John Hagee off the deep end

[Latreia]

like practical common sense that when someone says Jesus isn't the Jewish Messiah, they have left the reservation?

Its not a lurid accusation, its the man's own words.

As a matter of fact, I listened to what he said, which is resonable. I do not agree with the spin you have attached to it, nor
am I impressed with such a negative
smear on a Christian evangelist.

What does impress me are all the far more dangerous and vicious men around the world that are not deemed far more deserving of critical censure.

But it seems more popular to nail as many Christians, especially preachers of the faith, and undermine in association, Christianity as a whole.

Promotion of negatives about Christianity while remaining silent about far greater murderous atrocities committed every day seems a tad disingenuous.

And in this case, I do not find it one bit commendable because there is a connection with Israel and Zionism as well.

Sorry.

 

[Cromwe11]

As a matter of fact, I listened to what he said, which is resonable. I do not agree with the spin you have attached to it, nor
am I impressed with such a negative
smear on a Christian evangelist.

What does impress me are all the far more dangerous and vicious men around the world that are not deemed far more deserving of critical censure.

But it seems more popular to nail as many Christians, especially preachers of the faith, and undermine in association, Christianity as a whole.

Promotion of negatives about Christianity while remaining silent about far greater murderous atrocities committed every day seems a tad disingenuous.

And in this case, I do not find it one bit commendable because there is a connection with Israel and Zionism as well.

Sorry.

so you don't believe Jesus was the Messiah?

 

[Nadiine]

I just saw something on youtube today I thought people here might find interesting.

It was a video clip of a commercial where John Hagee is promoting his new book. In the clip he says his book proves that the Jews did not reject the messiah.... BECAUSE Jesus was not the messiah and Jesus never claimed to be the messiah.

For a while he has been a proponent of the idea that there is a seperate covenant, or gospel for the jews (born out of dispensationalism) it would appear he has finally gone over the edge.

Thoughts?

That doesn't sound like anything John Hagee would say.
Denying Christ was the Messiah? I doubt it.

If so, I'd be deeply disturbed becuz I've liked him for many years.

 

[Criada]

That doesn't sound like anything John Hagee would say.
Denying Christ was the Messiah? I doubt it.

If so, I'd be deeply disturbed becuz I've liked him for many years.

Did you watch it, Nadiine? Cos he does seem to be saying that...

 

[Latreia]

Lurid headlines in CCC?

Sorry, but posting a sensationalized accusation against a famous evangelist,
especially one who supports Israel, does
not impress me as how conservatives should think of the man.

Sad to see CCC become the victim of such
thread titles, like News & Current Events
forum, that seek to slur or cast doubt
about a subject that, when more closely
examined, does not support the thread
title.

As a Christian, I oppose anti-Semitism
with every fiber of my being. I will never
cease to respect the roots of my faith.

Jesus was a Jew, regardless of the reasons that the Jews do not recognize Him as the exact Messiah that they prayed for.

A little practical common sense goes a long way to connecting us up with the Truth.

so you don't believe Jesus was the Messiah?

Since you ignore my comments and choose only to debate rather than fellowship, I am done here.

And so it grows......

 

[PreachersWife2004]

Well, we don't need atheists to undermine Christianity when we have Christians like Hagee doing it for us.

He is actually giving credence to the though that Jesus might not have been the messiah afterall. Maybe HE doesn't believe it, but he's giving a nation credit for believing it.

If that's not doing Christianity a huge disservice then I don't know what is.

 

[Cromwe11]

That doesn't sound like anything John Hagee would say.
Denying Christ was the Messiah? I doubt it.

If so, I'd be deeply disturbed becuz I've liked him for many years.

My guess is that he doesn't deny the divinity of Jesus Christ,

but is probably making an arguments that Jesus was not the promised Jewish Messiah.

most Jews don't believe that the messiah will be God, but rather an annointed but still merely human king.
I'd guess that Hagee is probably gone over to that view at least to some degree. Thus making a difference between Jesus who is divine, and the messiah, who won't be...

That of course is just my guess word. Hagee had for a long time subscribed to the view that the Jews have a different covenant than the gentile Christians do, and all jews will be saved by virtue of the fact that they are jews. When pressed on that he says that he still believes that there is salvation only in Jesus, BUT he has opposed evangelization of Jews.

He is noted for his support of Israel, but I have heard from sources in Israel that he supports the orthodox Jewish groups, not messianic Christian groups, and that some of the orthodox groups he supports are actually persecuting messianic jewish christians.

