The Theocrat in Lipstick

The media treatment of Pentecostalism (Palin's main religious background) and Bible church evangelicalism (her current affiliation) has had the quality of a National Geographic special on a newly discovered Amazon tribe. You might not suspect that Pentecostalism -- grown from the admirable, racially integrated roots of the Los Angeles Azusa Street Revival of 1906 -- is one of the fastest-growing and most influential forms of mainstream Christianity. There are now between 250 million and 500 million Pentecostals in places from Latin America to sub-Saharan Africa to rural Alaska. It is often described as the faith of the dispossessed -- many adherents come from poorer backgrounds. But it is also the faith of the socially mobile -- promoting virtues of hard work, savings and self-denial that would make Max Weber proud.

And so Democrats and their liberal allies set out a self-destructive mixed message. Democratic politicians press their appeal to blue-collar workers and the working poor -- while liberal intellectuals and pundits express their distain for the religious values and motivations of the poor and middle class themselves. While most religious people in America don't speak in tongues, many pray for healing in times of sickness and trouble, and most are offended when sneering elites attack the religious practices of their friends and neighbors. And it is even more insulting when the argument is made that "pocketbook" issues will somehow override a man or woman's deepest beliefs.

All this can only work to Barack Obama's disadvantage, given his cool, aloof manner, and his patronizing comment on the bitter and religious. And it has brought an unintended benefit to the McCain-Palin ticket -- a populist, religious appeal that McCain alone did not possess.

Deriding Palin's religion has been a poor strategy -- and the mistake has been made before. During the first Pentecost -- the one recorded in Acts -- Christians spoke strange languages in public. Many observers dismissed them as drunk.

The critics of religion, as is often the case, did not get the last word.