Is the gist of your article that candidates for office should separate themselves from their ministers? The Fox article, doesn't offer any quotes from the candidate, only from his minister. Are the candidates bound by what their ministers say? If so....

Let us look for a moment at John McCain's relationship with his pastor, the Reverend John Hagee. Here are some of Hagee's comments:

"It was the disobedience and rebellion of the Jews, God’s chosen people, to their covenantal responsibility to serve only the one true God, Jehovah, that gave rise to the opposition and persecution that they experienced beginning in Canaan and continuing to this very day."

"How utterly repulsive, insulting, and heartbreaking to God for his chosen people to credit idols with bringing blessings he had showered upon the chosen people. Their own rebellion had birthed the seed of anti-Semitism that would arise and bring destruction to them for centuries to come."

So, Rev. Hagee doesn't like Jews, who have brought anti-Semitism upon themselves.

"All hurricanes are acts of God, because God controls the heavens. I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they are — were recipients of the judgment of God for that. The newspaper carried the story in our local area that was not carried nationally that there was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that the Katrina came. And the promise of that parade was that it was going to reach a level of sexuality never demonstrated before in any of the other Gay Pride parades. So I believe that the judgment of God is a very real thing. I know that there are people who demur from that, but I believe that the Bible teaches that when you violate the law of God, that God brings punishment sometimes before the day of judgment. And I believe that the Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans."

And Reverend Hagee doesn't like gays so much either.

Reverend Hagee has also called the Catholic Church "the Great Whore." In all fairness, after initially saying that he was "very proud of Reverend Hagee's spiritual leadership" Sen. McCain did move to distance himself, a half-hearted move that the Catholic League called disappointing.

Or perhaps the issue isn't religion or the remarks of Obama's pastor, perhaps it is race. It should be noted that Republicans have made Barach Obama's race an issue a lot more than the man you accuse of playing "the race card."

I am curious as to what you referred to when you said "from people like Sharpton." People like Al Sharpton in what way? Christians? Or Liberals? Or were you referring to the color of their skin?

 

 

 

 

I doubt Barak has ever been called a B atch.

Reverend Hagee is NOT john McCain's pastor, just a supporter.

Island_Dog asked "Is he actively endorsing McCain at the church?" The answer is yes.

On February 27th, Pastor McCain endorsed John McCain at a press conference held in San Antonio, Texas:

"John McCain is a man of principle," Hagee, a televangelist and the pastor of Cornerstone Church, told reporters. "He does not stand boldly on both sides of any issue."

Since John Hagee is a televangelist, are we going to quibble whether that was "at the church" or not? As a minister, he endorsed him.

Hagee isn't the only one. John McCain called Rod Parsley of the World Harvest Church of Columbus, Ohio, his "spiritual advisor." Rev. Parsley has written that the United States, as a Christian nation, must defeat Islam. (Source: Silent No More, Parsley's 2005 book.)

On March 11th, John McCain defended Pastor Hagee as follows:

"I will say that he said that his words were taken out of context, he defends his position. I hope that maybe you'd give him a chance to respond. He says he has never been anti-Catholic, but I repudiate the words that create that impression."

To which Bill Donahue, President of the Catholic League responded:

"Did we also mischaracterize Hagee when he called my religion 'The Great Whore,' the 'apostate church,' the 'anti-Christ' and a 'false cult system'? McCain cannot ignore Hagee's lies any more than he can tolerate his bigotry. This is getting out of control."

 

As far as "any teacher of the word of God" goes, Paladin77 is of course excluding the Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church, the United Methodist Church, pretty much all non-Judeo-Christian churches. Lets be clear, we are talking about a very specific definition of the Word of God here.

Before responding on the issue of Republican racism, let me be clear that the Democrats have a long and ignominous history of racism, worse than the Republicans. Most of the racist remarks made by Republicans have been in the blogosphere and not official, by any means.

But there is Trent Lott, David Duke, Barry Goldwater's oppositon to the Civil Rights Act, Richard Nixon's taped use of the words "nigger" and "kike."

"When I refer to someone like Sharpton, I mean people who are racist, hateful, and well.....extortioners like Sharpton and Jackson." I can't help but notice that all the people that you just named are people of color. That was why I asked for clarification. I don't think that you mean that you only condemn racism in one direction, but you might want to clarify.

 

 

I'm just curious, how many people think that Mike Huckabee's call to replace the Constitution with Biblical law was rational? I mean we are including Leviticus, right? That is the origin of most of the commandments against homosexuality.

Does it also follow that we again legalize slavery? Animal sacrifice? Stoning to death of blasphermers?

My point is that neither Republicans nor Democrats are very good at distancing themselves from the lunatic fringe.

