Two articles about Sarah Palin, religion, and the internet; both interesting reads. First, a New York Times piece I’d been meaning to blog from a couple of weeks ago, YouTube Videos Draw Attention to Palin’s Faith, which references those YouTube videos with the Kenyan anti-witchcraft-preacher, blogged previously on Boing Boing. Snip from NYT piece:
Ms. Palin has had long associations with religious leaders who practice a particularly assertive and urgent brand of Pentecostalism known as “spiritual warfare.” Its adherents believe that demonic forces can colonize specific geographic areas and individuals, and that “spiritual warriors” must “battle” them to assert God’s control, using prayer and evangelism. The movement’s fixation on demons, its aggressiveness and its leaders’ claims to exalted spiritual authority have troubled even some Pentecostal Christians.
Second, an extensive Huffington Post item by Bruce Wilson with more background on other political figures involved in C. Peter Wagner’s Spiritual Warfare movement, including Florida congresswoman Katherine Harris. Wagner is the guy grinning in the image above. Snip from HuffPo piece:
[Harris] became notorious for her role in the U.S. 2000 presidential election when Harris, then Florida’s Secretary of State, ordered the Florida election vote recount shut down amidst numerous charges of election fraud and irregularity and with Al Gore trailing George W. Bush by only several hundred votes in the contest for Florida’s electoral votes which ultimately went to George W. Bush and so determined the outcome of the 2000 presidential election.
A recording of an October 3, 2006 conference call [link to YouTube video with 3:26 segment from call] between Katherine Harris, then Florida U.S. Congressional Representative, and Florida evangelist Ken Malone [transcript of call], reported on in a November 4th, 2006 Tampa Tribune story because of remarks Harris made during the call which some took as anti-Jewish, indicates that Katherine Harris was then active in the same national Spiritual Warfare network which Sarah Palin has been associated with and may still be a member of.
Mounting evidence suggests John McCain’s running mate Sarah Palin is deeply involved with a global religious movement bent on imposing theocracies around the world and whose top leader, C. Peter Wagner, has decreed to his followers it is God’s will that a forcible, massive transfer of wealth, from the ‘godless’ to members of his movement, take place.
A recently released 36 page report (online / PDF / highlights) from an independent research team specializing Wagner’s movement includes details on what appear to be virulently anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish statements from, and activities carried out by, top leaders of C. Peter Wagner’s New Apostolic Reformation.
Sarah Palin joined the Wasilla prayer group of C. Peter Wagner apostle Mary Glazier in 1989, Glazier told Wagner and his top New Apostolic Reformation leaders on July 13, 2008
Wilson’s HuffPo piece includes embedded videos, including the one above featuring Glazier. Part of what I found interesting about Glazier was the appropriation of bits and pieces of Native American ritual (specifically Lakhota). For instance: the “HO!” she says at the beginning of her sermon, and imagery throughout her ministry website. That, combined with language encouraging politicians who follow this sect to use Pentecostalism to alter the structure of American goverment — “Local leaders can transform a region, a state, or a nation,” the website intro reads. All that and gratuitous drop shadow with scifi fonts!
Also, here’s your quote of the day, 4:40-5:31 into Glazier’s video about Palin’s candidacy as a warfare directive from Jesus — a discussion of God’s bulging, wet, exploding membrane. “I see a membrane bulging over this state…” Such language is new to me in the context of religion.
A note to BB commenters: I know things get heated around election season, but please note that this blog post does not amount to a suggestion that people should be prohibited from practicing any faith they wish in America.
Katherine Harris Was in Sarah Palin’s Spiritual Warfare Network (Huffington Post, thanks Ned Sublette)