American Fascists

Monday, April 23, 2007

A Review of Chris Hedges' Christian Fascism

by Stephen Lendman

Chris Hedges is a journalist who for two decades was a foreign correspondent for the New York Times spending much of his time reporting from conflict zones in El Salvador, the Middle East and from Serbia covering the Balkan wars of the 1990s that divided and destroyed a country under the guise of humanitarian intervention providing cover for naked imperialism. There it allowed NATO (meaning the US) to expand into Central and Eastern Europe to keep predatory capitalism on the march for markets, resources and cheap labor everywhere using wars to get them and eliminate "uncooperative" heads of state like Slobodan Milosevic who was kidnapped, Mafia/Mossad-style, by the ICTY kangaroo court in the Hague, hung out to dry when he got there, and in the end effectively or, in fact, murdered to shut him up and prevent ugly truths coming out about what the conflict was really about and who the real criminals were.

The wars and subsequent show-trials had nothing to do with myths about it fed us by Western media. Those wanting the truth can find it in excellent books like Diana Johnstone's Fools' Crusade; the extensive research and writings of Edward Herman, Noam Chomsky, Michael Parenti, law professor Michael Mandel; and the newest book out on the subject titled Travesty: The Trial of Slobodan Milosevic and the Corruption of International Justice by British journalist John Laughland. Edward Herman wrote a superb review of the book in the April, 2007 issue of Z Magazine now available in which he pointedly says "the rules of the (illegally constituted) ICTY (established by the US and UK) stood Nuremberg on its head" and Laughland states "instead of applying existing international law, the ICTY has effectively overturned it" to hide NATO's crimes and allow more of the same playing out now in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine.

The Christian Right supports these type crimes and motives for them readers will understand from Hedges' new book. He's also written many articles and is the author of four books including his bestselling War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning drawing on his experiences in the conflicts he covered describing how people and nations behave in wartime. The book was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for nonfiction. His newest book is American Fascists - The Christian Right and the War on America published in 2007 and subject of this review. It's an incisive examination of the huge threat extremist Christian fascists pose to a shaky free society most people in the US take for granted but no longer will after reading this important book.

Hedges was educated at Colgate University and received a Master of Divinity from Harvard Divinity School. For a time he was a seminarian and is now a senior fellow at the Nation Institute as well as a writer and lecturer at Princeton University where he teaches in the Program for American Studies. He was also an early vocal critic of the Bush administration's plan to attack, invade and occupy Iraq characterizing war as "the most potent narcotic invented by humankind" while professing not to be a pacifist.

This review will cover the essence and flavor of American Fascists beginning with some background on the Christian right, its influence, and danger it poses that Hedges covers in detail. He said he wrote the book out of anger and fear of the fundamentalist Christian Right seeking to establish theocratic dominion over society in America in the name of God and is using the Republican party as their vehicle to do it. He compares the movement's messianic mission to Italian and German fascism of the last century cloaking itself in Christianity and patriotism as their way to gain political power under theocracy's literal meaning from the Greek words "Theos" meaning "God" and "cratein/crasy" meaning to rule.

They're not kidding and neither is the risk they'll gain control of government with some observers in Washington believing they already have it including journalist/commentator Bill Moyers saying "for the first time in our history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power in Washington." Some call them "The Christian Mafia" noting they're well-funded by and allied with wealthy, powerful hard right businessmen like beer magnate Joseph Coors and Amway founder Richard DeVos, Sr. Hedges calls them American Fascists, and his powerful book leaves no doubt how great a threat they are to our cherished liberties in a free society now in great jeopardy. Below is an explanation of the Christian Right and fundamentalist movement overall before getting into the book.

The Christian Right and Its Fundamentalist Movement

The Christian or Religious Right is broadly defined to include adherents of the radical or hard right embracing their kind of extremist political, economic, social and religious ideology falsely called conservative which is a relative term referring philosophically to favoring traditional values including libertarian ones centered on the right of everyone to be master of his or her own fate.

Earlier, sociologist scholar Sara Diamond wrote extensively on the rise of right wing groups in the country providing readers with a wealth of information based on her firsthand research. In her seminal 1995 book, Roads to Dominion, she traced the various movements over the past 50 years identifying four types she discovered:

1. The anti-communist conservative movement that in the 1970s included moral traditionalism of the emerging Christian Right.

2. The racist Right including the KKK and other segregationist groups and later the paramilitary white supremacist movement.

3. The Christian Right with its evangelical roots, and

4. Neoconservatives with roots in the Cold War and Democrat party later finding a new home in the Republican party under Ronald Reagan.

Diamond explained these movements involved scores of organizations, not monolithic in beliefs, who nonetheless share a common set of policy preferences that unite them listing three core areas - the economy, the "nation-state in global context (military and diplomatic)," and moral norms relating to race and gender. The movements are also unified in their advocacy of free-market capitalism, anticommunism (now anything left of center), US worldwide military hegemony, traditional morality, superiority of native-born white male Christian Americans, and the traditional nuclear family. In addition, Diamond lists what she calls the "three pillars of the US Right" calling them "tendencies, not absolutes" - libertarianism, anticommunist militarism (now all liberal/progressive/leftist non-extremist Christian ideology), and traditionalism.

In her book, Diamond included a detailed history of the Christian Right explaining how it came to be the largest, most influential movement on the far right dominating policy-making in Republican-led governments and especially the one not yet in power under George W. Bush. She explained it all in over 300 fact-crammed pages and another 100 pages of notes and references. It's important background information summarized here briefly to set the stage for Hedges important account of what the Christian Right is up to today, why it matters, and why this dominant movement threatens freedom and democracy in America and the values most here hold dear, including most of the 70 million evangelicals, a minority of whom are radical ideologues selling their dogma of hate and domination to convert the others and destroy non-believers.

Our Secular State Founding Principles

Christians founded America believing church and state should be separated, and Jefferson called for "a wall of separation" between them in 1802 after freedom of religion became part of the First Amendment to the Constitution. Today that bedrock founding principle is jeopardized by the extremist Christian Right. If they get their way, they'll tear down that wall with considerable public support from the 40% in the country polls say take the Bible literally, and nearly one-third believe in the "rapture" as Hedges explains in his book. The notion comes from conservative Protestant eschatology denoting the final happening when "good Christians" on earth are saved and "raptured" to heaven to be with Jesus in eternal immortality while non-believers are doomed to a more hellish, less "rapturous" fate Hedges characterizes as suffering "unspeakable torments below."

These believers and all others are entitled to their views, but the Constitution forbids them forcing them on others. Earlier Supreme Courts agreed in decisions requiring a "wall of separation" between church and state prohibiting the adoption of any state religion and requiring government to avoid undue involvement in religion, its trappings or expressions.

That status was put in jeopardy following the introduction in Congress of the "Constitution Restoration Act of 2004." It was then reintroduced in near-identical form in 2005, never passed, and now awaits its fate in the Democrat-led 110th Congress or a future one that may or may not let it die. If it's ever adopted in its present form, it will turn the country into a de facto theocracy despite its supporters' denial. Don't believe them as getting this passed is key to the Christian Right's mission to turn America into a fascist theocracy where constitutional law is abolished in favor of extremist Christian dogma Dominionists like Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, James Dobson and others in the movement want to be the supreme law of the land.

In their world, under their law, practitioners of other faiths will be lawbreakers including about 75 million non-Christians and many others of the faith not willing to go along with their interpretation of it. The "Constitution Restoration Act of 2005" will also deny the Supreme Court's right to challenge anyone in or affiliated with federal, state or local government acknowledging the Christian "God (in their canon) as the sovereign source of law, liberty, or government." Henceforth, any judge at any level interpreting the new law differently would be subject to impeachment and prosecution in the United (extremist Christian) States of (fascist) America ruled by people like Pat Robertson and others like him.

American Fascists Masquerading as True Christians - Defiling the Teachings of Christ, His Twelve Apostles and Others of the Faith

Hedges begins his book with a powerful quote from Blaise Pascal that "Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction." Until the modern era, the best examples in Christendom were the first Crusades when Popes like Urban II sanctioned holy wars between 1095 - 1291 to wrest Jerusalem and the "Holy Land" from "heretic" Muslims and later ones in the 16th century against infidels - in the name of God.

Today in America, Dominionists are the new "crusaders" Hedges equates with 20th century fascists because of their fanaticism. They cloak their ideology in Christianity and patriotism as their way to gain political power they claim is sanctioned by the Almighty to give the movement moral legitimacy. But beneath the surface, their doctrine is dark and foreboding posing real dangers to a free society not to be taken lightly. It comes from their view of Genesis 1:26-31 they interpret to mean God gave man "dominion....over all the Earth," and that Jesus commanded his followers to impose godly rule over everyone denouncing people of other faiths and non-believers. The modern blueprint for this ideology comes from the writings of RJ Rushdoony's 1973 book, The Institutes of Biblical Law, calling for a Christian government. It advocates torture and death for gays, non-Christians resisting conversion, anyone committing blasphemy, and women guilty of "unchastity before marriage."

Ideology of Radical Christian Right Fascists

Christian Right extremists advocate a frightening ideology detailed below. It includes:

-- Racial hatred.

-- White Christian supremacy.

-- Blind adoration and obedience of the movement's leadership while discouraging free and independent thought.

