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The issue of Sarah Palin’s religion has become the topic of the week in the mainstream media. To their credit they have uncovered a host of facts, both interesting, and frankly a bit scary. But as is often is the case with the mainstream media as well as the blogs that increasingly seem to parrot them rather than serve as truly independent voices, all the ink spent on Palin’s religion seems to have yielded more questions than answers
Those questions boil down to several issues that appear more troubling than Palin’s role in the so-called state trooper scandal or the Bridge to Nowhere, for they go to the very heart of Sarah Palin’s beliefs. What are her beliefs and values? More pointedly what IS her moral compass and what is its true north?
That these remain questions without answers should have all Americans wondering what kind of leader she will be. If we are wondering about that, then we should seriously ask whether this woman belongs a heart beat from becoming President of the United States.
In the case of many candidates such questions would seem almost irrelevant, for they embody what I have termed America’s mushy middle, an area where many of us live. But in Palin’s case the question becomes far more serious, for neither the media nor the American people seem to know whether she represents religious zeal in the Jerry Falwell/Tom DeLay mold or whether she is just another church-going American.
How quickly we forget Tom DeLay. Not long ago he was this nation’s prime example of how religious zealotry can shape public policy. I wrote about it at length in Strange Death. DeLay made no secret of his beliefs or the fact they influenced his views from education to the Middle East.
Writing about an incident in Michigan in which a six-year reputedly killed someone, DeLay said:
Simply put, the problem is within ‑ rather than outside of ‑ us, because as the Judeo‑Christian tradition has always taught we enter this world flawed and inclined to do the wrong thing. If one accepts this perspective, then one is also likely to recognize that, as one author recently phrased it, only two forces hold the sinful nature in check: the restraint of conscience or the restraint of the sword. The less that citizens have the former, the more the state must employ the latter.
As for the curriculum DeLay told a Texas church audience:
Christianity offers the only viable, reasonable, definitive answer to the questions of ‘Where did I come from?’ ‘Why am I here?’ ‘Where am I going?’ ‘Does life have any meaningful purpose?’ Only Christianity offers a way to understand that physical and moral border. Only Christianity offers a comprehensive world view that covers all areas of life and thought, every aspect of creation.
Back in the day when DeLay ruled the House with an iron hand that earned him the nickname “the Hammer” the Christian Coalition’s Randy Tate said he thought of DeLay as:
A Domino’s Pizza delivery guy. It’s there in 30 minutes, or it’s free.
So the question America should be asking is does Sarah Palin represent another Tom Delay, the new pizza delivery person for the likes of James Dobson and others who would inject their religious dogma into our everyday lives. The most fascinating aspect of Sarah Palin is that we should be asking the question at all. Unlike DeLay, who never missed an opportunity to preach to America, Palin seems to be deliberately trying to throw up a fog around her religious beliefs.
Take the simple matter of which church does she owe her allegiance. According to what I am coming to call the “Palin myth,” until 2002 she was a member of Wasilla’s Assembly of God church, after that things get a little murky. In an August 30, story Palin’s hometown paper notes:
She now sometimes worships at the Juneau Christian Center, which is also part of the Pentecostal Assemblies of God, said Brad Kesler, business administrator of the denomination’s Alaska District. But her home church is The Church on the Rock, an independent congregation, Riley said. {Riley is Paul Riley, her former pastor at the Wasilla Assemblies of God]
Others in the mainstream media say she switched to the Wasilla Bible Church. On the surface this seems a typical example of the media not getting their stories straight or a relatively straightforward story of someone becoming disillusioned with one church and switching to another, something Americans do all the time. Yet the fact that no one seems to really know what is Sarah Palin’s home church should be extremely troubling.
The official Palin web site avoids any mention of Palin’s church affiliation. One reason this essay is so late is that I still cannot pin down where Sarah Palin goes to church. Perhaps the best source is “Palin and Her Pastors” in Harpers. Now why should this be an issue? For example, does anyone know where Joe Biden goes to church? It is an issue because the Counterrevolution and the religious right have chosen to make Palin’s religious background a central part of their reasons for approving John McCain’s choice of Palin for his running mate.
It is an issue because it leads to two equally disturbing scenarios. Either this woman for whom religion has admittedly played a key role in her life has engaged in troubling changes in her beliefs or she is deliberately covering them up. In the first case that means that rather than have a moral compass, Palin seems to be shopping for one, picking them up and discarding them as if they were a pair of shoes. On the other hand, has she deliberately sought to cover up her beliefs from the American people because she knows that should they come to light they would make her a lightning rod for criticism?
