With great power comes great responsibility. And Mike Huckabee, once and future Baptist preacher, could afford to watch where he’s taking to the pulpit.
That’s “future” because the former evangelical pastor will be at John Hagee’s Cornerstone Church on Sunday.
According to a San Antonio Huckabee
meetup site, Huckabee will be speaking at two Sunday services at the Texas megachurch.
He’ll be making the appearances just days after he
told CBS News that “It’s not like [I’m] stepping from the pulpit last Sunday and running for president.”
But maybe next Sunday . . .
The problem with this particular church is its pastor. It is no secret that evangelicals and Catholics have their theological differences. If we didn’t we’d all be under the same church roof like once upon a time. But Hagee has been particularly outspoken beyond his Cornerstone Church, as a supporter of Israel and a prolific writer. His activism has brought some attention to his views on the Catholic Church.
In Hagee’s “black history” of the Catholic Church, for example, Catholics were far from only guilty of sins of omission when it came to the Nazis, they also gave Hitler his blueprint, according to Hagee. In a speech this year, Hagee
pointed to the Catholic Church as having provided the jumping-off point for the Holocaust, claiming: “That was really drawn by the Roman church. [Hitler] did not do anything differently. He only did it more ruthlessly, and on a national scale.” The
Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights has long been concerned about Hagee’s rhetoric, calling him a “veteran bigot,” accusing him of distorting Catholic teachings and misrepresenting Church history. The League has cautioned that, “Tone matters … and Hagee’s tone is nothing but derisive.”
Hagee is politically active and has had candidates at his church before and is likely to again. It’s probably only natural that Huckabee would be among them. And certainly other candidates have courted or been endorsed by religious figures who are not known for their ecumenical diplomacy. But after weeks of being a divider, not a uniter — pretending to innocently raise questions about Mormon theology to a
New York Times reporter, informing
Today Show viewers that he is really the choice for evangelicals — Huckabee should be sensitive to his unnecessarily exclusionary tactics.
As the former governor of Arkansas, successor to the Little Rock Clinton administration, Mike Huckabee above all people should understand the importance of having a strong coalition to BEAT HER in the fall.
Speaking like a man seeking to be president of evangelical America, not president of the United States, Huckabee told Meredith Vieira earlier this week: “
There’s a sense in which all these years the evangelicals have been treated very kindly by the Republican party. They wanted us to be a part of it, and then one day, one of us actually runs and they say, ‘Oh, my gosh! Now they’re serious.’” Huckabee, meanwhile, is leaving some non-evangelical conservatives wondering, “Oh, my gosh. Maybe they never wanted to be allied with us.” Huckabee is working right now, intentionally or not, on breaking down a winning coalition of religious conservatives.
When Pope John Paul II died in 2005, some of the most moving statements coming out of congressional offices were from evangelical conservatives who viewed him as an important leader in defending the sanctity of human life. Many of them had adopted his “culture of life” language and thinking. They saw him as an ally and were inspired by his leadership. They joined him, despite theological differences, in important cultural and political fights. It was and is a natural pairing. Mike Huckabee, who is not a conservative on all things, but is on social issues, should know that and treasure and protect and foster these alliances. He’s a riveting speaker who could rally social conservatives, at least to whip them up to fight another day. Instead, he’s executing a divide-and-conquer strategy.
When Mitt Romney was convinced he had to give a “Mormon speech,” he gave a speech about religious liberty and America. It wasn’t, in other words, about him. Of course, that was, in part, a political calculation — how much could be gained by talking about Mormon theology during a political campaign? But it was also just the right thing. It’s a political campaign and people want to hear about his political thinking — what America means to him and how he fits into it all, what he can offer Americans in terms of leadership. Since Mike Huckabee has found himself at the front of the Republican field, it’s been more The Mike Show than not. In a
treadmill interview with the
New York Times earlier this week, he claimed “I’m being questioned about the details of my faith like no one else.” Mitt Romney and Barack Obama might legitimately argue that point, Gov. He’s cast aspersions on another candidate’s religion. He’s highlighted hostilities among evangelicals and others in the Republican party. If he keeps this up, he’s going to do some unholy damage.
With all due respect to Hagee and his congregation (who are, of course, entitled to believe and say as they choose), Mike Huckabee should cancel his Sunday plans with Hagee. It can be his Christmas present to his party — to hold it together instead of continuing to tear it apart.
