Sarah Palin Pastor’s Re-Education Scheme “May Seem Like Totalitarianism”

While Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has recently raised the specter of totalitarian government by warning about “death panels” she claims are part of the Obama administration’s health care plan, Palin herself has ties to a prominent Christian pastor who publicly advocates the establishment of a government regime that, in his own words, “may seem like totalitarianism” and would re-educate citizens in ‘correct’ decision making — an approach reminiscent of re-education campaigns during the violence-wracked Chinese communist Cultural Revolution.

Last March, Sarah Palin enjoyed an extended telephone consultation and pep talk with Morningstar Ministries founder and head Rick Joyner, who has contacts among Republicans in Congress and whose ministry is closely tied to Palin’s most important Alaskan church, the Wasilla Assembly of God.

Even some of Sarah Palin’s most dedicated fans might be taken aback by Joyner’s enthusiastic advocacy for an authoritarian religious state. In a “prophecy” published June 19, 2007, Rick Joyner wrote, “The kingdom of God will not be socialism, but a freedom even greater than anyone on earth knows at this time. At first it may seem like totalitarianism … Instead of taking away liberties and becoming more domineering, the kingdom will move from a point of necessary control while people are learning truth, integrity, honor, and how to make decisions, to increasing liberty so that they can.”

Barracuda Sarah: Palin’s Resentments of the Educated Started in Wasilla

Wasilla, Alaska Mayor Sarah Palin

The New Republic published an excellent, insightful expose by senior editor Noam Scheiber on Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s apparent disdain for those she perceives as educated “elites,” starting with her upbringing in Wasilla, Alaska and continuing throughout her political career as she exacted ‘punishment’ on adversaries for her own personal agendas and vendettas.

It’s unlikely the name Sarah Palin would mean much to anyone if not for a man named Nick Carney. Long before she stood up to Republican cronies and “the good old boys” of Alaska, Palin stood up to Carney, a colleague on Wasilla’s city council. As Kaylene Johnson explains in her sympathetic biography, Sarah, Carney had the gall to propose an ordinance giving his own company the city contract for garbage removal. In Johnson’s telling, it was the first time Palin bravely spoke truth to power: “‘I said no and I voted no,’ Sarah said. ‘People should have the choice about whether or not to haul their garbage to the dump.'” Johnson writes that Palin’s vote made Carney into a “political enemy”–the first of many, it turns out.

Is Gov. Palin a Member of ‘Spiritual Warfare’ Prayer Group?

Mary Glazier

An Alaskan “Strategic Prayer Network” leader, Mary Glazier, who claims to be a “witch-hunter,” says Palin is part of her “prayer group.”  Bruce Wilson, writing for AlterNet.org, lies out the case for concerns every voter should have in this vice presidential candidate’s objectivity in the seperation of church and state.

Please Note: The video posted with this article is silent for the first 45 seconds. Please watch it in its entirety if you are interested in hearing Mary Glazier’s claims.

“I believe in warfare. We were given an assignment in Alaska … we had the very liberal candidates running for governor, and we began to pray for God to give us a Christian,” declared Mary Glazier. At a three day religious conference held in Everett, Washington last summer, on June 13, 2008, Glazier described how, nearly two decades ago, her movement helped propel Alaska Independence Party candidate Walter J. Hickel, in an upset write-in campaign, into the Alaska governor’s office: Glazier’s new prayer group member, a 24 year old woman named Sarah Palin, would later follow.

Like Thomas Muthee, Mary Glazier describes waging personal battles against witches and witchcraft and, also like Muthee, Mary Glazier appears to have a special religious connection to Sarah Palin. Bishop Thomas Muthee, in an October 2005 ceremony at the Wasilla Assembly of God, anointed and blessed Sarah Palin as a political leader.

On June 13, 2008 Mary Glazier told attendees at the “Opening the Gate of Heaven on Earth” conference, who represented many of the New Apostolic Reformation’s top leaders, that she had been present at the inception of Sarah Palin’s political career and that Palin was in her personal prayer group :

There was a twenty-four year old woman that God began to speak to about entering into politics. She became a part of our prayer group out in Wasilla. Years later, became the mayor of Wasilla. And last year was elected Governor of the state of Alaska. Yes! Hallelujah! At her inauguration she dedicated the state to Jesus Christ. Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

The good news spread through New Apostolic Reformation networks:

“Sarah Palin er bønnegriger og pinsevenn!” wrote Pastor Jan-Aage Torp excitedly in a September 6, 2008 post on his blog: “Palin is a Prayer Warrior and Pentecostal!”

