I was twelve when my folks took us kids to see "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid". I'd seen a few promos for it on TV, and was rather mystified that Paul Newman was in it, because the promos gave me the impression (and maybe it was just me and/or the lousy picture we got) that this was some cheesy grade-C western. I knew by then that Paul Newman was a class act, so what was he doing in this thing?

I couldn't say I recognized the film as an enduring classic when I first saw it, but Newman was so plainly enjoying himself I had to go along for the ride. The really fine thing was that he put every bit of that enjoyment into the character of Butch Cassidy, burning himself indelibly into the persona of an historic figure who probably wasn't a tenth as much fun in real life.

There are just so many ways in which I, a man in his sixth decade of life, could readily define my sexual orientation - I don't like sports, I read romance novels, I wear a big-brimmed straw hat while working in the garden, I own a few Pet Shop Boys CDs (and actually listen to them), I even dabble in yoghurt - but none of it can mask my heterosexuality, least of all to myself. And twenty years of marriage to the swellest, sweetest girl I've ever known has convinced me that this is never gonna change!

I attended Assembly of God churches for some years back in the early to mid 1970s, first in Columbia, Missouri, and then in Springfield, Missouri, where the headquarters of the Assembly of God denomination is located. I even lived for a time on the campus of what was then called Evangel College, an AG institution in Springfield that was actually quite a fascinating place if you had the right attitude about the basis of the curriculum. I was an intriguing and life-influencing experience, and ultimately led to my agnosticism.

Did I experience speaking in tongues? Boy did I, as well as faith healing and some of the most remarkable preaching in all of Christendom. You really haven't experienced Pentacostalism if you haven't attended a number of services where half the congregation is caught up in the raptures of glossolalia whipped up by the preaching of a fiery, hell-for-leather pastor who's just finished a rousing round of faith healing. This crowd, which I readily admit included me, was all for the Rapture, even though they only had Hal Lindsey's "The Late Great Planet Earth" to point to in terms of mainstream exposure of the idea at the time. And as for the End Times, they were certain to be on the horizon at the turn of every significant global event, particularly if it involved Israel.

After a while, though, all this sound and fury began to pall. I had to get on with life, and chose a path that led me very much away from all the sound and fury of the Charismatic Movement - for so it was known at the time. (Is it still? I haven't checked lately.) The End Times continue to defy prediction as to when they will occur - just as Jesus himself very pointedly warned would be the case - and the reasonably coherent arguments of Lindsey have been replaced by the laughable fictionalizations of LaHaye and Jenkins. (Oh yes, I've read those things, God bless 'em!)

This, then, is what I see undergirding Sarah Palin's religious perspective. She's more than entitled to it, and I don't know why it should disqualifying her to lead this country as such - a guy with my background could hardly say otherwise - but if that's where her view of the world stops, we could be in big trouble.

Sarah Palin has not just given birth to a disabled child, she has imposed this child on the rest of her family and, if elected, the nation. And she will be watched to see how attentive she is to that child, and she will be judged by our society for the quantity and quality of that attention. The business of the office of the Vice President will not excuse her if she's perceived to be at all neglectful.

Many Christians mistakenly believe that to fight for the life of embryos is to fight for the innocent. The Christian truth is that they fight for the right of the Fallen to live and gain the capacity to accept Salvation in Jesus Christ. Protestants, on the whole, don't believe that God summarily condemns the unborn if they do not get the chance to accept Salvation, but they cannot, as Christians, believe the unborn are innocent of Original Sin. (What Original Sin is exactly is a whole 'nuther controversy, even down to whether there is any such thing.) The Protestant conundrum is, if the unborn are not innocent of Original Sin, and do not get a chance to accept Salvation but are not condemned by God for that, what then? Well, much apology as been written on this subject, but the sum of it seems to be that there are no answers that don't bring up as many problems as they try to solve. The idea of abortion and such related areas (at least in the fundamentalist Christian mind) as embryonic stem cell research only makes this conundrum more difficult to deal with. Better to condemn something outright than let it muddy the soteriological waters, right?