John McCain's "Spiritual Guide" Calls For Destruction Of Islam

Mother Jones:

Senator John McCain hailed as a spiritual adviser an Ohio megachurch pastor who has called upon Christians to wage a "war" against the "false religion" of Islam with the aim of destroying it.

On February 26, McCain appeared at a campaign rally in Cincinnati with the Reverend Rod Parsley of the World Harvest Church of Columbus, a supersize Pentecostal institution that features a 5,200-seat sanctuary, a television studio (where Parsley tapes a weekly show), and a 122,000-square-foot Ministry Activity Center. That day, a week before the Ohio primary, Parsley praised the Republican presidential front-runner as a "strong, true, consistent conservative." The endorsement was important for McCain, who at the time was trying to put an end to the lingering challenge from former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, a favorite among Christian evangelicals. A politically influential figure in Ohio, Parsley could also play a key role in McCain's effort to win this bellwether state in the general election. McCain, with Parsley by his side at the Cincinnati rally, called the evangelical minister a "spiritual guide."

Read the whole story: Mother Jones

Comments

[filmunas]

Parsley is a crackpot - and so is McCain!

[supermanolo]

This Pastor Parsleysag­erosmaryan­dthyme's middle school social studies teacher should be taken to task. Columbus, the fool, thought he was in Asia when he was in the New World, hence the moniker Indian. Columbus bringing the New World's riches (of which Columbus didn't really find any, it was Cortes the Killer, Pizarro and other wonderful Conquistadores) who brought the riches to defeat the Islamic Hoards. In fact Spain was reconquered in 1492 along with Columbus sailing the Ocean Blue, the first modern Spanish book being published ("La Celestina" I believe) and the Jews being sent off or "converted". No, Columbus and his ilk were trying to get around the Middle East because they couldn't get through. The Age of Exploration was not to gain wealth to "git the islamofacists", it was to get the wealth to be, uh, wealthy. You'd think Pastor Parsleysag­erosmaryan­dthyme would have lernt this in 7th or 8th grade.

[AZM]

How many different bibles are there? When last I read it, I recall a bible in which Jesus preached love, compassion, respect for others. I don't recall Jesus preaching the kind of vile hatred that comes from the mouths of some of these preachers!

[RogerHWerner]

The Bible contains little that relates to what Jesus actually may have said and a great deal of what later generations thought he may have said or should have said if he didn't say it. Modern Christianity bears no resemblance to the Jewish religion preached by Jesus, who was an orthodox Jewish rabbi. Christians like Parsely ought to spend some time learning about the history of their faith before attempting to talk about something they know nothing about; mainly secular history. However, if they hoped to learn anything about their faith, they would need to approach the subject with an open mind, which is something they could never do.

[donaldw6]

Whether He ever actually said "Love thy neighbor as thyself", it's still the best single sentence that's ever been uttered, and probably all the religion anyone needs. Parsley is a blight on my old home town of Columbus, Ohio.

[Rog49Thomas]

There is a school of Christians who believe that they have found a way to focus on what Jesus is supposed to have teached. In many bibles, the words of the Christ appear in red.

This group - so called Red Letter Christians - reads the words ascribed to Jesus.

For some reason, the vast majority of them are fairly liberal politically

[kardwell]

Your bible is a very different version than that of the born-agains.

[Waterbug]

Good grief -- this is horrible. Why isn't this the top story on huffpost? Oh yeah -- there's a sex scandal to wallow in & Hillary bashing to do. Glad we've got our priorities straight.

Just think of what this battle cry will do for our warmonger, John McBush. I love that powerful portmanteau -- tell your friends!! (Thanks to Cautious for that gem).

[dax49]

is mc cain really that crazy, to surround himself with these whack jobs? imagine the outrage if an arab said something like that about christianity- fox wouls go into a circle jerk on that one

[anotherplayaguy]

The Arabs say things like that all the time. They don't pretend to be all-inclusive. They want to see the West fail, and they're probably going to be able to, caused not by anything they do but by the West's own greed and corruption.

[1differentdrummer]

Which people are you generalizing about? Arabs, Persians, Turks? Which sect of Islam are you generalizing about, you certainly know there are any number? Do you think they all agree with the Wahaabiis of Saudi Arabia? That's like saying the snake handlers in the mountains of our South are the same as High Church Anglicans and that sure makes a lot of sense, doesn't it?

[Amalek]

You sleep with dogs you get fleas.

[FatherOfAllLife]

You call satan GOD, you get to be george bu$h

THAT'S what bomb bomb Iran insane mccain's doing

[coonce]

Why hasn't it been told on TV that McCain caved to the enemy while being a POW? While I admit, I don't know how I would with stand torture, but I'm just curious why this isn't being told to VOTERS. It does make a difference when this same man said water boarding was torture during his debates, but once he landed the position he switched positions.