Pastor Torp of Oslo, Norway, is an Apostle in C. Peter Wagner’s International Coalition of Apostles, a network of about 500 apostles in the United States and 42 other nations. Torp reported in Norwegian that he had been visiting C. Peter Wagner and Wagner’s wife Doris during the previous week, at the time when Palin was named as a vice-presidential candidate. Torp noted the excitement about Palin in the media but pointed out an interesting thing he said has not received much attention in the US — that Sarah Palin is a member of the prayer networks under Peter Wagner and his Alaska prayer-leader, Mary Glazier.

Mary Glazier is one of the Prophets of Wagner’s inner circle of leadership, the Apostolic Council of Prophetic Elders. The New Apostolic Reformation is the name that Wagner has given to the structure that he formed in the late 1990s to bring together numerous strands of the “Third Wave of the Holy Spirit” into a distinct and identifiable structure. The June 13, 2008, “Opening the Gate for Heaven on Earth: Receiving the New Prophetic Wind for Increase” conference, in Everett, Washington, was attended by Wagner and his top Apostles and Prophets. Mary Glazier is the Alaska state leader of Wagner’s U.S. Strategic Prayer Network.

Sarah Palin has been anointed through the laying on of hands in at least four publicized ceremonies. Three of these have been captured on existing video or photographs — including the photographs posted on the official State of Alaska site. Currently the most widely published account is the video of the anointing by Kenyan pastor Thomas Muthee at the Wasilla Assembly of God before Palin was elected governor of Alaska.

While a number of media outlets have featured stories of Muthee’s witch hunting exploits in Kiambu, Bishop Muthee is not just any witch hunter. He is internationally known for his starring role in the Transformations I video, produced in 1999, as one of the definitive media tools for the new evangelizing efforts of the Third Wave and the resulting New Apostolic Reformation.

The New Apostolic Reformation is now a distinct entity with its own theology, apostolic networks, schools, school accreditation system, conferences, and media. The Apostolic structure, as defined by Wagner, provides a network of authority or “apostolic covering.” Each of Wagner’s approximately 500 Apostles has networks of their own, some claiming hundreds or even thousands of ministries under their authority. They view themselves as conducting “the most radical restructuring of Christianity since the Reformation” and believe they are unifying an end time church that will harvest millions of souls before the return of Jesus.

The New Apostolics have developed a unique set of evangelizing tools and terms based on the concept of spiritual mapping and the expulsion of demons. This is for the specific purpose of conquering cities that are resisting the gospel due to the presence of territorial demons and generational curses. These concepts have been marketed through media and videos including the Transformations videos, produced by George Otis, Jr. of the Sentinel Group, which were developed to document what the videos claimed were successful transformations of entire communities through “spiritual warfare” and other of Wagner’s new evangelizing technologies. The videos have reinforced the ultimate in faith-based social policy arguments – that human improvement of society is not possible without the supernatural intervention of God and that this intervention can only happen when groups of “Spirit-filled” Christians unite to chase the demons out of their communities and to take authority away from those who are not “born again.”

C. Peter Wagner declared 2001 as the beginning of the New Apostolic Age, but by 1999 the movement was already coalescing around the new spiritual warfare theology presented in the Transformations video and related books. Thomas Muthee has played a key role as an example of the success that can be achieved through the expulsion of demons from communities.

This spiritual warfare was not limited to Africa. The Transformations I video also featured Almolonga, Guatemala; Cali, Colombia; and Hemet, California. In Hemet, spiritual warriors supposedly succeeded in burning down a Transcendental Meditation center through spiritual mapping and prayer. In the video, narrator George Otis and participating local ministers claim that the area was transformed when “Spirit-filled Christians” took control of the government and public schools. [See the article Palin, Muthee, and the Witch-Journalists Miss the Major Story for more on the Transformations video]. This and subsequent video productions were shown around the world and the media effort spawned a number of Transformation evangelizing conferences and networks. Transformation became a buzzword for the faith-based social programs built around the evangelizing of communities.

