“Glenn Beck's Divine Destiny” includes end-times pastor who blamed gays for Katrina

Written by Ben Dimiero

Published

Earlier, we pointed out that Glenn Beck was “restoring honor” at his “Divine Destiny” religious revival with Rabbi Daniel Lapin. Lapin's honor-restoration bona fides include a close relationship with Republican-lobbyist/convicted felon Jack Abramoff. Unsurprisingly, Lapin was not the only controversial figure to join Beck on stage.

The last religious figure to appear at the event was Rev. John Hagee, who you may remember from earlier this summer as one of the “leaders in the faith community” that Beck held out as an example of “people that need to start standing up.” Back in July, Beck plugged Hagee's “excellent” book, Can America Survive? 10 Prophetic Signs That We Are The Terminal Generation.

As I detailed at the time, Can America Survive? is an account of how the world is fast-approaching Biblical Armageddon. Hagee views himself as an expert in Biblical prophecy, and laid out several bold predictions in the book, including:

  • The “very real fact” that one third of humanity will soon die in an ecological disaster.
  • “The Antichrist will rule the world with the full authority and anointing of Satan himself. Satan and his legions are coming!”

  • “Why is this divine covenant for a specific land to the Jewish people so crucial in the twenty-first century? It's urgent because World War III is about to begin over the failure of humanity to recognize Israel's historic right to the land.”

  • “The truth is the next prophetic event that will shake the foundations of planet Earth is the rapture of the church. The word rapture is the Latin version of a phrase the bible uses to describe the catching away of all Christians, both dead and alive, on the earth at the appointed time.”

When he isn't engaged in Biblical soothsaying, Hagee is busy making offensive statements:

  • According to a report by The Huffington Post's Sam Stein, Hagee “argued in a late 1990s sermon that the Nazis had operated on God's behalf to chase the Jews from Europe and shepherd them to Palestine.”
  • In 2006, Hagee blamed Hurricane Katrina on gays, claiming that “there was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that the Katrina came. And the promise of that parade was that it was going to reach a level of sexuality never demonstrated before in any of the other Gay Pride parades.”
  • Hagee once claimed that “all Muslims have a mandate to kill Christians and Jews.”
  • In his book, What Every Man Wants in a Woman, Hagee wrote, “Do you know the difference between a woman with PMS and a snarling Doberman pinscher? The answer is lipstick. Do you know the difference between a terrorist and a woman with PMS? You can negotiate with a terrorist.”

Hagee's controversial history actually led John McCain to (eventually) publicly reject his endorsement during the 2008 election.

Though the FAQ page for the Divine Destiny event mentions that leaders from “all faiths” would be represented, Hagee used the platform to attack the idea of “pluralism” and announced that we need to “begin the process of returning to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”

I guess this answers the question of what Beck considers “all faiths.”