Does John Hagee Hate America?

One doesn't need to wonder how John Hagee really feels about America. He's told us many times in many different ways.

America, says the reverend, is a pagan wasteland that deserves to experience the terrible wrath of God. I don't think Hagee likes our country very much. This is confirmed by Bruce Wilson, who has researched Hagee in depth: "Hagee appears radically anti-American to the extent that he hopes and expects, as evidenced by a[n] ... appearance on WHYY's 'Fresh Air' radio show and also in [his] 2006 best-seller 'Jerusalem Countdown', that God will incinerate most Americans now living - with a nuclear strike on America's coastal regions."

God, says Hagee, has cursed and doomed America because America has allowed terrible things to take place within its borders, such as abortion, the removal of prayer from our public schools, and disallowing the posting of the Ten Commandments on classroom walls in our public schools.

Again from Mr. Wilson: Hagee "claimed that American public schools provide abortion services. [Hagee] stated, 'Your daughter and can get an abortion in public school without telling you but she can't get an aspirin without your approval.' The pastor also claimed that public school teachers can force their students to study a 'precursor to witchcraft' and suggests that America has invited 'satan' and demonic spirits into its public school system by failing to display" the aforementioned Ten Commandments in classrooms.


In one of his sermons, Hagee said that "America has become a pagan society," is "in a moral, emotional and spiritual free fall," and is "rebirthing Sodom and Gomorrah."

All of Hagee's rantings about the failures of America and the terrible condition in which America finds itself is not confirmed by the facts. As Bruce Wilson points out, "available empirical evidence, in terms of national social trends, does not support Hagee's dire claims."

First of all, as we have reported on several occasions, national studies show that public schools perform just as well or better than do private schools in this country, and "Christian private schools perform, on a number of criteria, worse than secular private schools and government funded public schools."

Additionally, says Wilson, Hagee's rantings about America "rebirthing Sodom and Gomorrah," are quite false. The data points to the fact that "American social trends have, in the decade and a half since the early 1990's, been on the balance positive."

Hagee, however, like most Christian rightists, is not concerned with "evidence," or "truth," but rather with increasing the numbers of people who hear his voice and send him dollars. A cynic might conclude that he really doesn't believe anything of what he says, but has simply found a means, through his church, sermons, and books, to profit mightily on the back of fundamentalist, apocalyptic Christianity.

On the other hand, it is possible that he is sincere; that he actually believes the bullshit he promotes. If that is true, we must conclude he really does hate America. And it might well be true, for he's just too happy to pronounce the wrath of God on his fellow citizens. He gets very excited when he thinks that God will soon carry out the destruction and terror he [Hagee] has promised and smite all those infidels who dared mock the right reverend John Hagee!

Actually, whether you think Hagee is a fraudulent fakir fishing for money, or whether you think he is a sincerely deluded Frankenstein who hates America, I think Frank's famous expression from "Everybody Loves Raymond" is the perfect summation of Hagee and his message:

"Holy Crap!"