American Prospect Religious Right expert Sarah Posner (who writes the weekly FundamentaList column) contacted God-o-Meter to say that the supposedly controversial video of John Hagee that GOM linked to this morning won’t be much of a liability for Hagee endorsee John McCain. Why? Because a huge number of Americans agree with Hagee’s theological views. Posner wrote about this in February:

A 2002 Time magazine poll found that fully 59% [of Americans] say they believe the events in Revelation are going to come true, and nearly one-quarter think the Bible predicted the Sept. 11 attack. A 2007 AP/Ipsos poll found that one quarter of Americans believed that Jesus Christ would return in 2007 and 46% of evangelicals believed that it was somewhat likely. A comprehensive study of Pentecostals and charismatic evangelical Christians conducted by the Pew Center on Religion and Public Life in 2006 found that Pentecostals have particularly strong views on ‘the rapture of the church,’ the teaching that before the world comes to an end the faithful will be saved and taken up to heaven. According to the survey, 90% of American Pentecostals held that belief, while 69% of charismatics and 59% of other Christians did.

But does that mean that most Americans believe Harry Potter (which did manage to sell a few copies here) is nothing but a precursor of witchcraft, as Hagee says? Or that we’re a pagan nation where we’re rebirthing Sodom and Gomorrah? Would be interesting to see the polling on that. Maybe they’re more mainstream views that God-o-Meter supposed.

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