Turns out Sarah Palin is aligned with a church that is affiliated with the “Third Wave,” a religious movement so far to the right it was declared heretical by the religious right:
The pastor [of Wasilla Assembly of God], Ed Kalnins, and Masters Commission students have traveled to South Carolina to participate in a “prophetic conference” at Morningstar Ministries, one of the major ministries of the Third Wave movement. Becky Fischer was a pastor at Morningstar prior to being featured in the movie “Jesus Camp.” The head of prophecy at Morningstar, Steve Thompson, is currently scheduled to do a prophecy seminar at the Wasilla Assembly of God. Other major leaders in the movement have also traveled to Wasilla to visit and speak at the church.
The Third Wave is a revival of the theology of the Latter Rain tent revivals of the 1950s and 1960s led by William Branham and others. It is based on the idea that in the end times there will be an outpouring of supernatural powers on a group of Christians that will take authority over the existing church and the world. The believing Christians of the world will be reorganized under the Fivefold Ministry and the church restructured under the authority of Prophets and Apostles and others anointed by God. The young generation will form “Joel’s Army” to rise up and battle evil and retake the earth for God.
While segments of this belief system have been a part of Pentecostalism and charismatic beliefs for decades, the excesses of this movement were declared a heresy in 1949 by the General Council of the Assemblies of God, and again condemned through Resolution 16 in 2000.
The beliefs and manifestations of the movement include the use of ‘strategic level spiritual warfare’ to expel territorial demons from American and world cities….
Well, at least we can say that Sarah Palin isn’t a Biblical literalist. “Strategic-level spiritual warfare” and “Joel’s army” and “Fivefold Ministry” — none of this is in the Bible. They just made this stuff up. I know that as a religious liberal, I’m supposed to be religiously tolerant and all, but this is utter crap. Dangerous crap, too — this is the woman who could be one heartbeat away from the American presidency. God (or someone) help us.
Via.
The music was pretty good in those tent revivals though…
This focus on Palin’s religion is wild.
Obama claimed three spiritual advisors in his life in a Chicago Sun Times Interview: Rev Wright, Father Pfleger, and Il State Sen Rev James Meeks.
Meeks runs a mega Church on the south side and partners with Bill Hybels on things. Meek’s Church does a halloween haunted house featuring young boys portraying homosexuals burning in hell. Meeks partners with groups on all sorts of anti homosexual efforts… yet Obama and the rest of the Illinois Democratic Party give him a pass on it… because he’s a good Democrat.
When Illinois Democrats stood behind Louis Farrahkan’s Rep on the Illinois Hate Crimes board after Farrahkan talked about “hollywood Jew filth”, and having to wash the streets of Jerusalem with blood because Israel allowed a gay pride parade there, I wrote a blog post about how Gays often got a better deal from anti-gay Christianists who viewed them as sinners who shared a humanity with the rest of the world as sinners, as opposed to Illinois Democrats who viewed Gays as fodder.
A gay responded back, “there are those against us, and those against those against us, but very few for us”.
I know little of Palin’s faith but I’m suspecting her faith would lead her to be “for us” in the way she would be for all she considers sinners who would be all of us.
A fairer shake than we would get with the fire and brimstone we get from Rev Meeks over on 95th street
There’s nothing in the public record to indicate that Obama aligns himself in any way with Meeks on homosexuality… well, except for the ‘guilt by association’ card that’s been played to death. Here’s a portion what Obama wrote to the Massachusetts based Family Equality Council, August 1, 2008:
“As the Democratic nominee for President, I am proud to join with and support the LGBT community in an effort to set our nation on a course that recognizes LGBT Americans with full equality under the law” … “That is why I support extending fully equal rights and benefits to same-sex couples under both state and federal law. That is why I support repealing the Defense of Marriage Act and the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy, and the passage of laws to protect LGBT Americans from hate crimes and employment discrimination.”
Palin, however, doesn’t have much of a record. As governor of Alaska, she did indeed veto a bill that would have prohibited extending benefits to same-sex couples. However, she did this only because her AG advised her that such a ban would be unconstitutional. The only time i’ve heard her speak on the topic of homosexuality was Friday in her interview with Gibson. He tossed her a softball question, not about public policy, but about “nature vs. nurture” to which she gave some vague answer.
Bill @ 1 — You’re attacking the wrong part of my post. You’d be right if you said that we don’t really know if Palin identifies as an Assemblies of God Pentecostal, or as part of this Third Wave, because she has drifted away from the Wasilla Assembly of God (which is Third Wave). So you could appropriately criticize me by saying that Palin’s religious affiliation simply isn’t clear. By contrast, Obama has been quite public about his identification with the Untied Church of Christ (UCC), a religiously liberal denomination that overlaps with Unitarian Universalism — my UCC cousin tells me that “UCC” stands for “Unitarians Considering Christ.”
Or you could have appropriately critiqued me for the reason that Dwight gives @ 2 above — “Palin, however, doesn’t have much of a record.” In other words, I’m probably putting words and religious opinions in her mouth.
Jeez, Bill, I leave myself wide open, and you completely miss your chance to skewer me. I’m worried about you….
The Rev Meeks thing just really bugs me. That and the silence over Farrahkan’s rep on the Illinois Hate Crimes commission. Obama and a good many Liberals in Illinois just plain abdicated on those guys.
I know Pentacostals. I work with them. I think take they take a lot of unfair hits because they have odd practices from a middle class sort of view point. I felt the same way over the hits on the last AG who’s name I’m blanking on…. it’s early AM and Lindsey says she sees me all over the UU blogosphere.