Four-Eight-Four [dot org]

Note: I’ve been sitting on this piece for nearly a week, reading it at least once a day. I wanted to be sure that I was clear in what I was saying, because this is the first time I’ve actively criticized one of Ron Paul’s opponents in any detailed fashion (outside of taking little digs at Rudy Giuliani and some short criticism of McCain). Since this is a much more in-depth and substantial criticism of Mike Huckabee, I wanted to be very sure that my words reflected precisely what I wanted (at least as much as one possibly can).

Sunday evening, I read an article about Mike Huckabee that bothered me (”Huckabee Eschews Politics for Preaching“). Before I address exactly what bothered me, I want to take a minute to make some things crystal clear, because I think this is a delicate issue.

1. I sort of like Mike Huckabee. I’m not going to vote for him, but he seems like a nice guy. I think I could sit down in a coffee shop with him and have a long conversation and enjoy it. He’s a great speaker. He’s funny. I like him much better than some of the other Republican candidates (for instance, my favorite Republican whipping boy, Rudy Giuliani). In fact, to be perfectly honest with you, if we were in 1998 instead of 2008, and everything else were more or less the same, the 22-year-old me would have probably been a Huckabee supporter.

2. I have absolutely no problem with a Christian running for or holding a political office in this country, and I in no way expect them to somehow divorce themselves from their faith while carrying out the duties of that office. A person’s faith is something that transcends what they do on Sunday morning (or whenever they worship) and it affects how they make decisions every day. To expect a Christian to carry out their duties in office without their actions being colored by his or her faith is not practical or possible.

3. I am not complaining about the message of Huckabee’s sermon. That is not even within the scope of this article, and what he believes doesn’t bother me any more than what Mitt Romney or anybody else believes.

That being said, his appearance in the pulpit acting as a pastor bothers me. I seem to remember a few years ago when Republicans complained about Bill Clinton showing up in churches and speaking while on the campaign trail. Now, a little over a decade later, we have a Republican candidate on the campaign trail, in a church … preaching? This time around, I’m not hearing any criticism from the Republican side. Is this somehow OK because Huckabee used to be a pastor? Because he’s a Republican, and not a Democrat? I find the silence to be quite troubling.

I do not expect Huckabee to conduct his campaign as if he had no faith at all, or as if he had never been a pastor. Suggesting such would be sheer lunacy. Yet somewhere a line must be drawn. At some point, we move from not denying our faith to making it a campaign issue. Does simply saying “I’m born again” qualify somebody to be president? Does professing to be Christian do so? While a lifestyle lived consistently with one’s faith might be a good indicator of how a person will serve in office, faith in and of itself is not the first and best qualifier. As a result, making it an issue in a political campaign smacks of an appeal to vote for shallow reasons.

Think about this from another perspective. How would we feel about Joe Lieberman filling the role of rabbi (assuming that would even be possible) at a Jewish synagogue or temple while on the campaign trail? What if the ugly false rumors were true and Obama was a radical Muslim, and he made an appearance at a mosque and spoke in a teaching capacity (please forgive my vague language here, as I’m honestly pretty ignorant of what worship at a mosque is like). Wouldn’t we say that they were trying to attract voters based solely on their faith?

I, as a Evangelical Catholic (Lutheran) Christian, am a proponent of Luther’s Two Kingdoms principle, which states (in a simplistic form) that God rules both in the heavenly and earthly spheres (or kingdoms), and in the earthly sphere He has given authority to civil governments. The “kingdom of the left” (the earthly sphere) is equipped to rule by law; the “kingdom of the right” is equipped to rule by gospel (good news) and grace. So, you’re wondering, how does all of this theological nonsense and churchy talk relate to Mike Huckabee?

Well, a pastor has a unique position in the Two Kingdoms framework because his vocation has its locus in the heavenly sphere rather than the earthly. If a pastor were to take a government office, there would be, I think, some conflict of interest. In addition, an attempt to utilize the tools of one kingdom to rule the other will result in confusion and/or disorder. Let me be clear here: I believe that no person should hold a position in both the earthly and spiritual spheres simultaneously. (Yes, in that I include chaplains in the armed forces. I think the mix of government and religious authority is problematic in concept and in practice.)

Note that I don’t say that there is a conflict of interest for a Christian to hold public office, but only for a pastor to do so.

