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One approach to history is making the news this May (2008). We are all historians in that we choose what to accept as probably true or maybe untrue regarding the past. The Texas televangelist John Hagee recently supported presidential candidate John McCain, and this week McCain rejected that support, embarrassed by an interpretation of history by Hagee that he called "nonsense."
Most historians in the big universities describe the past without going beyond the empirical. They describe a religion according to what its adherents have done and said, which is within the bounds of empiricism. Hagee belongs to that school of history that goes outside empiricism. Reverend Hagee is educated. He has a Master's Degree from the University of North Texas. He received theological training at Southwestern Assemblies of God University in Waxahachie, Texas. Oral Roberts University saw fit to give him an honorary doctorate degree, and he has served on the Oral Roberts University Board of Regents since 1989. Yet Senator McCain calls his description of the past as "nonsense."
The history by Reverend Hagee that Senator John McCain rejects is expressed by Hagee with quotes from scripture. Hagee spoke of Theodore Hertzel, the father of Zionism, going to the Jews of Europe, saying "I want you to come and join me in the land of Israel." So few went, said Hagee, that Hertzel went into depression. Those who went, said Hagee, founded Israel, and "those who did not went through the hell of the holocaust." Continuing with his interpretation of the past, Reverend Hagee described Hitler as God's agent of punishment -- little different from standard belief among Christians, stated in scripture, that God sent the Assyrians against the Ten Tribes of Israel -- back in 721 BC. According to Reverend Hagee, Hitler was the hunter. He quotes from Jeremiah. "They shall hunt them from every mountain and from every hill and from the holes of the rocks." Speaking of Hitler's extermination of Jews, Hagee asked, " How did it happen? Because God allowed it to happen. Why did it happen? Because God said my top priority for the Jewish people is to get them to come back to the land of Israel."
Reverend Hagee saw God's involvement in other recent acts. On September 18, 2006 on National Public Radio's Fresh Air, Hagee spoke of Hurricane Katrina as an act of God, punishing New Orleans for "a level of sin that was offensive to God." These kind of associations are a tradition in Christianity, similar to Bishop Cyprian in the 3rd century interpreting Rome's murder of Christians as God's punishment. It is similar to statements made by other reputable Christians, Pat Robertson and the late Jerry Falwell, who described recent disasters, 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, as God's punishment.
These men of God have their approach to history. (Robertson has a degree in history.) And there is the alternative methodology of sticking to the empirical. It is for people to understand the difference between the two approaches and choose between them.
address of this article: http://www.fsmitha.com/com/hagee.htm