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Palin Attended Church Event With Samurai Sword Ceremony
On June 7th, 2008 Sarah Palin interrupted her schedule of state business and spent Alaska state taxpayer money to fly up from Juneau to the Mat-Su Valley where she attended on June 8th two religious events dominated by the Wasilla Assembly of God, which is demonstrably Palin's key Alaska church.
At the end of one those events, young adults in a church Palin had attended for over two decades were presented with Samurai swords. "Warriors of old were considered undressed if they were without their sword... Swords were worn in service to the lord of the realm. Some of the most renowned swordsmen were the Samurai," intoned a church member officiating the sword ceremony, who then quoted Psalms 149 verses 6-9:
"May the praise of God be in their mouths and a double edged sword in their hands to inflict vengeance on the nations, and punishment on the peoples, and to bind their kings with fetters, their nobles with shackles of iron, and to carry out the sentence written against them."
In the lead up to the November 4th, 2008 presidential election there was an almost total failure, of not only mainstream but also alternative media and even bloggers, to inform the American voting public about the very specific and militant nature of the Christian religious tendency Sarah Palin was demonstrably heavily linked to.
In one of the two ceremonies Palin attended on June 8, 2008, known as "One Lord Sunday," a Christian supremacist gathering of Mat-Su valley area Christian church members, Palin was blessed and anointed by Wasilla Assembly of God head pastor Ed Kalnins. A second ceremony Palin attended that day was nationally publicized for footage on the Wasilla church's website that showed Palin giving a speech in honor of students graduating from the Wasilla Assembly of God's Masters Commission program.
In the speech, governor Palin effused, "It was so cool growing up in this church!" and went on to suggest the US military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan was sanctioned by God, and the governor. And Palin was prayed and blessed over by Ed Kalnins and Wasilla Assembly of God Paul Riley. But media did not delve into the nature of the Masters Commission program, nor reporters and journalists, or bloggers for that matter, bother to watch the video segment of the June 8th, 2008 Wasilla AoG video segment in full.
Anyone who did so would have noticed, later on in the ceremony, 1) a speaker addressing Palin from the stage, indicating she was still in the audience and, 2) shortly after, a ceremony in which male 3-year Masters Commission students were presented with Samurai swords, in a ceremony which mentioned the Samurai code of honor. Special note was made of the specific uses of the Samurai swords gifted to the students, such as cutting down opponents from horseback, ground-level combat, and in very close combat -- as an auxiliary blade to be plucked out for a sudden, killing blow.
The one female 3-year graduate of the program present in the ceremony was presented with a western-style broadsword that also was larger than the Samurai swords presented to the male students.
[below: 3-year graduates of Masters Commission Wasilla Alaska program given swords]
Other video to be found on the Wasilla church's web site, from a September 7, 2007 Masters Commission event at the Wasilla Assembly God, shows a national Masters Commission speaker waving a sword about from the pulpit while addressing students in the program, then playing an excerpt from the Mel Gibson movie The Patriot and suggesting to the program students that there are times when it is necessary to fight.
[below: Masters Commission national speaker Jayme Montera waves sword about during sermon, plays clip from Mel Gibson war movie "The Patriot"]
From September through to November 4th, 2008, there was an almost uniform failure, by not only mainstream media and progressive media but also bloggers, to notice such unusual and highly distinctive characteristics of Palin's religious associations. It was more than a trivial oversight; following the election, a story printed in the February 2009 issue of Charisma Magazine confirmed Palin's continuing association with Alaska religious leader Mary Glazier.
Glazier is a high level leader in a religious movement known as the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR). She and Sarah Palin prayed together, both over the phone and in person, the Charisma story revealed.
On June 13, 2008 Mary Glazier told attendees at the "Opening the Gate of Heaven on Earth" conference, who represented many of the New Apostolic Reformation's top leaders, that,
There is a tipping point, at which, at which time, because of the sin of the land, the people then have to be displaced.... God is preparing a people to displace the ones whose sin is rising so that then they tip over and the church goes in -- one is removed and the church moves in and takes the territory. Now, that does not mean that the people are removed, because God removes them from the Kingdom of Darkness into the Kingdom of Light. They are given an opportunity to change allegiances.
