It's going to be a long election season

If the reaction I got to my last Strang Report is any indication, this is going to be a long and divisive election season.

It will be long because there will be endless speculation over whether Sen. Barack Obama and the Democrats will make any headway into the typically Republican support of evangelical Christians. So far it’s only Obama who is courting evangelical voters. Sen. John McCain seems to be distancing himself from the religious right. I'll let you know if my request for an interview with Sen. McCain is granted.

The election will be divisive because once again the Christian community will be split. Typically evangelical Christians who are African-American vote Democratic even though the Democratic positions on certain moral issues are repugnant to those of us who believe the Bible tells us that marriage is a sacred union between one man and one woman and who believe that life begins at conception. This position leaves no room for supporting the radical gay agenda or abortion.

But this year it appears the split will be even more pronounced than usual. Obama is making inroads into more “moderate” Christian circles by focusing on the social justice aspects of the Gospel and playing off the fact that many Christians are unhappy that Republicans don’t seem as concerned about those issues.

It’s sad to me that it must split down racial lines like this. In a way, I wish I could vote for a black candidate. I think it’s about time America had a black president. But black or white, Barack Obama is just a typical very, very liberal Democrat. He supports abortion rights and also civil unions for gay couples—positions I cannot support, no matter what other policies might be attractive.

One of the African-American leaders I have considered a friend for more than a decade called me to complain that I implied in my last report that a person couldn’t vote for Obama and be a Christian. (I didn't say that, but he read that into what I wrote.) My friend said he is against abortion and special rights for gays, but overall he feels the Democratic party supports the black community better. He doesn’t understand why I don’t see that that is just how it is among blacks--even most evangelical blacks.

Another African American friend cancelled an important appointment, supposedly over my last report.

But those were nothing compared to what some of the bloggers said. You can read their comments here and add your own.

One of the aspects of a meeting Obama recently had with Christian leaders that is not generally reported is that one of the leaders, who voiced support of Sen. Obama, gave a little lecture at the end of the meeting on all the things about John McCain that should keep Christians from supporting him--such as the fact that McCain was known to swear publicly and had a rather public divorce (as well as a few other things I won’t repeat here since they weren't nice, and I’ve not had a chance to research if they are true). Obama smiled and said he wasn’t going to get involved in accusing his opponent of those things.

The point seemed to be that there are things for Christians not to like about the Democratic candidate, such as his stand on abortion and gay rights, and there are things not to like about John McCain, such as how he lives his personal life and the importance faith plays in his life. Then it becomes a toss-up for Christians about whom to support.

To me, supporting life from conception and the importance of traditional marriage trump all other issues. And this isn’t a matter of who is the nicest person or who can say all the right things about his personal religious faith.

I found Sen. Obama to be very likable. I was impressed with how easily he talked about a faith that seems very sincere. He even knows the jargon we Christians like to use. But he also made clear that though he believes in Christ, he thinks all roads lead to God. We call that universalism, and it’s wrong.

But we are not electing a theologian-in-chief. We’re electing a man who will sign laws that will make abortion easier and will appoint judges that will keep Roe v. Wade as the law of the land. If Obama is elected, it is nearly certain that civil unions will become the law of the land and that hate crime legislation, which will make it illegal to even speak against homosexuality from a biblical point of view, will be passed.

In our hour-and-a-half meeting no one asked about hate crimes. And I was the only one who asked about abortion.

I said, “Senator, I want to ask a question I'm sure you are expecting regarding your position on abortion. I represent a segment of the church where nearly everyone considers the issue of supporting life to be the most important issue and where nearly everyone would be opposed to abortion. I want to ask what your stand on abortion is and if you believe what I think you believe, how you justify that with your Christian faith and why you think we should vote for you.”

My notes say he answered by saying he thinks this is a difficult moral issue. He said he is not "pro-abortion," but he struggles with whether the government should make the decision for women. He said there are areas of agreement with conservative Christians, such as wanting “responsible sexuality” and ending unwanted pregnancy. He spoke of making adoption a viable option. He specifically said one of the worst raps against him was that he was not in favor of infanticide or opposed to the “born alive” bill.