-- Male gender dominance portraying Jesus as a real man dominating through force like a powerful warrior ignoring fundamental Christian "thou shall not kill" doctrine. It's an ideology of hyermasculinity centered in a male-dominated authoritarian church and in the home where men are encouraged to dominate their wives, and women and children are taught to submit.

Well-known Christian Right leader James Dobson built his career on these ideas and now has a huge media empire dispensing advice as a Christian therapist over his Focus on the Family program. He's heard on more than 3000 radio stations and 80 TV stations reaching 200 million people in 116 countries from his 81 acre campus in Colorado Springs, Colorado employing 1300 people. He's fiercely anti-choice and anti-gay and has backed political candidates advocating abortionists be executed. He also calls stem cell research "state-funded cannibalism" and urges Christian parents take their children out of public schools and put them in Christian ones teaching his ideology.

Dobson preaches male dominance calling non-submission a violation of God's law. He also thinks murder is wrong but not when committed against infidel Iraqis or Islamic terrorists saying all non-believers, heretics and sinners will be consumed in an End Times Tribulation of terrible calamities and torment lasting seven years with non-redeemers condemned to eternal punishment. True believers adhering to holy scriptures, however, will be saved and "raptured" to eternal life and bliss in heaven. But getting there means going along with what he, End Times guru Timothy LaHaye, and other dominant Christian Right figures like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell preach including that they have a divine right to rule and must be obeyed.

Hedges notes that televangelists like Robertson, Benny Hill, Paul and Jan Crouch and others "rule their fiefdoms as despotic potentates" some adherents might think isn't God's way of doing things. They travel with burly bodyguards in kingly luxury on private jets; have amassed huge personal fortunes, much of it gotten from listener subjects; and show up everywhere in limousines with all the pomposity of heads of state and billionaire CEOs but in their case playing God as false prophets "clutching the cross and the Bible (offering seductively), like Mephistopheles, to lead us to a mythical paradise and impossible, unachievable happiness and security" provided we surrender our will to theirs and our money too, which is one way they get rich.

They preach a false gospel of prosperity and well-being preying on the gullible to believe faith alone cures illness, overcomes emotional distress, and assures financial and physical security so there's no need for traditional secular institutions, social service organizations and government regulatory agencies to exist. The movement preaches those not trusting them lack faith, that God alone is enough, and that fate is determined by a personal relationship with Jesus Christ in a world in which individuals surrender their will to a higher authority dictated by the leadership. Hedges sums it up saying tyranny follows when "fealty to an ideology becomes a litmus test for individual worth" and a world of "miracles and magic" is the only "place to turn for help" ruled by Christian Right extremists "grow(ing) rich off (the vulnerable) who suffer" becoming passive in the process.

-- Hatred of gays, the "gay agenda," and everyone in the LBGT movement with Christian Right adherents believing "same-sex attraction" can be cured like a virus their ideological medicine can fix. They define the problem as "male gender deficit" for which "reparative therapy" is the antidote gotten from a close connection with a strong heterosexual man "comfortable in his male role." With nonsensical ideological fervor, they believe bonding with a straight man makes homosexuality disappear while at the same time denouncing gays as depraved perverts and criminals threatening all Christians.

-- Disdain for non-believers and rational intellectual inquiry.

-- Condemnation of self-criticism and debate as apostasy.

-- Frequent use of the death penalty including for abortionists, gays, Muslim "terrorists" and other "heretics."

-- Adoration of militarism, war and apocalyptic violence. Adherence to these notions is so extreme that in the run-up to the Iraq conflict, many Christian Right leaders and End Times believers preached opposing war was anti-American and contrary to God's plan and what's written in the Bible as they interpret it. Their many supporters in Congress include Minority Leader John Boehner, who supports endless wars. He recently said "The spread of radical Islamic terrorism is a threat to our nation (and) the free world....They are (everywhere and) growing right here in America....dedicated to killing Americans (and) our allies, and ending freedom and wanting to impose some radical Islamic law on the entire world." With leaders like Boehner in Congress and the administration, it's easy to see the influence of radical Christian fundamentalist poison infecting the body politic and threatening everyone with it.

-- Illegalization of abortion even in the case of rape and incest.

-- Ending public education with Bush administration help budgeting billions of dollars for extremist Christian faith-based organizations. They renounce proved science like evolution allowing only creationism repackaged as "intelligent design" to be taught as well as other extremist Christian values sold through the "big lie" to trick those in the movement to believe mysticism and magic are facts. Hedges calls the process a "war on truth" where the culture war front lines are in classrooms, and the battle is one traditional educators are losing. Core values of a free and open society are being destroyed and replaced through a process of thought control based on pseudoscience assaulting the real thing on everything challenging extremist Christian ideology from creation to HIV/AIDS to pregnancy prevention to global warming to war and peace.

It's also happening inside government alarming the nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) advocacy organization to write in its March, 2004 Scientific Integrity in Policymaking report: "There is significant evidence that the scope and scale of the (scientifically unethical) manipulation, suppression, misrepresentation of science by the (Christian Right dominated) Bush administration are unprecendented."

-- A primary Christian mission to proselytize non-believers to the faith by recruiting "soldiers in the army of Jesus Christ" quoting Dr. D. James Kennedy of the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Coral Ridge, Florida near Fort Lauderdale, just north of Miami. His voice is dominant in the Christian Right and carried over the huge multimedia empire he built with his weekly broadcasts heard and seen on more than 600 TV stations, four cable networks and the Armed Forces Network reaching millions of people.

He also has a six day a week radio show on 744 stations reaching millions more preaching his radical ideology that "the Christian view of morality (according to the Christian Right) is the (only) one that should prevail in America" while denouncing liberal churches and other religions as godless. He holds workshops teaching how to sell his brand of religiosity using the same kinds of brainwashing/marketing techniques political and other extremist movements know work. They promise believers eternal life while those not saved are damned to eternal punishment.

-- Rejection of secular humanist notions of reason, ethics, social equity and justice believing a better world is possible through good will in a free and open society. Also claims secular humanist organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union, NAACP, National Organization for Women, Planned Parenthood and others want to destroy a Christian America. They further include the major TV networks (for airing sex and violence); major newspapers and magazines; US State Department; foundations like Rockefeller, Ford and Carnegie; the UN; the Democrat party left/liberals; Harvard, Yale and 2000 other universities; and all others not buying their gospel of extremist white Christian dominionism and hate.

-- Seizing on the common denominator of pain, disillusion, dislocation, suffering and despair felt by millions caused by a culture of "soulless landscapes filled with strip malls and highways" to build a mass movement of servile, unthinking followers. They've replaced the real world of science, law and rationality with unquestioning belief in the word of the leadership and a glorious other utopian unreal world of prophets, mystical signs and magical mumbo jumbo that's real to them and in which they're "protected, loved, guided and blessed." It promises what followers don't have - a stable home and family, loving community, fixed moral standards, financial and personal success, and abolition of doubt and uncertainty based on religious vision and moral clarity. It also frighteningly promises a final apocalyptic battle of their "good" against all else they call "evil" exterminating the forces believers blame on their despair after which they will emerge victorious and saved.

-- A Christian totalitarian ethic based on a gospel of "free -market" capitalism, militarism and intolerance of democratic freedom of thought and action.

-- A fanatical devotion to and support for the state of Israel as Jerusalem, and specifically the Temple Mount Muslims call the Noble Sanctuary, is where Fundamentalist Evangelical Christians believe the second coming of the Messiah will be and thus is the holiest site in the world for Christians and Jews as well who want it for a third and final Temple. Enter Rev. John Hagee of the 18,000-strong Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas, global TV ministry, and his Christians United for Israel (CUFI) radical organization founded in early 2006. He's perhaps the most extremist, bellicose and influential Christian Zionist in America today preaching Muslims are Islamic fascists waging war against Western civilization. His antidote is a gospel of preemptive war against Islam in self-defense including one against Iran now if he had his way. The danger is warmongering hate-preachers like Hagee and others reach large audiences convincing millions of adherents they're right.

The Dark Side of Radical Christian Morality

Hedges notes the movement's appeal is from the leadership's promise of a moral Christian nation promising renewal. But the message hides a darker side with Dominionists awaiting a fiscal, social and/or political crisis great enough to end democratic constitutional government replacing it with their vision of a Christian fascist theocratic America. In the meantime, they spent a generation working for this and now have great influence at state, local and federal levels of government.

Hedges notes the movement already controls the Republican party. In addition, Christian fundamentalists hold a majority of seats in 18 of 50 states plus large minorities in the others. Also, (as of the book's publication) 45 senators and 186 House members got 80 - 100% approval ratings from the three most influential Christian Right advocacy groups: The Christian Coalition, Eagle Forum and Family Resource Council. This represents a dominant mass movement succeeding because mainstream Christians and the major media aren't confronting it, and their passivity threatens the constitutional rights of a democratic state on life support sinking fast with help from the Christian Right on the ascendancy.

They're influence is spread by Christian broadcasters commanding large audiences estimated to be 141 million in the US through radio and TV. They preach the Christian Right gospel flaunting their wealth, power and celebrity status to show it works for believers of the faith. They believe in unrestrained free-market capitalism, divinely sanctioned to freely create a global marketplace of (non-Christian, non-believing) serfs, denied all rights, forbidden to organize, and left to the mercy of a repressive state and corporate predators out for profit and to be allowed to dictate wages and control the right to work.

