Palin Factor: Religious Bigotry OK if Victim is Pentecostal?

Looking even more like Tina Fey than usual: VP nominee Sarah Palin.
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It seems like a lot of media coverage has gone toward informing American voters what church Sarah Palin has attended, and what the details of the beliefs and practices of her former church (an Assembly of God) are. Our state paper ran a long above-the-fold front page story on it not a week ago.

Why the obsession with her religion from the secular media? The same media hypocrites jumped all over Mike Huckabee when he asked questions about Mitt Romney's Mormon faith. They sent a clear signal that a person's religious beliefs should never be part of the debate. I don't agree with them, but the indignation from them was intense when Huckabee tried it. Now, though they are too sharp to condemn it outright, they seem to be spending an inordinate amount of time attempting to communicate the aspects of Palin's church that will be most off-putting to secular people.

Sarah Palin is a member of a church which actually believes that the Bible is the inspired Word of God. Sometimes, they probably even act like it. Secularists are uncomfortable with that, preferring religions that appropriate religious buzz words and symbols but deny the authority and unique truth claims at the heart of Christianity.

A colleague at work, a staunch Democrat, told me in the break room today that Sarah Palin was "Assembly of God, and those people are nuts. I'd never vote for one of them, they are crazy!".

I asked him if they were crazier than Muslims. I don't believe the internet rumours that Obama is a Muslim for one minute. He is a secularist to the core who wears multi-religious trappings when convenient. Still, I have never known any Assembly of God people to hijack airplanes and fly them into buildings. Pentecostals/Assembly of God etc... have practices that are somewhat outside the mainstream, but their traditional practices are eminently defensible from the Scriptures that all Christian sects claim to hold dear.

In the last few decades all kinds of weird stuff has crept into the Pentecostal movement, but there is more than one explanation for that. They are more willing to present an inviting environment to people on the skids than many denominations. If you really believe all that Bible stuff, then it becomes a reasonable idea that the Devil is herding the crazies to them because their attitude of openness toward God's supernatural power is a bigger threat to his plans.

The corporate media is again up to their hypocritical tricks. They are the ones who sometimes claim that a candidate's religion is out of bounds for criticism, not me. Still, they only play the "religious bigot card" to protect religions that are outside the bounds of Scriptural Christianity.

Their rule seems to read as follows: If a candidate's religion has tenants that a secular newsperson thinks are objectionable, or if they think it will divide Bible-believing Christians, then the candidate's religion is a legitimate topic for detailed discussion. If a candidate's religion has tenets orthodox Christians of all stripes find objectionable, then the secular media is outraged when someone questions the tenets of another persons religion, and they howl that it is "bigotry" to suggest that ones religious beliefs matter.

They should make up their minds about which way that should be, but I have already made up my mind about them. They need to repent and seek God. Perhaps at the nearest Assembly of God Church.