More on Sarah, by someone who "knew her when..."

About Sarah Palin
September 3, 2008
by Anne Kilkenny –
I am a resident of Wasilla, Alaska. I have known Sarah since 1992. Everyone here knows Sarah, so it is nothing special to say we are on a first-name basis. Our children have attended the same schools. Her father was my child’s favorite substitute teacher. I also am on a first name basis with her parents and mother-in-law. I attended more City Council meetings during her administration than about 99% of the residents of the city.....

Palin Church's Todd Bentley Connection

Awhile back there was some discussion around the theolo/blogosphere about Todd Bentley, a Lakeland Florida faith healer who employs some pretty rough methods in his services, including kicking people in the stomach. I ran across this video today, containing numerous clips taken at Palin’s Assembly of God church in Wasilla. Bentley is mentioned in the video, and it appears that the two churches are connected somewhat:

http://vimeo.com/1679097

Sarah Palin, Joel's Army, and Praying Mother Theresa to Death from the Top of Mt. Everest -- Just when I thought things couldn't get any weirder...

....I read something like this, by Bruce Wilson:

By Bruce Wilson, Talk To Action
Posted on September 8, 2008, Printed on September 8, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/97939/
"On June 8, 2008 Palin was publicly blessed, with the “laying on of hands” before six thousand Wasilla area church members, by Head Wasilla Assembly of God Pastor Ed Kalnins and on the same day both Kalnins and Palin described, at a “Masters Commission” ceremony at the Wasilla Assembly of God church, how she had been blessed prior to winning the Alaska governorship by an African cleric known for driving the “spirit of witchcraft” out of a town in Kenya, after which town supposedly crime rates dropped “almost to zero.”

Sarah Palin’s churches are actively involved in a resurgent movement that was declared heretical by the Assemblies of God in 1949. This is the same ‘Spiritual Warfare’ movement that was featured in the award winning movie, “Jesus Camp,” which showed young children being trained to do battle for the Lord. At least three of four of Palin’s churches are involved with major organizations and leaders of this movement, which is referred to as The Third Wave of the Holy Spirit or the New Apostolic Reformation. The movement is training a young “Joel’s Army” to take dominion over the United States and the world."

Joel's Army.... no big surprise there -- dangerous, but still just your everyday garden variety dominionist nuts. But, it gets worse. Palin's former church in Wasilla is part of the virulently anti-Catholic Third Wave Movement, declared heretical by the General Counsel of the Assemblies of God not once, but twice, in 1949 and again in 2000. Writes Wilson:

"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 Third Wave, also known as the New Apostolic Reformation, is a network of Apostles, many of them grouped around C. Peter Wagner, founder of the World Prayer Center. This center, which was built in coordination with Ted Haggard and his New Life Church in Colorado Springs, was featured in an article by Jeff Sharlet in Harpers, May 2005, “Soldiers of Christ.”

Wilson writes,
"Wagner’s top leaders often conduct spiritual warfare campaigns against the demons that block the acceptance of their brand of Christian belief, such as ‘Operation Ice Castle’ in the Himalayas in 1997. Several of their top prophets and generals of intercession spent weeks in intensive prayer to “confront the Queen of Heaven.” This queen is considered by them to be one of the most powerful demons over the earth and is the Great Harlot of Mystery Babylon in Revelation. (The “Great Harlot [or 'whore'] of Mystery Babylon” theme also figures prominently in the sermons of Texas megachurch pastor and Christians United For Israel founder John Hagee, former endorser of John McCain’s 2008 presidential bid.) Wagner and his group also claim that the Queen of Heaven is Diana, the pagan god of the biblical book Ephesians and the god of Mary veneration in the Roman Catholic Church."

And, Ana Mendez, a former Haitian voodoo priestess turned born-again preacher, also seems to be taking personal credit for the deaths of Princess Diana and Mother Theresa:

"Following the ‘Operation Ice Castle’ prayer excursion which included planting a flag for Jesus on Mt. Everest, one of the lead prayer intercessors from the excursion, Ana Mendez, reported that there had been dramatic results including, “millions have come to faith in Asia… and other things happened which I believe are also connected…an earthquake had destroyed the basilica of Assisi, where the Pope had called a meeting of all world religions; a hurricane destroyed the infamous temple ‘Baal-Christ’ in Acapulco, Mexico; the Princes Diana died… and Mother Theresa died in India, one of the most famous advocates of Mary as Co-Redeemer.”

Heresies... dominionists... and former voodoo priestesses turned Christian, praying Mother Theresa and Princess Diana to death from the top of Mount Everest, all in the name of -- Jesus?
Oh, my.

What can you say about a thing like that? It seems that the inmates are now running the asylum, and, not content with that, they are also running for the office of Vice President of the United States.

