Religion, Nationalism, and Terror

MRFF Weekly Watch , Dec. 12, 2008

Shocking video of Evangelical Christian missionaries embedded with American combat troops in Afghanistan

Missionaries shown distributingNew Testament in Arabic to Afghani civilians

“God’s Soldiers”

“Hey, this is God. Come to Bible study”
- Chaplain Capt. Popov, illegally promoting evangelical Christianity in Discovery’s Military Channel documentary

Also featured: Popov blessing a group of soldiers about to go out on a patrol: “I pray that you would give them the ability to exterminate the enemy and to accomplish the task that they’re been sent forth by God and country to do. In Christ’s name I pray. Amen.”

Media Matters – Minneapolis radio host Baker repeatedly called Obama “Nicolae Carpathia,” the Antichrist character in the Left Behind series, Media Matters, September 24, 2008

Summary: Radio host Chris Baker repeatedly referred to Sen. Barack Obama as “Nicolae Carpathia,” the Antichrist character in the Left Behind book series, including one instance in which he stated: “I’m getting really sick of being told that if I disagree with Barack Obammy, the Nicolae Carpathia candidate, that I’m a racist.”

On the September 23 broadcast of his Minneapolis radio show, Chris Baker repeatedly referred to Sen. Barack Obama as “Nicolae Carpathia,” the Antichrist character in the Left Behind series, as well as “Barack Obammy” and “the political Jesus.”

During the broadcast, Baker stated: “I’m getting really sick of being told that if I disagree with Barack Obammy, the Nicolae Carpathia candidate, that I’m a racist.” He later quoted Obama urging supporters to get in the “faces” of friends and neighbors and said: “So, we have the in-your-face hotline here, that number for Barack Obammy supporters, the Nicolae Carpathia of this election … For all you Barack Obammy supporters, this is how you can get in people’s face, like Nicolae Carpathia wants you to do, OK, because I am man of diversity and tolerance, and so therefore we provide that just for you.” Baker added: “Now, here’s what I want to talk about, OK? One, people who don’t like Barack Obammy, the Nicolae Carpathia political Jesus, I want to know why it is. And if it’s race, I want you to be honest enough to tell me so”

After one caller said that it “drives me absolutely nuts when you call him ‘Barack Obammy,’ ” Baker asked, “How about Nicolae Carpathia?” After the caller replied, “No,” Baker asked, “How about the political Jesus?” Later, Baker stated: “Man, that’s just part of the big show. That’s all sarcasm and me just being a smart aleck.”

Left Behind is a best-selling series of 16 novels by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins that tell the story of the Rapture and ensuing events according to a Christian interpretation of the end times. The Left Behind franchise also includes graphic novels, a Left Behind series for teens, and three films based on the books. A computer game, Left Behind: Eternal Forces, was released in 2006.

Palin: Iraq War ‘Task from God’ | Tikun Olam-תקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place, Sept. 3rd, 2008 by Richard Silverstein

Praise the Lord and pass the ballot box.

Sarah Palin may be “right with God.” But is she “right with America?” Talk about separation of church and state…I was just watching the accompanying video with my wife and she–both of us having been born and raised in New York–said: “Can you imagine a governor of New York saying these things?” Frankly, I can’t imagine a governor of any state saying such things, at least not as a sitting governor.

Things are different in Alaska perhaps because politically there is less at stake. But now that Palin seeks to move onto a national stage, it is precisely videos like this that will allow a national audience to determine whether she is fit to be elected.

Here are some of the choice quotations from the video that jumped out at me. In his introduction, controversial Pastor Ed Kalnins notes that when he first met Palin, she was the mayor of Wasilla:

When I got the chance to meet our mayor, I said: “This person loves Jesus. That’s the bottom line. She loves Jesus with everything she has. She’s a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ before she’s a mayor.”

After boasting that her 19 year-old son Track had enlisted in the military and was about to be deployed to Iraq, Palin preached:

“Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right. Also, for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending them [U.S. soldiers] out on a task that is from God,” she exhorted the congregants. “That’s what we have to make sure that we’re praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God’s plan.

