Is Pastor Hagee Good for the Jews?

I read this piece the other day from Time. After a 1999 Hagee sermon surfaced in which Hagee claimed that God intended the Holocaust because it was God's way of getting the Jews back to Israel. You see, it's Hagee contention that the Jews need to return to Israel so that Jesus can return and promptly kill all of them (at least anyone who doesn't convert to Christianity before the "End Times").

This sermon caused McSame to sever ties with him, but Jewish leaders aren't acting so hastily. There is the matter of all that Evangelical tourism money he brings to Israel, into the hundreds of millions of dollars. Also, most Jewish leaders take Hagee's comments, and his belief that Jesus is the Messiah who will usher in the End Times, as a harmless fiction.

The good news is that Hagee's views are held by a small minority of Evangelicals (not to mention that he's an overweight gasbag who gets more and more ridiculous each time one hears him speak).

Hagee did apologize to the Anti-Defamation League's Abe Foxman, who readily forgave him out of friendship. I think it was typically Jewish (as only a Jew can relate) that Foxman parrotted Hagee's own words in his written acceptance of the apology, and then added: "We mortals sometimes get into trouble fathoming God's ways."

Zing!