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Is Palin’s Rise Part of God’s Plan?
A revealing e-mail obtained exclusively by Vanity Fair suggests that
some see Sarah Palin as a figure of biblical importance. She may even
agree.

BY MICHAEL JOSEPH GROSS
WEB EXCLUSIVE SEPTEMBER 17, 2010

Esther at Her Toilet by Aert de Gelder.

Sarah Palin has often suggested that she believes her rise to power is
divinely ordained. She is, moreover, the only contemporary American
politician whose admirers openly describe her as a modern-day version
of a biblical character.

On the main pro-Palin blog, Conservatives4Palin, many postings
contemplate Palin’s resemblance to Queen Esther, the eponymous hero of
a short book in the Hebrew Bible. And Palin herself encourages the
analogy. This past April, for instance, she told a Christian group in
Louisville, Kentucky, that she often reads the book of Esther to her
daughter Piper at bedtime.

Palin seems first to have gotten the idea that she might be a new
Esther shortly after being elected governor in 2006, when she asked
one of her former pastors for an example of biblical leadership that
she could emulate. Quoting scripture, the pastor told Palin that she,
like Esther, had “come to the Kingdom for such a time as this.”


Plus: “Sarah Palin: The Sound and the Fury,” by Michael Joseph Gross;,
Gross’s response to critics of the article; and “Sarah Palin’s
Shopping Spree: Yes, There’s More. . . .”

The reference requires some unpacking. Due to her extraordinary
beauty, Esther, a Jew, was taken as a wife by the Persian king
Ahasuerus. When an adviser named Haman persuaded Ahasuerus to proclaim
that all Jews in his kingdom should be killed, Esther’s Jewish cousin
Mordecai (who raised her after she was orphaned) told her that she had
to persuade the King to spare her people: “For if you remain silent at
this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another
place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but
that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?” (Esther
4:14)

A 2008 e-mail obtained exclusively by Vanity Fair, which appears in
full below (with its original spelling and punctuation), offers the
clearest evidence yet made public of how seriously Palin and her
advisers take this analogy. The e-mail was written by Lou Engle, a
right-wing pastor and political activist who founded a movement known
as the Call, which has coordinated widespread prayer and fasting to
protest health-care reform and same-sex marriage. Of the latter, he
has said, “What happened to California will release a spirit that is
more demonic than Islam, a spirit of lawlessness and anarchy. And a
sexual insanity will be unleashed into the Earth.” Engle’s e-mail was
sent to Palin as a last-minute exhortation just before she took the
stage for her vice-presidential debate against Joseph Biden on October
2, 2008. It is an extraordinary document, referring to legalized
abortions as a “holocaust,” and casting Engle in the role of Mordecai
to Palin’s Esther. The message was handled by Palin’s advisers with a
gravity (subject line: “URGENT Fwd: From Lou Engle – Urgent for Sarah
to read...”) that suggests it was a message they knew Palin would want
to see.

Dear Sarah,

Many thousands are fasting and praying for you. I know you’ve heard
it, but I believe this is an Esther moment in your life. Esther hid
her identity until Mordecai challenged her to risk everything for such
a time as this. Your identity is “Sarah Barracuda”. Esther removed
corruption from the Persian government and Haman fell. She didn’t have
experience, she had grace and favor. Sarah, don’t hide your identity
tonight. There will be questions given to you that you don’t know, and
I have been weeping over you. I believe the Lord would have you be
real. If they ask you a question that you don’t know, don’t be ashamed
to say: “I don’t have the experience of 30 years of politics like
Senator Biden, but what I have is character, truth, and integrity, and
I haven’t been seduced by 30 years of political and moral compromise
like these men in DC. I believe America is not looking for more
knowledge, they are looking for more character and more truth, and
that is who I am. I refuse the politics of neutrality. I will stand
for the family, I will stand on foundations of truth and this nation
will be better for it.

Sarah I’m sure you’re doing this, but take a moment to still yourself
before the Lord. The Lord is a shield about you. To those who have no
strength, the Lord will show Himself powerful.

Sarah, I could be wrong, but I’ve been praying for five years for an
Esther, with dreams of being a Mordecai to that Esther. I believe
you’re the one and I think you’re even wearing a life band. Tonight
don’t be ashamed to plead for the life of the unborn and all the
wounded woman who have gone through this holocaust. You can throw this
email away, but I have 50 young people fasting and praying day and
night who are shouting tonight: “Grace, grace to you!”

We love you,
Lou Engle