Subsequently, she makes another boast about a $30 billion natural gas pipeline which she’s seeking to build from Alaska through Canada to the lower 48:

” I can work really, really hard to get a natural gas pipeline, a $30 billion project that’s going to create a lot of new jobs for Alaskans and will have a lot of energy flowing through here. And pray about that also. I think God’s will has to be done in unifying people and companies to get that gas line built, so pray for that.

She then lists the tasks she can do as governor to make the state a decent place to live. But she adds:

None of that is gonna do any good if the people’s heart isn’t right with God. We can work together to make sure that God’s will be done here in Alaska.

Casey Sanchez, Theocratic Sect Prays for Real Armageddon, AlterNet, August 30, 2008

LAKELAND, Fla. — Todd Bentley has a long night ahead of him, resurrecting the dead, healing the blind, and exploding cancerous tumors. Since April 3, the 32-year-old, heavily tattooed, body-pierced, shaved-head Canadian preacher has been leading a continuous “supernatural healing revival” in central Florida. To contain the 10,000-plus crowds flocking from around the globe, Bentley has rented baseball stadiums, arenas and airport hangars at a cost of up to $15,000 a day. Many in attendance are church pastors themselves who believe Bentley to be a prophet and don’t bat an eye when he tells them he’s seen King David and spoken with the Apostle Paul in heaven. “He was looking very Jewish,” Bentley notes.

Tattooed across his sternum are military dog tags that read “Joel’s Army.” They’re evidence of Bentley’s generalship in a rapidly growing apocalyptic movement that’s gone largely unnoticed by watchdogs of the theocratic right. According to Bentley and a handful of other “hyper-charismatic” preachers advancing the same agenda, Joel’s Army is prophesied to become an Armageddon-ready military force of young people with a divine mandate to physically impose Christian “dominion” on non-believers.

“An end-time army has one common purpose — to aggressively take ground for the kingdom of God under the authority of Jesus Christ, the Dread Champion,” Bentley declares on the website for his ministry school in British Columbia, Canada. “The trumpet is sounding, calling on-fire, revolutionary believers to enlist in Joel’s Army. … Many are now ready to be mobilized to establish and advance God’s kingdom on earth.”

Inside Pastor John Hagee’s 2008 Washington Summit – a JewsOnFirst.org video, August 15, 2008

Iran and the End Times at Pastor John Hagee’s 2008 Washington Summit
JewsOnFirst.org reporters’ video from inside and outside the July 2008 summit of Hagee’s Christians United for Israel

When John Hagee’s organization, Christians United for Israel (CUFI) held its July 2008 summit at the Washington DC Convention Center, JewsOnFirst.org reporters were inside and outside. This video shows some of what we saw and heard, despite CUFI’s extraordinary efforts to shield the meeting from public scrutiny.

People For the American Way, The Good Book Taught Wrong: `Bible History’ Classes in Florida Public Schools, 2000

A number of school districts appear to assume that only Christian students would take the “Bible History” courses. A review of the instructional materials suggests an assumption by these school districts that the teachers and students are of the same (Christian) faith, with the Bible approached accordingly, rather than in an objective and secular manner.

One of the most striking examples is from the Columbia County school district, where students at Columbia High School are asked the following exam question:

“If you had a Jewish friend who wanted to know if Jesus might be the expectant [sic] Messiah, which book [of the Gospels] would you give him?”

Similar examples exist in other school districts:

“Compose an explanation of who Jesus is for someone who has never heard of Him.”
(Final exam question at Madison County High School, Madison County)

“Why is it hard for a non-Christian to understand things about God?”
(Exam question concerning I Corinthians used at both Vanguard High School in Marion County and Williston High School in Levy County)

“What is Jesus Christ’s relationship to God, to creation, and to you?”
(Question asked of students at Niceville High School in Okaloosa County; emphasis added.)

