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The dramatic rise to fame of Sarah Palin—a woman most of us had never heard of a few weeks ago—demonstrates the enormous power of publicity to create celebrities.
What continues to amaze me more than anything else is how Sarah Palin’s meteoric rise to the role of savior within the Republican campaign requires conservative Christians to ignore any questions about women and authority.
For generations, women have been denied leadership positions because of Bible verses that seem to prohibit female authority over men.
And yet, in one bold stroke, a woman was chosen as the Republican vice-presidential candidate and her selection was widely hailed by conservative Christian leaders as a brilliant choice.
“Sometimes people can be a little fickle. They’ll go for the newest, hottest thing.” Kari Anderson
In his post from the Republican National Convention, Doug Pagitt reflects on exactly this point.
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. Doug Pagitt: Sarah Palin and the Role of Women in Religion and Politics
As I written before, I encountered tremendous hostility as a woman studying for ministry in an Evangelical seminary. The objection against women in ministry was based on obedience to the Bible as the infallible, inerrant word of God. According to this “high view of scripture,” women are forbidden from having authority over men.
Particular Bible verses have been cited and cited and cited some more to argue against ordination of women, to oppose the ministry of women, and to teach submission to male authority in marriage. Pagitt includes these verses in his article.
And yet, all of this opposition to the authority of women to lead men was apparently thrown out the window, swept under the rug, or hidden in the closet in a dramatic display of instant adulation for the barely-known woman chosen to run for the second-highest leadership position in the United States.
Pagitt explains how he raised the question of female authority with the delegates.
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. Doug Pagitt: Sarah Palin and the Role of Women in Religion and Politics
Whatever this candidacy says about Sarah Palin, it demonstrates clearly that obedience to the authority of Scripture can be a fickle thing for believers.
I have observed this fickleness more than once. A firm declaration of authority to Scripture can be replaced by a stronger desire for something else. When this happens, the Scripture that held primary authority is replaced by a higher claim. In the case of Sarah Palin, her resolutely anti-abortion stance was apparently more important than any prohibition against women in leadership.
I watched a similar transformation in a seminary student I got to know quite well. We were in the same preaching class together, and despite his opposition to women in leadership, we became friends.
We sat in the cafeteria one day and he explained his dilemma to me. His denomination ordained women to ministry. All candidates for ordination were required to answer this question: Would you participate in the ordination of a woman?
This meant that his ordination to ministry required him to agree that he would support the ordination of women. Up to this point in the conversation, the discussion about his “obedience to the authority of Scripture.” And then he said something that brought the real issue to the surface.
At the Christian college he had attended, one of his professors was adamantly opposed to the ordination of women. The professor extracted a pledge from his students who were going to study for the ministry that they would not agree to participate in any ritual that would ordain a woman to ministry. They were supposed to stand firm in their faith and be willing to forgo ordination rather than submit to this “unbiblical” decision by the denomination to ordain women.
Suddenly, I realized that the issue was about something more than obedience to Scripture. It was a highly emotionally charged choice. He said to me. “Please tell me. I want to know. How can I be obedient to Scripture and support the ordination of women?” But I saw clearly that the real issue was that he had made a promise. He could be ordained or he could refuse ordination to uphold the promise made to his professor.
At that moment, the whole issue clicked into a different focus for me. I saw that claims to the authority of Scripture are seldom as straightforward as people claim they are.
That is when I began to see how much obedience to Scripture is a fickle allegiance, based on shifting sands. A non-negotiable, bottom-line commitment to the authority of Scripture can be quickly replaced by allegiance to something else with a higher emotional charge.
Since that moment in the cafeteria, I have seen this again and again. People will cite Scripture as the ultimate authority until they reach a point where what they want conflicts with any sort of abstract notion of biblical authority. At this point, they begin to change their opinion of the meaning of Scripture.
My name for this process is “selective hermeneutics.” Hermeneutics is the process of interpreting what the Bible means. And more often than not, “what it means” depends on what you want. And if what you want changes, “what it means” must change as well.
In the well-known adage from sales, people buy based on what they want and then justify with logic. This same principle applies to the authority of Scripture. It can be breathtaking to watch people abandon avidly held positions to accommodate a new want, and watch them attempt to justify the validity of their new positions with strange logical contortions.
In the case of my friend from seminary, he wanted to be ordained to the ministry. This want was more important to him than his promise to his professor. You will not be surprised to learn that he was ordained to the ministry in his denomination.
What changed for him? It wasn’t that he suddenly changed his understanding of biblical verses that seem to prohibit the leadership of women. What changed is that he had to choose between being ordained and being obedient to his “high view of scripture.” In his case, his desire to be ordained won.
In the case of Sarah Palin, objections to a woman in leadership have been shoved aside—at least publicly—in favor of higher claims of allegiance. In this case, the higher allegiance was to her anti-abortion stance.
I have no idea how this election will turn out, and if Sarah Palin will be elected to the office of vice-president of the United States. I do know that sudden fame is a fickle thing, and will give the last words to Henry Miller.
Fame is an illusive thing / here today, gone tomorrow. The fickle, shallow mob raises its heroes to the pinnacle of approval today and hurls them into oblivion tomorrow at the slightest whim; cheers today, hisses tomorrow; utter forgetfulness in a few months. Henry Miller.
Dr. Kalinda Rose Stevenson
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