At a speech in a church several months ago, Sarah Palin invoked God!

“Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right. Also, for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending [U.S. soldiers] out on a task that is from God,” she exhorted the congregants. “That’s what we have to make sure that we’re praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God’s plan.”

Yikes! That’s an invocation of the Almighty! An exhortation to religiously-oriented people to commune with their Creator, praying that He has a plan for our troops and our country. I want to note part of good defense of Governor Palin from an Op/Ed in Alabam’s Anniston Star yesterday:

I thought of the numerous times I have attended candidate forums in my state and heard invocations that God guide the hand of mere politicians seeking office. I thought of the times I have heard ministers appeal for God to steer their parishioners through a multitude of secular economic turmoil, from foreclosure to job loss. I was reminded that in the evangelical community, God is routinely described as a shaper of everyday events. I wondered how much of the faith history that I experience in my state resembled what I heard Palin do in her church, and how much of it would be belittled by the people belittling Palin.

Any thoughtful officeholder wrestles with the boundaries between faith and government. Theology has been abused to further political ends way too often, and too much of the traditional religious agenda in politics is incomplete on concerns from poverty to environmental stewardship. I also criticized former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore’s zealotry because it suggested that non-believers might be punished for their views in his court, an unacceptable threat in a pluralistic society.

But it is a grave mistake to dismiss faith as a source of political inspiration or to minimize those who resort to it in their own way. A robust commitment to First Amendment principles does not require that references to faith be scrubbed altogether; nor can it mean that the invocation of faith is acceptable only if it passes a political litmus test.

That is from Representative Artur Davis (D-Alabama), and note the “D” next to his name. At 41, he’s a young star amongst Congressional Dems, and he is most certainly turning his back on neither his party nor his candidate.

He opens the Op/Ed:

I am a Democrat who has campaigned vigorously for Barack Obama and who believes that the election of John McCain would only prolong failed policies.

The man is defending Palin’s right, and by extension his own right, to have faith. Maybe the quote-unquote “smart set” has no time for faith, but most Americans do. This includes Governor Sarah Palin (R-Alaska) and Representative Artur Davis (D-Alabama).

Faith is bipartisan. This brings to mind, because I simply enjoy typing this: “Yikes!”

Now, the lefty “smart set” can reason aloud in a bizarre blog post that Davis does not count, as he is a Southern Democrat. Wink, wink, we all know about the South. Thus they would attempt to write-off one of the most healthy segments of the Democrat coalition, and Rahm Emanuel ought to read them whatever passes for the riot act in those circles.

Congressman Davis, a very partisan Dem, concludes his Op/Ed thusly:

The worst Democratic response would be to respond to that challenge in kind by demonizing cultural conservatives. This election and the fractured ideological nature of contemporary politics demands a president who would strengthen our ties to each other: the promise that Barack Obama would be that president is what has drawn me, and countless others, to soldier for his candidacy.

He deserves better than the nastiness some Democratic surrogates have directed at Sarah Palin’s faith.

Slime, Representative Davis. It’s what David Axelrod knows. It is what his robotic surrogates know. As a Christian, I hope Representative Davis takes to heart that Christians have been the targets of slime since Nero. Now, it’s just an American political party filling the old role of the Romans.