Huckabee: Jesus is His Co-Pilot Print E-mail
By Stan Moody
Dec. 10, 07 11:32

Besides the fact that there is something uncomfortably wild about Mike Huckabee's eyes, there is that troubling 1992 statement encouraging quarantine of all AIDS victims - seven years after the medical opinion that AIDS could not be caught through incidental contact.  To a public that is tiring (one hopes) of swashbuckling presidents with southern accents, up pops his 1998 sermon to Southern Baptist preachers in Salt Lake City (Arkansas-Democratic Gazette, June 8, 1998, Linda S. Caillouet).

 

"The reason that we have so much government is because we have so much broken humanity."  True enough, I say, albeit that all humanity is broken to one degree or another.  "And the reason we have so much broken humanity is that sin reigns in the hearts and lives of human beings instead of the Savior."  Is that to say that if sin reigned in the heart of the Savior all would be mended?  I take advantage of poor syntax, of course.  Irresistible!

 

"Government knows it does not have the answer, but it's arrogant and acts as though it does." Arrogance is, I suspect, in the eye of the beholder.  Read on!  "Church does have the answer but will cowardly deny that it does and wonder when the world will be changed."  That benign stance has been altered dramatically since the Christian Right officially merged with the Republican Party. 

 

These days, the church not only has the answer, it has proclaimed that answer from the pulpits and from the airwaves in violation of its tax-exempt privilege.  It has come of age and no longer wonders when the world will be changed.  The world will be changed when certain freedoms of choice and certain alternative lifestyles are made unlawful and the nation is thereby declared sinless.  There are more pearls of wisdom from the Governor.

 

"I fear we (the church) will turn and hit the snooze button one more time and lose this great republic of ours."  In other words, the preservation of this "great republic of ours" is dependent, not on the divine initiative of a Sovereign God but on the political mobilization of the Christian public.  We must not let incidentals such as Christian doctrine stand in the way of progress.

 

Has the current legion of theocrats restored this "great republic of ours?"


"I'm often asked why taxes are so high and government is so big. It's because the faith we have in local churches has become so small. If we'd been doing what we should have -- giving a dime from every dollar to help the widows, the orphans and the poor -- we now wouldn't be giving nearly 50 cents of every dollar to a government that's doing ... what we should have been doing all along." 

 

Excuse me, Governor, but what is this "faith we have in local churches?"  I thought you were advocating for faith in Jesus Christ?  Or is that the Freudian slippage of syntax again?  You mention the "local church."  In fact, the local church is an institution of questionable merit these days, overwhelmed as it is by a recalcitrant and unrepentant megachurch spawned in large part by your very denomination whose long history has boasted racism, sexism and apartheid.

 

It gets worse.

 

"I didn't get into politics because I thought government had a better answer. I got into politics because I knew government didn't have the real answers - that the real answers lie in accepting Jesus Christ into our lives."  Let me get this straight.  You leave the pastorate where you are urging people to accept Jesus Christ into their lives as the answer to all human woe and go into politics because government does not have real answers to human woe.  While I can't argue with the reasoning, the logic of it all somehow escapes me.

 

Is the answer to human woe to legislate belief in Jesus Christ so that we can reduce the size of government?  Duh!  "There's not one thing we can do in those marbled halls and domed capitols that can equal what's done when Jesus touches the life of a sinner."  You left the business of touching the life of a sinner for what?

 

Is there any thinking person left out there who still wonders about that wild look in Huckabee's eyes? 

 

All this from a guy who recently stated that "Jesus is too smart to run for President."  How about Vice President?  The Huckabee/Messiah ticket!

 

When are we going to hear from the adults?

 


LIST OF COMMENTS

1/10. pastor who doesn't believe the bible
Written by pollchecker  | Dec. 11, 07 06:48

Huckabee lost me when he said he didn't believe all of the bible literally.  Coming from a Christian pastor, I don't understand how that statement gives him such a boost with the Chirstian right. 

Add to everthing else, he lied about the facts regarding a rapist that he supported clemency for.  So how many commandments has he broken and he's not even the nominee yet <g>.   This guy is nuttier than GW.


2/10. Mr.
Written by S hannon Parker  | Dec. 11, 07 23:25

Why does someone who hates government want to run it?  His answers are contradictory, at best.  I'm sick and tired of deranged idealogues running for Pastor-in-Chief.  Jesus doesn't need political power to change the world, and America doesn't need a state religion worshipping Republicanism.