Compassion for the less fortunate is left to individual acts of charity and the churches with government out of it entirely and only dedicated to social control and aggressive militarism dictated by a warrior God (meaning Jesus) giving Christian America the right to rule the world and assure corporate giants can suck all the profit and life out of it. Hedges explains the Christian Right sells an ideology believing it's a "Christian duty to embrace the exploitation of others, to build a Christian America where freedom means the freedom of the powerful to dominate the weak....to bring about (their notion of ) a Christian utopia (that when no legal or social protections remain) it will be too late to resist (and the movement's leadership will be in control of everything)." Their plan is to "convince the masses to agitate for their own incarceration" shocking as that notion sounds, but it's working.

The movement is on a "crusade" against constitutional government working for now within the political system it wants to destroy and remake in its own image. Awaiting the time they'll take over, they're creating a parallel system within the existing one in which only "Bible-believing" judges, Christian teachers, and pseudo-reporters on Christian broadcasts are tolerated. And only white Christian men championing their extremist doctrine will be allowed to rule. Students are taught this ideology in Christian schools Hedges says are the fastest growing segment of the private school system. Textbooks used call Islam, Buddhism and African religions "false," Hinduism "pagan," and even Catholicism "distorted."

It's also heard on the campaign trail from candidates like "stalwart on the Christian Right" 2006 Ohio gubernatorial losing candidate Kenneth Blackwell who as secretary of state and co-chair of Ohio's Committee to Reelect George Bush in 2004 "arranged" for enough votes in the state to go to the sitting president to swing Ohio and the election for him. In his own losing effort in 2006, he appeared at Christian Right rallies laying out a blueprint for an authoritarian state where all dissent is heresy yet campaigned carefully not to offend those outside the movement by avoiding religious terminology.

Christian Right Fascism in Real Time in "Bush's Shadow Army" - Blackwater USA

Journalist and author Jeremy Scahill characterizes Blackwater USA as "the world's most powerful mercenary army" in his new book about them. Like Hedges' book, it's frightening reading needing exposure. It describes a "shadowy mercenary company....largely off the congressional radar....having remarkable power and protection within the US war apparatus" with no accountability or oversight on the ground in Iraq, (working for the State Department, not the Pentagon, with a $300 million no-bid contract), Afghanistan, on US streets and in neighborhoods like New Orleans, and coming soon to a city and neighborhood near you courtesy of the Gestapo-like Department of Homeland Security. With backing from the Bush administration, it operates outside the law and Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and is immune from civil lawsuits like the military. Scahill calls Blackwater the "Bush Administration's Praetorian Guard (along with the CIA long-serving in that capacity and that uses Blackwater in its illegal covert operations abroad and at home)."

Blackwater was founded in 1996 by former Navy SEAL and now super-rich Erik Prince who's closely tied to the Christian Right he funds and supports. It came into its own post 9/11 becoming a dominant player in the Bush administration's "Global War on Terror" (GLOB) now rebranded "The Long War." Today, Blackwater employs 2300 personnel in nine countries with 20,000 or more private mercenary contractors ready to go wherever needed and are part of the 100,000 contractors in Iraq, 48,000 of whom are paramilitary mercenaries. It also has a fleet of 20 aircraft (believed to have been used covertly as part of the Bush administration's "extraordinary renditions" of targeted individuals), including helicopter gunships, a private intelligence division, and operates at home on its 7000 acre Moyock headquarters Scahill calls "the world's largest private military base."

It's not enough for Blackwater in the burgeoning world of privatized secret mercenary paramilitary armies coming soon to a neighborhood near you, so the company is preparing by seeking an environmentally sensitive protected agricultural preserve southeast of San Diego, CA for it current expansion plans. It's an 824 acre site in Potrero, CA surrounded by the Cleveland Forest Blackwater wants for a military training base with 15 firing ranges for automatic and non-automatic weapons and various types of commando-type training facilities residents don't want near their community for obvious reasons concerning safety. People everywhere should object, for what may endanger one isolated community now or a larger one in New Orleans already may threaten us all in a paramilitarized America we're heading for locked down by Blackwater-type storm troops enforcing Christian Right fascist dogma.

In the meantime, Blackwater is cashing in big as a war profiteer getting huge no-bid Bush administration contracts Congress belatedly is showing interest in wanting to oversee to eliminate abuses. Whether it will happen, however, is problematical as current laws on the books aren't enforced making it likely new ones won't be either on all matters relating to foreign wars, so-called "terrorism," or anything claimed for national security. As long as the nation is in wars both parties support and the Christian Right is dominant, companies like Blackwater will thrive. With them, wars are easier to get into and harder to end meaning the culture of militarism will grow abroad and at home that's part of the Christian Right's agenda to impose its extremist theocratic rule on the country where, if it happens, democratic freedom, as we know it, is incompatible. Under it, Blackwater's private army will be on our city streets as thuggish paramilitary enforcers licensed to terrorize and kill with impunity bringing to America what they're well paid to do abroad.

"Eternal" Fascist Chickens Coming Home to Roost

A generation ago, the notion of a "global Christian empire" was barely credible, but Hedges' ethics professor at Harvard Divinity School, 80-year old Dr. James Luther Adams, warned back then we'd all one day be fighting "Christian fascists." It was when Pat Robertson and other radical televangelists began preaching a new political religion aimed at creating a dominant Christian world according to their extremist views. Adams was in Germany in 1935 and 1936 and saw with horror what happened there firsthand. Hedges says he "was not a man to use the word 'fascist' lightly." He understood before most others the similarities of that time in Germany to what was developing here around 1980. He saw "how the mask of religion hides irreligion (and) our world is full to bursting with (various) faiths, each contending for allegiance." It was a virtual "battle of faiths, a battle of the gods who claim human allegiance."

Adams knew deep-seated resentments and bigotry exist in all democratic societies like Weimar Germany and saw it emerging in 1980s America promoting the destruction of democracy. He feared late in his life a movement here was on the march, more cleverly packaged and sophisticated than in the past and this time with no serious opposition. He saw hatreds being stoked, progressive forces weakening, and the despair of tens of millions of Americans losing good manufacturing and other well-paying jobs being easy prey for smooth-talking fanatics like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell promising miracles and visions of apocalyptic glory.

Adams said then to watch the Christian Right's treatment of gays knowing the Nazis used their "values" to repress opponents and just days after coming to power in 1933 Hitler banned all gay and lesbian organizations as his first target with many others to follow. Pastor Martin Niemoller warned us in different versions of his famous quotation listing Jews, communists and trade unionists targeted but omitting the one Hitler chose first. He didn't speak out because he wasn't one of them, and when they came for him there was no one left. It was too late.

Adams explained gays in a Christian Right dominated American would be the first "social deviants" singled out for condemnation, disempowerment and elimination as in Nazi Germany. Other targeted groups would follow, and we would be next. He then warned as does Hedges that forces against American democracy are "waiting for a moment to strike, a national crisis that will allow them to shred the Constitution in the name of national security." The Christian Right awaits that time "with gleeful anticipation" wanting adherents to be ready.

Hedges warns we also must be ready quoting Alvin Toffler saying "if you don't have a strategy you end up being part of someone else's strategy." It means challenging the Christian Right's gospel of hate, "exclusion, cruelty and intolerance in the name of God" with a doctrine of life, hope and respect for the worth and dignity of everyone, and their right to practice their beliefs openly in a free society. That's the American dream shared by free people everywhere. At the book's end, Hedges says preserving it means giving up "passivity, challeng(ing) aggressively this movement's deluded appropriation of Christianity (and fighting back) to defend tolerance." Wishing won't make it so. Defending democracy means working at it every day. Today we face an imminent threat to our freedom against which "tolerance coupled with passivity is a (deadly) vice" that will destroy us unless we're on guard to be sure it doesn't.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen each Saturday to the Steve Lendman News and Information Hour on The Micro Effect.com noon US central time.

Is George W. Bush Planning To Trigger Apocalyptic War ?

April 23, 2007

By Bruce Wilson
talk2action@earthlink.net

Given that neoconservatives close to the Bush Administration have articulated visions for the Middle East that involve the replacement of numerous existing governments in the regions, not to mention the replacement of the atrocious North Korean regime, how could we distinguish, in practice, that plan in action from moves to bring on the apocalypse ? The two projects would tend to look quite similar. Both would involve increasingly expanded theaters of war : maximal mayhem.

IN fact, some prominent neoconservatives have stated their desire for maximal mayhem, maximal war:

"One can only hope that we turn the region [the Middle East] into a cauldron [of war], and faster, please. If ever there were a region that richly deserved being cauldronized, it is the Middle East today." -Michael Ledeen

Is George W. Bush a real Christian ? Is it just a manipulative act ? This post considers evidence that George W. Bush has genuine religious belief and, in fact, believes that the Apocalypse is immanent... even that he might have a divine mission to bring it on.

Yesterday I did a story on the heavy Evangelical penetration of the US military. The concern wasn't about Evangelicals but, rather, religious coercion in the military and troubling questions Weinstein has raised about possible compromises in the US military's chain of command.

Reading this post, please bear in mind that belief, or the absence of belief, is extremely difficult to demonstrate although modern MRI brain imaging techniques can demonstrate activity, or the lack of that, in areas of the brain associated with religious belief. But it is unlikely George W. Bush would submit to such scrutiny, and so we must consider proxy evidence.

