More of McCain and freaks on the right
Re-posted from ONE LITTLE VICTORY:
Destroy Islam.
That is the message of John McCain’s self-proclaimed spiritual guide Reverend Rod Parsley of the World Harvest Church of Columbus, Ohio.
Wow. With spiritual advice like that, I don’t think he’ll even need a Secretary of Defense.
My own experience with Pentecostals has left me with a very negative impression of the institution, but this guy takes the cake. He has complete disdain for any views opposing his own, and spews hate towards civil libertarians (I guess he and I won’t get along at all), abortion rights advocates, gays, the entertainment industry and of course, Islam. He has stated that he wishes to provoke people into a “holy war”.
Now I know that John McCain feels that he has to win over the right-wing base, but does he really have to continue to curry favor with the nutjobs? So far it seems like McCain believes that his own political salvation is tied to those who believe that the Rapture is imminent and that we should be preparing for total war. Is this what American politics has devolved into?
Senator McCain, if you do not denounce and repudiate this crackpot, then I am left to draw no other conclusion than that you are a crackpot as well. The “maverick” John McCain is a myth, alongside “compassionate conservatism” and the idea that we can exchange our liberties for greater security.
McCain’s Spiritual Guide: Destroy Islam
By David Corn
March 12, 2008
source: Mother JonesSenator 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.”
The leader of a 12,000-member congregation, Parsley has written several books outlining his fundamentalist religious outlook, including the 2005 Silent No More. In this work, Parsley decries the “spiritual desperation” of the United States, and he blasts away at the usual suspects: activist judges, civil libertarians who advocate the separation of church and state, the homosexual “culture” (”homosexuals are anything but happy and carefree”), the “abortion industry,” and the crass and profane entertainment industry. And Parsley targets another profound threat to the United States: the religion of Islam.
