Kuttab: Some evangelicals want to hasten Armageddon with bombs

Daoud Kuttab, an independent Palestinian journalist in Jordan (who is, btw, Christian — and was raised in Bethlehem and Jerusalem) writes:

A small minority of evangelical Christians have entered the Middle
East political arena with some of the most un-Christian statements I
have ever heard. The latest gems come from people like Pat
Robertson, the founder and chairman of the Christian Broadcasting
Network, and Rev. John Hagee of Christians United for Israel. Hagee,
a popular televangelist who leads the 18,000-member Cornerstone
Church in San Antonio, ratcheted up his rhetoric this year with the
publication of his book, "Jerusalem Countdown," in which he argues
that a confrontation with Iran is a necessary precondition for
Armageddon (which will mean the death of most Jews, in his eyes) and
the Second Coming of Christ.

In the best-selling book, Hagee insists that the United States must
join Israel in a preemptive military strike against Iran to fulfill
God's plan for both Israel and the West. Shortly after the book's
publication, he launched Christians United for Israel (CUFI), which,
as the Christian version of the powerful American Israel Public
Affairs Committee, he said would cause "a political earthquake."
With the outbreak of the war on Lebanon, he and others have called
to their followers to pray for Israel, and for the continuation of
the war on Lebanon. They have demanded that Israel not relent in
what they call the need to destroy Hezbollah and Hamas. They seem to
have completely forgotten the very core of the Christian faith.

Link to free version of the op-ed that Kuttab says ran behind the NYT "Times Select" paywall under the heading, "The Line of Fire." (Ed. note: a number of BB readers who are Times Select subscribers wrote in to say that they couldn't find the essay there. I asked Kuttab, and he says it did run, as explained above. I'm not a Times Select subscriber, so I can't verify that way — if anyone from the NYT wants to confirm, we'd welcome that, for the record. But knowing Kuttab's work and character, I don't see any reason he would misrepresent this fact, so I'm taking his word for it. Maybe the discrepancy is the result of some weird nav glitch on nytimes.com.)

Link to previous BB posts about Daoud Kuttab's work.