Could Sarah Palin pastor a church?

By now, Sarah Palin's impact on the 2008 election is well documented and well covered, includign even a piece in today's Argus Leader. One of the more interesting stories of the 2008 election was Sarah Palin's instant ability to 'energize the base', injecting passion and energy into many social conservatives who rank abortion and marriage amendments as two of their most important issues, and ones where John McCain had failed to sell the base on his position(s). What I find to be somewhat ironic is while Palin may have enegized the base, if she were to seek a leadership position in the churches whose members comprise some of the GOP base, she may find the path more difficult than the one to the White House. This article from a couple months ago reveals the struggle one magazine, and one denomination, continue to experience.

In Tickle's book The Great Emergence, she writes that the role of women, and the changing perceptions surrounding that role, seem to define significant shifts within human history. She writes "we should note as well that the re-definition of traditionally female roles across all the generations was, and still is, a principal contributor to shredding of the cable and the exposing of its parts."

As for the current shift that we are experiencing, the re-definition of traditional female roles began with World War 2 women working outside the home while their husbands were away at war and continues today with women making up as high a percentage of the American workforce as they ever have, leading to spinoff debates such as the 'working mom' vs. the 'stay at home mom'.