Clinging to Her Religion
Eastland, Terry
Clinging to Her Religion The faith journey of Sarah Palin, ‘Bible-believing Christian.’ BY TERRY EASTLAND A few weeks before the Republican convention, Time magazine asked Sarah Palin what...
...She’s also been mostly on the sidelines with respect to same-sex marriage and abortion, issues often seen in religious terms...
...Rather, what has preoccupied her, as Bitney points out, are the traditional issues of state governance...
...Palin seemed to suggest that the reason to be careful was that congregants who disagreed with the endorsement might put “fewer dollars in the offering plate...
...There are, of course, other reasons to be careful, too, including the danger that a pastor who endorses a candidate might see his church’s tax exemption threatened and also the concern expressed by Palin’s pastor, Larry Kroon, that worship be kept separate from outside activities...
...There she was “saved,” as she has said, and also rebaptized, by full immersion, in Beaver Lake...
...Kroon describes himself as “pro-life...
...Palin was introduced as “a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ,” a person who doesn’t simply “put on a show” but is “the real deal...
...Finally, no discussion of Palin’s religious biography would be complete without mention of her infant son, born after a test revealed his Down syndrome, and the child her 17-year-old daughter, unmarried but engaged, is carrying...
...The church sometimes promotes events sponsored by outside groups, such as a recent Focus on the Family conference on overcoming unwanted same-sex attraction held in Anchorage...
...In Juneau, the state capital, she has gone to Juneau Christian Center...
...The Church on the Rock is “charismatic,” a term usually applied to more recent forms of Pentecostalism, while Wasilla Bible, the Palins’ present church, is neither Pentecostal nor charismatic...
...Palin also said she wouldn’t push the state board of education to add such alternatives to the curriculum...
...Those who attend Wasilla Bible tend to be social conservatives...
...Asked whether she was any particular kind of Christian, she replied, “No...
...So pray for that...
...In an interview, John Bitney, who went to high school with her and later worked for her in the governor’s offi ce, recalls that she was “just a Christian girl” who was well regarded for her character...
...Or was this simply a case of misspeaking...
...The church is the church...
...Although Palin herself hasn’t brought it up and has mostly declined to be interviewed on the matter, it is already clear that her religious background contains material unfamiliar to media and political elites...
...The proclamation does not declare Alaska a Christian state or the United States a Christian country...
...The point was to remind Alaskans of “the role Christianity has played in our rich heritage...
...Palin said: “Teach both [evolution and an alternative...
...Wasilla Bible and the other three churches Palin has attended are often described as “evangelical...
...Did Palin mean here to say that “unifying people and companies to get that gasline built” was indeed God’s will...
...Worship is worship...
...Palin also has worshipped at other churches, including the Church on the Rock in Wasilla...
...Founded in 1914, the Assemblies of God is the largest Pentecostal denomination in the country...
...It quotes various Founders (in some cases out of context) and highlights the infl uence of Christianity in the past—just as the Supreme Court does when it undertakes to uphold, say, a Ten Commandments display in a public place...
...But Palin appears to have given few explicitly religious talks that touch on governing...
...And together with her hunting and fi shing and lifetime membership in the NRA, her Bible-believing faith reminds the country of the vast cultural differences between the two parties—which is part of why Palin continues to excite the Republican base...
...And as governor, she hasn’t...
...As governor, however, she hasn’t pushed for an amendment forbidding same-sex marriage or for laws or policies embodying her pro-life sentiments...
...Palin, her husband Todd, and their growing family attended Wasilla Assembly of God until 2002, when they moved to Wasilla Bible Church...
...Palin was baptized a Roman Catholic as an infant...
...A basketball star, she led a chapter of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes...
...Look at the [public] record,” he says...
...Ever since John McCain asked Palin to be his running mate, her religion has been high on the list of subjects journalists have pursued...
...To be sure, Palin did sign a proclamation last year declaring a week in October “Christian Heritage Week” in Alaska...
...Few politicians at Palin’s level describe themselves as Bible-believing Christians...
...I don’t remember [her church work] coming up,” he told me...
...Pentecostalism—which takes its name from the day of Pentecost when, according to the Book of Acts, the Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles—is a movement that began in 1901 and is best known for its emphasis on the gifts of the Spirit, including speaking in tongues...
...This is the prayer that ABC’s Charles Gibson distorted in his interview with Palin when he asked her if the Iraq war is “a holy war...
...Beliefnet’s Steve Waldman, defending Palin, wrote that such a prayer is “a totally appropriate desire for a Christian—and for a Christian politician...
...The Palins’ Christian convictions best explain their countercultural decisions in favor of nascent human life...
...You know, don’t be afraid of information...
...Speaking for about 15 minutes, the governor recalled her time as a teenager attending the church, before asking the young people to 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 them out on a task that is from God...
