How Evangelicals Talk 101<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"There she goes again. According to a top strategist in the presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain, Sarah Palin believed that the decision to pick her\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/2010\/01\/how-evangelicals-talk-101\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How Evangelicals Talk 101\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"There she goes again. According to a top strategist in the presidential campaign of Sen. 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{"id":1792,"date":"2010-01-18T06:44:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-18T10:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tmatt.net\/?p=1792"},"modified":"2010-01-18T06:44:00","modified_gmt":"2010-01-18T10:44:00","slug":"how-evangelicals-talk-101","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tmatt\/2010\/01\/how-evangelicals-talk-101\/","title":{"rendered":"How Evangelicals Talk 101"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

There she goes again.<\/p>\n

According to a top strategist in the presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain, Sarah Palin believed that the decision to pick her as the Arizona Republican\u2019s running mate was actually made by Almighty God.<\/p>\n

Translated into the logic of an Associated Press report, this political theology sounded like this.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn an interview with the CBS news magazine \u201960 Minutes,\u2019 Steve Schmidt described Palin as \u2018very calm \u2014 nonplussed\u2019 after McCain met with her at his Arizona ranch just before putting her on the Republican ticket. \u2026 Schmidt said he asked Palin about her serenity in the face of becoming \u2018one of the most famous people in the world.\u2019 He quoted her as saying, \u2018It\u2019s God\u2019s plan.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

The Washington Post headline proclaimed, \u201cMcCain aide: Palin believed candidacy \u2018God\u2019s plan.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

After this latest Palin firestorm it\u2019s time to ask: \u201cWhy can\u2019t journalists learn to understand how ordinary evangelicals talk?\u201d<\/p>\n

To make matters worse, readers have no chance to understand this private, second-hand quotation because it has been stripped of all context. There is no way to know if this snippet is the entire Palin quote or merely what Schmidt has chosen to share as part of the ongoing fighting between factions inside McCain\u2019s failed campaign.<\/p>\n

The big question: Did Palin say her nomination was part of \u201cGod\u2019s plan for her life\u201d or did she, as implied, dare to claim that it was part of \u201cGod\u2019s plan for America\u201d? Most press reports have implied the latter, linking her faith-based confidence with speculation that she will run for president.<\/p>\n

This has made her an easy target for her critics \u2014 again.<\/p>\n

\u201cPalin isn\u2019t a minister or priest. She isn\u2019t a bishop. She is a celebrity,\u201d noted Andrew Sullivan, on his Atlantic Monthly website<\/a>. \u201cWhen she says \u2018it\u2019s God\u2019s will,\u2019 she is saying, it seems to me, either that her destiny is foretold as a modern day Esther \u2026 or that it doesn\u2019t matter what decisions she makes in office because God is in charge. So she is either filled with delusions of grandeur and prone to say things that believing Christians keep private out of humility; or she thinks she\u2019s some kind of Messiah figure.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, anyone with a working knowledge of evangelical lingo will understand that what Palin probably said was that this stunning door onto the national stage was, win or lose, part of \u201cGod\u2019s plan\u201d for her life. <\/p>\n

This is the approach that she consistently uses in her memoir, \u201c Going Rogue<\/a>,\u201d when discussing the twists and turns in her life \u2014 from an unexpected chance to climb the political ladder in Alaska to the challenge of an unexpected pregnancy, leading to the birth of a child with special needs.<\/p>\n

In other words, Palin believes in a God who is mysteriously working through the choices and events \u2014 painful and joyful \u2014 that have shaped her life. This is a perfectly ordinary belief among millions of evangelical Protestants and, truth be told, many other believers as well.<\/p>\n

It may help to recall that, during the 2008 campaign, Charlie Gibson of ABC News struggled to understand another piece of evangelical-speak drawn from Palin remarks about the Iraq War.<\/p>\n

The governor told a church audience: \u201cPray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right. Also, for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending (soldiers) out on a task that is from God. That\u2019s what we have to make sure that we\u2019re praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God\u2019s plan.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, in his interview with Palin, Gibson said: \u201cYou said recently, in your old church, \u2018Our national leaders are sending U.S. soldiers on a task that is from God.\u2019 Are we fighting a holy war?\u201d<\/p>\n

Palin responded: \u201cYou know, I don\u2019t know if that was my exact quote.\u201d <\/p>\n

Gibson fired back: \u201cExact words.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not exactly. Palin was reminding the worshipers to pray that God had a plan in Iraq and that decisions made by America\u2019s leaders would be consistent with that plan. She was not, as Gibson said, claiming that this was a certainty.<\/p>\n

The bottom line: It may be time to circulate a basic \u201cHow Evangelicals Talk\u201d phrase book that can be used in elite newsrooms, much like the one that journalists needed when Gov. Jimmy \u201cborn again\u201d Carter first emerged on the national scene.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"