Back in March, I took issue with the media furore over Jeremiah Wright, and argued that two Protestant “pastors” who endorsed McCain, John Hagee and Rod Parsley, were far more insidious and dangerous in light of some of their extremist views: holding that America is involved in a divinely-ordained war against Islam, that the Palestinians have no right to territory and should be fought be force, and that Iran should be bombed pre-emptively. When you hold this up against McCain’s uneven and bellicose temperament, the implications could be quite scary. But at least McCain did not attend these churches, and gave every indication of mere pandering for votes.
Not let’s talk about Sarah Palin. Unfortunately, she seems to be a true believer in the same really atrocious theology. Worse, she seems to have been baptized Catholic. Nobody seems to know why she drifted away or apostatized. This site claims the following: “Palin, born a Catholic, left a denomination that denied pastoral authority to women in order to join one that embraced women as leaders — while still holding to traditional social views on issues like “life” and sexuality.” It also notes that her Assemblies of God denomination believes in loony end-times nonsense, including the rapture.
But let’s stop speculating and look at Palin’s own words as she addressed her church merely a few months ago:
“Pray 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 [U.S. soldiers] out on a task that is from God. That’s what we have to make sure that we’re praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God’s plan.”
This is absolutely terrifying, given that this woman will be a heartbeat away from the presidency, and a weak heartbeat at that. She is saying that the actions of the United States in the Iraq war have the mandate of heaven. But what she says pales in comparison to the utterances of her pastor, Ed Kalnins. This is a man who claimed that critics of George Bush and supporters of John Kerry were destined for hell, that the war in Iraq was part of a war “contending for your faith” and that Jesus “operated from that position of war mode.” He also thinks we are in the end times, and that Alaska will become a refuge from the ongoing tribulation. Palin was also in attendance when her Church was addressed by the “Jews for Jesus” people, who said that terrorist attacks in Israel were God’s “judgment of unbelief” of Jews who refused to embrace their own peculiar form of “Christianity”.
For me, this is far worse than the plethora of mini-scandals that seem to be constantly erupting around Palin. This theology is not only deeply misguided, it is frighteningly dangerous.
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