catman
Joined: 18 Jul 2004
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 Posted: Thu Dec 06, 2007 9:19 pm Post subject: Praying for Armageddon |
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We want you to recognize that Iran is a clear and present danger to the United States of America and Israel. And... that it's time for our country to consider a military pre-emptive strike against Iran if they will not yield to diplomacy," says Pastor John Hagee, a popular television preacher and head of Christians United for Israel (CUFI), an organization that he founded in February 2006.
That was said, of all places, on the steps of the Capitol during a Christian Zionist summit in July 2007. Among some 4,500 listeners, there were prominent representatives of the U.S. ruling elite: on the Republican side, presidential candidate John McCain, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and former Republican House majority leader Tom DeLay; among the Democrats, Senator Joseph Lieberman was in attendance. Israel was represented at the rally by former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"When 50 million American evangelicals unite with 5 million American Jews, you know it is a match made in heaven," the preacher said. In response, Sen. Lieberman said of the preacher: "I would describe Pastor Hagee with the words the Torah uses to describe Moses: he is an �Eesh Elo Kim,' a man of God because those words fit him; and, like Moses he has become the leader of a mighty multitude in pursuit of and defense of Israel."
Who are the "Christian Zionists"? They are a variety of Protestant "fundamentalists" who interpret current events literally as prophesies fulfilled, in accordance with Biblical prophecy, and interpret the prophetic texts as describing inevitable future events. They prefer the most literal interpretation, as proposed back in the 19th century by Briton John Darby, who said there would be no Second Coming of Christ until the Jews returned to the Holy Land.
When Israel was "recreated" in Palestine in 1948, the Darby followers came to the conclusion that that had happened exactly "according to the Scripture." Literalists like Hagee have since continued to replace historiography with theology. From these theological "heights," they imagine themselves to be political strategists and rulers of destinies in the world: after all, "in accordance with the Scripture," Abraham's posterity should possess the entire Holy Land - from Mesopotamia to Turkey to Egypt.
Ironically, the literalists do not bother to ask whether the Israelis need such an Israel in the first place. They - i.e.: Christians waiting for the Second Coming of Christ in accordance with the Apocalypse prophesies - need a great and indivisible Israel. Jesus returns at the end of the seven years (Tribulation) to destroy The Antichrist (The Beast) and his armies at the Battle of Armageddon, outside of Jerusalem. It is for this battle that the pastor - dubbed "Texas Taliban" by some commentators - is urging the U.S. to prepare.
Needless to say, Good is represented by Israel and the U.S., and Evil, by all of Israel's enemies - i.e., Pales�tinians, Arabs, Muslims, and especially Shiite Iran. "The head of the beast of radical Islam in the Middle East is Iran and its fanatical president, Ahmadinejad," Hagee intoned.
"Ahmadinejad believes if he starts a world war, the Islamic messiah will mysteriously appear and produce a global Islamic theocratic dictatorship. It's 1938 all over again. Iran is Germany. Ahmadinejad is Hitler and Ahmadinejad, just like Hitler, is talking about killing the Jews."
According to the pastor, the principal force of Evil will be Russia, a sponsor of Muslim terrorists and supplier of nuclear weapons to Iran. It makes no difference to the preacher that the Soviet Union was Hitler's main opponent and was also the first state to recognize Israel, or that many Israelis come from Russia or that modern Russia itself is fighting against Muslim extremists ("Russia is all over the Middle East in an antagonistic position against the United States... Iran's nuclear weapons have been produced with Russian scientists. The Islamic Arabs are using the Roadmap to Peace to accumulate as much of Israel's territory they can get.")
Whatever the case, the battle will end in a decisive victory for the forces of Good, and the theocratic Jewish state with be restored with the center in Jerusalem, to which all other kings and tsars will go cap in hand. Alas, after such a triumph, the pastor runs into problems: what about the Jews who are waiting for their Messiah, not Jesus Christ? According to the pastor, Jews have not as yet converted to Christianity simply because they have not seen Jesus Christ. But during His Second Coming to Jerusalem, they will finally be able to see Him with their own eyes, and they will bow to him.
"Thank you for the honor," said Rabbi Michael Lerner, who was invited by TV host Bill Moyers to his show to discuss the activity of Christian Zionists. "First, you want to get the Jewish people involved in Arma�geddon," he said, "and then you confront the winners with a no-win choice: convert to our faith or you'll burn in hell." From the rabbi's perspective (and Rabbi Lerner is also editor of Tikkun, a Jewish journal of politics, culture and spirituality), Chris�tian Zionists such as Hagee do a great disservice to Israel and all Jews.
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