Comments from Palin's Pastor
Very interesting stuff here on Palin's pastor:
(Newser) – It turns out Sarah Palin has a controversial preacher of her own: Ed Kalnins, senior pastor at the Wasilla Assembly of God, which the Alaska governor has attended much of her adult life. Radar compiles some of his greatest hits:
On the Bush Administration and Katrina: "I hate criticisms towards the President because it's like criticisms towards the pastor—it's almost like, it's not going to get you anywhere, you know, except for hell."
On John Kerry: "I'm not going tell you who to vote for, but if you vote for this particular person, I question your salvation. I'm sorry."
On his home state vis-à-vis the apocalypse: "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."
Source Radar
http://www.radaronline.com/exclusives/2008/09/meet-sarah-palins-pastor-e...
- Stephen Rockwell's blog
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Palin's Pastor
Steve,Jim and Bill,
I am familiar with the Assemblies of God beliefs, values, practices and general mindset. Though zealous and full of passionate commitment to the Kingdom, they are the polar opposite of an Islamic fundamentalist jihadist. They have officially rejected the theology and agenda of the reconstructionist, dominionist militancy of the Joel's Army types whose mentality could ultimately produce another Timothy McVeigh.
The pastor's quoted paragraph has obviously been lifted out of context (sound familiar?) from a sermon on the subject of spiritual warfare. His reference to Iraq and terrorism clearly shows that he is merely using this war as an illustrative metaphor in one sense and in another sense as a diagnosed symptom..."What you see in a terrorist -- that's called the invisible enemy. There has always been an invisible enemy. What you see in Iraq, basically, is a manifestation of what's going on in this unseen world called the spirit world."
This idea of spiritual warfare is as much a backdrop to the Biblical narrative as the Civil War is to Gone With the Wind. Much great literature and many wonderful epic movies, like Star Wars, portray a similar theme. Darth Vader says, "Luke, come over to the dark side." Luke resisted, but I'm not so sure about McCain and Palin.
Paul clearly delineates the spiritual nature of the war for the human soul and plainly states in verse twelve of Ephesian 6 that our struggles are not with other humans, but with spiritual enemies. This text is compatible with the pacifistic teachings of Jesus and His apostles. The full of armor of God consists of truth, righteousness, proclaiming the gospel, faith, salvation, the Word of God and a strong emphasis on prayer. Violence is never a personal option for followers of Christ, however threats to our national security muddies the pacifistic waters a bit for many Christians, perhaps even Progressives.
Below is the full text of Paul addressing the nature of spiritual warfare...
Ephesians 6: 10-18 " 10Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. 12For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 18And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints."
Gary
Spiritual warfare
Gary,
I'm familiar with the Assemblies of God, too, and also have often quoted the Ephesians passage. What concerns me is that drift to the Dark Side. So when Palin prays for the Iraq war to be "a task that is from God", I think she's already drifted quite far in that direction. I give her points, however, for praying about this instead of simply proclaiming it. She's being at least nominally open to the possibility that the war isn't from God. Her enthusiasm for her son's military service, however, suggests that her theological reservations about the war are nominal.
Similarly, Kahlins' preaching connects the visible war against Iraq with the invisible spiritual war. I'd like to hear or read more of Kahlins' words in order to get a better idea of just how he connects the two -- and what physical as well as spiritual warfare he recommends that Christians wage. But there's enough context of physical 'world war' to lead me to think that he's being more than metaphorical about fighting and dying.
Ah -- we have an archive of sermons from 2007 and 2008, audio and text: http://wasillabible.org/sermons.htm. Since I just wrote that I'd like to hear or read more, I guess I ought to follow through, although I'm tempted to delete that sentence and get on with my life. Well, here goes -- diving in -- but I'll come back up from time to time to make comments on this and other things.
Bill
Oops, wrong sermons
The 2007-2008 archive of sermons is the wrong set -- they're from Pastor Kroon at the Wasilla Bible Church, not Pastor Kahlins at Wasilla Assembly of God. The first one of Kroon's that I read is rather nice: he's critical of a lot of the right things to be critical about.
