Palin and the Pentecostal fringe

The church in which I grew up is a fairly mainstream evangelical place. But its roots are charismatic, and over the years it's dabbled in (w/o every fully embracing) some of the less mainstream elements of Pentecostal practice. (Slayings in the spirit and talk of spiritual warfare were regular features of my church upbringing, as were the dominionist tendencies that infused such movements by the 1980s. We never got too into the holy laughter stuff, though I experienced it elsewhere. And we loved to sing about the prophet Joel's notion of "latter rain.")

So anyway, I was very interested to see Ruth's in-depth treatment of Gov. Palin's connection to the Third Wave or Latter Rain movement, a fringe-y Pentecostal thread that's been condemned by, among others, the Assemblies of God church and a variety of less-charismatic-leaning conservative evangelicals.

Unless you really know a lot about this stuff--and hardly anyone outside Pentecostal-charismatic circles does, including myself and especially including the MSM--start w/ this backgrounder. Then read her Palin-specific post. Sober-minded, even semi-scholarly, and very fair--yet still pretty damn scary.