A national Zionist organization contended that former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s unapologetic support for Israel on Sunday will win her votes.

Morton Klein, the national president of Zionist Organization of America, said Palin’s expression of support for the Jewish state while visiting a holy site will definitely help her politically.

“This will only increase her votes,” Klein told The Christian Post. more >>

Traditionally, evangelicals and Mormons have regarded each other with suspicion and contact was kept at a minimum. But on Thursday, a high-profile delegation of evangelical leaders was hosted by Utah’s governor, a Mormon, at his mansion and spent time engaging with one of the top leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The event involving board members of the National Association of Evangelicals was the first time that anything close to an official evangelical council had come to Utah to listen and extend a hand of friendship to the LDS Church.

“I see the NAE coming to Utah, and not just meeting here but saying, ‘We want to meet at least one Mormon leader and extend the hand of friendship;’ I see that as a very historic and courageous act,” said Dr. Richard Mouw, president of Fuller Theological Seminary, to The Christian Post. more >>

Americans may have thought that cracks in the façade and framework of evangelicalism would show up most visibly when serious evangelicals argued whether Sarah Palin or Mike Huckabee would be the better presidential candidate. But now we have a chance to see that other divisive issues among evangelicals beg for attention. When one of these, a theological argument, no less, makes its way to the New York Times and other papers plus many blogs, it’s time to pay attention. Bystanders who think they have nothing at stake in the non-political arguments, and who have never heard of Pastor Bob Bell of Grand Rapids, Michigan, or his critic, neo-Calvinist John Piper, may stand by in fascination, but they are likely to be reached this time. The topic? Hell, and a punishing God’s use thereof.

Bell, featured in the Times story, is a star of the emergent middle among evangelicals. He is seen by his enemies as baiting those to his right by writing too kindly about God and the many mortals destined for hell, and they insist that softness has to stop. Pastor Bell is soon to publish Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived. His publisher and others have tantalized the public with clips from the book, but the critics did not need to have read it and do not need to know more than that Bell is not so sure that a God of love will condemn those billions who never heard of Jesus Christ, or those millions who have heard but did not recognize him as their Savior, in order for them to fire up their own condemnations of Bell.

The Michigan pastor-author is not alone; Bell’s hell is paralleled in treatments of a whole wing of evangelicals. Some of this group "out” themselves, while others are in a kind of purgatory of inference that they are not quite orthodox on the subject. What this second wing keeps pondering and sometimes proclaiming is that there are ways to witness to the fact that God is holy and just, other than saying that he takes delight in punishing those ignorant of the stakes or those who are players of other salvation games. It is one thing to agree with sophisticated evangelical theologians and their artful articulators who semi-dodge the issue by saying that no one is ever sent to hell and suggesting that she or he chooses to go there. more >>

Evangelical Christians prefer former Arkansas-governor-turned-Fox-News-talk-show-host Mike Huckabee as the Republican presidential candidate, according to a Barna report released this week.

Huckabee garnered 88 percent favorable rating and 11 percent unfavorable response from evangelicals that participated in the Barna survey that tracks who Christians prefer as the 2012 Republican nominee.

Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin came in second among evangelicals, with 79 percent favorable and 21 percent unfavorable ratings. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (57 percent favorable, 37 percent unfavorable), former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney (56 percent , 29 percent), and Texas Congressman Ron Paul (51 percent, 26 percent), rounded out the top five picks among evangelicals. more >>

Former Godfather Pizza CEO Herman Cain won the on-site presidential straw poll at a Tea Party convention in Arizona this past weekend.

Between the on-site and online straw polls, there were 1,600 votes cast for the Tea Party Patriots’ American Policy Summit presidential straw polls. Tea Party activists attending the event in person at the Phoenix convention center favored Cain over more popular GOP candidates such as former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and Texas Rep. Ron Paul.

Cain, a conservative talk show host, took the top spot with 22 percent of the on-site votes. Trailing behind him is former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty with 16 percent, and then Paul at 15 percent. more >>