Mark Dawes, Religion Editor
Republican vice-presidential candidate, Alaska Governor, Sarah Palin, addresses supporters during a campaign rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin, last Thursday night.- AP photos
Ever since John McCain, the Republican party's nominee for president of the United States, picked Sarah Palin, the Governor of Alaska as his running mate, her faith has been in the news.
Also there have been reports of McCain's campaign receiving a significant bounce in the opinion polls because of his choice of Palin.
Born February 11, 1964, Palin was on the Wasilla, Alaska, city council from 1992 to 1996. Then, she became mayor during 1996-2002. She chaired the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission from 2003 to 2004. Then, she was elected governor of Alaska in November 2006.
On August 29, 2008, Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain announced that he had chosen Palin as his running mate. She was nominated at the 2008 Republican National Convention in Saint Paul , Minnesota .
Palin is the first woman and the first Alaskan to run on the Republican party's presidential ticket.
Palin whips up the crowd at a rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
Energised voters
McCain's choice of Palin has energised evangelical voters who, prior to her selection, were lukewarm towards him. Evangelical voters were a crucial constituency which George W. Bush successfully tapped in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections.
A sign of the extent to which the Palin pick favourably resonates with Christian conservatives, is that two of large evangelical publishers have hastily worked to put out biographies of the vice-presidential nominee.
Tyndale House Publishers has begun distributing a paperback edition of Sarah: How a Hockey Mom Turned the Alaska Political Establishment Upside Down, by Alaska freelance writer Kaylene Johnson. Tyndale is better known for publishing the best-selling Left Behind series.
In October, Zondervan Publishers is scheduled to release Joe Hilley's Sarah Palin: A New Kind of Leader. According to a statement from Zondervan, the author makes a case for Palin's leadership by touting her "maverick integrity, electrifying communication style, career agility, and perpetual education."
Early upbringing
Both biographies cite Palin's Christian faith as a formative force in her upbringing, family life and approach to governance.
According to Wikipedia.com "Palin was born into a Catholic family. When she was four years old, her family joined the Wasilla Assembly of God, which belongs to a Pentecostal association of churches. Palin attended the Wasilla Assembly of God until age 38.
When in Juneau (the state capital), she attends the Juneau Christian Center . Her current home church is the Wasilla Bible Church , an independent congregation with an attendance of 800 to 1000 on Sundays. Palin described herself in an interview as a 'Bible-believing' Christian."
Faith and politics
The on-line encyclopedia also noted that Palin has said that she would not allow her personal religious beliefs to dictate her political positions.
It continued, "But she has come under scrutiny in the press for comments made at a commencement address to a graduating class of ministry students at the Wasilla Assembly of God church in June 2008. In that address, Palin said, "Pray ... for this country, that our leaders ... are sending [U.S. soldiers] out on a task that is from God. That's what we have to make sure that we're praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God's plan"."
Critics have argued that she was justifying the Iraq war as part of God's plan,while Palin has explained that she was referring to Abraham Lincoln's statement, "let us not pray that God is on our side in a war or any other time, but let us pray that we are on God's side."
The pastor at Wasilla Assembly of God, Reverend Ed Kalnins, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal said he has told his members that God put President George W. Bush in office and that America is locked in a 'holy war' with terrorists.
Spiritual advice
According to the New York Times, shortly after taking office as governor in 2006, Palin sent an email message to Paul E. Riley, her former pastor in the Assembly of God Church, seeking spiritual advice on how to do her new job.
Riley, 78 who is today retired, told the newspaper, "She asked for a biblical example of people who were great leaders and what was the secret of their leadership."
He wrote back, the New York Times reported, urging her to read again the story of Esther who was a beauty queen who became a real queen and who had the ear of her king when there was a threat to slaughter all Jews.
Riley told the New York Times he thought Palin had lived out the advice as governor, and would now do so again as the Republican Party's vice-presidential nominee.
"God has given her the opportunity to serve," he said. "And God has given her the strength to carry out her goals."
Downplaying roots
Another former pastor of Palin, Tim McGraw, told CNN that, like many Pentecostal churches, some members speak in tongues, although he says he's never seen Palin do so.
The McCain campaign told CNN, the governor however, does not consider herself Pentecostal.
McGraw offered the view that the McCain-Palin campaign offices might be downplaying the governor's Pentecostal roots. He said "I think there may be issues of belief that could be misunderstood or played upon by people that don't know."
McGraw told CNN that he doubts that her religious beliefs will influence her decision making when it comes to government policy. Regarding her desire to build an Alaskan pipeline and explore for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, McGraw told CNN, "Sarah knows that in Genesis, God creates the world and it's very good and that we're supposed to be caretakers in terms of not destroying the environment, so there's no way that Sarah is going to exploit or damage the Alaska tundra in the name of getting gas if she doesn't have to."
McGraw told CNN that Alaska saw Palin's faith worked out as governor when she passed ethics reform and took on what she's referred to as a 'good-ol'-boys network'.
McGraw, who was her pastor until 1998 and while she was mayor of Wasilla, told CNN that Palin attended discipleship classes to strengthen her Pentecostal faith and that he counselled her on how to become a better leader.
Last June, this long-time member of the National Rifle Association in addressing graduates of ministry programme at her former Assembly of God church in Wasilla, was at ease, the New York Times reported, in talking about the intersection of faith and public life.
According to the newspaper, "Among other things, she encouraged the group of young church leaders to pray that 'God's will' be done in bringing about the construction of a big pipeline in the state, and suggested her work as governor would be hampered "if the people of Alaska 's heart isn't right with God."
Thumps up
McCain's choice of Palin as his running mate has earned the thumbs up from the influential evangelical magazine, Charisma.
The self-described hockey mom, and pro-life candidate, the magazine observed, has sometimes broken with the state Republican establishment, and has fought corruption and wasteful spending.
The governor has been married for 20 years to her high school sweetheart, Todd Palin. He works for an oil company and owns a commercial fishing business. The union has produced five children, sons Track, 19; Trig, five months; daughters Bristol , 18; Willow , 13; and Piper, 7.
Trig was born with Down Syndrome and Track is expected to see action soon as member of the military serving in Iraq .
A basketball star in high school, Palin was also at one time the leader of her school's chapter of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Some attribute to her a warrior spirit.
David Brody, Christian Broadcasting Network senior national correspondent, in his blog said "The McCain camp may want to play her as the reformer maverick, but its her Christian warrior spirit that has really brought McCain and his team the jolt they've needed."
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