 

[Cromwe11]

Since you ignore my comments and choose only to debate rather than fellowship, I am done here.

And so it grows......

excuse me, as I recall, you are the one who opened our conversation by accusing me of bringing "lurid accusations"

How does it work that you blast people with unfounded accusations, then play the high road card when they get defensive on you?

You also said that you found Hagee's comments reasonable and that I was falsely spinning them.

How?? The man says "Jesus is not the messiah" how do you spin that?

 

[Nadiine]

If you listen to the words he uses, he said the Jews didn't reject Him "as a whole".
Sounds to me like many DID accept Him as the Messiah first off. (which is true, many did).

Secondly, I take his point about not coming "as Messiah" in the way the Jews EXPECTED HIM TO TAKE AUTHORITY AND RULE AND REIGN on earth. THAT is what they expected their Messiah to come and do. Overturn Rome and rescue them & set up His kingdom to rule.
That didn't happen. That is what I believe Hagee is referring to, not that Jesus didn't literally claim to be Messiah - but what they expected as the Messiah in taking full control on earth.

I'd be careful to judge this before reading the full info in the book first before started terrible rumors that may not be true about him.
Jumping to false judgments is just as bad on your part as it would be for his 'heresy' (if it were such).

 

[Criada]

If you listen to the words he uses, he said the Jews didn't reject Him "as a whole".
Sounds to me like many DID accept Him as the Messiah first off. (which is true, many did).

Secondly, I take his point about not coming "as Messiah" in the way the Jews EXPECTED HIM TO TAKE AUTHORITY AND RULE AND REIGN on earth. THAT is what they expected their Messiah to come and do. Overturn Rome and rescue them & set up His kingdom to rule.
That didn't happen. That is what I believe Hagee is referring to, not that Jesus didn't literally claim to be Messiah - but what they expected as the Messiah in taking full control on earth.

I'd be careful to judge this before reading the full info in the book first before started terrible rumors that may not be true about him.
Jumping to false judgments is just as bad on your part as it would be for his 'heresy' (if it were such).

Agreed - we'd probably need to read the book to understand where he is coming from.

 

[Nadiine]

My guess is that he doesn't deny the divinity of Jesus Christ,

but is probably making an arguments that Jesus was not the promised Jewish Messiah.

most Jews don't believe that the messiah will be God, but rather an annointed but still merely human king.
I'd guess that Hagee is probably gone over to that view at least to some degree. Thus making a difference between Jesus who is divine, and the messiah, who won't be...

That of course is just my guess word. Hagee had for a long time subscribed to the view that the Jews have a different covenant than the gentile Christians do, and all jews will be saved by virtue of the fact that they are jews. When pressed on that he says that he still believes that there is salvation only in Jesus, BUT he has opposed evangelization of Jews.

He is noted for his support of Israel, but I have heard from sources in Israel that he supports the orthodox Jewish groups, not messianic Christian groups, and that some of the orthodox groups he supports are actually persecuting messianic jewish christians.

Well, I really don't know all the details; I'm leary of heresay from people when I cant' confirm it myself.
I don't know, so I won't be making personal judgments about John Hagee publically.

Maybe he has changed his positions since getting more into the Israeli doctrines & embracing Israel as a nation.

Some of what I heard holds some merit, becuz if you remember, Jesus purposely didn't announce who He was for a good part of His ministry becuz it wasn't time to reveal Himself yet.
He also spoke in parables to keep the blind - blind, and the seeing - seeing. It was a hidden/veiled message for many.
I'd have to read his book to see exactly what he says and means by it. Commercials for books or tapes are 'teasers' to get you interested - it might be just that.

I would just ask that we don't set up trees & nooses for a lynching on him without more facts - and if so, he needs prayer more than condemnation if people in this thread want to go that route.

 

[PreachersWife2004]

In many places, he is quoted as saying that for Jews, Jesus isn't the means to heaven, which goes directly against scripture (see my sig).

 

[Cromwe11]

Well, I really don't know all the details; I'm leary of heresay from people when I cant' confirm it myself.
I don't know, so I won't be making personal judgments about John Hagee publically.

Maybe he has changed his positions since getting more into the Israeli doctrines & embracing Israel as a nation.

Some of what I heard holds some merit, becuz if you remember, Jesus purposely didn't announce who He was for a good part of His ministry becuz it wasn't time to reveal Himself yet.
He also spoke in parables to keep the blind - blind, and the seeing - seeing. It was a hidden/veiled message for many.
I'd have to read his book to see exactly what he says and means by it. Commercials for books or tapes are 'teasers' to get you interested - it might be just that.