...She said she was as “pro-life as any candidate can be,” citing her belief “in the sanctity of every human life...
...In contrast, there has been some political preaching at Wasilla Assembly of God, where the senior pastor asked in a sermon whether people who voted for John Kerry in 2004 would make it into heaven...
...Instead she was asking them to pray that the war would in fact be a “task from God...
...Palin may have entered that problematic area when she asked the students to pray for the building of the Alaska natural gas pipeline: “God’s will has to be done in unifying people and companies to get that gasline built...
...Exactly what Palin may have found “extreme” at Wasilla Assembly of God is unclear...
...Palin replied that religious leaders “have the freedom to say whatever they want to say,” while cautioning that they should “be very careful” if they decide to make an endorsement...
...She’s pushed for the development of the gas pipeline, for ethics legislation, for economic development, for jobs, for less government...
...In any case, Palin retains an evident affection for Wasilla Assembly of God, as does the church for her...
...Kroon says that his church has had programs for children with special needs, that it supports the prolife Heart Reach Pregnancy Center, which helps women in crisis pregnancies, and that it participates in housebuilding efforts undertaken by Habitat for Humanity...
...Of these four churches, two—Wasilla Assembly of God and Juneau Christian Center—are members of the Assemblies of God...
...Rarely does Wasilla Bible have outside speakers, the most recent one a leader of Jews for Jesus...
...Voters are free, of course, to make what they will of Palin’s religion...
...At Wasilla High School, Palin was known for her Christian faith...
...Let] kids debate both sides...
...Clinging to Her Religion The faith journey of Sarah Palin, ‘Bible-believing Christian.’ BY TERRY EASTLAND A few weeks before the Republican convention, Time magazine asked Sarah Palin what her religion was...
...When she was a teenager, she and her mother began attending the Wasilla Assembly of God...
...But in support of that assertion, the story offered only a quotation from her opponent: “I’m not a churchgoing guy, and that was another issue: ‘We will have our fi rst Christian mayor.’ ” John Bitney recalls the race differently...
...In America today, some 90 percent of pregnancies where Down syndrome is diagnosed are ended by abortion, as are roughly half of all teenage pregnancies...
...That’s what we have to make sure we’re praying for: that there is a plan and that that plan is God’s plan...
...We’re extreme the other way...
...The New York Times reported that when Palin ran for mayor of Wasilla, she played up her church work...
...During that same debate, the question arose as to whether the public schools should teach alternatives to evolution such as creationism or intelligent design...
...Palin wasn’t telling the students that the Iraq war is “God’s plan...
...It is part of who she is...
...Where it gets problematic is when [Christian politicians] feel God is directing them to take particular steps or claim divine endorsement for their actions...
...Terry Eastland is publisher of THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...Reporters ask whether Palin has ever spoken in tongues...
...The explicitly nondenominational Wasilla Bible Church was started more than 30 years ago by a small group of families...
...Palin isn’t the fi rst evangelical candidate on a national ticket— remember Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush—but she is probably the fi rst to have either an Assemblies of God or a Bible-church background, according to John Green of the Pew Forum on Religion and Politics...
...The other two churches are freestanding congregations...
...A friend of Palin’s told the New York Times that her family left Wasilla Assembly of God for Wasilla Bible in part because the latter’s ministry was “less extreme...
...In interpreting the Bible, he says, “we try to get at the author’s intent” by considering the text as well as its history and structure...
...In a candidates’ debate during her 2006 campaign for governor, Palin was asked whether it’s all right for religious leaders to endorse candidates...
...Indeed, the so-called social issues have not fi gured prominently on Palin’s to-do list in government...
...Some people may get worked up about this proclamation, but it is essentially benign, fully within the well-trodden ground of America’s civil religion...
...Reporters are justifi ably curious about how Palin’s religious beliefs might infl uence her approach to public service...
...In this respect she refl ects the nation’s changing religious landscape wherein mainline churches have been steadily losing members and theologically conservative churches have, at least until recently, enjoyed substantial growth...
...Her spokeswoman has said that Palin doesn’t consider herself a Pentecostal...
...He adds that she “didn’t preach” at anyone...
...As for actions or positions involving religion that Palin has taken as a politician or elected offi cial, there seem to be few...
...But the church, he says, doesn’t get involved in politics...
...The word “Bible” was included in the church’s name to refl ect the Scripture’s centrality in the lives of Christians, says pastor Larry Kroon...
...We put everything else down when we worship, whether it’s politics or anything else...
...Christian,” she said...
...The only one in the public domain I can fi nd is a talk she gave earlier this year to young people at Wasilla Assembly of God, which was posted on the church’s website and is now on YouTube...
...Running for governor, she expressed support for a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and opposed abortion except to save the life of the mother...
Vol. 14 • September 2008 • No. 3