He said he knows it is a deeply moral issue and he has friends who strongly oppose his stand on abortion. And in a statement that surprised me, he said: “I’ll always admit there’s a possibility I’m wrong.”

In a way I agree that everything should be done to eliminate the need for abortion. Actually, I don't believe many Americans truly want to abort a baby; abortion is usually “birth control of the last resort” to end an unwanted or inconvenient pregnancy. People who support abortion seem to be oblivious to the fact that an unborn fetus is a living, breathing human being whose life is being taken during an abortion.

I also believe that we do need to be concerned about life outside the womb. My impression is that Christians are concerned, and in fact, usually it's the Christians who are most active in trying to help babies get adopted or helping them in other ways. But liberals use well-worn clichés to try to denigrate pro-life people who make a big deal about life in the womb, suggesting that they are not interested in the baby after it's born.

There are many other important issues in this campaign—national security, the economy, illegal immigration, how we fight the AIDS epidemic, environmental issues, energy policies, Middle East policies and how they affect the security of Israel. In other e-newsletters we’ll deal with some of those issues.

But to me it comes down to this—how I vote is based on whether the candidate is for or against life, period.


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Many of you receive The Strang Report because you are on my personal contact list or have signed-up through my blog. If you are not a current subscriber of Charisma, I urge you to begin your subscription today!

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I encourage you to also begin a subscription to Ministry Today, which I believe is one of the most important magazines I publish because it influences the influencers in the church. If you are in active ministry, you’ll appreciate its analysis, prophetic insight and practical help every other month. If you respond to this offer by clicking here to subscribe, I’ll send you a free copy of Sunday Adelaja’s ground-breaking book “Church Shift” with your paid order of Ministry Today.

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Obama's "off-the-record" meeting with Christian leaders

I’ve never been invited to meet with a Democratic presidential candidate. So I was surprised when I received an invitation a couple of weeks ago to join “a small group of religious leaders, academics and faith-based organizations” to meet with Senator Barack Obama in Chicago on June 11. Since I am opposed to the leftist political stands of the Democratic Party and of Obama specifically, I didn’t really want to attend.

But I was curious what the junior Senator from Illinois would say to Christian leaders when it’s well known that he supports abortion and the gay rights agenda. In addition, he has ties to Islam as a child through both his father and stepfather. The denomination he has attended as an adult is the most liberal Protestant denomination. The church in Chicago that Sen. Obama and his family attended, Rev. Jeremiah Wright was its pastor. It’s well known that Rev. Wright believes in Liberation Theology. He has also accused the government of spreading the AIDS virus among blacks and famously preached the Sunday after September 11, 2001, that God should “damn America” rather than bless it for all the so-called evils he thinks America is guilty of.

What could he have in common with “conservative” Christian leaders?

I returned from the meeting very concerned. Here is a liberal—Obama--reaching out to the Christian community at a time the conservative--Sen. John McCain--seems to be distancing himself from the so-called “Christian Right.” I think McCain has a lot of work to do to get the support of the Christian community. Obama seemed to have the support of at least half of the 43 leaders who attended the Chicago meeting. And in my opinion, he “made points” with the rest. The tone of the meeting was respectful and generally upbeat.

I was curious to see who would attend. They wouldn’t release a list of invitees ahead of time. It turns out my son Cameron, who founded Relevant Media Group, was also invited. But neither of us knew this until I copied him with an email saying I intended to go, and he told me he was also attending.

The invitation to the meeting stated, “This is an off-the-record (no media) time for questioning and listening, with no expectation of endorsement.”

We were told that some of the attendees, who covered a wide range of the Christian community, wouldn’t come if the meeting was on the record. However, the press had found out and there were news reporters and television camera crews waiting to ask questions as we left the building to get a taxi to the airport. By the time I had arrived at Midway Airport and began to check my e-mails while awaiting my flight to Orlando, someone had sent me a blog that was surprisingly accurate about the meeting (click here to read it). Today an Associated Press report quoted a couple of attendees (click here to read it). Without revealing specifically what was said at the meeting, I’ll confirm that most of the report was accurate.

