Huckabee’s “Theocratic War”, Christmas Lie & Borrowed Rhetoric
In one sense, it is good to know that Ron Paul has so influenced the Republican primary this year, that nearly every candidate running has felt it necessary to pander to the hefty libertarian base, which has proved to be alarmingly (to any big-government Neocon ideolog) powerful. I mean, even the ‘torture all enemies, throw out the fourth amendment, bug all churches and mosques’ Romney, has softened his tone over the course of the campaign (don’t be fooled), and the Republican National Committee must have fired their totally inept fund raising letter writer, who thought I would be convinced to donate money to them, by repeatedly appealing that if I didn’t donate, IMMEDIATELY, that Bush would be unable to continue torturing people, spying on everything I do, invalidating the Bill of Rights and keeping the war eternal, so as to copy Pagan Rome’s fine imperial example of oppression. The latest correspondence has been TRANSFORMED, and I believe Ron Paul had a LOT to do with it! If I didn’t KNOW better, I’d almost think–by reading the latest fund raising letters–that the Republican party bosses had SUDDENLY converted to the Ron Paul rEVOLution! I’m STILL not donating, given the filthy grubby corrupt–EVIL–way my party has systematically colluded to suppress Ron Paul!
In another sense, it is amazing to see how Mike Huckabee shot up in the polls–because the media aristocracy permitted it–when he began to virtually plagiarize Ron Paul’s political messages! He’s been following Paul’s every cue, for a number of months, including cues about the war and about our arrogant foreign policy attitudes, although it was Huckabee that had a go-round with Paul on the very same issue. Huck hasn’t gone the full Paul distance, but he did, apparently, recognize how wise it would be to speak about the arrogant Bush “bunker mentality”. Huckabee also now borrows Ron Paul’s rhetoric WORD FOR WORD when he stumps about how horrible is the IRS!
When I first started hearing Huckabee go down the IRS road, I thought, “HEY! That’s RON PAUL’S speech!!! YOU can’t steal HIS thunder!” But, in reality, I think it would be GREAT, if every candidate borrowed not only Ron Paul’s THUNDER, but his ACTUAL CONVICTIONS! Unfortunately, I don’t buy the borrowed rhetoric from the likes of Huckabee, any more than I bought into his MOST disingenuous denials of the carefully crafted cinematography in his Christmas ad, plainly designed to make a specially lit portion of a carefully positioned white shelf, appear as a floating cross backing Huckabee. For some analysis on this issue–not of the cross, but of the LIE–see:
http://windwhistle.wordpress.com/2007/12/18/huckabees-cross-ad-is-disingenuous/
http://tomhoberg.wordpress.com/2007/12/19/mike-huckabee-disingenuous/
I’m uncomfortable with Huckabee’s use of the cross in his not-so-subtle pandering political ad, but I’m even MORE uncomfortable with his LIE. Deceit is largely what destroyed my former support for George Bush–see HERE.
But what makes me the most NERVOUS about Mike Huckabee–being a pastor, myself???
It is his dangerous penchant to USE his Christianity for political purposes, and to USE politics–at least, this is the suggestions he is sending to conservative Christians–to promote his Christianity! While expression of personal faith in the public sphere is a GOOD thing, which we should protect from extreme prohibitions–such as those sometimes promoted through the ACLU (an otherwise noble organization protecting liberties)–there can be, never-the-less, no more DANGEROUS marriage of policy and purpose, than the marriage between politics and religion.
Why? What is the big deal anyway? Why NOT mix church and state? What is the essential problem, which led Thomas Jefferson to warn so vehemently against ever removing the friendly fence (some call it a wall–I prefer a fence, as in ‘good fences make good neighbors’) that clearly defines a boundary separating church and state?
Answer: A union between church and the state, backs RELIGION (SOME-one’s version), with the SWORD! This is, more than any other thing, what happend in the so-called ‘dark ages’, to make them truly dark. The backing of religion with the sword, has repeatedly corrupted good religion and good government throughout history (and endangered millions of innocent lives). It is the very thing, which led to one of the most horrid episodes in later Christian history–the crusades! You don’t even have to be a student of history to recognize that the horrible things done in the name of Christ, during the crusades, affect us still today! To use the term often used by Ron Paul, we are STILL experiencing blowback, in the Western world, from as long ago as the crusades! I won’t even go into the horrors of the inquisition, or the multitudes through the ages persecuted by well-meaning governments around the globe, because of their religious faith. We DARE not violate this sacred line of demarcation!
This brings me to the one thing which gives me greatest pause about Mike Huckabee–and might I mention that I am conservative to the point of being labeled fundamentalist, myself, and that I have an ACTUAL degree (see HERE) in theology–a Master of Divinity degree–yet I view prophetic events from a VERY different–yet valid–perspective than Huckabee’s background has led him to view them. What gives me the greatest concern, is how Mike Huckabee has come to view geopolitical events in the world, today, as a giant struggle between Christianity and Islam! He is on record calling the so-called “War on Terror”, a “THEOCRATIC WAR”, at the same time claiming that he understands it better than others, because he has a “theology” degree (again, see HERE).
