John Hagee: Accused Catholic Basher

(April 8, 2008)

            On February 27, 2008, Pastor John Hagee of 19,000-member Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas came out in support of presidential hopeful, Senator John McCain. Senator McCain showed his pleasure with Hagee’s endorsement by answering "I'm very honored by Pastor John Hagee's endorsement today….He has been the staunchest leader of our Christian evangelical movement in many areas, but especially, most especially, his close ties and advocacy for the freedom and independence of the state of Israel" (Sullivan, Andy. “Pro-Israel Evangelical Leader Endorses McCain.” Reuters. February 27, 2008. http://www.reuters.com).  For the record, we are talking about the same John Hagee whose staunch support for Israel became over-the-top “spiritually unhealthy” when he declared Jesus not the Jewish Messiah. He’s the same John Hagee who refuses to testify of Jesus and never mentions His name when he speaks to Jewish people, even though all the money they get from Hagee is of JESUS-loving people. Figure that out, if you can!

The McCain endorsement was the beginning of Hagee’s 2008 anxieties.  Bill Donohue of the Catholic League took notice of Senator McCain’s gratefulness for the Hagee endorsement and sounded-off about Pastor Hagee being anti-Catholic and called for Senator McCain to renounce Hagee. Donohue said, “There are plenty of staunch evangelical leaders who are pro-Israel, but are not anti-Catholic. John Hagee is not one of them. Indeed, for the past few decades, he has waged an unrelenting war against the Catholic Church. For example, he likes calling it ‘The Great Whore,’ an ‘apostate church,’ the ‘anti-Christ,’ and a ‘false cult system’….McCain should…retract his embrace of Hagee.” (Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. “McCain Embraces Bigot.” February 28, 2008. http://www.catholicleague.org). The question to Mr. Donohue is: can Hagee’s decades of unrelenting war against the Catholic Church in any way match the Catholic Church’s “centuries” of unrelenting war against Protestants? Not at all.   

            The very next week Senator John McCain repudiated Pastor Hagee’s anti-Catholic views in an Associated Press interview where he said, “We’ve had a dignified campaign, and I repudiate any comments that are made, including Pastor Hagee’s, if they are anti-Catholic or offensive to Catholics” (Newsmax.com. “McCain Rejects Anti-Catholic Views.” March 7, 2008. http://www.newsmax.com/politics/mccain/2008/03/07/78746.html). However, just before McCain got around to repudiating Hagee’s anti-Catholic views, Hagee had already come out with a farfetched statement about always having had a great love and respect for Catholics and the Catholic Church.          

 

I [John Hagee] have always had great love for Catholic people and great respect for the Catholic Church. My wife comes from a Catholic family and millions of my viewers are Catholics. I am shocked and saddened to learn of the mischaracterization of my views on Catholics that has spread….

Throughout my career I have been a strong critic of Christian anti-Semitism. But any fair review of my record will demonstrate that I have consistently criticized all Christians — Protestant and Catholic alike — for the sin of anti-Semitism….It is a bitter irony that in my zeal to hold my fellow Christians accountable for our past anti-Semitism, I now find myself compared to an anti-Semite (Ward, Mike. “San Antonio Televangelist Responds To Criticism Of His McCain Endorsement.” Austin American-Statesman online. March 3, 2008. http://www.statesman.com).

Come on now, John Hagee! How can “Christian anti-Semitism” be construed to be the great whore in the book of Revelation in lieu of the Roman Catholic Church? Impossible! It appears Hagee took the yellow-belly way out of the mess “he” put himself in. When it comes to so-called past Christian anti-Semitism, the perpetrators were the Crusaders and Inquisitors that consisted entirely of Catholics.

