacceptable for school board members.

Saa asked the school board to let him distribute backpacks to needy children. The backpacks would also contain a religious pamphlet promoting his church.

Last year, members from that church bought 1,000 backpacks at a cost of about $6,000, Saa said. Church members were able to distribute 300 backpacks on their own and then gave 100 more bags to the school district office, in the hopes that the bags would connect with the district's deserving children.

Staff members said the bags were high quality and appreciated, but they removed the church flyers before handing them over to the district's social services worker.

"I struggle with the church and state conflict or using the children in a way that is unacceptable," said Mary Ellen Hannon, superintendent.

Saa disagreed with the superintendent's decision and went before the school board to see if they could reverse her decision.

"We are willing to do this just from a service standpoint," said Saa. "Our motivation is not to promote the church, or gay people, through this. We are trying to serve out of just who we are, that is our commitment."

Saa repeatedly asked how his organization could help students in town without "having a wall between" his church and the school district.

School board members took turns in voicing their disagreement.

"I don't believe we should be distributing non-school related material to parents," said Ken Linehan. "We are not in the business of direct marketing. We send material that has to do with the school or the business of the school. I wouldn't be interested in getting propaganda, I mean that in a nice way, at home. I don't think that is up to the school."

Saa stood his ground.

"You guys are the authority, I would just like to appeal to your good conscience," he said. "As far as the church and state separation, its not even in the Bill of Rights or the Constitution."

Saa said students interested in backpacks can visit his Web site: www.lifewaychurch.net.

McChurch - Inciting Members to Violence

Hate Crimes Bill Opponents Protest for Right to Preach on Biblical Sin

Christian pro-family groups from across the nation rallied at the Capitol Wednesday to protest against the hate crimes bill currently being reviewed by the Senate, which opponents argue will endanger the rights of Christians to preach about the sin of homosexuality.

Thu, Jul. 12, 2007 Posted: 13:53:28 PM EST

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The problem with the protest is that the Christian Right, benefactors of tax-free status, wants the right not only to preach against homosexuality (which right would remain under the free speech provision of the Constitution) but wants the right to bash individuals by name and campaign against them on the grounds of their sexuality…

Personally ,my take is that if a pastor preaches to incite anyone to violence against anyone, he has violated his trust and ought to be held accountable…The days should be ending where the privilege of preaching is abused by those who shoot off their mouths without accountability…The general public is paying for the privilege of church buildings and organizations by absorbing the tax burden of the church…

Stan Moody is the author of "Crisis in Evangelical Scholarship" and "McChurched: 300 Million Served and Still Hungry

WASHINGTON – Christian pro-family groups from across the nation rallied at the Capitol Wednesday to protest against the hate crimes bill currently being reviewed by the Senate, which opponents argue will endanger the rights of Christians to preach about the sin of homosexuality.

“This hate crime legislation is hatred and intolerance aimed at ministers and good Christian folks who dare to call sin ‘sin,’” said Dr. Johnny M. Hunter, national director of LEARN (Life Education and Resource Network).

“Pastors not only have a right, but they have an obligation to state emphatically, that according to Scripture, a man or a woman should not perform a sex act with a person of the same sex,” he said, as a long yellow banner facing the Capitol read “Homosexuality is a Sin” flapped in the wind beside him.

Hunter noted that the “moral code” on sin does not only apply to some but to all so it is not discriminatory.

“If a lesbian kills another lesbian, would she be charged with a hate crime? If a man kills the man he calls his partner, would he be charged with a hate crime?” questioned Hunter. “If not, then that law would be discriminatory because it would only apply to heterosexuals.”

Christian and pro-family groups have been protesting the hate crimes bill for months, arguing that the federal bill is not only redundant of state and local laws, but it also threatens the free speech of those who speak on the biblical view of homosexuality.

The Senate bill, S. 1105, would expand the federal hate crimes categories to include sexual orientation, gender, gender identity and disability, adding them to racial, ethnic, and religious categories already protected under the law.

In May, the U.S. House of Representative voted to pass its version of the bill, H.R. 1592, which would expand the hate crimes categories and make it easier for the federal government to get involved in hate crime investigations.

Supporters of the hate crimes bill argue that the legislation will help protect vulnerable groups from hate-motivated violence.

“This bill helps law enforcement protect vulnerable groups from hate-motivated violence, a goal that appeals to the moral foundations of all faith traditions,” said the Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy, president of The Interfaith Alliance, in a statement.

The Interfaith Alliance is a member of the coalition of over 30 religious organizations which released an open letter on Wednesday in support of the Senate passing the hate crimes bill. The letter was signed by 1,385 clergies representing over 75 different faith traditions.

Yet adamant opponents of the bill point out that a pastor who preaches against homosexuality can be accused of inciting violence if one of his congregants commits an act considered a hate crime under the legislation.

“Under the guise of protecting the immoral, unnatural, ungodly lifestyle of homosexuals, our government is being forced to censor the freedom of speech and freedom of religion of Bible-believing Christians,” said the Rev. Rusty Lee Thomas, director of Elijah Ministries.

“We have come to Washington, D.C., to appeal to our government to back off…return to your jurisdiction, get out of our churches, quit policing our thoughts and stop trying to sear our consciences by framing mischief into law,” Thomas vented.

Others who spoke at the rally included the Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, founder and president of BOND (Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny), and former U.S. Navy chaplain Lt. Gordon James Klingenschmitt, who was dismissed earlier this year for praying in Jesus name after a long legal battle.

“We are calling upon the United States Congress to rescind [the bill] and asking President Bush to veto this hate crimes speech law because it will directly come after our pastors,” said Klingenschmitt.

The White House in May had already said the president plans to veto the hate crimes bill if it makes it to his desk, explaining that other criminal laws already address the crimes featured in the bills.

Michelle Vu
Christian Post Reporter

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