On June 13, 2008 Mary Glazier told attendees at the "Opening the Gate of Heaven on Earth" conference, who represented many of the New Apostolic Reformation's top leaders, that she had been present at the inception of Sarah Palin's political career and that Palin was in her personal prayer group :

"there was a twenty-four year old woman that God began to speak to about entering into politics. She became a part of our prayer group out in Wasilla. Years later, became the mayor of Wasilla. And last year was elected Governor of the state of Alaska. Yes! Hallelujah! At her inauguration she dedicated the state to Jesus Christ. Hallelujah! Hallelujah!"

The good news spread through New Apostolic Reformation networks:
"Sarah Palin er bønnegriger og pinsevenn!" wrote Pastor Jan-Aage Torp excitedly in a September 6, 2008 post on his blog: "Palin is a Prayer Warrior and Pentecostal".

Pastor Torp of Oslo, Norway, is an Apostle in C. Peter Wagner's International Coalition of Apostles, a network of about 500 apostles in the United States and 42 other nations. Torp reported in Norwegian that he had been visiting C. Peter Wagner and Wagner's wife Doris during the previous week, at the time when Palin was named as a vice-presidential candidate. Torp noted the excitement about Palin in the media but pointed out an interesting thing he said has not received much attention in the US - that Sarah Palin is a member of the prayer networks under Peter Wagner and his Alaska prayer-leader, Mary Glazier.

Mary Glazier is one of the Prophets of Wagner's inner circle of leadership, the Apostolic Council of Prophetic Elders. The New Apostolic Reformation is the name that Wagner has given to the structure that he formed in the late 1990s to bring together numerous strands of the "Third Wave of the Holy Spirit" into a distinct and identifiable structure. The June 13,, 2008, "Opening the Gate for Heaven on Earth: Receiving the New Prophetic Wind for Increase" conference, in Everett, Washington, was attended by Wagner and his top Apostles and Prophets. Mary Glazier is the Alaska state leader of Wagner's U.S. Strategic Prayer Network.

Sarah Palin has been anointed through the laying on of hands in at least four publicized ceremonies. Three of these have been captured on existing video or photographs--including the photographs posted on the official State of Alaska site. Currently the most widely published account is the video of the anointing by Kenyan pastor Thomas Muthee at the Wasilla Assembly of God before Palin was elected governor of Alaska.

While a number of media outlets have featured stories of Muthee's witch hunting exploits in Kiambu, Bishop Muthee is not just any witch hunter. He is internationally known for his starring role in the Transformations I video, produced in 1999, as one of the definitive media tools for the new evangelizing efforts of the Third Wave and the resulting New Apostolic Reformation.

The New Apostolic Reformation is now a distinct entity with its own theology, apostolic networks, schools, school accreditation system, conferences, and media. The Apostolic structure, as defined by Wagner, provides a network of authority or "apostolic covering." Each of Wagner's approximately 500 Apostles has networks of their own, some claiming hundreds or even thousands of ministries under their authority. They view themselves as conducting "the most radical restructuring of Christianity since the Reformation" and believe they are unifying an end time church that will harvest millions of souls before the return of Jesus.

The New Apostolics have developed a unique set of evangelizing tools and terms based on the concept of spiritual mapping and the expulsion of demons. This is for the specific purpose of conquering cities that are resisting the gospel due to the presence of territorial demons and generational curses. These concepts have been marketed through media and videos including the Transformations videos, produced by George Otis, Jr. of the Sentinel Group, which were developed to document what the videos claimed were successful transformations of entire communities through "spiritual warfare" and other of Wagner's new evangelizing technologies. The videos have reinforced the ultimate in faith-based social policy arguments - that human improvement of society is not possible without the supernatural intervention of God and that this intervention can only happen when groups of "Spirit-filled" Christians unite to chase the demons out of their communities and to take authority away from those who are not "born again."

C. Peter Wagner declared 2001 as the beginning of the New Apostolic Age, but by 1999 the movement was already coalescing around the new spiritual warfare theology presented in the Transformations video and related books. Thomas Muthee has played a key role as an example of the success that can be achieved through the expulsion of demons from communities.

This spiritual warfare was not limited to Africa. The Transformations I video also featured Almolonga, Guatemala; Cali, Colombia; and Hemet, California. In Hemet, spiritual warriors supposedly succeeded in burning down a Transcendental Meditation center through spiritual mapping and prayer. In the video, narrator George Otis and participating local ministers claim that the area was transformed when "Spirit-filled Christians" took control of the government and public schools. [See the article Palin, Muthee, and the Witch-Journalists Miss the Major Story for more on the Transformations video]. This and subsequent video productions were shown around the world and the media effort spawned a number of Transformation evangelizing conferences and networks. Transformation became a buzzword for the faith-based social programs built around the evangelizing of communities.

