#936: John McTernan

John McTernan is a (yet another) fundie pastor who spews his hatred and delusions at the Defend and Proclaim the Faith website. As fundie wingnuts with poor reasoning skills are sometimes wont to do, McTernan likes to blame – and is famous for blaming – natural disasters and events on God, who, while unwilling to intervene in the Holocaust, say, is apparently very active in punishing innocent bystanders for disagreeing with McTernan having the wrong views about theological matters, particularly with respect to whether homosexuals should be treated as human beings or banned and stoned in the manner of Jesus (as McTernan apparently understands Jesus). 

McTernan wasn’t the only wingnut to attribute Hurricane Sandy to divine intervention. Luke Robinson, a Maryland preacher, held mayor Michael Bloomberg responsible given the latter’s support of a marriage equality measure on the ballot in that state (apparently thereby forcing God to kill some poor people in Bloomberg’s general area with a storm); Rabbi Noson Leiter, on the other hand, cited the hurricane as divine retribution for letting New York be overrun by gays. For McTernan the message was clearly that God was becoming fed up with gays infiltrating American society, and that Americans were willing to elect presidents in favor of treating gay people as humans (apparently overlooking this). "Journalist" and WND White House correspondent William Koenig observed that some of the United States’ most catastrophic storms and events have correlated closely with the nation’s God-defying attempts to divide the land of Israel (which McTernan seems to echo as well), and Rob Schenk, once again, blamed the whole thing on abortion. Despite the lack of subtlety in the vehicle for the message, its content remains unclear.

McTernan, however, apparently had a rock-solid case. According to McTernan “Hurricane Sandy is hitting 21 years to the day of the Perfect Storm of October 20, 1991. […] Twenty-one years breaks down to 7 x 3, which is a significant number with God. Three is perfection as the Godhead is three in one while seven is perfection. It appears that God gave America 21 years to repent of interfering with His prophetic plan for Israel; however, it has gotten worse under all the presidents and especially Obama. Obama is 100 percent behind the Muslim Brotherhood which has vowed to destroy Israel and take Jerusalem [citation not given]. Both candidates [Obama and Romney!] are pro-homosexual and are behind the homosexual agenda. America is under political judgment and the church does not know it!” As a preemptive strike God’s use of blunt violence seems to have misfired, but perhaps the strike was meant just as an impulsive expression of dissatisfaction or revenge?

It’s not only Sandy, though. Hurricane Katrina was similarly a message from God, as was Hurricane Isaac, which occurred seven years after Katrina – and you know where this is going: “The fact the events are seven years apart is very significant as this number is biblically important. It is the number of completion: God created the universe in seven days. The church, city and nation have not repented and the homosexual agenda is far worse than it was in 2005.” Apparently God’s aim is somewhat off, since the natural disasters in question tend to hit places not associated with the sins for which they are supposed to be divine punishment. Unless, of course, God is really punishing us for something different …

Diagnosis: Good grief. Utter nitwit.