Later in the speech, Mary Glazier described how she had been present at the inception of Sarah Palin's political career and that Palin was in her personal prayer group :
There was a twenty-four year old woman that God began to speak to about entering into politics. She became a part of our prayer group out in Wasilla. Years later, became the mayor of Wasilla. And last year was elected Governor of the state of Alaska. Yes! Hallelujah! At her inauguration she dedicated the state to Jesus Christ. Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
On January 7, 2009, both Mary Glazier and another key Third Wave and New Apostolic leader, Dutch Sheets, appeared at the church most closely linked to Sarah Palin, the Wasilla Assembly of God, where Palin was re-baptized and attended for over two and a half decades. During the church service Sheets declared that Glazier "was the lady who brought us into the state [Alaska]." On June 7, 2009 another New Apostolic Reformation leader, International Coalition of Apostles member Lance Wallnau, gave a talk at the Wasilla church, in which he outlined the "Seven Mountains Mandate."
The July 12-14, 2008 Opening the Gate of Heaven on Earth conference that featured a number of speeches and sermons -- on the plans of leaders of the New Apostolic Reformation to take control of society and government through their "Seven Mountains Strategy."
These efforts to take control of religion, family, education, arts and entertainment, media, government, and business are clearly defined in their publicity and in numerous conferences on their efforts. In an October 16, 2005 Wasilla Assembly of God church event, in a speech given shortly before he blessed and anointed Sarah Palin, Thomas Muthee quite plainly laid out the need to take over the seven "kingdoms" in the short sermon, or speech, Muthee gave before the anointing of Sarah Palin.
Loren Cunningham is credited as one of three evangelists who supposedly received the Seven Mountains idea as a vision from God. Cunningham is founder of the global evangelizing organization Youth With a Mission, which owns the increasingly notorious "C Street House" where GOP Senators John Ensign and Tom Coburn enjoy cut-rate rent and Bible classes, and swap personal secrets such as news of Ensign's recently disclosed extramarital affair.
For another informed take on Sarah Palin's religious and political leanings, see Alaska native Leah Burton's recent book Theo Palinism: The Face of Failed Extremism
For further reading, see:
Palin Ties To Militant Religious Movement Confirmed
Palin Pastors, Ensign C Street House Owner Promote Same Infiltration Plan
Fighting Demons, Raising the Dead, Taking Over the World
Prosperity, Spiritual Warfare, and the "On-Demand" God
The New Christianity: What the Mainstream Media Has Missed
and [website section with collection of stories]
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Excellent response. This is not about being an expert, it IS about being aware. What we are talking about is not Christianity as "diakonos" states, rather it is about an extreme sect that uses the cloak of Christianity, and rote memorization of specific passages to regurgitate to its Sheeples to affect fear and manipulation.
One of my favorite quotes:
"It is not your Christ I don't like; it is your Christians - they are so unlike your Christ". Gandhi
good one!
i wouldn't be surprised if Glen Beck and his pal Chuck Norris were in the audience, too.
It's gone beyond a case of the neo-conservatives being "sore losers" -- the mentality that they have to kill what they disagree with seems to be getting more pervasive.
isn't it ironic that the very people they claim to hate -- Al-Queda and the suicide-bombers -- also advocate violence in the name of religion..
Yeh! they all have one thing in common, they're all nuts!
"In one of the two ceremonies Palin attended on June 8, 2008, known as "One Lord Sunday," a Christian supremacist gathering of Mat-Su valley area Christian church members, Palin was blessed and anointed by Wasilla Assembly of God head pastor Ed Kalnins."
Sounds more like "Looney Tune Sunday".
A samarai sword isn't two edged. And I'll bet these are cheap marto decorative swords that would be very, very unsafe to actually use.
As for bloggers dropping the ball, no way. This was all reported. And the main stream media, whose job it is to report this sort of thing are the ones that really dropped the ball. They still are.
I don't see them reporting on "The Family" in D.C. or Joel's Army.
Thank you. That part was bugging the crap out of me.
Not to mention that Christians were traditionally on the wrong end of katana, due to it being illegal in Japan during the Edo period.
Huffpost is mainstream
See Bruce Wilson's Profile
Can you provide a link to where this ceremony was previously reported ? Thanks in advance. Best, BruceW
Imagine the reaction of Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly if the swords were prerseneted by Reverend Jeremiah Wright to his church members.
Both of their heads would explode!!!
You know, I am an Atheist. I have no love for Sarah Palin. I have even less love for organized religions. While I understand where some of Wright's rhetoric comes from I do not agree with it. It too is militant. Much of Christianity uses the militant side of the Old testament far more frequently then they use the turn the other cheek, Christ side of the New Testament.
That being said, this comment struck me hard. I hate when people, most often recently Conservatives, use the "if a republican had done so and such there would be an uproar". Because They do the same things they accuse Dems of doing and there is no uproar.
