Palin on her efforts to make Alaska a decent place to live: “None of that is gonna do any good if the people’s heart isn’t right with God. We can work together to make sure that God’s will be done here in Alaska.”

September 4, 2008 Christian Right and Sarah Palin, Christian Right and GOP, Christian Right No Comments

Palin: Iraq War ‘Task from God’ | Tikun Olam-תקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place, Sept. 3rd, 2008 by Richard Silverstein

Praise the Lord and pass the ballot box.

Sarah Palin may be “right with God.” But is she “right with America?” Talk about separation of church and state…I was just watching the accompanying video with my wife and she–both of us having been born and raised in New York–said: “Can you imagine a governor of New York saying these things?” Frankly, I can’t imagine a governor of any state saying such things, at least not as a sitting governor.

Things are different in Alaska perhaps because politically there is less at stake. But now that Palin seeks to move onto a national stage, it is precisely videos like this that will allow a national audience to determine whether she is fit to be elected.

Here are some of the choice quotations from the video that jumped out at me. In his introduction, controversial Pastor Ed Kalnins notes that when he first met Palin, she was the mayor of Wasilla:

When I got the chance to meet our mayor, I said: “This person loves Jesus. That’s the bottom line. She loves Jesus with everything she has. She’s a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ before she’s a mayor.”

After boasting that her 19 year-old son Track had enlisted in the military and was about to be deployed to Iraq, Palin preached:

“Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right. Also, for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending them [U.S. soldiers] out on a task that is from God,” she exhorted the congregants. “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.

Subsequently, she makes another boast about a $30 billion natural gas pipeline which she’s seeking to build from Alaska through Canada to the lower 48:

” I can work really, really hard to get a natural gas pipeline, a $30 billion project that’s going to create a lot of new jobs for Alaskans and will have a lot of energy flowing through here. And pray about that also. I think God’s will has to be done in unifying people and companies to get that gas line built, so pray for that.

She then lists the tasks she can do as governor to make the state a decent place to live. But she adds:

None of that is gonna do any good if the people’s heart isn’t right with God. We can work together to make sure that God’s will be done here in Alaska.