Sarah Palin and the Rapture

The Politics of Tribulation

By RAYMOND J. LAWRENCE

21/09/08 "Counterpunch" -- Is this country ready for a president who is excited about and eagerly looking forward to the Rapture?

The Rapture, as it is called, is the imaginary day when Jesus will come down from the sky and lift up into heaven all those who are saved, leaving behind all unbelievers to destruction and death?

Anyone who believes in the Rapture scenario will likely interpret a catastrophic nuclear exchange as the opening scene of the Rapture. Thus an American president who believes in the Rapture would arguably have at least some ambivalence toward a nuclear holocaust. A believer in the Rapture with his or her fingers on the nuclear trigger might even be tempted to bring on the Rapture. The Rapture, for those who believe in it, is hardly a negative event. Rather it is culmination of everything they hope for, deliverance into the heavenly arms of Jesus.

(Actually, it stands to reason that if one is still around during a nuclear holocaust, one is not worthy of rapture. Nevertheless, this is a very screwed up theology and I know for sure that I don't want anyone who holds to such a twisted belief system anywhere near the nuclear codes. )

Presumably Sarah Palin believes in the Rapture. It is one of the doctrines of her religion, and she has nowhere disavowed it. Are Americans ready to sleep at night with a President who longs for the Rapture?

The doctrine of the Rapture is a very recent invention within some of the radical fringe churches of Christianity. The Rapture doctrine is first cousin to millennialism, the belief promoted by various groups who have predicted that “the end is near.” Millennialist groups have popped up and burnt out from time to time throughout Christian history.

The Rapture doctrine has no support in the historic Christianity of any of the main traditions - Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, or Protestant. The doctrine of the Rapture is cobbled together from several obscure, unrelated comments drawn from the epistles of Paul the Apostle. No credible biblical scholar in two thousand years of Christian history has taken seriously the Rapture doctrine, millennialism, or anything similar to it.

The American people ought to be concerned about the religious beliefs of its political leaders as those beliefs may determine the life of the nation as a whole. It would be foolish of the American people not to be deeply concerned about the religious beliefs of Sara Palin, who may be elected Vice President for the oldest President ever inaugurated into the office.

When John F. Kennedy campaigned for the presidency in 1960, many Americans were concerned about his commitment to the Roman Catholic Chruch. The fear was that he might be subject to directions from Catholic priests, or from the Pope, since he was a practicing Catholic, and Catholic leaders are typically quite directive and authoritarian. Kennedy answered that concern in speaking to the Houston Ministerial Association during the campaign. He declared boldly and correctly that no political leader should take directives from religious authorities whatsoever. He claimed a commitment to the strict separation of church and state. Kennedy’s assurances were widely accepted by the public.

The Sarah Palin problem is somewhat different. The concern is not whether she would take orders from her pastor. That is unlikely. Her church does not typically exercise that sort of authority. The problem is both more simple and more worrisome. The public must presume that Palin believes in the Rapture, since it is one of the central doctrines of her church. Furthermore, the American people should assume that Palin’s personal religious beliefs will have consequences in her decision-making as a President. Both Palin and McCain have already made clear that their religious views about abortion will determine presidential appointments to the courts.

The press and much of the public seem reluctant to engage Palin on her religious views, considering them to be a personal matter. In certain respects that is admirable restraint. We do not want candidates for office grilled on their private religious views as long as those views do not impinge upon the public welfare. Whether an individual believes in the bodily assumption of the Virgin Mary, predestination, or other such religious views should not be subject to political scrutiny. Such beliefs have no inherent impact on public policy.

However, a belief in the Rapture as an historic event toward which history is rapidly moving, is a belief with potentially catastrophic political implications. Do the American people want a believer in such a fantasy to hold in her hands the nuclear power to destroy civilization?

Raymond J. Lawrence is an Episcopal cleric, recently retired Director of Pastoral Care, New York Presbyterian Hospital, and author of numerous opinion pieces in newspapers in the U.S., and author of the recently published, Sexual Liberation: The Scandal of Christendom (Praeger). He can be reached at: raymondlawrence@mac.com

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Can We Keep The Preachers Out Of This?

