Did you catch this response Sarah Palin made last week to Barbara Walters, when Walters asked about the West Bank settlements?:
"I disagree with the Obama administration on that. I believe that the Jewish settlements should be allowed to be expanded upon, because that population of Israel is, is going to grow. More and more Jewish people will be flocking to Israel in the days and weeks and months ahead. And I don't think that the Obama administration has any right to tell Israel that the Jewish settlements cannot expand."
When I heard that, I thought, oh, here we go. It's not because of her view on the settlements, even though I disagree with her. It's her bizarro view that Jews are going to be "flocking" to Israel in the days and months ahead. I thought that this was probably evidence that she's a Late Great Planet Earther.
More evidence, from the Charlotte Observer today:
Sarah Palin, the hottest name in the Republican Party, took a detour from her book-signing tour Sunday to dine with Billy Graham at his mountaintop home in Montreat."He's followed her career and likes her strong stand on faith," said son Franklin Graham, who was present for the 2 1/2-hour get-together. "Daddy feels God was using her to wake America up."
The former Alaska governor and 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate told Billy Graham about how she came to faith in God as a girl in Bible camp.
She quizzed him on the presidents he's known and wanted his take on what the Bible says about Israel, Iran and Iraq, Franklin Graham reported.
What the Bible says about Israel, Iran and Iraq. That's a tip-off that she reads the Bible as a guide to geopolitical events in the End Times. This is very common among a large portion of Evangelical Christians -- according to a leading expert, between 50 and 60 million Americans hold Palin's belief about the Jewish ingathering to Israel in advance of the Apocalypse -- but can you imagine an American president making her foreign policy based on a belief that "The Late, Great Planet Earth" is a reliable source of information about the future?
Well, this is great news if you are one of the Protestants who do hold these beliefs. But if you are not, then you should be alarmed. I admit that I think Evangelicals get a bad rap from liberal Jews, many of whom are so repulsed by the Evangelicals' political and social conservatism that they unfairly and unwisely devalue the value of their Zionism. But supporting the settlements policy because there has to be room for all the Jews in the world to come home to Israel in advance of Armageddon? Astonishing. Again, though, if you are convinced that we're in the Last Days, and history's end game will involve this particular set of events, then you thank God that the U.S. might be led by A President Who Gets It.
Which brings us to the following e-mail I received from a friend who's a conservative reader of this blog, and who writes to defend Andrew Sullivan's relentless criticism of Palin. Read on for that text, posted with her permission:
I think Andrew Sullivan deserves a medal for his ongoing investigation of all things Palin. She is a menace to this country, as he suggests. She is a toxic mix of ignorance, charisma (or so they say), anger (I would even say hatred), and millions and millions of dollars in funding from the Murdoch empire and from a big chunk of the Christian right. People who should know better, like the Grahams, are giving her significant financial and moral backing - note the use of Franklin Graham's organization's airplane to take her to Fort Bragg (where she raised donations to her PAC, and had her father attack the President's foreign policy): http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34110893/ns/politics-more_politics/ And she'll be heading off to Fort Hood soon.Her words have an impact on millions of her followers, and she is capable of leading a large percentage of the US population in the direction of some terribly dangerous policies. Just to pick one example, consider what she said to Barbara Walters about why the US should support Israeli settlements. Do you really think that US foreign policy should be based on the "Left Behind" novels? I don't. (To read more about Palin and the Rapture, please scroll down).
Andrew has not concentrated solely on the Trig Truther issue - right from the moment Palin stepped on that Ohio stage with McCain, he has been one of the only prominent mainstream journalists looking into her career in Alaska. Through his site, I have found many links to Alaska-based sites that have provided a wealth of information on her record as mayor of Wasilla and governor of Alaska, and which I continue to read on a regular basis. Let me tell you, it ain't a pretty picture. Yet, she is now selling millions of books, and has convinced a lot of people that she has been subjected to unusual scrutiny by the media. Baloney! I will admit that my initial opposition to her was based on personal reasons - I was horrified that a woman with a special needs infant would run for VP, and the discovery that her 17-year-old daughter was pregnant was icing on that cake. But my investigation of her actual record as an elected official made me realize the full enormity of McCain's decision to put her "a heartbeat away" from controlling the US military.
