In The Last Days Of The Election: Apocalypse Now, Palin?

As Palin herself joked on Saturday Night Live , she hasn't been taking questions. But in those rare attempts to discover what happens under that immoveable updo, no one has asked the one I would most like to hear Sarah Palin answer --as she may still hover a melanoma away from holding the most important office on the planet, at one of the most crucial moments in world history. Does Sarah Palin think we are living in the End Times?

It may sound crazy to you, but I'm dead serious. In June--just several weeks before her nomination was announced--Palin nodded along as her spiritual mentor Pastor Ed Kalnins talked about his belief that "Alaska's one of the refuge states" that people will be flocking to "in the Last Days." Shouldn't we know if the person in line to lead our nation agrees with this statement, as the widely circulated video clip of this exchange suggests? Just because a pastor preaches a notion doesn't mean his flock necessarily swallows that concept whole--just ask Barack Obama. But this is not the only indicator that Palin believes the end is nigh. An Alaskan teacher and musician, Phil Munger, has blogged about two separate occasions in which then-Mayor Palin said, "The Lord is coming soon," he writes. He says she told him," I can see that, maybe you can't-- but it guides me every day."

You may dismiss such a mindset as mere idiosyncrasy, but rapture readiness is familiar to at least one quarter of Americans who self-identify as Evangelical, especially those who are members of conservative churches like the ones the Palins have attended, where pastors routinely preach that evidence of the Second Coming is right there on CNN whenever a report airs from the Gaza Strip or the United Nations. Biblical prophecy has long been a consuming passion in many Evangelical circles--an organizing worldview, a filter through which to understand everything from the war in Iraq to the global financial crisis. Many eschatology-minded souls rejoiced on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, the beginning of the annual Days of Judgment, when the Dow closed 777 points--the holy number of God. Surely, websites buzzed, this is a sign that Jesus is en route. As the market plummets straight to hell, is Palin herself considering the returns on her higher investment?

When we talk about Evangelicalism and politics we talk about abortion and same-sex marriage; we debate whether our science teachers should introduce students to the Book of Genesis. These are the topics that members of the press-including debate moderators--are expected to broach, and they do. Asking whether the human race is on the brink of holy Armageddon does not come easily. It's almost impossible to engage with if it's something you don't believe; its beyond polemic, beyond rational discourse, seeming perhaps so insane to a nonbeliever that it might feel like condescension or insult to ask if someone believes themselves. And it's hard to see it as an issue to discuss, lacking the obvious legal dynamic of an issue like Roe v. Wade. But when the End of Days appears as literal truth to the person who may determine our foreign policy, her faith impacts us in truly gargantuan ways.

Senator John McCain lauds his understudy as a "breath of fresh air," but Palin may be more accurately understood as a gasp of brimstone, should she have the opportunity to make any decisions that affect more than the country's special needs children. "We're not going to get into discussing her religion," the McCain campaign told the Times soon after announcing the addition of its feisty Sister Christian to the Republican ticket. Perhaps the McCain campaign has avoided discussing her faith because her beliefs might make Jeremiah Wright's most incendiary sermons sound positively mainline--and because a number of McCain's Republican colleagues likely subscribe to the same prophetic reading of our moment in history. McCain tells supporters they don't need to be scared of a Barack Obama presidency, but I wonder if he could similarly assure the nation about his own choice for Vice President?

"The churches that Sarah has attended all believe in a literal translation"--or reading--"of the Bible," a Wasilla resident who has known and worked with Palin for some fifteen years told the Times, adding, "her principal ethical and moral beliefs stem from this." This literal reading includes, of course, the Book of Revelation, John's big-budget, surrealist account of the apocalypse, as well as the prophetic words shot throughout the Old and New Testaments. We discuss her inexperience with tabula rasa implications. But we can't afford to ignore the fact that she says the greatest authority in her life is this brand of faith. If Palin believes that every word of the Bible is absolute truth, and is in line to direct the future of our military and our diplomacy, her inexperience might be the least of our troubles.

Despite its professed literalism, reading prophecy is interpretive. Eschatology assesses what entities will construct the ostensibly real-life cast of the End. Popular conjecture imagines various pillars of the Islamic world, the United Nations, and the European Union as havens for the Antichrist. Were Palin to become the Decider in Chief, would she fight these forces, confident that, as she has said, she's carrying out "God's will?"

