Leftist and liberal bloggers have been raising questions about possible connections between Sarah Palin’s churches and a fundamentalist charismatic movements known as Third Wave and Latter Rain. The best of these investigations comes from Bruce Wilson, an indefatigable religious right watchdog who values research over hysteria. There’s a lot more work to be done here, but Bruce has gotten a great start. I hope he’ll boil it down some, now, and make it accessible to the quickscan general reader. Reporters meanwhile, need to ask questions about these possible connections; editors need to think about longer features on the Latter Rain and Third Wave movements. I should add that Bruce mentions my work on Ted Haggard and New Life church, included in my recent book, The Family. One of the mistakes I made, though, was in taking too seriously Haggard’s disavowal of Latter Rain leader C. Peter Wagner, with whom Haggard built the World Prayer Center (also discussed at some length in The Family). As Bruce is beginning to piece together, Wagner’s theological influence reaches much further than those who praise his books. New Life Church, meanwhile, continues to sell Wagner’s books in its lobby. It’s also worth noting that there’s a progressive variation of Latter Rain theology.

–Jeff Sharlet