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December 2, 2007 at 4:45 am
We gotta be careful about these guys, Pastor. Even about the ordained one. God only knows which if any of them is a true Christian. I am one of countless people–including, incidentally, Kaiser Wilhelm–who over the generations have believed that God does not play dice with the United States any more that He does with Israel.
But if Huckleberry Hound keeps goin’ on with his christianesque happytalk, he’s gonna find himself millstoned. Not that I’m even in the same ballpark with the 5,000 CNN fans who sought their 15 minutes of fame by purchasing on YouTube a ticket good for three throws at the Wondrous Candiate Dunking Device, but had I been there in that hall that night, I’d have thrown anything throwable at Mike Huckabee for reducing the Bible to the Gospel and the Gospel to an atheist’s list of pleasant bromides.
He’s just what I’d suspected, another Protestant who can neither distinguish religion from ethics nor sacred Christian vocation from governmental service delivery. He’s a fundamentalist all right: he’s fundamentally liberal. And, as Atlanta’s own Master of Malaise did in 1976, he’s masquerading as a conservative.
This country needs another fake conservative like it needs Osama to have yellow cake. The Peeps have got to have the opportunity to vote conservatism straight up, or else straight down, clean. It’s yes-or-no time. No ifs, ands, or Hucks.
And anyway that debate, which I watched in disgust, was not a debate at all, but a childish postmod game show overproduced by the overconfident and overweening “Political Unit” of the ClintooN Network, led by the oh-so-hip neophyte Anderson Cooper, whose idea of registering Republican is renewing his gift registry at Banana Republic. Young Mr. Cooper’s chronic God Problem was most palpable that night, even through the amateurish psychedelia of the e-In in Florida, when he pressed home with glib confidence what he obviously relished as an unmasking of cryptotheocratic GOP hypocrisy: the daringly original question, “What would Jesus do?” It was as if that grown man were a Brandeis Sophomore and had never heard such a piercing, relentless question with which to turn the tables on the “Taliban Wing”, as Atlanta’s own Julian Bond and Atlanta’s own ClintooN Netword regard the GOP candidates of recent years. “Ah-HA!” cries Anderson, glibly. “Take THAT!”
Too ridiculous. Anybody who’s ever so much as dabbled in spiritual combat, much less bona fide apologetics, knows not to throw pearls before any swine smitten with such an adolescent, rock-too-big chestnut. I mean, I reckon I’ve done my share of missional and lay-pastoral work and Bible instruction &etc., and I don’t know about you, Pastor, but I’ve always responded in kind.
“Can He? Well, He’s made a rock big enough for your ego to live on, so why don’t you draw your own conclusions?”
“What would He drive? He’s obviously driving you nuts already, so whaddya think?”
“Do? What’s it to ya?”
“What? What?? Go mock a Buddhist for a change. They can take a joke and they don’t hit back.”
Hey “God”! Anderson Cooper he say “I know you ARE, but what am I?” He say “Daddy’s fly is o-pen!” He say “Bwa-aa-a…I wan my Hiwl-la-weee…Bwa-aa-a!”
When one finds oneself tied down by the tie-died Lilliputians and subjected to a two-hour long electronic stoning, it’s no time to debate how many needles to stick into those pinheads. The appropriate answer to the question was, “Piss off”, followed by a ritual doffing of the earpiece and lapel mic and a purposeful exit stage right.
But no, the Huckster’s got the hellfire in the belly to become the most powerful man in the history of the world, so he has to stay and smile sacerdotally–just like Rabbit Slayer, Lord of the Chattahoochee–and get as dewy-eyed and sincere as he can be under the strange glare of the television lights and proceed, in front of God and everybody, to reduce Jesus Christ and Him crucified to a power maniac’s soundbite.
“Smart”, Huck? He would be “too smart” to go into politics?
Let’s hit the Pause button just one minute, and unpack that one back to front, shall we, Mr. Only-One-up-Here-with-a-Degree-in-Theology? Seems to me you just dispensationalized yourself right straight to the point where we can dispense with you altogether.
If you’re talking postmillennial post-Return, then politics, if it exists at all, is Jesus the King. Too smart to run for office? Huh?
Why what a feat, Huck: self-consciously self-aggrandizing self-deprication, and at your own Savior’s expense at that! By God, man, you really are qualified for the office!
But what if you’re talking premillennial Return? What then? I call as witness one Mister…Mister…now let’s see here…Ah yes! It says here, “Mr. Lies, Father of”. Mr. Lies, do you recognize this Nazarene?
“Yeah, sure, I remember Him. And not just from hearing about Him in the Third Person neither; no, some of you, like Huck there, may know Him only as through a darkened glass, but I knew Him face-to-face.
Really?
“Really.”
Could you then kindly describe for us the circumstances of your, uh, dealings with one another?
