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PrintSeptember 13, 2008
Sarah's incomprehensibility to the left
As a recovering Baptist, I understand the look people like Sarah Palin receive because they are Pentecostal Christians. There were occasions when I to gave people that look, back when I believed the gifts of the Spirit were not meant for today.
That was, of course, before I took my youngest son to a Jimmy Swaggart church service the first Sunday in August, 2005. I was curious to see how he'd react to Pentecostal-style fellowship. Although he admitted he enjoyed the music, what happened that morning changed me forever. The Holy Spirit fell upon the congregation, and contrary to what I believed at the time, I experienced something we call the Baptism of the Holy Ghost. I spoke in tongues, and I communed with God. For the first time ever, I raised my hands in worship. Today, caught up in the Spirit from time to time, I even dance in the aisle.
Yet, no matter what style of Christian faith one is comfortable with, Evangelicals all believe essentially the same core tenets. We worship God in different ways, but we all acknowledge the resurrection is a historic fact, as were the miracles performed by Jesus and His disciples. We Evangelicals look forward to the day the Messiah saves Israel from utter annihilation and sets up His Kingdom where He will rule the world from Jerusalem.
This, of course, excludes many on the so-called (ir)Religious Left. Such wolves in sheep's clothing as Jim Wallis, Jeremiah Wright, and Father Phleger are unreconstructed Marxists masquerading as Christians and justify their revolutionary beliefs by purposely misinterpreting the teachings of Jesus. (Pssst, Gentlemen...read Matthew 7:21-23).
For the most part, the MSM do not have a clue as to who we are. Nor likely are they brave enough to find out. They'd rather simply dismiss us as backwoods rednecks and snake-handling yahoos. They sneer and mock us, but I've noticed they don't like to argue. They spout slogans and avoid reasoned debate. Perhaps we unnerve them or make them unsure of themselves. A lot of them, particularly Leftwing bloggers, would drown in the depths of Jimmy Swaggart's vocabulary-this sharecropper's son from Ferriday, Louisiana.
The MSM do not understand, either, that God is a gentleman, first and foremost. He never imposes His will upon those who do not seek it. A theocracy is exactly what the Lord doesn't want. He wants people to come of their own free will. God doesn't help those who help themselves, He helps those who ask. And the one thing Christopher Hitchens can count on, despite his opinion of us, is no Evangelical will ever threaten him with beheading if he doesn't convert.
I've learned trying to live the Christian life is impossible without the power of God. I won't delve into the theological narrative here, but suffice it to say that any Christian at any time can fall into sin. Satan is a powerful adversary and when Christians determine to try harder to not drink, take drugs, view pornography, have impure thoughts about one's co-worker-or whatever sin bedevils a believer-we'll fail time and time again.
Jimmy Swaggart learned this lesson first hand, and it nearly devastated him, his family, and his ministry. But Christianity is also about forgiveness and reconciliation. Therefore, I won't be surprised if Obama's army of lawyers and investigators turns up something on Sarah Palin. We are all fallible, and ole Scratch and his minions know all of Sarah's weaknesses.
The MSM and other Leftists are perplexed by Evangelical reaction to news that Sarah Palin's unmarried daughter is pregnant, and by the non-reaction to the fact that Sarah doesn't stay home and take care of her children like Christians supposedly are required to do. The Left assumes Christian wives, like Sarah, must submit to their husbands, even though the Bible doesn't teach that. A wife only submits to a Christ-like husband who loves his wife as Christ loves the church. But stereotypes always die hard among close-minded Leftists.
We may appear strange to the Left, but there are tens of millions of us who believe in God and who support the United States of America as it was constructed by our founding fathers. We will not permit Marxists or their useful idiots to overthrow the American Revolution. The Left's open hatred of us, and the attempts to impose their views while criminalizing our right to dissent, has led this nation into a cultural civil war.
Perhaps the Left assumes because Jesus is called the Good Shepherd that we Christians will act like sheep being led to the slaughter. But we're Americans, not Canadians. We will resist.
Sarah Palin is one of us. She's transformed Alaskan politics, and I believe in time she'll transform Washington. Mrs. Palin is living proof the dreams of our founding fathers weren't fantasy. Unlike Leftists, she will not try to impose her beliefs on anyone else. But she will stand up for our founding principles. And the more the Left, including the increasingly irrelevant MSM, attack her and her family, lie about her, dig into her personal life, the more determined Evangelical Christians become to elect McCain as president.