Transforming Melbourne is a city wide renewal group which prominently publicizes testimony of New Apostolic Prophetess Ana Mendez. Mendez participated with Wagner’s wife Doris and other top Apostles and Prophets on a 1997 mission to the Himalayas named “Operation Ice Castle.” This was a spiritual warfare venture to combat the chief of all territorial demons, the “Queen of Heaven.” Wagner would later write a bout this excursion in his books, “Confronting the Queen of Heaven,” and “The Queen’s Domain,” concerning the demon he believes is responsible for preventing acceptance of the gospel in Roman Catholic Churches as well as Islam. Mendez’s testimony of the event publicized on Transforming Melbourne, and other sites, includes her belief that their prayer expedition may have had many successful results including the death of Mother Theresa.

Glazier’s sermon, which featured her comments on Palin, was given at a conference Opening the Gate of Heaven on Earth, that also featured a number of speeches and sermons–on the plans of leaders of the New Apostolic Reformation to take control of society and government through their “Seven Mountains Strategy.” These efforts to take control of religion, family, education, arts and entertainment, media, government, and business are clearly defined in their publicity and in numerous conferences on their efforts. Thomas Muthee quite plainly laid out the need to take over the seven “kingdoms” in the short sermon, or speech, Muthee gave before the anointing of Sarah Palin.

A striking feature of the ministries of the New Apostolic Reformation is their use of militant terminology. Diane Buker, the state leader for Florida is head of a ministry titled Battle Axe Brigade. The website features an animated arm swinging a mace as well as articles claiming that Roman Catholicism and Mormonism are corrupt religious systems and that Roman Catholicism is bound by a religious spirit.

Cindy Jacobs, another Prophetic Elder, has a ministry titled Generals of Intercession and Jacobs has authored books such as Possessing the Gates of the Enemy, a Training Manual for Militant Intercession. Ana Mendez (Ferrell), a Prophetess in the Wagner Apostolic network system, believes she may have helped kill Mother Theresa.

George Otis included an entire glossary on new spiritual warfare terms in the back of his book “Informed Intercession.” Ed Kalnins of Wasilla Assembly of God and Thomas Muthee, both of whom have anointed Palin, include exhortations of violence in their sermons. Like many others in the movement they prominently feature the biblical quote “the violent take it by force” in their rhetoric on spiritual warfare.

The New Apostolic Reformation leadership claims that its militant sounding terminology only applies to spiritual warfare and not physical warfare against human beings. Apostle Tim Taylor attended the US Naval War College Strategies and Policy Course and applies this knowledge in his spiritual warfare book, “Operation Rolling Thunder.” He includes, on some of his Watchman Ministries pages, a disclaimer–that spiritual warfare must not confuse battle against demonic forces with people. But sometimes spiritual warfare becomes physical conflict, as in the case of, the old woman in Thomas Muthee’s Nairobi suburb of Kiambu, accused of witchcraft and then hounded out of town. Mary Glazier has her own witch hunting story and, like Muthee, Glazier also believes that the removal of the witch from the geographic area was required in order for the community to be transformed. “Spirit Led Woman” magazine in 2003 wrote about Glazier’s claim of chasing the witch from Alaska through spiritual warfare:

In 1995, Mary mobilized a prayer network for Alaska’s prisons and began experiencing spiritual warfare as never before. She had received word that a witch had applied for a job as chaplain of the state’s prison system … Mary recalls, “As we continued to pray against the spirit of witchcraft, her incense altar caught on fire, her car engine blew up, she went blind in her left eye, and she was diagnosed with cancer.Ultimately, the witch fled to another state for medical treatment. Soon after, revival visited every prison in Alaska. At the women’s correctional facility in Anchorage alone, 55 of 60 inmates found Christ. “Ask largely,” Mary says. “Intercessory prayer is making a major difference in North America.”

The participants of this movement really do believe that their prayers are the cause of destruction of property and injury, or perhaps even the death, of others like Mother Theresa and Princess Diana. And they do clearly profess to believe that others will be forced to accept their beliefs or be destroyed.