“Well, one time when he was on a vision quest thing in Sinai–you know, fasting and praying and all that, like the real hardass Nazarites do–I figured hey, this guy’s pretty good. This here is one guy I could partner up with, maybe get a little division of labor going, you know what I mean?”
Yes, of course, Mr. Lies. Now please, go on.
“Well so I says to him, I says ‘Hey, Naz’, I says. I says, ‘Why don’t you knock off this crazy shit and get something to eat and then throw in with me? You’d be Full Parter, and I’d even put you in charge of all the human governments and dictatorships and institutions and bureaucracies. You could have a ball! How ’bout it, Naz? Whaddya say?’”
Well? What did He say?
“Isn’t it obvious? He turned me down.”
Yes, sir, it is quite obvious, but to Mr. Huckabee here it is evidently so inconveniently obvious that, when pressed, he must divert attention from the fact.
“So what’s the deal with Huckabeedamned going along with one of my guys’ stipulating the predicate that He’s here, like it’s some kind of hypothetical or something?”
Are you referring to the fact that He’s already with us, and never really left?
“Yeah. And how come your guy didn’t get that my guy’s question was a little trap I set–you know, with the “W” word and all?”
‘What’?
“I asked you, ‘How come your g–’”
No, we understand you, Mr. L. We always understand you. I was merely asking whether by your saying “the ‘W’ word” you were referring to the word “What”, as in “What would Jesus do?”
“Oh. No. That’s not THE ‘W’ word. THE ‘W’ word I so cleverly smuggled into that sentence is the word “would”?
‘Would’, sir?
“Yes, ‘would’, a form of the verb ‘to will’. Point is, it’s a trick question, see, ’cause Jesus’ will was perfected on the cross–dammit!–when it became one with the Father’s Will. So there’s no point in speculating as to what Jesus’ will might be, because his will IS, and it is God’s Will, and God made His Will known a very long time ago.”
And you believe this, do you, Mr. Lies?
“Believe it? Hell yes I believe it. Hell, I KNOW it, and it scares the Hell out of me.”
Then you must know, Mr. L. What is the answer, then? What is God’s Will?
“That’s just it, see. I’m not in the Sales Department; Huckabee is. It’s for him to say. But he won’t. And you know why?”
Why?
“Because I keep feedin’ him sound bites and he keeps takin’ ‘em, onnacounta I got something he wants.”
And tell us, Mr. L., what is that?
“Oh, just a little something I got stashed away on top of a cliff in Sinai…”
December 2, 2007 at 2:15 pm
Hughvic, You keep writing comments that long and you are going to have to get your own blog!
Seriously, thank you for taking the time to read and engage the topic (s). I can not figure out what would cause a pastor to leave the pulpit for the politically correct world of back scratching politics but then again if God can speak through an ass…
I liked Huckabee’s answer. I felt that it affirmed inerrancy of Scripture, but at the same time he did not spend his time “throwing pearls before swine” with his answer.
At the end of the day, the only one on the republican platform that gives me any reason to believe they are regenerate is Huckabee. I only wish for a president that seeks the One True Living God for all his decisions. I think Huckabee is the one that possibly will do that.
December 11, 2007 at 9:14 pm
No, Pastor, that was not his answer to the question put to him; it was the canned response to the question he himself preferred to answer, the question of what is essential to the Christian creed. His answer: caring for the homeless and hungry, and answer so inoffensive and so blandly acceptable that it has been embraced by all the great religious traditions in all places at all times. An answer so mercenary as to be not even so much an answer as an anthemic statistical calculation, the likes of which one would expect in an advertisement for an oil company. Also a false answer, from a bearer of false witness, as the true answer is, as ever, Jesus, and Him crucified. But Huckabee isn’t in this thing to make of himself a fool for Christ, much less a sacrifice in His footsteps; rather, he’s in it so that he may temporarily hold the office in Satan’s gift. He’s in it to contradict Christ’s answer to the First Temptation in the desert.
He’s in it to be first now, and not later.
December 13, 2007 at 9:35 pm
Of the top three candidates (Republican) which one would you rather have in the oval office? A man who denies the all sufficient, authoritative, word of God? A man who is a member of a cult? Or a man who affirms God’s word as such and attributes his very existence to the One True Living God?
How about the right to life? Which candidate has consistently promoted Life begins at conception?
May we both agree to pray fervently for God to grace America with a president that will yield to His authority first and foremost?
December 19, 2007 at 11:08 pm
You sound as though you must be an elder of Christ’s greater church, and so I will answer you as respectfully as I can, at the expense of trying to be trenchant. Certainly I agree that we should pray–as I was taught as a boy to pray–that God continue to grace our nation and her leaders, even the naughty ones we don’t like. I also hold, as countless people (including Otto von Bismarck) have done through the generations, that He does not play dice with the United States of America, which several of our Founding Fathers impudently deemed “The New Jerusalem”.
