Sarah Palin speaks at her former church

I believe that people's religious views are their own. Religious freedom is a core value in the United States and should be protected. That's true even when something sounds strange to people unfamiliar with a church's teachings.

In my own life, I've taken a number of seminars with Landmark Education which is definitely not a religion, but some of the language used in their programs does sound odd to people not familiar with their way of looking at the world. So watching this video of Sarah Palin at her church in Wasilla, I had a little sense of that: this sounds weird to me, but I understand why that is the case and am not particularly bothered by it.

Two things do raise a flag for me because they cross into public policy.

Sarah asks the people gathered at the church to pray for a natural gas pipeline that she is trying to get built in Alaska because it's "God's will."

Okaaaay...

And secondly, the pastor talked about the "end times" and his belief that Alaska will be a refuge state where "hundreds of thousands of people" will head when the apocalypse arrives. He talks about it as something that his church needs to get ready for... as if armageddon is coming soon.

Given all that's going on in the world, I personally would be wary of putting someone who believes the "end times" are near in the White House and placing his... or her... finger on the button.

Obama got a lot of flack for his association with Reverend Jeremiah Wright, and I think some of it was deserved. While I understand some of Wright's perspective on black history in the U.S., there did come a point where Obama had to make a choice about whether he'd allow himself to be associated with those views. I think he made the right decision in leaving the church.

I'm not suggesting that Palin needs to make a similar choice. But the GOP has been consistent in their use of religion to advance their causes, and Palin's own religious associations are therefore relevant to the election.

Here she is at the Wasilla Assembly of God in June, 2008. And apparently just last week she listened to a Jews for Jesus sermon in which terrorism in Israel was blamed on the Jews' failure to convert to Christianity!