As Mary Glazer told Peter Wagner and the other New Apostolic Reformation leaders at the June 12-14 “Opening the Gate of Heaven on Earth” conference:

There is a tipping point, at which, at which time, because of the sin of the land, the people then have to be displaced … God is preparing a people to displace the ones whose sin is rising so that then they tip over and the church goes in – one is removed and the church moves in and takes the territory. Now, that does not mean that the people are removed, because God removes them from the Kingdom of Darkness into the Kingdom of Light. They are given an opportunity to change allegiances.

For more information on other links between Sarah Palin and the New Apostolic Reformation, see Palin and the Apostles at and the entire ongoing series of articles, Palin’s Churches and the Third Wave.

Bruce Wilson writes for Talk To Action, a blog specializing in faith and politics.

Is Palin a Member of ‘Spiritual Warfare’ Prayer Group?

About Sarah Palin: A Open Letter From Anne Kilkenny of Wasilla, Alaska

Wasilla, Alaska resident Anne Kilkenny wrote an extremely comprehensive, objective letter on the history of Mayor Sarah Palin and her political career starting in Wasilla, Alaska.  This letter has been published on a variety of internet forums and blogs nationwide over the past two weeks, but it is worth reprinting here for anyone who missed reading it the first time around.  Anne Kilkenny is a homemaker and education advocate in Wasilla, Alaska.  The letter was originally written to friends of Ms. Kilkenny, in which she shares her thoughts and observation about vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, whom she has personally known for many years.  ~ Sarah Palin Truth Squad

Here below is Anne Kilkenny’s open letter in its entirety.

I am a resident of Wasilla, Alaska. I have known Sarah since 1992. Everyone here knows Sarah, so it is nothing special to say we are on a first-name basis. Our children have attended the same schools. Her father was my child’s favorite substitute teacher. I also am on a first name basis with her parents and mother-in-law. I attended more City Council meetings during her administration than about 99% of the residents of the city.

She is enormously popular; in every way she’s like the most popular girl in middle school. Even men who think she is a poor choice and won’t vote for her can’t quit smiling when talking about her because she is a “babe”.

It is astonishing and almost scary how well she can keep a secret. She kept her most recent pregnancy a secret from her children and parents for seven months. She is “pro-life”. She recently gave birth to a Down’s syndrome baby. There is no cover-up involved, here; Trig is her baby. She is energetic and hardworking. She regularly worked out at the gym.

She is savvy. She doesn’t take positions; she just “puts things out there” and if they prove to be popular, then she takes credit. Her husband works a union job on the North Slope for BP and is a champion snowmobile racer. Todd Palin’s kind of job is highly sought-after because of the schedule and high pay. He arranges his work schedule so he can fish for salmon in Bristol Bay for a month or so in summer, but by no stretch of the imagination is fishing their major source of income. Nor has her life-style ever been anything like that of native Alaskans. Sarah and her whole family are avid hunters. She’s smart.

Her experience is as mayor of a city with a population of about 5,000 (at the time), and less than 2 years as governor of a state with about 670,000 residents. During her mayoral administration most of the actual work of running this small city was turned over to an administrator. She had been pushed to hire this administrator by party power-brokers after she had gotten herself into some trouble over precipitous firings which had given rise to a recall campaign.

Sarah campaigned in Wasilla as a “fiscal conservative”. During her 6 years as Mayor, she increased general government expenditures by over 33%. During those same 6 years the amount of taxes collected by the City increased by 38%. This was during a period of low inflation (1996-2002). She reduced progressive property taxes and increased a regressive sales tax which taxed even food. The tax cuts that she promoted benefited large corporate property owners way more than they benefited residents.

The huge increases in tax revenues during her mayoral administration weren’t enough to fund everything on her wish list though, borrowed money was needed, too. She inherited a city with zero debt, but left it with indebtedness of over $22 million. What did Mayor Palin encourage the voters to borrow money for? Was it the infrastructure that she said she supported? The sewage treatment plant that the city lacked? or a new library? No. $1m for a park. $15m-plus for construction of a multi-use sports complex which she rushed through to build on a piece of property that the City didn’t even have clear title to, that was still in litigation 7 yrs later-to the delight of the lawyers involved! The sports complex itself is a nice addition to the community but a huge money pit, not the profit-generator she claimed it would be. She also supported bonds for $5.5m for road projects that could have been done in 5-7 yrs without any borrowing.

