Watch her graciously greet a visiting foreign ecclesiastical dignitary from Africa, and not go running off the state in an undiplomatic freak-out as he exhibits his strange foreign customs.
Apparently some on the left think she should have done the latter.
I was the best man at my friend's wedding but am not a confirmed Catholic (or much of a confirmed anything). We told this to the priest, and he said I wouldn't be able to receive communion, which was fine by me, because 1) the rules said I shouldn't and 2) I didn't want to be a hypocrite and 3) well, who cares. It wasn't my church. I was there to be my friend's best man. Whatever was on the program, I was down for.
During the actual ceremony, apparently the priest called an audible and decided that the it would look better if everyone got communion instead of three out of four, so he put the wafer in my mouth.
At that moment, I jumped up and spat out the communion wafer, screaming "OUT OF MY MOUTH, FOUL JESUS COOKIE!" and generally ran around like a jackass, screaming blue murder and cursing God and ruining my friend's wedding.
Uh, no I didn't. I ate the wafer and sipped the wine and bowed my head thoughtfully and pretended to be a good Catholic. I was there to be my best friend's best man, not to let everyone in the church know my precise feelings on transubstantiation.
Just for the record, the priest wasn't supposed to have done that. Nevertheless, Ace did the right thing. If a given religious function doesn't actually violate your beliefs, be as polite as possible out of respect, not necessarily for the belief, but for the person who believes it.
Now, there are limits to politeness. I wouldn't participate in, say, a Wiccan ceremony even so far as walking in the door. That would violate my beliefs. However, if I fond myself present for something of that sort, I would still try to quietly slip away and pray for their souls, rather than make a huge to-do that would serve only to make Christians look like dolts by association. (Of course, I'm not promising that I wouldn't go find some holy water to splash on them when they weren't looking, but still. Always discreetly.)
Among Christians, it seems to me that there is much we can agree on, and it's usually possible to skip over the things we can't. I've been to pentecostal services where, when the whole thing dissolved into Holy Spirit-induced chaos (from my perspective, anyway) I stood and prayed quietly in English while others around me prayed in tongues. I don't do it myself, but other Christian brethren in good conscience were, and we're all in it together. (I did avoid the Hail Mary out of respect for them, because if others knew I was praying it it would have been a stumbling block.)
Conversely, my mom came to Pete's baptism last month, and although she doesn't believe in infant baptism or baptismal regeneration, she loves and respects us Christians who do. (For those who aren't familiar with the rite, it's here. When we went through the Apostles' Creed and the priest asked us all if we believed it, she could say "I do," because she does. When we reached the Litany of the Saints, she held her peace while those of us who could pray it, did. (I'd forgotten it was part of the ceremony, incidentally, or I'd have asked Father if he could leave it out.)
I've even been to Mormon functions, mostly weddings and funerals, and there are things I could agree with. They read from the Bible, I can say "amen." They read from the Book of Mormon, I can let the people next to me say "amen" and disagree silently. God knows my heart and theirs; there's no need to clarify publicly.
Sarah Palin might or might not have put much stock in the pastor's prayer. (I haven't actually seen the video, so I don't know what-all it entailed.) But it seems to me that, for all the guff she's gotten about lack of foreign exposure, she has the right attitude. She was respectful of a presumably good man doing what he believed was a good thing for her.
The criticism she's gotten points more to the secular Left's (and the media's) ignorance and fear of serious religion than to anything about her. The African pastor's invocation seemed weird and scary to them, because people who actually believe their religions frighten them. Look how much has been made out of her belonging to a pentecostal church in her youth. Pentecostals aren't scary to me, because I know that they hold to a particular moral code. Mormons aren't alien to me, either, for the same reason. I've never met an Orthodox Jew, but they don't give me the willies, either. It's got nothing to do with whether I believe their tenets or not. It's more to do with how strongly they believe their faiths. Someone who believes strongly in praying in tongues (or even in Joseph Smith's visions) probably also believes equally strongly in honest dealing and charity to the needy. I can respect such a person.
It's like Lewis said: People who are orthodox in separate religions usually have more common ground than the more inclusive liberals who try to pretend there are no differences.
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