Here is Huck in his own words, on the Christian Broadcasting Network:
People look at my record and say that I’m as strong on immigration, strong on terror as anybody. In fact I think I’m stronger than most people because I truly understand the nature of the war that we are in with Islamofascism. These are people that want to kill us. It’s a theocratic war. And I don’t know if anybody fully understands that. I’m the only guy on that stage with a theology degree [AGAIN, SEE HERE]. I think I understand it really well. And know the threat of it is absolutely overwhelming to us.
Mark my words. I have an inside picture of the Christian right, being a pastor myself, and I can tell you that a great MANY in conservative Christian ranks–including some in my own faith community–are viewing the so-called “War on Terror”, in exactly these terms! This should greatly alarm those committed to first amendment religious freedom issues, as well as those concerned about the purity of Christian faith and its bedrock values, since this perspective has the power not only to undermine the non-sectarian nature of our government (leading to preferences for some faiths and persecutions of others), but at the same time to water down the Christian faith, for the sake of gaining secular POWER!
Case in point: ABORTION.
You would have thought that this was such a rock solid issue for the Christian right, that NO INDUCEMENT could have swerved one of the preeminent Christian right mouthpieces to ever back a candidate known to be pro-abortion. But this logic has missed the insidious nature of political power to corrupt.
Along comes Pat Robertson to show how power-lust, when it gets into your religious blood, ends up trumping EVERYTHING, especially when you have a handy ‘HOLY WAR’ to assuage your conscience; to act as justification for ANYTHING! Pat Robertson shocked multitudes when he chose to endorse Giuliani, and many wanted to understand WHY! The answer comes out of his own mouth, and I don’t believe that many listeners fully understood its subtle meaning the way I did. He says that he gave his support to Giuliani, because he wants to “fight Islamic terrorists”. Those are his exact words (in the quotes), as I recall.
What I see happening, is not a good sign of where many Christians seem to have gone to in their minds. Many seem to have gotten into the crusade mentality of long ago, and when some use the code of “Islamo-fascism” (which is an oxymoron, since there is nothing fascist about virtually anarchist terroristic strategy) or “Islamic terrorism”, they really are thinking, “Christians fighting against Islam”. I am convinced that some are harboring the concept, that our present conflicts, are really a holy war between Islam and Christianity, which is a worrisome concept to me. Jesus pointed out that “IF [his] kingdom were of this world” then his followers would rely on the sword for its advancement, but he made crystal clear that his kingdom was NOT of this world! If the lust to MAKE it of this world is the undercurrent driving our policy, which the general public does not recognize or acknowledge, then we are REALLY on a bad track for not only American liberty, but for liberty of conscience world wide!
Blaise Pascal once said:
“Men never do evil so completely, and cheerfully, as when they do it from a religious conviction.”
This has been proved over and over, and we should stop to pause upon the thought, given our OWN recent experience with religiously inspired suicide bombers. Don’t be fooled into believing that sincere Christian conviction cannot be in the same way perverted, often by almost imperceptible increments, such that it remains unrecognizable by the majority, for what it really is, until it is too late!
After the Christmas Cross ad, and Huckabee’s disingenuous denials, a bundle of news articles appeared online, touting his unapologetic stance as observed in a sermon Mike Huckabee preached soon after the inevitable controversy had attracted nation-wide attention (wasn’t that what he WANTED, after all?). One less observed element of the story, however, involves just WHICH prominent mega-church he had preached his sermon in, and the uninhibited endorsement Huckabee gave to the theological views touted by its famous pastor, John Hagee. Hagee’s views that America is a “Christian” nation, and that the so-called “War on Terror” is a “theocratic”, or holy war between Christianity and Islam–a modern crusade, if you will–are well known. This is not only dangerous for a would-be president to endorse, but it can be downright damnable–to borrow a religious term–in its consequences. If you espouse this belief, you can hardly help seeing the American armed forces as GOD’S army, feeling that God is always on OUR side, and finding reason to justify virtually ANY action our nation undertakes–in the name of Christ–whether foreign or domestic!
DANGEROUS! Don’t forget that one of the most insidious forms of tyranny, which led early Americans to flee their homelands for the new world, was RELIGIOUS tyranny.
This holy war, ‘Christian’ American, mentality, seems to be trumping even the substance of our most basic convictions, such as the sanctity of life. It may be one of the major behind-the-scenes pressures on the “Christian” president we presently have, which has been encouraging his tendency toward perpetuating eternal war! Thus we have an ever-increasing number of “Christians”, who have turned to the methods of ancient Rome, to again try to spread “Christianity” by the blood of the sword, rather than the “blood of the Lamb, and the Word of their testimony.” (See Revelation 12:11)
