DISQUS

Stephen Downes · 1 year ago

I'd be less concerned about the evangelical political initiatives if the candidates they elected worked to support education and literacy, worked to help people get health care, and worked to lift people out of poverty. Instead, these candidates tend to support things like unprovoked invasions and warfare, abduction, torture and covert murder, concentration camps, surveillance and profiling based on race and religion, corruption, sweet deals and insider trading, deficit spending and economic ruin.

If the faithful are blind to these results of the corruption of their vote, then I feel sorry for them, and despair for their nation. But I am not sure that the majority of those voting based on their faith are ready for 'more of the same'. At some point, their faith must intervene in their faith-based voting.

Erin Kotecki Vest · 1 year ago

Huckabee scares the hell out of me too, regardless of who's behind him. His bigotry and homphobic nature, along with his flaunting of his faith makes me ill.

Morra Aarons · 1 year ago

Thank you for this piece. Huckabee scares me too. I wanted to share this memo from Conservative founding father Richard Viguerie. His doubt in Huckabee could ironically be helpful to displace Huck?
Richard Viguerie Says Huckabee Win is Bad News for GOP

(Manassas, Virginia) Richard A. Viguerie, the author of Conservatives Betrayed: How George W. Bush and Other Big Government Republicans Hijacked the Conservative Cause (Bonus Books, 2006), issued the following statement regarding Mike Huckabee's victory in the Iowa caucuses:

"Mike Huckabee's victory in the Iowa caucuses is bad news for the Republican Party.

"Mike Huckabee is a Christian socialist. He is a good man, but with a Big Government heart. He is the most liberal of all the Republican presidential candidates on economic issues.

"Huckabee's approach to every problem or perceived problem is to pass a law and launch another government program. If you like President George W. Bush, you'll love Mike Huckabee.

"If, on the other hand, you're a limited government conservative in the grand tradition of Robert A. Taft, Barry Goldwater, and Ronald Reagan, you will want to redouble your efforts to make sure Huckabee doesn't win the Republican nomination. Four years of a Huckabee presidency would ensure that there wouldn't be a penny's worth of differences between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party on economic issues.

"Much has been made of Mike Huckabee's strong stance on social issues. In the 1970s, we conservatives had two legs on our stool—economic responsibility and a strong national defense—but that wasn't enough to win many elections. It wasn't until we added the third leg to our stool—social issues—that conservatives were able to win elections consistently.

"Now Huckabee wants to go back to a two-legged stool—social issues and defense. He would saw off the economic leg. That's a recipe for disaster for the Republican Party. Economic and traditional conservatives would stay home in droves, turning the country over to the Democrats.

"Conservatives in New Hampshire and the other early primary states had better wake up, and make certain the Huckabee victory is confined to the subsidized ethanol fields of Iowa."
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NOTE TO EDITORS: Richard A. Viguerie pioneered ideological and political direct mail and has been called "the funding father of the conservative movement" for his role in helping build dozens of conservative organizations. He is the author of Conservatives Betrayed—How George W. Bush and Other Big-Government Republicans Hijacked the Conservative Cause (Bonus Books, 2006).

Andrew · 1 year ago

You wrote: "it distracts the church from its purpose, which is to help people in need and to be a loving presence in the community. This idea of being the moral guardian of all truth and light is just wrong, and it’s more wrong when the church becomes a voice in the secular voting process."

I agree that churches should not be primarily focused on organizing and engaging the political process, and thus I get frustrated every time I see a political candidate make a speech or a photo op at a church, Republican or Democrat.

But the church is not a social welfare organization either. It is the living embodiment of Jesus Christ, and it has this command: "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you" (Matthew 28). Part of how you help people who are needy is by giving them the truth and restoring them to their Father God who loves and cares for them in the way no idol, of Biblical times or present days, ever will. When the church loses its focus on Christ and his gospel of salvation, and aims solely to help the needy without pointing them to Christ, it loses its essence and its purpose.

I haven't said "Neglect the needy." But the church has a larger purpose, and that does include moral teaching of right and wrong.