The Positives of Gov. Palin

In my discussion with Ron in the comments below, I realized that I may not have done quite what I set out to do in my last post. My last post was supposed to have been a critique of what I see as complementarian double-talk over the candidacy of Gov. Palin for VP. As a complementarian myself, I champion what I believe to be the God-designed roles for men and women, and how that crosses over into this situation is the role of male-headship. I simply find it inconsistent to claim that a men should be heads of the home, the leaders of the church, and yet act as if it doesn't matter if they aren't the leaders of the country.

So I want to say that, for the record, that I like Gov. Palin very much. Her living example as a pro-life Governor and VP candidate is like a breath of fresh air. I find the attacks that have been made against her for that position appalling. Some even stooped to say that it was her daughter's child and she pretended like it was hers to avoid scandal. How ridiculous! To add to my ire over how she has been treated, some have ridiculed her for even having five children. This doesn't simply indicate some people's disdain for Gov. Palin, it indicates their disdain of the traditional family and their lack of understanding of the beauty of human life.

Here is a summary of some of her positions according to Wikipedia:

Palin has described the Republican Party platform as "the right agenda for America," because of its "respect for equality and respect for life and an acknowledgment that it is individual Americans and American families who can make better decisions for ourselves than government can ever make for us," adding that "individual freedom and independence is extremely important to me and that's why I'm a Republican."Palin is a social conservative. A lifetime member of the National Rifle Association (NRA), Palin believes the right to bear arms includes handgun possession, and has advocated gun safety education for youth. She also supports capital punishment. Palin supports allowing the discussion of creationism in public schools, but says it does not have to be part of the curriculum.Palin opposes same-sex marriage and supported a non-binding referendum for an Alaskan constitutional amendment to deny state health benefits to same-sex couples.[Palin has called herself "as pro-life as any candidate can be," and she is supportive of "abstinence-only" sex education, although in 2006 said she supported contraception; she is opposed to abortion (including when the pregnancy is caused by rape or incest), but supports it in cases where the mother's life would be endangered. Palin has promoted oil and natural gas resource exploitation in Alaska, including in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), and initiated a lawsuit over the federal listing of the polar bear and Cook Inlet beluga whale as an endangered species.

Read the whole article here.

So what does the above tell me? That on every issue of importance, I am in Gov. Palin's corner. Or perhaps, she is in mine. I even like that she sued over the federal listing of the polar bear and the Cook Inlet beluga whale being put on the endangered species list. Why? I am, myself, an adamant conservationist and I am pro-wildlife. But this lawsuit tells me that she has the chutzpah to stand up and question the convictions of the more left-leaning tree-hugger lot, whose word is generally accepted as law.

I like Gov. Palin, and I think that she is the best candidate we have for VP. But I don't have to like it, and I see her candidacy as a contradiction of ordained roles as taught in Scripture. Ultimately, it is the job of the man to protect families, this includes women and the unborn. I am sad that we've gotten to such a sorry state of affairs that men are no longer the best candidates to do that. I am also concerned that evangelicals are so quick to separate the "sacred and secular", as if such a division is even possible. I see it as political expediency, and I believe that it sets a bad precedence.

Palin, Political Expediency, and Complementarians

I have been doing a good deal of thinking and reading about Gov. Palin's run for the Vice-Presidency. I am bothered by how conservative complementarians have reacted to it, and I am afraid that we run the danger of compromising for the sake of political expediency. The argument that has come forth is that, while the Bible is clear that a woman's priority is in the home, and that they are not to exercise authority over men in the context of the church, it is actually silent regarding the issue of a woman holding secular authority. You may find a couple of strong arguments in this regard by Dr. Al Mohler here, and another excellent article by David Kotter writing for The Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. Dr. Mohler, the CBMW, and David Kotter are complementarians who believe that Gov. Palin's run is not necessarily outside the God-ordained role of womanhood.

I know that my critique of the view of these folks may be prideful assumption, but I find their argument bothersome for two important reasons. And on the third reason, I think that it may fail altogether. Let me outline my concerns and let you have at it in the comment section if anyone so desires.

