My husband asked me this morning what I made of John McCain's pick for vice president, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska. I responded that I
thought it was the shrewdest political move McCain could have made and
predicted that Christians who swore they would never vote for a woman president would drop
that conviction, forget about McCain's flip-flopping liberal record, and vote for
the Republican ticket.
When I turned on the radio this afternoon, Chris Fabry
Live (Moody Christian broadcasting) was on, and he was taking calls from people to get their reactions to the
Sarah Palin choice. Sure enough, Christians were all aflutter over the solid
conservative record of Mrs. Palin and about the "historic opportunity" to vote for a woman. One man called to say that he thought he would
never vote for McCain because of McCain's liberal record, but he has changed his
mind because of the Palin pick. Another woman, actually weeping with joy, said she was "excited" about the strides women have made since the 1970s and applauded Palin's feminism. Yet another talked about how wonderful it would be to have young children in the White House again. No one (at least while I listened) even paused to question this decision or cast doubts upon its wisdom.
What Doug Phillips of Vision Forum wrote on his blog a few days ago is absolutely true.
Evangelicals are the proverbial frog in the pot, embracing today what even five years ago they would have stood firmly against. Robert Lewis Dabney's
famous quote about conservativism has never been more apropos:
In this day innovations march with rapid strides. The
fantastic suggestion of yesterday, entertained only by a few fanatics, and then
only mentioned by the sober to be ridiculed, is to-day the audacious reform,
and will be to-morrow the recognized usage. Novelties are so numerous and so
wild and rash, that in even conservative minds the sensibility of wonder is
exhausted and the instinct of righteous resistance fatigued. [1]
Have we completely lost our "righteous resistance?" I'll grant that Sarah Palin is a die-hard pro-life,
pro-gun, pro-family conservative, but why aren't the pundits stopping to ask the
obvious question? Why is a wife and mother with five children (including a
newborn with Down's syndrome) running for vice president? She has a bountiful
amount of work cut out for her by the Lord sitting in her lap and around her
dining room table. I can certainly respect her Christian and biblical
views, but I am really amazed at Christians leaping to embrace putting a wife
and mother into political office--particularly an office that will essentially make
her the helpmate of the highest official in the land and practically remove her
from her husband and children.
Isaiah 3:12 truly applies: "As for My
people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O My people!
Those who lead you cause you to err, and destroy the way of your paths." I
can assent to Sarah Palin's conservative views and even applaud them, but I mourn for a
nation whose men have forgotten how to lead their families and their land in
the way our Founders envisioned and the way God intended. A wife and mother has
already been elected by God to the highest office in the land. She has her own
particular husband to help, his calling to make successful, and her children to
nurture and train to the glory of God. How could the vice-presidency possibly
compare with a task that God has personally designed her to fill?
God help us to repent of our turning from His ways and seek again the Old Paths
of Jeremiah 6:16.
NOTE:
1. Dabney, Robert L. "The Public Preaching of Women," October 1879.
