As Obama breaks with the church he has attended for twenty years, I know that Reverend Hagee is a bit out of the news but ... I can't help believing that he is not out of the picture.
I am astonished that his extremely unorthodox views on Christianity are not getting more play, so herewith ... a few remarks on them, in the hope that others will pick them up.
Now, first, if we were to define what a Christian is, I think it might go something like this:
(1) Someone who believes in the Golden Rule, which is: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
(2) Someone who believes that Jesus is the Savior of the world or, in Greek, the Christ.
It's pretty obvious that if you deny Christian ethics, and deny Christ, you are not a Christian.
Now, I am not going to talk about Hagee's ethics here, though I have concerns about them, but about whether he accepts or rejects Christ.
According to a video on YouTube, which promotes a book by Hagee, Jesus is not the Messiah. Hagee claims he has "Scripturally proved" this in his book.
Here is the video by the Reverend Hagee. (Click on the arrow to watch the video. It's really something.)
There are any number of passages in the Bible which prove him wrong, which anyone can consult. But one is enough.
The following passage from the Gospel according to John shows, as clearly as possible, that according to Scripture, Jesus is the Messiah, in Greek the Christ, in English the Savior.
It recounts a conversation of Jesus with a Samaritan woman.
The Gospel according to John, chapter 4, verses 25-37, quoted from the New International Version of the Bible
The woman said, "I know that Messiah" (called Christ) "is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us."
Then Jesus declared, "I who speak to you am he."
Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, "What do you want?" or "Why are you talking with her?"
Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, "Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?" They came out of the town and made their way toward him.
Meanwhile his disciples urged him, "Rabbi, eat something."
But he said to them, "I have food to eat that you know nothing about."
Then his disciples said to each other, "Could someone have brought him food?"
"My food," said Jesus, "is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. Do you not say, 'Four months more and then the harvest'? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. Even now the reaper draws his wages, even now he harvests the crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying 'One sows and another reaps' is true. I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor."
Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me everything I ever did." So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. And because of his words many more became believers.
They said to the woman, "We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world."
Since a Christian is one who believes that Jesus is the Messiah or, in Greek, the Christ, and since Hagee denies that Jesus is the Messiah, he does not believe in Jesus Christ. He is therefore not a Christian.
What is he? Not a Jew, certainly, in spite of his bizarre love-hatred attitude to the Jews (Israel must be supported at all costs, but Hitler was a divine emissary). Not a Christian. Whose work is he doing?
The fact that many Americans are unable to distinguish Hagee's anti-Christ message from genuine preaching is a sad commentary on the state of our nation. The fact that McCain would bow and scrape to obtain the endorsement of such a man is an eloquent commentary on the state of the Republican Party.
When Pat Robertson calls for the assassination of foreign leaders, he abandons Christian ethics. When John Hagee denies that Jesus is the Messiah, he abandons Christ himself.
It seems that the Christian right is no longer so Christian after all.
As the right abandons Christianity, Christians will abandon it.
It is no secret that this abandonment has already begun, as the Republican Party trashes the planet, the economy, and every principle of morality and justice with its denial of climate change, its deficit spending, and its support for torture as an instrument of state.
So why should they not cotton up to the likes of Reverend Hagee and bask in his trash theology? They have no other principles left to betray.
Is there something I've missed here? Have I shot from the hip too quickly? Is Reverend Hagee more Christian than I realize? Is he a good man and a man of religion?