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.
July 28, 2008 6:09 am Christian ZionismFor 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.”