John Hagee, a controversial pastor, has endorsed the candidacy of John McCain. Jeremiah Wright, another controversial pastor, has endorsed the candidacy of Barack Obama. Some people think that those two facts are equivalent.
The headline of the linked article calls John Hagee and Rod Parsley “McCain’s Pastors.” But what is a person’s pastor? Is it somebody who supports them unsolicited from a distance? Or is it the person who is the spiritual leader of one’s church?
Obama attended Wright’s church for twenty years and entitled a book after one of his sermons. Moreover, Wright performed his wedding ceremony and baptized his children. I would say that makes the relationship between them a little stronger than an endorsement from the sidelines.
Should McCain denounce the endorsements from the two controversial preachers? Maybe. I think I would. But are they his pastors, and should we worry that what they teach is what McCain believes? I don’t think so.
2 responses so far ↓
American Elephant // May 5, 2008 at 2:00 am
I don’t know anything about the comments by Rod Parsley, but unlike Wright, Hagee is being taken entirely out of context, he was citing scripture, and not in reference to the Catholic church.
McCain certainly shouldn’t denounce anyone based on liberals petty lies.
RG’s Response: Thanks for the added information. I did not check on all the details.
helenl // May 5, 2008 at 2:28 pm
How could they be equivalent? Hagee is white.
RG’s Response: Wow! Is that all life is about to you–whether a person is black or white? You certainly aren’t accusing me of that if you read the content of my post, which is about the biographical details of Obama and his relationship to Wright. You don’t see that they were pretty close for the last twenty years?
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