Does Sarah Palin's career violate biblical teachings?

Is Sarah Palin a wife and mother, or is she the leader of a state who's now campaigning to help lead the nation? She's both, of course, and also an evangelical Christian, which leaves some of her fellow evangelical Christians in a quandary.

How do they resolve their beliefs that the Bible requires husbands to (gently) lead, and wives to (gracefully) submit? Our own Teresa Watanabe looks for answers:

In a white-steepled church along a stretch in picturesque canyon country, the preacher laid out the basic blueprint of a godly marriage: Husbands lead, wives submit.

Speaking recently before hundreds of worshipers at Placerita Baptist Church in Newhall, guest preacher Chris Mueller affirmed the view that loving male headship and gracious wifely submission are God's plan for spouses.

Placerita, like many conservative Christian churches, teaches that a wife's role is to be her husband's helpmate (Genesis), "workers at home" (Titus) and submissive to her husband in everything (Ephesians).

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Many say that biblical restrictions on women's leadership apply to church and home, not the secular world -- clearing the way for a woman to run the nation but not a congregation. And so long as Palin's husband, Todd, approves, they say, her career conforms with teachings on wifely duties.

But to others, this view contradicts biblical teaching.

"The Palin selection is the single most dangerous event in the conscience of the Christian community in the last 10 years at least," said Doug Phillips, president of Vision Forum, a Texas-based ministry. "The unabashed, unquestioning support of Sarah Palin and all she represents marks a fundamental departure from our historic position of family priorities -- of moms being at home with young children, of moms being helpers to their husbands, the priority of being keepers of the home."

Add in the fact that Palin has a four-month-old baby, and that her teenage daughter is pregnant, and the debate gets even more complex. There's a lot of thoughtful soul-searching in Teresa's full story.

-- Veronique de Turenne

Photos: Sarah Palin (top) -- Bloomberg News; Sarah Palin's family (bottom) -- Getty Images

Comments

[Rick Az Photo]

Vote your heart or your mind or your wallet , God will sort it all out in the end. It's difficult to choose the "more right than the other" in a time when all seems to be falling apart. Keep your faith and your head "God has a plan" this we know. Good luck and God bless. And please "VOTE". thank you.

[God Who]

Palin jumps from church to church as it benefits her politically. If her current church is against her career she will keep moving. Check out her old church that was protecting her from witchcraft.

[Carolyn]

Sarah Palin made the statement that "the way she understood the world waa through education, through books, through mediums that have provided her a lot of perspective on the world." One of the reasons King Saul died was because he consulted a medium for guidance rather than God. God calls the word of diviners nonsense, lies and deception for foolish people. How can a christian support someone who consults mediums when it is a defilement to God? What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?

[Nathaniel Darnell]

Doug Phillips and Voddie Baucham are completely right! When it comes to election season, so many professing Christians seem to lose their Bibles and vote out of fear. Yet the commands from Scripture on the biblical qualifications for civil magistrate require that the person selected "men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness" (Exodus 18:21). God is the one one who ultimately and providentially "utteth down one, and setteth up another" (Psalm 75:7).

Our duty as Christians is to obey God and leave the election results in His hands.

ND

http://persevero.blogspot.com/2008/09/how-sarah-palin-fails-to-meet-biblical.html