If you're concerned about possible war with Iran, Wes Clark is too - you can sign his petition and get a free button ]

"The classical pattern of apocalypse, comprising in its active form, an initial phase of savage destruction followed by a phase of messianic rebirth, can be recognized in individual psychosis and in the Nazi type of destruction, persecution and virtual suicide." - Mortimer Ostow, "The Psychodynamics of Apocalyptic: Discussion of Papers on Identification and the Nazi Phenomenon," International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 1986

"God wants me to be President." - George W. Bush, 19 January 1999

[UPDATE: Some critics of this post have objected that there are few, if any, apocalyptic Christian Zionists within the Bush Administration. That point, even if correct, does not negate the impact of beliefs George W. Bush might hold. Further, neoconservatives widely held to have had considerable influence, within the Bush administration and in propelling the US towards war with Iraq, talk in terms eerily similar to those of apocalyptic Christian Zionism. Much neoconservative rhetoric is in fact indistinguishable from the rhetoric of apocalyptic Christian Zionists:

Neoconservatives For Maximal War

"[Richard] Perle told journalist John Pilger in 2002 that "if we just let our vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely and we don't try to piece together clever diplomacy, but just wage a total war ... our children will sing great songs about us years from now."

"Israel is part of a global war, the war of radical Islam against civilization. Right now Israel is doing the work of the rest of the civilized world by taking on the terrorists. It is not only for Israel's sake that we must get the facts out -- it is for ourselves, America, for every free country in the world, and for civilization itself." - David Horowitz

"One can only hope that we turn the region [the Middle East] into a cauldron [of war], and faster, please. If ever there were a region that richly deserved being cauldronized, it is the Middle East today." -Michael Ledeen

"I think an explosion is long overdue and turning the whole region into a cauldron [of war] is a necessary step toward reforming it." - Mark Steyn

"Norm Podhoretz ranks among the most prominent American editors of the 20th century. And he's doing pretty well in the 21st. (Laughter.) Never a man to tailor his opinions to please others, Mr. Podhoretz has always written and spoken with directness and honesty. Sometimes speaking the truth has carried a cost. Yet, over the years, he has only gained in stature among his fellow writers and thinkers. Today we pay tribute to this fierce intellectual man [sic] and his fine writing and his great love for our country." - George W. Bush, presenting the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Podhoretz in June of 2004

"God willing, Judgment Day is coming to the Middle East." -Michael Ledeen

"Prof Ledeen is...believed to have the ear of the White House's current Chief of Staff Karl Rove, and has regular conversations with him. ...His view on the war on terror is clear, he said: 'Iraq is just one battle in a larger war, bringing down the regime in Iran is the central act...' "
-BBC News

"Whether or not the White House listens, it seems that they’ve listened to a lot of things about Iran, that I will say. I mean, some of the language and some of the speech is very familiar to me, and really reflects the sort of thing that I’ve been pushing for." - Ledeen, April 2003

"The regime must go." - [Richard] Perle and [David] Frum, on Iran

"All of Korea will be united in liberty." - Perle and Frum, on North Korea

"We should force European governments to choose between Paris and Washington." - Perle and Frum, on Europe

This post concerns the possibility that George W. Bush holds apocalyptic religious views and believes God has commanded him to attack Iran in order to bring on the Apocalypse.

"It was in his first campaign for governor that George W. began to preach the gospel according to Bush. He literally gave sermons in Houston's mega-churches, laying the blame for America's "failed culture" on the excesses of his generation in the 60s. "The culture of my generation, our generation, has clearly said, ‘If it feels good, do it, and be sure to blame somebody else if you have a problem.'" " - Gail Sheehey, Vanity Fair story on George W. Bush's religious beliefs.

When I woke this morning and made a pot of coffee, the sun was already up, cresting the hill behind my house amidst a din of birds and a riotous explosion, sudden and exuberant, of Spring. It was beautiful, and I think that's why I chose to wrote this now ; so that, in the words of Richard Brautigan's final book, ...The Wind Won't Blow It All Away.

***

About a month ago, a team of Japanese journalists visited Mikey Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, to do a story on Weinstein and his fight against religious coercion in the US military. The journalists told Weinstein they saw a pattern, now in the US, of religious militarism very similar to that which had arisen in Japan prior to World war Two.

"...a short video on faith and diplomacy made in the aftermath of September 11,2001, by Christian Embassy, a behind-the-scenes ministry for government and military elites. It almost seems to endorse deliberate negligence of duty, Dan Cooper, an undersecretary of veterans' affairs, announces that his weekly prayer sessions are "more important than doing the job." Major General Jack Catton says that he sees his position as an adviser to the Joint Chiefs of Staff as a "wonderful opportunity" to evangelize men and women setting defense policy. "My first priority is my faith," he says. "I think it's a huge impact.... You have many men and women who are seeking God's counsel and wisdom as they advise the Chairman [of the Joint Chiefs] and the Secretary of Defense." Brigadier General Bob Caslen puts it in sensual terms: "We're the aroma of Jesus Christ." There's a joyous disregard for democracy in these sentiments, for its demands and its compromises, that in its darkest manifestation becomes the overlooked piety at the heart of the old logic of Vietnam, lately applied to Iraq: In order to save the village, we must destroy it.
Weinstein, a former Air Force lawyer and Reagan White House counsel, saw not just some disturbing theology, but a potential violation of military regulations regarding separation of church and state." - Jeff Sharlet, Jeff Sharlet - Ten Things I Learned from the Pentagon's Prayer Team ( emphases mine )

War, especially religious war, is not a glorious affair. Images in this story are of the outcomes of real war on real humans. Please be advised.

Also, a few days ago, as you've probably heard, US Senator John McCain sang "Bomb Iran, Bomb Bomb Bomb" to the tune of the Beach Boys' hit "Barbara Ann", before an audience of hundreds at a VFW hall.

Back in April 2006, John McCain said, on "Meet The Press", to Tim Russert, that war with Iran could lead to "Armageddon". Now, McCain's singing about bombing that country as if it were some sort of joke. GOP House Minority Whip Roy Blunt Jr. flew out to Texas, early in 2007, to meet privately with John Hagee as well. The Apocalypse seems to be a popular subject these days in the GOP.

To the right is a picture, by a survivor of the bombing, of victims of the Hiroshima nuclear blast.

***

( image, right: skulls of Hiroshima victims )

Over the course of the last few months, I've been studying what George W. Bush may believe, and what people who are accorded as having been major religious influences on Bush say they believe.

Almost to a man, and they have all been men, those who are held to have shaped George W. Bush's religious beliefs have been apocalyptic Christian Zionists. George Bush speaks in the idiom of Christian apocalyptic premillenial dispensationalism, in common parlance the language of the end-times, of the coming Apocalypse, Rapture, and Armageddon. "Madman" theory does not suffice, from all that I can tell, to explain George W. Bush's numerous statements, that he speaks to God, is on a mission from God, that he is part of a divine plan.

By most evidence, George W. Bush appears to hold a personal, messianic belief that he, personally, must usher in the Apocalypse. And, he might just be able, as the last gasp of his dying presidency, to pull it off. In 2004, David Domke and Kevin Coe did a study of presidential language and come to the troubling conclusion - George W. Bush's language is very different from language used by past presidents:

( image - from archival footage of "The Rape Of Nanking" )

"The religious outlook of George W. Bush has been the focus of recent stories by several major news media. In these pieces White House officials and allies consistently have made the case that Bush’s faith and language are no different from past presidents. In the words of the Rev. Richard Neuhaus in The Washington Post, "This is so conventionally Christian piety and Christian faith" that Bush’s faith is "as American as apple pie."

That simply is not so. Bush’s fusion of faith and politics is anything but conventional for the presidency.

The key difference is this: Presidents since Franklin Roosevelt have spoken as petitioners of God, seeking blessing and guidance; this president positions himself as a prophet, issuing declarations of divine desires for the nation and world. Most fundamentally, Bush’s language suggests that he speaks not only of God and to God, but also for God. Among modern presidents, only Ronald Reagan has spoken in a similar manner -- and he did so far less frequently than has Bush." - Published in The Revealer October 11, 2004. ( David Domke is an associate professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Washington. He is the author of God Willing? Political Fundamentalism in the White House, the "War on Terror," and the Echoing Press (Pluto Press, 2004). Kevin Coe is a doctoral student in the Department of Speech Communication at the University of Illinois. )

George W. Bush, at a public appearance Thursday, laid it out for all to see and this should come as no surprise:

As the Republican National Committee reports on its website, President Bush has declared this April 19, 2007, that his "faith" and his family come first, while George W. Bush's loyalty to the United States comes last. ( thanks to Universal Health for the tip )

I wish I was traveling here with Laura. The best thing about my family is my wife. (Applause.) She is a great First Lady. I know that sounds not very objective, but that's how I feel. And she's also patient. Putting up with me requires a lot of patience. But she sends her best; she's in New Orleans today.

And I will tell you, one reason -- this may sound counterintuitive, but a good marriage is really good after serving together in Washington, D.C. It's been an amazing experience to be a husband and then a dad as President of the United States. I emphasize, that is the priority for me as the President. It's my faith, my family, and my country"

Faith, Family, then Country ?

