God-o-Meter is flattered to learn that Charles Krauthammer is a devoted reader! Here he is channeling GOM’s recent post alleging an anti-Mormon bias in Mike Huckabee’s refusal to answer the Is Mormonism a cult? question:
Huckabee has exploited Romney’s Mormonism with an egregious subtlety.
Huckabee is running a very effective ad in Iowa about religion. “Faith doesn’t just influence me,” he says on camera, “it really defines me.” The ad then hails him as a “Christian leader.”
Forget the implications of the idea that being a “Christian leader” is some special qualification for the presidency of a country whose Constitution (Article VI) explicitly rejects any religious test for office.
Just imagine that Huckabee were running one-on-one in Iowa against Joe Lieberman. (It’s a thought experiment. Stay with me.) If he had run the same ad in those circumstances, it would have raised an outcry. The subtext — who’s the Christian in this race? — would have been too obvious to ignore, the appeal to bigotry too clear.
Well, Huckabee is running against Romney (the other GOP candidates are non-factors in Iowa) and he knows that many Christian conservatives, particularly those who have an affinity with Huckabee’s highly paraded evangelical Christianity, consider Romney’s faith a decidedly non-Christian cult.
Huckabee has been asked about this view that Mormonism is a cult. He dodges and dances. “If I’m invited to be the president of a theological school, that’ll be a perfectly appropriate question,” he says, “but to be the president of the United States, I don’t know that that’s going to be the most important issue that I’ll be facing when I’m sworn in.”
Hmmm. So it is an issue, Huckabee avers. But not a very important one.
And he’s not going to pronounce upon it. Nice straddle, leaving the question unanswered and still open — the kind of maneuver one comes to expect from slick former governors of Arkansas lusting for the presidency.
And by Huckabee’s own logic, since he is not running for head of a theological college, what is he doing proclaiming himself a “Christian leader” in an ad promoting himself for president?
Answer: Having the issue every which way. Seeming to take the high road of tolerance by refusing to declare Mormonism a cult, indeed declaring himself above the issue — yet clearly playing to that prejudice by leaving the question ambiguous, while making sure everyone knows that he, for one, is a “Christian leader.”
God-o-Meter’s question: How many highly respected conservatives must call Huckabee out before he changes his non-answer on Mormonism? Surging in the Iowa polls, GOM doubts he’ll shift gears anytime soon. But that doesn’t make it right.
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posted December 10, 2007 at 4:55 pm
Mr. Huckabee is a smart cookie. He does not want to come across as a hypocryte. I am quite certain that he considers the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints a cult. He’s an Evangelical Baptist; Right? May I assume he attended/graduated from a Evangelical bible college? And was a pastor of at least 1 Baptist church?
The Mormon church is, and always has been the greatest thorn in the side of practicing S.baptists. Every convert to the LDS church is 1 less person paying the salary of a given Baptist preacher. (There are NO paid clergy in the Mormon faith.) Most Baptist preachers spend a great deal of time and effort convincing their “flock” how anyone who doesn’t “KNOW beyond a shadow of a doubt that if they died RIGHT NOW, they would go to heaven” than they must not be “saved”. And un-fortunately must burn in eternal Hell-fire.
I liken these self-appointed, BMW driving, Rolex wearing clowns to the same hypocrytes who crucified their own savior 2000 years ago. Or to the freaks who tortured/killed thousands during the Spanish inquisition.
I for one believe we are ALL literal children of 1 all powerful merciful God who like any father only wants the best for his children. Would a rational thinking parent cast a wayward son or daughter into a furnace simply because that child didn’t turn out, or quite meet the expectations of his/her parents? Get real!!
Yes; There are those who should burn in hell. Murderers, rapists, terrorists, etc. But the rest of us don’t deserve such a fate just because we’re not “saved” as the Baptists see it.
Why don’t we ever see a bunch of Mormons out protesting, holding up signs, writing theme papers at bible colleges, and generally condemning baptists, or (anyone else) to hell? Because they believe in freedom of religeon. That all men are free to worship as they will.
Romney’s lifestyle and leadership qualities speak for themselves. Yes, he might have flip-flopped on a couple issues to become Gov.of Mass. What politician hasn’t slanted their views to get elected? But until you catch him in a sex-scandal; Or milking elderly folks of all their money with smooth talk as a Televangelist, how ’bout cutting the man a break!!
posted December 12, 2007 at 11:58 am
If it wasn’t obvious that Huckabee was fanning “Anti-Mormonism” today’s news should make it crystal clear.
Why is a Christian with a theology degree asking a reporter with a journalism degree about Mormon theology? A New York Times reporter no less! Huckabee’s “innocent” question was clearly an attempt to plant a thought in the minds of voters about Mormonism. The sad thing is that he didn’t even need to say it, but he did. Why?
posted February 15, 2009 at 2:35 am
The southern baptist have held their convention in salt lake city 3 times in the last 10 years. While in salt lake city the baptists went door to door in an attempt to “save” mormons and show them the error of their ways. Huckabee over the years has devoted a lot of time and energy in writing pamphlets and teaching groups of people about Mormons and how to talk to mormons. When he makes a statement like “Don’t Mormons believe that Jesus and Satan are brothers?” he is not saying it to clarify anything. This just shows his insincerity.