This Week in God

January 19, 2008

The God machine turns its attention this week exclusively to Mike Huckabee — and some of his more notable and less well-known friends.

Anyone watching the presidential campaign probably knows about Huckabee’s background as a Baptist preacher. Political observers have also no doubt picked up on Huckabee’s vaguely-theocratic campaign platform, which includes, among other things, his stated intention to bring the United States Constitution in line with “God’s standards.”

When asked to clarify, Huckabee said we have nothing to worry about — he doesn’t want to make the Constitution fit “God’s standards” in general, he just wants to make the Constitution fit “God’s standards” when it comes to gays and reproductive rights.

All of this seems rather alarming, of course, to those of us who care about church-state separation and our secular system of government. It gets even scarier when we consider Huckabee’s ties to Christian Reconstructionists.

To be sure, Reconstructionists are not exactly a household name, and they’re clearly on the fringe of modern American thought. As my friend Morbo explained this morning, Reconstructionists basically hold that our constitutional system is flawed and needs to be replaced with a Christian theocracy. They’re significantly to the right of the Robertson/Dobson wing of the religious right, in that Reconstructionists believe U.S. laws should be based on the legal codes of the Old Testament. Literally. (Some in the “movement” also believe in Biblical penalties — including stoning — for various sins.)

The good news is, Reconstructionists are very small in number. The bad news is, Mike Huckabee has been hanging out with quite a few of them.

Huckabee was recently asked about these ties, and gave an answer that was less than reassuring.

“I’m not really one that that’s identified with a reconstructionist movement and basically believe we should spend more time simply trying to be more responsible citizens in our own right, not to rebuild a certain type of kingdom, but simply to make sure government is effective and fair and efficient for everybody.”

That’s hardly a denunciation.

And the likely reason Huckabee was cautious in describing his associations with Reconstructionists is because of his ties to the movement. Yesterday in Salon, Alex Koppelman and Vincent Rossmeier offer a detailed report.

Ideas like the ones some of Huckabee’s supporters hold stem from two radical doctrines, reconstructionism and dominionism. As Conason writes, these ideas come down to “the notion that America, indeed every nation on earth, is meant to be governed by biblical law.” Additionally, they stem from a belief that the United States was founded as a Christian nation, then betrayed by secular humanist liberals who created a myth of separation of church and state in the 20th century, leading the country to immorality and godlessness, and that the United States must be taken back by Christians. Some of the proponents of this idea are unashamed about using the word “theocracy” to describe their goal. The most radical among them — including two of the movement’s leading lights and progenitors, R.J. Rushdoony and his son-in-law Gary North — advocate a return to the practice of stoning as a method of execution, and expanding this death sentence to the crimes of homosexuality, blasphemy and cursing one’s parents.

One of the early organizations to promote reconstructionist ideas was the Coalition on Revival. Rushdoony and North were members of its steering committee. In 1986, two years after its founding, the group produced “A Manifesto for the Christian Church,” which says, among other things, “[The] Bible is the only absolute, objective, final test for all truth claims … The Bible is not only God’s statements to us regarding religion, salvation, eternity, and righteousness, but also the final measurement and depository of certain fundamental facts of reality and basic principles that God wants all mankind to know in the spheres of law, government, economics, business, education, arts and communication, medicine, psychology, and science.” The group also released 17 tracts laying out its prescription for what the “Christian Worldview” should be on topics from government to law, medicine, family and economics. The introduction to these states, “We believe America can be turned around and once again function as a Christian nation as it did in its earlier years. We believe that wherever the pastors of any city in the world join together in unity to make Christ Lord of every sphere of life, and, with Spirit-led strategy, mobilize their people into a unified spiritual army; that city can and will become ‘a city set upon a hill.'”

Huckabee’s ties to these guys are not random and incidental. I’m not saying Huckabee is a Reconstructionist, but it’s hard to dismiss the significance of his connections to these scary religious figures.

It’s not unusual to see and hear reasonable people say nice things about Huckabee, citing his warm personality, his sense of humor, and his willingness to appear regularly on The Colbert Report. I just hope these same people look beyond the surface.

Why is it that when Christians talk about building a theocracy, they always fall back on the Old Testament. Wasn’t Christ’s big messianic mission to change that way of thinking…isn’t that why he was hanging out with lepers and whores?

These people need to make up their mind. Either he is the wrathful Jehovah or he is the forgiving Lord of the New Testament.

I’m really beginning to think that the biggest failure of the Roman Empire was that it didn’t have enough lions…

  • First off I admit I am no constitutional scholar so I may very well be wrong here, but I was under the impression that only congress and/or states can propose amendments and only congress or the states can decide on the proposal. Not only that but it doesn’t need the presidents signature once passed.

  • The good news is, Reconstructionists are very small in number. The bad news is, Mike Huckabee has been hanging out with quite a few of them.

    Not to get too deep into the weeds but the other “bad news” in this is that some of the people heavily involved in the Reconstructionist/Dominionist movement have some pretty serious money. Referring here to the Ahmanson family, which also is–or at least was; haven’t checked recently–heavily involved in the electronic voting machine biz.

