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John Hagee apologizes
Pastor John Hagee, whose negative comments about Catholics has caused trouble for his pick for president, John McCain, has written a letter of apology to William Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Civil and Religious Rights:
“Out of a desire to advance a greater unity among Catholics and Evangelicals in promoting the common good, I want to express my deep regret for any comments that Catholics have found hurtful.” (Here’s a link to the complete letter.)
In response, Donohue said:
“The tone of Hagee’s letter is sincere. He wants reconciliation and he has achieved it. Indeed, the Catholic League welcomes his apology. What Hagee has done takes courage and quite frankly I never expected him to demonstrate such sensitivity to our concerns. But he has done just that. Now Catholics, along with Jews, can work with Pastor Hagee in making interfaith relations stronger than ever. Whatever problems we had before are now history. This case is closed.”
back to top34 Comments to “John Hagee apologizes”
Nice letter. Donohue says it’s behind them, so there you have it.
Now if Jeremiah Wright would only denounce racism and misstatements about America, maybe we could put that behind us too.
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Anybody holding your breath while you wait for Jeremiah Wright to apologize for his anti-American and racist remarks?
Good.
I don’t want anyone to pass out from lack of oxygen.
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Hagee actually apologized in the letter.
It was not an “I’m sorry if anyone was offended (but I’m not sorry about the bad thing I said/did, rather only that I suffered consequences)” type of modern psuedo-apology.
It was an “I was wrong, and I’m sorry” type of real apology.
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Sounds like a man who just chose his rhetoric poorly and is fessing up to it. Good enough for me.
Now if we could just run all those apostate infidel Presbyterians out.
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John M., why dont we see if we can round up some Unitarian Universalists for a big ol’ ecumenical Kum Bah Yah sing along and cookout?
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And to think, in 1960 there were actually folks who feared a politician who’d let his religion influence the policies he enacted as Chief Executive. And of all politicians to have such worries about, John F Kennedy!
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While the apology sounds sincere, I still wonder what role “political expediency” played–posturing to use Jeremiah Wright’s venom in the campaign?
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According to Mr. Hagee he expressed his regrets for “any” comment Catholics found hurtful.
When you apologize for “any” comment are you really apologizing for anything?
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Nick – If you read the entire apology, then you would see that Hagee listed a number of things that he acknowledges as having been misunderstood on his part and that he took a number of actions that he acknowledges as wrong – for which he states that he is sorry. That is indeed a real apology.
The extract above hints at a psudeo-apology. The actual document is a real one.
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To KRM
You are partially correct. I did not read his “apology”, only the summary of it.
I did read his full apology. In it he stated the violence of the Crusades and the Inquisition do not “define” the Catholic Church. High praise indeed.
He must go back centuries to find something to bait the Catholic Church on.
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Well, the Vatican just announced that it was okay for Catholics to believe in aliens (aliens – as in not from this planet). This is true, I am not fabricating this.
So, you see, EVERYBODY is loosening up. There is a spirit of reconcilation in the air EVERYWHERE, perhaps mainly due to the very high pollen count this Spring, worldwide.
Anyway, this giddy ‘I’m OK- you’re OK’ atmosphere, wherever it is originating from (outer space – perhaps a tie-in with the Vatican’s latest decree?), may have actually spurred Hagee to apologize.
Personally, I am waiting for MY church governing board to announce that it is okay to believe in ELVES, so I can come out of the closet on believing in elves, myself.
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Hagee is just a goof-ball with a megaphone. Now Mr. Luther, there was a man who knew how to wield an insult: Here are a few examples:
We too were formerly stuck in the behind of this hellish whore, this new church of the pope . . . we regret having spent so much time and energy in that vile hole. But God be praised and thanked that he rescued us from the scarlet whore. (p. 206)
If they are not the church but the devil’s whore that has not remained faithful to Christ, then it is irrefutably and thoroughly established that they should not possess church property. (p. 220)
Next one should take the pope, cardinals, and whatever servants there are of his idolatry and papal holiness, and rip out their tongues at the roots (as blasphemers of God) and nail them on the gallows. . . Next, let them hold a council or whatever they want on the gallows or in hell among all the devils…
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“it was okay for Catholics to believe in aliens”
What’s wrong with that? While the chances that they’ve visited Earth are approximately zero, the chance that they exist somewhere is approximately 100%. More opportunities for evangelism, I say.
