Preacher Wars: ABC Plays Gotcha

Thu, May 22, 2008 at 10:05:50 am PST

Here comes the ABC News counterattack against John McCain, to even the score for Rev. Jeremiah Wright: McCain Pastor: Islam Is a ‘Conspiracy of Spiritual Evil’.

Despite his call for the U.S. to win the “hearts and minds of the Islamic world,” Sen. John McCain recruited the support of an evangelical minister who describes Islam as “anti-Christ” and Mohammed as “the mouthpiece of a conspiracy of spiritual evil.”

McCain sought the support of Pastor Rod Parsley of the World Harvest Church of Columbus, Ohio at a critical time in his campaign in February, when former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee was continuing to draw substantial support from the Christian right.

At a campaign appearance in Cincinnati, McCain introduced Parsley as “one of the truly great leaders in America, a moral compass, a spiritual guide.”

Campaign aides positioned Parsley right behind McCain for photographers, apparently unconcerned about Parsley’s well-established denunciations of the Islamic faith in a book “Silent No More” and on DVDs of sermons about Islam.

“Islam is an anti-Christ religion that intends through violence to conquer the world,” Parsley says on the DVDs reviewed by ABC News. “America was founded with the intention of seeing this false religion destroyed,” Parsley says, “and I believe Sept. 11, 2001 was a generational call to arms that we can no longer ignore.”

This will be known as the Election Year of the Loose Cannon Preachers.