As with much else with Sarah Palin, nothing is what it appears to be. Rather than leaving the Assemblies of God, Palin still maintains ties to that church. The church’s own website posted the following statement:
Governor Sarah Palin did attend Wasilla Assembly of God since the time she was a teen ager. She and her family were a part of the church up until 2002. Since that time she has maintained a friendship with Wasilla Assembly of God and has attended various conferences and special meetings here. This June, the Governor spoke at the graduation service of our School of Ministry, Master’s Commission Wasilla Alaska.
Note the careful wording of “she has maintained a friendship with Wasilla Assembly of God and has attended various conferences and special meetings here.” That hardly implies she has cut her ties with that church.
Plain’s involvement with the Assemblies of God goes well-beyond “maintaining a relationship.” By now most of America has seen the YouTube video of her speech to the graduation service. Thank God for YouTube, because after word spread about the video on the church’s site, the church pulled it. The big question is what role did Palin play in that decision and did she not think someone else would post it on YouTube?
Perhaps Palin’s most questionable action was her naming a Wasilla street after Wasilla Assemblies founder Paul Riley, whom she has referred to as her spiritual mentor. Now retired, Riley was the heart of the church and by all accounts a powerful preacher who had a strong hold on his congregation. Ed Kalnins took over for Riley in 1999.
The issue of whether Palin’s core beliefs still come from the Assemblies or the Wasilla Bible Church or some other church represents not merely a theological question, but goes to the heart of what kind of Vice President–or President–she would become. What does guide her beliefs? If it is the Wasilla Bible Church, they may be conservative, but their beliefs seem hardly as radical as those of the Assemblies.
Having read the entire collected sermons of Bible Church main pastor Larry Kroon that are posted online at the church site, my impression is that while his theology may be a bit hazy and he definitely is in the evangelical tradition, he is no Jerry Falwell. In very few of his sermons does he refer to contemporary events much less openly advocate for particular political causes. This can be gleaned from several key passages in his sermons:
I think we could be a people with faith that resilient. But we wouldn’t get there by listening to the talk show hosts. We wouldn’t get there by discussing what it was like in the ‘good old days, when Americans were really Americans.’ We wouldn’t get there by rounds of endless debate over policy. We wouldn’t get there by turning our pulpits into political podiums. We wouldn’t get there by going into deep philosophical discussions about the nature and character of God, and the problem of evil. We wouldn’t get there by rallying the most frenzied reformers that rise up.
And it’s the same for all of us. Whatever form our impurity takes, it doesn’t enter from the outside. It flows from the inside out. Food doesn’t cause gluttony. Pornography doesn’t cause immorality. Abundance doesn’t create greed. Inequality does not cause envy. Harsh words do not cause anger. All those foul words, wrong actions, and rotten attitudes flow out of the very core of who we are. You gotta understand it. The education system is not the problem. Our political system is not the problem. Economic conditions are not the problem. Eroding social standards are not the problem. Broken families are not the problem. False religions are not the problem. The problem is our hearts—my heart and your heart. That’s where evil comes from. That’s where the pollution of our lives flows from.
We are not about adopting a spiritual lifestyle. We are not about taking up a moral cause. We are not about a religious affiliation. We are simply about a person named Jesus. We’ve turned to Him, and we remain toward Him. And that’s why we call ourselves Christians.
The Church on the Rock has this statement about Palin:
In regards to Governor Palin being a member or attending Church on the Rock, this is a statement about her church involvement. Before running for Governor of Alaska she frequently attended Church on the Rock for approximately one year. Since that time she has visited on occasion and now attends Wasilla Bible Church with her family. Wasilla Bible Church is a life giving church that has blessed our community. Governor Palin is a wonderful Christian woman with outstanding leadership qualities. Our prayers are with the Governor and her family.
Yet why would her own former pastor, with whom by all accounts she still maintains a close relationship [that is him she hugs in the infamous Palin video] say otherwise. Perhaps it is because church pastor David Pepper has said the following in various sermons:
From an November 25, 2007 sermon: “The purpose for the United States is… to glorify God. This nation is a Christian nation.”