Bush's declaration of presidential loyalty seems to run directly counter to the oath Bush, and all US presidents, have taken upon entering presidential office:

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Am I making too much of this ?

Let's look at a recent flap concerning US Representative Keith Ellison's Islamic religious. Critics claimed that Ellison could not be trusted to honor his oath of office because some Islamicists say things like this:

Secularists in the West will agree with this, then they will point out that under Islamic law, people are not all equal. No non-Muslim, for example, could become the president. Well, in response to that fact, in turn, secularism is no different. No Muslim could become president in a secular regime, for in order to pledge loyalty to the constitution, a Muslim would have to abandon part of his belief and embrace the belief of secularism — which is practically another religion. For Muslims, the word 'religion' does not only refer to a collection of beliefs and rituals, it refers to a way of life which includes all values, behaviors, and details of living. ( Dr. Jaafar Sheikh Idris )

Indications are good that, for George W. Bush, religious belief trumps Bush's responsibility to American people who hold religious and philosophical beliefs that differ from his. Signs are strong that Bush wants Apocalypse and that, even though a large percent of American does not wish for Apocalypse, George W. Bush just doesn't care. If he has the power to bring it on, that's that ; he'll do it and damn us all to the hell on Earth he feels God wants him to set in motion.

Let me turn to Jeff Sharlet, to frame the backdrop to all of this:

John Hagee is likely one of religious leaders who helped shape Goerge W. Bush's religious beliefs. Until last Wednesday, John Hagee's "Apocalypse Lobby" website featured an image, of Jerusalem's Wailing wall and the Temple Mount, from which the 3rd Holiest Site in Islam had been airbrushed out. As a result of my blogging, it seems, CUFI last Wednesday replaced its website logo image with another image in which the Haram el-Sharif was visible. A number of observers considered the original, airbrushed CUFI logo image to be wildly provocative to the Islamic world.

In a recent Charisma Magazine issue John Hagee, in a piece entitled "The Coming Holy War", wrote : "Israel and America must confront Iran's nuclear ability and willingness to destroy Israel with nuclear weapons."

On July 19, 2006, at a CUFI sponsored Washington DC event called "A Night to Honor Israel", with GOP Party head Ken Mehlman and US GOP Senators Sam Brownback and Rick Santorum ( President George W. Bush sent recorded greetings to the event ) , Pastor John Hagee declared :

"The United States must join Israel in a pre-emptive military strike against Iran to fulfill God's plan for both Israel and the West... a biblically prophesied end-time confrontation with Iran, which will lead to the Rapture, Tribulation [...] and [the] Second Coming of Christ."

Hagee's beliefs are actually part of mainstream Christian Zionist thought, which tends to hold that, after Christians are "Raptured" bodily up to heaven, most Jews ( 2/3 to be precise ) will die in a subsequent terrible conflict centered around Israel.

Fundamentalism is here, and even provided we can squeak by the Apocalypse we're going to have to learn to deal with it. As Jeff Sharlet writes:

"We keep trying to explain away American fundamentalism. Those of us not engaged personally or emotionally in the biggest political and cultural movement of our times—those on the sidelines of history—keep trying to come up with theories with which to discredit the evident allure of this punishing yet oddly comforting idea of a deity, this strange god. His invisible hand is everywhere, say His citizen-theologians, caressing and fixing every outcome: Little League games, job searches, test scores, the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, the success or failure of terrorist attacks (also known as "signs"), victory or defeat in battle, at the ballot box, in bed.... A divine love that speaks through hurricanes. Who would worship such a god? His followers must be dupes, or saps, or fools, their faith illiterate, insane, or misinformed, their strength fleeting, hollow, an aberration. A burp in American history. An unpleasant odor that will pass.

We don’t like to consider the possibility that they are not newcomers to power but returnees, that the revivals that have been sweeping America with generational regularity since its inception are not flare-ups but the natural temperature of the nation...

The Christian nation of which the movement dreams, a government of those chosen by God but democratically elected by a people who freely accept His will as their own, is a far country. The nation they seek does not, at the moment, exist; perhaps it could in the future. More important to fundamentalism is the belief that it did exist in the American past, not in the history we learn in public school and from PBS and in newsmagazine cover stories on the Founders but in another story, one more biblical, one more mythic and more true. Secularism hides this story, killed the Christian nation, and tried to dispose of the body. Fundamentalism wants to resurrect it, and doing so requires revision: fundamentalists, looking backward, see a different history, remade in the image of the seductive but strict logic of a prime mover that sets things in motion. The cause behind every effect, says fundamentalist science, is God. Even the inexorable facts of math are subject to His decree, as explained in homeschooling texts such as Mathematics: Is God Silent? Two plus two is four because God says so. If He chose, it could just as easily be five. ( Jeff Sharlet, from Through a Glass Darkly, Harpers Magazine, December 2006 )

What does George W. Bush Believe ?

What does George W. Bush believe ? And, given the embattled nature of the Bush Administration, does it even matter ? Isn't Bush a lame duck president ? Hasn't the tide of political cronyism and religious zealotry that swept in as the presidency of George W. Bush crested at last ? With the return of the Democrats in force to Congress, to control the House of Representatives and the Senate, haven't we witnessed, at long last, the crest of the wave, the high water mark of the Bush Administration's proclivity for packing the federal bureaucacy with religious ideologues ?

"While it is well-known that George W. Bush presents himself as devoutly Christian, and he is widely considered beholden to the fundamentalists who are at least a third of the U.S. population and the GOP’s core voting base, whether or not he is a dispensationalist has emerged as one the administration’s most closely held secrets. The White House even refuses to say if the president has read the Left Behind books. Among evangelicals, though, there is a widespread conviction that Bush shares the End Times vision and has been divinely appointed to lead the nation. ( from Glenn Weiser's What Does The President Believe ? )

(video clip: George W. Bush is known to have frequented, as Governor of Texas, John Hagee's Cornerstone Baptist Church. The video clip is set to a sermon, by Hagee, alleging a conspiracy of "international banking" interests to create a sinister, satanic "New World Order" through the United Nations)

Why have we seen, in the last year and in the face of rationality and amidst the failure of the Bush Administration's Iraq gambit, to the ruin of that nation, the same sort of PR buildup, aimed apparently at building a case for war with Iran, we witnessed prior to the invasion of Iraq ?

The administration of George W. Bush may be unraveling, coming apart at the seams, or imploding. But, Bush himself holds one trump card to overrule all trump cards ; war is its own logic, and US forces once committed to an attack on Iran will not be easily withdrawn. Once that Pandora's Box gets opened, whatever demons shriek out at the world will not go away but will be with us for decades or, in human terms, forever.

( image: detail from painting depicting the "St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre" )

The overwhelming bulk of available evidence points towards the likelihood that George W. Bush is a Christian Zionist who believes, really believes, in the need for maximal, catastrophic war in the Mideast. Over the past several months I have been conducting, by myself with the help of a few concerned friends, an exhaustive study of George W. Bush's likely religious beliefs, or his lack thereof. Gail Sheehey, at the onset of George W. Bush's presidential tenure, covered Bush's beliefs. But no one, as far as I can tell, who is familiar with Christian apocalyptic dispensationalism and with the intersection of religion and politics has made concerted effort to gather all available data bits on George Bush's religious belief.

Until now.

Evidence I have gleaned points in one troubling direction, and therefore towards a monumental bifurcation point in world history resting now in the hands, more than any human, of a man who appears to believe, in his heart, in the coming Apocalypse, in immanent, unavoidable Armageddon, in the "Rapture" of "Bible believing" Christians to heaven where they will, in safety, look down upon a world convulsing in hideous military conflict and the slaughter of hundreds of millions, billions of people even, by fire and sword, bullets and bombs, by nuclear incineration.

The Apocalypse, understood in either religious terms of merely viewed in secular terms, as catastrophic world war, would preclude meaningful action to address the penultimate world challenge of our time, Global Warming. Apocalypse would preclude meaningful action on AIDS and poverty, on preserving biodiversity, forests and ocean ecosystems. To significant action across a vast swath of imaginable world problems, even problems unrecognized as of yet, the Apocalypse would shut the door, perhaps forever.

At this moment in time, George W. Bush holds the keys to two radically different kingdoms ; two fates, one leading towards a constructive future and one leading towards catastrophe, towards terrible, destructive unraveling in the fabric of human and biological systems on Earth.

***

Hasn't George W. Bush Been Defanged ?

But, hasn't George W. Bush been rendered toothless and fangless ? Hasn't the charging Texas cowboy been knocked from his horse ?

That seems to be the common consensus :

Recently, I was discussing, with an editor at a national magazine who I'll leave unnamed, a curious issue : the apparent airbrushing of the logo image for a new national Christian lobbying group that lobbies for the Apocalypse, for catastrophic war in the Mideast. The 3rd Holiest site in Islamic had been wiped from the logo image and, intentional or not, the symbolism could have been wildly inflammatory to the Islamic world. Talk of the logo led, of course, to Mideast, and the editor agreed with me that Bush probably wanted maximal Mideast conflict but believed that wiser heads would prevail ; there was fightback, in Republican ranks even, against the Bush Administration's lust to expand the theater of Mideast conflict, to "fail forward" and attack Iran. Wiser heads, he reassured me, would prevail.

