Palin Kai Palin, More On Palin
From the land that has given you such giants as Ehud Olmert, a depressing observation:
With irony bordering on the painful, the journalist added, “Sarah Palin has restored my faith in Israel.”
Israel is far from a model of good government, wise policymaking and exemplary leaders. But here, at least, voters and the politicians they make it their business to know inside and out, relate to politics not as if it were a spectacular bowl game or a reality show.but for what politics really is, in America and Israel both: a matter of life and death.
Meanwhile, Pat Buchanan argues that Palin is not a neocon. In terms of her background, I am inclined to agree, since neoconservatives typically come from among East Coast journalists, think tankers and occasionally scholars, but when Mr. Buchanan says that the fight for her soul is not over a question comes to mind: who else exactly is fighting for it? Then again, while she may not be neocon she seems to have already shared one of their obsessions. How many other U.S. governors have Israeli flags in their offices? Perhaps there are more than I would imagine, but you don’t normally expect to find them in Juneau. Unfortunately, as I and others have noted, her religious background also may lead her to adopt positions concerning Near East policy that resemble John Hagee’s. Of course, we were all reliably informed months ago that no one should worry about McCain’s links to Hagee, since McCain already held dangerous views about foreign policy in the region, but perhaps it might be time to revisit what Hagee and CUFI’s influence in a future McCain administration might be. It seems that Palin’s evangelical background will probably predispose her to adopt the same overzealous “pro-Israel” view that Mr. Bush has held, and this will make her more susceptible to arguments for aggressive military action against any and all presumed enemies of Israel. If the future Vice President will not be trying to push for attacks on Iran, as Cheney is now, neither will she likely be inclined to stop them.
Another thing to note: 2002 serves as an important date in Palin’s career. This is the year when she ran for lieutenant governor. It is also the year she left her Assemblies of God church in Wasilla for a less controversial non-denominational church and the year her husband dropped his Independence Party registration. Some of the things that are invoked as reasons to hold out hope for the Palins are either already long gone, or they were dropped easily for the sake of making Palin more viable as a statewide candidate. Now that she has reached the national stage, what else will she drop to accommodate herself to the demands of a McCain administration?
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“It is also the year she left her Assemblies of God church in Wasilla for a less controversial non-denominational church…†This is factually incorrect. Juneau Christian Center is not non-denominational. The official church directory of the Assemblies of God lists JCC (http://www.ag.org/top/church_directory/index.cfm?Display=Yes&churchdetail=5dd436fb-19ae-4015-bd7c-5d21d145d2de). JCC was formerly known as Bethel Assemblies of God. Sarah Posner’s article in Salon has a good explanation: “When she’s in the state capital, Palin attends the Juneau Christian Center, an Assemblies of God church, although it doesn’t advertise that in its name. “All of us in the business know that ‘Christian Center’ is an Assemblies of God church trying to rebrand itself to people who are not necessarily Pentecostal,” says Anthea Butler, a religion professor at the University of Rochester and an expert on Pentecostalism. “You don’t put Assemblies of God on the door because people think, ‘Oh, those are the holy rollers’” (http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/09/11/ assemblies_of_god/). I was raised in the A/G, and this isn’t at all unusual. The style of worship at these churches tends to be more upscale, mellow “evangelical†than old-school holy-rolling Pentecostal, but there isn’t any theological difference in adherence to Dispensationalism and Christian Zionism. JCC was scheduled to host a CUFI event, “A Night to Honor Israel†on March 3, 2009, but this has been scrubbed from the CUFI website (http://barthsnotes.wordpress.com/2008/09/02/palin-church-dropped-from-cufi-website/). Also, JCC is where the “Jews for Jesus†guy said terrorism in Israel was God’s punishment on unbelieving Jews.
Palin still maintains close ties to her “home†church, Wasilla Assemblies of God, as evidenced by her address to the Master’s Commission students on June 8, 2008. Aside from Hagee-style Dispensationalism, I’m much more alarmed by this, especially given this church’s ties to New Apostolic Reformation/Third Wave/Latter Rain neo-pentecostalism. These groups are obsessed with “prophecy,†and based on her words, she appears completely credulous about these “prophets.†She prays that the students receive the “spirit of revelation, also including a spirit of prophecy.†She also says she received a “prophetic declaration†that she’d become governor, and it came true. She specifically endorses the church’s prophetic belief that Alaska will lead a nationwide “revival†(the Wasilla Master’s Commission website says as prophesied by “Dutch Sheets, Steve Thompson, Woody Woodson, and Dr. [Paul Yonggi] Cho just to name a few.”) These same students and pastor Ed Kalnins recently attended a Prophetic Conference at Morningstar Ministries, where speakers included Rick Joyner and Bob Jones (not of university fame). Look these people up and tell me they’re not crackpots. This “revival†is darker and creepier than simply praying that secular, pagan America turns back to Jesus. Her pastor declared at that same event, “I believe Alaska is one of the refuge states in the last days, and hundreds of thousands of people are going to come to the state to seek refuge and the church has to be ready to minister to them.” This must occur before the pre-Trib Rapture. What divinely-ordained disasters await to make us flee north to Alaska? Whatever Palin’s unknown and likely unknowable personal beliefs, she clearly ascribes supernatural, prophetic power to this church, and in the context of its apocalypticism, this is worrying. Perhaps we can give this a Straussian reading and say she’s just using exoteric religious rhetoric to appease the superstitious masses, but she’s no philosopher-queen. She is recently quoted as saying that she believes Jesus will return in her lifetime…