After endorsing John McCain, Texas pastor John Hagee has come under a bit of criticism for some of his comments about Catholics (and for generally being a dangerous war-whooping nutjob). But among some fundamentalist Christians, the real problem with Hagee is comments he may have made about Jews. What could be more offensive than calling someone's church a "great whore"? Well if you can believe this, Hagee might actually have said that Jews -- if there are any little ones reading this you might want to cover their eyes for their own protection -- can go to heaven.
Appalling, right? Don't worry. Hagee denies it. But still, the murmurs persist in the darkest reaches of the church that John Hagee might be dangerously soft on sending the Jewish people to eternal damnation.
The rumor began in earnest two years ago when a columnist for the Jerusalem Post, writing about the launch of Hagee's Christian Zionist organization, reported that Hagee believes in something known as dual covenant theology: "that the Jewish people has a special relationship to God through the revelation at Sinai and therefore does not need 'to go through Christ or the Cross' to get to heaven." More alarming to conservative evangelicals, the writer added that Jerry Falwell had signed on to this too. (The blog Bartholomew's Notes on Religion had a thorough round-up at the time.) Remember back in October when Ann Coulter pissed some people off by saying that Christians want Jews to be "perfected"? In her attempt to defend herself, Coulter said that she, like all Christians, including "Falwell himself," believe that Jews go to heaven. In fact, most Christians do not believe anything of the sort, and as I wrote at the time, Coulter's ignorance about something so basic just might indicate that she's not quite the devout Christian she's recently been posing as.
Falwell convincingly repudiated the Jerusalem Post, but Hagee's denials were more vague. Which is why you can still find ministry web sites accusing him of "spiritual correctness" and condemning him for refusing to target Jews for conversion at "Night to Honor Israel" gatherings. Hagee's writings on Jews have been parsed within an inch of their lives. Other teachings of his have been equally scrutinized and found wanting.
So what impact will any of this have on the presidential race? Some fundamentalists turned on Huckabee when Hagee embraced him back in December, but these folks were never going to vote for McCain anyway. If you actually clicked any of those links, you could pretty much tell that these folks are the lunatic fringe of evangelicalism. Hagee, you might say, is in the lunatic center. And McCain hopes that his endorsement will carry weight with the non-lunatic majority. If he knew about Hagee's anti-Catholic views, he may have assumed, with some justification, that they are, if not a plus, not exactly a minus either for most evangelicals. The Dual Covenant issue, however, may catch him by surprise.