When Palin talks about Putin "rearing his head"--is she telling her fellow Christian soldiers that she agrees with many of them who think that Russia might be The Beast? And don't forget Iran. Palin explained her policy leanings this way to Katie Couric: "It is obvious to me who the good guys are in this one and who the bad guys are. The bad guys are the ones who say Israel is a stinking corpse and should be wiped off the face of the earth." This may be more than a continuation of the reductive Manichaeism of the Bush administration, which the world perceives as fighting crusades rather than just wars, but rather the trailer to a real -life reenactment of scenes from the bestselling Left Behind novels, in which the Tribulation Force battles the minions of the Antichrist, who happens to be the U.N. Secretary General.

We know that Palin's perspective on family planning and creationism has not yet impacted Alaska policy during her short time behind the governor's desk. But as a possible president, Palin would not merely oversee legal adjustments, but wage war and diplomacy. When her phone rings at 3am, would she reach for her worn Bible on the bedside table to confirm that her crisis management is in line with Biblical prophecy? And would she do so ballasted by a belief that she is ordained by God to do so, that, as she has said "there is a plan, and that plan is God's plan?" That, to me, would be a real tribulation.

Comments

[Jacquelina]

One thing that is very interesting to note (as the theologian John Dominic Crossan asserts): "End of times" in the Christian texts NEVER refers to the destruction of the physical world. It would have been impossible for persons in the centuries just following the time of Jesus right up until the 1930s to imagine such a thing because they could not do it. We can (sadly), so as a result we insert our post-nuclear understandings onto these texts.

So, what then to make of them? The end of times--or the Kingdom of God--is an age when there is the end of inequality, which then brings justice and peace to all. Jesus and Paul (Radical Paul, i.e. those six books Paul of Tarsus actually wrote) are asserting one key thing: The time of this equality and peace is upon us NOW because we can choose to act with kindness and love towards all of our neighbours. The end of "other" has come, and the age of "one" is here.

This means one simple thing: Every time Ms. Palin is shaking her head to the idea that the world is going to end as we know it, she is shaking her head that she understands the Christian texts about as well as she understands foreign policy.

[edva]

The fact that these people believe in fairy tales (religion) shows they are already a little nuts.
"Self-fulfilling prophecies" are only a short leap from there.
BTW, after listening to Mr. A of Iran, my interpretation is that he literally wants to wipe the country of Israel off the MAP, as in redraw the map with no Israel, as it was before; not that he wants to nuke it and kill all the Israelis. Although I know that interpretation will be vigorously disputed by many.
But if there is a distinction there, it is totally lost on Palin, whom I suspect couldn't really care less about Israel, other than as a campaign soundbite.

[GGeezzerr]

USA wouldn't give the perspiration off the nates of a rattus norvegicus except for two facts the presence and political power of the large Jewish population in America and the fact that Israel has the weaponry and determination to vaporize a large part of the middle east if they figure they're going to die anyways.
Somehow despite the avowed desire for the coming of the rapture those living now are not in too much of a hurry to find out what it will be like after the rapture.

[knowBuddhaU]

I agree: getting Palin to answer questions about the End Times is a serious and legitimate concern.

I grew up with "rapture anxiety," a terror that gripped me every time I came home to an empty house. 'Oh no! Everyone else was Raptured and I was left behind.'

Faith is obviously very important, both to voters and candidates, so for a campaign to say, we're not going to discuss what the candidate herself says is the most important factor in her decision-making, tells me they're hiding something.

I see the McCain campaign using religious narratives and symbols blatantly to put the fear of god into us, and to conflate themselves with divine authority.

"All you have to do is tell [voters] they are being attacked and denounce [your opponents] for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger."

"Obama and his associates are attacking us, and they're in league with the devil. He and his supporters are endangering America and your souls."

Can anyone name the source of this strategy?

[thebarbarian]

If Palin ever really read the Book of Revelation she would realize that only 144,000 celibate males get to go to heaven.

Actually Revelation was written by Domitian's writers in order to supercede the divinity of his brother Titus and his father Vespasian who commissioned the Gospels.

The New Testament was written as a monument to the Flavian Caesar's. Jesus was invented in order to quell the messianic Jewish movement in the Roman Empire who set up their own kingdom therein. It was meant to replace the militaristic movement of Judea with a pacifistic religion.

See: http:www.CaesarsMessiah.com

[DaisyBelle]

Believers in a literal interpretation of scripture are those who lack intellectual curiosity. They think the answers are ready-made and once "found", doubt, soul searching and thought processes can stop.

[MarciL]

I know some fundamentalists who haven't prepared for retirement AT ALL because they believe that the end is coming soon.

