Jesus and Witches

The McCain campaign has had little to say on Palin's religion, except that she does not identify as a Pentecostal and that her faith "is a personal matter." Two of the three Alaska churches with which Palin has recently been affiliated—Assemblies of God churches in Wasilla and Juneau, Alaska—have taken some potentially controversial content off their Web sites. In September, the Web site of the Juneau Christian Center, which Palin attended as governor, was heralding an upcoming visit from the Rev. John Hagee, from whom McCain had to distance himself after Hagee's anti-Islam comments came to light. That announcement is now gone. Both churches have posted statements online confirming Palin's attendance, supporting the electoral process, and begging for privacy.

Though we may never know what Palin really believes about God, we do know a lot about the religious milieu in which she lives, an environment that puts her both squarely within and somewhat outside the American Christian mainstream. This worldview can best be summed up as "very conservative Christian plus Alaska." Palin has spent most of her life in the Assemblies of God, a denomination with an apocalyptic outlook. Members of the Assemblies of God believe the world will end in a fiery battle sooner rather than later; that the forces of good (that is, Christians) will win, and Jesus will return to earth to reign for a thousand years. This belief is common among many conservative evangelicals, not just Pentecostals. According to the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, a third of American evangelicals believe the world will end in their lifetime. According to a September piece on Salon.com, Palin told a political opponent in Wasilla she believes the same.

No analysis of Palin's faith is complete without taking into account the Last Frontier. Alaska is a place of all types of extremes—including religion. Alaska has a large number of Russian Orthodox, and adherents of Native American religion. It is home to many of the most conservative Christian denominations, such as Latter Day Saints and Assemblies of God. More people unaffiliated with any traditional Western religion live there, too. The missionaries who came to Alaska in the early part of the 20th century worked in isolation, far from their peers and central command. Religious affiliation is thus fragile on the Last Frontier, says Patricia Killen, provost at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Wash. "A great deal of religion in Alaska is do-it-yourself," Killen explains. "There is not much sense of loyalty to what headquarters says."

Video clips have circulated online that show Palin endorsing the Iraq war as a "task from God," and praying for the proposed Alaska pipeline; these clips have incited inflamed commentary from the left. But this kind of rhetoric is unexceptional in conservative evangelical churches, where Christians are taught to think of themselves as soldiers in the cosmic battle between good and evil. Last summer, Mike Rose, pastor of the Juneau Christian Center where Palin attended church as governor, delivered a sermon in which he called his congregation "a chosen generation and a royal priesthood ... If you're a believer this morning, you've been born again, you've been washed by the blood of Jesus, you are a priest of God." And then he singled out Governor Palin and other local politicians for special praise. "We have people in positions of authority that are establishing a new kind of righteousness in the land."

In a Pentecostal worldview, God talks directly to the righteous and the righteous talk to God. "I was sweeping the car off this morning, and the Holy Spirit spoke to me so clearly," said Rose's son Ben in a sermon last February. Palin comes from a world in which God intervenes in people's lives. "What I'm hearing [from Palin] is just boilerplate," says Grant Wacker, professor of religious history at Duke University. "I grew up in that tradition, my father, my grandfather, my uncle were all AG [Assemblies of God] ministers. I've heard it ten thousand times, it's as normal as getting on a freeway and driving to Poughkeepsie ... It doesn't mean anybody's going to go out and buy a truckload of ammunition and get ready for the apocalypse."

An apocalyptic theology combined with a Last Frontier identity can give evangelicals like Palin a special sense of destiny. In one of the more controversial video clips circulating on YouTube, Palin's former pastor Kalnins talks about Alaska as a "refuge state" at the End of Days.