But this. I see no need for an uproar against this Wassila group. Like I said they often resort to Old Testament scriptures. But if the militant Wright had done the same thing the White, right-wing base would be outraged and telling their base to buy guns and using Sean Connery's line from The Untouchables about bringing a knife to a gun fight.
See Bruce Wilson's Profile
"But if the militant Wright had done the same thing the White, right-wing base would be outraged and telling their base to buy guns and using Sean Connery's line from The Untouchables about bringing a knife to a gun fight."
- I hate to break it to you, friend, but that IS what voices on the far right are telling their base right now.
Mike,
Please go to links provided by Bruce. This story is not just about Palin's Wasilla church. It is about a movement that has been gaining ground and members for decades to see that "God's influence" is in every part of our society. Do you think all this teaching Creationism in the schools is an accident? No way... It is all part of a much bigger plan put into action.
The story about the "adultery" going on over at C Street is NOT the important aspect of the story, though it is what gets the most attention by the media. The secret organization that owns "C Street" is known as "The Family". The Family aka Christian Mafia has been operating for decades with members of both parties, to promote its agenda. And in many cases they have been quite successful in getting their agenda through Congress like.....
Seeing that "God's sovereignty is extended to every aspect of governance
Seeing that there is "deregulation of markets" so that according to them, "God can choose who is to be wealthy...
Working to end all social programs..
You might want to read some of my other comments about these religious zealots...
Thanks.
This is one of the weirdest things I have ever seen.
I am thankful to Keith Olbermann every day for showing the Pastor Muthee video in September 2008. I practically spit fire every time Sarah or anyone in the MSM says she has been picked on. Why the MSM has said very little of her political dominionist associations is beyond comprehension. Dangerous, dangerous, dangerous people.
Faved, I was already a fan.
another grandma here on your wavelength!!
well said!!
grandpa concurs . . . bu here's a more immediate concern: http://www
These spiritually self-deluded charlatans are trivializing both Japanese culture and the Christian faith. Twenty-first century white Americans misappropriating a Samurai tradition that is not theirs is bad enough, but the presentation of swords in a church is a slap in the face of Jesus Christ, who taught: "All who take up the sword will die by the sword" (Matthew 26:25). Jesus taught turning the other cheek when slapped, not wreaking vengeance and resorting to violence. The only "spiritual warfare" Christians are to engage in is fighting their own sinful impulses within themselves -- not in coercing and harassing others.
Well said.
agredd..we
If they'd offered me a sword, I would have reminded the congregation of the words and actions of Jesus Christ. "And, behold, one of those who were with Jesus stretched out his hand and drew his sword, and he struck a servant of the high priest and cut off his ear. Then Jesus said to him, Put up your sword again into its place; for all who take the sword shall perish with a sword." (Matthew 26:51-52 Modern King James Version)
The problem with quoting Psalms 149:6-9 is that Christians often confuse physical things with spiritual things. Jesus taught us spiritual things. The two-edged sword mentioned in Hebrews 4:12 and Ephesians 6:17 is not a physical sword but is the Word of God -- the Holy Bible! Ever hear the phrase that someone has a "sharp tongue"?
"For the Word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing apart of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." (Hebrews 4:12 Modern KJV)
Sounds like Sarah and company need to do two things.
1. Study harder in Sunday School
2. Buy American! Come on, Samurai swords?
applause, applause!! That is precisely the problem with people who do not read and study God's word on their own, and are taught "cherry-picked" verses and given their meanings without any thought of their own. Therein lies the danger of taking an inerrant view of the bible, especially the one they use that was scripture-twisted and republished in 1973. Thank you for your contributions. It really is getting to the core of the meaning.
Heard of the lion and the lamb? Jesus came as the lamb, For those who don't know or believe he will return as a ???? Deep Biblical abstract theological content. Then the lion will lie down with the lamb! One and the same.
Luke 22:36 -- Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.
Jesus wanted his followers to be armed, even if it meant that they couldn't afford a cloak.
True. But again, armed with a physical or spiritual sword? Consider the later verses of Luke 22:48-51. "But Jesus said to him, Judas, do you betray the Son of Man with a kiss? And those around Him seeing what was about to occur, they said to him, Lord, shall we strike with the sword? And one of them struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his right ear. And Jesus answered and said, Let it go until now. And touching his ear, He healed him." Jesus Christ not only stopped the physical combat but he erased the damage.
Jesus didn't need physical swords. "Then Jesus said to him, Put up your sword again into its place; for all who take the sword shall perish with a sword. Do you think that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He shall presently give Me more than twelve legions of angels?" (Matthew 26:52-53)
Last I knew, these churches consider religion involved with the Samurai as anti christian. I think Heathen is the term that comes to mind. So how hypocritical is it for them to tout the Samurai as one of their saving graces. Their thinking is so skewed they don't even realize what they are embracing.