From an October 28, 2007 sermon: “God will not be mocked. I don’t care what the ACLU says. God will not be mocked. I don’t care what atheists say. God will not be mocked. I don’t care what’s going on in the nation today with so much horrific rebellion and sin and things that take place. God will not be mocked. Judgment Day is coming. Where do you stand?”
From an October 28, 2007 sermon: “Just giving in a little bit is a disastrous thing…You can’t serve both man and God. It is one or the other.”
Finally, there is the Juneau church, another Pentecostal church that Palin attends while at the capitol. Senior pastor Mike Rose has preached sermons not unlike Pepper’s:
From an April 27, 2008 sermon: “If you really want to know where you came from and happen to believe the word of God that you are not a descendant of a chimpanzee, this is what the word of God says. I believe this version.”
From a July 8, 2007 sermon: “Those that die without Christ have a horrible, horrible surprise.”
From a July 28, 2007 sermon: “Do you believe we’re in the last days? After listening to Newt Gingrich and the prime minister of Israel and a number of others at our gathering, I became convinced, and I have been convinced for some time. We are living in the last days. These are incredible times to live in.”
As for the beliefs of the Wasilla Assemblies of God they are posted on their web site:
WE BELIEVE… The Initial Physical Evidence of the Baptism in the Holy Spirit is Speaking in Tongues, as experienced on the Day of Pentecost and referenced throughout Acts and the Epistles.
WE BELIEVE…The Church has a Mission to seek and save all who are lost in sin.
WE BELIEVE…A Divinely Called and Scripturally Ordained Leadership Ministry Serves the Church. The Bible teaches that each of us under leadership must commit ourselves to reach others for Christ, to worship Him with other believers, and to build up or edify the body of believers the Church.
The national Assemblies of God web site is a bit more forthcoming about their political beliefs. Here is their statement on homosexuality:
We believe, in the light of biblical revelation, that the growing cultural acceptance of homosexual identity and behavior, male and female, is symptomatic of a broader spiritual disorder that threatens the family, the government, and the church. This paper is a brief exposition of salient biblical teachings on this subject.
This is followed by a paragraph in bold type headlined, “Homosexuality is Sin.” Another position paper focuses on creation.
Even though the Bible is not primarily a book of science, it is as trustworthy in the area of science as when it speaks to any other subject. We can have confidence in what it says concerning the origin of all things because “all Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16). The Bible is not the changing word of human beings, but the unchanging Word of God (1 Thessalonians 2:13).
Since I am a person with a disability, I was especially interested in the Assemblies’ position on disability. It begins:
Pentecostal evangelicals, believing that miracles still happen today, sometimes have difficulty dealing with people with permanent disabilities and with those who are not healed after much prayer.
Even stranger is this statement on mental disabilities:
We do not fully understand the age of accountability and its application to persons with mental disabilities. We do not understand how a person with a mental disability relates to God. But we must give opportunity for the Spirit of God to speak to such a person at his or her level of comprehension.
Their position on abortion is unequivocal:
Every human life, from conception through death, is therefore to be valued, respected, nurtured, and protected.
As for Palin’s former pastor, the Internet is full of revelations about him, the most damaging of which appeared in a story by Nico Pitney and Sam Stein:
Pastor Kalnins has also preached that critics of President Bush will be banished to hell; questioned whether people who voted for Sen. John Kerry in 2004 would be accepted to heaven; charged that the 9/11 terrorist attacks and war in Iraq were part of a war “contending for your faith;” and said that Jesus “operated from that position of war mode.”
So where does Sarah Palin fit in all this? The 2002 date for her supposed “switch” should have us all wondering about this woman, for it was shortly after she became a statewide candidate. That the switch and the statewide exposure came so closely has some Alaskans talking about it being mainly for political reasons. Certainly the switch seems to come very close to passing the duck test, for it seems too convenient, too calculated. In short, it seems designed to deflect criticism of her religious beliefs. Is what we have a stealth Tom DeLay?
Barack Obama’s ties to the Reverend Wright became a media feeding frenzy that went on far too long and, in fact, continues on the back roads of the Internet. Yet there has been no similar feeding frenzy about Palin’s beliefs. The questions about her church affiliation appear to have accomplished their purpose, drawing attention away from her own Reverend Wrights.
