Pastor John Hagee Recounts Shooting Attempt

The Christian Post reports on a recent appearance by Pastor John Hagee on James Robison’s TV show:

December 1971, I started to teach my congregation about the biblical position of demonology because I was raised in a denomination that did not believe it, and said they certainly couldn’t belong to our denomination, although the devil was sitting probably on every pew. …

And it was in the second series on a Wednesday night. As I’m teaching a man walks in the front door with a loaded gun in his hand; and he walks up the aisle and he roars like a lion. My people thought it was an illustrated sermon because I talked about Jesus, the demon’s coming out with a loud roar. And they thought, boy, the preacher is really going all out.

Hagee has actually told this story of the “demonized man” numerous times over the years. According to the main details as related here, the man ordered Hagee to beg for his life or face death at the count of three; Hagee stood firm, and the man fired six shots after a count of two. Despite being just eight feet away, the man missed, with the bullet holes later found to Hagee’s left and right. The man attempted to flee, but an athletic member of the church apprehended him and he was taken away by the police.

A fuller account of the story appears in Hagee’s 2004 book The Seven Secrets (pages 63-64), which dates the occurrence to 23 December 1971 (actually a Thursday). It adds the details that the man was taken by police to the Rusk Hospital “for the criminally insane”, but released 90 days later. The man then hanged himself from “the highest tree in his backyard”.

Apparently, there were “front page” newspaper reports at the time of the shooting incident; there is also an audio recording, which Hagee played to his congregation earlier this year.

Hagee also told the story to Glenn Beck in 2011, in which the man this time managed to get out of the building, where he was “knocked down”, presumably by a vehicle, before being apprehended.

An earlier version was apparently published in the John Hagee Ministries magazine in May/June 1993, although I have only been able to see a partial re-print of the text as quoted in another source. In this version, it’s “December 24, 1972” (a Sunday), and the man “was under the direct orders of a witch”. The shots all “missed”, although (unless this part of the story has not been quoted), there’s no reference to bullets on Hagee’s left and his right. I suspect the “witch” detail reflects the Satanic Panic period during which it was published, and has been discarded in later versions.

There is also another version of the story, although the source is second-hand. A writer named Ballah Kemah claims to have seen Hagee discussing the incident on TV with Paul Crouch; this time, the gun “jammed”, and just one shot was fired, into the ceiling. Of course, Kemah’s recollection could be faulty as to these details.

Re-tellings by third parties also introduce other elements, such as a comment here where we’re told told that that the man was “an ATHEIST”.

10 Responses

  1. Pastor Hagee a Christian Zionist famous for his Blood moon prophecy is but to know that he speaks in terms of Physical signs, instead is a spiritual event for the sun turned to darkness & the moon covered with blood refers to the prosecution of the Glorious Woman in Rev 12 , which denotes the prosecution of the Church , the Body of Christ called His Bride , bringing in the vengeance of the Bridegroom to the Prophecy of the great & terrible day of the Lord.

  2. I am a retired SAPD officer. I handled this shooting. The church was small in size and located on Nacogdoches Rd. The shooter was still on scene and wounded by return gunfire from one of Hagee’s assistants who was standing next to Hagee. They had feared this shooter as being mentally unstable from past encounters, thus the armed assistant. According to Hagee and several witnesses, the shooter was within 10′ and aimed point blank firing six shots. The assistant fired 3-4 shots hitting the shooter 2 or 3 times and miraculously no one else was hit. Hagee played the audio recording back for me which I took into evidence. I found no bullet holes in pulpit or back wall. I finally located a tight 6 round shot group in the ceiling directly above where Hagee was standing. I again asked all witnesses if the shooter may have just been shooting straight up and all replied that he was aiming directly at Hagee.
    My parting comment to Hagee was “God shoots a tight group”. In my 45 years in law enforcement, this was one of the oddest shootings I ever made. Divine intervention? You be the judge.

    • I love ❤️ El Shaddi,,Yeshua Gods precious Son and
      Pastor John Hagee. I am Jewish woman believer. Amen. Sharon Marilyn Allen

    • Tom, thank you for this report. I have found no other witness accounts. This settles it for my wife and me. Now perhaps the pastor will recall what really happened, sort of.

      • Richard, yes, on one of his TV programs a few years ago I heard the pastor talking about the shooting. He never mentioned his assistant being armed and he also claimed the shooter escaped, never to be found again. I guess he didn’t want folks to know or have to explain why his guy was armed even though it saved his life.

  3. I was in the church when all of this occurred. I was just a child of 7 yrs old but still have very clear memories of this event. I remember a man coming through the doors with a gun yelling loudly. My memory was that he was actually threatening to shoot one of our deacons sitting on the front row. The deacon actually pulled a gun from his boot and shot the man. John Hagee did stay at the pulpit the entire time with his bible raised trying to talk him down. I do not believe he was shooting at John Hagee. I’m pretty sure he was after the deacon. Might explain why he had a gun in his boot…have always wondered who the guy was and why he was after that man. There is not much information on it. i also remember going back to the church and seeing the bullet holes in the wall. John Hagee has dabricatedcthis story many times…

  4. Another Error that John Hagee preaches is that there is a separate Covenant for the Jews, not so. God has only one Covenant with all of Heaven & Earth, “The Ark of the Covenant” that which the beloved Apostle in Rev. witnessed in the temple in heaven. Except that He cut the Covenant Physically with Abraham, finally manifested Spiritually through Christ JESUS, thereby the Covenant extended to Adam(mankind) in the spirit & truth of it, envisioned by God in the very beginning, when he first cut the Covenant with the Patriarch Abraham/
    All in all come as the Old & New Covenant, but one in spirit. .Authentic revelations of certain Biblical prophecies attest to the fact, that people like Hagee are ignorant off, even the words of Jesus “You know not the Father neither the son, but them unto who the Son pleases to reveal”

  5. I have heard the audio of this shooting and there were 11 shots. He plays it during the 3 heavens part 3 sermon.

  6. The Old Testament denoting the old Covenant represented by the Ark of the Covenant made by Moses , which again was based on the Ark of the Covenant that the beloved Apostle in revelations witnessed in the temple in heaven, the original that comes as the New Covenant or the New testament, when the Old Ark of the Covenant made by Moses or old covenant was PUT AWAY to Jeremiah 3:16.
    Where the old covenant was to land inheritance , the New Covenant , is eternal inheritance unto God himself from earth just as His inheritance in heaven, as children of Abraham by FAITH through Christ Jesus the very intention of God when he first cut the Covenant with Abraham.. The wisdom being, inheritance unto land remains as long as the land remains , but inheritance unto God is forever as God is , the reason why there was never a land called Israel but a people, Contrary to the present GATHERING in violence calling the land as Israel like any other country through Zionism is not to the Covenant & unbiblical . Contradicting the prophecy of Daniel “When he would have accomplished to Scatter the power of the holy people then all these things would be finished & “It is Finished” said Jesus on the cross even as his word is spirit. Thus speaks of a scattering not a gathering which but makes the said gathering in violence to the Anti Christ, with Zionists like Hagee among the preachers of Babylon.
    Note’ Whatever gathering that the Bible speaks of was to the second temple .

  7. John Hagee shall leave this world from a heart issue before 2025. He shall have his part in the lake of fire. His like minded Gentile supporters shall all end this world as poor and weak before 2025. Hagee Ministries shall fall before 2025 and shall have it’s part in the lake of fire.

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