Another leftist attack on Sarah Palin for her faith

Lisa Miller is what passes for a "religion editor" at the leftist propaganda outlet Newsweek. Newsbusters' Ken Shepherd explains:

Of course, as our archive on Lisa Miller shows, the Newsweek reporter tends to view truth as malleable and subjective, not fixed and objective, as religious conservatives tend to view God and how He reveals truth in Scripture.

Miller takes on Sarah Palin's recent comment about not being able to find anyone to pray with among the Keystone Cops that were the McCain campaign staff in this little sermonette titled "Palin's Prayer Problem":

Sarah Palin, God love her, never lets us down. At a dinner in Alaska last Friday, Palin let the crowd in on her search for a prayer partner in the moments before her vice presidential debate: "So I'm looking around for somebody to pray with, I just need maybe a little help, maybe a little extra, and the McCain campaign, love 'em, you know, there are a lot of normal people around me, but nobody I could find that I wanted to hold hands with and pray." Palin said she finally had to resort to praying with her daughter Piper.

I don't know where to begin. My prayers, which are mostly a recognition of gratitude and wonder, are mine alone, whether I'm in a crowd or by myself. Nobody to pray with? What does that mean? Isn't prayer a personal connection between you and your god, whoever or whatever that might be? Did she really need a group to help her pray for her success in the debate? She couldn't do that by herself? Should she have been praying for herself? What about praying alone over a sick child or a dying relative? Praying for those who are starving or for those who fight our wars? Was there no one there worthy enough to speak to God with her? Was her daughter a last alternative?

Someone please explain this sort of thinking to me. I don't get it. Do you?

Mollie at GetReligion.org gets it, but wonders:

How do you get to be religion editor of Newsweek and not know anything about evangelicals? I mean, does Lisa Miller believe that just because she prays in a particular way that this is the only way people — throughout time and history — should pray? Does she really not know that Christians pray individually, in groups and corporately in worship? Has she really never heard of people praying with one another? Really? What cave do you have to be in to know this little about a group you ostensibly cover?

Midwest Conservative Journal takes Miller's rant to its illogical conclusion:

"What do you mean, my sneering contempt for that airhead housewife Sarah Palin is unbecoming of a Christian? Who are you to judge me? You do remember, Bible tumbler, that Jesus said, 'Judge not unless the other guy’s stupid', don’t you? Jeez, you fundies are idiots."

MCJ is one of my favorite websites. It has become a real comfort to me and other former Episcopalians since ultralibs, with attitudes very much like Miller's, corrupted The Episcopal Church and turned it from our spiritual home into something heretical and perverse. But I do have to give these Cafeteria Christians some credit. After all, as much as Ronald Reagan or Rush Limbaugh, they helped to make a conservative out of me.

- JP