Sarah Palin and Religion in Politics

Self-proclaimed creationist Sarah Palin wants to be the Vice President of the United States. Her religious views make her popular with an estimated 30-40%* of Americans who share her view that the Bible, especially the book of Genesis, should be interpreted literally.

But here's a surprising fact: The Bible and Jesus do not support Sarah Palin's religious views.

In fact, the Bible itself strongly contradicts the creationist viewpoint.

The New Testament repeatedly portrays Jesus as a man who did not think like creationists. He was strongly opposed to literalism and fought it in both his friends and detractors.

For starters, Jesus chastises his disciples for taking his parables literally. He calls them "dull" for missing the meaning of his parables, then takes the time to explain the symbolic meaning while issuing warnings they had better learn not to take him literally or they will miss his message altogether.

Jesus strongly challenges the religious leaders of his day for turning literal scripture into law. He calls them "hypocrites" and a "brood of vipers" for these offenses.

The New Testament also depicts Jesus talking to the masses through highly symbolic stories called parables. Symbolism was Jesus' chosen method for communicating spiritual concepts through earthly examples.

So we see that Jesus certainly had highly different habits than the creationists of today. Instead of taking things literally and turning them into doctrine, Jesus called everyone around him to avoid literalism except in cases where God is telling you specifically what to do.

If Jesus says we're supposed to think metaphorically, that sounds like pretty good advice. But in case you still cling to the literal notion of creation, here's one more layer of proof that creationism is wrong when it comes to understanding the Bible.

Read the Bible carefully and you find that the wisdom it conveys is constructed around carefully chosen yet highly metaphorical phrases called "metonymy," the use of material, organic objects to convey ideas or concepts. Metonymy is the literary method used to describe God in symbolic terms, the better to magnify His presence and glorify His name.

We might call this pattern of employing nature to describe the moral concepts given to us by God a type of "organic fundamentalism." Language is the tool God uses to make himself known to us. The Bible calls it his "Word." It takes a little more work, but a metaphorical approach to scripture is the more accurate and enlightening way to encounter God.

Metaphorical interpretation of scripture is not only more reliable, it also does not force us to partake in the calculated denial of basic human knowledge in regards to the material, ancestral and biological origins of everything on earth, including the human race.

Creationism is basically an elaborate "science of denial" anchored in anachronism, which is nothing more than clinging to the past for the sake of justifying your viewpoint. Anachronism is the perfect description of creationism, and it should not be the foundation for our faith in God. The Bible and Jesus both tell us so.

It is obvious from reading the Bible that God wants us to follow the example of Jesus more than he wants us to listen to creationists and their hairsplitting cousins, the intelligent design crowd.

If we ask ourselves "what Jesus would do..." we know that in the case of creationists, he would likely call them "a brood of vipers" and/or "hypocrites" just as he did with the Pharisees who attempted to control the message of God through literalism and legalism in Jesus' day. That indictment goes for all those who strike up political allegiance with the creationist movement as well.

Back to Sarah Palin. According to what we've learned from the Bible itself, Jesus would tell this woman in the red dress and designer glasses that she is a sister of Satan who should go straight to hell for attempting to leverage her legalistic, creationist faith into a power-mongering tool of political will. She is a modern-day Pharisee who deserves to be rebuked for twisting the true meaning of Christian faith.

Sarah Palin might not be the incarnation of Satan or the anti-Christ, but according to the Bible, she may be as close as you ever want to come.

*Polls of Americans the last 10 years generally show the number of creationists at between 25-40% of the population. A September 2008 USAToday.com story on a Gallup poll on religious belief showed that two- thirds of Americans polled said that creationism, the idea that God created humans in their present form within the past 10,000 years, is definitely or probably true.