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Ear to the Ground

Huckabee’s Sermons Off Limits

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Posted on Dec 12, 2007
Huckabee
motherjones.com

The Huckabee campaign has refused to give the media much more than scraps of the candidate’s religious speeches, leaving his 12 years as a pastor relatively shrouded in mystery. We already know he doesn’t believe in evolution, thought at one time that AIDS patients should be quarantined and isn’t ashamed “to let you know that I believe Adam and Eve were real people,” so what is he hiding?


Mother Jones:

When asked for copies of the sermons Huckabee delivered at Immanuel Church, an employee there claimed none could be found. A Beech Street Church pastor’s assistant maintained that much of the archival material from Huckabee’s tenure as pastor had been destroyed during a remodeling. The rest, she said, was not available to the press.

When Mother Jones contacted the Huckabee campaign and asked if it would help make his previous sermons available, the campaign replied in a one-sentence email that it had received multiple requests for such material and was “not able to accommodate” them.

Only a small sampling of Huckabee’s early speeches are publicly available. While the pastor at Beech Street, Huckabee became president of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention. (At 34, he was the youngest person to ever preside over the 490,000-person group.) He held the office from 1989 to 1991. Several of his sermonlike speeches were featured in the convention’s publications. In a 1990 speech to his fellow state Baptists, Huckabee urged the audience to hold to what he called “The 10 Commendations,” including “Thou shalt love like a family” and “Thou shalt be found faithful.” Huckabee also said, “It doesn’t embarrass me one bit to let you know that I believe Adam and Eve were real people.”

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By stephen miller, December 16, 2007 at 2:29 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

The thing is, Huckabee looks like Kevin Spacey (playing the nice roles)

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By FrankieEatsTrash, December 16, 2007 at 12:58 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Maybe its all that “Women should meekly obey their husbands” crap… I don’t think he can say that out loud too many times and get elected in America. At least one would hope not.

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By Thomas Billis, December 16, 2007 at 4:56 am #

Huckabee being a preacher of bullshit has been able to fake the one thing all commenters mention"authenticity”.The looney bin is full of authentic people who think they are Caeser and Napoleon.Let us run them.Some guy who mumbles under his breath to a spirit in the cosmos to give him things certainly fits into to the loony bin definition of authenticity.By the way is God shy.Is he afraid to appear in front of large audiences of people.Always on a mountaintop or in a cave and of course let us not forget dreams.He could end all this bullshit by appearing once in the sky and telling everybody what he thought and that would be that.I do hear that God is going to a public speaking course in heavan and hopes to overcome mike shyness in a couple thousand years.I guess we are stuck with the morons who do claim to speak to him and for him.God knows that they are not microphone shy.PSGod is planning a trip to hell to talk to Jerry Falwell and get some tips.

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By dick, December 15, 2007 at 5:23 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Huckabee is a dangerous, ignorant, religious fanatic, with millions of followers/voters.

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By purplewolf, December 15, 2007 at 4:08 pm #

Rowdy and Cyrena, I believe(note the word lie is in the word)and no pun intended, the word to best to describe Huckabee is: FUGLY- a combination of the to words.

Remember how many religious leaders of the past who have been involved with scandals and other illegal activity? Huckabee is probably no different as he is pulling “THE BUSH” by not cooperating with requests about his sermons. Just what is he so afraid of to claim that there are no past speeches-sermons available. Did they have an accident with the paper shredder? Already covering up information and hiding the facts before he even reaches the White House-if he does make it.

Is this now one of the requirements to run for the presidency,being able to cover up and lie and deny requested reports? All this and he claims to be a Christian.
The newest definition in the dictionary for Christian*: is deceiver, liar, one who misleads others with their words and deeds, hateful, stingy,bigoted,clannish, etc…

*Does not apply to all people who claim to be Christian, some still do adhere to the teachings of compassion, love and acceptance for all people.

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By RAE, December 15, 2007 at 12:51 am #

“Despite his Baptist fundamentalism, he comes across as a decent man…”

And this just might be so… BUT… what in hell is in America’s drinking water that is causing this avalanche of “believer” candidates?

