McCain's Spiritual Guide
Destroy Islam
Televangelist Rod Parsley, a key McCain ally in Ohio, has called for
eradicating the "false
religion." Will the GOP presidential candidate renounce him?
By David Corn
13/03/08 "Mother Jones" Senator 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 im****tant 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 homo***ual "culture" ("homo***uals 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.
In a chapter titled "Islam: The Deception of Allah," Parsley warns there
is a "war between
Islam and Christian civilization." He continues:
I cannot tell you how im****tant it is that we understand the true
nature of Islam, that we
see it for what it really is. In fact, I will tell you this: I do not
believe our country can
truly fulfill its divine purpose until we understand our historical
conflict with Islam. I know
that this statement sounds extreme, but I do not shrink from its
implications. The fact is that
America was founded, in part, with the intention of seeing this false
religion destroyed, and I
believe September 11, 2001, was a generational call to arms that we can no
longer ignore.
Parsley is not shy about his desire to obliterate Islam. In Silent No
More, he
notes—approvingly—that Christopher Columbus shared the same goal: "It was
to defeat Islam,
among other dreams, that Christopher Columbus sailed to the New World in
1492…Columbus dreamed
of defeating the armies of Islam with the armies of Europe made mighty by
the wealth of the New
World. It was this dream that, in part, began America." He urges his
readers to realize that a
confrontation between Christianity and Islam is unavoidable: "We find now
we have no choice.
The time has come." And he has bad news: "We may already be losing the
battle. As I scan the
world, I find that Islam is responsible for more pain, more bloodshed, and
more devastation
than nearly any other force on earth at this moment."
Parsley claims that Islam is an "anti-Christ religion" predicated on
"deception." The Muslim
prophet Muhammad, he writes, "received revelations from demons and not
from the true God." And
he emphasizes this point: "Allah was a demon spirit." Parsley does not
differentiate between
violent Islamic extremists and other followers of the religion:
There are some, of course, who will say that the violence I cite is
the exception and not
the rule. I beg to differ. I will counter, respectfully, that what some
call "extremists" are
instead mainstream believers who are drawing from the well at the very
heart of Islam.
The spirit of Islam, he maintains, is one of hostility. He asserts that
the religion "inspired"
the 9/11 attacks. He bemoans the fact that in the years after 9/11, 34,000
Americans "have
become Muslim" and that there are "some 1,209 mosques" in America. Islam,
he declares, is a
"faith that fully intends to conquer the world" through violence. The
United States, he
insists, "has historically understood herself as a bastion against Islam,"
but "history is
cra****ng in upon us."
At the end of his chapter on Islam, Parsley asks, "Are we a Christian
nation? I say yes."
Without specifying what actions should be taken to eradicate the religion,
he essentially calls
for a new crusade.
Parsley, who refers to himself as a "Christocrat," is no stranger to
controversy. In 2007, the
grassroots organization he founded, the Center for Moral Clarity, called
for prosecuting people
who commit adultery. In January, he compared Planned Parenthood to Nazis.
In the past Parsley's
church has been accused of engaging in pro-Republican partisan activities
in violation of its
tax-exempt status.
Why would McCain court Parsley? He has long had trouble figuring out how
to deal with Christian
fundamentalists, an im****tant bloc for the Republican Party. During his
2000 presidential bid,
he referred to Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell as "agents of intolerance."
But six years later,
as he readied himself for another White House run, McCain repudiated that
remark. More
recently, his campaign hit a rough patch when he accepted the endorsement
of the Reverend John
Hagee, a Texas televangelist who has called the Catholic Church "the great
whore" and a "false
cult system." After the Catholic League protested and called on McCain to
renounce Hagee's
sup****t, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee praised Hagee's
spiritual leader****p
and sup****t of Israel and said that "when [Hagee] endorses me, it does not
mean that I embrace
everything that he stands for or believes in." After being further
criticized for his Hagee
connection, McCain backed off slightly, saying, "I repudiate any comments
that are made,
including Pastor Hagee's, if they are anti-Catholic or offensive to
Catholics." But McCain did
not renounce Hagee's endorsement.
McCain's relation****p with Parsley is politically significant. In 2004,
Parsley's church was
credited with driving Christian fundamentalist voters to the polls for
George W. Bush. With
Ohio expected to again be a decisive state in the presidential contest,
Parsley's World Harvest
Church and an affiliated entity called Reformation Ohio, which registers
voters, could be
im****tant players within this battleground state. Considering that the
Ohio Republican Party
has been decimated by various political scandals and that a popular
Democrat, Ted Strickland,
is now the state's governor, McCain and the Republicans will need all the
help they can get in
the Buckeye State this fall. It's a real question: Can McCain win the
presidency without Parsley?
The McCain campaign did not respond to a request for comment regarding
Parsley and his
anti-Islam writings. Parsley did not return a call seeking comment.
"The last thing I want to be is another screaming voice moving people to
extremes and provoking
them to folly in the name of patriotism," Parsley writes in Silent No
More. Provoking people to
holy war is another matter. About that, McCain so far is silent.
David Corn is Mother Jones' Wa****ngton, D.C. bureau chief
http://www.motherjones.com/wa****ngton_dispatch/2008/03/john-mccain-rod-parsley-spiritual-guide.html
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