[jnratliff]

coonce
If you were being tortured you would do just like every other person that has ever been tortured.
You would say whatever you thought they wanted to hear!
That is why torture does not work. people will say anything to make it stop.
The worse thing is someone that is so stupid to think you can learn something by torturing someone.
Shows how ignorant the president and his supporters are. These bush people are just idiot fucking morons!

[CountryBeforeParty]

Do we need any more proof that religion needs to go away?

[batgirlevi]

No more religious hypocrisy and insanity!

[Cautious]

We all need to work to keep this in the public eye. Yet another person McBush needs to renounce/reject.

It's so very sad to see John McCain go through this. He should just give up.

[Davwbaird]

AAAAAAAAAR­RRRRRRRRRR­GGGHHHHHHH­HHHH!

[ZenCrusader]

The great majority of people who are religous do not hunger for war nor do they kill - they want peace. You are seeing the phenomena of people venting a hatred or urge to kill under the banner of their relgion as their excuse, of their way of expressing. It really is not the religion or religous people who are to blame - it is extremists and fanatical killers who are the problem.

[Saganslegacy]

I buy that.

Still, how come that so often they have leaders that spill hatred. And why does majority not get them under control?

Because the leaders call in their ' God' and pretend to disseminate God's word: kill the infidels, kill the Muslim . That silences every critical thought. They are based on authority, not on reason.

And it's reason what we need.

[MajorKong]

I live in Columbus. Rod Parsley is all about money and power. His church borders on being a cult.

[bushmocker]

Why not leave religion out of the picture,enough of this BS of my God is bigger than your God.It's ok to to defend yourself from an attack from people that want to harm you.But don't make it about religion,make it about the people that want to cause you harm,no more,no less.

[Quotato]

All of this reminds me of Pope Urban II in the Year 1095.

I always thought that America was formed to separate State and theology. Where does this "rev." find all of these gullible followers besides bible-belt states like Ohio. Arizona has native American tribes. Are these tribes also condemned by this pontifical pastor because they might not be Christians? McCain has to have more smarts than what subject article portrays.

[williamscody]

Well you thought wrong. Nowhere in the Constitution, Bill of Rights, or Declaration does it say, "separation of Church and state."

[Saganslegacy]

At this point McCain is pure opportunism, that's why.

[Rog49Thomas]

You might find it interesting to read the chronicles written by Christian monks living in the Holy Land during the Crusades. The description of the capture of Jerusalem (first Crusade) is painted as an orgy of killing and robbing. As is a common trick, people swallowed their jewels so the good Christian Crusaders went about slashing open peoples' bellies to look for treasure.

On a later Crusade, the Crusaders sacked Constantinople and never made it to the Holy Land, apparently finding what they were looking for in the Byzantine Empire.

[lornejl]

There is no room for more than one religion , or god, there is only one truth,but many lies,seek and ye shall reap something. This concludes todays sermon, pass the hat.

[symbolisme]

Seriously. Enough of this crap. It's one religious lunatic after another endorsing
McCain, and I actually don't want to hear about it or him or them anymore. It's bad enough I have to deal with young angelic-looking women knocking on my door at 8 a.m. on Saturday morning
to tell me if I don't drink, don't screw, don't smoke, I'll go to heaven. War's generally okay with them, and HOLY WAR is, I gather, a real feather in your hat, so to speak.

I hear Hitler and the Nazi's thrown around with reference to this McCain-Latest Religious
Nut endorsement. So let's try another anology, okay? Let's pretend Fidel Castro just endorsed McCain (why, you ask? Please. This is an analogy.) and every American Joe goes ballistic. But McCain responds, "Well, accepting his endorsement doesn't mean I approve of everything
he says..." Well, that kind of implies that there's lots of goody things about Castro that makes him an okay endorsement. Like he can get hold of top Cuban cigars when we can't; he gets away with looking like a homeless person wandering aimlessly along the Venice Boardwalk (SM, Calif.) when American presidents have to look, well, very very respectable, which is more or less synonymous with moral probity; and, mostly importantly, Castro's thrown a lot of gays in jail for just being gay. Now, you'd think the Religious Right -- and McCain -- would love Castro because of this. see this as a great virtue. I mean, before Castro they had Batista, another swell dictator, but as far as I know he was too busy jailing and/or executing Cubans for bad politics. But Batista didn't throw gays willy-nilly into jail for being gay; that mop up was left to Castro. And, given Castro's impressive track record, you'd think Republicans and their soul partners, these psychopathic right-wing fundamentalists, would be saying a kind word or two about their big bad Communist nemesis.

But (as the saying goes) I digress.

McCain can't cherry pick the views he likes from those who have endorsed him and ignore the odious ones -- like a new Holy War to destroy Islam.

If McCain doesn't believe this guy's rant, he better say so. He's asking too much of the
voter to assume he -- wink wink-- doesn't really buy it.

But he won't denounce it. And I have no reason, at this point, to believe that he doesn't share all the views of this latest fanatic's endorsement.