Personally, the nation’s founders are among my heroes, but my own Founding Fathers are the Church Fathers, and this beloved country so far short of the new creation that I fall under the category of persons who, as described in Paul’s letter to the Hebrews, down through the ages find themselves seeking a better city, a city whose builder and founder is God Himself. And that is why is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has such a city prepared for them.
This is to suggest that Scripture counsels a tragic worldview, according to which we must be patiently ever ready for Kingdom come and, in the interim, must accept that we live in a realm in which God Himself cannot for now incarnate, else we would torture Him to death for just the damnedest of reasons, for certainly we are no better than the multiply complicit St. Peter. In the now, Satan rules until he loses once and for all. This side of the Kingdom he will continue to do a great deal of damage, mostly in appealing form and sometimes in Christian garb and even mitzvah, or deed.
Everything I am saying is at least as familiar to you as it is to me, and probably you even have taught it, as I once did (to Communist Chinese grad students we later ran back against their government, with lamentable result, via Beijing University).
So as to your questions, sir, yes, there is an openly prayerful Republican candidate who, professing Our Lord Jesus Christ, has consistently held that life begins upon conception. I have in mind Dr. Paul, a presidential candidate for whom I would never cast a ballot because I think that were he to occupy the Oval Office he would in short order do something I cannot think God would want: get us all killed.
With Mr. Huckabee I have other, even more grave and spiritual problems, which I’ve done my best to make clear.
December 19, 2007 at 11:31 pm
Oh, and as to your first question, I think I’d rather have Mr. Giuliani, a professed Christian and a candid, confessed sinner, like me. He also has the advantage of having acquitted himself as a daringly conservative administrator of great responsibility, as distinguished from Mr. Huckabee’s having acquitted himself as an opportunistic moderate administrator of lesser responsibility than that of the Mayor of New York, who is generally considered to hold a broader portfolio than even the Governor of the State of New York does.
December 19, 2007 at 11:55 pm
“I also hold, as countless people (including Otto von Bismarck) have done through the generations, that He does not play dice with the United States of America, which several of our Founding Fathers impudently deemed “The New Jerusalem”
I would agree. I see no reference to America in Scripture
“I once did (to Communist Chinese grad students we later ran back against their government, with lamentable result, via Beijing University).”
I would love to hear more about this! Sounds fascinating. May God continue to bless your efforts even today.
“Giuliani, a professed Christian”
May I suggest you go to this blog and listen to the audio file as you have time. At the very end of this Q&A, Frank Page (Current SBC President) talks about his meeting with this specific candidate. Perhaps it will be edifying to you.
http://www.twelvewitnesses.com/2007/10/17/frank-page-qa-audio-post/
December 21, 2007 at 2:30 am
Thank you for the link. I did listen to Dr. Page. It’s always a good idea to listen to Dr. Page! He may be referring to Mr. Giuliani not only, explicitly, at the end of the recording, but also implicitly at the beginning, when he complains of certain persons capable of strutting even while they sit! As Mr. Giuliani has spoken repeatedly of his Catholic devotion and his reliance upon Scripture, and as City chaplains have had occasion to remark upon his religious earnestness, I truly don’t know what to make of his rebuffing Dr. Page’s seemingly presumptuous suggestion that Mr. Giuliani was in need of Christic inspiriting via prayer. This may have seemed, to a hierarchical and liturgical Christian, a kind of violation of the Sacraments and renunciation of Catholicism. I simply don’t know. But I am disturbed by Dr. Page’s account and thank you for bringing it to my attention, as I will double my guard on the former mayor. (I’m in the habit of vetting candidates for whom I might vote, so I’ve already run down, to the level of government records and such, a couple of the more disturbing rumors of criminal behavior on Rudy Giuliani’s part. Both turned out to have been tortious defamations that were fairly readily traceable, via CNN and the Bloomberg news organization, to Ms. Clinton’s opposition research people.)
We must not put a sham Christian in the White House. We would do better to seat Mr. Lieberman therein.
I’ll pray all the harder, sir, but at some point, as you well know, the Spirit bloweth where It listeth.
You ask about the Chinese. Thank you very much for your blessing. I have spoken of these things only to others who were involved, and lately I’ve begun to doubt the efficacy of the continued secrecy, as almost everything I know has turned up in the public domain.
I was one of those tasked with recruiting Chinese graduate students, in the West Coast universities, who were curious about Western religion and the Bible. They were carefully watched by their compatriots, who posed as students and ate up precious budgeted enrollments they never used except to surveil their countrymen. Except for one incident at UCLA and two subsequent ones at Stanford, we managed to escape detection. Through their discovery of the heart and soul of the West–God’s forbidden Word–several of the Bible students developed a heightened respect for and interest in Western ways. We steered them toward a special study of democratic governance. Then, one by one, they would return to the People’s Republic to resume their studies there, and we would find others to take their places in the pipeline.
