The GOP had quite the God question on their hands last night. And former preacher man Mike Huckabee hit it out of the park.
A presumably pious young man named Joseph asked the Republican candidates whether they believed every word of “this book”. Said book, of course, was The Holy Bible. The King James version, actually. Anderson Cooper threw the question to Giuliani first. The former New York City mayor and known adulterer claimed to read the “interpretive”, “allegorical” book on a regular basis. Jesus rolled over in his grave. We rolled our eyes, saying, “Yeah, in a motel room.”
Mormon Mitt Romney waffled a bit. He obviously held back, saying, “You know -[about three seconds]- yes, I believe it’s the word of God. The Bible is the word of God.” Our theory: he objected to the King James version, which neglects to mention that Jesus came to America: a central Mormon theme.
While Giuliani and Romney’s respective responses gave us a laugh, it’s former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee who really deserves the praise. The Southern Baptist whipped out quite the mindful musing. We’ve trimmed it down to the more accessible bits:
…The fact is that when people ask do we believe all of [the Bible] you either believe it or you don’t believe it. But in the greater sense…the part that says “Go and pluck out your eye,” well, none of us believe that we ought to go pluck out our eye. That obviously is allegorical.
But the Bible has some messages that nobody really can confuse and really not left up to interpretation. “Love your neighbor as yourself.”… Until we get those simple, real easy things right, I’m not sure we ought to spend a whole lot of time fighting over the other parts that are a little bit complicated.
…There are parts of it I don’t fully comprehend and understand, because the Bible is a revelation of an infinite god, and no finite person is ever going to fully understand it. If they do, their god is too small.
We may not all believe in Huckabee’s holy one – or the Bible – but who can disagree that you shouldn’t love your neighbor? Well, unless they’re really horrid. But, in the end, it’s the thought that counts, right?
How about we take this to the next level?
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Regardless, it’s Huckabee’s last bit that’s real: no one man can claim to know “God”. That’s definitely one Republican step above Bush, who thinks he is God.
No wonder Chuck Norris endorses the Huckster.
Steven Rinehart
What’s funny is I once heard Romney discuss in a religious service the differences between the English versions of the Bible. He said he believed the 1611 KJV was the most accurate, and his knowledge of the differences was profound. I’m surprised he didn’t discuss the fact that you can’t interpret the English Bible to the letter, because there are so many versions of it.
Rt. Rev. Dr. RES
Steven, love is the key to understanding Christ the Saviour. Selfless love is understood by those who have a life partner whom they love as themselves and children whom they love absolutely.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (=Mormons) have altered the KJV and it must state that it is altered for LDS usage. The Book of Mormon with Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price are “other testaments of Jesus Christ” that Mr. Romney holds equal to the Bible in its altered state to conform to Mormon belief on eternal marriage and others as well.
The problem with the former MA governor is that the man has no consistent position on any moral matter, and it is entirely dependent, or so it seems, upon the base of support and the office sought. His campaign against the only venue where civil marriage is legal, as well as the 1913 KKK law revisited to stop MA marriages for out-of-state couples, is the true legacy of this hypocrite.
Ed Haas
What has anyone in this country ever had that was not given by God? If a Police man came to an athiest home and told them that their child was killed in a n accident what would the athiest really say. Most likley OH MY GOD! well it all comes home The athiest did not have A God that he wanted the public to know about but he dosen’t mind living around God Fearing people and deneying my God.
Bill Perdue
The Democrats presidential clown car is full of slick, slicker and slickest versions of the usual suspects. They’ve all cemented their connections to big business, lack the courage or the ability to end the war and they all pander to bigots. The Republican clown car is different; its occupants are sick, sicker and sickest. Sickest of all is Giuliani, connected not just to big business but to more ominous types through his gangster bud Kerik. McCain, who is panting to pay back the Vietnamese by murdering Iraqis falls into the ‘Sicker’ category.
Huckabee is somewhere between sickest and sicker. An article by Matt Taibbi, a writer for Rolling Stone, describes Huckabee as representing “… a marriage of Christian fundamentalism with economic populism. Rather than employing the patented Bush-Rove tactic of using abortion and gay rights to hoodwink low-income Christians into supporting patrician, pro-corporate policies, Huckabee is a bigger-government Republican who emphasizes prison reform and poverty relief. In the world of GOP politics, he represents something entirely new — a cross between John Edwards and Jerry Falwell, an ordained Southern Baptist preacher who actually seems to give a shit about the working poor.â€
Politicians like Huckabee abounded in the depression period and were a sign that politics were being realigned along the lines of class against class and profoundly shaken up. Today we’re in the very early stages of a similar development. In the depression Democrats Father Coughlin and Huey Long both combined religious superstition and populist demagoguery and attracted large followings.
