Hysterical: Hagee Gives Sermon on Fasting
On Christian network TBN right now, November 19, 2010, John Hagee’s son, Matthew, is giving a sermon about fasting on the father’s daily television show.
Matthew Hagee used to be quite over weight, and sometime in the past couple of years, he lost all the extra weight.
However, his father, pastor John Hagee, remains quite hefty (I’d say obese); he must be 80 or more pounds overweight.
I just find it funny, in a sad way, that a son of a tubby pastor would have the nerve to lecture his father’s congregation on abstaining from food, no matter how well meaning the motive.
Of course, it’s also galling anytime John Hagee gives sermons on the evils of divorce among Christians, when he himself left his first wife for the current woman he’s with now (do a web search on the issue, and you can find plenty of documentation about it).
In the past, John Hagee has had guests on his show that also underscored the hypocrisy.
One was a doctor who wrote a book about how to lose weight, and Hagee permitted the man to use his show as a platform from which to sell books. Hagee repeated that episode many times over the past two years, too.
Prior to that, about four years ago, John Hagee had a husband and wife on his program who were selling various dieting books, tapes, CDs, and other material.
The problem? The husband was at least 80 or more pounds overweight himself!
The husband lost about 30 or 40 pounds already a few years before being on Hagee’s show, but one could tell just from looking at him that he needed to lose another 50, 60, 80, or whatever more pounds.
I really do not see the sense in purchasing weight loss material from someone who himself is grossly obese. (As for me, I keep my trim, thin shape by jogging five days a week and eating only 1200 calories per day.)
Until John Hagee loses weight, I don’t think his son should be delivering sermons on fasting.
I’m aware of the ‘genetic fallacy,’ but I’m sorry, it’s annoying and laughable to see the son of a very fat preacher extolling the virtues of fasting.
There’s another issue that bothers me. These Word of Faith pastors are performance based, and the Hagees are at least lukewarm WoFers (Word of Faith preachers).
Such WoF preachers don’t seem to realize that we Christians are living under grace, but they insist upon making up rules and requirements that believers must follow.
Matthew Hagee seems to be saying that unless one fasts, God will not answer certain prayers.
Certainly, Jesus mentioned in the Gospels that certain kinds of demons cannot be driven out unless one fasts in addition to praying, but other than that example, I’m hard pressed to think of any other instances in the New Testament where believers are directed to fast as a requirement.
Christians are living under grace.
Off the top of my head, other than unforgiveness, I cannot think of anything a believer can do, or that he or she should do but neglects to do, that would separate the believer from God, or that would hinder the believer from receiving God’s favor (grace), or a favorable answer to prayer.
Anyway, seeing the son of a loud- mouthed, overbearing, very tubby preacher tell me that I ought to fast (and from the legalistic reasoning that I should do so to get answer to prayer and so on), makes me want to hurl.
On a closing note:
In the past, I have fasted. I fasted three days in a row, no food at all, and I don’t think I even drank water during one such fast. I did not let anyone know I was fasting. I kept my fasting private.
After having fasted, I did not notice any blessings from God, nor did I get any answers to my petitions to God. Nothing remarkable happened.
January 4, 2011:
In the last couple of weeks of December 2010, and a couple of times this month, Matthew Hagee has had Dr. Colbert back on the television show selling another one of his weight loss products.
Previously, the father John Hagee, who himself must be 100 or more pounds overweight, has had this same doctor on selling other weight loss books.
I still find it ludicrous that a grossly overweight man, or his thin son (who used to be obese) would routinely invite a weight-loss doctor on their show.
January 29, 2012:
In the last month or two, I’ve seen Hagee air repeats of the dieting and weight loss shows. I remain amazed at the man’s audacity.
Related
(Link): Portly pastors make up more than a third of American clergy
(Link): Children ‘Who Identify As Gay, Bisexual or Transgender Are 64% MORE Likely To Be Obese’
Christian Pundit 
Certain preachers would think they’d died and gone to hell if they had to give up their love affair with fried chicken. They can smell it a mile away…or was that lobster and caviar?
