I was raised by fundamentalist missionary parents. My life has been one of all-consuming faith, not my faith, but the faith of others that I seem to have caught like a disease. What does God want? I’m still trying to find out. And having once been a famous “professional Christian” myself (until I cut and ran in 1985) my vision is muddied by the psychological baggage I carry.

The problem is Huckabee is sincere. So are the people who voted for him. I understand where they are coming from all too well. Every action, every thought, every moment is judged by an inner voice. Everything seems to have a moral component.

This election recalls the time I was involved in my own crusade, not for the presidency, but for the hearts and minds of the evangelicals my late father (Francis Schaeffer) and I were succeeding in politicizing, as we turned them into ardent pro-lifers. That crusade involved sell-out crowds in Madison Square Garden and all over the country.

I was a zealous evangelical back in the 1970s. When you are a zealous anything — evangelical, Marxist, feminist, capitalist, Democrat, Republican, whatever-you express your zeal by lying. The lie is always the same lie: to say that you’re certain about things, that you are right, and others wrong. They are so wrong that they are evil! This is a lie because truth is elusive. Nothing is as simple as any zealot, of any persuasion, thinks it is.

I’ve lived to bitterly regret the part I played in galvanizing the political energies of the evangelicals who soon morphed into the so-called religious right, the same people we just saw holding hands and beseeching Jesus to help their candidate save America from the rest of us. Looking back it seems to me that it was something like unlocking the doors to a slow-motion civil war, actually more like the doors to an insane asylum.

Frank Schaeffer at Huffington Post.
Timely. Read the rest.
Do you ever hear a politican say something that turns you stone cold?
Today was one of those days.
I pray Mick Huckabee just got the undivided attention of US evangelicals who will stand and say, enough.
Mick Huckabee, January  15, 2008:

I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution. But I believe it’s a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God, and that’s what we need to do is to amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than try to change God’s standards so it lines up with some contemporary view of how we treat each other and how we treat the family.

Ted Olsen at Christianity Today Liveblog doesn’t mince words.

A provocative statement, certainly. But what does “amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards” mean? Does it mean that the Constitution does not measure up to God’s standards? Is the Constitution anti-God? Would the addition of a human life amendment and a federal marriage amendment would make it measure up to God’s standards? And is Huckabee suggesting that those who oppose these amendments, say, because of their views on federalism, are trying “to change God’s standards”?

I can see how support for a human life amendment and a federal marriage amendment can win votes among some politically conservative evangelicals. But honestly, I’m thinking that this quote probably cost Huckabee more evangelical votes than it won him.

Huckabee’s extremism is being called out by the National Jewish Democratic Council.

“We’ve seen from Governor Huckabee’s previous statements that his definition of ‘God’s standards’ is a country in which gay Americans do not enjoy equal rights, scientific teachings are restricted in the classroom, and wives are considered subservient to their husbands.”

“Tap dancing over the line between Church and State has become habit for Governor Huckabee on the campaign trail. His success so far says a lot about the Republican Party and the dominance of extreme conservatives therein,”

Here are some of his statements. (.pdf)

*Dominion Theology is a grouping of theological systems with the common belief that society should be governed exclusively by the law of God as codified in the Bible, to the exclusion of secular law. The two main streams of Dominion Theology are Christian Reconstructionism and Kingdom Now theology. Though these two differ greatly in their general theological orientation (the first is strongly Reformed, the second is Charismatic), they share a postmillenial vision in which the kingdom of God will be established on Earth through political and (in some cases) even military means, eventually enabling the return of Christ.

All strains of Dominion Theology are small minorities, and are rejected by most mainstream Christians as quite radical. wiki

Christian Reconstructionists describe their view of public ethics by the term, Theonomy (the Law of God governs); while their critics tend to label them Theocratic (God governs).