3/10. comment
Written by frappy  | Dec. 11, 07 23:29
Wow - of all the things that you could be critical of Huckabee on, this is what you pick?  His syntax?  You could take any speech ever written and pull it apart if you pick at it like you've done here.  Or others could do the same with your words, as I'm tempted to do.  But what's the point? 

Maybe we'd all be better off if we looked for the meaning and had a meaningful discussion about content instead of picking apart phrases to try and raise contradictions. 

4/10. Huckabee Is The Logical Choice OF RR
Written by George  | Dec. 12, 07 07:31

Frankly, I'm a little surprised that the Religious Right took so long to coalesce around Mike Huckabee. Despite the demise of the Moral Majority, the Religious Right has exercise a growing influence in the Republican Party to the extent that (I thought) it would be impossible for any Republican candidate to be nominated without their support. Then along came Rudy, and it seemed to me that Pat Robertson and others of his ilk were throwing away their holy principles.

 

So the next few months should be very interesting to watch. If the Republicans select Rudy in spite of his sins and his rejection of their core principles, will the RR finally abandon the Republican Party and form their own permanent third party? And if they go with Mike or Mitt and lose badly in Nov, what are the long-term implications for them to regain power?

 

Nothing that Huckabee has said about AIDS will cause him to lose support from the RR. The only thing that makes him vulnerable to his growing backers is his kinder and gentler attitude towards Latinos.


5/10. To: George
Written by Stan Moody  | Dec. 12, 07 09:08
I am trying to get some background for Huckabee's position on the Palestinian state...He has just been endorsed by the LaHayes ("Left Behind"), and I found some information that he supports a Palestinian state so long as it is not in Palestine (known as ethnic cleansing)...If Mike is a confirmed Rapturist, we will not have progressed one iota should he make it to the White House...

Readers, let me know if you uncover some info on this...

6/10. Huckabee's Sermons
Written by George  | Dec. 12, 07 11:20

I googled the term "Huckabee's Sermons" and learned that the two churches that Rev Huckabee pastored for a total of 12 years either do not have or are not releasing any of his taped sermons. Speaking as an ex-audio person, I can tell you that our church taped every sermon by our pastor (beginning in the early 1980s) and made them available to shut-ins. So it will not be long before some of those taped sermons begin surfacing - especially when the heirs of those shut-ins discover that the tapes might be worth some money.

 

When the tapes are made public, I don't expect to see anything quite as extreme as the obese preacher from Texas (senior moment - can't remember his name). But it is pretty much accepted in the fundamentalist circles that Israel can do no wrong (even though the Bible is full of examples where Israel did many thing wrong).


7/10. Huckabee so represents the RR
Written by mouse  | Dec. 13, 07 16:22

  Ok, he's prone to the standard folly's there-in, and as such, he is easy to understand. Over-all, I think with Huckabee, you know exactly what your getting. I'm cool with that.

  When we look at Republican canidates, there are only two real choices. Romney, and Huckabee. As far as Romney goes, if he can drop the populism, I could actually respect his positions, depending of course on what actual position he has during the given election.

  Now you could of course nominate Rudy. And honestly,. as a Democrat I would be happy to see that. The decision would surrender both Congress, and the Presidency to the democrats for the next eight years, and probably transform the RR to the RL....


8/10. Question to Stan
Written by emoody  | Dec. 13, 07 20:07
Dr. Moody,
What is the importance of being a "Rapturist" ?
Why would this position prohibit progression?
Thanks.

9/10. To: emoody
Written by Stan Moody  | Dec. 14, 07 05:59
I will need to narrow that in the next post, as there are Repturists who are not Zionists...The problem with Huckabee's worldview is that he is a Zionist, by which he believes that the End Times will be played out in greater Israel...That is what is driving Middle East policy for the Christian Right and in large part the Administration...

It is called the "theology of the land."  God promised the land from at least the Mediterranean to the Jordan River to Abraham...Christian Zionists, like John Hagee and his friend, Mike Huckabee, believe that the only way you can honor God's intention for the land is to drive out the Palestinians...Huckabee has already registered his dissatisfaction with the Annapolis conference, as it is trading land for peace...The Christian Right is pouring on the pressure to derail that, as well...

In short, Huckabee wants to move the Palestinians out of their homeland to the desert in either Saudi Arabia or Egypt...This is a form of ethnic cleansing much like that of our treatment of  Native Americans...And it is driven by Premillennial Dispensationalist eschatology (a mouthful, huh?)...

Dangerous business when it escalates to pushing for a war with Iran...

10/10. looking forward
Written by emoody  | Dec. 16, 07 16:54
I look forward to your next post then.
Last Updated ( Dec. 10, 07 13:43 )
 
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