I have written to you before about my worry that someone will try to kill the President, and, if something like that happens (God forbid), Palin will have to share some of the blame. She is more dangerous than Glenn Beck in that she could actually end up holding political power. He is just an entertainer, and I think he knows it. Palin really has people convinced that she is on a mission from God. I have friends who are fairly sophisticated, well-educated people who will not so much as listen to any of the facts about Palin. They seem to be mesmerized by her.
I don't defend everything Andrew writes - I'm sick to death of his attacks on Pope Benedict, and I was furious that he accused you of "smearing" him when you pointed out, quite accurately, that he it is not clear why he stays in the Catholic Church, since he quite obviously doesn't believe a lot of what the Church teaches. is a cafeteria Catholic. But when it comes to Palin, he has done a real service to this country.
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"Palin is popular"
So is Britney Spears. So what?
Come on Rod. You supported the Huckster in 2008 and Palin's views on Israel are no different than his. As for the Settlements the Likuniks are paving the way for Israels destruction. In a few years smart Palestinians will be calling for one person one vote. The single state solution which will mean the end of Israel as a Jewish state.
[just saw this illuminating piece of history on the web - Jon]
ROOTS OF (WARLIKE) CHRISTIAN ZIONISM
(or, It's the Rapture, Stupid !)
by Dave MacPherson
First, let's get something straight. Many conservative
evangelicals in America are not longing for the "world's end" or
"judgment day" or a "millennium" or an "antichrist" or even the
"second coming."
Although these phrases are in their theology books, the same
books emphasize what they are waiting (and would almost die) for:
the "any-moment pretribulation rapture" which is expected several
years ahead of the second coming and most assuredly BEFORE a future
"great tribulation"!
Hal Lindsey, the big rapture guru of the late 20th century,
ended his bestselling book "The Late Great Planet Earth" with the
word "MARANATHA" which pretribulation rapturists know is a code
word for their rapture. And the same literal removal from earth at
any moment lurks in Lindsey's other writings.
Tim LaHaye, the current rapture tycoon whose "Left Behind"
bonanza has left even Lindsey behind, knows how to milk the
rapturized masses. After his 1992 pro-rapture book "No Fear of the
Storm" was published, it was revealed that he had sloppily omitted
48 words when airing a brief 19th century document - hardly good
publicity! After sales slowed down, it was re-issued as "Rapture
Under Attack" (with the same 48 missing words) and appeared to the
public to be a new book. But not even the title change seemed to
help things, and merchandiser LaHaye knew it was time to come up
with some other titles that could further his rapture obsession.
And Jerry Falwell never seems to miss an opportunity, when
preaching, to remind his audience that he most certainly believes
in the "pretribulational rapture" view.
I can almost believe that the middle name of many Christian
Right leaders is "Rapture"!
When checking pre-19th century prophetic development, one
finds that "dispensational" thinking as well as Christian Zionistic
roots had been in existence long before the emergence of
pretribulation rapturism. Even the prophetic word "rapture" had
been in print well before the 19th century - but always in
reference to only an after-the-tribulation coming and never to a
pretribulation coming.
Many are still unaware that the pretrib rapture idea was first
publicly aired in the fall of 1830 in "The Morning Watch"
(hereafter: TMW), a little-known quarterly journal published by the
Irvingites (followers of famed London preacher Edward Irving) from
1829 to 1833 in Britain. Not only was this innovative publication
years ahead of John Darby and his Plymouth Brethren colleagues,
rapturally speaking, but in it we find shocking militancy that can
be observed today in Christian Zionist preachers like John Hagee
and Jerry Falwell.
As early as the September 1830 issue of TMW (pp. 510-514) a
writer declared that only worthy Christians (which he labeled
"Philadelphia") would be raptured before "the great tribulation"
and less worthy ones (labeled "Laodicea") would be left on earth.
The September 1832 issue of the same journal (pp. 6-7) saw
"Jews" as well as the less worthy Christians left behind.
But the March 1833 issue (p. 147) said that only "the Jews"
would be excluded from the rapture.
So within a short period of time the Irvingites, while
following the same Scriptures, revealed their innate
anti-Jewishness by switching from a "church/church" dichotomy to a
"church/Israel" dichotomy after convincing themselves that only
"the Jews" would deserve a future tribulation!
