Don't let the laughter distract you,

Huckabee is someone we need to keep an eye on.

Sara of Orcinus writes:

Why Target the Southern Baptists?
Some have questioned my suggestion that if local progressives with limited resources need to do some triage, they should start by aiming their monitoring efforts at their neighborhood Southern Baptists. This recommendation was based mainly on their previous record: the SBC is the second-largest Christian denomination in the country after the Roman Catholic Church; yet they have demonstrated, over and over, a blithe willingness to break the law and abridge the civil rights of people they don't like. It would be brain-dead of us to expect that's going to be any better this year than it's been in the past, no matter who the GOP nominee is. And if it's Huckabee, the odds are overwhelming that will get much worse.

I've written extensively about the sense of smug superiority that's settled into the SBC over the past few years, much of it drawn from an essential belief that their special relationship with God not only makes them morally superior to the rest of us, but also exempts them from the need to observe the law. Beyond that: they're openly committed to tearing down the rule of law entirely and replacing it with a theocracy -- and have taken the leading role in the effort to put judges onto the bench who will enforce their Biblical order in the meantime.

The belief that our democratic government is illegitimate, coupled with the arrogance of the twice-born, has already led them into all kinds of serious legal trouble. A brief recap of posts that Dave and I have done in just the past year demonstrates this more than adequately. The church is currently embroiled in a year-long scandal -- to which it has made no effective policy response whatsoever -- involving over 50 ministers arrested (and many convicted) on charges of sexually abusing children in their congregations. They have also allied themselves with hate groups promoting anti-gay violence (including one that's been implicated in at least one murder). One of the SBC's national leaders has gone on record defending torture as scriptural; another lost his military chaplaincy when it was discovered he was keeping a sex slave. His fellow SBC pastors knew -- but they looked the other way.

And, of course, there's the fact that the church's national leadership has already proven itself -- twice over -- more than happy to break the law specifically so it could endorse Huckabee. And this happened long before Huck had a ghost of a chance in a primary. Since Huckabee is himself an SBC minister, it's not out of line to presume that the church will be uniquely aggressive (and, perhaps, characteristically lawless) in campaigning for one of its own. This is the shot they've been waiting for -- and they've got every incentive not to let a little thing like the IRS stand in the way.

Huckabee is a Dominionist

Via Eli of Multi Medium, Jim Burroway of the Box Turtle Bulletin:

We reported earlier on Southern Baptist minister and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee’s fundraising event at the home of Houston multimillionaire Steven Hotze, a well-known Christian Reconstructionist. Pastor Rick Scarborough, who also maintains Reconstructionist beliefs, was there as well. Since then, we’ve learned that Huckabee’s ties go far deeper than mere acquaintances and financial backers. He has a history of working very closely with some very well-known Reconstructionists over the years. In this report, we will examine two of Huckabee’s closest Reconstructionist colleagues.

Modern Christian Reconstructionism (sometimes known as Dominionism) was founded by the late R.J. Rushdoony and his son-in-law, Gary North. Rushdoony believed that it was the duty of every Bible-believing Christian to place each and every word of the Bible at the core of that person’s life. According to Rushdoony, this meant that the Bible must necessarily replace all civil laws and constitutions with the Old and New Testaments, including the revival of the death penalty for homosexuality, incest, adultery, lying about one’s virginity, and apostasy or public blasphemy, among a much longer list of biblical crimes. Rushdoony wrote that Democracy is a heresy and “the great love of the failures and cowards of life.”

Want to find out what Dominionists believe?: (from the same article) (my bold)

In 1987 George Grant wrote The Changing Of The Guard: Biblical Principles for Political Action, in which he made his call for a theocratic overthrow explicit. On reading these passages, there can be no doubt exactly what Grant is calling for:

Christians have an obligation, a mandate, a commission, a holy responsibility to reclaim the land for Jesus Christ – to have dominion in the civil structures, just as in every other aspect of life and godliness.

But it is dominion that we are after. Not just a voice.

It is dominion we are after. Not just influence.

It is dominion we are after. Not just equal time.

It is dominion we are after.

World conquest. That’s what Christ has commissioned us to accomplish. We must win the world with the power of the Gospel. And we must never settle for anything less.

If Jesus Christ is indeed Lord, as the Bible says, and if our commission is to bring the land into subjection to His Lordship, as the Bible says, then all our activities, all our witnessing, all our preaching, all our craftsmanship, all our stewardship, and all our political action will aim at nothing short of that sacred purpose.

Thus, Christian politics has as its primary intent the conquest of the land - of men, families, institutions, bureaucracies, courts, and governments for the Kingdom of Christ. It is to reinstitute the authority of God’s Word as supreme over all judgments, over all legislation, over all declarations, constitutions, and confederations. True Christian political action seeks to rein the passions of men and curb the pattern of digression under God’s rule. (pp. 50-51)

Someone needs to ask Huckabee if he becomes president, does he plan to uphold and protect the Constitution and keep his religion out of governing? And would he, as president, deliberately create conditions that would support the Rapture? Is his religion the only right religion? Does he believe that the United States is a Christian nation? It would really be good to have him answer some of these questions before he gets much further in campaigning....


(Cross-posted at Steve Audio)

There's nothing gracious about it

Mike Huckabee:

In June 1998, the Southern Baptist Convention issued a “statement on the family” that asserted, “A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ.” Two months later, then-governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee was one of 131 signatories to a full-page ad in USA Today specifically endorsing the Convention’s view on marriage:

You are right because you called wives to graciously submit to their husband’s sacrificial leadership.

I thank God I'm not a Southern Baptist. So does my husband.

Didn't they just claim that being gay was a choice?

Then why are they trying to change the fetus?

One of the nation's leading Southern Baptists has called for a policy that would support medical treatment, if it were to become available, to change the sexual orientation of a fetus inside its mother's womb from homosexual to heterosexual. This latest assault on our dignity and existence comes from no less a personage than Rev. R. Albert Mohler, the president of the prominent and influential Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary is the flagship school of the Southern Baptist Convention and one of the largest seminaries in the world.

Acknowleding the strides that genetic science is making in identifying and isolating genetic abnormalities, defects and diseases, Mohler embraces this advance in medical science as yet another tool in the war to root out and cleanse sin. The good reverend explains that "Given the consequences of the Fall and the effects of human sin, we should not be surprised that such a causation or link is found. After all, the human genetic structure, along with every other aspect of creation, shows the pernicious effects of the Fall and of God's judgment."

So, how about making people who will not question authority, not be unfaithful, not be greedy, not lie, or... how about: not be massive idiots?