With Apologies to Tennyson.....

(Ahem):
Fruitcakes to Right of us,
Fruitcakes to Left of us,
Politicos in front of us
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d with rhetoric, to win:
Boldly we rode, straight in,
Into Election ‘08,
Into the mouth of Spin
Rode the American public.


Election 2008 just keeps getting crazier and crazier.

The newest wave of nuttiness hit this week, as reported by Ronald Maxwell of the Huffington Post, and other sources.
Maxwell writes,
"In 1644 the poet John Milton commented on similar book burnings in England. "Who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image, but he who destroys a good book kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were, in the eye." At the same time, the urge to ban, censor and prohibit was being carried, along with smallpox and typhus, to the New World. The first recorded book burning in Massachusetts took place in 1650. The Puritan authorities condemned and confiscated a religious pamphlet by William Pynchon. The book, though not the man, was burned by the public executioner in the Boston commons. A few years later some women in nearby Salem were less fortunate. ...Which brings us to Pastor Muthee, the guest pastor from Kenya who had prayed over Sarah Palin when she was running for Governor of Alaska. According to the Christian Science Monitor,

“Muthee began his life in ministry in Africa by hunting down a local woman named Mama Jane after proclaiming her a witch. Six months of fervent prayer and research identified the source of the witchcraft as a local woman called Mama Jane, who ran a “divination” centre called the Emmanuel Clinic in Kiambu, Kenya. Her alleged involvement in fortune-telling and the fact that she lived near the site of a number of fatal car accidents led Pastor Muthee to publicly declare her a witch responsible for the town’s ills, and order her to offer up her soul for salvation or leave Kiambu. After Pastor Muthee declared Mama Jane a witch, the townspeople became suspicious and began to turn on her, demanding that she be stoned. Public outrage eventually led the police to raid her home, where they fired gunshots, killing a pet python which they believed to be a demon.”

Also, according to The Huffington Post, in August, 1999, Paul Harris wrote the following report, which appeared in Britain’s Sunday Telegraph under the headline, "Hundreds burnt to death in Tanzanian witch-hunt":

“Lynch mobs have killed hundreds of Tanzanians whom they accuse of witchcraft as black magic hysteria sweeps East Africa. Most of the usually elderly victims have been beaten or burnt to death by gangs of youths. Some old women have been singled out simply because they have red eyes — regarded as a sign of sorcery by their assailants. The condition is actually caused by years of toiling in smoky kitchens cooking family meals. … Police say 357 suspected witches have been killed in the past 18 months, but the Ministry of Home Affairs believes that the true figure is much higher. A departmental survey said as many as 5,000 people were lynched between 1994 and 1998.”

Some of these nuts are even attacking little children, declaring them to be witches:

"Mary Sudnad, 10, grimaces as her hair is pulled into corn rows by Agnes, 11, but the scalp just above her forehead is bald and blistered. Mary tells her story fast, in staccato, staring fixedly at the ground.

'My youngest brother died. The pastor told my mother it was because I was a
witch. Three men came to my house. I didn't know these men. My mother left the
house. Left these men. They beat me.'

She pushes her fists under her chin to show how her father lay, stretched out on his stomach on the floor of their hut, watching. After the beating there was a trip to the church for 'a deliverance'.
A day later there was a walk in the bush with her mother. They picked poisonous 'asiri' berries that were made into a draught and forced down Mary's throat. If that didn't kill her, her mother warned her, then it would be a barbed-wire hanging. Finally her mother threw boiling water and caustic soda over her head and body, and her father dumped his screaming daughter in a field. Drifting in and out of consciousness, she stayed near the house for a long time before finally slinking off into the bush.Mary was seven. She says she still doesn't feel safe. She says:

'My mother doesn't love me."

And, finally, a tear streaks down her beautiful face.
The Guardian UK Observer, 12/09/07, written by Tracey McVeigh in Esit Eket

Now, in all fairness to Murthee, I DO NOT know if children were targeted in any of his personal "witch hunts", but his activities certainly fed the superstitious mindset that has led to the murder and torture of these little ones.Palin knew about Murthee's witch hunting -- that is the man's claim to fame, and it was why he had been invited to preach at the Wasilla Assembly of God Church, on the day that he anointed Sarah Palin.

According to an article by Digital Journal, Palin has actually gone on record as linking her success to Murthee, who some would say is a modern day African Cotton Mather who harasses crazy old women from their homes:

" It was upon the basis of this anti-witch crusade that Muthee came to preach at Sarah Palin’s church in Wasilla in 2005, as Palin was preparing to campaign for Governor of Alaska, and then again in 2008. When Muthee first visited Alaska, Sarah Palin, hearing of Muthee’s witch-fighting prowess, asked Muthee to pray over her to give her the power to become Governor of Alaska. Palin believes that Muthee’s ability to gain the favor of God is what won the election for her, not the voters. Because of the supernatural powers of Muthee, God himself appointed her to be Governor.