While Mayor, City Hall was extensively remodeled and her office redecorated more than once. These are small numbers, but Wasilla is a very small city. As an oil producer, the high price of oil has created a budget surplus in Alaska. Rather than invest this surplus in technology that will make us energy independent and increase efficiency, as Governor she proposed distribution of this surplus to every individual in the state.

In this time of record state revenues and budget surpluses, she recommended that the state borrow/bond for road projects, even while she proposed distribution of surplus state revenues: spend today’s surplus, borrow for needs.

She’s not very tolerant of divergent opinions or open to outside ideasor compromise. As Mayor, she fought ideas that weren’t generated by her or her staff. Ideas weren’t evaluated on their merits, but on the basis of who proposed them.

While Sarah was Mayor of Wasilla she tried to fire our highly respected City Librarian because the Librarian refused to consider removing from the library some books that Sarah wanted removed. City residents rallied to the defense of the City Librarian and against Palin’s attempt at out-and-out censorship, so Palin backed down and withdrew her termination letter. People who fought her attempt to oust the Librarian are on her enemies list to this day.

Sarah complained about the “old boy’s club” when she first ran for Mayor, so what did she bring Wasilla? A new set of “old boys”. Palin fired most of the experienced staff she inherited. At the City and as Governor she hired or elevated new, inexperienced, obscure people, creating a staff totally dependent on her for their jobs and eternally grateful and fiercely loyal-loyal to the point of abusing their power to further her personal agenda, as she has acknowledged happened in the case of pressuring the State’s top cop (see below).

As Mayor, Sarah fired Wasilla’s Police Chief because he “intimidated” her, she told the press. As Governor, her recent firing of Alaska’s top cop has the ring of familiarity about it. He served at her pleasure and she had every legal right to fire him, but it’s pretty clear that an important factor in her decision to fire him was because he wouldn’t fire her sister’s ex-husband, a State Trooper. Under investigation for abuse of power, she has had to admit that more than 2 dozen contacts were made between her staff and family to the person that she later fired, pressuring him to fire her ex-brother-in-law. She tried to replace the man she fired with a man who she knew had been reprimanded for sexual harassment; when this caused a public furor, she withdrew her support.

She has bitten the hand of every person who extended theirs to her in help. The City Council person who personally escorted her around town introducing her to voters when she first ran for Wasilla City Council became one of her first targets when she was later elected Mayor. She abruptly fired her loyal City Administrator; even people who didn’t like the guy were stunned by this ruthlessness.

Fear of retribution has kept all of these people from saying anything publicly about her.

When then-Governor Murkowski was handing out political plums, Sarah got the best, Chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission: one of the few jobs not in Juneau and one of the best paid. She had no background in oil & gas issues. Within months of scoring this great job which paid $122,400/yr, she was complaining in the press about the high salary. I was told that she hated that job: the commute, the structured hours, the work. Sarah became aware that a member of this Commission (who was also the State Chair of the Republican Party) engaged in unethical behavior on the job.

In a gutsy move which some undoubtedly cautioned her could be political suicide, Sarah solved all her problems in one fell swoop: got out of the job she hated and garnered gobs of media attention as the patron saint of ethics and as a gutsy fighter against the “old boys’ club” when she dramatically quit, exposing this man’s ethics violations (for which he was fined).

As Mayor, she had her hand stuck out as far as anyone for pork from Senator Ted Stevens. Lately, she has castigated his pork-barrel politics and publicly humiliated him. She only opposed the “bridge to nowhere” after it became clear that it would be unwise not to.

As Governor, she gave the Legislature no direction and budget guidelines, then made a big grandstand display of line-item vetoing projects, calling them pork. Public outcry and further legislative action restored most of these projects-which had been vetoed simply because she was not aware of their importance-but with the unobservant she had gained a reputation as “anti-pork”.

She is solidly Republican: no political maverick. The State party leaders hate her because she has bit them in the back and humiliated them. Other members of the party object to her self-description as a fiscal conservative.