Beyond his populism though, we have to keep in mind that Huckabee religious beliefs are highly reactionary. Matt Taibbi again. “He believes the Earth may be only 6,000 years old, angrily rejects the evidence that human beings evolved from ‘primates’ and thinks America wouldn’t need so much Mexican labor if we allowed every aborted fetus to grow up and enter the workforce… One of his first acts as governor was to block Medicaid from funding an abortion for a mentally retarded teenager who had been raped by her stepfather — an act in direct violation of federal law, which requires states to pay for abortions in cases of rape. “The state didn’t fund a single such abortion while Huckabee was governor,” says Dr. William Harrison of the Fayetteville Women’s Clinic. “Zero.”
Huckabee, a southern baptist, worked for gay bashing televangelist James Robison who claims that ‘gays seduce and kill children’. He supports the FairTax plan which would abolish progressive income taxes and replace them by a very regressive 23% federal sales taxes. The rich would soon get much, much richer and the poor would get poorer.
The time is not yet ripe for rightwing populists like Huckabee. They can get elected don’t yet pose a danger. However, any number of uncontrollable events could send the economy and our standards of living into a steep nosedive. That and the economic and human costs of losing in the Middle East are potent destabilizing factors. What we can say is that sometime during the next administration American political life will begin to shift and buckle in earnest.
By that time we have to have an independent political voice and a party in place to prevent an out of control rightward shift. Right now both those requirements can be met if we join and build the labor union founded and funded US Labor Party.
Leland Frances
Another crazy post from the FAKE “Leland Frances” posing as moi, a proud card carrying athiest.
Whoever you are, thank you for considering me such a “threat” that you have to try to discredit me with such fraud rather than challenging me directly under your own screen name.
John C
God hasn’t given you much command of the English language, Ed. And you ought to educate yourself out of the logical fallacy of casting aspersions at people based on things you believe they might do.
Dan
Huckabee’s answer sounds pretty good, but wait–would he apply the same standard towards gay rights? Hmm, I thought not.
jack jett
Mike Upchuckabee is a Jeebus version of Shecky Greene.
A bunch of one liners out his gastric bypass ass.
jackjett
ProfessorVP
Huckabee is an authority on the founding document of the United States of America. Not the Constitution, silly, the Bahhhh-bull!
Puddy Katz
i can’t vote for Hucklebee for president because he is someone does not believe in plucking out his eyes! “Allegorical interpretations of the Word of God”! And he calls himself a Christian!
Puddy Katz
“Bring me an eye-plucker-outer to vote for! Everybody else is a secular humanist homo-agenda type” — was Pat Robinson’s response to this debate.
TD
I’ve grown up in Governor Huckabee’s religious tradition and subsequently renounced it (although not the teachings of Christ).
As Governor Huckabee if loving thy neighbor -a teaching of Jesus- means making sure gay people are treated equally under the law, and not teaching that homosexuality is a sin, and passing the Equal Rights Amendment.
Please … this guy’s a believer in the same BS as Bush and Fallwell and Robertson and Dobson.
Matt
I watched the whole trainwreck (don’t ask), and my utterly personal impression was that Huckabee came out the best of a bad batch–this answer was among the reasons. But there’s a problem with that apparent compassionate lovingness. In a New Yorker profile, he describes himself as “a conservative who’s not angry at anybody”, which will come as a surprise to those of us at whose pursuit of happiness he seems to be utterly opposed if not fairly angry. And the moment he goes traipsing down that merry fundy path of “well, some of it’s OBVIOUSLY allegorical and some of it’s OBVIOUSLY the unmasked Word of Gawd” then one has to ask how he makes the distinction. Is the eye-plucking allegory (allegorical of what, exactly?) more obviously not to be taken literally than the crazed ravings of Revelation or the destruction of Sodom (for inhospitality more than buttfuckery, I understand)? These people pick and choose, but pretend to be doing so based on some sort of divine authority. And that (plus the honied tongue of men like Huckabee) is what makes ’em so damn dangerous.