The camera closes in on Sarah Palin speaking to young missionaries, vowing from the pulpit to do her part to implement God's will from the governor's office.

What she didn't tell worshippers gathered at the Wasilla Assembly of God church in her hometown was that her appearance that day came courtesy of Alaskan taxpayers, who picked up the $639.50 tab for her airplane tickets and per diem fees.

An Associated Press review of the Republican vice presidential candidate's record as mayor and governor reveals her use of elected office to promote religious causes, sometimes at taxpayer expense and in ways that blur the line between church and state.

Soldier punished in beating of Jewish trainee

Handman, 20, of Atlanta says he was beaten by a fellow trainee Sept. 24 in a laundry room next to their barracks. He was treated at the Army hospital on Fort Benning in Columbus for a concussion and bruising to the left side of his face.

Four days before the attack, Handman was interviewed by commanders of his basic training unit about complaints he´d made in letters to his parents that he had been harassed by two drill sergeants because he´s Jewish.

The Army later acknowledged one drill sergeant had ordered Handman to remove his yarmulke, which he wore with his uniform, as he ate in a dining hall. Another drill sergeant had called him "Juden" _ the German word for Jews.

Manganaro said military police concluded the attack on Handman wasn´t motivated by religious bigotry, but she would give no other details.

[...]

Mikey Weinstein, president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, [...] called the Army´s denial of a religious motive in Handman´s beating "complete garbage and an absolute cover-up."

"Michael Handman was turned into a punching bag for the Army because of his religious faith," said Weinstein, who has helped the Handmans pursue the case with the Army.

(Click link above for entire article.)

...not from me today, but from Bruce Wilson, one of the folks I've been working with on research lately.

Specifically, he now has video evidence up of not only Palin being explicitly promoted to the Joel's Army community as early as June 2008 but being actively mentored as early as the 80s by Joel's Army promoter Mary Glazier. (Glazier to this day claims Palin is part of a cell-church group in C. Peter Wagner's "apostolic" network, and is being shepherded by her.) (Warning: Video sections may be potentially triggering to walkaways. A transcript is also available courtesy of Ruth on Talk to Action, and my own commentary on this transcript will be out in a day or two.)

Diggs and Reddit recs appreciated, as well as Slashdottings, Farkings, etc.

(Incidentially, this post and Ruth's article on these connections are going to be the start of a lot of public revelations on just how deep Palin's "Joel's Army" linkage goes. I would greatly appreciate it if this info was disseminated as widely as possible.)

OK, here's the second part of my series on "seven mountains" planning by Joel's Army groups:

DailyKos
Talk to Action
Wild, Wild Left
NewsVine
CorrenteWire

Also, apparently an admirer has set up a dedicated LJ RSS feed at dk_dogemperor for the DailyKos mirror, so that's all good.

In addition, Ruth over at Talk to Action has provided a new post on Palin and her extensive connections to Joel's Army promoters--including some explicit promotion by a hardline Joel's Army preacher in Norway and new information regarding Palin's relationship with Mary Glazier--a major Joel's Army promoter in Alaska--as well as info regarding other Joel's Army promoters connected to Palin that have not yet received much media attention. (I assure you that this will be changing; let's just say me and Ruth are in fact doing some co-working on some of our research. :D)

I'm doing a two-parter series, and also some promotion of some work a few friends of mine are working on as well. :D

Anyways, today I've done part 1 of a two-parter series on just what the hell Thomas Muthee was going on about with his "Seven Mountains" stuff (in the infamous video where he not only "annoints" Palin but also claims to have run a traditional healer out of town):

DailyKos
Talk to Action
NewsVine
CorrenteWire
Wild, Wild Left

As noted, also would like to do some pointing to some recent articles that Ruth on Talk to Action have been writing on--she is essentially working on a Joel's Army 101 primer for folks researching this particular facet of neopente dominionism, and it's probably best I direct you to the entirety of her Talk2Action diary section. In particular, she is researching some of the crypto-antisemitic statements that are increasingly turning up in Joel's Army rhetoric.

Bruce Wilson is also now doing some in-depth research on the same subject, including the anti-Catholic angle of these groups; of note, he's also been the target of an attempted dead-agenting re some of his posting of material critical of Wasilla A/G in particular (in a remarkably similar manner to how John Hagee tried to get some of Wilson's videos pulled off of Youtube as well). His most recent diaries, per usual, are over at Talk to Action as well.

Does anyone know anything about Great Commandments Ministries?

Looking at their website, I can't quite tell if they are dominionist or not. There is the inerrancy of scripture thing, and their mission is: "Young adults in love with God, passionate to serve, fully surrendered, with faith to go the distance, so that the name of Jesus is glorified throughout the earth."

The real reason I'm asking is that my sister's high school friend went to Sierra Leone with them over two years ago, and he was supposed to be back in six months, but none of her high school friends have heard from him. We've tried emailing his sister and she didn't respond. We both have an awful feeling that something dark is going on here, and I just was wondering if anyone happens to have heard about or know anything about this organization. Or, if anyone knows if this kind of thing is common... someone going away for a supposedly 6-month mission that extends for years and they don't contact friends or family at all in that time?

Does anyone have any info or experience with Max Lucado or Oak Hills Church in San Antonio? I was handed a pamphlet the other day in suburban Philadelphia, titled "3:16 The Numbers Of Hope", by Lucado, published by Good News Publishers. Nothing in the pamphlet seems particularly Dominionist to me. But I can find very little discussion online about this minister or his megachurch, Oak Hills Church in San Antonio TX. To summarize what I've found: a) bio information that he has appeared at the National Prayer Breakfast; b) he was named "America's Pastor" by Christianity Today and also recognized by Reader's Digest; c) criticism of Lucado's "mysticism", "spiritism", and a single charge of shepherding from http://www.piney.com/Anderson-Shepherds.html at piney.com - a website whose content I find far more alarming than Oak Hills Church ( http://www.oakhillschurchsa.org/ ) or Lucado's own website ( http://maxlucado.com/ ). What does ring my alarm bells is that I (perhaps wrongly) associate widespread pamphleting with Chick Tracts, Jehovah's Witnesses, and cults. Also, Good News has published Chuck Colson. The structure and community clout of megachurches disturbs me. Finally, Lucado apparently has been a strong advocate for Promise Keepers. So I'm wondering if Lucado is one of the stealthier Dommie players who might be flying under the radar as the purveyor of a pseudo-progressive Christian empire - or is he simply a charismatic preacher using methods I have come to associate with the Dominionist Christian right to spread his own, more benign message?

I know this has been covered elsewhere in pieces but I was wondering if someone here could explain why Dominionists and other Christian fundamentalists seem so obsessed by the fate of Israel?  One more than one occasion I have heard or read where Dominionists and other Christian fundamentalists have blamed some or all of our problems on a lack of sufficient support for Israel. They seem blindly supportive despite that stance alienating most of the other nations in that region. I know that nearly unconditional support for Israel is one of the tenets of Dominionist thought but I can&rsquo