Around Wasilla there are people who went to high school with Sarah.

They call her “Sarah Barracuda” because of her unbridled ambition and predatory ruthlessness. Before she became so powerful, very ugly stories circulated around town about shenanigans she pulled to be made point guard on the high school basketball team. When Sarah’s mother-in-law, a highly respected member of the community and experienced manager, ran for Mayor, Sarah refused to endorse her.

As Governor, she stepped outside of the box and put together of package of legislation known as “AGIA” that forced the oil companies to march to the beat of her drum.

Like most Alaskans, she favors drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. She has questioned if the loss of sea ice is linked toglobal warming. She campaigned “as a private citizen” against a state initiaitive that would have either a) protected salmon streams from pollution from mines, or b) tied up in the courts all mining in the state (depending on who you listen to). She has pushed the State’s lawsuit against the Dept. of the Interior’s decision to list polar bears as threatened species.

McCain is the oldest person to ever run for President; Sarah will be a heartbeat away from being President. There has to be literally millions of Americans who are more knowledgeable and experienced than she. However, there’s a lot of people who have underestimated her and are regretting it.

CLAIM VS FACT

• “Hockey mom”: true for a few years
• “PTA mom”: true years ago when her first-born was in elementary school, not since
• “NRA supporter”: absolutely true
• social conservative: mixed. Opposes gay marriage, BUT vetoed a bill that would have denied benefits to employees in same-sex relationships (said she did this because it was unconsitutional).
• pro-creationism: mixed. Supports it, BUT did nothing as Governor to promote it.
• “Pro-life”: mixed. Knowingly gave birth to a Down’s syndrome baby BUT declined to call a special legislative session on some pro-life legislation
• “Experienced”: Some high schools have more students than Wasilla has residents. Many cities have more residents than the state of Alaska. No legislative experience other than City Council. Little hands-on supervisory or managerial experience; needed help of a city administrator to run town of about 5,000.
• political maverick: not at all
• gutsy: absolutely!
• open & transparent: ??? Good at keeping secrets. Not good at explaining actions.
• has a developed philosophy of public policy: no
• “a Greenie”: no. Turned Wasilla into a wasteland of big box stores and disconnected parking lots. Is pro-drilling off-shore and in ANWR.
• fiscal conservative: not by my definition!
• pro-infrastructure: No. Promoted a sports complex and park in a city without a sewage treatment plant or storm drainage system. Built streets to early 20th century standards.
• pro-tax relief: Lowered taxes for businesses, increased tax burden on residents
• pro-small government: No. Oversaw greatest expansion of city government in Wasilla’s history.
• pro-labor/pro-union. No. Just because her husband works union doesn’t make her pro-labor. I have seen nothing to support any claim that she is pro-labor/pro-union.

WHY AM I WRITING THIS?

First, I have long believed in the importance of being an informed voter. I am a voter registrar. For 10 years I put on student voting programs in the schools. If you google my name (Anne Kilkenny + Alaska), you will find references to my participation in local government, education, and PTA/parent organizations.

Secondly, I’ve always operated in the belief that “Bad things happen when good people stay silent”. Few people know as much as I do because few have gone to as many City Council meetings.

Third, I am just a housewife. I don’t have a job she can bump me out of. I don’t belong to any organization that she can hurt. But, I am no fool; she is immensely popular here, and it is likely that this will cost me somehow in the future: that’s life.

Fourth, she has hated me since back in 1996, when I was one of the 100 or so people who rallied to support the City Librarian against Sarah’s attempt at censorship.

Fifth, I looked around and realized that everybody else was afraid to say anything because they were somehow vulnerable.

CAVEATS

I am not a statistician. I developed the numbers for the increase in spending & taxation 2 years ago (when Palin was running for Governor) from information supplied to me by the Finance Director of the City of Wasilla, and I can’t recall exactly what I adjusted for: did I adjust for inflation? for population increases? Right now, it is impossible for a private person to get any info out of City Hall-they are swamped. So I can’t verify my numbers.