    Never any shortage of scary stuff when you start scratching the surface of the far right religiosis in this country. I remember reading the Heinlein story “If this goes on” growing up and thinking he was pretty whacked to imagine the US taken over from within by a totalitarian theocratic movement. But over the last 20 years or so I’ve realized that, whatever his faults as a writer, he was certainly on to something there.

  • With all this focus on presidential politics, I think it’s important to remember that the direction of the country isn’t determined solely by decree from the Oval office; in large part, where we are going as a nation is determined by who is directing our cities and towns and counties and states, and who we are electing to Congress. It’s true that influence is a prerogative of the president – we have only to look at what happened to the Justice Department to understand how presidential and party agenda can affect the country as a whole.

    The laws and ordinances and rules and regulations, however, are made in school board meetings, and town and county council meetings, in state legislatures, and of course, in the Congress. When those who subscribe to the Reconstructionist agenda begin to show up in legislatures, the ability to change the landscape of this country is greatly increased. If, at the same time that these efforts are underway at the more local level, you have the possibility of electing a president who also believes in this effort, we could see changes that would radically alter the meaning of democracy – a meaning that has already been eroded in other areas by the current president.

    The danger in Mike Huckabee is that he diesn’t come across as a fire-and-brimstone, you’re-all-going-to-hell kind of guy – he seems normal. And like the preacher who managed to convince his parishioner that the road to salvation needed to go through his pants on a regular basis, Huckabee has the ability to make what he wants seem plausible and benign.

    He is a dangerous man. And for that reason, I would just as soon see his candidacy come to an end, even if keeping him in it delays the inevitable crowning of a nominee – because the more followers he attracts, the more legitimacy is given to his agenda. After years of this crap, I’m ready for people like Huckabee and his disciples to get a clear message that they do not belong in government, working to re-make the democracy in the image of their religion, and should go back to their churches and Bible meetings once and for all.

  • I laughed when Reagan ran thinking he wouldn’t get anywhere with his goofy economic ideas and his promise to return to a time that never was. I thought Gingrich was fringe, and Heritage, and Robertson, Haggart, Fawell, Norquist, Kristol and so many others. None of them could possibly be taken serioiusly enough to pose a threat.
    Yet, all the while, these people built movements, gaining in strength and number, to the point that today, we find ourselves forced to defend ourselves against presidential candidates — presidential candidates — harboring promoting preemptive war, torture, unlimited executive powers, and the fact that America was founded as a Christian nation. Is there anything or anyone so fringe that we can afford to laugh them off anymore?

  • Huckabee said:

    “I’m not really one that that’s identified with a reconstructionist movement and basically believe. . .” and so on.

    One important thing to know about the Reconstructionists/Dominionists is that they are people who would do a lot of things you might not ordinarily associate sincerely religious Christians with (for example, lying a lot) because they believe they have to violate morality and social norms to accomplish God’s mission, therefore their being immoral is not (to their eyes) wrong, but right. Ironically they are violating a lot of their ethical beliefs and the Bible in order to force a stricter adherence to the Bible on us.

    It’s more likely to my eye that Huckabee is pandering to them instead of one of them, but the possibility is always there that he’s one of them or that he’s willing to work for their goals in order to court their friendship. We don’t need their game-pieces advanced on the playing board at all- we don’t need them getting even a strategically more advantageous position, even if it doesn’t come with accomplishing anything substantive from their agenda.

  • “… Reconstructionists are very small in number.”

    Mussolini joined the Italian Fighting League in 1919 when it had about 200 members.

    Hitler joined the German Workers’ Party in 1920 when it had 55 members.

    The rise of both parties came during economic collapse.

  • “We believe America can be turned around and once again function as a Christian nation as it did in its earlier years.”

    When were these glory days they keep talking about ??

    It’s like they have completely given up on the present and live for the past in order to prepare for the future, the apocalypse.

  • The Bible is not only God’s statements to us regarding religion, salvation, eternity, and righteousness, but also the final measurement and depository of certain fundamental facts of reality and basic principles that God wants all mankind to know in the spheres of law, government, economics, business, education, arts and communication, medicine, psychology, and science.”

    Oh man, in a way I wish these arseclowns did get enough power to enforce their idea of the law. You know they wouldn’t be satisfied with oppressing gays and women and the minute they tried to take away people’s gadgets (there are no iPods in the Bible) there’d be a big old rebellion.

    Bring it on motherfuckers.

  • Mike Huckabee, From Biblical/Constitutional Perspective, Still Clueless, A Double-Minded Man

    Contact: John Lofton, 410-760-8885, 301-873-4612, JLof@aol.com

    MEDIA ADVISORY, Jan. 7 /Christian Newswire/ — Recovering Republican John Lofton, Editor of TheAmericanView.com and co-host of “The American View” radio show with the Constitution Party’s 2004 Presidential candidate Michael Anthony Peroutka, has issued the following statement:

    Mike Huckabee has said that he is a “Christian Leader.” But, as a Presidential candidate, he is not leading as a Christian. He has given no explicitly Biblical answers to any question. In fact, on numerous issues, he has run away from his professed Biblical faith sounding, operationally, de facto, like an atheist, like just another politician.

