Salvation on the Small Screen?. Nadia Bolz-Weber

him and goes straight up John Nelson Darby dispensationalism. That’s my favorite.”

      Dispensationalism: A certain reading of the Bible that looks for signs of the end times, especially concerning ages, eras, and borders in time. Darby is the guy who made up the rapture, which a whole lot of people think is actually found in the Bible. See Left Behind series for details.

      Oh, this is going to be fun, which is good because I find the pro-Israel stuff on TBN to be tedious and boring. I know I should care, but when it comes to Middle Eastern politics, with its few millennia of backstory, countless characters, and plot twists, I feel that I’m as likely to understand what’s going on as I am to get what’s happening with Lost based solely on episode 16. I wish, I really do, that I could watch Hagee and know exactly where he’s going wrong politically, but I’m ill equipped. He could say Elvis is the prime minister of Israel and I’d have to go with it. This is humiliating, but I felt it best to just put it out there.

      From the international media center in San Antonio, Texas, a special presentation from John Hagee Ministries. Today Pastor John Hagee introduces his latest book, In Defense of Israel.

      Music, desk, and chair all suggest “news program,” as opposed to sermon. Hagee is using the half-hour to pitch his latest book, which he calls his “twenty-second major book — and it covers the waterfront when it comes to relationships between Christians and Jews.” He’s sitting on a set that screams both “nicely appointed” and “Ethan Allen”: dark wood, books, and leather. It manages to be manly and fancy at the same time. Hagee is jowly and angry and looks, though I’m no medical expert, like he may possibly be bloated on his own hate.

      He goes right into the apocalyptic Israel stuff. “God is going to raise up a body of Gentile people who are going to support the Jewish people.” He claims that Israel is in great danger and that Iranian president Ahmadinejad wants Israel to be wiped off the map by a nuclear storm.

      Fick: “Do you think folks on the right have all agreed to say nu-cu-ler as some sort of defiant act?”

      Hagee: “Iran wants to come to America and attack us. If Iran gets nuclear weapons it will be disastrous for America. If America leaves Iraq then Iran will fill that void. Because of our dependence on foreign oil, Iran could destroy the U.S. economy. They will also have the wealth to buy nuclear weapons.”

      Fick: “I think it’s really interesting. Are people self-conscious about getting their news from Hagee? I have an uncle who calls Bill O’Reilly ‘the news.’”

      Hagee:

      The FBI says there are even major cities in America marked for these nuclear weapons. If we defend Israel we defend ourselves. With Russia’s assistance, Iran has the ability to bring Western civilization to its knees. If we defend Israel, then God will bless us. The Bible makes it clear in Genesis 12:3, “I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you.”

      Oh, goodness. In just five minutes we’ve gotten the crippling of the U.S. economy, nuclear holocaust in Israel and the United States, and the end of Western civilization. Is this guy available for children’s parties? He’s more terrifying than a birthday clown.

      I’m a little distressed by people who preface their point by saying, “The Bible is really clear.” I defy anyone to read a single book in the Bible and say everything seemed “clear.”

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      Hagee uses several prooftexts to show that God curses those who curse the Jewish people and blesses those who bless the Jewish people. Hagee:

      Zechariah 2:8:Jews are the apple of God’s eye. Where are the Babylonians, the Romans, the Ottoman Empire, where are Adolf Hitler and his lunatics? They are dead and buried in the bone yard of history because they cursed the Jewish people.

      Luke 7:J-5:The centurion wanted Jesus to come into his house. Jesus visited him because he had done something practical to bless the Jewish people so Jesus broke the laws of Moses to enter the Gentile house to heal the girl.

      Acts 10:Cornelius was praying for the Jewish people. Peter saw a sheet of unclean animals and the sheet was a prayer shawl and the animals were the Gentile people. Why did the message come to their house first? They did something practical to bless the Jewish people.

      Fick: “That’s kinda cool. I’ve never heard of it as a prayer shawl. I always call it a tablecloth, and I think in my sermon a few months back I called it a “buffet of abominations.” But did you notice that we’ve just gone from Zechariah to Luke to Exodus to Genesis in four sentences. He sits down and decides what the Bible says, and then looks for verses and half-verses to back him up”

      Me: “I’m right and you know why? God agrees with me!”

      Hagee:

      Romans 15:27: If the gentiles have benefited from the Jewish spiritual things, then the Gentiles owe it to the Jewish people to bless them with material things. What spiritual things have we received from the Jewish people? Every word of the Bible was written by Jewish hands. They gave us the patriarchs and the prophets; there’s Mary, Joseph, and Jesus; the twelve disciples; and the apostle Paul. If you took away the Jewish contribution there would be no Christianity. It’s time to stop praising the dead Jews of the past — Moses, Jacob, Abraham — while criticizing the Jews across the street from you, because that is anti-Semitism and anti-Semitism is a sin and as a sin it will damn your soul.

      As a rule I’m not down with the whole hell and damnation thing, but I may have to agree with Hagee on making an exception for anti-Semitism.

      Fick: “Hagee’s pedigree is like, Baptist preacher begets Baptist preacher begets Baptist preacher, and I suspect his background had to be intensely anti-Semitic, so this may actually be a step in the right direction, although once Jesus comes back I think Hagee would say the Jews will either convert or be cast into the lake of fire, so it’s not all good.”

      Me: “Yeah, I think joining hands and singing “We Are the World” might be a bit premature.”

      Hagee: “We have started Christians United for Israel so that every person in this nation who wants to support Israel can do so. This and much more is found in my book In Defense of Israel.”

      ♦♦♦

      Cut to a John Hagee Ministries ad complete with images of Hagee laying hands on the heads of various folks as a voiceover tells us: “Miracles happen every day for those who know how to release the healing power of God. Pastor Hagee wants you to meet God’s conditions for a miracle and he has prepared a special healing package.”

      Advertisement: Book and CD ($25).

      Off the top of my head I can think of the following conditions for healing in the New Testament: You have faith (the woman with hemorrhages who touched Jesus’ garment, Matt. 9, Luke 8, Mark 5). You may or may not have faith, but your friends do (the guy who was lowered through the ceiling, Mark 2). You not only have no faith, but you don’t even know the name of Jesus (the lame man at the Bethesda pool who, when asked who healed him, said, “I don’t know, some guy,” John 5). Actually now that I think about it, the only condition for healing is that you are sick. That pretty much covers everyone, so I’m wondering why it is that Hagee thinks he has uncovered some sort of secret.