You may have noticed that there are various numbers circulating for the population of Wasilla, ranging from my “about 5,000″, up to 9,000. The day Palin’s selection was announced a city official told me that the current population is about 7,000. The official 2000 census count was 5,460. I have used about 5,000 because Palin was Mayor from 1996 to 2002, and the city was growing rapidly in the mid-90’s.

About Sarah Palin: A Letter From Anne Kilkenny

About Sarah Palin: an e-mail from Wasilla

Wasilla Alaska rural farmland: Ms. Palin's critics say too much growth too quickly has made a mess of what not long ago was homesteaded farmland.

Where She Was Saved: The Church Where Sarah Palin Grew Up and Was Baptized Preaches Some of the Most Extreme Religious Views in the Nation

Writer Sarah Posner recently examined Alaska Governor Sarah Palin childhood church, the Wasilla Assembly of God, in an article published September 11, 2008 on Salon.com.  The following is an excerpt from Posner’s article … ~ Sarah Palin Truth Squad

In June, Sarah Palin took the stage at the Wasilla Assembly of God, a deeply conservative Pentecostal church. The excitable Alaskan governor told a graduating class of missionary students that it “was so cool growing up in this church, getting saved here, getting baptized.” She went on to declare that her son Track will deploy to Iraq, and urged students to pray “that our leaders, that our national leaders, are sending [soldiers] out on a task that is from God.” She added: “That’s what we have to make sure that we are praying for — that there is a plan and that that plan is God’s plan.”

One big question about Palin is how that deterministic view of God’s will in world affairs influences her decision-making on issues ranging from the Middle East to the environment, sexuality to education. What is not in doubt is that her addition to the Republican ticket has fired up the religious right and the party’s most conservative base.

The McCain campaign has downplayed Palin’s Pentecostal roots. But as her testimony at the Wasilla Assembly of God demonstrates, she is motivated by the idea that godly forces are locked in spiritual warfare with satanic forces. For many with a Pentecostal upbringing like Palin’s, fighting that battle is part of God’s plan for the end of days, when war will end the world as we know it, Jesus will come back, and non-Christians will convert or perish.

Where She Was Saved: The Church Where Sarah Palin Grew Up and Was Baptized Preaches Some of the Most Extreme Religious Views in the Nation

Wasilla Alaska Assembly of God Church

Kissing the Jewish Vote Goodbye: Sarah Palin’s Evangelical Christianity and Perfunctory Support for Israel are Likely to Turn Off Jewish McCain Supporters

Journalist Richard Silverstein, whose blog Tikun Olam is dedicated to the resolution of the Israeli-Arb Conflict, wrote a recent article for the Guardian.co.uk on the selection of Governor Sarah Palin as Senator John McCain’s vice presidential running mate. 

Praise the Lord and pass the ballot box.

Things are different in Alaska, perhaps because politically there is less at stake. But now that Sarah Palin moves onto a national stage as John McCain’s running mate, it might be useful to examine some of her faith-based values in greater detail.

She emphasised these views in a talk she gave in June at her hometown church in Wasilla, Alaska. In his introduction, controversial evangelical Pastor Ed Kalnins noted that when he first met Palin, she was the mayor of the town:

When I got the chance to meet our mayor, I said: “This person loves Jesus. That’s the bottom line. She loves Jesus with everything she has. She’s a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ before she’s a mayor.”

After boasting that her 19-year-old son Track had enlisted in the military and was about to be deployed to Iraq, Palin said:

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 [US 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.

Subsequently, she spoke about a $30bn natural gas pipeline that she’s seeking to build from Alaska through Canada to the lower 48 states:

I can work really, really hard to get a natural gas pipeline, a $30bn project that’s going to create a lot of new jobs for Alaskans and will have a lot of energy flowing through here. And pray about that also. I think God’s will has to be done in unifying people and companies to get that gas line built, so pray for that.

Then, after listing the tasks she can do as governor to make the state a decent place to live, she added:

None of that is gonna do any good if the people’s heart isn’t right with God. We can work together to make sure that God’s will be done here in Alaska.

After watching this video, I can perfectly understand why evangelicals are overjoyed with her nomination. But I can’t understand why McCain was as well. Did he not think that statements like this might disturb non-evangelicals, not to mention non-Christians, of which, believe it or not, there are a few in this country?