[R.W. Sanders - Huffpost Blogger]

The problem lies not in what Palin might believe, but in the way she believes. Our problem is with fundamentalism, whether it be Christian or Muslim. I think our problems today rest in the fact that there are fundamentalists in Pakistan as well as the White House. Whenever one believes that they are right because they have a more direct communication with God that others, one is lost.

I have heard her say our war in Iraq is God's plan. And she has been blessed against witchcraft on more that one occassion. I am scared.

[zorak1704]

Log on to Youtube and watch the British movie "Threads," and then wonder why we can not have someone with her beliefs anywhere near the nuke codes.

[Slice]

Are Christians who not only think the world will end, but actually WANT this to happen, so that they can sit rewarded in Heaven while the billions left behind die in horrible circumstances, any different in their attitude to those behind the September 11 attacks? I wonder.

[MeiLing]

Certainly not much in my mind they aren't! Their ideology is the same. The only difference is that if they haven't done anything to hasten the end of days, then they are not in the eyes of the law

[zorak1704]

One news headline you never read. "Fighting intensified today between athiest rebels and agnostic government troops."

[edva]

or Buddhists invade.............

[Saoirsi]

Shame for your theory about Stalin and Mao - did you miss that memo?
Nice to see that militant secularists can have their factually impervious faith-based theories too.

[melmoid]

If she gets her finger on the nuclear trigger which is likely if McCain is elected. We are all radioactive toast. It is just a matter of time. GW is also a closet end-of-timer. You don't really think anyone could be that incompetent and stupid do you? It is not by accident we are in this huge mess.

[SeabeeC]

Revelation was written as a "hang in there and keep the faith" message to Christians who were being persecuted by the Emperor Domitian. It's fascinating to see how John drew on symbols and allegories to get a message of hope to people who desperately needed to believe that they wouldn't always have to live in sorrow and fear. (Sound familiar?)

But when modern Christians start seeing political candidates as beasts with multiple heads and horns, believe that barcodes are marks of the beast, and do everything humanly possible to bring about the end of the world, it's time to put away the Darbyist concept of the Rapture (which didn't exist until the 1800s) and the contemporary novels full of bad theology, and to return to the basic message of Jesus Christ: "Love one another as I have loved you."

[TXfemmom]

Oh, and when I taught Sunday School, I had to do a lot of research and had to go back and study the Bible in what it said originally and the context and what that meant at the time, and the End of Time and the Book of Revelations was written about Rome. Rome was the demon for the Book of Relations and the time was in the time then. It didn't happen and I don't think anyone should put their faith in it.

[TXfemmom]

I grew up in a fundamentalist church, and then my mother told me I could make my own choice and I was outta there in a flash. I then attended a mainstream Protestant church for a long time and taught Sunday School there for twelve and thirteen year olds. Our minister's son was in my class and I taught sex ed, if you can believe it to those kids, I mean sex ed as in being a medical professional and telling the stand up truth about everything. I told them they weren't ready for sex, keep in mind the moral part but if they were going to be stupid, to at least be smart in being stupid. I had the largest classes I ever had then, and not one peep from the parents.

Later, I just determined that spirituality didn't need to be in an organized church.

I do believe that those who are fundamentalist ANY RELIGION are a threat to everyone around them, and this country. Our forefathers had seen what religion being bound to the state achieved and they separated us and it should stay there. Palin has shown herself to be an outstanding liar and can misrepresent with the best, and teaches division and hate and that is why I left that fundamentalist church and this country should never, ever permit any church of any faith to have anything to do with our government.

[Hoelder]

You think it cannot get any worse and then it does! Religious zealots have been the cause of wars, witch hunts and cause of extreme suffering. No matter what the argument is, reason cannot penetrate the skulls of such radicals. Since the middle ages religious fanatics have destroyed countries. I made a mistake when I thought we will somehow survive Bush. We as a nation have not been as close to war since the Cuban missile crisis. The enemy is from within. What makes it even more dangerous is the financial disaster we are about to see. Even more dangerous is the looming food crises. A country like Pakistan is on the brink of collapse and they have nukes. So do the Russians. And India. The disastrous foreign policies adds spice to a widening problem. We are over populated, water is poisoned and sparse, the soils in the US are destroyed and can only yield a harvest with extreme amounts of fertilizer. The issues have been put off for years. These are just a few subjects I can mention. With my knowledge of history, there is only one outcome: war. I do not know where and how long it is going to last, nor do I know whether it is a localized or global war. I only hope that Obama can find solutions to avoid that. I can not imagine his intelligence and his potential because I am not even close.