A real-life example of what I’m talking about can be found in the person of Peter Muhlenberg, who was first a Lutheran pastor and later and Anglican priest. In 1775, General Washington asked Muhlenberg to accept the position of Colonel of the 8th Virginia Regiment of the Continental Army. What follows is Wikipedia’s account of how he proceeded:

On January 21, 1776, Rev. Muhlenberg started the services in the Anglican church in Woodstock, Virginia as usual. For the sermon, he took his text from the third chapter Ecclesiastes, which starts with “To every thing there is a season…”. When he got to the eighth verse, he declaimed “…a time of war, and a time of peace,… and this is the time of war”. He removed his clerical robe to reveal his Colonel’s uniform. The next day he led out 300 men from the county to form the nucleus of the Eighth Virginia.

Muhlenberg never returned to the pulpit after again. He served in various government posts until his death in 1807.

Back to this “Two Kingdoms” concept: as Gene Edward Veith (who also happens to be a Lutheran) said in an interview:

Our specifically Christian message should not be confused with political power — although as citizens we are to work in politics — but it needs to be kept distinct. We must not confuse the two kingdoms by making the church into a state or the state into a church.

Huckabee’s appearance in the pulpit while campaigning for public office blurs the distinction between the two kingdoms, and suggests that he does not see a clear distinction between the them.

Honestly, I prefer candidates like Ron Paul and Gerald Ford who have refused to make their faith an issue on the campaign trail, while consistently confessing it if asked about it.

After Ford’s death last year, I read the following about him:

[Ford] refused to use [his faith] to save himself. Ford’s discretion would be tested as the 1976 campaign took shape. Former Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter was a Southern Baptist who taught Sunday school, did mission work, filled in for preachers when they were on vacation and told the crowd at a backyard reception in March 1976 that he had been born again. His sister Ruth Carter Stapleton was herself an evangelist who used to minister to reporters on the back of Carter’s campaign plane and wrote letters to the faithful enlisting them in her brother’s cause. Carter’s campaign autobiography Why Not the Best talked about his midlife conversion and was a surprise best seller. Asked once to distill his campaign message into one word, Carter said, “Faith.”

Carter’s religious appeal inspired Zeoli to propose a counterattack. “I said, “Jerry, look, Carter’s a fine guy, a fine Christian. But nobody knows you’re a Christian. Let’s put a book together about your faith, and about how God has used you.’”

But Ford flatly refused. “You told me a long time ago we’re not going to take advantage of our faith to get elected,” he reminded Zeoli. Ford declined to allow Zeoli to lend his name to Preachers’ committees for Ford. “He thought he’d be using his chaplain to get votes,” Zeoli recalled. Ford later revealed that he found Carter’s discussion of his faith unsettling. “I have always felt a closeness to God and have looked to a higher being for guidance and support,” Ford explained, “but I didn’t think it was appropriate to advertise my religious beliefs.”

(From “The Other Born-Again President?“)

I find Ford’s attitude to be commendable.

Moving on from his appearance in the pulpit … the following video clip also unsettles me:

What does he mean by this? What part of the Constitution (as it stands) could be interpreted as NOT being in conformity with God’s standards? The implied answer to that question frankly bothers me.

The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America, which reads in part “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” is quite frankly one of the best protections for Christians to worship as they see fit, as long as this nation is willing to do more than give lip service to that document that supposedly guides us. It prevents the government from establishing the Anglican/Episcopal tradition, the Baptist tradition, or any other over any form of Christianity or other religion. In the same way, were our nation to suddenly find itself with a majority of Buddhists, it would protect Christians against any attempt to prevent them from worshiping freely on the part of the majority.

This is very, very important. Talk about “amending the Constitution to bring it into conformity with God’s standards” smacks of removing the phrase quoted above from the Constitution, which would open up the possibility that the government could prevent Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, or Sikhs from worshipping as they see fit.

A few days ago, I quoted Barry Goldwater as saying “Remember that a government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take away everything you have.” A government that is powerful enough to establish Christianity above all other religions is powerful enough to establish another religion over Christianity were the circumstances changed.

Huckabee has since clarified his remarks in an interview with Beliefnet.com, but I’m still not comfortable with his clarifications:

One of the comments you’ve made that’s getting a lot of discussion in the press is the point you made in the last day or so that we might need to amend the Constitution to have it apply more to God’s standards. Do you want to elaborate on that? In particular the question of people who might hear that and think, “Well, that’s a conversation stopper,” people who might agree with you on policy but feel that the constitution is secular document and should be driven by secular concerns rather than aligning it with God’s word.

On Amending the Constitution to Meet God’s Standards Well, I probably said it awkwardly, but the point I was trying to make– and I’ve said it better in the past – is that people sometimes say we shouldn’t have a human life amendment or a marriage amendment because the Constitution is far too sacred to change, and my point is, the Constitution was created as a document that could be changed. That’s the genius of it. The Bible, however, was not created to be amended and altered with each passing culture. If we have a definition of marriage, that we don’t change that definition, that we affirm that definition. And that the sanctity of human life is not just a religious issue. It’s an issue that goes to the very heart of our civilization of all people being equal, endowed by their creator with alienable rights of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That was the point. The Bible was not written to be amended. The Constitution was. Without amendments to the Constitution, women couldn’t vote, African-Americans wouldn’t be considered people. We have had to historically go back and to clarify, because there’ve been injustices made because the Constitution wasn’t as clear as it needed to be, and that’s the point.

