Alas­ka Gov. Sarah Palin was the star of the Chris­t­ian Right’s 2008 Val­ues Vot­er Sum­mit in mid-Sep­tem­ber, even though she was a last minute no-show. The Repub­li­can vice pres­i­den­tial candidate’s name was tossed around fre­quent­ly to euphor­ic applause at the event in Wash­ing­ton, D.C., while the few men­tions of pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Sen. John McCain (R‑Ariz.) drew only polite claps.

Top­ping the list of con­cerns at the con­fer­ence were abor­tion and same-sex mar­riage, while oth­er pre­sen­ta­tions sound­ed the alarm on the threats to God and coun­try posed by stem cell research, immi­gra­tion from Mex­i­co, Islam­ic ter­ror­ists, sec­u­lar pub­lic schools, sex edu­ca­tion and lib­er­als, in general.

Atten­dees knew the stakes for this elec­tion are high. The next pres­i­dent will appoint Supreme Court jus­tices who will shape legal mat­ters for decades, a point that was made repeat­ed­ly from the stage.

While some speak­ers out­lined the polit­i­cal bat­tles ahead in prac­ti­cal terms, oth­ers implied that this elec­tion reflect­ed a cul­ture war between god­ly Chris­tians and the forces of Satan – embod­ied, of course, by Sen. Barack Oba­ma (D‑Ill.) and the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Party.

One thing was clear: Many in the Chris­t­ian Right now view elect­ing Palin as a task ordained by God. The unan­swered ques­tion for the rest of us is: How does Palin see her­self? Is she some­one who mere­ly asks God for guid­ance – a fair­ly com­mon prac­tice for reli­gious peo­ple in pub­lic office? Or does she see her­self as car­ry­ing out God’s will on the polit­i­cal stage?

The lat­ter would sug­gest a theo­crat­ic world­view that runs counter to the sep­a­ra­tion of church and state. But because she has so far declined most inter­views, we’re left to sift through Palin’s polit­i­cal and reli­gious his­to­ry for clues.

Back in Wasilla

All of the four church­es Palin has reg­u­lar­ly attend­ed as an adult fall on the right of the polit­i­cal spec­trum, sup­port con­ser­v­a­tive social poli­cies – such as oppo­si­tion to abor­tion and gay rights – and have ties to key insti­tu­tions on the Chris­t­ian Right, from Focus on the Fam­i­ly to Chris­tians Unit­ed for Israel. Some are pas­tored by men with strong domin­ion­ist lean­ings – a desire to bring gov­ern­ment under the ​“domin­ion” of Chris­t­ian theology.

One church Palin briefly attend­ed is a non­de­nom­i­na­tion­al evan­gel­i­cal con­gre­ga­tion, but the oth­er three are Pen­te­costal, includ­ing the Wasil­la Assem­bly of God, which Palin and her fam­i­ly joined when she was a child. She was bap­tized there at the age of 12 and remained a mem­ber until 2002, when she first ran for statewide office (in an unsuc­cess­ful bid for lieu­tenant governor).

For­mer Attor­ney Gen­er­al John Ashcroft is the most famous politi­cian to come out of the Pen­te­costal tra­di­tion, which grew out of some­thing called the Holi­ness Move­ment in the late 1800s.

Its church­es are known for a live­ly and ener­getic style of wor­ship. They also tend to be, like Ashcroft, the­o­log­i­cal­ly con­ser­v­a­tive and doc­tri­naire. Its fol­low­ers have typ­i­cal­ly been ​“born again” as adults and are infused by the Holy Spir­it dur­ing wor­ship, man­i­fest­ed through danc­ing or speak­ing in tongues. They also tend to uphold rig­or­ous tra­di­tion­al moral stan­dards in the face of what they see as a sin­ful world, believe God’s will is revealed to believ­ers through prayer and signs, insist on the impor­tance of prophe­cy, and view the Bible as the lit­er­al word of God.

There are no indi­ca­tions that Palin is atyp­i­cal in any of these par­tic­u­lars. Indeed, con­sis­tent with Pen­te­costal doc­trine, she has tak­en posi­tions in favor of out­law­ing abor­tion and same-sex mar­riage, as well as insti­tut­ing absti­nence-only edu­ca­tion and the teach­ing of cre­ation­ism in the pub­lic schools. And she has come close to attribut­ing her elec­tion as gov­er­nor to divine inter­ven­tion, thank­ing a vis­it­ing pas­tor, Thomas Muthee of Kenya, for her win. ​“He just prayed for it,” she recalled ear­li­er this year. ​“He said, ​‘Lord make a way and let her do this next step.’ And that’s exact­ly what happened.”

The Assem­blies of God – the fun­da­men­tal­ist denom­i­na­tion shared by Ashcroft and Palin – is gen­er­al­ly extreme­ly con­cerned with Jesus’ Sec­ond Com­ing and the con­struc­tion of the King­dom of God on Earth.

Ashcroft trans­lat­ed these beliefs direct­ly into pub­lic life: One of his first acts as attor­ney gen­er­al was to cov­er the exposed breast of the giant Spir­it of Jus­tice stat­ue in the Jus­tice Department’s Great Hall and to con­vene dai­ly morn­ing prayer meet­ings in his office.

More sub­stan­tive­ly, Ashcroft stepped up pornog­ra­phy pros­e­cu­tions and tamped down pros­e­cu­tions relat­ed to threats and vio­lence direct­ed at abor­tion clin­ics. Like Palin, Ashcroft opposed abor­tion even in the case of rape or incest. As a sen­a­tor, he fought for what lat­er became Pres­i­dent Bush’s faith-based ini­tia­tive, which chan­neled tens of mil­lions of dol­lars into Chris­t­ian Right orga­ni­za­tions. As attor­ney gen­er­al, he increased inves­ti­ga­tions of Mus­lim charities.

Palin’s own thin pub­lic record is less deci­sive: She cam­paigned for gov­er­nor against ben­e­fits for same-sex part­ners, but once gov­er­nor, she did not block imple­men­ta­tion of a court rul­ing that ordered the state to pro­vide such ben­e­fits. Nor has she tried to man­date the teach­ing of cre­ation­ism or absti­nence-only sex ed in Alaska’s schools.

But two inci­dents are troubling.

One is by now quite famil­iar: In 1996, Palin approached Wasilla’s librar­i­an about whether she’d be will­ing to cen­sor some books, pos­si­bly out of con­cern over a local pastor’s book argu­ing for accep­tance of gay Chris­tians. The librar­i­an refused to coun­te­nance the idea, and a few months lat­er, Palin sought to fire her (though com­mu­ni­ty protest saved the woman’s job).

The sec­ond has received less atten­tion: Last win­ter, when Vic Kohring, the state rep­re­sen­ta­tive from Wasil­la was con­vict­ed of bribery, Palin appoint­ed an elder from Wasil­la Bible Church to replace him. That man, Wes Keller, has since spon­sored a bill to make per­form­ing late-term abor­tions a felony and intro­duced leg­is­la­tion lob­bied for by the Alas­ka Fam­i­ly Coun­cil – a Focus on the Fam­i­ly affil­i­ate – requir­ing pub­lic libraries to install fil­ters to pro­tect young peo­ple from ​“inap­pro­pri­ate” material.

In Sep­tem­ber, Keller told the Anchor­age Dai­ly News that he hopes to win leg­is­la­tion requir­ing that intel­li­gent design be taught in pub­lic schools.

'The vote-for-this-because-God-says-so approach means that those who oppose a particular policy are violating God's will. It turns policy issues into religious conflicts.'