Prior to becoming governor in 2006, her pastor was David Pepper of the Church on the Rock in Palin’s hometown of Wasilla — a church that “was kind of a foundation for her.” Pepper, it should be noted, is outspoken on slavery, racism, and the massacres of Native Americans, all of which he terms “sins” that still cast a long shadow on minority communities.
The overwhelming sense was of relationships made and strengthened, a firm commitment to remain in relationship despite the challenges and a yearning for greater exchange between the widely separated parts of the communion. We did not resolve anything, but we did discover how much we have to learn.
“When partners manifest the commitment to their relationship and family, by solemnizing that commitment elsewhere, through one of life’s most significant events, and come to New York, whether returning home or setting down roots, to carry on that commitment, nothing is more antithetical to family stability than requiring them to abandon that solemnized commitment.”
These modes either turn off certain lights, fans and alarms, or use a Jewish legal concept known as “gramma,” or indirect action, to operate the appliance on holy days. In refrigerators, for example, a built-in delay prevents the compressor from turning on immediately after the door is opened.
Much of the more responsible and, indeed, progressive theology these days derives from the modernist theologians: Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Paul Tillich, Rudolf Bultmann and Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971). Every single one of these created a special space for the heart of Christianity, its special message that is said to be different from all other knowledge disciplines.
The expression “bearing one’s cross” has become a feeble, pious commonplace, a trite metaphor for resigning oneself to some unavoidable burden or misfortune. . . . The image of taking up the cross was not some esoteric symbol for Jesus, but a horrible reality of daily life in an enemy-occupied country. No one could travel about Palestine for every long without coming across pitiful processions of condemned criminals, naked, bloody, dragging the crossbars to the places of execution. . . .
From Harper’s: During the 2008 campaign the beliefs of various candidates’ spiritual mentors has attracted a great deal of attention, especially those of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, and to a lesser extent those of John Hagee … So now seems an opportune time to examine the viewpoints of Sarah Palin’s two most recent pastors, as expressed in their sermons.
Bishop Michael Ingham, whose diocese – New Westminster – voted to allow same-sex blessings in 2002, reacted strongly to the Windsor Continuation Group’s proposals for retrospective moratoria, describing it as “an old-world institutional response to a new-world reality in which people are being set free from hatred and violence.”
“I was aware that there was a great deal of homosexuality in the Church, which confused me. I was aware that quite a lot of clergy got into trouble about it and that quite a lot of people led disordered lives. I was determined that I was going to try to work out a viable way of life which would not get me into that kind of mess, a way of life which was honest and which was compatible with faith.”
We agree with Senator Obama’s assertion that candidates’ minor children should be off limits in political debate. However, as parents, we wonder at the judgment of the two adults who put a 17-year-old child in the position to have her premarital pregnancy become front page news across the nation.