I attended my first-ever political convention last week--the RNC in St. Paul. I must say it was a good one to start with. The Sarah Palin effect was all the buzz of the arena and gave a unified theme to the night that I was on the convention floor. I interviewed dozens of delegates from at least 10 states and found an amazing amount of consistency among them:
They were only marginally familiar with Sarah Palin. All the people I talked to had only heard of her by name or not at all before John McCain made his announcement on August 29.
They are passionate about her. I heard "she is almost over-qualified;" "she is the best person for the job;" "she will bring balance to McCain who is too far to the middle"
John McCain made the perfect pick. There was a total commitment to her.
The most surprising response for me was to the role of a woman as vice-president and as it related to the worldview of religious conservatives. I asked questions about how people who hold that women should not be in spiritual leadership over men (a view called "complementarian") would respond to having a woman vice-president and potentially president). If you are not familiar with the line of thinking, it goes something like this:
Men and women are created in a relational order. Men are under God and women are under men. This is not to say that women are lesser than men, but just as tools are designed for specific purposes so is gender a guide to relational order. The Bible is used to support this view specifically passages like Genesis 2:7, 21-24; 1 Timothy 2:12-15; 1 Corinthians 11:8-9; Genesis 2; 1 Corinthians 11:8-10; Romans 5:12-19.
This is not a totally fringe view. It is supported by the Southern Baptist Convention, the Presbyterian Church in America, and many independent churches. It is perhaps the most common perspective among the evangelical religious right.
There is an additional line of thinking that this vice-presidential nomination raises. It comes from reading Hebrews 13:17 and 1 Peter 2:13-14 in the same way as the above passages are read: "Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account." "Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every authority instituted among men: whether to the king, as the supreme authority, or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right."
Many religious conservatives have used these verses to make the argument that God places our leaders over us, and to obey them is to obey God. For that leader to be a woman would mean that men would have a woman over them as a leader. This is a problem.
Many who hold to the complementarian view would say there is a difference between church leadership and governmental leadership. But this poses a problem for those who want to suggest that the president is God's appointed leader.
I raised some form of this question with the delegates I interviewed. I asked, "Do you think it will be a problem for religious conservatives who hold that women should not have authority over men and who do not allow a woman to be a pastor of a church or teach a Sunday school class with men in it? Will they have a problem with a woman vice-president?"
To a person the response was Yes, I am sure they will. But they will just need to get over it.
I was fascinated to think that this nomination could actually weaken the complementary view or the view of the president being God's chosen leader because of the commitment to support the pro-life ticket. It will be quite a dilemma for some religious conservatives who will have to choose between commitments. And there is no doubt that the support for Governor Palin rests squarely on her pro-life stance.
From the delegates I spoke to I am sure that the times, they are a changin'.
--Doug Pagitt is the author of A CHRISTIANITY WORTH BELIEVING and founder of Solomon's Porch, a Christian community in Minneapolis.
I like the dilemma you pose in the penultimate paragraph: either weaken the complementarian view, or the notion of the president being God's chosen leader. Is it still a dilemma if it does both?! Or is that what is called a "blessing"?
The Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (a complementarian group) had this to say about the issue you raise:
"From the outset we must remember that on November 4 the voters will not elect a national minister or pastor in chief. A president is not held to the same moral standards as an elder of a church. While it is a blessing from God to have ethical or even Christian political leaders, the Bible places no such requirements on secular governments. Even though the Bible reserves final authority in the church for men, this does not apply in the kingdom of this world."
It seems to me that those who classify themselves as complementarians may be of mixed minds on this subject and that as far as Sarah Palin goes, one theological viewpoint doesn't fit all.
Doug, the wapo's "On Faith" site dealt with a similar question recently. The question was, "Women are not allowed to become clergy in many conservative religious groups. Is it hypocritical to think that a woman can lead a nation and not a congregation?"
Per usual NT Wright gave an utterly reasonable reply: "No, it isn't hypocritical. There might well be perfectly coherent guidelines as to why a woman might lead in one area and not in another. It isn't hypocritical, after all, to think that the church is not just 'another human organization' or a society like any other; it's Christian common sense.
I happen to believe that women can and should exercise leadership at all levels in the church, but I would argue the point, not on the grounds that 'that's what happens in society', but on the grounds that from the resurrection onwards women were involved at the very heart of the apostolic ministry, telling the world the good news that Jesus was and is alive."
Though Palin may move some complementarians toward egalitarianism, it is still logically possible to hold to the former while accepting female leadership in secular government.
Though you use the Bible to leverage your argument against women in power, your agenda comes through crystal clear. Your reasoning is one hundred years old. Should we not consider her qualifications--or great lack thereof--when deciding whether McCain made a good pick? Besides, if she can't keep her own house in order (by raising a daughter who sleeps around,) why could we believe she can keep a nation in order.
The responsible candidates are wearing blue this election.
@ allen d. wilson
From your comment I think you're assuming that Mr. Pagitt is a complementarian, he's not. What he did do was present, fairly, Biblical passages cited by complementarians in defense of male-only ecclesiastical leadership.
From an evangelical perspective, the validity of Scriptural interpretations shouldn't be judged by how old they are (you say 100 years) as if newer is always better, but how faithful they are to God's reconciliation in Jesus Christ as witnessed to in Scripture.