Just to follow up on that question, according to that standard, if the Constitution and its amendments are subject to biblical interpretations, doesn’t that mean it would be subject to biblical argument over what the proper interpretation is? And where does that leave, say, nonbelievers or members of other faiths in a proudly pluralistic like our own when amendments to the Constitution are subject to a biblical interpretation?

I think that whether someone is a Christian or not, the idea that a human life has dignity and intrinsic worth should be clear enough. I don’t think a person has to be a person of faith to say that once you redefine a human life and say there is a life not worth living, and that we have a right to terminate a human life because of its inconvenience to others in the society. That’s the real issue. That’s the heart of it. It’s not just about being against abortion. It’s really about, Is there is a point at which a human life, because it’s become a burden or inconvenience to others, is an expendable life. And once we’ve made a decision that there is such a time – whether it’s the termination of an unborn child in the womb or whether it’s the termination of an 80-year-old comatose patient — we’ve already crossed that line. And then the question is, How far and how quickly do we move past that line?

And the same thing would be true of marriage. Marriage has historically, as long as there’s been human history, meant a man and a woman in a relationship for life. Once we change that definition, then where does it go from there?

Is it your goal to bring the Constitution into strict conformity with the Bible? Some people would consider that a kind of dangerous undertaking, particularly given the variety of biblical interpretations.

Well, I don’t think that’s a radical view to say we’re going to affirm marriage. I think the radical view is to say that we’re going to change the definition of marriage so that it can mean two men, two women, a man and three women, a man and a child, a man and animal. Again, once we change the definition, the door is open to change it again. I think the radical position is to make a change in what’s been historic.

Once again, we see a confusion between the Two Kingdoms (one that isn’t surprising, given the way government has intruded in this area) … marriage is not something that should be within the realm of the state (and here I mean government in general, not the state governments specifically) unless the parties being married wish to enter into some legal contract … and if they do, the state should treat it as any other contract. Even if marriage were within the realm of the state, it is not within the scope of the powers specifically assigned to the federal government, and if you were paying attention in civics class, you may remember that any power not specifically assigned to the federal government is given to the individual states (boy, have we gotten away from that inconvenient clause!). But, we’re talking hypothetically here, since the reality is that government does involve itself in marriage … who does the recognition of marriage? Not the federal government … it’s generally a local government. The same goes for abortion … even if you believe abortion is murder, it isn’t a federal issue. Murder is not a federal crime; it is prosecuted at the state level. While Huckabee is right that the Constitution is amendable, amending the Constitution concerning these issues would create a bizarre mix of federal and state/local government involvement in these affairs.

Taking the the marriage amendment a little bit further … let’s go back to the Goldwater quote above. If we make the Federal government strong enough to create a definition of marriage in a Constitutional amendment, then we have set the precedent that the government can define marriage. So, if you’re an evangelical Christian and you oppose calling a union between two homosexuals “marriage,” you’re probably fine with the former situation. But how would you like it down the road if the government amends the Constitution to strike out your marriage amendment (it’s happened before, remember Prohibition?) and replaces it with one that defines the union between two homosexuals as marriage … and then dictates that any church must marry people who fit the definition it has enshrined in the new amendment. Don’t like the idea of the state telling your church who it must marry? Now do you see why I say that the government should stay out of the business of marriage? As Goldwater said, a government that can give can just as easily take away.

Finally, this bit from the original AP article cited bothers me:

Asked by reporters later if he thinks only Christians will go to heaven, Huckabee refused to say. He often says that as a minister, he joked that he doesn’t even believe all Baptists are going to heaven.

Huckabee knows what he believes here. I don’t think it should be a campaign issue, but skirting the issue by being coy and cracking a joke doesn’t win him any points in my book. What he believes regarding this issue might not be popular, but I thought he wasn’t ashamed of his faith … but his unwillingness to answer the question directly (even if the media would have taken it and made an unflattering sound bite out of it, totally devoid of context) sure seems to contradict that.

Here is my question for people thinking of voting for Huckabee … if he’s not willing to be frank about what he believes in this case, can you trust him to really, say, work towards amending the Constitution to be in conformity with God’s standards? It seems here that we have a clear example of him saying one thing to one audience (the folks who heard him preach) and something else to another (the media). Quite frankly, if I were you, I’d find it bothersome.