Palin is quoted as gushing,

“And I’m thinking, this guy’s really bold, he doesn’t even know what I’m going to do, he doesn’t know what my plans are. And he’s praying not “Oh Lord, if it be your will may she become governor,” no, he just prayed for it. He said, “Lord make a way and let her do this next step. And that’s exactly what
happened.”

Sheesh -- and all these years I thought that praying, "Thy will be done" was a good thing......

Palin is as Palin does...

At "True Womanhood in the New Millennium", Lin said,
““I think if we were all being truthful, most of us who classify ourselves as politically conservative would have to admit that if Palin were on the Democratic ticket, we’d be at least somewhat disapproving of the way it appears she might be handling her family life.”"
Not me. I would be looking at her political and policy beliefs. My problem with Hillary was not that she had a nanny for Chelsea most of her young life. My problem was her thinking she was an unelected co-gov and co prez and could push her liberal policies.”

Given the way she’s handled Troopergate, I wouldn’t vote for Palin no matter what party she belonged to, no matter how she has handled her family life.

Sarah Palin made a big splash earlier this month, billing herself as the All-American Christian Mom, and as a “Washington outsider.” She may be a Washington outsider, but from the way she’s thrown her weight around in Alaska and acted as though she’s above the law up there, I’d say that she is only an outsider in DC because until now, she has lived too far away to be an insider — behavior-wise, she’s looking like just another bullying, spin-talking bigshot politician.

As for Palin being the All-American Christian Mom, I won’t second guess her faith — that’s between her and God — but I will second guess her witness. In faith, as in everything else, you can talk “policy” all day long, but in the end, it all comes down to behavior….and from what I’ve seen of Sarah Palin’s behavior in dealing with Troopergate, I am not impressed.

The More Things Change....

At True Womanhood in the New Millenium, Irene commented,

"As a European, I have trouble understanding the political values of the Christian right in the US.....We often hear classifications such as
such as the ‘god and guns crowd’ used to describe the religious right (by US authors).I’ve always wandered why the two (religion and guns - and all they represent)are linked.”

“….I am concerned that the Christian right does not sem to pay equal attention to how human life - and its sanctity - is affected by a pro-war governmental policy.I haven’t come across sites/blogs where people are deeply analyzing and questioning whether or not all the lives lost and affected by war can really be justified from a christian point of view.”

“Then there seems to be a strong distrust
welfare systems in general. In fact, of anything ‘left’ish (excuse the construction) at all. There almost seems to be an unstated understanding that capitalism (and all that goes with it) is the most godly system.”

Irene, IMO, that’s because the Christianity of the Religious Right is laced through and through with idolatry.

To begin with, the Religious Right seems to see American Christianity as the only genuine sort, or at the very least sees American Christians as being somehow divided from their brethren in other countries, to the point where they place the concerns of their American brethren well ahead of the needs of Christians in other places, because they are, well, American Christians.
( I guess they forgot about Galatians 3:28 –“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” )

Within the context of the Body of Christ, national boundaries should not exist.
But, “God and Country” is a big catch phrase with the RR, as is “God and Guns.” With the RR, it seems to be always God “and” something, and never God alone.

C. S. Lewis called this problem “Being a “Christian and” Syndrome”.
Lewis said that this is what happens “when we link our faith to some other cause to which we are partial and say “this is the center of our faith.” And so we hear from our pulpits that the main focus for us must be Christianity and Marxism, or Christianity and Capitalism, or Christianity and Social Action, or Christianity and Gun Control, or Christianity and the Republican Platform, or Christianity and the Pro-life Movement or Christianity and the Twelve Step program or Christianity and Homosexual Rights movement or anything else you might want to insert there.
And the fact is, that as soon as you add an “And” to Christianity you have lost your focus. A Christian worldview speaks to all of those important issues; but every one of them is peripheral to who we are. We are not Christians AND something else; we are Christians, and we let our faith guide us in all other decisions of life.”

Wise man, that Lewis… and I think that were he alive today, he would see right through the posturing of the Religious Right.
I think that Jesus sees through it too, and through the Left as well (though at least most folks on the Left aren’t making hypocrites of themselves by claiming to be “the Christian party”) — not that many in the Religious Right or Left would accept Jesus if He came among them anyway. In fact, neither the Right nor the Left would have much use for Jesus Christ if He came among them today, incognito.

The Right would have trouble with His saying that we should not lay up treasure for ourselves on earth, but should instead lay up treasure in Heaven, and sell what we have and give to the poor; they would also have trouble with His advice to turn the other cheek and give a man your shirt as well, should he demand your cloak, and they would have BIG problems with His advice in Matthew 6:25, "Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on…;" and the fact that He and His followers held their goods in common would be viewed with deep suspicion.

