Jeff's response is what's really unbelievable
Jeff Fuller at Iowans for Romney has been getting more and more shrill and apparently panic-stricken ever since his candidate lost his lead here in Iowa to Mike Huckabee.
This, however, takes the cake.
It's a response to the statement by Gov. Huckabee recorded below. I'd be interested to know whether anyone other than Jeff Fuller and secularist bigots such as the ones at Mother Jones (the opening line of Mother's comment: "There is so much about Christian evangelicals that coastal liberals don't understand. Like how a man of obvious intelligence can attribute his rise in the polls to mass prayer and God's will") actually and honestly thinks Huckabee is claiming to have been endorsed by God.
Most believers- including Mormons- would, I suspect, after all be inclined to give God credit for good things that happen to them. And anyone who can't see the difference isn't either isn't being honest with himself, or is knowingly hitting below the belt.
This, however, takes the cake.
It's a response to the statement by Gov. Huckabee recorded below. I'd be interested to know whether anyone other than Jeff Fuller and secularist bigots such as the ones at Mother Jones (the opening line of Mother's comment: "There is so much about Christian evangelicals that coastal liberals don't understand. Like how a man of obvious intelligence can attribute his rise in the polls to mass prayer and God's will") actually and honestly thinks Huckabee is claiming to have been endorsed by God.
Most believers- including Mormons- would, I suspect, after all be inclined to give God credit for good things that happen to them. And anyone who can't see the difference isn't either isn't being honest with himself, or is knowingly hitting below the belt.
Comments
You're "inclined to give God credit for good things that happen" re-phrasing of Huck's actual words is a good example of someone who "isn't being honest with himself". Interesting irony, eh?
He brought up the "loaves and fishes" miracle as a comparison to his political campaign. Fallwell's interpretation was that "Divine Providence was repsonsible for his surge in the polls."
To what, then, does Mike attribute Mitt's amazing showing in NH? It's all the Mormon prayers, right?
I mean the double standard is amazing. If Mitt said what Mike just said his candidacy would be OVER IMMEDIATELY. (as it would if Mitt got together 60 of the Iowa Mormon Bishops and Stake Presidents to endorse his candidacy . . . but it's works for Mike!)
Mitt nailed the appropriate interface of religion and politics today in Texas. Unfortunately, Mike's playing up his piety for political poll points. It's working for him, but I think it's sad.
You're right in saying that Mitt Romney would be skinned alive if he said what Mike Huckabee said. You're even right in saying that Huckabee should have been more careful about how he said what he did- or whether he should have said it in public at all.
But that's a very different thing from saying that Huckabee was claiming God's objective endorsement of his candidacy by treating his surprising success as subjectively a blessing from God. And if the double-standard to which you refer were not so blatant and galling, I think you would recognize as much.
Presumably yes- Mitt does regard his success thus far in New Hampshire as involving God's blessing in advancing a cause pleasing to Him. What would the alternatives be? That he thought his success was displeasing
to God? In that case, how could he continue his candidacy, either as a believer in God or as an American who presumably covets God's blessing for his nation?
That God is indifferent to the question of who is elected? Mitt Romney is a Mormon, not a Deist!
No, I have a hunch that if Gov. Romney is elected, he'll say at least one prayer of thanksgiving. And I have a sneaking hunch that you will, too.
Insofar as a legitimate criticism can be offered of Huckabee's off-the-cuff remark, it's that he invited the very confusion between what he subjectively believes about the relationship between God's will and the success of his campaign and an objective and factual claim of divine support for that campaign in which you have chosen to become involved. Mike Huckabee should not have said what he said in public. But the reason is not because there is anything wrong with what he said in itself. The reason was that it was guaranteed to be distorted in precisely the fashion in which you have distorted it.
Coming from Mother Jones, that confusion is predictable. I'm just disappointed to see you engaging in it.
I happen to agree that Gov. Romney's speech yesterday did a fine job of explaining the proper relationship between a candidate's private faith and his public role. It was a good, Lutheran statement, following naturally from our understanding of God's Two Kingdoms. And maybe Huckabee was making a public display of piety as part of a play for the support of his fellow Evangelicals in a way that Mitt Romney doesn't have to do with his fellow Mormons.
But such a lapse of judgement does not amount to a claim of divine endorsement, and I think you know it. Moreover, if you were not so understandably bitter at the untoward scrutiny Gov. Romney's candidacy has received because of his faith, I don't think you would have run the post on your blog to which mine responded.
I appreciated your well thought out (though somewhat tortuous) explanation of Huckabee's answer.
Still, it's fodder like that (and like Drudge reported today where Huck said as a politician that we have to "take back America for Christ").
I think that's OK to believe and hope and work for such, but to speak so in the public square as a sitting governor just marginalizes Huckabee even more for any general election appeal.
Thanks for fairly giving him his kudos for it despite you having a dog in this fight already.
Major props for that.
We shouldn't be fouling our own nest.