Actions Speak
Louder Than Words
The American public has a right to know that Sarah Palin, Alaska governor and now Republican vice presidential candidate may hold these same extremist beliefs. Public policy may be formed under the guise of Palin’s political position and tainted by her own religious beliefs.
In June, 2008 in the Wasilla Assembly of God, Governor Palin declared United States military forces in Iraq to be "out on a task that is from God." The American public has a right to know if Palin believes, as does the Third Wave movement with which her churches are aligned, that she has a divine mission to support public policy that will help true believers to purge others’ views as evil from the world.
Even as mayor of Wasilla Palin took actions that are easily interpreted as religiously motivated or in other words, theocratic. When she fired Wasilla’s librarian over ten years ago, she did so because her enquiry about banning certain books from the library was met with horror not only from the librarian but also by a group of concerned citizens in Wasilla. The librarian was subsequently re-instated but this example clearly shows an inclination by Palin to eradicate opinions and views that are not her own. As a professed anti-abortionist, Palin was responsible for requiring rape victims to pay for their own rape kits. It is apparent in these examples that her religious beliefs do influence her political decisions. What’s more, the group of folks who rallied in defense of the librarian are themselves right wing Protestants – but even for them Mayor Palin had gone too far.
As governor, Sarah Palin has pushed hard for drilling for oil in the Alaska State Animal Reserve; her motivation is underwritten by her belief that her path is the divine will of God. But make no mistake Palin’s decisions are also guided by the almighty dollar as she wants the oil to flow right through to Alaska’s coffers. Her theological mindset enables her to view all of these actions as promoting the will of God.
Movements like The Third Wave especially attack liberal evangelicals. They are fighting against what some fear is a swing to the left. But statistics speak for themselves and in the Assemblies of God network there are 60 million members. The Third Wave is a much smaller splinter group but with a loud collective voice driven by the fundamental belief that its members are ‘The Chosen’, the ones that will galvanize the world into building that mega church in preparation for the end of human time.
Sarah Palin may be described at ‘sitting on the fence’, cresting the wave as it were between conservative fundamentalism and the ideology of God’s army of the current generation that will lead us all of to spiritual glory. She is after all representing that new generation of evangelicals who are excited about women in leadership, want to vote for women, who are excited about the more libertarian Western style of her, even as they’re also excited about her greater firmness on issues they consider cast in stone.
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