            In John Hagee’s own words, he said,“‘I’ve learned that some have accused me of referring to the Catholic Church as the ‘great whore,’ of Revelations. This is a serious misinterpretation of my words. When I refer to the ‘great whore,’ I am referring to the apostate church, namely those Christians who embrace the false cult system of Jew-hatred and anti-Semitism.’ He says this would include some Protestants as well as Catholics”(Catholic  Online. “Catholic League: Hagee Goes Off The Rails, McCain Must Act.” March 5, 2008.http://www.catholic.org). Pastor Hagee really and truly said that the whore in Revelation is both Protestants and Catholics who are apostate and anti-Semites. Does he really believe that?  Who knows. This is not the first time he has changed his heart about New Testament teachings. He ceased believing Jesus to be the Jews’ Messiah because Jesus supposedly never said He was the Messiah.  All that can be said is that, it is getting very late for John Hagee and the cronies in his camp who don’t repudiate him for his false teachings.       
            John Hagee knows better than that!  He outright lied!  Deborah Solomon in a New York Times interview asked Hagee how being called a Catholic-basher made him feel?  Hagee’s answer was “My statements regarding the Catholic Church have been grossly mischaracterized. I never called the Catholic Church ‘the anti-Christ’ or a ‘false cult system.’ I was referring to those Christians who ignore the Gospels” (Solomon, Deborah. “Questions For The Rev. John Hagee.” New York Times interview. March 23, 2008.  http://www.nytimes.com). Now he’s saying it’s those Christians who ignore the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The spin!  Hagee is giving everybody vertigo!  Either John Hagee is lying about who it is he’s referring to as the great whore of Revelation or his interpretation of the whore being both apostate and anti-Semitic Catholics and Protestants came straight from some religious demon of his.  Which is it, bad-boy? Either way, John Hagee is wrong and what he preaches can’t be trusted. He is twisting centuries of Protestant teachings on the Roman Catholic Church being the whore in Revelation, part of the anti-Christ system, a religious cult, and the pope being the false prophet in Revelation just so that he remains in good graces with Catholics and politicians. John Hagee is reprobate!     

            Bill Donohue didn’t buy into any of it and so right was he when he responded with, “Anti-Catholic Protestants have long labeled the Catholic Church ‘The Great Whore,’ and no amount of spin can change that reality. No one who knows anything about the term would suggest otherwise” (Catholic League: Hagee Goes Off  The Rails, McCain Must Act.” Catholic League Press Release. March 4, 2008. www.catholicleague.org/). Donohue is right and John Hagee is fooling no one except himself.   
 

This Was The Killer,Though
 

            Joining Bill Donohue in the push for Senator McCain to repudiate John Hagee was another Roman Catholic, Deal Hudson, director of InsideCatholic.com.  Mr. Hudson, a former Protestant, wrote that he met for about three hours with John Hagee in New York to discuss the charge of anti-Catholicism brought against him. Deal said a mutual friend suggested the meeting because he was “…concerned both for Hagee's reputation and the relations between Evangelicals and Catholics…. it would be a pity if a wedge was driven between conservative Catholics and Evangelicals on the eve of the 2008 election’" (Hudson, Deal. “Deal Hudson: Meeting Reverend John Hagee.” Catholic Online. April 2, 2008. www.catholic.org). Let it be known to Mr. Hudson that Hagee is concerned for his own reputation as well; so much so that he resorted to just outright lying about the Protestant interpretation of the whore in the book of Revelation.        

            Hudson said “I told him [Hagee] that when I Googled ‘Great Whore’ and Revelation, the first six hits were explicitly anti-Catholic Web sites. He [Hagee] then explained why, in his interpretation of the Book of Revelation, the ‘Great Whore’ cannot refer to the Catholic Church: In Hagee's eschatology, the end times begin with the Rapture, when all those who are truly in Christ will be taken up to heaven. Hagee says….‘Since both Catholics and Protestants are taken up to Heaven, how could the 'Great Whore' be the Catholic Church? The apostate church is left on earth during the seven years of tribulation -- that is the 'Great Whore'" (Ibid.). Come on, John Hagee! Hagee is sounding more and more like someone who has lost his spiritual mind!  First of all, the Rapture teaching is “bunk” – it’s a false teaching! It is not the Gospel of Jesus Christ, for Jesus never said anything about folks being raptured before the Great Tribulation.  Second, Catholics don’t believe in the Rapture, anyway. In fact, Catholics laugh at LaHaye's and Jenkins' “Left Behind” rapture series of books and movies. Third, Catholics and Protestants taken up to Heaven in the Rapture leaving apostate Christians on earth to go through the tribulation!  Please, who could be more apostate than Catholics, and now, Protestant John Hagee, but yet they’ll be Raptured?  John Hagee is a heretic! 

            Mr. Deal then pushed the envelope by asking Hagee if he was "…saying the Catholic Church cannot be the 'Great Whore' because the 'Great Whore' exists only during the period of tribulation?’ Hagee answered, ‘Yes, anyone who is a real Christian, Catholic or Protestant, has been taken to heaven, only those without faith, including Catholics and Protestants, are left behind.’" (Ibid.).  Demonic hogwash! What a joke!  If real Christians are both Catholics and Protestants, then why are they split?  One is an imposter and not necessarily because they are few in numbers.  Remember Matthew 7:14 as regards few going through the straight and narrow gate. This is unreal! 
 

