The New York Times pays a visit to Sarah Palin's church, the Wasilla Bible Church. I'm sure there will be more to come, but for the life of me I can't see what the big deal is. She believes the Bible is true and leaders should seek God's will in their vocations. Shocked, shocked, I am by this. Excerpts:
Interviews with the two pastors she has been most closely associated with here in her hometown -- she now attends the Wasilla Bible Church, though she keeps in touch with Mr. Riley and recently spoke at an event at his former church -- and with friends and acquaintances who have worshipped with her point to a firm conclusion: her foundation and source of guidance is the Bible, and with it has come a conviction to be God's servant.
Clearly this woman is a dangerous Christianist lunatic. More:
Larry Kroon, who has been the presiding pastor at Wasilla Bible for the last 30 years, declined to describe Ms. Palin's beliefs or the role she plays in the church, but suggested that she is more of a back-bencher than a leading light."Todd and Sarah come in as Todd and Sarah -- they're very discreet about it," he said, referring to Ms. Palin's husband.
One of the musical directors at the church, Adele Morgan, who has known Ms. Palin since the third grade, said the Palins moved to the nondenominational Wasilla Bible Church in 2002, in part because its ministry is less "extreme" than Pentecostal churches like the Assemblies of God, which practice speaking in tongues and miraculous healings.
And:
"A lot of churches are about music and media and having a big profile," Ms. Morgan said. "We are against that. That is why it is so attractive to politicians because they can just sit there and be safe.""We've gotten a lot of their people when the other churches get too extreme," Ms. Morgan continued. However, she added, "If you lift your hands when we're singing, we're not going to shoot you down."
There's a bit in the story about how the church just hosted a Jews for Jesus speaker, and how that news has upset Jewish groups. If I were Jewish, I wouldn't like Jews for Jesus either, but it's normative for Christian churches to want Jews (and Muslims, and secularists, and everybody else) to convert to Christianity. All I'd want to know about Sarah Palin's relationship to Jews is a) does she hold anti-Semitic views, and b) does she support Israel? If the answers are No and Yes, respectively, then what's the big deal?
Again, I wouldn't be surprised if more controversial and objectionable stuff emerged out of this church. If it does, we'll deal with it here -- though note well that the Palins have been part of this church for six years, and seem from this report to have been less close to the church's leadership than Barack Obama was to the controversial leadership of his Chicago church, where he was a member for 20 years. For now, though, the Wasilla Bible Church doesn't raise any alarms in me. It looks more or less like a normal American Christian church. Not one I'd go to, but then again, my theological views aren't typical for the US. If you're scared of Bible church people and those folks from that part of the Christian world, then you're scared of a huge number of your fellow Americans.
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I can't speak regarding statistics, I have know some very well-educated rabbis who became convinced that Yeshua was indeed the Messiah declared by the prophets, and became Jewish Christians. It is very condescending to imply that any Jewish Christian is ignorant and uneducated
Even very educated people make serious errors in judgment.
Whoever these rabbis are, they are traitors to their people.
There are some bridges that can never, ever be built, and certain history that can never be repaired. One example is the horrors that the Xian church and the Xian people inflicted on the Jews for centuries.
A Jew becoming an Xian is the ultimate betrayal. It is why, as I explained above, one who does is excommunicated from the the people: they can not participate in a synagogue service, they cannot marry another Jew (and if they are married, their spouse, if they have not converted, is expected to divorce them), they cannot be buried in a Jewish cemetery, and their relatives will sit shiva for them as if they are dead. To say nothing of the fact that we believe their soul, without repentance, will be snuffed out by God upon death.
We have been hunted to the point of extinction more than once. Our survival is paramount, and how we protect ourselves is our business. Those evangelists who hunt us down are, for all practical purposes, trying to finish what Hitler (Y"S) started. That may not be their intention, but it is the end result.
David Brickner is just as much a threat to us as Hitler was. So sitting in church and enjoying his sermon is, for me, the absolute deal breaker, and why I must vote Democrat.
I am sure this post will bring down torrents of insults on me, but I'm sorry, if you aren't Jewish and haven't lived our history, or are Xian and willing to entertain why we might write something like this, you'll never get it.
rlb1961, you wouldn't have a dog in this hunt, would you?
If such was 'common, expected, and desired', then you should watch what these people are doing, and you should imitate them. Then, I will regard your label of 'bigot' as a stone cast from one whose judgement I question.
Churches Gone Wild: tinyurl.com/5rrktz
If you marry a Jew and you are a Christian then you will understand a lot more about being a Christian and about being a Jew. I have learned what many Christians and Jews have not forgoten "War on religion" is "War on a country." Our Constitutions being changed across the States of the USA is an example of changing the way the Constitution was written. Oh yes and by the way Sarah Palin might be a little bit conservitive but she does not strike me as a "President Washington,Samuel Adams,or anyone else." She is her own person in history like the rest of us. Times have changed for many of us.So look upon a glass house and throw eggs. Please for the sake of the people inside do not throw rocks...lollolandlol
If you marry a Jew and you are a Christian then you will understand a lot more about being a Christian and about being a Jew. I have learned what many Christians and Jews have not forgoten "War on religion" is "War on a country." Our Constitutions being changed across the States of the USA is an example of changing the way the Constitution was written. Oh yes and by the way Sarah Palin might be a little bit conservitive but she does not strike me as a "President Washington,Samuel Adams,or anyone else." She is her own person in history like the rest of us. Times have changed for many of us.So look upon a glass house and throw eggs. Please for the sake of the people inside do not throw rocks...lollolandlol
There is a lot more to this story than is making the mainstream press. Some of Palin's churches, including the one that she spent over 20 years, are part of the New Apostolic Reformation. Ed Kalnins at Wasilla AoG is tied to highest levels of this organization. They believe that all churches should be reorganized under the authority of their anointed Apostles and Prophets and that there will be a great civil war in the church between those that accept the "river" of supernatural gifts of the spirit and the rest of Christianity.
This is not your typical Pentecostalism. There are millions of Pentecostals who do not believe that they have supernatural powers to expel, demons, "slay in the spirit" by cell phone anointing,etc. This story is being documented at Talk2action.org
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