Beliefnet’s Steve Waldman wrote about Sarah Palin’s faith in a way that seems balanced and intelligent to me. You can find his full text below:
Those on the left, or merely those who aren’t evangelical Christians, are struggling to make sense of the religious life of Sarah Palin. To many, she seems a frightening harbinger of a fundamentalist takeover. Saturday’s New York Times piece about Palin’s deep faith and Bible-focused church will be chewed over for evidence of her extremism. Conservatives, meanwhile, will seize on the scrutiny — including liberal overreactions — as evidence that the left and the mainstream media are anti-Christian.
The Palin candidacy does pose real church-state questions, as well as many opportunities for hysterical overreaction. As a service to my panicky friends on the left and my Sarah-smitten friends on the right (who may not understand why she frightens some), here’s a guide to what is and isn’t scary, or at least questionable about Palin’s mixing of faith and politics:
Not Scary – Palin asked members of the church to pray “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 has been cited by Obama backers that Palin justifies the war as being part of God’s plan. I read it as meaning the opposite – that people should pray that the war IS part of God’s plan. This is a totally appropriate desire for a Christian — and for a Christian politician. All Christian politicians should aspire to do God’s will. Where it gets problematic is when they feel God is directing them to take particular steps or claim divine endorsement for their actions.
Scary – She told a group of young church leaders to pray for a gas pipeline because it was God’s will. “God’s will has to be done in unifying people and companies to get that gasline built. So pray for that.” Saying a particular public policy is God’s will is far over the line, considerably beyond anything that George W. Bush ever said. It means the advocate is impervious to argument, and critics are going against God’s will.
Not Scary – “She asked [her pastor] for a biblical example of people who were great leaders and was the secret of their leadership.” Since the Times put it in the second paragraph of their piece, they must have felt this was ominous. It’s not. Using the Bible for ethical guidance or wisdom is a standard — and I would argue noble — use of faith.
Scary – She suggested that her work as governor would be hampered “if the people of Alaska’s heart isn’t right with God.” This means that those who aren’t Bible-believing Christians hinder the work of the state, harming their fellow citizens and the public interest.
Not Scary (Probably) – “The churches that Sarah has attended all believe in a literal translation of the Bible,” says John Kinkaid, a friend. “Her principal ethical and moral beliefs stem from this.” Very few Christian follow the literal meaning of the whole Bible. Conservative Bible-believing Christians tend to focus on the passages related to life and marriage; liberals tend to focus on those related to poverty. It’s worth probing this more but it’s not by itself either good or bad.
Scary (Probably) – As governor, she signed a Christian Heritage Week. It didn’t actually declare the U.S. to be an officially Christian nation but it plucked Founding Fathers quotes way out of context to misleadingly imply they were devout Christians. In many other cases, this same technique has been used to promote the argument that America was created to be a Christian nation, and separation of church and state is a myth.
Maybe Scary, Maybe Not – “God has sent me, from underneath the umbrella of this church, throughout the state.” It depends how literally she means this. It’s one thing to think God has a plan for you, or that all people are part of God’s plan; many people believe such things, including Barack Obama, whose campaign literature bore the headline “Called to Bring Change,” and read, “We do what we do because God is with us.”
But if she feels God has enjoined her to take specific steps – like attacking Obama or drilling for oil in Alaska – as opposed to guiding her in general public service, then many Americans will come to distrust her and feel she’s inappropriately using faith as a political weapon. Of course, those who think God really IS guiding her policies and speeches, will just love her even more.
posted September 11, 2008 at 3:33 pm
I’m just so sick of hearing about Sarah Palin. I was getting ready for work this morning and flipped on GMA right at 7:00 am (c), and they led with (1) a story about Palin’s triumphant return to Alaska, and then (2) Obama’s reaction to the “Swiftboat politics” of “lipstick gate.” (or is it “piggate”) Poor John McCain. He’s somewhere in the background repeating that famous line from Monty Python’s Holy Grail:
“I’m not dead yet.”