By 1989 we’d built up quite a flock of outstanding students in China’s leading universities, centered around a particular cell at Beijing University, which cell was tended by one of us, smuggled in for that purpose. (That would be the Rev. KiSung Kim, a naturalized U.S. citizen and Korean Marine Corps veteran of Vietnam–an astonishingly brave brother and a bringer of many souls to Christ.) There was heavy Baptist involvement, as well as Presbyterian and Methodist involvement, in that enterprise, but unfortunately I musn’t specify the particulars, though Rev. Kim may now be at liberty to do so. In any event, this was going on at all the major West Coast campuses, especially the Californian ones: USC, UCLA, Caltech, Stanford and UC Berkeley.
The flock at Beijing U. made its move too soon, despite Rev. Kim’s counsel and the counsel of others of our colleagues to be patient and prudent, and the next thing we knew back in the States the faxes were spilling onto the floors day and (esp.) night from Beijing, some of them reporting excitedly and I must say proudly about a papier mache Statue of Liberty right under the noses of China’s military dictators. I expect you’ll recall the rest.
Oh, and the student who stood before the tanks, drenched to his ankles in human pulp? He was one of Rev. Kim’s, recruited at Stanford. We later heard, but could not possibly substantiate, that a year to the day after his arrest, after the attention cycle had long since run its course, they took him out to the prison yard and shot him in the back of the neck. It took KiSung, by the Grace of God, six months to get off the mainland, smuggled overland from Tienanmen Square to Shanghai, from Christian safe house to Christian safe house. Finally he arrived safely in Taiwan, a stowaway aboard a foreign cargo vessel. He and I both cherish the still rather scary faxes sent from the dormitories above Tiananmen, only his are the originals in his hand, and mine the mere facsimiles. He is a true hero of the Church. And there were others, some of them intelligence officers and others, like Rev. Kim, breveted with portfolio. May God indeed bless them all, and keep the brave Christians who died for God and country.
December 22, 2007 at 10:04 pm
Hughvic, Thanks for sharing. May the Lord continue to bless the seeds planted. May many more just like you and Rev. Kim rise up and serve the Lord.
Merry Christmas!
Jason
December 23, 2007 at 1:34 pm
Thank you hugely, Pastor. He already knows, at length, my plea that you and your loved ones, your flock and the Word in you all continue to thrive, now and in the coming year. Last time I took it up with Him, He chuckled and stroked his beard rather rabbinically. He muttered something about how He’ll consider it, if you’d take up shooting mallards instead of woodies. He feels He got woodies just right.
I feel embarrassed by that untold story, and a bit abashed by your welcome blessing also, as my role was one of scutworker and later, enabler. I was never in danger like the rest. The Chicom spooks–and California and Washington State are full of them, mostly for industrial reasons–got very menacing when refused to send back their grad students after Tianenmen. The students quite rightly requested political asylum, and we insisted that they be granted it, which set the creepy watchers to crafty but petty, threatening bits of political theatre. But as it turned out they were nothing more than threats. So nothing heroic there. The students mostly still live in California, where they can easily be found on any Sunday. Some of the poor idealistic young men and women went back, so we pray for them. I certainly don’t have the guts to go enquire as to their welfare. Though of course the officers do keep tabs, and let KiSung know from time to time how some of the still living ones are faring, I myself have only a short G2 and am not cleared for such information, which presumably is full of implications as to its sources. KiSung has been back, on at least two occasions I know of, as far as Taiwan, but no closer. (You can learn a lot in Taiwan, though.)
You know what the junta does to Chinese caught exercising their Buddhism or Christianity in any but the prescribed, denatured ways? They sentence them to labor. The labor? Making religious trinkets, such as Hanukkah and Christmas light and ornaments, for the American market. This evidently appeals to their Chinese sense of humor. Here they are the most venerable continuous culture on the planet, and the Communist greedheads have degraded a great culture to that extent and even find it clever and “wise” (they make a fetish of “wisdom”) to do so.
Well, I’ll never be an intelligence officer or intrepid clandestine missioner, but I sure would like to play a part again in putting those grafting totalitarian warmongers out of business. Here’s an example of how short of Rev. Kim’s bar I really do fall. Just last Sunday I joined a church group that crafts Christmas ornaments (no Chinese materials, thank you) throughout the year, for use by the church and by the poor, mostly fatherless families in our keep. Every ornament is gold-on-white, and every one a variation on the oldest Christian symbols, which I’m sure you’ll agree are mostly quite lovely. There I shall sit, in a cozy church basement in Roswell, Georgia, engaging in the same work as those wretched Buddhists and Christians in the government-owned and -policed sweatshops. And never the twain shall meet.
Merry Christmas to you and yours,
glenn