Yet there are some themes running through all four churches and the sermons of their pastors that bear further examination. First is the troubling apocalyptic strain running through all of them. Here is Kroon at his most graphic:
What if…right now, God chose to respond to our nation, God chose to respond to our moral slippage, our persistent moral slippage? In fact, let’s be more precise—our persistent moral rebellion. What if God chose to respond to our chronic greed, that we don’t even recognize as greed anymore? What if God responded to our pervasive, our pervasive personal and national pride? What if God chose to respond to our epidemic gluttony? In a starving world Americans are trying to figure out how to get thinner. What if God responded to our multiple addictions? What if God responded to our endless excuses? What if God responded to our persistent self-absorption? That in any circumstance and any situation we’ll say ‘me-first’, no matter what it does to our family, no matter what it does to our friends, no matter what it does to our community? And what if God chose to respond to our casual and careless worship? And yes, in America worship is casual and careless! What if God chose to respond to that by raising up a modern version of the Chaldeans? It’s possible.
A second theme that emerges from all four is their attitude towards unbelievers. There is little sympathy for them. They are to be converted or they will suffer eternal damnation. None of these churches openly preaches against Jews, Muslims or other faiths, but opposition, even hatred for them, is implied since they are unbelievers.
In America, anti-Semitism has taken on a new, uglier face that hides direct opposition to Jews, just as racism has taken on a new face. Yet sometimes that face peers out from behind the mask as it did when Rose’s church scheduled controversial pastor John Hagee, head of Christians United for Israel or Kroon’s church booked David Brickner, executive director of Jews for Jesus. With Palin sitting in the congregation Brickner suggested:
Terrorism in Israel was God’s judgment on the Jews for failing to accept Christ as the Messiah.
But what we see in Israel, the conflict that has spilled out throughout the Middle East, really which is all about Jerusalem, is an ongoing reflection of the fact that there is judgment.
Whether Palin or any of her churches believe in dispensationalism, the doctrine that Israel must return to its Biblical territory before the last days can begin, is open to question. But to know someone who might be receptive to that view is a heartbeat away from the Presidency cannot inspire hope for peace in the Middle East.
Finally, in all four churches there is a belief in theocracy, for one of the features of the last days is that Jesus will come back to rule and punish the sinful. So the ideal government for these people is a Christian dictatorship with, as DeLay put it, a strong sword.
As for Plain herself, her refusal to talk at length about her religious beliefs and the actions of some of the churches she has attended in pulling controversial sermons and statements off their web sites hardly inspires confidence. Back in the 1980s they used to call themselves the Moral Majority, openly stating that most Americans agreed with the views of the religious right. Now they no longer make such claims, but instead hide their views as if they knew that if most American found out what they really believe, they would find themselves rejected.
Instead the religious right is back into stealth campaigning, trying to keep its views a secret from the American public and especially trying to keep the views of their candidates a secret. We know about abortion, of course, and gay marriage, but for most Americans these no longer hold as much power as wedge issues. As we know now, those issues only exemplified a larger, more dangerous view that makes the religious right the American equivalent of the Taliban, religious zealots determined that the country march to their beliefs.
The YouTube sermon is actually far worse than Barack Obama’s involvement with Wright, for Obama never said he agreed with Wright’s more outrageous statements and there are no YouTube sermons of Obama preaching Wright’s theology. But there is a video of Sarah Palin preaching in the Assemblies of God church she denies she attends any more, hugging the church’s founder. Yet the media and even Obama campaign managers appear to be giving Palin what amounts to a free pass on this one.
The Wright incident appears to have frozen the Obama campaign when it comes to religion. They appear reluctant to use one of their strongest weapons against Palin for fear it will reignite the Wright controversy. That could be a fatal mistake in that it appears to lend to the perception that Obama is wimpy or, more troubling, that it is he, not Palin, who is hiding something.
As for the media they should be ashamed of themselves. Potentially we have someone who could be sitting in the Oval Office who believes God figures in everything from the Alaska pipeline to the Iraq War. This is the Sarah Palin that ought to have America up in arms.
Almost half a century ago, America questioned whether the Pope would guide the hand of John Kennedy, but today when a candidate readily admits religion plays a role in virtually every decision she makes, no one appears overly concerned.
This is an example of how the Counterrevolution has altered a fundamental debate in American politics. Formerly we asked whether religion would influence political decisions; now we question that it won’t. Sarah Palin represents the scariest woman in American politics precisely because she symbolizes this shift. If she does enter the Oval Office, America for all practical purposes will become a theocracy. We will have become that which we purport to vehemently oppose–a homegrown version of the Taliban.
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