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Drill,
You can come out of the closet here, as long as your pastor doesn’t read WORLD or doesn’t know it’s you.
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If our society is in a culture war for the soul of America..
if we’re in deadly fight to the death against humanistic secularist relativists out to re-define “marriage” or “family”…
then perhaps Hagee rightly sees devout Christ-loving Catholics as allies against genuine evil in our land.
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John M.: Well, if you watch really late night TV, there are always a lot of documentaries on about aliens and what they are actually up to. And let me tell you, it is NOT good at all.
These documentaries show quite clearly that various types of aliens actually EAT people, for one thing. And sometimes they put people into pods and perform gruesome experiments on them. Sometimes they EVEN try to blow up the Earth. Sometimes they even LOOK like regular people, too, which is REALLY bad.
None of this makes me cheery about the prospects of evangelizing aliens. You are not talking about your average Stone-Age tribe here in the jungles of the Phillipines, you know. I mean, these things are almost always mean AND high-tech. And VERY rarely interested in the finer points of theology.
You have to really admire the brave journalists who film these documentaries – they really put themselves into danger in order to get the most incredible footage of aliens and their nefarious deeds; it is truly amazing how the aliens never seem to catch on and eat the cameramen and the cameras, too.
And hardly ever a word out of the Federal government about what is going on. Typical. Washington can’t even get the gas price problem under control. How can we expect them to tackle the alien problem?
Anyway, at least the Vatican is being proactive here.
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Documentaries, Drill? What station are you really watching? It seems to me you missed the episode on the original Star Trek where “the Son” is worshipped on another planet. Evidently, the Vatican has seen it.
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If you buying this convenient change of heart, I hear there is swampland in Florida available with excellent sub-prime financing.
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NJL, that would be “Bread and Circuses.” It is a classic, but you should have given a spoiler alert!
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Funny I haven’t heard about this on NBC or the radio networks.
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1) I consider McCain to be just 4 more years of Bush — an American militarist who (if it’s possible) knows even less about economics and monetary policy than G-Dub.
2) I consider Hagee to be a fringe theolgian as re. the primacy of the Jews and the nation of Israel.
3) That said, it’s not like McCain has been a member of Hagee’s church for 20-some years, sitting under his pro-Israel, anti-Catholic teaching. You’ll recall that Hagee is one of the types of guys McCain once called an “agent of intolerance.” But now that McCain running for prez, he needs to build cred with evangelicals, and Hagee, Robertson et al. want a strong, pro-Israel president. So suddenly, some evangelcial leaders don’t think McCain’s all that bad, and he doesn’t think they’re agents of intolerance anymore.
Talk about your strange bedfellows. A pox on all their houses.
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#19 – Bread and Circuses
SPOILER ALERT! Some steamy, Old-Testament style action between Kirk and the slave girl Drusilla. I’m pretty sure he violates the Prime Directive.
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I think Kirk always violated the Prime Directive, at least when it came to alien women. Or negotiating hotel and airline prices.
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Someone alluded to this with Luther. Though Hagee may have fringe and novel teachings on Israel, his “anti-Catholicism” arguably is well in line with traditional evangelical thought ala Luther. It’s become politically incorrect in religious conservative circles now adays to use such harsh language against Catholics, but the notion that the Roman Catholics are an anti-Christ system, is part of the traditional of Protestant fundamentalist thought.
As you know I’m not an evangelical, and I find your notion of Hell and exclusiveness to be quite disturbing and unbelievable; BUT, if this is what Protestant Christianity is all about, Hagee’s backtrack is a classic example of the dangers of mixing religion & politics, polluting the purity of religion’s message.
You would never hear John MacArthur backtrack from his anti-Catholic teachings. He doesn’t call the Catholic Church the “Whore of Babylon” but he does call it an anti-Christ system here.