I'm not convinced though, and perhaps that's an artifact of what I've been studying lately ; the hot zone of religion and politics, especially when the religious beliefs in question are apocalyptic and the political realm in question concerns the loyalty, or lack thereof, of United States armed services members to religious pluralism, American Constitutional Democracy, and simply to not provoke catastrophic war, can be a troubling realm to pay attention to. Once, at an national environmental activist conference, I happened to overhear the staff of the facility hosting the event quip, about the environmentalists present, "they're worse than people with eating disorders" and I think the realm I gesturing at elicits a similar manic intensity... but for good reason. Sober heads, even advocates for a new Pax Americana such as "The Grand Chessboard" author Zbigniew Brzezinsky, have warned that a US attack on Iran could open a gateway to catastrophe.

As I covered yesterday, the US military has been penetrated to an unknown extent but, arguably, extensively by American Evangelicals with apocalyptic dispensationalist beliefs. Wars are comparatively easy to provoke, and an influential faction in American politics, a coalition perhaps including George W Bush, many evangelicals in the US military, many in Bush's core fundamentalist base, the lobbying blocks of CUFI and to some extent AIPAC, and busy cadres of writers, publicists, and PR specialists, are concertedly pushing for war with Iran.

Such a possibility would have seemed insane six or seven years ago at the onset of the Bush Administration, but here are and the most likely reason we have come to this grim possibility can be expressed in two words:

Christian Zionism.

"Bush addressed the CNP ( Council On National Policy ) in 1999 (there is, of course, no public record of what he said) and begins every day poring over Bible commentary. Do he and Laura read themselves to sleep with LaHaye? That he is sympathetic to what LaHaye stands for, religiously and politically (assuming they can be separated), is a legitimate conclusion. In 1993, Bush unguardedly divulged that only Christians can get to heaven. He secured his base, at the beginning of his presidential campaign, by speaking at Bob Jones University - which he refused to criticise for its ban on interracial dating. At his inauguration, he chose Franklin Graham to deliver the ceremonial prayer - the son of the venerable Billy (the evangelist who saved Bush from the demon drink), who has become notorious for telling the world that Islam "is a very evil and wicked religion". " ( UK Guardian, June 12, 2003 )

"Bush's first real encounter with Jesus came about with the Evangelical Reverend Billy Graham. No problem there. Reverend Graham, though once a registered Democrat, has made a point of staying non-partisan. Since then, Bush has kept the company of some odd pastors, such as James Robison, the anti-abortion fanatic who likes to quote both sides of his conversations with God. Robison prayed with Bush in the Oval Office before the invasion of Iraq. Another is one of Texas' foremost fundamentalist preachers, the Reverend James [sic] Hagee of the Cornerstone Church in San Antonio. Hagee is part of a more off-center form of Christianity tracing back to an Anglian priest who abandoned his church in 1820 to form his own sect. The beliefs Hagee brings from this, known as Dispensationalism, are too complicated to cover here, but basically revolve around Armegeddon and a literal reading of the Book of Revelation. This "end-times" theology can be seen in Bush's foreign policy.
In November of 2002, Hagee addressed his congregation of four thousand people, outlining a foreign policy strangely similar to Bush's policy set forth later. With then-House Majority Leader Tom Delay at his side, Hagee preached about regime change in Syria as well as Iraq, and about destroying the regime of Yasir Arafat. These were policies written six years earlier by Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Charles Fairbanks, Jr., and others who are now part of the Project for a New American Century (PNAC). Hagee stated, "Listen, Saddam, there's a Texan in the White House, and he's going to take you down."
On more than one occasion, Bush has claimed he takes his orders from God ... literally. Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian Prime Minister, and Nabil Shaath, his Foreign Minister, describe their first meeting with President Bush in June 2003. Nabil Shaath relates the meeting: "President Bush said to all of us, 'I'm driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, "George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan." And I did, and then God would tell me, "George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq ..." And I did. And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, "Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East." And by God I'm gonna do it.'"
Israel's most reputable newspaper, Ha'aretz, related a similar story from the same time. At the cease-fire negotiations between Abbas and faction leaders from the Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Popular and Democratic Fronts, Bush said, "God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then He instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you help me I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them."

"What [Rev. Billy Graham] said sparked a change in my heart. We walked and talked at Walker's Point, and I knew I was in the presence of a great man... Reverend Graham planted a mustard seed in my soul... He led me to the path, and I began walking. It was the beginning of a change in my life." - Bush, A Charge to Keep, 1999

"...What are some of those signs we should be watching for?"

"Political unrest... Although Russia no longer is a threat as a superpower, many other nations have access to nuclear weapons and instantly could plunge the world into chaos with the push of a button..."

"Natural disasters... There have always been earthquakes, famines and other natural disasters in the world, but this century [the 20th] has witnessed more of them -- disasters with greater intensity."
"Social unrest... Jesus also said there would be an increase of wickedness and the love of many would grow cold (Matthew 24:12). Read the papers, we're already there."

"Religious apostasy... The 'faith which was once delivered unto the saints' (Jude 3) slowly has been eroded throughout this century to the point where the Word of God no longer has any authority in the minds of people."

"Economic instability... Many areas of the globe are experiencing this..."

"The rebirth of Israel. ...God has assimilated into one nation Jews of many cultures and languages and preserved them through five wars with their Arab neighbors. The people have reclaimed and rebuilt the old wastes of ancient cities, towns, and villages. All of this is a major miracle that points unmistakably to Israel's strategic role in the Lord's scenario for the last days."

"Evangelistic permeation... Never in history has there been such a concentrated effort to fulfill the Great Commission as in the days leading up to the start of the new millennium."

"The rise of the Antichrist... Antichrist is an apocalyptic figure that will rise to world power in the last days. He will control the world's economy and religion and will wage war against the church and Israel. Many have sought to identify him through the years with some contemporary figure, as some undoubtedly have resembled his qualities to some degree. Nevertheless, he may be alive right now and just waiting for the right moment to seize power." - Billy Graham, from Graham's last book, "The Beginning Of The End", 1999

"The Reverend Billy Graham taught Bush to live in anticipation of the Second Coming but it was his friendship with Dr. Tony Evans that shaped Bush's political understanding of how to deport himself in an apocalyptic era. Dr. Evans, the pastor of a large Dallas church and a founder of the Promise Keepers movement taught Bush about "how the world should be seen from a divine viewpoint," according to Dr. Martin Hawkins, Evans assistant pastor.

S.R. Shearer of Antipas Ministries writes, "Most of the leaders of the Promise Keepers embrace a doctrine of 'end time' (eschatology), known as 'dominionim.' Dominionism pictures the seizure of earthly (temporal) power by the 'people of God' as the only means through which the world can be rescued.... It is the eschatology that Bush has imbibed; an eschatology through which he has gradually (and easily) come to see himself as an agent of God who has been called by him to 'restore the earth to God's control', a 'chosen vessel', so to speak, to bring in the Restoration of All Thingss." Shearer calls this delusion, "Messianic leadership"-- that is to say usurping the role usually ascribed to the Messiah.

In Bush at War Bob Woodward writes, "Most presidents have high hopes. Some have grandiose visions of what they will achieve, and he was firmly in that camp."

To answer these attacks and rid the world of evil," says Bush. And again, "We will export death and violence to the four corners of the earth in defense of this great nation." Grandiose visions. Woodward comments, "The president was casting his mission and that of the country in the grand vision of Gods Master Plan."

"The lessons of the Bible were a reason for his decision to run for president. He feels that God speaks to him." - Texas megachurch preacher and personal friend to George W. Bush, Dr. Tony Evans

"As Texan preacher Tony Evans, one of his spiritual advisors, recalls: "The lessons of the Bible were a reason for his decision to run for president. He feels that God speaks to him." From then on, Bush defined his work as a mission: "I am convinced that we must fundamentally and permanently change our entire culture. We need spiritual renewal in America."

The occasional churchgoer had become a pious man, a man who continues to practice rigorous discipline in the White House and incorporates the appropriate passage from the Bible into his daily agenda. The insecure drinker has become a president with whom mainstream Americans can identify, precisely because of his mediocrity, fallibility and devoutness."

"Dr. Martin Hawkins, Evans’ assistant pastor, Evans taught Bush "how the world should be seen from a divine viewpoint." And Bush says in his book, A Charge to Keep, that he has been "spellbound" listening to Evans’ sermons'

"Bush learned from Evans a whole new approach—cultural rather than economic—to winning political adherents. "On July 4, 1998, Governor Bush listened to Dr. Evans lay out a whole philosophy about how the world should be seen from a divine viewpoint and adjusted politically," says Evans's assistant pastor Dr. Martin Hawkins. Evans, who is said to be a confidant of the man he helped to become governor—they have prayed over the phone together—was one of the builders of the new Christian men's movement known as the Promise Keepers. He has urged men to "take back" authority from their wives, and women to "let your man be a man."

Bush did seem to find direction and develop discipline in his habits through his personal religious revival. "For some people, when they discover a faith in their religion, in God . . . it is a prescription for self-respect," says Lacey Neuhaus. But religion is also an important political tool for him. His evangelical Christianity gives him solid standing as a social conservative. It is also useful in dismissing questions about his character. All he has to say is that his life has changed dramatically since he accepted Christ. He is a new person, and his earlier, irresponsible conduct is irrelevant.

