They say Senator John McCain has never set foot in Pastor John Hagee's Cornerstone Church and I'm sure it's true - watching McCain's twitchy, grimacing performance, at the nationally televised press conference during which Hagee endorsed McCain, one might have guessed the Arizona Senator was in the presence of a highly communicable sexually transmitted disease maybe passed through mere skin contact rather than simply standing next to a Texas preacher--for the perfunctory pat that passed for a hug between the two men.

And, the feeling appeared mutual. Hagee's powerful jowls, probably strengthened at San Antonio all-you-can-eat buffets, seemed to quiver with thinly repressed rage and if looks could kill McCain would have been filleted into barbecue-ready slabs from the scowling glares Hagee, looking a bit like a human crocodile, threw the Senator's way. There was little love lost, but no love was needed. They were both professionals doing a job. McCain, or Hagee might as well have been a prostitute and, probably, each thought the other one was.

Oodles of Demons

McCain's closer to the fiscally-conservative, uber-hawk secular old-guard Goldwater pole of the GOP, a tendency now shrinking to political impotence. McCain knows he no longer can get by without the support of the Christian right, and he may well know that Hagee's church revels in casting out demons - demons of the intellect, demons of philosophy, demons of handwriting analysis and demons of anal fissures. Many, many demons. And why not ? The natural world is quite complex too, almost infinitely so and therefore why not the demon-world ? Why not demons of acne or ingrown toenails, demons of flatulence or flab, constipation, diarrhea or heartburn ? Demons of pedophilia or leather-fetishism, demons of pique, annoyance, gibbering insanity or ennui ?

Last year sometime, I heard that Rolling Stone was sending someone undercover to Pastor John Hagee's San Antonio based Cornerstone Church, and I suspected the result would be a hoot.

Now, Matt Taibbi's Rolling Stone piece irreverently but quite accurately titled story (an excerpt from Taibbi's new book) "Jesus Made Me Puke" is out, describing Taibbi's experience at a Cornerstone Church weekend retreat where self-pitying pop-culture psychobabble and power-of-positive-thinking self-boosterism gradually evolves into a sexually-charged, shrieking, howling, demon-puking out free for all:

"...On the women's side of the chapel the noises began, and it is not hard to explain what these noises sounded like. If you've ever watched The Houston 560 or any other gangbang porn movie, that's what it sounded like, only the sounds were far more intense.

It was not difficult to figure out where the energy was coming from on that side of the room. Some of the husbands glanced nervously over in the direction of their wives."

Word-Faith churches tend to, as Taibbi implies, promise it all, and it's startling to see a profile of a religious movement that's ostensibly all about fighting secularism, (cast by Hagee and his class of preachers, a vast satanic plot or a malevolent spirit settling over America) but which actually seems to be pretty close to the vanguard of American narcissism. Writes Taibbi,

One of the implicit promises of the church is that following its program will restore to you your vigor, confidence and assertiveness, effecting, among other things, a marked and obvious physical transformation from crippled lost soul to hearty vessel of God. That's one of the reasons that it's so important for the pastors to look healthy, lusty and lustrous -- they're appearing as the "after" photo in the ongoing advertisement for the church wellness cure.

The Way Of Vomit [or, The Vomiting Way]

Even the obsessive casting out of demons seems to play a part in that, promising that simply by shelling out the cost of a weekend retreat courtesy of Hagee's Cornerstone Church all your problems, big and small, momentarily or lifelong, can be chucked or vomited out of your body and soul, out on their asses or out into barf bags, as the malevolent, vomitous things they really are. They're not really part of you, those things - so goes the story. Anything that's bad, undesirable, ugly or uncomfortable in you can just be vomited out - whatever you want to vomit out, you can - gayness, social awkwardness, bad breath or bad financial management.

Indeed, I hadn't really thought of it until now, but this is really just a new reworking of an age-old American theme that helped make the United States great... except there's one little problem :

IN the Horatio Alger myth, or spirit, or ethic people were to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, with their own work and toil and grit. No magic to it - just hard work. As described by Matt Taibbi though, John Hagee has thrown out the practical nature of that ethic and, in its place Hagee has substituted... the way of vomit.

Thus, the road to wealth and health and happiness, great sex, trimmer waistlines and sleeker thighs, all good things and the path to heaven too, is paved with vomit. Take anything you desire, imagine a demon holding you back from that object of desire, and then just vomit the demon into a paper bag ! It's ingenious, a truly American innovation. A sobering thought, but as "Jesus Made Me Puke" settled in a bit, after the initial hilarity of the tale settled a bit in my stomach, I realized this:

It's unconscious metaphor! Or, maybe not - maybe John Hagee is a greater genius than we know. But, I suspect it's an inadvertent deep truth expressed metaphorically - America has gorged for decades on self, on materialism, on desire. We're stuffed, and now to teach us how to move past our corpulent, engorged nausea comes Pastor John Hagee, teaching the Way of Vomit. Christianity is, Hagee seems to be saying, a form of Epecac. Imagine an entire nation, demonically possessed, heads spinning round, projectile vomiting like Linda Blair in the Exorcist. That's where we've come to  says Hagee, and it's not bad - actually, it's good. The road to happiness, the way the truth and the light, the stairway to heaven, the good pastor tells us, are paved and found and built on... vomit.

And why not ?