Updated below
The protracted folderol over Reverend Wright has done something quite important in the presidential race. America’s great but errant spotlight of high moral values has been directed so extensively, so brightly, and so carefully on Barack Obama’s relationship with him, that it has set a powerful precedent which has just begun to focus on John McCain.
Hagee and McCain: Do they believe the same?
But there’s no need to scour obsessively over the relationship the way MSM has done with Obama; all that needs to be verified— or not— is if John McCain believes what they believe— Does McCain believe what Hagee believes? What Parsley believes?
Both pastors profess moral positions that clearly cross the line of church and state; if McCain considers such men his spiritual advisers, Americans have a right, a need to know whether such spiritual teachings affect his decision making when it comes to, say, obliterating Islamic nations in the name of national security; or is it in the name of Biblical obligation? A need to know if, when it comes to natural disasters, does McCain see them as Divine punishment from a vengeful God for lifestyle choices outside the fundamentalist mainstream, and beyond the ethical reach of their cultural, philosophical, and religious horizon.
McCain has supposedly said such views are “nonsense,” and has condemned “those parts of his remarks.” One must wonder then, which parts he does not.
Guilt by association is a poor metric to judge anyone’s true character. All the more reason to just ask the important questions that impinge on matters of church and state, and have them answered clearly— one way or the other. We expected nothing less of Obama, and we expect nothing less of McCain.
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UPDATED May 27, 2008:
Now that McCain has seen the light, and sent John Hagee off to hades to reconcile his phobias with lucifer, and Rev Rod Parsley to fight his own demons, you might like to think that our time with the raving reverends is over. Perish the thought.
Bill Moyers interviewed Jeremiah Wright on May 2nd, and his fine commentary is worth a viewing to put these preachers in perspective.