Transforming Melbourne is a city wide renewal group which prominently publicizes testimony of New Apostolic Prophetess Ana Mendez. Mendez participated with Wagner's wife Doris and other top Apostles and Prophets on a 1997 mission to the Himalayas named "Operation Ice Castle." This was a spiritual warfare venture to combat the chief of all territorial demons, the "Queen of Heaven." Wagner would later write a bout this excursion in his books, "Confronting the Queen of Heaven," and "The Queen's Domain," concerning the demon he believes is responsible for preventing acceptance of the gospel in Roman Catholic Churches as well as Islam. Mendez's testimony of the event publicized on Transforming Melbourne, and other sites, includes her belief that their prayer expedition may have had many successful results including the death of Mother Theresa.

Glazier's sermon, which featured her comments on Palin, was given at a conference Opening the Gate of Heaven on Earth, that also featured a number of speeches and sermons--on the plans of leaders of the New Apostolic Reformation to take control of society and government through their "Seven Mountains Strategy." These efforts to take control of religion, family, education, arts and entertainment, media, government, and business are clearly defined in their publicity and in numerous conferences on their efforts. Thomas Muthee quite plainly laid out the need to take over the seven "kingdoms" in the short sermon, or speech, Muthee gave before the anointing of Sarah Palin.

A striking feature of the ministries of the New Apostolic Reformation is their use of militant terminology. Diane Buker, the state leader for Florida is head of a ministry titled Battle Axe Brigade. The website features20an animated arm swinging a mace as well as articles claiming that Roman Catholicism and Mormonism are corrupt religious systems and that Roman Catholicism is bound by a religious spirit.

Cindy Jacobs, another Prophetic Elder, has a ministry titled Generals of Intercession and Jacobs has authored books such as Possessing the Gates of the Enemy, a Training Manual for Militant Intercession. Ana Mendez (Ferrell), a Prophetess in the Wagner Apostolic network system, believes she may have helped kill Mother Theresa.

George Otis included an entire glossary on new spiritual warfare terms in the back of his book "Informed Intercession." Ed Kalnins of Wasilla Assembly of God and Thomas Muthee, both of whom have anointed Palin, include exhortations of violence in their sermons. Like many others in the movement they prominently feature the biblical quote "the violent take it by force" in their rhetoric on spiritual warfare.

The New Apostolic Reformation leadership claims that its militant sounding terminology only applies to spiritual warfare and not physical warfare against human beings. Apostle Tim Taylor attended the US Naval War College Strategies and Policy Course and applies this knowledge in his spiritual warfare book, "Operation Rolling Thunder." He includes, on some of his Watchman Ministries pages, a disclaimer--that spiritual warfare must not confuse battle against demonic forces with people. But sometimes spiritual warfare becomes physical conflict, as in the case of, the old woman in Thomas Muthee's Nairobi suburb of Kiambu, accused of witchcraft and then hounded out of town. Mary Glazier has her own witch hunting story and, like Muthee, Glazier also believes that the removal of the witch from the geographic area was required in order for the community to be transformed. "Spirit Led Woman" magazine in 2003 wrote about Glazier's claim of chasing the witch from Alaska through spiritual warfare:

"In 1995, Mary mobilized a prayer network for Alaska's prisons and began experiencing spiritual warfare as never before. She had received word that a witch had applied for a job as chaplain of the state's prison system... Mary recalls, "As we continued to pray against the spirit of witchcraft, her incense altar caught on fire, her car engine blew up, she went blind in her left eye, and she was diagnosed with cancer."

Ultimately, the witch fled to another state for medical treatment. Soon after, revival visited every prison in Alaska. At the women's correctional facility in Anchorage alone, 55 of 60 inmates found Christ. "Ask largely," Mary says. "Intercessory prayer is making a major difference in North America."

The participants of this movement really do believe that their prayers are the cause of destruction of property and injury, or perhaps even the death, of others like Mother Theresa and Princess Diana. And they do clearly profess to believe that others will be forced to accept their beliefs or be destroyed.

As Mary Glazer told Peter Wagner and the other New Apostolic Reformation leaders at the June 12-14 "Opening the Gate of Heaven on Earth" conference,

"There is a tipping point, at which, at which time, because of the sin of the land, the people then have to be displaced.... God is preparing a people to displace the ones whose sin is rising so that then they tip over and the church goes in - one is removed and the church moves in and takes the territory. Now, that does not mean that the people are removed, because God removes them from the Kingdom of Darkness into the Kingdom of Light. They are given an opportunity to change allegiances."

For more information on other links between Sarah Palin and the New Apostolic Reformation, see Palin and the Apostles at  and the entire ongoing series of articles, Palin's Churches and the Third Wave

see here for authentication and transcripts of audio segments used in video accompanying this article. [attribution note: this story was a collaborative effort. Talk To Action contributor Rachel Tabachnick wrote the bulk of this report. I've written about 1/5 of the text of this story and also made the accompanying video. Rachel and I chose to put the story out under my name because at the time we published it she was writing under a pseudonym]