Lux Lucet

Title page from John Knox’s famous, shocking and politically incorrect essay, The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women.

In 1558, John Knox wrote was is still to this day perhaps the most politically incorrect tract in history, The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women. The proximate object of Knox’s blast was the reign of Mary Tudor in England, but in targeting Bloody Mary, the Scottish reformer also took aim, “against the very principle of female government itself” (Roger A. Mason, John Knox On Rebellion, xv)

Over the following centuries, the political theory and practice of Protestant nations generally was ikn agreement with Knox. But with the rise of secular feminism in the 19th century and its subsequent influence on the evangelical church, that consensus began to fracture.

Today, not only does Great Britain have its second female prime minister, but Germany in headed by Angela Merkel. France is likely to find itself under the sway of a woman as soon as next year. And here in the United States, the Democrats have nominated Hillary Clinton for president.

Much has been made of Hillary Clinton’s nomination. The mainstream press is fond of describing it as “historic” as indeed it is. The reaction of the New York Times was typical of mainstream reporting on Clinton’s nomination, with the paper featuring the headline “Democrats Make Hillary Clinton a Historic Nominee.”

As the story itself went on to report, “The Democratic convention formally nominated Hillary Clinton for president on Tuesday, making history by choosing a woman to be the first standard-bearer of a major political party, a breakthrough underscored by a deeply personal speech by Bill Clinton calling her ‘the best darn change-maker I have ever known.’ ”

A Woman As President, A Short History of the Idea

Although Mrs. Clinton is the first woman to garner a major party presidential nomination, the idea of a woman president is not particularly new. Victoria Claflin Woodhull is considered to be the first woman to run for president of the US, and that took place in 1872. And as theory precedes practice, it is safe to assume that there was serious discussion of the possibility of a female president well before that date.

The ratification of the 19th Amendment guaranteeing women the right to vote in the United States and the rise of the modern feminist movement in the 1960s all but guaranteed a future woman president.

It was in this spirit that McCall’s magazine published an article titled “If I Were President” in its January 1968, in which notable women were asked what they would do if elected to the office. The answers ranged from the humorous to serious, but one answer in particular stood out. In response to the question what she would do as president, Ayn Rand gave this answer,

I would not want to be President and would not vote for a woman President. A woman cannot reasonably want to be a commander-in-chief. I prefer to answer the question by outlining what a rational man would do if he were President.

During her 1979 appearance on the Phil Donahue Show, Rand reiterated her opposition to a woman president, saying when asked about the prospect of a woman president, ” I wouldn’t vote for her,” to the shock of the audience and Phil Donahue himself. Rand went on to explain her answer and closed by saying that the idea of a woman as commander-in-chief of the army was “unspeakable.”

If Rand’s politically-incorrect response garnered cries of shock in 1979, one must wonder how that same statement made today would be greeted. Upon hearing such an utterance, one suspects the Social Justice Warrior (SJW) snowflakes of 2016 would shout obscenities at Rand whereupon they would proceed to beat as hasty retreat to the nearest safe space for a group hug.

Television and the movies have done their part to soften up the American electorate to the idea that a woman president. As Rich Heldenfels, a writer for the Akron Beacon Journal,
notes, “It would be easy to say that popular culture is just beginning to pick up on what is happening in the real political world. In fact, pop culture has been ahead of the population when it comes to a woman in the White House.”

In his article “A woman president? Movies and TV got there first, though not always well” Heldenfels tells us that the earliest movie depiction of a woman president dates from 1953 in a film titled Project Moonbase. In more recent times, the television series 24 featured a female president while Commander in Chief had Geena Davis in the lead role as the first woman to hold sway in the oval office. This summer’s release Independence Day: Resurgence had a female president played by Sela Ward

While feminism was advancing in make-believe, the idea of a woman president continued to gain traction in the real world as well. In 1972, Democrat Shirley Chisholm became the first woman to run for president on a major party ticket. Geraldine Ferraro was named Walter Mondale’s running mate in 1984.

Richard Nixon voiced his support for a female president thus, “Certainly in the next 50 years we shall see a woman president, perhaps sooner than you think. A woman can and should be able to do any political job that a man can do.”

The last three presidential election cycles have seen women candidates running in the major parties’ primaries: Hillary Clinton in 2008, Michelle Bachman in 2012 and Hillary Clinton and Carly Fiorina in 2016. The 2016 Green Party candidate is Jill Stein.

Donald Trump, the Republicans 2016 nominee, was recently quoted as saying, “I want to see a woman become President.”

John McCain and Sarah Palin, 2008.

In recent years, evangelicals have hopped on the female president train, which really got rolling among the religious right in 2008 when John McCain made Sarah Palin his running mate. McCain was an uninspiring candidate, but that didn’t stop Sarah Palin from becoming the new political darling of evangelical right.

2012 once again saw evangelicals flock to support a woman presidential candidate. This time, Michele Bachmann was the object of their ardor. After meeting with a roomful of evangelical pastors, those in attendance gushed about Bachmann’s presentation. “She was speaking the language of the heart of the people in this room,” said Presbyterian George Grant. Eric Holmberg described the meeting as “extraordinary.” According to the article, the session with Bachmann, “lasted nearly two hours and included pastors praying over Michele Bachmann as well as her talking in very spiritual terms about her love for Jesus Christ.”

The near universal consensus among both Democrats and Republicans, among liberals and conservatives, among secularists and evangelicals, is that there is nothing controversial, nothing unseemly, nothing strange about the thought of having a woman president. Indeed, if one voices a contrary opinion, he is likely to be considered a bit odd. If he persists in making his opinion public, he likely will be branded as sexist and unfit for polite society.

For all that, among many there still remains a certain level of discomfort with the thought of seeing a woman in the office of the presidency. According to one source, sexism among conservative evangelicals played a role in Michele Bachmann’s failure to win the Iowa Caucuses in 2012. One Bachmann aid is quoted as saying, “We [the Bachmann campaign staff] did believe that sexism – I use the stronger word misogyny – was at play.”

But what political operatives seduced by feminism call “sexism and misogyny” is really nothing of the sort, and to say speak in this manner is simply a case of calling good evil and evil good. In truth, evangelicals who opposed Bachmann in Iowa were simply acting in obedience to the Word of God. Lord willing, next week we shall take a look at why this is so.