Religiously, Sarah Palin is George Bush unbuttoned. The latter manages much of the time to disguise the evangelical passion of his political mission. Palin possesses the same zeal, but lays it on the line for all to see. There is no artifice, no subtlety. It’s all right there. If this woman is right for the vice-presidency, then evangelical Christianity is even more pervasive and powerful than I feared.

Frankly, candidates like Palin are the Jews’ worst nightmare. The sentiments she expresses are part of a vestigial memory we internalise about what intolerance and bigotry sounds like. This certainly doesn’t rise to the level of flat-out anti-Semitism. But we know when we’re not wanted, and as non-believers we’re not wanted in the evangelical Christian worldview, except as enablers of Jesus’ final coming.

The Politico’s Ben Smith reports that only two weeks ago, Palin attended her local church to hear Jews for Jesus executive director David Brickner excoriate Jews for not accepting Him as their Lord and saviour:

Brickner’s mission has drawn wide criticism from the organised Jewish community, and the Anti-Defamation League accused them in a report of “targeting Jews for conversion with subterfuge and deception”.

Brickner … described terrorist attacks on Israelis as God’s “judgment of unbelief” of Jews who haven’t embraced Christianity.

“Judgment is very real and we see it played out on the pages of the newspapers and on the television. It’s very real. When [Brickner’s son] was in Jerusalem he was there to witness some of that judgment, some of that conflict, when a Palestinian from East Jerusalem took a bulldozer and went plowing through a score of cars, killing numbers of people. Judgment – you can’t miss it.”

I’m not going to make the same mistake anti-Obamaites made in attributing the Rev Jeremiah Wright’s views to Obama by attributing Brickner’s views to Palin. But I think it’s entirely legitimate to ask what she was doing there while a speaker Jews view as anathema was expressing such ideas. And it’s appropriate to insist that she not participate in such forums in the future and that she dissociate herself from the views she heard that day.

We are a minority who, in a way, lives on the kindness of strangers, to quote Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire. In the evangelical world that Palin embraces there is little kindness for Jews.

Until now, McCain enjoyed the highest poll ratings of a Republican presidential candidate in a long time (around 32%). No longer. With Palin on his ticket he can kiss a good deal of that Jewish vote goodbye. Sure, he’ll still retain 20-25% of the hardcore true believers. But forget the rest. Smith also writes about an email he received from the Republican Jewish Coalition touting Palin as a friend of Israel because her office has an Israeli flag on the wall:

The fact that this tiny image [of the Israeli flag] is the best the official voice of Republican Jewry has to defend Palin is a mark that McCain may have just helped solve Obama’s Jewish problem.

On Tuesday, MSNBC reported that Palin, chaperoned by Joe Lieberman, had her first pro forma meeting with Aipac’s national board of directors at her Minneapolis hotel, where the campaign has sequestered her:

A campaign official … said [the meeting] was geared towards putting the American Jewish community at ease over her understanding of US-Middle East relations.

“That’s obviously going to be an issue,” the aide said. “It’s not like being the senator from New York, obviously. But these aren’t issues that are off her radar.”

Palin … expressed her “heartfelt support for Israel” and spoke of the threats it faces from Iran and others, the campaign official said.

“We had a good productive discussion on the importance of the US-Israel relationship, and we were pleased that governor Palin expressed her deep, personal, and lifelong commitment to the safety and well-being of Israel,” Aipac spokesman Josh Block said. “Like senator McCain, the vice-presidential nominee understands and believes in the special friendship between the two democracies and would work to expand and deepen the strategic partnership in a McCain/Palin administration.”

This is clearly boilerplate stuff. And you’ll notice that the story was fed to the press by spokespeople instead of the candidate herself. This is a further indication of nervousness on the campaign’s part in having Palin present her own views on the issue.

Clearly, McCain’s people worry that Palin has as little understanding of Israel as she has of other major foreign policy issues. It would be legitimate to question whether, at this point, she gets many issues of concern to the Jewish community. Her evangelical background isn’t going to help persuade Jews otherwise.

This is through no fault of her own. But the fault lies with McCain, who chose Palin without thinking through the impact this would have on his campaign in the Jewish community.

Kissing the Jewish Vote Goodbye