“Who, according to Jesus, is the father of the Jews? The devil.”
(Lesson used in Levy County on John 8)

Asner’s narrative in this 16-minute video–posted on July 18, 2008 by “JewsOnFirst.org, the Jewish Response to attacks on the First Amendment”–is not perfect. But the video does provide a revealing view of Hagee’s worldview. He declares, for example, that the Antichrist “will be partly Jewish, as was Adolf Hitler and as was Karl Marx.” Hagee also says that the Antichrist will be a homosexual. In a 1997 sermon, he declares that America is controlled by “an unseen hand.” He goes on to explain that the US is controlled by the Federal Reserve System, which is in turn controlled by “a group of class-A stockholders, among them mostly Europeans, the Rothschilds, and David Rockefeller.”

I received a message saying “This site has been temporarily disabled” when I tried to access http://www.jewsonfirst.org/ at 4:15 on Aug. 2, 2008. But the video is still accessible by clicking here.

Right Wing Watch – Best of the Blog, July 25, 2008

DeLay: God Created America To Propagate Christianity (7/25)

Earlier this month, we noted that former House Speaker Tom DeLay had joined one of his “closest friends,” Rick Scarborough of Vision America, for Sunday services at Scarborough’s Texas church. Now, Vision America has helpfully posted the audio of DeLay’s rambling sermon on its website in which he explains that “America was created by God to spread the Gospel; to spread the word of Jesus Christ and to propagate Christianity”: I know that America was created by God and it was created by God, not for wealth, personal wealth. It wasn’t created by God so that we would have the resources that we now have. It wasn’t even created by God to have the freedom that we have now. America was created by God to spread the Gospel; to spread the word of Jesus Christ and to propagate Christianity. And the reason I know that is because my entire political career is exhibited by that. The Lord walked with me … I came to Christ in the first year in Congress and now I’ve been walking with the Lord [and] he has trained me and showed me why he created this nation: to spread the Gospel.

Listen: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/2008/07/delay_god_creat.html

Ali Gharib, Going Undercover at Mad Pastor Hagee’s Christians United for Israel Summit, AlterNet, July 26, 2008

For Christians United for Israel and its founder, John Hagee, this year’s Washington-Israel Summit was supposed to serve as a rallying call for Christians to stand up for Israel. The controversies surrounding Hagee’s teachings that inspire his politics, particularly his End Times theology and its implications for the Jews he purports to love and protect and his religious interpretations of the Catholic Church and Hitler, were meant to take a backseat to the conference’s aims of demonstrating political support for Israel and actions against its enemies.

Hagee did not want the events at this year’s summit to be brought to the wider public. All but one event in the two-day session at the cavernous Washington Convention Center were closed to the press. Press passes were issued to Tuesday’s Night to Honor Israel — a bizarre fete attended by an announced crowd of 5,000 — but access to participants and speakers by journalists was strictly monitored and restricted. The reasons became abundantly clear in the question-and-answer session after the first panel, when a woman asked how she would know if it was time to start up a “Christian militia” to return the country to conservative values. “Let’s not use the term militia,” Hagee responded, firmly establishing a thread that could be observed over both days of meetings: Control the message.

Armed with a full-fledged participant’s pass and a Christians United for Israel (CUFI) notepad included in my registration pack, I attended both full days of the summit undercover and spoke freely with participants and speakers. The picture that emerged was very different from the one put on for the world on Tuesday night. Message control was constantly stressed to participants to conceal some of the more controversial themes of Hagee’s teachings and theology. But in candid interviews, conducted both as a fellow participant and as a member of the press, Hagee’s fervent following stayed on message with the full spectrum of his teachings, not just those slices made available publicly.

Away from the watchful eye of Hagee’s Manhattan PR firm (many interviews with participants were broken up), some summit attendees, despite specific and repeated instructions not to talk to the press, were eager to discuss the End Times — a belief in final judgment and the end of the World — and what it meant for Jews.

Attendee Dean “Vernon” Melvin of New Mexico told me about Jesus’ second coming and the subsequent end of the world. “When Jesus returns in the sky above us,” he said, “those of us who are already saved and have died will come up out of our graves and go into the sky with him.”