My first worry is this idea that God has ordained roles for men and women inside the home and church that is not consistently applied in the secular world. That is, if Paul forbids women to "teach or have authority over men" (1 Timothy 2:10), must we assume he only meant in the context of the local church? Further, Paul made his argument from creation, not the church per se. In creation, God gave the man dominion over the created world, not simply the church and family. I find their reasoning to be very compartmentalized. I have to wonder, if Gov. Palin's husband is the head of her household and the one to whom she submits, shouldn't we be voting for him instead of her?

That leads me to my second objection. Since Francis Schaeffer, evangelicals have labored to teach people to have a "Christian World View" and not to compartmentalize the sacred and the secular. The reasoning of Dr. Mohler and the CBMW seems to do precisely that. I fear that this position is undercutting, for the sake of political expediency, the arguments complementarians have been advancing for years.

Finally, I want to address the issue of family. Voddie Baucham wrote a post on his blog entitled Did McCain Make a Pro-Family Pick? that addresses this issue. Baucham emphatically answers his own question with a "No!". Gov. Palin may be pro-life, but she is not acting pro-family by running for VP with five children. In fairness to Gov. Palin, she only has three dependant children. Her oldest son is in the military and is heading for Iraq, surely he doesn't still need her at home. Her oldest daughter is about to be a married woman, and I am of the opinion that a seventeen year old married woman is a woman who doesn't need mom at home. So that leaves three children, one of whom is an infant with Down's Syndrome. My wife has two children and is a stay-at-home mom. My wife can hardly find time in the day to go to the grocery store and go to exercise without a job. I simply cannot see, even with three children, how Gov. Palin could manage to be Vice-President, or even President!, and still keep home the priority.

But alas, I confess that I will most likely vote for the McCain/Palin ticket in November. I can even see much good from Gov. Palin's candidacy. (I may write on that tomorrow.) And if it is true that politics are the art of choosing between the unpalatable and the disasterous, then my decision is simply status quo and a reflection of the nature of the beast.

Complementarians, Worldview, and Gov. Palin for VP

I believe that the evangelical world, at least the complementarian evangelical world is smiling right now with Senator McCain's pick of Gov. Sarah Palin. Except, I have the sinking feeling that it may be one of those pasted-on fake smiles that attempts to mask the turning of the mental wheels.

First of all, we evangelicals like Gov. Palin. She's pro-life. She has five children. She chose not to abort her Down's Syndrome son. She seems like a happy person. Plus, rumor has it that her husband has won the Iditarod four times, which means he's a manly man at least. She seems like a great lady.

So why is the smile turning to a look of concern? Because she has five children, one of them is a special needs child less than five months old. Evangelicals has spent the last forty years trying to convince moms that the home is the highest calling of her life. How does a woman be VP of the USA and still be mommy to five children? How is our whole-hearted support for her candidacy not akin to 'taking back' all of our ballyhoo about women being needed at home more than the office?

Now we find out that her seventeen year old daughter is pregnant and planning to marry. How will Gov. Palin find time to guide her daughter through this process and still maintain the rigorous schedule of the office of Vice-President?

As much as I like Gov. Palin, as much as I admire her down-to-earthness, her pro-life stance, and her general winsomeness, I am not happy about this choice for Vice-President. I think it goes against much of what I have been attempting to teach the men and women of our church, and it goes against much of the teaching that I have heard from some of the same folks who support this move. How am I supposed to convince the ladies of my church that it is nobler to relinquish career and income for the sake of educating and mothering her children while waving the banner for Gov. Palin? It smacks of political expediency, and I am afraid that it makes evangelicals look like the glassy-eyed Republican 'yes-men' that we are often accused of being.

I am troubled by this move, and I am more than a little dissappointed with the way it has been treated by most evangelical pundits. That is, we have praised her virtues as a mother...and yet we have been silent on why this run for VP is not the best thing she can do for her children. And if it is, why have we so consistently and adamantly insisted that the best place for a mother is in the home?