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Technorati"She is not lazy or a busybody, nor is she distracted by outside pursuits and responsibilities that eat up her precious time and attention," he said. "This woman is not seduced by the sirens of modernity who tell her she is wasting her time and talent as a homemaker, and that it is the career woman who has purpose and is truly satisfied."
Yet, in a recent interview, Akin said he supports Palin's candidacy, arguing that while the Bible speaks about the role of women in church and the home, it speaks nothing about women in government. Still, he said he would sound warnings to a wife and mother of five children who wanted to take on such a difficult job.
"Would that then disqualify her? No," Akin said. "Do I think it's a big challenge for her husband and for she and their family? Absolutely."
Bill Leonard, a Baptist historian and dean of the Wake Forest University School of Divinity, called the acceptance by Southern Baptist leaders of a woman in high-level government leadership "something of a retraction of their old view." That opens the doors for rank-and-file members of the convention to vote for a GOP ticket that includes a woman, according to Leonard.
"The SBC is so rooted now in the Republican Party that their theological judgment on this becomes an issue," said Leonard, a critic of the Southern Baptists' conservative leadership.
Palin's personal roots are in Pentecostal churches, which strictly interpret the Bible, but also teach that the Holy Spirit can work equally through men and women, so women can preach and take leadership roles.
Jim Sansom, 87, who worships at Temple Baptist Church in Raleigh, said he doesn't think fellow members of his Southern Baptist congregation would accept a woman pastor, and he would prefer to see a male serving in the role. But he still questioned limits on women in the church and wonders why it remains such an issue.
"That's not the first priority," Sansom said. "The first priority is a relationship with the Lord."
But in the Southern Baptist Convention, hundreds of congregations have distanced themselves from the denomination in recent years, partly over its views on women. Several departed as they adopted female pastors.
The Rev. Carolyn Hale Cubbedge at First Baptist Church in Savannah, Ga., said the Southern Baptist Convention fails to consider the New Testament's entire story, including the social context of the patriarchal society when it was written.
"I shed a lot of tears over this," said Cubbedge, whose church is now part of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, a group of Southern Baptists who have separated or distanced themselves from the denomination. "I felt like this convention that had nurtured me had really abandoned me. That was painful."
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