The Perfect Storm? Obama, McCain, the Media and God

Who's struggling to weather a raging religious rhetorical storm and who's not?

Barack Obama takes a public beating because his pastor, Jeremiah Wright, preaches hateful messages from the pulpit. Wright dares to criticize his country in angry terms and drags God into it. Obama, pols and pundits hollered, should have abandoned his church family the minute he heard a discouraging word. It is not enough that the senator from Illinois does not agree with Wright's harsher sentiments; he should have rejected the man along with the message.

The same standards, however, do not apply to John McCain. He gets a pass on matters of hateful religious rhetoric. He admits that he wooed and won the endorsement of Texas evangelist John Hagee--even though, candidate McCain croons to an adoring media, he does not agree with everything Hagee preaches. The GOP candidate needs the religious right voting bloc. So it's okay.

Hagee has a long career of shrieking hellfire and brimstone intolerance from the pulpit. Does he drag God into the middle of it? You bet. He preaches a menacing "God'll Getcha!" doctrine like there's no tomorrow; the Apocalypse is a'comin' and he can hardly wait. If you like Jeremiah Wright on a tear, you'll just love John Hagee.

Hagee's God has a nasty temper. Ask survivors of Hurricane Katrina. God was really ticked off with New Orleans, Preacher John contends. That Louisiana city, he says, brought the wrath of God down on itself in major fashion. New Orleans was guilty of "a level of sin that was offensive to God." A stroll through the famous French Quarter could taint the soul of a saint. Bars where liquor flowed like a mighty river, exotic dancers prancing around half-nekkid. And, heaven help us, there were homosexuals struttin' around everywhere. Like they owned the place. We all know how God feels about those guys.

In the Gospel According to John Hagee, God got fed up and hurled Hurricane Katrina at New Orleans in a raging fit of divine retribution.

Trouble is, thousands of folks along the entire Gulf Coast suffered and died. Whole towns, innocent communities, were wiped out; folks who had nothing to do with Sin City, had never been there and never intended to go. Thousands of them lost their homes, their schools, their jobs. Their families. Many of them are still suffering, still displaced.

If Hagee's right about God's direct and purposeful involvement, we have another problem. God's aim is not so good. He hit the Ninth Ward, home of the city's poorest citizens. Hit 'em hard. Nothing much was left of it but debris and dead bodies. God got middle class neighborhoods, too. But He missed the French Quarter; the black heart of Louisiana's Sodom (or Gomorrah, take your pick) was left unscathed. And that makes no sense at all.

Unless John Hagee's a hate-mongering hot-head who uses the pulpit badly...and God had nothing to do with the disaster that struck the Gulf Coast. Sometimes you just can't go along with every word you hear on Sunday morning. Pastors are human, they're flawed like the rest of us--and sometimes they're wrong.

John Hagee's message is every bit as ugly, angry and destructive as Jeremiah Wright's has ever been.

Barack Obama rejected Wright's message but remained loyal to his pastor. He remained faithful to his church family. Trinity's outreach ministries--for those in prison, for the hungry, for the elderly and disease-stricken--mattered more to the Obama family than did the occasional social-justice driven outburst.

John McCain does not attend Hagee's Cornerstone Church in San Antonio. He has no shared history with the congregants; no connection with or love for the church body there. McCain sought Hagee's endorsement for purely political reasons: He needed the right-wing fringe votes and he knew exactly who he was embracing to get them.

Bottom line: If Barack Obama is guilty of sin by association, so is John McCain. For the media and the public to whoop and holler, condemning one and pardoning the other, is grossly unfair. It's intellectually lazy. You might even say it's unChristian. And God'll getcha for that.

Comments

[studioh!]

free-ride mc same.
the media-which used to be known as the liberal media-has been highjacked and they're taking the rest of us with them.
hopefully during the general election, these stories will be front page 'news' and not buried under the bus

[faithfully]

at the next debate, I would like to have the moderators ask MCain the last time he went to church and what the sermon was about-I bet he will have no recollection of either.

[bethinCary]

How does Hagee account for the hurricanes that have hit FLA.?..or NC? or SC?

Hagee is man gone mad in his own ego..
If he truly believed in God--he'd pick up the Bible and read about doing some work here on earth to do good--what Christ TAUGHT.

Sorry--but the fundie approach of "do what I say-not what I do" is nothing more but hypocrisy..
It's EGO masquerading as the Bible.

[PioneerKing]

What are you saying? The straight talk express is full of hot air? McCain and his cronies in the media are hypocrits? Is there a double standard because Obama is black?
Wake up dude this what the best of politics in America is all about.

[rgersmrk]

At the end of the day it's all about skin color. Republican leadership is riddled with racist religious types all around them. George Bush Sr. consulted Jerry Falwell on a regular basis on matters of US Policy. Reagen would invite Falwell, Pat Robinson and other right wing religious biggots to the White House for dinners on a regular basis. You see all these outraged white people on the news saying that they would leave their churches based off of what Rev. Wright said.. The fact of the matter is America has seen a major coverup of pedophilia by the Catholic church yet I didn't see the outrage of white people calling for Catholics to leave their churches (when the argument actually makes sense). I could write a novel on all of the hate that Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Hagee and the right wing religious biggots have said without any retribution from the MSM or the public. Hypocrisy at it's worst.

[TomJ]

Well put. I read your column right after watching the Rev. Jeremiah Wright on Bill Moyers Journal (http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04252008/profile.html if anyone missed it or wants to rewatch it), which was excellent. I had a teacher who constantly reminded us that "the map is not the territory". Voters have been shown a map of Wright, put together from soundbites, while the territory of the man is actually sensitive, insightful and inspiring. Totally different from what we've been presented by those with a particular agenda.

I doubt John Hagee or Rod Parsley (McCain's "spiritual advisor") would agree to be interviewed by Bill Moyers, but it would be interesting to get "the full measure of the man" in both their cases. Then let McCain defend them.

[cincyr]

Great post. It is a glaring double-standard. When white pastors say crazy things, they just have a strange way of looking at the world. But when black pastors say crazy things, they hate America.

[AnnOhio]

I agree. People need to become more aware of this double standard. It extends to the very fact that Jeremiah Wright is getting so much attention. There are plenty of people that Hillary Clinton has been closely associated with who are controversial, but they aren't getting media coverage.

[littlequeenie]

Way to go Linda!
Personally, even though I'm white, I didn't find much all that offensive about Wright - once you read the whole transcript instead of just the soundbites.
Now this guy I do find offensive. Hagee and others who have declared Katrina God's punishment for the gay lifestyle are just hate-mongers. And didn't he also diss Catholics? Amazing!
I respected McCain back in 2000. I didn't agree with him, but I respected him. He stayed away from the fanatical hateful religious right (or however you want to term them) and I had a lot of respect for him for that. But this time the straight shooter now is pandering for votes - sucking up to this guy, hugging Dubya, going along with the tax cuts which he had been against.

I honestly wish that we could get above all this and discuss issues - and yes, character. But if this kind of info gets out, Linda, hopefully we won't have to deal with the Wright issues in the general.

[luckismine]

Linda,

I love your writing style and agree with you in spirit on this one, but the truth of the matter is that I find both sets of pointed fingers highly distasteful.

I prefer that we (the informed public) unify to tell the media to back off Obama or face scrutiny into their own racist-by-­affiliatio­n accusations (ala Larry Flint and the Republican chastity machine).

Thanks for firing us up yet again,

Laura
Washington, DC