So I am merely reporting my personal reflections of the meeting with Sen. Obama while keeping my word about it being “off-the-record.”

Sen. Obama personally took time to meet each person and shake their hand. He’s not as large a man as I envisioned from seeing him on television. But, he’s warm and personable --- obviously one of the reasons why people like him. He seemed to remember names well. He hugged a couple of the participants—mostly the black preachers who attended. He also seemed to be on top of the issues; and he’s obviously very intelligent.

The questions were mostly “softball” questions in my opinion. I was concerned after three or four general questions that we wouldn’t ask the most important questions. So I raised my hand and he called on me. I said, “Senator, I want to ask a question I'm sure you are expecting regarding your position on abortion. I represent a segment of the church where nearly everyone considers the issue of supporting life to be the most important issue and where nearly everyone would be opposed to abortion. I want to ask what your stand on abortion is and if you believe what I think you believe, how you justify that with your Christian faith and why you think we should vote for you.”

Since his response was “off-the-record,” I can say that the time he took to answer was probably 15 minutes. He came across as thoughtful and much more of a “centrist” than what I would have expected. He did not appear to be the crazy leftist that is being supported by George Soros and his radical leftist friends. Sen. Obama looked me in the eye as he answered my question, almost as if it were a one-on-one interview. I had already read the chapter on “faith” in his book the “Audacity of Hope.” If you want to know how he answered the question, read that chapter. In other words, other than his demeanor and obvious attempt to win over the Christian leaders in the room, he didn’t say anything new.

I knew personally about one-third of the people in the room. I had heard of another third of the invitees. Some of the people from the more liberal part of the church were unknown to me. Those from the evangelical community tended to be more the ones who are interested in global warming and social justice as well as the two issues conservative Christians are known for—pro-life and pro-family.

You may know that I supported Gov. Mike Huckabee during the primaries. Like Huckabee, Obama was winsome and good with giving extemporaneous answers to difficult questions. I had hoped that Huckabee would have gotten the nomination. Huckabee was never able to raise the kind of money that Obama has raised. But he did get a lot of the grassroots excited as Obama has obviously done.

Sen. John McCain was my second choice for the nomination. He is a true American hero. He has served well in the Senate for many years. He is strong for our national defense at a time we are in a war with Islamic terrorists. And, he is strong for Israel. He also has the right stands, in my opinion, on abortion and the sanctity of marriage.

Unlike Huckabee, he is not comfortable talking about his faith. It’s well known he has a temper and he has been known to swear in public. The fact he divorced the wife who stuck by him and raised his children while he was in a prisoner of war camp to marry a much younger woman, doesn’t sit well with those of us who believe marriage is for life.

But, we’re not electing the person we think is the most righteous. We’re voting on the one we think will lead America in the right direction for the next four years. Whether Obama, Sen. Hillary Clinton or any of the other Democrats had gotten the nomination, I believe the policies they espouse are dangerous not only to the security of our country if they are weak in the battle against terrorism, but they will hurt businesses if there is more governmental interference. And, on the moral issues such as the sanctity of marriage, it’s absolutely scary to think of what will happen if same sex marriage is allowed in this nation. At the same time, the next president will probably nominate not one but several Supreme Court justices to replace some elderly justices who obviously can’t live forever.

My friend Marc Nuttle recounts this in his book “Moment of Truth,” which I highly recommend. You can get it by clicking here.

There’s probably a lot more that I could say about the meeting. But the most significant thing is just the fact that the meeting was held and that several dozen prominent leaders took time to meet with Sen. Obama who I believe won over the loyalties of many.

I urge Sen. John McCain to have a similar meeting—or several such meetings. There is a lot of latent support for him in the Christian community. But after being “still armed” by the McCain camp, while being wooed by the Obama camp, this may be the first time a majority of evangelicals will vote for a Democrat for president since Jimmy Carter, who talked of being “born again” and got many evangelical votes in 1976.

Give us your thoughts below.


Do you subscribe to Charisma or Ministry Today?

Many of you receive The Strang Report because you are on my personal contact list or have signed-up through my blog. If you are not a current subscriber of Charisma, I urge you to begin your subscription today!