Maybe Hillary has been called a "********"... she was the first Black co-president, wasn't she? ;~D

Uh, that is a leap of logic. You can say he is recognizing Anti-semitism, and yes, saying they brought it on themselves. However there is no hate (a lot of blame) in your quoted text.

reasonable people can then debate him on the source and cause of Anti-semitism (I doubt any reasonable person would deny it exists), but hate?

You are falling for the same political correctness that too many are using in today's society - i.e. "if you disagree with me, then you must hate me".

I expect that from weak minded sheep. I am very disappointed to see it coming from you.

It use to be that everyone was a racist if they did not bow down and kiss Jackson's ass. Today, hate is the new idiocy. If you disagree with me, you must hate me. But then Political Correctness has never relied on intelligence, just obedience.

Just getting away from race, I find these even more disturbing.

"In a campaign appearance earlier this month, Sen. Obama said, "I don't think my church is actually particularly controversial." He said Rev. Wright "is like an old uncle who says things I don't always agree with," telling a Jewish group that everyone has someone like that in their family.

"We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye," Rev. Wright said in a sermon on Sept. 16, 2001.

"We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost," he told his congregation. "

You sir are a not so bright person, you have no idea about religion or the people of faith, you call what one person says hate speech against the Jews and anyone else but the man is teaching an object lesson from his holy book, when that is pointed out to you, you do not respond to it you ignore it and continue on with ignorance. That is your choice but you lost a lot of credibility in doing so.

Your statements are hate speech in full, you try to equate a person who wants his congregation to ask God to damn the nation he lives in with someone who points out what happens to people that disobey the God they have sworn allegiance to. If you bother to open a Torah or a Bible both of which I have taught from, you will see what one said was not hate speech and what the other said was hate speech. Don’t try to muddy the waters so your guy will not look so bad. you are doing the typical thing of looking for problems that are not there in order to make noise. Minister Farrakan was given an award for his service to the black people by Pastor Wright, he also traveled to Lybia to meet with Kadaffie with Minister Farrakan, this is the person who is on the campaign staff of Senator Obama and his advisor in race relations. Pastor Haggee just endorsed the man he thinks would be the best president. I see very little difference.

I consider this (from this article) a very telling remark:


He wants to be sure he's speaking as truthfully as possible... not simply speaking truthfully. If that circumlocution is not stock course material straight from the Slick Willy Postgraduate School of Political Weaseling, I don't know what is.

Ok, so you don’t know your history, and that would account for the lack of reading comprehension and the inability to stand outside and look at things honestly.

I make this statement based off of what you have written in this article only so if I am mistaken please forgive me. First off, the bible suggests the earth is round and the earth revolves around it. It was the scientists at the time of the early Roman Catholic Church that convinced the Pope that belief was old fashioned and to bring the church up to date it should embrace science. The Catholic dogma that followed is what you suggest, which was between 300 and 900 AD, some four hundred to a thousand years after the New Testament was written. Hard for it to be written by those people.

Every culture including this one is focused on the local rather than the entire world. Do you really care about a speeder in china? Do you care about the asteroid that is going to come close to hitting the earth in 30 years or that its projected path might hit us on its return a few years after the first pass? When was the last time you studied virology, and how the pandemic of 1918 spread and how it relates to the Ebola virus? These are just some of the fields of study I do for fun because it interests me. I don’t know it all and I don’t even try to know it all. But I know the little area I am involved in, and that is what I write about in my books. Some are fiction and some are non-fiction all of them require extensive study and in the fiction books require at least some basis in fact to sound credible. I brought up books to make my point.

A best selling book in America is not a best selling book all over the world because it is all local. Our culture does to translate to other cultures around the world. The bible is local because the Old Testament is a history book of the Hebrew faith and the lineage of Adam nothing more, the New Testament is a continuation of that at first and then documents the first century of the church. Again it is local, when it started to spread beyond the first few thousand the bible comes to an end. When you see what someone says in a sermon and it is reputed to be taken out of context as you point out in Senator McCain’s supposed support of the man who said it, you did not bother to look it up to see who was telling the truth. You chose to be ignorant on the topic. Senator asked that people give him a chance because his words were taken out of context. That is not a ringing endorsement, it is not like Senator McCain hired the man to serve on his staff. Something you can’t say about Senator Obama.

Only Bin Laden is a danger to what American stands for the others are practicing two very important principals of our nation, freedom of speech and freedom of religion. There is little that has been said by any of them that crosses the line. Sure they say things we don’t like and disagree with but nothing that threatens the nation. My concern with Senator Obama is that the nut job who has been his pastor for 20 years is now his advisor on race relations of the US. That can be dangerous since he has repudiated a lot the man said and even resigned from his church of 20 years because of what the pastor had said in December but then hired the man to his staff. What does that say about the man and his views?

Yeah, I spotted that a while back, they are very dirty and they like to stand on the side pointing fingers at everyone while trying to look innocent.

And now Wright's church is accusing the media of character assassination - I guess making one's own public words public again amounts to character assassination these days.