In a post called Sarah Palin’s rogue Christianity, Sally Quinn asks some hard questions of Sarah Palin intended to point out the inconsistencies of her faith commitments. I haven’t read the book but reading these questions makes me think of the hard test that faith puts on all of our lives.
Unsolved paradoxes lead us to poignant places where we are forced to exercise something a seminary student recently called intellectual humility. We believe things happen for a reason, but then we don’t believe that God’s hand was in our own defeat (you hear very few Republicans saying that God favored Barack Obama just as very few Democrats would have said that George Bush was God’s favored son). If Quinn’s post indicates anything it is that Sarah Palin is a very human, very flawed individual. Just like the rest of us.
Here are some of the questions that Sally Quinn asks Sarah Palin at On Faith at Washingtonpost.com:
In her new book Sarah Palin writes that one summer at Bible
Camp she “put my life in my creator’s hands and trust Him as I sought my
life’s path.” For Palin, this grand divine plan was “a natural
progression.” She writes. And later, “I don’t believe in
coincidences.”
Which leads me to ask:
What does she believe is God’s plan for her? Does she have
any free will or is everything preordained. Can she see something coming and
change her mind despite God’s plans for her?
Did God plan for her to become Governor of Alaska. If so,
did God plan for her to step down. Did God plan for her to run for Vice
President? If so why did she and McCain lose?
Did God plan for her to have a child with Down’s Syndrome?
If so why did she consider an abortion? Did God plan for her to have a huge
wardrobe? Then why did she apologize for it?
Did God plan for her to do the Katie Couric and Charlie
Gibson interviews and be humiliated by them. Did God plan for her to allow
herself to be forced, against her will to do those interviews? If so then why
complain?
Did God plan for her daughter Bristol to get pregnant while
she was a teenager? Why was she then not thrilled. Did God plan for Bristol to
get engaged and then break up, only to be left a single mother, dropping out of
school?
Did God plan for Levi Johnson to be the father of her
grandchild? Did God plan for Levi Johnson, who she now calls Ricky Hollywood,
to pose nude for Playgirl and go into “porn” as she told Oprah. If
so, why does she find it heartbreaking???I find it all very confusing. ??Certainly
Palin could say that God planned for her to publish a book that would be a
huge, bestseller, go on Oprah, and make an enormous amount of money. Why would
God choose her? Why would God look at the suffering around the world of so many
millions and say, Sarah, I’m going to give you all of this. ??Perhaps God
wants more out of Sarah Palin.
You would think that God would ask of her to live her life
as an example to others of a compassionate loving, caring person. One of the
most powerful examples of God’s love in the Bible is that of forgiveness.
Turning the other cheek.
But Palin’s book is a screed against everyone who ever
done her wrong.
She is angry at the campaign staffer for “forcing her
to do things she didn’t want to do”, she is angry at the media for asking
her questions she couldn’t answer. She is angry at the father of her grandson
for being a foolish teenager. She has used this book and all of her Christian
charity to do nothing but settle scores. She names names and calls ’em like she
see ’em. And she doesn’t see ’em the way God might. They are all of his
children.
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