Charisma will keep you up-to-date with what God is doing in the world by reporting on stories and subject matters that are not discussed as in-depth anywhere else, and what you read will build your faith. If you respond to this offer by clicking here to subscribe, I’ll send you a free copy of Marc Nuttle’s new book “Moment of Truth” which I recommend in this issue of The Strang Report.

I encourage you to also begin a subscription to Ministry Today, which I believe is one of the most important magazines I publish because it influences the influencers in the church. If you are in active ministry, you’ll appreciate its analysis, prophetic insight and practical help every other month. If you respond to this offer by clicking here to subscribe, I’ll send you a free copy of Sunday Adelaja’s ground-breaking book “Church Shift” with your paid order of Ministry Today.


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Support Hagee by going to Washington

This is a very strange election season. Who would have thought last summer that Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama would be their respective party nominees? Didn't the media nearly coronate Rudy Giuliani and Sen. Hillary Clinton as the nominees?

You may remember that I endorsed Gov. Mike Huckabee to be president and I still hold out hope that he may be the vice presidential nominee. I will write about this in an upcoming Strang Report.

But now the focus is on John McCain who received and then rejected endorsements from two friends of mine--Pastor John Hagee and Pastor Rod Parsley.

When McCain wanted and needed to win both the Texas and Ohio primaries, he was happy to get these endorsements from Hagee in Texas and Parsley in Ohio. But then when Barack Obama's radical former pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright became a controversial figure in the election, some liberals looked for controversial clergymen who backed McCain to use to blast him. They latched on to Hagee and Parsley.

I may opine about Rod Parsley in a coming Strang Report. He's well known as a lightning rod (no pun intended) and much of what we believe about God and the fight against good and evil makes perfect sense to us in our churches, but to the unbeliever it sometimes sounds like nonsense. And there are enemies of the gospel who are actually opposed to merely speaking the truth. Look at the attacks on those who preach what the Bible says about sexuality.

But with Hagee I think the attacks go beyond them merely misunderstanding to being downright unfair. That's because Hagee is being called anti-Semitic--a charge so wrong it borders on being ludicrous.

When I heard these charges I had a hard time believing it. Hagee has done more than any other Christian in our generation to show love to the Jews and to stand strong with Israel. Yet he made one comment, taken out of context about Hitler, that some liberal blogger says makes him anti-Semitic.

That makes me mad. First, the comment can be explained. He was searching for reasons why a loving God would let something as horrible as the Holocaust happen. And he said something about it was what God used to give the Jews back their homeland in the Middle East. That doesn't justify the Holocaust. But it is true that the entire civilized world was feeling guilty after World War II for the atrocities against the Jewish people. And in this groundswell of sympathy, Israel was created by the United Nations less than three years after the end of the war.

Meanwhile, a quarter century later, a young pastor went to Israel as a tourist and came home a Zionist. That is how John Hagee described the experience that has propelled him to do more and more and more to help the Jewish people.

Not only has he given away more than $30 million to Jewish charities, but he has inspired many like me to do the same. I'm only just beginning, but I've been responsible for raising $400,000-- a pittance compared to Hagee-- for Israel and it is a direct result of his example and influence.

It’s well known that John Hagee started Christians United for Israel which is the largest Christian pro-Israel group ever established. I have the privilege of being director for four southeastern states--Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina. So I have seen up close and personal all the time, money, blood, sweat and tears that has gone into this organization.

Now the third annual "summit" in Washington DC will be held in about six weeks from July 21-24. I plan to be there and I hope you will too.

John Hagee has done so much for Israel and the recent attacks are so unfair that I hope there is a huge outpouring of support for him. If you hadn't planned to go for any other reason than to show your support, I believe it would be a good thing-- as the Jews call it, a mitzvah-- to support Hagee by going to Washington.

We need to make the naysayers sit up and take notice at the outpouring of support from the Christian community for Hagee. Already the Jewish community has come to his defense. And Senator Joe Lieberman, a Jew, will be at the Summit and has been defending Hagee. Click here to read the statement he has released.