In his political sermons he began calling religious people to become involved in politics, and described the Bible as "a pretty good political handbook." He championed religious groups as the best instrument to change social policy, in place of government or in partnership with it. Not only was that music to the ears of the Christian right, it meant money in their coffers. Here was a politician who would channel government money not into social programs such as welfare but into church partnerships with the state.

Dr. Hawkins says, "There is a strong possibility that we would be one of the faith-based organizations that partner with the federal government, under President Bush, to reach out in the community to take care of housing and jobs."

Unabashedly fired up by the rhetoric of the Christian men's movement, Bush forgot that not everyone accepts Christ as his or her savior. He told a reporter in 1994 that the New Testament teaches that only those who accept Jesus Christ will go to Heaven."

Franklin Graham is more than a long-standing friend of Bush. He is a significant theological mentor. Bush has written in Christian magazines that Reverend Franklin and his father were pivotal in renewing his faith and religious committment as a Christian after his bout with alcoholism. The American public choose to be blithley unaware of Graham’s hatred of Islam. After the 9-11 attacks, and around the same time Bush declared his war on Islamist terrorists a "crusade," Franklin Graham made a highly publicized blanket condemnation of Islam on the Christian TV show 700 Club calling it "a very evil and wicked religion." He has often written that Islam and Christianity will fight each other before the second coming of Christ. Franklin Graham, like his father, who has been the confessor of several American presidents, believes Christ’s coming is imminent.

Given the indelicate words of this prominent Islamaphobe, one might expect the president to distance himself, but no. Gumbel reports that the president invited Franklin Graham to preach at the Good Friday 2003 prayer service held in the Pentagon. I would add that he participated in the Holy Service just as the American invasion of an Islamic country was at its peak.

WOLF BLITZER: So what's your bottom line? Do you believe, based on the reporting you did for this article, that the president of the United States is now aggressively plotting military action, a pre-emptive strike against Iran?

SEYMOUR HERSH: The word I hear is "messianic." He thinks, as I wrote, that he's the only one now who will have the courage to do it. He's politically free. I don't think he's overwhelmingly concerned about the '06 elections, congressional elections. I think he really thinks he has a chance, and this is going to be his mission.

"Again, the White House Web site records that on March 3, Bush told a Los Angeles audience, "God loves you, and I love you. And you can count on both of us as a powerful message that people who wonder about their future can hear." After mentioning himself in the same breath with God, Bush then topped himself when the Lancaster New Era reported on July 16 that in a private meeting with an Amish group in Lancaster County, he told them, "I trust God speaks through me. Without that, I couldn’t do my job." The White House has denied the statement."

"Five months later, in August of 2003, MSNBC reported claims by televangelist Jack van Impe that the White House had contacted him seeking an outline of apocalyptic events. Van Impe wrote on his website, "I am not sure whether he (Bush) knows all of the prophecies and how deep of a student he has been in God's Word, but I was contacted a few weeks ago by the Office of Public Liaison for the White House and by the National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice to make an outline. And I’ve spent hours preparing it. .. it’s in his (Bush’s) hands. He will know exactly what is going to happen in the Middle East and what part he will have under the leading of the Holy Spirit of God."... The White House has denied having made this request."

Mr Bush's Christian fervour only confirms suspicions that the looming war with Iraq is indeed a "crusade" against Muslims, exactly as Osama bin Laden suggests. For world-weary Europe the presidential language evokes mirth and queasiness in equal measure. A European leader who spoke in such terms would be laughed off the stage. An American one who speaks this way only increases the fear that simplicities of faith, and a habit of seeing a hideously complicated world in a black-and-white, good or evil fashion, are a recipe for disaster.

Chapter and Verse: Bush and the Bible

"Our prayer tonight is that God will see us through and keep us worthy. Hope still lights our way, and the light shines in the darkness and the darkness will not overcome it."

Speech on the anniversary of the terrorist attacks, 11 September 2002

"We do not claim to know all the ways of Providence. Yet we can trust in them, placing our confidence in the loving God behind all of life, and all of history. May he guide us now."

State of the Union address, 28 January 2003

"In the words of the prophet Isaiah, 'Lift your eyes and look to the heavens.'"

Address to the nation after the shuttle 'Columbia' disaster, 1 February 2003

"It is the greatest gift you can give anybody, to pray on their behalf."

At National Prayer Breakfast, 7 February 2003

"I welcome faith to solve the nation's deepest problems ... We're being challenged. We're meeting those challenges because of our faith ... We carried our grief to the Lord Almighty in prayer."

Speech to National Convention of Religious Broadcasters, 10 February 2003, referring to the 11 September terrorist attacks

"The Archive of Bush's Evil

I asked them the other day, would it be okay if I cut a 30-minute tape, a piece of propaganda, no questions, just here -- here it is, here's 30 minutes of me talking; please run it, not only across your airwaves but run it internationally, if you don't mind; I've got something to say about the conflict and our fight against evil.
President George W. Bush - 11/13

It is also a reminder of the great purpose of our great land, and that is to rid this world of evil and terror. The evil ones have roused a might nation, a mighty land. And for however long it takes, I am determined that we will prevail.
President George W. Bush - 11/12

Our nations share an urgent mission, which is to stop and defeat terrorism wherever it may exist. That mission is not directed against those who practice Islam. That mission is directed against evil people.
President George W. Bush - 11/10

The only thing I know certain about him is that he's evil. And I don't know what to believe about him, except that he wants to hurt Americans.
President George W. Bush - 11/10

In a second world war, we learned there is no isolation from evil. We affirmed that some crimes are so terrible they offend humanity, itself. And we resolved that the aggressions and ambitions of the wicked must be opposed early, decisively, and collectively, before they threaten us all. That evil has returned, and that cause is renewed.
President George W. Bush - 11/10

We're confident, too, that history has an author who fills time and eternity with his purpose. We know that evil is real, but good will prevail against it. This is the teaching of many faiths, and in that assurance we gain strength for a long journey.
President George W. Bush - 11/10

I think there is one universal law, and that's terrorism is evil, and all of us must work to reject evil. Murder is evil, and we must reject murder.
President George W. Bush - 11/9

America faces an evil and a determined enemy.
President George W. Bush - 11/9

None of us would ever wish the evil that has been done to our country, yet we have learned that out of evil can come great good.
President George W. Bush - 11/8

We know that we're fighting evil. And the American people are patient. They've heard the call.
President George W. Bush - 11/8

This is an evil man that we're dealing with. And I wouldn't put it past him to develop evil weapons to try to harm civilization as we know it.
President George W. Bush - 11/6

Given the means, our enemies would be a threat to every nation and, eventually, to civilization itself. So we're determined to fight this evil, and fight until we're rid of it. We will not wait for the authors of mass murder to gain the weapons of mass destruction. We act now, because we must lift this dark threat from our age and save generations to come.
President George W. Bush - 11/6

Our war that we now fight is against terror and evil... Our struggle is going to be long and difficult. But we will prevail. We will win. Good will overcome evil."

PARTIAL EXCERPT from archive of George W. Bush public statements on "evil"

*********

RESOURCES

Here are a number of stories on apocalyptic Christian Zionism

An Editorial Note:

That leading US politicians now happily appear at public events with, cheer on, and consent to share the stage with a man who advocates a fringe conspiracy theory some would call anti-Semitic and urges a "preemptive" use of nuclear weapons in order to cause widespread nuclear war indicates the extent to which US political and religious culture has lurched far right, towards what some call an "apocalyptic death cult", over the past four decades since the era in which Lyndon Johnson's 1964 presidential campaign devastated Barry Goldwater's presidential hopes by airing just one time a 30 second TV commercial, the "Daisy" ad, that effectively tarred Goldwater as eager for nuclear war. Now, for Republican politicians wooing a key bloc of evangelical GOP voters, public expressions of nuclear blood lust are no longer stigmatized or politically toxic ; they are an asset.

Friends Of Israel and AIPAC Envision "Israel's Final Holocaust" and "Jew Toast"

TTA contributor Chip Berlet, Senior Analyst for Political Research Associates, provides some background on the recent history of "New World Order" conspiracism among John Hagee's fellow Christian Zionists such as Tim LaHaye and Pat Robertson in The Age Old Conspiracy

Previous installments in an ongoing series, by Bruce Wilson, on John Hagee and Christian Zionism:

"Pro Israel" Christian Leader Blames Jews For The Holocaust


"Be Jewish In Five Easy Days", The Twelve Tribes Of Hagee

AIPAC Event Helps Mainstream Allegations Of "Satanic Liberal Jewish Conspiracy"


Holocaust For Zion : CUFI's Christian Zionism Made Simple


GOP House Minority Whip Roy Blunt To Help Nuclear War Advocate


What Secret "Other Matters" Did McCain Discuss With "Apocalypse Now" Hagee ?


Dick Armey Denies Bush Administration Trying To Provoke "End Times"

recent stories from other authors:

Frank Cocozzelli: Donohue Softpeddles Hagee's Catholic Bashing


Max Blumenthal : AIPAC Cheers an Anti-Semitic Holocaust Revisionist (and Abe Foxman Approves)

Sarah Posner: The Goy Who Cried Wolf: The Israel lobby gives America's leading Christian right warmonger a warm welcome

Max Blumenthal : Israel, the US, and the Christian Right: The Menage a Trois From Hell

Bill Berkowitz:Holy Warriors Set Sights on Iran

Esther Kaplan : Christian Zionism all juiced up

Richard Bartholomew : Armey: Bush Believes in Tribulation, but not Trying to Make it Happen

URL

TV Evangelist John Hagee Wants War With Iran, and He Wants It Now!

by Bill Barnwell

If anyone still thinks that the radical end-times "prophecy" movement is not a threat to peace and stability, think again. At the popular level, in terms of the TV preachers and the hot-selling prophecy books, the dispensational pre-trib stuff still reigns supreme. Most conservative-leaning Evangelical churches in America today are heavily influenced by popular dispensational theology to some extent. Even churches and pastors that don’t teach pretribulationalism still are influenced by dispensationalism to varying degrees.