Folks, you elect another “believer” and you’ll just elect another PUPPET whose strings will be pulled by those in charge of some ding-dong dogma or another.

If this is OK with you… if it’s just fine that your leader is under NO OBLIGATION to follow YOUR WISHES but instead the dictates of his/her religious brainwashing, then… GO FER IT!

The entire world can hardly wait until wacko Bush’s term expires hoping against hope that America will come to its senses and elect a new president who, if he/she MUST “believe” at least he/she has enough intellgence left to keep it PRIVATE and PERSONAL.

Elect another “wacko” and yer finished, America.

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By BruSays, December 14, 2007 at 5:40 pm #

In 2000, I thought it incredibly sad that voters in a nation of 300 million could elevate an imbecile like George W. Bush to the office of President.

In 2004, I thought it even more incredibly sad that - after 4 years of lies, deceit, hypocrisy, arrogance and ignorance - this same nation would re-elect the imbecile!

Now, with the 2008 election 11 months away, that a person such as Mike Huckabee could even be CONSIDERED a presidential candidate nails the lid on our country’s coffin.

How does the saying (so pathetically mangled by Bush) continue?
“Fool me once, shame on you.”
“Fool me twice, shame on me.”
“Fool me a third time, ...” (fill in the blank).

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By altara, December 14, 2007 at 11:29 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

To think, we could not elect an atheist as president, but actually elected one who does not believe in evolution.

homer   http://www.altara.blogspot.com

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By John Borowski, December 14, 2007 at 9:26 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

Can you see what a mess Huckabee is getting us into? What if Benny Ladeeda nominates Allah as his second in command?  The Republicans (Aka Conservatives right wingers) indicate to me how little respect they have for the average Americans’ intelligent and maturity. If they had a better level of respect for the American people they wouldn’t come out with this kind of BS.

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By troublesum, December 14, 2007 at 1:09 am #

There were five people aboard a plane: the pilot, a young boy, a Methodist minister, a Rabbi, and a Catholic priest.  A couple of hours after take-off the pilot came out of the cockpit and said, “The engines on this plane have failed and it will crash in about ten minutes.  There are only two parachutes and I’m going to jump with one of them right now.”  So saying, he opened the door and bailed out. 
The Methodist grabbed the remaining parachute and said, “We should let the boy have this one; he has his whole life ahead of him.”
“Fuck the boy!!”, the Rabbi said.
The Catholic priest looked a his watch and said, “Do we have time?”

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By Dr. Knowitall, PhD, PhD, December 13, 2007 at 10:54 pm #

#119959 May says,
    “Huckabee extolls the power of prayer as the reason he is doing so well in the polls.  If these christers truly believed that mumbling under your breath to an imaginary being holds such power, why don’t they turn their prayers to really doing some good in the world?  Like ending the genocide in Darfur, or stopping the demolition of salvageable public housing in New Orleans.  It seems wasted on such things as getting Huckabee a party nomination.  Is there a subtle insinuation there that their god doesn’t care about the poor or homeless?”

You see, May, my good buddy Huck forgets that other candidates are using prayer, too.  Like two football teams praying for a victory; one wins, one loses.  But no matter the outcome, it’s the Lord’s will. 

Poverty, sickness, genocides, bombings, these are all part of the Lord’s grand plan.  Part of his will.  Whatever he wants, we get.  Now how Muhammed’s will figures in there is another matter altogether.  I think they must take turns.  First it’s the Lord, then its Muhammed, sort of Christian-like.  The Lord gets one genocide, probably the Armenians (who were the first devoted Christians) and Muhammed gets, lets say, Hiroshima, and so on, to balance things out.  You never lose.  If you win, you win.  If you lose, you still win.  That’s the beauty of it all. 

In fact, as an atheist, I’ve asked all my friends to pray for me.  This way, the Lord being the compassionate one he is, will answer their prayers, it would make him look unbelievable if he didn’t, and I’ll get into heaven anyway.  That way, I don’t have to waste my time believing and can get on with my life and still make it into heaven.  Of course, there’s always the chance I could be lucid enough in the end, even after a life of crime and evil, to repent on my death bed, confess that the Lord is my saviour and make it in that way.  Anyway, I think I’m covered.  Or I could convert to Islam, which I guess is pretty easy, and win that way.