It's not hypocrisy, it's just ignorance and carelessness.
"To err is human; to really screw things up, you need religion."
Heh, that's pretty clever.. Who said that?
There's nothing here to worry about and that's probably why the media did not cover it. The Assembly of God's Master Commission is a program to help young students focus on living a life devoted to Christ. Nothing too scary about that. The swords are symbolic of the Bible and taking the words of the Bible to the world (The sword of the spirit refers to God's word). Samurai swords are probably not the best choice to represent God's word but the whole thing is really harmless.
I agree. It all seems a bit strange, but none of this seems dangerous to me.
See Bruce Wilson's Profile
Would you be alarmed if the Wasilla Asembly of God Masters Commission students whose graduation ceremony Sarah Palin endorsed had been given AK-47's ?
At least they didn't hand out guns.
That's because in Alaska, most of us already have guns....bu
Taking the sword to the world does not require a weapon as symbolism.
This is not about anti-Christianity, it is about extremism no matter what face it wears...Ch
Because all of us, pagans, wiccans, moslims, jews, CofE -- we all want to live in the theocracy that Palin has always made clear was her goal. And why should we worry that she has ties to the power structure of C-Street. Nothing to see here -- move along. It's harmless. A little DDT, just kills the mosquitos. Just tidy up the inconsistencies in that science book, all the bases are covered if you just keep repeating, "Because that's god's plan." What's wrong with young people being indoctrinated in bible camps and handed weapons? Why, they've been doing that since the dawn of time.
Us ones that don't worship, or don't worship your god, or don't agree to change over and turn our kids over to you -- we deserve getting chopped into little pieces. Or kept out of government. Or turned over to the IRS/put on flight risk lists/interned. Whatever. Because theocracy is the best.
See Bruce Wilson's Profile
In case you missed the second and third paragraph of my piece, here they are again:
"
At the end of one those events, young adults in a church Palin had attended for over two decades were presented with Samurai swords. "Warriors of old were considered undressed if they were without their sword... Swords were worn in service to the lord of the realm. Some of the most renounced swordsmen were the Samurai," intoned a church member officiating the sword ceremony, who then quoted Psalms 149 verses 6-9:
"May the praise of God be in their mouths and a double edged sword in their hands to inflict vengeance on the nations, and punishment on the peoples, and to bind their kings with fetters, their nobles with shackles of iron, and to carry out the sentence written against them."
"
That what I read. And it both looks and sounds... Threatening and dangerous.
This IS a church right? If these are "spiritual warriors" why weren't they given BIBLES instead of swords? Could it be because in order to carry out a "holy war" against unbelievers a sword is easier to wield than the word of God?
Bruce - are you *sure* the word used was "renounced"? I know the guys are bordering (if not already totally there) on the whacko side in both word and deed, but shouldn't the word be "renowned" in that last sentence of the first quoted paragraph?
Gotta love that Old Testament and its vengeful Jehovah!
Just another passage demonstrating the cultural mindset which, to this day, perpetuates religious conflict in the Middle East.
I believe they're talking about spiritual warfare, not physical warfare. It's unfortunate they had to use the symbolism of a samurai sword which has a history of its own, but they're not talking about physically conquering the world. I believe you're assigning motives that just aren't there.
..."On January 7, 2009, both Mary Glazier and another key Third Wave and New Apostolic leader, Dutch Sheets, appeared at the church most closely linked to Sarah Palin, the Wasilla Assembly of God, where Palin was re-baptized and attended for over two and a half decades.".
So do these "Dutch Sheets" which appear at the church, then get draped over their dunce caps and then eye holes are cut out for these religious nut-jobs?
When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion.
-- Abraham Lincoln, 16th U.S. President [1861-1865]. From Henry O. Dormann, compiler, The Speaker's Book of Quotations, New York: Ballantine Books, 1987, p. 127.)
Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory to itself than this thing called Christianity. Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and tortuous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize humankind; and, for my part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel. All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.
-- Thomas Paine (The Age of Reason)
Thomas Paine is one of my favorite historical figures and philosophers. Unfortunately, we live in a country where the number of people that do not live in an "Age of Reason" is at least 40%. I have noticed that the number of religious moderates that are getting fed up with the evangelicals is growing and the number of non-believers is also growing. I guess we have to see which way the pendulum swings.
No truer words were ever written.
Fanned and faved
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