How Dare You 
 

            How dare Catholics say anything about what Protestants preach and practice when over the centuries they have thrown and continue to throw “verbal-Vatican-stones” at Protestants right up to this very day. Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, headed the Congregation For The Doctrine Of The Faith, the old office of the Holy Inquisition that was set up to combat heresy the likes of Protestantism. In that office, Benedict threw out a verbal-Vatican-stone that officially ordered Catholic bishops not to refer to Protestant churches as sister churches (“Dominus Iesus”) because Protestants are not considered churches in the proper sense being that they are ecclesial communities suffering from defects. Go figure, will you! That’s no brother in The Lord!

            When Benedict was elected pope, Cardinal William Levada was appointed to his old position and with Benedict’s blessing, Levada published the declaration “Responses To Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine on the Church” about Evangelical Protestants not being the church of Jesus Christ. Behaving like that, Catholics cannot be brothers in the Lord with Protestants.  That’s why the great divide – the schism between Catholics and Protestants.

            As always, the anti-Protestant views come right from the head. Benedict XVI while in Brazil in 2007 referred to Pentecostal churches as “sects” when speaking against them for using aggressive means of proselytizing Catholics. How dare Catholics believe that every time Protestants speak the truth about their religion, they claim to be hurt when they are the most intolerant of Protestants speaking the truth about them. They can dish it out but can’t take it, and it has been that way for centuries – the whore who sits “a queen, and am no widow, and will see no sorrow” (Revelation 18:7), so she believes.

SIDEBAR: Rabbi Yoffi of the very liberal Union for Reform Judaism sees Hagee as an extremist and preaches that synagogues should have nothing to do with him because of his anti-Catholic and anti-Islam views, along with his attempt to usher in Jesus’ second coming. Has the Rabbi warned his synagogues to have nothing to do with Catholics who throw verbal-Vatican-stones (insults) at Protestants? That’s anti-Protestant! But, has the Rabbi said that to Catholics? (The Rabbi is another message in the not-to-distant future.)

In Closing

            John Hagee is so far over the edge with his over-the-edge teachings that come directly from the captor of his mind, that being Satan. Why haven’t the other church leaders and friends of John Hagee reprimanded him for having parted ways with the truth of the Gospel of Jesus?  Also, why isn’t John Hagee ostracized for his false teachings just as Carlton Pierson was ostracized for his false gospel of inclusion about everybody going to Heaven?

            Once John Hagee set foot on the avenue of apostasy it was one spiritual misdeed after another.  It’s not about what John Hagee said and Catholics perceiving it as anti-Catholic, but it’s about John Hagee telling lies before the whole world just to save his skin – to save his already long-tarnished reputation that began with him (1) being a preacher who divorced his wife and two children and seven months later married the current wife Diana whom he remains in adultery with; (2) in the ultimate of apostasy, he declared to the world in his book, "In Defense of Israel," that Jesus is not the Jews’ Messiah, Jesus never said He was their Messiah, and the Jews didn’t kill Jesus, all so that he remains favorably in the eyes of the Jewish people as their staunchest supporter; and now (3) twisting and denying the teachings on the whore in the book of Revelation so not to be labeled anti-Catholic and the destroyer of the strides already made in ecumenism.           
            Seeing that John Hagee has shown his true colors, the clarion call is to True Believers in Jesus Christ to come out of Cornerstone Church; and all Christians standing with Hagee in his spiritually unhealthy support for Israel, cease donating financially for his pet projects such as Christians United For Israel and Operation Exodus to fly Jews out of Russia to Israel.  Of the latter, you have to ask yourself: Is that really of God?  Whatever happened to God’s plan to bring the Jews out of the Russia with a mighty outstretched arm, and not the outstretched wings of an airplane? Charismatic and Pentecostal church leaders, break away from Hagee until he repents of his ways! Leave John Hagee standing alone until he repents before The Lord and renounces his teachings.

            (In all of that, it is still the duty of Christians to support Israel through prayer for her salvation and to stand strongly with her against her enemies. The Jewish people need salvation, and especially now for the daily challenges they face as a people and a country.)