What McCain running mate Sarah Palin thinks about faith and theology is largely unknown outside of the obvious: she is a conservative evangelical. Because so little is know about her (even to John McCain it would seem) it is hard to know how exactly her religious views inform her public policy stances. We do know that she is against abortion in all cases (even rape), that she has opposed sex education, and that she urged public schools to teach creationism. Since these are all typical positions for the Religious Right one would assume that her positions come in large part out of her religious beliefs.
This lack of knowledge about where Palin stands on the issues - coupled with where we do have information - has forced people to question her beliefs on a range of issues. One of the most important is how Palin views Jewish Americans.
You'll remember that McCain was forced earlier this year to distance himself from right-wing extremist ministers who offered up clearly anti-Semitic rhetoric in sermons and other public remarks.
Now comes word that Palin's own church recently invited the David Brickner, the leader of Jews for Jesus (a right-wing fundemntalist group) to preach. Politico.com reports:
Palin’s pastor, Larry Kroon, introduced Brickner on Aug. 17, according to a transcript of the sermon on the church’s website.
“He’s a leader of Jews for Jesus, a ministry that is out on the leading edge in a pressing, demanding area of witnessing and evangelism,” Kroon said.
Brickner then explained that Jesus and his disciples were themselves Jewish.
“The Jewish community, in particular, has a difficult time understanding this reality,” he said. Brickner’s mission has drawn wide criticism from the organized Jewish community, and the Anti-Defamation League accused them in a report of “targeting Jews for conversion with subterfuge and deception.”
Brickner also described terrorist attacks on Israelis as God's "judgment of unbelief" of Jews who haven't embraced Christianity.
"Judgment is very real and we see it played out on the pages of the newspapers and on the television. It's very real. When [Brickner's son] was in Jerusalem he was there to witness some of that judgment, some of that conflict, when a Palestinian from East Jerusalem took a bulldozer and went plowing through a score of cars, killing numbers of people. Judgment — you can't miss it."Palin was in church that day,
The fact that Jesus was a Jew is not a debatable point (or even a debated one) in Christian-Jewish dialog. But the rest of Brickner's words and history reflect deeply anti-Semitic views that mainline Christians and many evangelicals reject.
The question is this: does Sarah Palin share these views?
For more information on Jews for Jesus visit my 2004 post Jews for Jesus: A Dishonest Name And A Misguided Purpose.
Update: VIA Jake Tapper
McCain-Palin campaign spokesman Goldfarb said that Brickner "was a guest at the church who Gov. Palin did not know would be speaking, and she does not share the views he expressed. She and her family would not have been sitting in the pews of the church if those remarks were remotely typical."
I don't quite buy these comments from the McCain-Palin campaign. You don't just accidentaly invite a radical extremist group like Jews for Jesus into your church and let them provide the sermon. You'd have to suspect that there was support for Jews for Jesus and their beliefs offered up from the leadership of the congregation otherwise they would never have been invited. As a pastor, I'd never invite a group that I know nothing about to address the congregation.