Again, this theology ain’t my cup of tea; but it IS what evangelical Christianity is all about. Making a political alliance with Roman Catholics because you support their socially conservative worldview has let to in MacArthur’s opinion, the horrible error that Roman Catholic souls don’t need to be saved! That’s a billion souls you are now ignoring.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=bpWDUt89t2g&feature=related
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By the way, from the perspective of real evangelical Christianity, like what was linked above, one of the worst distorters of traditional Christianity and the history of the American Founding is David Barton and Wallbuilders; I’d encourage you not to touch them with a 10 foot pole. Not saying that his own personal faith is a distortion of Christianity; from what I know, he’s a meat and potatoes evangelicals. But when it comes to discussing Christianity’s role in the American that’s where the distortion begins. For instance, listen to the names of the “Christians” Barton lists as responsible for the American Revolution (and while endorsing Roman Catholic Sam Brownback). John Adams, Samuel Cooper, Jonathan Mayhew and Charles Chauncy. They were militiant theological unitarians, rejecting Jesus’ full Godhood and theological universalists, rejecting eternal damnation.
To give “Christianity” credit for the American Revolution, they are now, according to Barton, “Christians.” Either Barton doesn’t know of their heresy and he’s ignorant. Or he does and that’s worse for him.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=yPY93m_9pzc
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It’s fine for Donahue the cardinal-manqué of Catholicism to accept Hagee’s contrition, but now Hagee owes an apology to all those who retain any respect for social grace and art of the apology.
We are insulted all, humanity winces, anytime somebody says “I want to express my deep regret for any comments that [x] found hurtful.”
Further, doesn’t Hagee really twist the knife when he exposits that the Church of Rome isn’t the Whore of Babylon yet and won’t become the Whore of Babylon until the Rapture when Jesus whisks away true Christians?
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What about Hagee’s million dollar ministry scandal? How come that is never mentioned in the media? For more info, google search “open letter to pastor hagee”.
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Isn’t it strange that when it comes to abortion, people call the Roman Catholic Church all sorts of names, but when a Protestant cergyman expresses anti-Catholic views, suddenly people rush to defend the RCC?
Isn’t it strange that people are shocked that a Protestant would teach that the RCC is apostate, when both branches of the Church actually believe each other to be so?
Isn’t it strange that people think that an endorsement by John Hagee means that John McCain must hate Catholics? Isn’t that a pretty big leap?
Isn’t it strange that people equate an endorsement of a candidate with a candidate’s close relationship with the pastor of his church for twenty years? Do they even teach logic in public schools?
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My friend, a non-practicing Catholic, invariably tells me something like “my mother always said…” which concludes with words that Jesus said. I tell my friend “Jesus said that.” Are you really telling me that that little old Spanish lady who went to Mass all the time because she believe Jesus is the Way, etc., wasn’t saved because she was a Catholic? I’m aware of the doctrinal differences, etc., but the RCC is made up of people, many of whom truly believe that Jesus is the Way, etc. Why isn’t that enough for those individuals to be considered saved?
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NJ Lawyer,
You sound too theologically liberal for an evangelical. orthodox evangelical Christianity is an exclusive doctrine. Catholics qua Catholics don’t meet the requirements for salvation. Listen to Dr. MacArthur’s speech that I linked to above. That’s bona fide evangelical Protestant Christianity, purified of any liberal temptation.
If you want to be a theological liberal, that’s fine; but you shouldn’t stop with Catholics. You should also think about whether Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses or any good person of good conscience who lives a good life is also saved.
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“When I get to heaven, I shall see three wonders there. The first wonder will be to see many there whom I did not expect to see; the second wonder will be to miss many people who I did expect to see; and the third and greatest of all will be to find myself there.”
~ John Newton
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Jon Rowe,
You seem to have a pretty stern view of evangelicals. I think I am one. I was pretty sure of it till I read some of your views about them. I don’t fit! I feel sure that all those Catholics that believe in Jesus are saved, and surely that’s 99.9% of them. That’s the biblical requirement, there’s no separate clauses for Baptists, Catholics, or others.
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Jon R – Many of my cohorts at an Evangelical Church grew up in RC churches (and were saved there). We came to diagree with certain facets of Catholicism, but we got to saving faith while still in the RC. Most of us left behind people every bit as saved as those we now spend our Sundays with.
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31 & 32,
Then how do you respond to John MacArthur’s sermon I linked to above. I’m simply stating that his views are more in accord with evangelical Christianity as it has existed since the time of Luther and Calvin. This idea that Catholics are also saved, while perhaps justifiable in evangelical Christianity, is pretty historically novel.
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