My old church has most of its sermons online in full, in order by book (Gen 1:1, 1:2, etc), so I invite you to leave the dark side and listen for yourself how this topic is dealt with when it naturally arises in classic government verses like Romans 13. Go to Lakeside Chapel dot com, click up top on Sermons then New Testament then Romans, scroll down to #5467, and you can hear the pastor say: “I believe a lot of ministries have prostituted the calling of teaching the Word of God to try to change the government and make it a Christian nation, and I might add that nations are not Christians, only people are…we try to change this and make it a Christian nation and yet the Bible doesn’t call us to do that…the Church’s calling is not to change society, it’s to change the inside of people…” etc. Also, megapastor and author John MacArthur recently blogged on this topic on sfpulpit dot com on January 11.

We’re all over the place, and Huckabee’s being way misunderstood and misrepresented here.

It is such a shame that anyone who is honest about their more secular beliefs and is completely honest about it doesn’t stand a chance for running for high political office. Although there is supposed to be NO religious test to run for a key government position, the reality is quite different, which I think is a shame.

Good points. What version of God’s word would he enshrine??

The year is 1788 and in Boston, Massachussetts the learned Theophilus Parson addresses the convention that has gathered to ratify the proposed Constitution of the new nation. At issue is the absence of a religious test for office holders. Mr Parson:

“It has been objected that the Constitution provides no religious test by oath, and we may have in power unprincipled men, atheists and pagans. No man can wish more ardently than I do that all our public offices may be filled by men who fear God and hate wickedness; but it must remain with the electors to give the government this security. An oath will not do it. Will an unprincipled man be entangled by an oath? Will an atheist or a pagan dread the vengeance of the Christian’s God, a being, in his opinion, the creature of fancy and credulity? It is a solecism in expression. No man is so illiberal as to wish the confining places of honor or profit to any one sect of Christians; but what security is it to government, that every public officer shall swear that he is a Christian? For what will then be called Christianity? One man will declare that the Christian religion is only an illumination of natural religion, and that he is a Christian; another Christian will assert that all men must be happy hereafter in spite of themselves; a third Christian reverses the image, and declares that, let a man do all he can, he will certainly be punished in another world; and a fourth will tell us that, if a man use any force for the common defence, he violates every principle of Christianity. Sir, the only evidence we can have of the sincerity of a man’s religion is a good life; and I trust that such evidence will be required of every candidate by every elector. That man who acts an honest part to his neighbor,, will, most probably, conduct honorably towards the public.”

So the spirit of this objection applies now to Mike’s desire to bring our Constitutional law into alignment with the “eternal God”.

There is no trans-sectarian agreement of the nature of God or the teachings of the same. Even the Trinitarian conception is still disputed. Huckabee would merely impose his sect’s belief on all of us.

This upshot was clear to the Framer’s generation and it should be equally evident to us.

However, he should bear in mind that if he wanted to preach “the word of God,” he shouldn’t have left that position. It is NOT for a presidential candidate to dictate that a our Constitution, which was always intended as a secular document, should be revised as a religious document. What part of “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the exercise thereof…” does he NOT understand? I have no intention of voting for any candidate who says we should mix religion with government. That’s what the founders of this nation wrote the Constitution and Bill of Rights to PREVENT.

“But I know also, that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors. It is this preposterous idea which has lately deluged Europe in blood. Their monarchs, instead of wisely yielding to the gradual change of circumstances, of favoring progressive accommodation to progressive improvement, have clung to old abuses, entrenched themselves behind steady habits, and obliged their subjects to seek through blood and violence rash and ruinous innovations, which, had they been referred to the peaceful deliberations and collected wisdom of the nation, would have been put into acceptable and salutary forms. Let us follow no such examples, nor weakly believe that one generation is not as capable as another of taking care of itself, and of ordering its own affairs.”

One just has to laugh at the originalists and strict constructionists… The Warren Court was correct. It was correct all along, and hopefully someday we will climb back up to that high plateau of jurisprudence.

There is an interesting quote from Thomas Jefferson that bears on the tendency to deify the Framers and those schools of constitutional interpretation that would have us adhere tightly to how the Framers understood the document…

From an 1816 letter to Samuel Kercheval, here’s Thomas Jefferson:

“Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence and deem them like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. I knew that age well; I belonged to it and labored with it. It deserved well of its country. It was very like the present but without the experience of the present; and forty years of experience in government is worth a century of book-reading; and this they would say themselves were they to rise from the dead.”

Please stop by my blog for my opinions on faith and justice.

Huckabee needs to read the constitution.

I have faith in our constitution.

Nancy

Paul supporter

“Troubling” is the best adjective for it.

Currently, a large war-chest of money seems to be the threshold requirement for becoming President in this country.

Perhaps, a knowledge of the Constitution should be added to that requirement.

Mike should read not only the Constitution but also the debates in the various state’s ratifications of it. I think he would be very surprised as to how sophisticated and prescient were the “Founders” generation’s views on the advisability of separation of church and state. They were well aware of the sentiment that a State was made more “godly” by specific allegiances to Deity and that there was a push in that direction. And they rejected both the sentiment and the push for entanglement.

My hope is the lack of outrage is because the idea is so preposterous that it is beyond outrage. The fact that our country has committed torture is outrageous. Huckabee’s statement is simply loony. That is my hope. My fear is that perhaps so many are deluded about the role of religion in this nation’s life, they don’t see it as lunacy.