I doubt it seriously. Thanks to You-tube, they are all getting their 15 or more minutes of fame or infamy as it were.

Funny about the end-timers who cannot shut-the-hell-up, because they are making big bucks promising rapture for the good and tribulation for all of the rest of us, whom they hate and want to see suffer as much as possible. What I can't figure out is how they expect to be taken seriously about the end coming soon, when they are stock piling cash faster than Bonnie and Clyde on a good day. Didn't Jesus say that it was easier for a camel to get through the eye of the needle than for a wealthy man to get into the Kingdom of God?

I'll start taking preachers like Hagee seriously when they give all they own to the poor, take up their cross and really follow the one they claim as their leader. As it stands, they don't seem even know him at all.

by Stephen Day


I lost my father a year-and-a-half ago at the ripe old age of 84. Although, as an aside, there’s no age that’s “ripe” enough when it’s your own father, is there?

For a good portion of his life, Dad was an active minister in the United Church of Christ. Eventually he grew weary of church politics, went back to school for his doctorate and became a sociology professor (where he then, of course, had to put up with academic politics, but that’s a different story). During the last 40 plus years of his life, while he remained an ordained minister and would on occasion fill in on a Sunday, he was never again a church pastor.

So I was a bit surprised when, during his final illness, it became obvious to me that while he was certainly proud of his years spent teaching, at the end of the day he considered himself first and foremost a minister of the United Church of Christ.

It was part of his essence.

And I’m pretty sure I know what Dad’s response would have been, were he still here, to the words of Jeremiah Wright and, per the latest dustup, Father Michael Pfleger: he would have dismissed the whole issue as stupid and insisted that what they say at the pulpit is between them and their congregations and denominations.

Simply put: it’s nobody else’s damn business.

And, no, Dad, though liberal, never said anything nearly as controversial as the now famous words of Rev. Wright or the increasingly famous words of Father Pfleger: his was a subtler approach.

He did, however, occasionally say things capable of causing a stir. One time, in the middle 1960s, for example, he offered a very mild comment on the Vietnam War during a sermon, causing our next door neighbor to storm out of the church in protest (they remained on friendly terms afterwards).

But most of the arguably controversial things — and there weren’t that many of them — Dad said from the pulpit were Scriptural in origin. The Christian faith, after all, has some fairly revolutionary beliefs — things right wing Bible-thumpers often try to ignore (although some are now doing better). Things, for example, having to do with the duty the materially comfortable owe to the poor.

There is very little in our current “greed is good” culture, after all, that can easily be squared with the teachings of Jesus Christ, whatever Rolex wearing televangelists may from time to time claim.

So speaking as a PK (preacher’s kid), let me let you in on a little secret. Getting under people’s skin — sometimes even saying “outrageous” things — is part of a minister’s job. Sermons are supposed to get people thinking, shake them up a little. They can be freewheeling, filled with spontaneous expression. On occasion they can even be over the top and offensive. The idea, of course, is to shake us out of our complacency.

Political correctness and preaching have very little in common.

Father Pfleger’s words about Hillary Clinton, to my ear at least, were, in fact, unfortunate and even offensive. But they were made during a religious service as part of a pastor’s attempt to make a point, whether we agree with it or not, about white attitudes of entitlement. It was not a stump speech made as part of a political campaign.

Pfleger himself is politically active, at least in the sense of being a community activist (where he has done many good things), but at the time he made the statements at issue he was preaching as a clergyman. If he went over the line in the small portion of his sermon that’s currently swimming across the Internet, that’s an issue between him and the congregation.

It’s a somewhat different story, of course, when a preacher, such as Rev. John Hagee, intentionally injects his faith into the political process by arguing that his religious visions or traditions should become the template for American political life. Where that’s true, those visions and traditions become fair game. But even then I wonder if we haven’t gone too far in the direction of flyspecking old sermons looking for something to use against a candidate associated with the pastor in question.

This is a road that will lead nowhere but to grief for both religion and public discourse in this nation. It needs to stop now.

Agreed, but it won't!

THE LAST CHANCE DEMOCRACY CAFE

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.