Christianity Today, the flagship evangelical magazine, has provided its readers with a primer on the Assemblies of God:
Assemblies of God adherents are evangelical, believing in the need for personal salvation and the call to evangelize. They have a high view of biblical authority and believe in the literal death and resurrection of Jesus. They are Arminian, believing that God-given free will is compatible with divine sovereignty. They believe that salvation is by grace and unmerited but is conditional on faith and on accepting the sacrifice and lordship of Jesus—and therefore, one can willfully fall from grace. They are thoroughly Trinitarian, rejecting the modalism as expressed in the Oneness or “Jesus’ Name”-only Pentecostal movement (e.g., the United Pentecostal Church).
The piece not only allays evangelical fears about pentecostals but also strikes an ambivalent tone about Palin’s place within the tradition:
In addition to media-whipped anomalies such as Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart, and Benny Hinn (all former Assemblies of God ministers), other AG churchgoers have gained national attention, including singer-songwriter Sara Groves, former U.S. Representatives Marilyn Musgrave (R-Colo.) and Linda Smith (R-Wash.), and former Attorney General John Ashcroft.
And, of course, Sarah Palin.
But while Palin may well have been “a longtime member of the Assemblies of God,” she has not regularly attended an AG church since 2002. And a lot can change in six years.
More at Christianity Today.