An Atheist Goes Undercover to Join the Flock of Mad Pastor John Hagee:

I had been attending the Cornerstone Church
for weeks, but this was really my first day of
school. I had joined Cornerstone --
a megachurch in the Texas Hill Country --
to get a look inside the evangelical mind-set
that gave the country eight years of George W. Bush.
The church's pastor, John Hagee, is one of the
most influential evangelical preachers in the
country -- not because his ministry is so very
large (although he claims up to 4.5 million
viewers a week for his Sunday sermons) but
because of his near-absolute conquest of a
very trendy niche in the market: Christian Zionism.

The whole idea behind Christian Zionism is
to align America with the nation of Israel so
as to "hurry God up" in his efforts to bring
about Armageddon. As Hagee tells it, only
after Israel is involved in a final showdown
involving a satanic army (in most interpretations,
a force of Arabs led by Russians) will Christ
reappear. On that happy day, Hagee and his
True Believers will be whisked up to Heaven
by God, while the rest of us nonbelievers are
left behind on Earth to suck eggs and generally
suffer various tortures.

Read the full article here: http://www.alternet.org/rights/84043?page=entire