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.
David Corn, bureau chief of Mother Jones in Washington, D.C., wrote this article, McCain’s Spiritual Guide: Destroy Islam, yesterday.
If everyone wasn’t aware that McCain is a dangerous warmonger, who may just barely exceed Hillary Clinton in views of the post-Iraq Middle East as the next arena of conflict that will confront America in the near future, Corn has given us the insight. When McCain recently announced that, aside of America’s 100 year stay in Iraq, “there will be more wars”, there were questions about just what McCain meant.
Now we know. It is all about the coming Clash of Civilizations , the title of Samuel P. Huntington’s 1993 essay about the next coming world conflict: Islam versus the West.
Josh Burek, a staff writer for the Christian Science Monitor, made the case some time ago.
A new cold war. A clash of civilizations. A global holy war.
Such are the broad brush strokes used to paint the background of the conflict in Afghanistan. The conflict broke wide open Sept. 11, but experts say its beginnings are deeply rooted in religious and cultural tensions sharpened by the end of the cold war.
Long before Sept. 11, some commentators wrote presciently about the kind of tension symbolized by the US-led fight against terrorism. One of the most provocative theories was put forward by Harvard political scientist Samuel P. Huntington, who in his 1993 Foreign Affairs essay,The Clash of Civilizations? (later adapted into a book), predicted increasing conflict between the world’s Western and Muslim civilizations.
As Mr. Huntington put it, “The fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural.”
That Huntington’s thesis is probably one of the most poorly researched pieces of historical analysis did not stop the religious right from taking up the theme that Islam is the culprit that impedes the march of Western (Christian) values.
Corn continues on McCain:
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 important 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 homosexual “culture” (“homosexuals 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 important 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.
All of this religious rhetoric of course exploits 9/11 and has given rise to conspiracy notions about the infiltration of America with Islamists. According to Parsey, in the years after 9/11, “34,000 Americans have become Muslim” and that there are now “some 1,209 mosques” in America. Islam, he declares, is a “faith that fully intends to conquer the world through violence.” To get some appreciation of how crazed Parsley is, in 2007, the grassroots organization he founded, the Center for Moral Clarity, called for prosecuting people who commit adultery. He has compared Planned Parenthood to Nazis, and in the past has been accused of engaging in pro-Republican partisan activities in violation of its tax-exempt status.
The question that is beguiling is: Why would McCain court Parsley after the flak with Hagee? Is it really just a carrot to the Religious Right?
During the 2000 presidential primary, MaCain referred to Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell as “agents of intolerance.” Seven years later, McCain repudiated that remark. After 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,” McCain praised Hagee’s spiritual leadership and support of Israel, but said that “when [Hagee] endorses me, it does not mean that I embrace everything that he stands for or believes in.”
Really? What about what Parsley stands for?
McCain’s relationship 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 important 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?
Said Corn: “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.”
Perhaps more relevant than McCain’s silence about Parsley is whether he has bought into the Huntington thesis of the coming conflict with Islam. Certainly, Cheney-Bush have used it and Tony Blair believes it.
McCain’s view that there will be future wars is given meaning by Huntington. What is most troublesome for Democrats is that Hillary Clinton is only slightly to the left of McCain. Both have AIPAC leanings, and there is nothing that AIPAC would love to see than the US in a war with Islam. Iran first, of course.