    If you will listen to The American View radio show 137, you will hear Mr. Huckabee: Refusing to defend the Christian faith and running away from his having once said that America must be taken back for Christ; saying he would have no problem appointing atheists to positions in his administration (what would an oath mean to such an unbeliever?).

    In addition, Mr. Huckabee refuses to support and say what God says about homosexuality; he opposes criminal penalties for women who murder their children by abortion; and, of course, there’s that unbelievably stupid and dishonest press conference where he said he had done an anti-Romney but decided not to show it – and then he showed it to the press corps so they could see what he wasn’t going to show! Then, after supposedly spiking his anti-Romney ad, he appeared on network TV making some of the same charges that were in the ad he, alledgedly, killed!

    Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

    Christians, above all others, should speak honestly and plainly letting their yeas be yea, their nays be nay (Matthew 5:37, James 5:12) lest the cause of Christ be disgraced and ridiculed. But, alas, Mr. Huckabee is not such a plain, honest speaker. In many ways, without exaggerating, it could be said that he is a political cuttlefish who, even, when confronted with direct quotes re: things he actually said, squirts cloud-after-cloud of obfuscating verbal ink all over his questioner the result being that many times one forgets the question he was being asked – that being, of course, his intention. Cuttlefish, incidentally, have been called the chameleons of the sea because of their remarkable ability to rapidly alter their skin color at will.

    If you’d like to interview John Lofton, you may reach him by calling: 301-873-4612; 410-760-8885; or by email: JLof@aol.com.

  • other than which imaginary friend they talk to, how do christianists differ from islamists?

    sounds to me like some of these christian reconstructionists would fit quite nicely into the saudi “protection of virtue/suppression of vice” police… you know, the guys who pushed school girls back into a school dormitory fire because they weren’t properly dressed to escape.

  • I agree with Anne’s assessment that Huckabee poses a danger to our republic. While it is true that a President cannot amend the Constitution or enact statutes, a President typically sets the public agenda and serves as our nation’s primary spokesman. The very fact that a sizable segment of our society considers Huckabee a legitimate candidate for that high office reveals the serious risk to our secular republic. In their zeal to press their religious views on others, Huckabee and his ilk would bend or break any institution standing in their way–including science, public schools, separation of church and state, and secular government. That his radical comments have not prompted immediate and widespread repudiation of him and his views concerns me greatly.

    I think we need to bolster education in civics to foster greater understanding and appreciation of the foundational principles of our Constitutional government and help fend off the likes of Huckabee.

  • Hukabee is a dangerous bigot, cherry picking whatever he needs of “god’s law” to gain power. The Bible is the most edited and rewritten book ever made. These theocrats go by a translation that was built on killing every other person or translation or manuscript not agreed to by King Constantine”s ecumenical council. They grab this modern book without any idea as to it’s origin or what has been eradicated or left out in order to give it over to those who could use it to gain power over others. It’s not history, it’s not without huge contradictions, and is barely equal with make believe yet these theocrats would use it to replace our democracy.

    Values are values…they are not ‘Christian’ values…they are human values. Hukabee’s effort to drag the pulpit into politics is detrimental to sustaining the principles of our democracy which are based on tolerance. They condemn freedom outside of their religious beliefs. Huk’s comments on aligning the constitution with his “interpretation” of what he calls his God’s laws should have ended his campaign. What if he had said the Koran…he’s a smooth talking fanatic and a closed minded bigot. His own son participated in the torture and killing of a dog at camp…for fun. This is what his bullshit brings about in his own offspring. Voters must have their blinders on to think of him as a credible candidate for president. Thank my god I never have to worry about him being president, but I do worry that he spurs more like him to disregard our constitution so easily.

  • One important thing to know about the Reconstructionists/Dominionists is that they are people who would do a lot of things you might not ordinarily associate sincerely religious Christians with (for example, lying a lot) because they believe they have to violate morality and social norms to accomplish God’s mission, therefore their being immoral is not (to their eyes) wrong, but right.

    This seems to be common among many zealots. I remember the Moonies being a particularly outrageous example back in the day (and probably still), pretending to be NOT-Moonies while they coaxed you into attending their brainwashing concentration camp in northern California. You see this also to in areas like China and India where Christian missionaries aren’t welcome. They go through all sorts of machinations and scheming to get in there, setting up fake shell companies, etc. (I know whereof I speak, two of my siblings are involved in this crap, I’m embarrassed to say). The cognitive dissonance never seems to get to them, but then they’ve become so used to an unsynthesized world view that I guess one shouldn’t be too surprised at such hypocrisy. It’s a lot more widespread than just among reconstructionists, though, is all I’m sayin’.

  • I said it before, I’ll say it again: if you want to understand the danger of Mike Huckabee, go rent “A Face In The Crowd.” Mike Huckabee is Lonesome Rhoades.

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