Preaching in July on Habakkuk and about God raising up the Chaldeans against Judah, Kroon said:
"What if...right now, God chose to respond to our nation, God chose to respond to our moral slippage, our persistent moral slippage? In fact, let’s be more precise—our persistent moral rebellion. What if God chose to respond to our chronic greed, that we don’t even recognize as greed anymore? What if God responded to our pervasive, our pervasive personal and national pride? What if God chose to respond to our epidemic gluttony? In a starving world Americans are trying to figure out how to get thinner. What if God responded to our multiple addictions? What if God responded to our endless excuses? What if God responded to our persistent self-absorption? That in any circumstance and any situation we’ll say ‘me-first’, no matter what it does to our family, no matter what it does to our friends, no matter what it does to our community? And what if God chose to respond to our casual and careless worship? And yes, in America worship is casual and careless! What if God chose to respond to that by raising up a modern version of the Chaldeans? It’s possible."
I like the "pervasive personal and national pride" bit -- that doesn't sound at all like a Republican campaign speech. No emphasis on Victory. The 'me-first' vs. family bit might also cut a little too close to home for Palin, though that's been ruled off limits.
Who is Willing to Die for their Beliefs?
Bill,
I am fairly sure that Palin, her pastor and most of the Christian Right believe that the USA is fighting the Iraq War in obedience to God. Romans thirteen is often cited as the proof text for government policy being an extension of God's will and purpose, so from that world view, GW Bush is His man in charge. With that said, we should distinguish between Christian fundamentalism which extols the virtues of law and Islamic fundamentalism which seems to make allowances for jihad and terrorist action.
I think we must be careful to distinguish between the mindset of one willing to die for what they believe and one willing to kill for what they believe. Christ has asked His followers to follow His example and be willing to lay down their lives for Him. We should also heed His command to Peter in the garden during His arrest when He said, "Peter put up your sword."
Are Progressive Christians willing to die for their theology?
Gary
I'm willing to die for my beliefs
I definitely don't doubt myself on this one, I am willing to die for my faith. Which includes my politics, I can't find where one starts and the other stops, politics based on faith.
But am I willing to kill for my beliefs? Die for my country in a heartbeat, but kill for it? I just can't. I really can't think of anything I'd kill for. I think the answer to "kill for" is what divides us.
Dying and killing for faith and belief
I'm not at all sure, Gary, at what point Christian fundamentalism might transition in a big way into what we would consider lawlessness. What will happen if fundamentalists come to perceive, even more deeply than they might do now, a truly major and systemic set of conflicts between "man's law" and "God's law"? Abortion has already brought out some action which can justly be called terrorism. I suspect that all fundamentalisms have very much the same potential for violence and terrorist actions. Islamic fundamentalism is now the model for terrorism only because of the intense and prolonged geopolitical conflicts in its home territories. Christian fundamentalism could go the same way, just as Christendom did historically in Europe for so many centuries.
In the USA, given the sacred status the religious right accords to a militaristically defined patriotism, there seem to be plenty of Christian patriots who are ready to kill for what they believe in, as well be killed. That readiness is generally expressed within the constraints of legal warfare, but extreme crises could easily make current extremist Christian Identity and similar kinds of groups much more mainstream.
Of course, I'm more inclined to see "moral equivalence" than most people are. It's part of the anthropologists' penchant for demythologizing ideologies. It may be making me too skeptical and pessimistic. (But I don't think so....)
Are Progressive Christians willing to die for their theology? Good question. First, we have to be willing to live all-out in our faith. Then the dying will take care of itself.
Bill
better answer, Bill
Much better than mine. In for a penny, in for a pound... yes, I want to be living my faith full-out every day. I don't always do that, but the desire is there.