The most dangerous element of this prophetic paradigm, however, is its doom-and-gloom view of the world. And in most cases, those who have a fascination with the end of the world have a particular fascination with war and militarism as well. More problematic, it assumes that their wars of choice are not just their own foreign policy preferences or personal opinions. Rather they are ordained by God. In 2003, more than a few pastors and influential Christian figures basically said that opposing the Iraq war was opposing God’s end-time plan. According to Evangelical end-times enthusiasts, if you opposed the Iraq war, you didn’t just hate your country and the troops, now you were opposing God and the Bible as well.

An even bigger obsession for dispensationalists has always been Israel. For the average dispensationalist, modern-day secular Israel is going to be the focal point in the end-times. Therefore, if the Bible really does teach in Daniel 9:27 that the Al-Aqsa Mosque is going to be torn down for a rebuilt Jewish Temple, why should any of us seek to prevent it? Sure, it very well might ignite a regional war and even ignite tensions around the world, but it's all part of God’s prophetic plan. Not to worry though, things might not get really ugly until after the "rapture," so the Christians today who are cheering for events that would bring about World War III won’t have to worry about it anyway. Unless of course, they are wrong about the whole thing.

Enter the Rev. John Hagee. Hagee is the pastor of Cornerstone Church in San Antonio Texas, where he has 18,000 followers right in his own congregation. He also has a global television ministry and has sold scores of prophecy books over the years. John Hagee is perhaps the most powerful and influential Christian Zionist figure in America. Hagee has a long history making strange predictions about world events that are almost always wrong. His books in the late 90’s trumped up Y2K hysteria to ridiculous levels. He inaccurately predicted that the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin was the "Beginning of the End" in the book of the same name. In every book he writes, he is constantly warning of catastrophe in various forms right around the corner. According to one of his fans, he supposedly just preached a sermon predicting that 2007 would be a "significant" year in Bible prophecy and that his prophecy claims can be "mathematically" backed up by the Biblical text.

Given Hagee’s prior success rate in making predictions, don’t be shocked if 2007 doesn’t shape up to be all that "significant" after all. As with all popular prophecy teachers, they are immune from making inaccurate predictions and false prophecies. Their followers simply forget or forgive them. Maybe they’ll even claim that God changed His mind. Most don’t even pay attention though and don’t even realize their superstars are constantly revising their predictions and end-times charts.

However, Hagee is not just another goofy eccentric on TBN. He has political clout and regularly meets with influential national politicians. If you’ve ever watched him on TV, he clearly basks in this fact and drops little hints about his discussions with people in governmental authority and other positions of power. For years Hagee has hosted "A Night to Honor" Israel and is founder and chairman of Christians United for Israel. Their goals span beyond supporting Israel, but also implementing a one-sided and radical approach to the Arab-Israeli problems in the Middle East. There is no nuance to their policy prescriptions and ironically (or perhaps not so ironically) the agenda of Hagee and his group would actually make matters much worse in the Middle East.

And he has more than a few fans out there. He has not been afraid to remind his church and television audience, repeatedly over the years, that there are "millions in America and around the world watching this program right now." Whatever the number really is, what is clear is that Hagee is reaching many people and has a networking system that spans into the rich and powerful, some of whom are making national foreign policy decisions.

If left up to Hagee, there would be a military strike against Iran today. Since last summer, Hagee has been practically foaming at the mouth for a new war with Iran. Why? Because he thinks it is the rest of the world’s job to fight Israel’s wars and because he thinks such a showdown is a piece of the puzzle in regards to Bible prophecy. To Hagee, there is no middle ground on this issue. God told Abraham he would "bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you" (Gen. 12:3). That means if YOU aren’t on board with wars that might be in Israel’s interest, but not in the United States’, then YOU will be cursed by God. At least according to Hagee.

To see just how bellicose, belligerent, and militaristic Hagee has come, just watch his speech at the AIPAC Washington conference. Behind his thundering prose and love for the Jewish people is a militaristic and even fanatical mindset that is hoping and praying for the world to fall apart. After all, Jesus can’t come back unless it does, but all is well since Christians before the "rapture" will escape the worst of it.

Unfortunately for the Jewish people, they still await another massive holocaust, according to many dispensationalists. Anyone interested in this subject should read our own Gary North’s column, The Unannounced Reason Behind American Fundamentalism's Support for the State of Israel. An excerpt:

Nothing can or will be done by Christians to save Israel’s Jews from this disaster, for all of the Christians will have been removed from this world three and a half years prior to the beginning of this 42-month period of tribulation. (The total period of seven years is interpreted as the fulfillment of the seventieth week of Daniel [Dan. 9:27].)

In order for most of today’s Christians to escape physical death, two-thirds of the Jews in Israel must perish, soon. This is the grim prophetic trade-off that fundamentalists rarely discuss publicly, but which is the central motivation in the movement’s support for Israel. It should be clear why they believe that Israel must be defended at all costs by the West. If Israel were militarily removed from history prior to the Rapture, then the strongest case for Christians’ imminent escape from death would have to be abandoned. This would mean the indefinite delay of the Rapture. The fundamentalist movement thrives on the doctrine of the imminent Rapture, not the indefinitely postponed Rapture.

Every time you hear the phrase, "Jesus is coming back soon," you should mentally add, "and two-thirds of the Jews of Israel will be dead in ‘soon plus 84 months.’" Fundamentalists really do believe that they probably will not die physically, but to secure this faith prophetically, they must defend the doctrine of an inevitable holocaust.

This specific motivation for the support of Israel is never preached from any fundamentalist pulpit. The faithful hear sermons – many, many sermons – on the pretribulation Rapture. On other occasions, they hear sermons on the Great Tribulation. But they do not hear the two themes put together: "We can avoid death, but only because two-thirds of the Jews of Israel will inevitably die in a future holocaust. America must therefore support the nation of Israel in order to keep the Israelis alive until after the Rapture." Fundamentalist ministers expect their congregations to put two and two together on their own. It would be politically incorrect to add up these figures in public.

Again, however, one can’t make too big a fuss about this, since "Bible prophecy" demands this carnage. It’s "God’s will" for the world to fall apart, for tensions to further inflame between Jews and Arabs, for the United States to lead the charge in a pre-emptive strike on Iran, to rebuild a third Jewish Temple after tearing down the Islamic mosque, etc. All you have to do to prove this is cut passages like Genesis 12, Matthew 24, 2 Thessalonians 2, Ezekiel 36 and 37, and Daniel 9:24–27 out of context (along with the entire book of Revelation), make up some handy-dandy prophecy charts, and confidently present it to Biblically illiterate Christians who don’t know any better.

While there are many doctrinal disputes amongst Christians, there are none that have as much practical significance as this one. I strongly disagree with those who deny the Trinity, but those who deny the deity of Christ are not clamoring for war, bombs, and destruction. Likewise, Christians disagree vehemently over issues like eternal security or the proper mode of baptism, but thankfully we’ve grown up and stopped killing each other over those issues in the last couple hundred years.

When it comes to questionable or inaccurate beliefs about the end-times, however, they are shaping many people’s foreign policy and worldviews for the worse. It is causing many to hold troubling escapist views towards the world. I know this because I am constantly told by other Christians that "we are not in the business of fixing up the world, we are just in the business of saving souls until the rapture!" It is in part because of faulty eschatology that Evangelical Christians, more than any other demographic group in America, supported the ill-advised invasion of Iraq in 2003. And it is faulty eschatology that is causing this same group of people to believe the militaristic agenda behind Rev. Hagee’s bombastic oratory. After all, it’s all been ordained, so how can we oppose it?

But maybe, just maybe, their preciously held beliefs about future prophecy are way off. Maybe they are dead wrong in their views and maybe all the wars, destruction and carnage they think are inevitable aren’t necessarily mandated by God. Maybe the Bible is teaching exactly the opposite regarding these matters than what they teach.

Alas, no matter how many false predictions these guys make, or how many damaging theological and political beliefs they espouse, people continue to follow their dangerous teachings. It’s time for both Christian and non-Christian alike to call this crowd out on their bad theology, false prophecies, and deadly worldview.

Hopefully Hagee is right that 2007 is going to be a significant year in Bible prophecy. It would be significant indeed if Biblical scholars, pastors and laymen finally and at long last rescued the doctrine of eschatology from the doom and destruction crowd of militaristic pretribulationists. Here’s hoping that with each passing year the theology of Hagee and his ilk is exposed for how Biblically inaccurate and destructive it really is.

March 22, 2007

Bill Barnwell [send him mail] is a pastor and writer from Michigan. He holds both a Master of Ministry degree and a Master of Arts in Theological Studies degree from Bethel College in Mishawaka, Indiana. Visit his blog.

Copyright © 2007 LewRockwell.com