Religious Practices
Joe Biden On Religious Practices
"My views are totally consistent with Catholic social doctrine," says Biden, a six-term Democratic senator from Delaware. "There are elements within the church who say that if you are at odds with any of the teachings of the church, you are at odds with the church. I think the church is bigger than that." Biden grew up in an Irish neighborhood in Scranton, Pa., where a majority of the kids were Catholic. Neighbors attended mass, and nuns and priests were a respected part of daily life. "Wherever there were nuns, there was home," he writes in a new book on his life and politics, "Promises to Keep." "My idea of self, of family, of community, of the wider world comes straight from my religion. It's not so much the Bible, the beatitudes, the Ten Commandments, the sacraments, or the prayers I learned. It's the culture," he writes. "I was raised at a time when the Catholic Church was fertile with new ideas and open discussion about some of the basic social teaching of the Catholic Church," Biden says. "Questioning was not criticized; it was encouraged." Tragically, Biden lost his wife, Neilia, and baby daughter, Naomi, in a traffic accident the week before Christmas 1972, and after a surprise upset victory to win his Senate seat that November. His sons, Beau and Hunter, were badly injured and he considered resigning but was persuaded by the Senate majority leader to give it six months. Other colleagues urged him to bury himself in work and, eventually, he did. His spiritual life was not so obviously resolved. "I never doubted that there was a God, but I was angry with God," he says. "I was very self-centered: How could God do this to me?" Without taking a position on how Catholics should vote, Biden makes a case for staying connected to the church and its culture. "If I were an ordained priest, I'd be taking some issue with some of the more narrow interpretations of the Gospel being taken now," Biden says. "But my church is more than 2,000 years old. There's always been a tug of war among prelates and informed lay members." Biden is troubled, too, by ongoing sexual-abuse scandals involving children within the church. But he says his commitment to church remains unchanged. "This is my church as much as it is the church of a cardinal, bishop, or janitor, and I'm not going anywhere," he said. I care a great deal about my faith."
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Sarah Palin On Religious Practices
Sarah Palin was born to Catholic parents in 1964. At the age of 4 her family left the Catholic Church and joined the Wasilla Assembly of God. The Assembly of God (established 1951) is a church in the town of Wasila where Palin lives when she is not in Juneau. It is a member of the Assemblies of God, an association of faiths of strict Protestant and Pentecostal members who share the same spiritual beliefs. Gov. Palin regularly attended the Wasilla Assembly of God until age 38. When her political career was just beginning she attended the Juneau Christian Center. Recently, the Governor described herself as a "Bible-believing" Christian. The Palin family goes to four different Pentecostal churches in Wasilla and Juneau. All four churches share the belief that the Bible must be taken literally because it is the actual word of God. Palin is an active speaker and leader in her churches. Wasilla Assembly of God Wasilla Bible Church It is known that Sarah Palin was in that audience and the McCain-Palin camp has come forward to confirm her attendance for Brickner’s speech. Juneau Christian Center Pastor Rose said: "If you really want to know where you came from -- and happen to believe the word of God, that you are not a descendant of a chimpanzee -- then this is what the word of God says. I believe this version.” Church on the Rock, Wasilla
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