I have said many times that in my view ministers and churches have no business endorsing candidates or particular legislative proposals. I know some think that the church and her ministers should speak “prophetically” to the nation as well as guide church members in their participation in the political process. Not I.

 
Some ministers are planning in this election year to challenge the IRS rule against church endorsements of candidates. They believe that it is wrong for the IRS to threaten to remove the tax exempt status of churches that cross over the line. The problems of the IRS enforcing the rule are at least two-fold. (1) The practice of political involvement by churches is deeply rooted in some churches. Black pastors and congregations have long taken political involvement for granted. The liberal mainline churches have seen their involvement in the political process as a major part of how the kingdom of God is advanced today. And, since the rise of “the religious right”, politicians have sought the official or unofficial endorsement of well-known ministers and ministries. Further, various conservative religious organizations have had voters’ guides distributed in local congregations. (2) There is wisdom in the position that the government should not get involved in regulating what churches and ministries should do. If anything, the government should err on the side of doing too little rather than doing too much. It would seem clear that if a church practiced child sacrifice, the government should interfere, but to have the government decide what kinds of things a minister may say or a church may publish seems to me to have potential for much more harm than any good. Therefore, it seems to me the matter of political involvement by ministers and churches is best left alone.
 
That said, the practice of endorsements and other activism in politics and government is something that I, for principled reasons, want nothing to do with. The Westminster Confession has a careful, and in my view, wise and right statement: “Synods and councils are to handle, or conclude nothing, but that which is ecclesiastical: and are not to intermeddle with civil affairs which concern the commonwealth…” (WCF XXI: 4). I have written before, one of the things that made me realize how much an alien I was in the old PCUS was attending a meeting of the Synod of Florida where one day the main items of business were deciding whether to endorse Caesar Chavez’s efforts to organize farm workers in Florida and whether to petition the President to pardon those who had left the country rather than be drafted during the Viet Nam War. I have experienced similar heartburn even in the PCA with pronouncements made about such things as whether women may serve in the armed forces.
 
I am in sympathy with the response of Presbyterians in the South to the attempts of the Presbyterian General Assemblies before the war to declare that the lawful government of all the states was the Federal Government and to declare slavery a moral evil. The Southerners replied, “Just what makes the General Assembly competent to decide which is the lawful government?” “How can the church condemn some of its members for an institution, which, while not established by the Bible as a necessary or unchanging institution, the Apostles did not condemn but rather gave instructions of Christian duty to those who occupied the place of masters or slaves?”
 
The position I take is that, yes, Sarah Palin (and any other constitutionally qualified woman) may hold public office. If that is true, then she surely may run for office and Christians may, without violating biblical principle vote for her, if they so choose.
 
I have three brief arguments to make:
 
(1)        The argument from biblical principle. Paul makes it clear that the order in which man and woman were created is significant. “For Adam was formed first, and then Eve…” (1Timothy 2:13). He argues also that the way sin entered the world is significant. “…and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor” (I Timothy 2:14). He makes these points to undergird his statement about the role of women within the church: “Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness, I do not permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man; rather she is to remain quiet” (1 Timothy 2:11,12). The context is clearly the life of the church, and, more specifically, the church at worship. There are, of course, evangelicals today, who join with liberals of yesterday to say that this is not binding teaching, that it is teaching given for specific problems experienced by specific churches at a particular time. But, the fact that Paul grounds his argument in both the Creation and the Fall indicates that he believes that permanent and universal principles are at stake. We need not belabor this: In our view, a woman may not preach or teach with church authority and may not hold the office of elder in the church. That much is clear.
Then, there is no doubt that the Bible teaches male headship in the home. “Wives submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior, Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands…let the wife see that she respects her husband” (Ephesians 5: 22-24,33b). This is considered antiquated paternalism in our society. One can almost hear some gasp when Ephesians 5 is read at a wedding. So, too, there is a debate taking place among evangelicals as to whether this is permanent, universal teaching, and as to whether this is Paul’s “final word” on the matter. But, again, we need not belabor this either: The Bible teaches male leadership and female submission in marriage.
 