After their adoption of an escapist view that no organized
church had ever taught before 1830, the same early pretrib
rapturists, feeling superior, began exhibiting some vices that
often come to powerless persons who suddenly obtain power - vices
like pride, hatred and persecution of others, playing God, and so
on.
Sounding like Hagee and other warlike warmongers, TMW
expressed even more delusional, rapture-inspired fantasies:
The September 1830 issue (p. 514), looking ahead to the hoped
for "great escape," declared that the raptured believers would then
collectively become "the victorious ministerer of the great
tribulation" upon those left behind!
In March of 1832 the same Irvingite journal (p. 3) taught that
the "vials" of wrath in the book of Revelation "shall be poured out
by the risen [raptured] saints"!
And TMW in September 1832 (p. 27) went even further and
announced that the collective group of raptured ones will "wield
the thunders of its power against the dragon [Satan] and his
angels, and cast them down from heaven"!
Note that these fanatics were more than willing to be the
"chosen ones" to pour out tribulation and wrath on those not worthy
to be "chosen": the Jews.
(I'm glad to report that Southeastern Baptist Theological
Seminary in North Carolina is now the only North American
institution that contains a complete set of every issue of "The
Morning Watch." I recently gave SEBTS my 35-year collection of rare
material including those issues and Robert Norton's valuable 1861
book.)
We've just had a glimpse of vengeful and power-crazy
fanaticism within the very earliest pretrib rapture group. But
where in the Bible did those deluded Britishers find support for
such "rapture rage"? And where are the followers of Christ
commanded to pick up a sword and conquer or convert non-believers
with it - or even support such sword-bearers? Why have so many
Christian Zionists, who seemingly give more attention to
governments than to their Gospel, turned the Great Commission into
the Great Commotion?
Many of the above historical details are in my 300-page book
"The Rapture Plot," the most complete and documented history of the
176-year-old pretribulation rapture merchandised today by Hagee,
LaHaye, Falwell, Lindsey, Swaggart, Van Impe etc. for their pet
agendas - an escapist view never taught by any church for 1800
years! If you don't have time for my book, I invite you to read my
internet items including "Pretrib Rapture Diehards," "Deceiving and
Being Deceived," "Famous Rapture Watchers," "Thomas Ice
(Bloopers)," "Appendix F: Thou Shalt Not Steal," "The Rapture Index
(Mad Theology)," and "Pretrib Hypocrisy."
All of my royalties, by the way, have always gone to a
nonprofit corporation and not to me or anyone else. Interested in
obtaining my unique "Plot" book? Just call 800.643.4645 or visit
online bookstores. (Type in "Scholars Weigh My Research" on Google
etc. to read endorsements of it by leading scholars.)
Do Hagee and his fellow preachers really love Jewish persons
as much as they say they do? Then why do they pervert Scripture to
try to get themselves raptured off earth before their future and
final "tribulation" instead of wanting to remain on earth during
that period to minister love to ALL of earth's citizens?
Hagee stated on July 19, 2006 that "The United States must
join Israel in a pre-emptive military strike against Iran to
fulfill God's plan for both Israel and the West...." Which Bible
verse inspired him to utter this - the one that says "Love ye your
enemies" or the one saying "Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith
the Lord"?
It would appear that Hagee, Falwell and other pretrib rapture
merchandisers and Christian Zionists are trying to identify with
the predicted group whose love will "wax cold" (a la Matthew 24:12)
during what Hagee etc. see in the future as earth's darkest days!
(The now famous "rapture" view promoted by politics-loving American
evangelicals is related to various topics. If you would like to
publish the above non-copyrighted paper, feel free to even change
the title to "Armageddonism and Politics" or "The History of Dispensationalism"
or anything else.)
I cannot believe that free thinking people would rather support a president who is sympathetic to Islam, and will most likely allow Iran to fulfill it's promise to eradicate Israel than Sarah Palin. Get your head out of the sand people !
There is no evidence that Sarah Palin is an extremist Christian wacko. She is a heavy metal band AC/DC fan. No right wing Christian wacko is fan of a rock group.
She shares her evangelical faith(we have freedom of religion, hello?)
But she does not impose in anyone her faith in God, yet, 80% of Americans identify themselves as CHRISTIANS.
That's a lot of folks having Jesuschrist as the center of their lives!
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