The fact that this obviously wacky woman has created such a stir and has upset the polls to such a degree only proves that America is full of wacky fundamentalists.
Well, there’s another theory I’d like to float, too. Take another woman with the same background, the same religious beliefs, the same political ties as Palin, but she looks like Janet Reno (no offense, Ms. Reno). Think she creates this kind of celebrity splash? Nope. The nation would give that woman at the best a sound thrashing, at the worst a long, collective yawn.
I seriously think that the next step our nation will take casting us even deeper into idiocracy will be to elect Angelina Jolie president and Brad Pitt VP.
posted September 11, 2008 at 4:24 pm
I find it a bit scary that you and Palin both seem to think it makes sense to assume that God approves of some nations going to war.
I can find nothing in the character of the God revealed in Jesus of Nazareth to suggests or implies that such is an open question. Of course a war is not part of his plan. Nor is it permissible for any of his followers to be active participants in perpretrating any war.
If your God is the God of American Nationalism, i.e., the civic religion of the USA, then it is highly likely that whatever war is being considered it is a part of that God’s plan.
posted September 11, 2008 at 8:37 pm
Thank you for conceding what many progressive sorts wouldn’t: that Palin’s comment on the war was not a pronouncement that it’s God’s will.
The comment on the gasline wasn’t very artful, but I’m not convinced that it declares or assumes the pipeline is God’s Will. Bear in mind that it was extemporaneous to an Assemblies of God group, too. Isn’t a Christian elected official permitted to speak more of spiritual matters and aspirations in Church than would be seemly in office?
The quote on people’s hears being right with God is, I believe, wrested from context. I’m not keeping score very well, but my recollection of the whole quote was more along the lines of politics being ultimately less important than spiritual matters. Where she said it would be important to know, too. Kinda like real estate, only it’s “context, context, context” instead of “location, location, location.”
My perspective in all this is that of a former evangelical, now Eastern Orthodox, who is well aware that an evangelical theocracy would mean iconoclasm and the indoctrination of my grandchildren in something like the “Protestant hegemony” of public schools in the 50s raised to the Nth degree. I just don’t think there’s really much taste for theocracy among evangelicals, or that those fragmented folks, whose “unity” is skin deep at best, could pull it off if they wanted to.
posted September 11, 2008 at 10:27 pm
I watched quite a bit of the Charlie Gibson interview. No offense to her – she seems like a nice person. But seriously? She makes Bush sound like William F. Buckley. She stumbled around and hemmed and hawed her way through every question he asked her, sounding like a naive, unsophisticated neophyte. If she can’t stand up to Charlie Gibson, what chance she could stand up to someone like Putin, if the need ever arose. It was an embarrassment.
This choice is a disgrace and a slap in the face to the American people.
posted September 13, 2008 at 8:25 am
I’m with Warren. It made Dan Quayle look like a smooth talking persuader. And a man of reason.
But it is true that a lot of the reporting about her religious beliefs seems like it doesn’t know where to start. A lot of the reports/reporters don’t separate the language that many faithful people might use (or at least recognize) from the things that we wouldn’t.
It’s as if she gets slammed for having the temerity to be faithful, when the real issue as I see it is that she has the temerity to be faithful so superficially — to invoke religious language on behalf of a political agenda, and then claim that her politics flow from her religious commitments.
I’m not convinced.
posted September 14, 2008 at 10:49 am
I thought that scariest thing about Sarah Palins’s is belonging to a church where a pastor would invite a “Jew” for Jesus to speak.
I live in Philadelphia and whenever a “Jew” for Jesus is invited to speak at any church in the area, it create and interfaith incident. It would be written up in the local Jewish newspaper, and the ADL would get involved.
I put Jew in parenthesis because one cannot be a Jew and accept Jesus as you savior. If you tell people that you can be both at the same time you are lying. There isn’t much that all Jews can agree on, but this is the exception.
It is not just about the unfortunate comments. The goal of these organization is to convert ALL Jews. Thne there would be no Jews left on the planet.