Randy Driskill divided Jews into only two categories: “The Orthodox believe that their messiah hasn’t come yet. The messianic think Jesus is their savior.”

The “Orthodox Jews,” said Driskill, had “scales over their eyes. They’re blinded by scales right now,” he told me with a deadly serious look on his face. “That’s why they don’t accept Christ.”

Anyone wishing to understand Christian Zionism should see Max Blumenthal’s video of the 2007 Christians United for Israel conference entitled “Rapture Ready: The Unauthorized Christians United for Israel Tour.” It is, as Nat and Natalie Cole might put it, unforgettable in every way. It is among the videos that Hagee’s lawyers have had removed from YouTube, although it is still accessible elsewhere. One can safely assume that Hagee’s security people will make sure that Blumenthal does not attend the 2008 conference.

Hagee’s Revenge? Videos Of Controversial Pastor Removed From YouTube, AlterNet, July 8, 2008

Late last week, with no prior notification, lawyers for the controversial evangelist John Hagee had a series of videos concerning the pastor removed from YouTube. The clips spanned from the contentious to the mundane; some included footage lifted from sermons Hagee had already made public, others involved documentaries made by filmmakers inside Hagee’s conventions. All told more than 120 videos were taken down in the abrupt sweep.

The timing was, perhaps, more peculiar than the move itself. Clips that had been online for well over a year were now being subjected to “third-party” copyright infringement claims. And while Hagee had not been in the mainstream press since he and Sen. John McCain ended their official relationship a month prior, Hagee’s Christians United for Israel annual summit is just days away, and at least one prominent McCain backer (Sen. Joseph Lieberman) is set to be in attendance.

Two individuals who have documented Hagee and posted clips on some of his more noteworthy sermons (including those interpreted as anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim, and anti-gay — Hagee, Wilson noted, once claimed that the Anti-Christ will be German, gay, a “blasphemer” and “partly Jewish – as was Adolf Hitler, as was Karl Marx”) believe that nefarious motives were behind the YouTube shakedown.

“Obviously Hagee’s minions orchestrated this move to suppress bad publicity ahead of their July summit,” said Max Blumenthal, a freelance writer and videographer whose documentary on last year’s Christians United for Israel summit was viewed by hundreds of thousands. “This is a response to the McCain debacle and concern over bad publicity for Lieberman’s appearance,” he charged.

Barry Lynn, Americans United, Church & State, May 2000 Perspective

The previous Friday I attended Pat Robertson’s 70th birthday gala at the Hilton here in Washington. (Don’t worry; I didn’t use Americans United money for the $50 per plate dinner tickets. In fact, like most of the attendees, I got mine free.) This was an event filled with praise for Robertson from a raft of family members and colleagues, most of them fully engaged in all of his escapades to gain power and profit while preaching his version of the Gospel. (I noted that four of the eight United States senators who wrote special tribute letters for the fancy dinner brochure were the same people who asked the Justice Department to investigate Americans United last summer.)

Far from embracing differences, as the Feminist Expo crowd, some of these folks were as belligerent as you get outside of a prizefight. I took my new assistant Jennie Oberzan to the event because she had never heard Robertson speak. Prior to the dinner, she had a chance to meet some of my opponents in the “cultural war” including Col. Oliver North, Jay Sekulow and Jerry Falwell. They were predictably polite.

Our “dinner companions” were something else again. I neither hide nor brag about what I do at such events, and if people recognize me, we usually agree to disagree and talk about the weather, raising teenage children or baseball. The woman to our left was clearly suspicious of my presence and asked who I was. When I told her, she asked me how I could possibly support public schools since they now had “queers” in them.

I told her that I resented that language, which only encouraged her to repeat it. I told her that I wasn’t having any conversation if she was going to use such pejoratives. She persisted. I even told her that if my son used that word I would ground him for a month.