My longtime friend Mike Evans is as mad about this as I am. He fired off the op-ed piece below about Hagee. Take time to read it since he has a somewhat different perspective than me.

And take time to go online to register for the CUFI Washington/Israel Summit in July at http://www.cufi.org/. You can also write Pastor Hagee a note of support on his website http://www.jhm.org/.

I know he'll appreciate it.

----------------------------

John Hagee is No Anti-Semite
by Mike Evans

John Hagee is no anti-Semite. The secular, liberal, God-hating media has been obsessed with Pastor John Hagee, insinuating that he condones the Holocaust and Adolf Hitler’s actions.

I have been a credentialed Middle East journalist for more than thirty years and I am very familiar with the games the secular media play, especially during election years.

Anyone with a brain knows that when you have a liberal Democratic presidential candidate, Barak Obama, whose pastor Jeremy Wright has, in fact, made numerous anti-Semitic statements, the strategy of the liberal Left media is to find a conservative, Republican-supporting pastor and use him as a scapegoat, no matter what the truth is.

John Hagee was the perfect candidate because of his unapologetic Christian Zionist stand. The truth is, being a Christian Zionist is the only thing the media could accuse Pastor Hagee of with any credibility; but of course, that is old news.

You can’t be a Christian Zionist and be anti-Semitic. That would be akin to being a card-carrying member of the KKK while marching with Martin Luther King, Jr.

The first time I heard the name John Hagee, I was in a meeting with Prime Minister Menachem Begin and his senior advisor, Dr. Ruben Hecht in the fall of 1979. We were discussing the subject of Christian Zionism, naming those who were the strongest Christian supporters with whom Israel could build a bridge.

Dr. Hecht brought up John Hagee’s name and expressed how impressed he was with him. He said Hagee was a very strong Christian Zionist. I did not know John Hagee at the time, but realized Ruben Hecht would certainly have done his homework before making such a statement. Later, Christian journalist Jamie Buckingham met with me and said, “I want to tell you about John Hagee and his uncompromising love for Israel.”

Jamie Buckingham and Dr. Ruben Hecht were right about Pastor Hagee. His support for Israel has become legendary.

As Chairman of the Board of the Corrie ten Boom House in Haarlem, Holland, a locale made famous by the book The Hiding Place and the movie of the same name produced by Dr. Billy Graham, I have spent an enormous amount of time defending the Jewish people and combating anti-Semitism. The Ten Boom family gave their lives to save 800 Jewish men, women and children by hiding them in their clock shop during World War II. Three of the family members have been honored by Yad Vashem in the Hall of the Righteous Gentiles in Jerusalem: Corrie, Betsie and Casper ten Boom.

To accuse John Hagee of being anti-Semitic is as absurd as accusing Casper, Corrie or Betsie. If they were alive today, I am certain they would be speaking up in defense of John Hagee.

To accuse John Hagee of being anti-Semitic is as absurd as accusing Martin Luther King, Jr. of being anti-Semitic. It was Dr. King who said,

“You declare, my friends, that you do not hate Jews, you are merely anti-Zionists. And I say, let the truth ring forth from the highest mountaintops. Let it echo through the valleys of Gods green earth. When people criticize Zionism, they mean Jews. Zionism is nothing less then the dream and ideal of the Jewish people returning to live in their own land.”

Truthfully, the secular media hates pro-Israel Christian Zionists and John Hagee has become the poster boy for that hatred because of his organizations, Christians United for Israel and his Night to Honor Israel Conferences.

Anyone who stands up to the liberal Left media as Hagee has done in defense of Israel is labeled as ignorant, evil, racist and a bigot. The vast majority of the media are secular humanists and liberal democrats. They make excuses for evil, and even worse, deny that evil exists and refuse to confront it.

How in the world can the media sell such stupidity when a pastor has founded the fastest- growing, pro-Israel coalition in America that combats anti-Semitism and lobbies for the rights of the Jewish people?

Before President Ahmadinejad’s last United Nations appearance in New York, his spiritual advisor told me that Ahmadinejad likes Jews; he just hates Zionists. It is more believable to call Ahmadinejad pro-Israel than it is to call John Hagee an anti-Semite.