Sunday, January 20, 2008

Is Huckabee good for Evangelicals?

At this time I am not sure who I will support for president. I had hoped that Fred Thompson would make a decent run - the last actor elected president was very good for America. Unfortunately, Thompson's campaign has been mismanaged from the beginning. Though he is the most consistent conservative of the group running, it is highly unlikely that he will get the Republican nomination. So, I have been looking for a new horse to back. Unfortunately, the field looks pretty anemic.

Why not Mike Huckabee? He is an ordained Southern Baptist minister. I should identify with him and support one of my own. The media expects evangelicals to lock step with the SBC candidate without question. But I do have questions.

Southern Baptists are not uniform in belief or practice. There are many who use the title the Southern Baptist, but their beliefs are far from mine. Jimmy Carter is a faithful member and Sunday School teacher in an SBC church. (A quick explanation is needed here. Carter has renounced being a Southern Baptist, but that move revealed his ignorance. Only churches are members of the Southern Baptist Convention. Further, the Convention only technically exists during the few days it convenes in June to conduct denominational business. After the convention, denominational entities are responsible to carry out the will of the Convention. Individuals are members of the local church. Though Carter may not claim to be Southern Baptist, he is still a member of a Southern Baptist Church - though that church is also aligned with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship). All that is to say, there is still a great deal of diversity among Southern Baptists.

I have never heard a sermon by Mike Huckabee. His previous churches will not post or release his past sermons. However, there are media claims that he was more of a moderate Baptist. Huckabee himself participated in a liberal Christian reconciliation effort sponsored by Mercer University, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and the CBF (SBC leadership was not invited). Huckabee later pulled out because it was more political than he had expected.

Still, a moderate Southern Baptist is better than a Mormon or a secular candidate, right? Not necessarily. My largest concern about Huckabee came in an interview he did right before the Iowa Caucus. In the interview he stated that he was an agent of change and that he was comparable to Barack Obama. How are they alike? Both are engaged in populist rhetoric. They are both willing to say what people want to hear. Perhaps Huckabee's reference to being like Obama only meant that he was the underdog candidate that was not handpicked by the party machine. Still, populist often means appealing to the lowest common denominator, not well reasoned principles and standards.

Is Huckabee the best candidate? Is his candidacy good for Southern Baptists and evangelicals? One concern is that if he were elected many evangelicals would sit back thinking that American politics had swung back to the good old days and relax their efforts to effect social change. That alone is not a reason to vote for or against Huckabee, but it does add something to the pot.

I doubt that Huckabee will get the nomination. He scares the daylight out of the normal political establishment, both left and right. That is good. While I still have questions about Huckabee for president, there are many positives to his campaign. He has certainly helped to make the current election cycle interesting.

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