She then moved on to interrogating Jennie. When Jennie indicated that she was Jewish, the woman literally huffed: “Now I understand.” She later pursued Jennie into the hall and told her she was hell-bound, had a demonic presence in her and that only Christians were really Jewish. We left early.

Breaking News – JTA, Jewish & Israel News, June 19, 2008

A swastika and cross were drawn on the home of a leading Jewish critic of Christian activity in the U.S. military.

The vandalism was committed Sunday night on the Albuquerque home of Mikey Weinstein, the founder and president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, according to news reports.

Weinstein, an alumnus of the U.S. Air Force Academy, has been a vocal critic of Christian proselytizing within the ranks of the military. He says he has been the target of regular harassment since filing a lawsuit charging that the military has violated the religious liberties of its members.

“This is the first time I think I’ve ever felt outrage, humiliation and embarrassment at the same time,” Weinstein told the Albuquerque television station KOAT.

Bruce Wilson, Talk To Action | Reclaiming Citizenship, History, and Faith, May 15, 2008

Yesterday I discovered an astonishing audio recording of a sermon, by controversial McCain endorser Pastor John Hagee, in which Hagee elaborates on his view that Hitler and the Nazis were divine agents sent by God to (with gruesome inefficiency it would seem) chase Europe’s Jews towards Palestine. In his 2006 book “Jerusalem Countdown”, Hagee proposed that anti-Semitism, and thus the Holocaust, was the fault of Jews themselves – the result of an age old divine curse incurred by the ancient Hebrews through worshiping idols and passed, down the ages, to all Jews now alive.

McCain Rejects Pastors Backing Over Remarks – washingtonpost.com, May 23, 2008

STOCKTON, Calif., May 22 — Sen. John McCain on Thursday repudiated the presidential endorsement of the Rev. John Hagee after learning about a sermon in which the megachurch pastor from San Antonio declared that God allowed the rise of Adolf Hitler because it resulted in returning Israel to the Jewish people.

The Arizona Republicans decision to distance himself from Hagee came after months of mounting criticism, particularly from Roman Catholics, over his acceptance of Hagee’s endorsement in late February. 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.

Tikun Olam-תקון עולם. March 29, 2008: Make the World a Better Place » Evangelicals: ‘Killing’ Jews With Christian Kindness

A group called World Evangelical Alliance bought a full-page N.Y. Times ad (at least $120,000) this week. A bigger waste of money I’d have a hard time conceiving. Nearest I can tell, the basic message is: “Jews, we love you. But we don’t love you enough to stop proselytizing you or converting you. In fact, we really don’t care what you think of that, since it’s more important to us to keep doing this than it is to respect your wishes that we not do so.” And the real kicker was the evangelical signatories who insisted that converted Jews like Jews for Jesus and messianic Jews are still authentic Jews who despite becoming Christian have a right to call themselves Jews for the purpose of insinuating themselves into the lives of unsuspecting Jews they seek to convert.

The ad is quite a performance. Full of fake love and respect attempting to conceal presumptuousness and condescension toward Jews. The odd thing is that the ad pretends it is directed as a friendly communique to Jews. I actually took it as a declaration of war. So if it was supposed to say anything positive toward Jews it failed miserably on that score. In truth, I think it was meant more for an evangelical audience to reconfirm their certainty that they are right in their efforts to convert the Jews.

The ad begins well enough:

As evangelical Christians, we want to express our genuine friendship and love for the Jewish people. We sadly acknowledge that church history has been marred with anti-Semitic words and deeds; and that at times when the Jewish people were in great peril, the church did far less than it should have.

We pledge our commitment to be loving friends and to stand against such injustice in our generation.

But it quickly goes downhill:

• At the same time, we want to be transparent in affirming that we believe the most loving and Scriptural expression of our friendship toward Jewish people, and to anyone we call friend, is to forthrightly share the love of God in the person of Jesus Christ.
• We believe that it is only through Jesus that all people can receive eternal life. If Jesus is not the Messiah of the Jewish people, He cannot be the Savior of the World (Acts 4:12).