Palin Nomination Puts Spotlight on Pentecostalism

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Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life
Palin Nomination Puts Spotlight on Pentecostalism
by Gregory Smith, Research Fellow, Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life
September 12, 2008

From the time she was a teenager until 2002, Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin attended a church affiliated with the Assemblies of God, the largest Pentecostal Christian denomination in the U.S. Pentecostalism emphasizes such practices as speaking in tongues, prophesying, divine healing and other miraculous signs of the Holy Spirit, which it believes are as valid today as they were in the early Christian church.

Prominent Democrats, including CEO of the Democratic National Convention Committee Leah Daughtry and Director of Religious Affairs for Barack Obama's presidential campaign Joshua Dubois, also are associated with Pentecostal Christianity. The Pew Forum's U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, conducted in the summer of 2007, makes it possible to examine the demographic, religious and political characteristics of Pentecostals in the United States.

As the Landscape Survey explains in detail, Protestantism can be broken down into three traditions: the evangelical, mainline and historically black church traditions. Pentecostals account for significant numbers within both evangelical and historically black Protestant churches. Taken together, Pentecostals make up 4.4% of the adult population.1 But they account for 8.5% of all Protestants, including 13% of members of evangelical churches and 14% of members of historically black churches.

Pentecostals display very high levels of religious commitment on such questions as frequency of church attendance. For instance, evangelical Pentecostals are more likely than evangelicals overall -- and much more likely than U.S. adults overall -- to report attending worship services at least once a week or praying on a daily basis. Pentecostals within both evangelical and historically black churches also are more likely than others in their traditions to report holding a literal view of the Bible, or experiencing or witnessing divine healings.

Pentecostals are more likely than other members of evangelical and historically black churches to express conservative views on abortion and homosexuality. But evangelical Pentecostals are more likely than other evangelicals to prefer a bigger government providing more services over a smaller government providing fewer services. And among members of historically black churches, Pentecostals are noticeably less Democratic than others in this tradition.

Entire statistics research:
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/949/palin-nomination-pentecostalism

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@BumbleBeeBoogie,

Do you really want to get into arguments about religion? Has a Pastor from "her church" ever made racist/anti american statements?

During a Christmas sermon, Wright tried to compare Obama's upbringing to Jesus at the hands of the Romans.

"Barack knows what it means living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people," Wright said. "Hillary would never know that.
Related

*
Stories
o As Obama Talks Religion, Questions Surround His Controversial Pastor

"Hillary ain't never been called a nigger. Hillary has never had a people defined as a non-person."

In his Jan. 13 sermon, Wright said:

"Hillary is married to Bill, and Bill has been good to us. No he ain't! Bill did us, just like he did Monica Lewinsky. He was riding dirty."

FOX News purchased the video recordings of Wright's sermons from the church.

"It's pretty clear an indirect endorsement of Barack Obama " that's not something you're supposed to do according to the tax code," said Andrew Walsh, a professor at Trinity College who specializes in religion in politics.

The tax code bans churches from participating in or intervening in a political campaign. Violations can result in the loss of a church's tax exempt status.

The Obama campaign issued a statement in response to FOX News' inquiries about Wright's sermons.

"Senator Obama has said repeatedly that personal attacks such as this have no place in this campaign or our politics, whether they're offered from a platform at a rally or the pulpit of a church," said Bill Burton, a campaign spokesman.

"Senator Obama does not think of the pastor of his church in political terms. Like a member of his family, there are things he says with which Senator Obama deeply disagrees."

Click here to visit Trinity United Church of Christ Web site.

Obama defended Wright's longtime activism for blacks in America last week at a campaign event in Ohio.

"Jeremiah Wright ... has said some things that are considered controversial because he's considered that part of his social gospel," Obama said.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,337308,00.html

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@Woiyo9,

Woiyo9 wrote:

Do you really want to get into arguments about religion?

Apparently it's the McCain campaign that's got some concerns about Palin's religious attachments.

Quote:

If conservative columnist William Kristol is to be believed, Sarah Palin is surprised that her own campaign hasn't made a bigger deal out of the controversial remarks of Barack Obama's former pastor. The relationship between Obama and Jeremiah Wright is, according to Palin, fair game in the presidential campaign because it speaks to the question of the Democratic candidate's character. "I don't know why that association isn't discussed more," Kristol, writing in the New York Times, quoted Palin as telling him.
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John McCain's campaign aides could probably answer that question for Palin. The ink on Kristol's column had barely dried before they were on the phone to political reporters declaring that the GOP nominee had long believed it would be inappropriate to raise the Wright issue. But McCain's current sensitivity is much more related to his running mate's own pastor problems than to any newfound campaign honor code.

Palin's religious background must initially have been seen as a positive to McCain campaign vetters, who assumed that her faith would appeal to the conservative base of the party that has always been suspicious of McCain. But ever since she joined the ticket in late August, the Alaska governor's various religious affiliations have caused headaches. First came reports that her pastor at the nondenominational Wasilla Bible Church was connected to Jews for Jesus, an organization that seeks to convert Jews to Christianity. Prominent Jewish leaders, including the co-chair of McCain's Jewish outreach effort, have since demanded to know whether Palin also believes that Jews must be converted. The Bible Church became an issue again when Katie Couric asked Palin about the church's promotion of a program to help gays "overcome" their homosexuality.

And finally, a videotape surfaced of a 2005 service at the Wasilla Assembly of God Church, the Pentecostal church that Palin attended for most of her life. In the scene captured on video, Palin stands at the front of the sanctuary while a visiting African pastor prays that God will help her gubernatorial campaign and protect her "from every form of witchcraft." Later in the same service, the pastor complains that "Israelites" held too many prominent positions in business, a comment that has further alienated Jewish voters.

Does Sarah Palin Have a Pentecostal Problem?

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Palin Nomination Puts Spotlight on Pentecostalism

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