I would just ask that we don't set up trees & nooses for a lynching on him without more facts - and if so, he needs prayer more than condemnation if people in this thread want to go that route.

I have no particular axe to grind against John Hagee. Personally I have never thought he was a good teacher because most of what I've heard was his end time prophecy teaching and he was way off on most of it.

I had also heard about his dual covenant views on the Jews but I didn't really pay any attention to it till my dad showed me this video this morning. He was directed to it by a lady he knows who has a ministry in Israel and she was the one who told him that Hagee supports groups that oppose messianic Jews in Israel.

Personally I don't have a lot of trust for this lady in terms of teaching because I think she is wrong on a number of issues as well.. but I have met her personally, as well as my parents corresponding with her, and I know of no reason, and have no suspicion that she would lie about this.

I posted this here because I was fairly shocked by it and I thought this was the kind of things conservatives should know about and be concerned about. Personally I believe that a large section of the church, including groups that pass themselves off as conservative or at least moderate have left the path of truth and are following corrupted teachings.

*edit*

I should add, I think its always a good idea to make sure of fact before lynching anyone but a lynching was not my goal. I was more interested to see if anyone had more info, or a rebuttal. A lot of times when something like this comes out, if its not true, it would already have been responded to and there would be statements available etc.
However, the only rebuttal I've gotten so far amounted to a personal attack (which I was then blamed for being argumentative).
I am not about to start an anti-hagee crusade, and I don't recommend anyone else should either. However, if you were presented with a video of a well known Christian figure saying something like that.. wouldn't you figure Christians should know about it?

 

[Cromwe11]

Another thought that came up not directly in response to Nadiine, but just generally

I made a comment in one of the threads in here last night that its easy to see the deception when it is opposed to our views, its harder to see the deception that agrees with our views.

This is exactly what I was talking about. We conservatives are never going to fall for something like denying the scriptures, or ordaining homosexuals. We are all on guard against that. We are never going to be deceived by it. Moderates might be deceived by that, and liberals already have been.
The deception that is dangerous for us is things like this. People who present themselves as conservative, are respected as conservative, but gradually they begin slipping in a little false idea and one day before you know it, the little seed, the little false teaching has become a huge weed that is choking the life out of people.

Thats the problem with deception... it is deceptive.

 

[Nadiine]

Another thought that came up not directly in response to Nadiine, but just generally

I made a comment in one of the threads in here last night that its easy to see the deception when it is opposed to our views, its harder to see the deception that agrees with our views.

This is exactly what I was talking about. We conservatives are never going to fall for something like denying the scriptures, or ordaining homosexuals. We are all on guard against that. We are never going to be deceived by it. Moderates might be deceived by that, and liberals already have been.
The deception that is dangerous for us is things like this. People who present themselves as conservative, are respected as conservative, but gradually they begin slipping in a little false idea and one day before you know it, the little seed, the little false teaching has become a huge weed that is choking the life out of people.

Thats the problem with deception... it is deceptive.

I won't lynch the man until I read his entire book to see exactly what he means & the scriptures he uses to arrive at it in full contxt. We can't judge his entire ministry with many years of sound teaching behind him based on one 'teaser' book commercial.

All Christians should ALWAYS be on guard for false teaching or misteaching by anyone we are being spiritually fed by. Possibly he is changing or has changed, I don't know.

I'd be more apt to PRAY for the man if something's changing tho - his history for many years has been solid biblical teaching. Something similar happened to Pat Robertson as he's gotten much older too.
I believe men of God may be getting older and lose their "edge" some.
Either way, I will be highly dissappointed if this turns into an attack thread on this man. I'd like to see something more productive come from it than that route.

 

[ContentInHim]

In many places, he is quoted as saying that for Jews, Jesus isn't the means to heaven, which goes directly against scripture (see my sig).

I would like for you to find a citation for this. BECAUSE he has publicly declared that this is not his view, though many anti-zionist Christians have accused him of this.

I listened to the YouTube clip. I'm going to reserve judgment. And he didn't say that Jesus wasn't the Messiah - he said that Jesus didn't say that Jesus was the Messiah. I happen to disagree with this - I think Jesus did declare himself the messiah.

Jews were (and are) waiting for two messiahs. Messiah ben David and Messiah ben Joseph. Why? I haven't a clue why - deception from the enemy I would think.

