The Birmingham Mail (UK) has published a letter from Ari Morgenstern, spokesman for John Hagee’s Christians United for Israel, concerning Hagee’s upcoming visit to the city. Strangely, however, the letter has been deleted from the Mail‘s website without explanation in the past few hours. It reads like Morgenstern’s work when compared with other statements he has made in defence of Hagee, so it probably wasn’t removed over concerns about genuine authorship.
I’ve managed to rescue a few fragments via Google:
An objective individual reading the recent hateful attacks on Pastor John Hagee would come away with a terribly flawed view of a man millions look to for theological and spiritual guidance…
He is a passionate Zionist and serves as the chairman of the largest pro-Israel organisation in the US. In late August, he will be preaching at the Birmingham Symphony Hall. Through certain prevalent myths, old quotes, and the like, readers would be convinced Hagee is a “hate Pastor”. Hagee was accused of calling the Catholic Church “the great whore,” and a “false cult system”. While this is a prevalent internet myth, when the American newspaper Politico recently published this assertion, they quickly acknowledged their error.
As for Hagee’s attitudes towards Jews and Judaism:
… In his effort to answer this question he spoke with his closest friend in the clergy, the Orthodox Jewish Rabbi in San Antonio. The ADL not only welcomed this reconciliation, but noted “We are grateful that you have devoted your life to combating anti-Semitism and supporting the State of Israel.”
The rabbi is Aryeh Scheinberg, a long-time ally of Hagee – I blogged on him here.
Given the confusions about Hagee preaches, let’s hear the man himself. The audio available here was posted to YouTube a while ago; the video and background music were added by someone unconnected with Hagee’s ministry.
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