After watching both would-be presidential candidates reject pastors' endorsements because of alleged intemperate statements, I can imagine any pastor preparing a Sunday sermon fighting butterflies in the stomach.

These days, who knows what visitor is aiming a camera-equipped phone on the pulpit in hopes of creating a short clip that wouldn't look so good outside the church walls?

However, this has prompted a backlash, at least in the case of Texas pastor John Hagee. In a column last week, Christian magazine publisher Stephen Strang wrote a rebuke of those who tried to create a picture of Hagee as anti-Semitic. He called it a "charge so wrong it borders on being ludicrous."

As Strang pointed out, Hagee has been a longtime supporter of Israel and started the group, Christians United for Israel, the largest Christian pro-Israel group ever established.

Making perfect sense

In also commenting on Ohio pastor Rod Parsley, who—like Hagee—had his endorsement rejected by candidate John McCain, Strang noted that much of what Christians believe about God and good and evil makes perfect sense in church.

"But to the unbeliever it sometimes sounds like nonsense," Strang wrote. "And there are enemies of the gospel who are actually opposed to merely speaking the truth. Look at the attacks on those who preach what the Bible says about sexuality."

Of course, pick almost any topic and the world's way of approaching it is likely to conflict with biblically based reasoning.

However, there is another lesson implicit in this presidential controversy. Just as we should be wary of judging another preacher's words on the basis of 60-second sound bites, so should we be careful of judging moves of God based on the video clips or other material that hurtles around the Internet.

Revival or fraud?

Case in point: the Brownsville Revival, which drew its name from the church in Pensacola, Florida that hosted services which attracted millions from the mid-1990s until the early 2000s.

If you go on the Internet and look up the Brownsville Revival, which saw thousands accept Christ, you will find more criticism than praise of it.

I discovered a much different view last year when I interviewed Lindell Cooley, the worship leader at those services who now pastors a church in Nashville.

"When God blew in there over the first six months of the revival, I had such a transformation and a returning to God that I don't think I'll ever be the same," he told me. "I saw a part of God that I had never experienced previously in my Christian walk."

"There weren't many places in this nation that you could go at the time and see 300 to 500 people come to Jesus every night. And, be able to worship with people in love with Christ and see the transformation of lives."

What happened back then is still relevant. In recent times there have been revivals reported in Jena, La. (largely overlooked by the news media which rushed to report racial conflict there), Lakeland, Fla.; and North Carolina.

Some have already attracted their share of criticism. While some of it may be justified, instead of rushing to criticize an event, maybe the Church should spend more time praying that God will move despite human error. After all, human frailty fills every church.