I'm not an evangelical christian, nor have I ever voted for a Repulican for anything ever. But really there's nothing unusual in this, let alone shocking and alarming - I was expecting something outrageous about gays or some Dominionist talk of bombing for Jesus. This stuff is traditional and unremarkable. I doubt Jimmy Carter, for example would take much issue with it. Maybe the sermons they're witholding from the public are another matter. Who knows? The exlcusivity of the rhetoric here that you object to is also traditional unfortunately, but doesn't necessarily predict anything ominous in the believer. One may share similar beliefs and draw very different political conclusions than Mr. Huckabee from them - as should be better known by now. To be so fixated on words poses the danger of becoming a fundamentalist of another feather.

Erik

I think he grasp the higher concept that our perception determines our reality and was trying to convey that. All religions preach that in one way or another. All basic stuff. I didn't hear anything that would make me think we have a fanatic on our hands or anyone even slightly offensive. Are we being paranoid?

Wow. So he's end-timer. Holy tomale! Good grief, Charley Brown! This is the same hucksterism that snake-oil salesmen would go from town to town with in the great during various "Great Awakenings" which are characterized by paroxysms of irrationality. May the gods preserve us...

Am I missing something here? Did you expect something different from a crocking minister? I mean... This is what all Christians believe, or do I not count cause I'm Mormon? Does actual belief in Jesus Christ as the personal and essential savior for an individual disqualify someone? Does someone really have to believe in nothing to be a responsible and even handed President?

"It is often argued that religion is valuable because it makes men good, but even if this were true it would not be a proof that religion is true. That would be an extension of pragmatism beyond endurance. Santa Claus makes children good in precisely the same way, and yet no one would argue seriously that the fact proves his existence. The defense of religion is full of such logical imbecilities. The theologians, taking one with another, are adept logicians, but every now and then they have to resort to sophistries so obvious that their whole case takes on an air of the ridiculous. Even the most logical religion starts out with patently false assumptions. It is often argued in support of this or that one that men are so devoted to it that they are willing to die for it. That, of course, is as silly as the Santa Claus proof. Other men are just as devoted to manifestly false religions, and just as willing to die for them. Every theologian spends a large part of his time and energy trying to prove that religions for which multitudes of honest men have fought and died are false, wicked, and against God."

Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956)
U. S. Editor and Critic.

Jonathon, I am a pastor, and we use a lot of canned sermon material, and stories we get from other minister's books. The stuff from Huckabee sounds very much like that sort of thing. My guess is that they are worried about charges of plagarism. Research what happened when Catherine Marshall published her husband's (Peter) sermons after he died. He was chaplain of the Senate, and they found he had stolen virtually everything he preached. My guess is that this is what it's about.

Yo. I don't think there's anything remotely wrong with any of these, especially the first one which is just good advice. Take the jesus part as a metaphor and you've got a great leader here. I too was expecting something much worse, this is totally fine with me. There are other videos where he says he doesn't belive in evolution, now THAT BOTHERS ME.

God has a purpose—but in that he greater than can be thought his purpose cannot be known—from this angle Huckabee is guilty of committing a sin—because he claims to know the mind of God. In that God is greater than can be conceived we have at our disposal infinitely many possible ways to interpret God’s meaning—hence the multitude of religions and yet each of these will be false because God’s mind cannot be known (this is why religion’s use “a messenger of God” that delivers the words of the God directly—in the sense of being an oracle (prophets are intended to exhibit the ultimate authority—hence the potent need for our allegiance to God’s authority—or else face damnation.

Huckabee’s speeches bring to mind Ivan Karamazov whose summation of it all (in the sense of the great morality and purpose of human existence) is simply, “Everything is permitted”. This “purpose” is not a respite but rather more akin to an “ungodly” horror—like the purpose we see in our present leadership in Washington where everything is permitted. What I mean is that God has not offered any meaning to life—thus everything is permitted. That is what Bush and Ibn Laden prove beyond all shadow of a doubt. God is indeed a Divine Comedy—thus I laugh until the tears run down my face—these are not tears of joy but rather the bitter acknowledgement that all is permitted.

Even as a hard-line atheist, yellow dog Democrat, card-carrying-member of the ACLU and church/state seperatist I have a hard time finding anything in this sermon that's incriminating. He is, after all, a Christian minister speaking to a Christian congregation in their church. He's simply being true to his faith. Of course it's exclusionary - all religions are exclusionary and this is actually a pretty gentle sermon. I can imagine there are other examples of his speeches or writings which illustrate that type of alienating, dogmatic mentality of denial and narrow mindedness so persistent in the charismatic churches of the South, but this ain't it.
Personally, I would rather not have any religious person in the White House - Christian, Muslim, Jew, Hindu, etc - but it's hard to bury a Christian minister for espousing not a dominionist zeal but simple Christian values to Christians in a Christian venue. Keep digging.

My guess is that Huckabee, like any Southern Baptist minister, has done one or more sermons attacking Mormons. He was a professional Baptist minister for 12 years, meaning 600 sermons! Baptists support professional anti-Mormons who present videos in churches attacking Mormon beliefs. The Southern Baptist Convention has taken official and open stands criticizing Mormonism as "not Christian" and stating why. To open the files of his sermons would reveal that his denials of knowledge about Mormon beliefs is pure prevarication, which apparently does not bother Baptists, even though it is a violation of one of the Ten Commandments.

The Southern Baptists' convention was held in Salt Lake City in 1998 (and Huckabee, then governor of Arkansas, spoke), and a big part of locating the convention there was a program to have those attending the convention go out on a campaign to "witness" to the Mormons in Utah about the Baptist version of Christianity. My understanding is that the locals treated them with courtesy, but there was no mass defection of Mormons as a result.

In preparation for this activity, the SBC had prepared a video about Mormonism that made the usual misrepresentations in order to justify the classification of Mormons as non-Christians, since Baptists feel an obligation not to "steal sheep" from the professional clergy of other "Christian" churches.

Was Huckabee aware of this anti-Mormon program being a major feature of the convention in Salt Lake? Of course he was. He would be lying if he denied it. Did he view the video? Of course. Did he get the book? I am sure he was given a courtesy copy of both as a speaker. Huckabee's claims not to know anything about Mormons is both true and false. He knows what the SBC claims to be the facts about Mormon beliefs, but they are in fact egregiously wrongheaded. Huckabee is certainly being disingenuous (i.e. lying) when he begs to be excused from making characterizations about Mormons because he "doesn't know much." His statement accusing Mormons of believing that "Jesus is the brother of Satan" is straight out of Baptist anti-Mormon propaganda. One could just as easily summarize Baptist beliefs about Satan by saying that Baptist believe that "Christ created Satan," putting an added twist on the Problem of Evil; If God is good and omnipotent, not only evil should not exist, but Satan shouldn't either. And the Baptists and other conventional Christians have to acknowledge that Satan is a pure product created by their version of God, whom they say is identical to Christ.

Since Huckabee has made his differences with Romney's religion a key selling point in his campaign ads, why doesn't any reporter talk to members of his congregation and find out if he gave a sermon about Mormons or sponsored an anti-Mormon video or lecture? The journalists are falling down on the job.

I'm not worried about Huckabee, I worried about his followers.

Huck understands the threat of Islam to the world and Israel. I recommend that people vote for him.

Huckabee is a baptist and talks like a Black preacher. Why you white folk so much against the preaching of Jesus? You just wait until next month, that is our month, and then all you liberal crackers will hear from us.

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