Anyway, I'm a zionist and proud of it. I think somebody's put this YouTube thing together to Hagee's detriment. He's a great Bible teaching preacher. Not everyone's cup of tea, but I wouldn't jump on this before I investigated further or heard from Hagee personally that he believes this.

As for the Jews accepting Jesus - thousands did during his life, but I found a verse I had never seen before in the gospels (I'll have to search for it) and it's clear that most of his followers left him long before the crucifixion - Jesus said his path would be very difficult to follow so they didn't.

 

[Nadiine]

I would like for you to find a citation for this. BECAUSE he has publicly declared that this is not his view, though many anti-zionist Christians have accused him of this.

I listened to the YouTube clip. I'm going to reserve judgment. And he didn't say that Jesus wasn't the Messiah - he said that Jesus didn't say that Jesus was the Messiah. I happen to disagree with this - I think Jesus did declare himself the messiah.

Jews were (and are) waiting for two messiahs. Messiah ben David and Messiah ben Joseph. Why? I haven't a clue why - deception from the enemy I would think.

Anyway, I'm a zionist and proud of it. I think somebody's put this YouTube thing together to Hagee's detriment. He's a great Bible teaching preacher. Not everyone's cup of tea, but I wouldn't jump on this before I investigated further or heard from Hagee personally that he believes this.

As for the Jews accepting Jesus - thousands did during his life, but I found a verse I had never seen before in the gospels (I'll have to search for it) and it's clear that most of his followers left him long before the crucifixion - Jesus said his path would be very difficult to follow so they didn't.

Basically that's how I feel about this too. I don't just believe people's heresay becuz there's WAY too many John Hagee enemies that would love to try to ruin him any way they could.

One thing I mentioned was that you'll see a few times that Jesus announced not to tell anyone who he was yet (this was when he was already out doing miracles and when he cast Legion out of the demoniac in the cemetary).
But I agree w/ you, I do believe He affirmed He was the Messiah more than once.

And as I hear this commercial, it's more about what the people expected Him to do as Messiah that He never did which was come on earth to establish His righteous reign and rule to liberate them in victory.
Didn't happen.

 

[PreachersWife2004]

Here's one quote:

“I believe that every Jewish person who lives in the light of the Torah, which is the word of God, has a relationship with God and will come to redemption.”

-From the Houston Chronicle 1988 (Yeah, I know, it's an older source)

There is this, too, on his website under the FAQs...not quite sure what to make of it, to be honest, especially the last line:

Every Christian should remember the debt of gratitude the Christian community owes to the Jewish community. The Jewish people do not need Christianity to explain their existence or their origin. But Christians cannot explain their existence without Judaism. It was the Jewish people who gave us the written Scripture. They gave us the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They gave us the disciples and the apostle Paul. The Jewish people gave to Christianity the first Christian family, Mary, Joseph, and Jesus-our Savior! If you take away the Jewish contribution to Christianity, there is nothing left.

In reading, I see several areas where his writing reflects that Jews needn't accept Jesus Christ (of course, acceptance or decision theology isn't something I believe in anyway) but then later there's a paragraph where he denies saying these things. I don't know what to attribute that to.

Sometimes the internet has TOO much information!!

 

[Criada]

I would like for you to find a citation for this. BECAUSE he has publicly declared that this is not his view, though many anti-zionist Christians have accused him of this.

I listened to the YouTube clip. I'm going to reserve judgment. And he didn't say that Jesus wasn't the Messiah - he said that Jesus didn't say that Jesus was the Messiah. I happen to disagree with this - I think Jesus did declare himself the messiah.

Jews were (and are) waiting for two messiahs. Messiah ben David and Messiah ben Joseph. Why? I haven't a clue why - deception from the enemy I would think.

Anyway, I'm a zionist and proud of it. I think somebody's put this YouTube thing together to Hagee's detriment. He's a great Bible teaching preacher. Not everyone's cup of tea, but I wouldn't jump on this before I investigated further or heard from Hagee personally that he believes this.

As for the Jews accepting Jesus - thousands did during his life, but I found a verse I had never seen before in the gospels (I'll have to search for it) and it's clear that most of his followers left him long before the crucifixion - Jesus said his path would be very difficult to follow so they didn't.

This one?

61Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, "Does this offend you? 62What if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! 63The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit[e] and they are life. 64Yet there are some of you who do not believe." For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. 65He went on to say, "This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him."

66From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.

 

[Lisa0315]

Here is a question related to the discussion:

1) Fruits of John Hagee?
2) If he is a man of God, even in error, do we have the right to criticize him?
3) If he is a false prophet, how do we tell?

Lisa