These are time which try mens’ (and womens’) souls.  I think it would be a good idea to be ready for anything.

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By Trobo, December 13, 2007 at 8:49 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Anyone else suspect that the reason he’s withholding the contents of his past sermons is because they contained anti-gay stuff?

I’d bet good money on that.

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By Dr. Knowitall, PhD, PhD, December 13, 2007 at 6:47 pm #

Hey, thanks Magnifico.  Yours is pretty good, too.

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By Magnifico Giganticus, December 13, 2007 at 5:07 pm #

@ Dr. Knowitall, PhD, PhD

Great name! HA! I have the feeling you post under a few other names here.

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By mike, December 13, 2007 at 1:16 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

RDV
Despite his Baptist fundamentalism, he comes across as a decent man—which is more than can be said for the rest of the lot. He is much more convincing “compassionate conservative

If I remember right this is pretty much what they said about the dipstick we have now.

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By May, December 13, 2007 at 12:53 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Huckabee extolls the power of prayer as the reason he is doing so well in the polls.  If these christers truly believed that mumbling under your breath to an imaginary being holds such power, why don’t they turn their prayers to really doing some good in the world?  Like ending the genocide in Darfur, or stopping the demolition of salvageable public housing in New Orleans.  It seems wasted on such things as getting Huckabee a party nomination.  Is there a subtle insinuation there that their god doesn’t care about the poor or homeless?

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By Bleeding Heart, December 13, 2007 at 12:46 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

It would seem to me that Republicanism in its modern incarnation is the polar opposite of every prominent teaching of Jesus Christ.  I’m not talking about the perversions and human politics of the Churches who use their positions of power to dominate the consciences of men, but what Jesus the person and the authors of the scriptures who carried on his message actually said and meant - love, compassion, forgiveness, peace, unity, meekness, equality of all life, and selflessness.  Maybe Huckabee is well schooled in the dogmas and the mysticism of a particular Church, but you cannot be a Christian in the true sense and be pro war, pro “trickle down economics”, or for that matter, aspire to be ruler of an empire.  What a hypocritical fool. So many modern Christians are pagans in the sense that they are ignorant of the deeper spiritual meanings in the teachings and their application to life, and instead worship the outward symbolism and take the allegories as fact.  Next we’ll probably see Huckabee staging miracles or making campaign appearances with the holy virgin grilled cheese.

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By David's back, December 13, 2007 at 10:54 am #

Elect him, It’ll accelerate Loony lands decline, as if it isn’t rapid enough already. THAT is something for the world to look forward to. Plus you’ll have the benefit of saving on health expenditure, as all treatment will consist of a laying on of hands, Hallelujah.
PS. Do you have any health expenditure?

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By Dr. Knowitall, PhD, PhD, December 13, 2007 at 10:06 am #

Huck has used his veneer of rightousness to hide his penchant for gift-getting.  Watch out for this liar. He’s the worst kind.

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By RdV, December 13, 2007 at 8:48 am #

They are trying to go after this guy, but I am going to tell you straight out, I thought from the start this guy was going to rise. Despite his Baptist fundamentalism, he comes across as a decent man—which is more than can be said for the rest of the lot. He is much more convincing “compassionate conservative” than entitled drunken loser frat boy ever was. And I say this as a progressive—there is a lack of artifice and a humbleness and at the same time he is quick on his feet. A much more likeable regular guy that the corporate media is feeling threatened by and out to smear. He isn’t in their game plan.

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By cyrena, December 13, 2007 at 5:04 am #

What does ‘thou shalt love like a family’ mean?

Rowdy,

Way beyond ugly. Ugly, I can deal with. Totally crazy is a whole different deal.

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By rowdy, December 13, 2007 at 1:50 am #

i’m sure that all of his public utterances are a distillation of every sermon he ever delivered. we have seen the face of our enemy and he’s pretty fucking ugly.

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By Daniel, December 13, 2007 at 1:04 am #

I believe (no pun intended) that Huckabee would make a good president: he should be at home with his counterparts, the ayatollahs.

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