I have watched the news reports on CNN about Sarah Palin and the debates about her experience which are understandable. Although it is only very early after the announcement of her running with John McCain, I have seen or read about the immediate and enthusiastic responses from conservative Christians due to her stances on important values and family issues, abortion etc. and of course excitement about her Christian background. I personally am in agreement with what I am hearing (at least so far) about the stances on these particular issues, but I look forward to hearing what her responses will be about the huge issues about the economy, the environment, global relationships/foreign policies etc.
It is dawning on me however, as I have been reading some blogs and hearing which Christian leaders are excited about her - many of them are from conservative complementarian churches. Which means as they are enthusiastic about her becoming vice president and making incredibly important decisions for our country for both men and women and make speeches and lead - she couldn't teach in most of their pulpits, or be an elder or pastor in their church and make decisions and lead both men and women in a church setting.
So we would be OK with her taking on the leadership role of vice president. By doing so, we are also supportive of her being president if John McCain wasn't able to lead and she stepped in to lead the 303 million people of the USA. But the irony and theological practical tension is how we are supporting her as a leader to that extreme capacity of 303 million people, yet in a complementarian rural church of 50 people, she would not be able to lead both men and women there.
I'd love to hear how those with a complementarians sort this out or if others have thought about this. I understand that some complementarian churches do allow a female to preach on occasion (under the authority of the males elders) and some will call a female a pastor, generally if it is females they are pastoring. I assume the complementarian response is that the sphere of leading as a pastor or elder in a local church is different than the sphere of leading the entire country. But it is an interesting thing to ponder if you simply lay that out and think about its functional reality. I would love to hear how responses will go, as I cannot imagine this won't be coming up in discussions. Any thoughts on this or am I stretching things too much here in trying to even compare the two spheres of leadership as the same or are they?
** Scot McKNight posted further questions in the comments to this post, which are good ones