Any preacher whose waist is as wide as the equator shouldn’t be lecturing folks on fasting, and there’s a lot of preachers out there who fit that description. Fasting is NOWHERE taught as a binding doctrine on the church in any of the epistles of the apostles. Paul, Peter, and James (the most legalistic of them all) don’t even RECOMMEND fasting for whipping old satan. They don’t even impose fasting on backsliders who need to repent. Even Jesus and His men never held a fasting & prayer session together and were criticized for failure to fast by self-righteous Pharisees who added many extra fasting days to the Jewish calendar..
wow… fasting, as talked about as by a preacher is not for weight loss but is a spiritual thing. There are also scriptural reasons listed IN THE BIBLE when divorce is allowed by God. It is not for us to be judges… the Bible does tell us “judge not lest thou be judged”.
You totally missed the points of that post and previous ones!
I don’t care in this instance, this context of discussing fasting, if there are biblical reasons for divorce; that is not the issue.
Here’s the sticking point: that a loud, obnoxious, blowhard of a preacher loudly brays against the evils of divorce and its detrimental impact on society in his weekly sermons is very hypocritical. If he showed a little more humility when preaching against divorce, or any other struggles in life, it might not bother me so much.
It’s pretty rich for a divorced guy to lecture or scream at his television audience about how wrong divorce is when he left his wife (divorced her) for a younger woman (the chick he’s married to now).
I know that fasting is considered spiritual and not primarily as a health issue, but again, I don’t want a fat tub of lard or the skinny son of a tub of lard, waxing eloquently about the wonders of abstaining from food any more than I want a bald jerk like television psychologist Dr. Phil telling me what brand of shampoo I should use.
And, by the way, I believe I’ve posted to the blog before how Hagee frequently has weight loss couples and doctors on his show selling diet books and diet tapes and diet pills.
Please! Dude really needs to lose weight before he tries to pitch diet products at anyone. I would not take dental hygiene advice from someone with a mouth full of rotten teeth.
Not that I think a preacher should be selling diet merchandise on his show at all; people send him money to keep his show on TV for the purpose of spreading the gospel.
Congrats, womandriver, on totally missing the points of my posts. Wow indeed!
The Bible actually tells Christians to judge other Christians. So I will keep judging.
Could you give me the verses where we are told to judge others?
Here is where the Bible tells us not to judge: (Matthew 7:1-5) 7 “Stop judging that YOU may not be judged; 2 for with what judgment YOU are judging, YOU will be judged; and with the measure that YOU are measuring out, they will measure out to YOU. 3 Why, then, do you look at the straw in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the rafter in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Allow me to extract the straw from your eye’; when, look! a rafter is in your own eye? 5 Hypocrite! First extract the rafter from your own eye, and then you will see clearly how to extract the straw from your brother’s eye.
Since the Bible is consistent throughout, I’m not too sure there is a verse that says “go judge your brother”….
To woman driver:
You’ve never actually read the Bible before, have you? You seem to be familiar only with the oft misquoted and misused comment of Jesus (the “Judge Not” verse).
Yes, the Bible says Christians are to judge other people at times, and I judge John Hagee, and my conclusion is that he dabbles in the false teachings of Word of Faith, he’s hypocritical on some subjects, and he’s a blowhard.
The Bible tells people to judge other people such as… Luke 6:43 – 45 (you have to be able to judge good fruit from bad);
1 Corinthians 5:11 – But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat.
Christians are to judge those inside the church or who claim to be Christian, see 1 Corinthians 5:12
1 Corinthians 2:15 -The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one.
The saints will judge the world – 1 Corinthians 6:1-6
Web page by someone else on the issue, for your benefit:
The Bible says that Christians must judge – Many Christians misinterpret what the Bible says about judging and say that we should never judge.
You’re also just plain side stepping the issue of how hypocritical, silly, and ridiculous it is for a fat man to have guests on his show who sell DIET books, which he has done several times.