The Left would appreciate Jesus’s take on feeding the hungry and clothing the naked, but they would likely reject Jesus’s teachings on marriage and divorce: and in the eyes of the Left, Jesus’s statement in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me" would brand Him as hopelessly narrow-minded and intolerant, if not an out and out religious bigot.

Today in America, as in 1st century Judea, foxes have holes, and birds of the air nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay His head.

Some things just never seem to change.



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Those pesky women, ruining everything...

At WorldNetDaily, Vox Day writes,
The greatest media scribe of these latter days, Bill Simmons, is known for a certain pithy mantra. "The lesson, as always: Women ruin everything." While one does not usually expect to find deep sociological truths in the sports pages, so great has been the degradation of the acerbic art once known as the editorial, so filled with fear are the vanilla-minded commentators, that one finds more veracity on a single page of ESPN than in opinion pages of the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal combined......In fact, I very much like women and wish them well, which is precisely why I consider women's rights to be a disease that should be eradicated. For what is rather more difficult to dismiss are the simple and easily verifiable facts that indicate women have seldom been less able to pursue their dreams and less able to achieve their desires than today, the Golden Age of Feminism....


Talk about half-baked ideas....
This much of what he says is arguably true: "when women began to enter the work force en masse in the latter half of the 20th century, the overall supply of labor increased, obviously. As per the iron law of supply and demand, over the last 60 years, this increase in supply has somewhat outstripped the growth in the economy and the attendant demand for labor, which is why real wages are still lower in 2005 than in 1973. Combined with the ever-increasing tax burden, this decline in real wages is why both husband and wife must now work when previously the husband's labor alone would have sufficed."



However, his statement "Men's increasing unwillingness to marry stems primarily the feminized family court system... and the removal of paternal responsibility for the sexual behavior of young women" is pure hogwash.



Men have always been unwilling to marry, and that unwillingness stems in large part from the fact that many men would rather be able to have all the sex they want with no marital entanglements; this has been true since prehistory. The only difference between then and now is that thanks to the sexual revolution, it has become possible for more men to "get the milk for free", and get it more easily than in almost any society since the dawn of time. And, you can't tell me that WOMEN brought about the sexual revolution by themselves, and that MEN had to be dragged kicking and screaming into a society where that can have all the sex they want without any marital obligations.

But, don't blame the poor boys, they're only taking after their father -- ever since Adam, when mens' appetite for apples or other fruit gets them and society in trouble, they blame it on the ladies. But we couldn't expect them to man up and shoulder their share of the blame, now could we?

Another fresh bit of nonsense is Vox's idea that women's rights and ready access to abortion have brought about the shortage of women in southeast Asia.

Certainly more girl babies are being aborted in India and China nowadays, thanks to ease of abortion and ultrasound tests which can determine the sex of an unborn child. But Vox and his sources need to look further than abortion to explain the shortage of Asian women, because the girl children who are now being murdered in abortion clinics are the same girl babies who would have been left to die on garbage heaps or sold into prostitution back in the kinder gentler days before women's rights ruined everything. Abortion is a terrible thing, don't get me wrong, but even if these women had not been aborted, they still would not be around to be counted -- the number of women able to stand and be counted in Asia would be the same either way.

Of course, being sold into prostitution IS a darn sight better than being aborted, killed outright, or left to die in a ditch by your father for having the bad sense to be born female, and (tongue firmly in cheek here) prostitution has the added advantage of allowing men to have all the sex they can afford without marital entanglements, and without those pesky new-fangled women's rights....

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Want Some Cheese with that Wine?

There's a big discussion going on over on the Bayly Blog, regarding McCain's choice of a running mate. It seems that Governor Palin is every HyperP's dream of a cantidate, except for one fatal flaw.. she's a WOMAN!!!

LOL... seems you just can't please some people. These guys remind me of Jesus's observation regarding the Pharisees, recorded in Luke 7:32: “They are like unto children sitting in the marketplace, and calling one to another, and saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned to you, and ye have not wept.”

Everybody lives under a spiritual microscope in PatrioCity, and if a cantidate has any fault at all, the patrios find it, magnify it, and complain about it. Even if one of their own were to run for office, there would still be that chorus of voices in the background, nitpicking.

….On another note, I was amused by Carmon Friedrich’s comment regarding Governor Palin:

“Does God not ordain the means as well as the end? Why does she get a pass on the leadership issue and career mother problem just because she has the right views on abortion and helps make McCain more electable?”

Is it just me, or do I detect a trace of envy showing here, along with a slight whiff of the aroma of eau’de sour grapes?

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