Palin's Pastor & Jews
Check out this link on Beliefnet concerning Palin's pastor and his attitudes towards Jews.We need to hear more about this. http://blog.beliefnet.com/stevenwaldman/2008/09/palin-the-jewish-vote.html
re: Palin's Pastor & Jews
Jim, to be precise it wasn't Palin's pastor. It was the executive director of Jews for Jesus, David Brickner, who was invited to speak at her church, the Wasilla Bible Church. However, it's clear from Pastor Larry Kroon's introduction to Brickner's talk that Palin's church supports Jews for Jesus and Brickner's message. But it's not clear how salient that message is for that congregation -- it may not be a frequent theme.
However, just as the milieu of Rev. Wright and Trinity UCC was treated as a legitimate issue re Obama, so should Palin's church milieu.
Palin bounces between that church in her home town, where she's been a member for 6 years, and an Assembly of God church when she's in Juneau - plus visits to the Assembly of God church in Wasilla where she was a member for about 20 years, after leaving the Roman Catholic church while still a teenager. Evidently she doesn't self-identify as a Pentecostal any longer, despite her long and continuing involvement in the AOG and despite her comment that she switched to the Wasilla Bible Church only because she preferred it's children's ministries.
Addendum, an hour later: I just read that she had denied, to Time Magazine, that she has been a Pentecostal. This is from an AP story carried by Fox News: "In an Aug. 14 interview with Time magazine, she once again described herself as Christian. When pressed, she said she attended a 'nondenominational Bible church.' 'I was baptized Catholic as a newborn and then my family started going to nondenominational churches throughout our life,' she said. She did not mention her longtime association with the Assemblies of God..." (http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/09/04/palins-pentecostal-church-member...)
That's odd that she would do that.
Jesus in "war mode"
More on Wasilla Assembly of God pastor Ed Kalnins, from Huffington Post:
Kalnins has preached that the 9/11 attacks and the invasion of Iraq were part of a "world war" over the Christian faith, one in which Jesus Christ had called upon believers to be willing to sacrifice their lives.
"What you see in a terrorist -- that's called the invisible enemy. There has always been an invisible enemy. What you see in Iraq, basically, is a manifestation of what's going on in this unseen world called the spirit world. ... We need to think like Jesus thinks. We are in a time and a season of war, and we need to think like that. We need to develop that instinct. We need to develop as believers the instinct that we are at war, and that war is contending for your faith. ... Jesus called us to die. You're worried about getting hurt? He's called us to die. Listen, you know we can't even follow him unless you are willing to give up your life. ... I believe that Jesus himself operated from that position of war mode. Everyone say "war mode." Now you say, wait a minute Ed, he's like the good shepherd, he's loving all the time and he's kind all the time. Oh yes he is -- but I also believe that he had a part of his thoughts that knew that he was in a war."
The Wasilla Assembly of God's original site has been taken down: "WasillaAG.net was never intended to handle the traffic it has received in the last few days. Due to technical limitations, WasillaAG.net will be unavailable for the immediate future. Thank you for your visit." The new site, WasillaAG.org, doesn't currently have the archive of sermons which has been the source, presumably, of these quotes, so it's not possible to check them out, at least for now. That makes it hard to do a Rev. Jeremiah Wright number on Palin's Pastor. Sweet.
The only YouTube video I've found so far is the one included in the Huffington Post article, which features Pastor Kalnins and Gov. Palin, along with the pastor who founded the Wasilla AoG church. Other videos of them on YouTube are just excerpts from the HuffPo one.
A thought about Jesus and the war mode and being "called to die": this sounds a bit like Joel's Army. Although the Assemblies of God, as mentioned in the linked article, are officially opposed to the Joel's Army movement, Pastor Kalnins' words seem to me to be from a very similar Christian Violence playbook. When kids at Jesus Camp say "A lot of people die for God and they're not afraid", or "We're kinda trained to be warriors, only in a funner kind of way", I can't help wondering if someday we'll have our own home-grown Christian Taliban and Christian suicide bombers.
Gov. Palin's view of Iraq is rather similar, too. The YouTube video shows her saying "Our national leaders are sending them [US 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 plan is God's plan." Oy. Holy War.
Also Holy Pipeline: "God's will has to be done in unifying people and companies to get that gas line built, so pray for that." At least that's only the Prosperity Gospel, not direct war.
Bill