But, some want to argue that this principle of male headship and female submission applies to every sphere of life – that wherever there are adult men and adult women, women may not exercise authority. This principle, it is argued, means women may not be managers of men in the workplace. (Some go farther and argue that women, at least married women, should not be in the workplace at all, because (1) she is a homemaker only and not a provider, and (2) if she has a male boss, this undermines the authority her husband is supposed to exercise over her.) This principle also means that women may not exercise authority in the civil realm whether the town council or the Presidency.
 
But, it seems to me that the Bible does not go that far. It teaches male headship and female submission, broadly speaking, in the home and in the church, and grounds that teaching in the Creation and the Fall. But it does not go on to address other situations where men and women are together in situations that involve the authority of one person over another. To argue that the Bible forbids women authority in the civil realm because it does not explicitly authorize it seems to me to go too far. In the worship and government of the church we must not do not only what the Bible forbids but also what it does not authorize. But this is not a principle that applies to all of life. The silence of the Bible on this matter seems to me to argue for freedom in this matter.
 
(2)        The argument from biblical history. We must always be careful when we try to turn example into precept. Not everything the Bible records as having happened does it intend to authorize. But it does seem significant that there are cases of female leadership in the civil realm in the Bible.
Consider Deborah. It surely seems from the record that God raised her up to serve as a judge. In fact, of all the judges, she is the only one who exercised specifically judicial functions. “…the people of Israel came up to her for judgment” (Judges 4:5). Like many of the other judges, she also exercised political power over, at least, a portion of Israel. She seems to be acting as a head of state, when she summons General Barak and gives him orders to conduct a battle. Moreover, she went with him and the army to battle. And, when the battle was won she and her general sang together a victory song that begins: “That the leaders took the lead in Israel, that the people offered themselves willingly, bless the LORD!”
 
Then consider Esther. Esther was not the head of state, but she was the queen and with influence over the political affairs of the nation and authority which she exercised. It seems, too, that the LORD fully intended to put her in that position and for her to exercise the rights that came with it. Her uncle sent her a message when he learned of the plot to kill the Jews in the Persian Empire: “And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14b). The way the story plays out, it is obvious that she has in fact come to the kingdom to save the Jews and that God put her there. She exercises authority as queen. She gives orders to a male servant (4:5). She speaks up in the presence of the king informing him of the plot against the Jews (4:3-6, 5:). When Haman is condemned, he pleads with her for mercy, a request evidently denied (7:7). She determines that Mordecai will be over the estate of Haman (8:2b). She and Mordecai, who now also had political authority, gave orders about the observance of Purim, and the…command of Queen Esther confirmed these practices…” (9:29,32).
 
When these cases are placed beside the failure of the Bible to deny political power to women, the effect is to show that God did not intend to forbid women the right to serve in civil office. In fact, he on occasion raised up women to do just that.
 
(3) The argument of human experience.  We know the dangers of pragmatism. No practice, however successfully it works, can justify doing what the Bible forbids. But the point I want to make, subsidiary to the first two, is that women have in fact held office and exercised authority in the history of Western civilization. There have been queens who ruled solely (that is without having a husband as king) on both the Continent and Great Britain. One thinks of queens such as Elizabeth I and Victoria. The church in England did not rise up to say that it was unlawful for women to serve as ruler of the Kingdom. In modern times, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, served long and effectively. No doubt these could be instances of God’s getting his providential will done through means contrary to his revealed will. But one might make the opposite observation: The fact that such women have served effectively as rulers and political ministers could indicate that that God has nothing against their exercising such authority. One cannot be sure either way.
 
So, am I endorsing Sarah Palin? No. Do I think it is against God’s will that she should serve as Governor of Alaska and possibly Vice-President of the United States? No. Are you, therefore, free to vote for her? If you please. And you are equally free not to vote for her.
 
Now, that’s a lot of introduction to get to the thing I want to discuss briefly. Here is the question: May Sarah Palin, a woman, serve in public office?
 
With regard to whether or not, she, as a citizen, has a right to serve in public office, there is no question. There is no gender test for holding office under the United States or any of the States Constitutions. But, of course, that is not the question. The question, rather is, from a Biblical perspective, may she? Or, does the teaching of the Bible forbid it?
 
There is now a debate about this going on among conservative Christians on the internet. If you have interest, you can do a search and find what has been written. I do not propose to rehearse any of that. I am sure that what I write here has been said better than I will say it. And, I know, that there are those who are refuting every detail of what I say.
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William H. Smith is pastor of Covenant Presbyterian Church in Louisville, Miss.