"johac" <jhachmann@remove.sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:jhachmann-35B6AA.22485206012008@news.giganews.com...

In article <ftKdnUotvbGyBRzanZ2dnUVZ_sKqnZ2d@comcast.com>,
"Michelle Malkin" <hypatiab7@comcast.net> wrote:

Huckabee's Christian Reconstructionist Ties Run Deep
Jim Burroway
January 6th, 2008
Box Turtle Bulletin
We reported earlier on Southern Baptist minister and former Arkansas
governor Mike Huckabee's fundraising event at the home of Houston
multimillionaire Steven Hotze, a well-known Christian Reconstructionist.
Pastor Rick Scarborough, who also maintains Reconstructionist beliefs,
was
there as well. Since then, we've learned that Huckabee's ties go far
deeper
than mere acquaintances and financial backers. He has a history of
working
very closely with some very well-known Reconstructionists over the years.
In
this report, we will examine two of Huckabee's closest Reconstructionist
colleagues.

Modern Christian Reconstructionism (sometimes known as Dominionism) was
founded by the late R.J. Rushdoony and his son-in-law, Gary North.
Rushdoony
believed that it was the duty of every Bible-believing Christian to place
each and every word of the Bible at the core of that person's life.
According to Rushdoony, this meant that the Bible must necessarily
replace
all civil laws and constitutions with the Old and New Testaments,
including
the revival of the death penalty for homosexuality, incest, adultery,
lying
about one's virginity, and apostasy or public blasphemy, among a much
longer
list of biblical crimes. Rushdoony wrote that Democracy is a heresy and
"the
great love of the failures and cowards of life."

I don't think he's going to win, but if he believes even half of this
nonsense, we are in deep trouble.

George Grant
These are core beliefs among several leading figures in Huckabee's
circle.
One such prominent figure is George Grant, a well-known Reconstructionist
who appeared with Rushdoony in the video, God's Law and Society. Grant
was
the co-author for Huckabee's 1998 book, Kids Who Kill: Confronting Our
Culture of Violence. That was the book where Huckabee and Grant lumped
homosexuality with pedophilia, sadomasochism and necrophilia as
"institutionally supported aberrations."


That line, which Huckabee defended, may well have come from Grant's 1993
book, Legislating Immorality: The Homosexual Movement Comes Out Of The
Closet. In that book, Grant compares homosexuality with pedophilia and
bestiality. He also calls for the death penalty for gays, saying "[t]here
is
no such option for homosexual offenses" except capital punishment.

In 1987 George Grant wrote The Changing Of The Guard: Biblical Principles
for Political Action, in which he made his call for a theocratic
overthrow
explicit. On reading these passages, there can be no doubt exactly what
Grant is calling for:

Christians have an obligation, a mandate, a commission, a holy
responsibility to reclaim the land for Jesus Christ - to have dominion in
the civil structures, just as in every other aspect of life and
godliness.

But it is dominion that we are after. Not just a voice.

It is dominion we are after. Not just influence.

It is dominion we are after. Not just equal time.

It is dominion we are after.

World conquest. That's what Christ has commissioned us to accomplish.
We
must win the world with the power of the Gospel. And we must never settle
for anything less.

If Jesus Christ is indeed Lord, as the Bible says, and if our
commission
is to bring the land into subjection to His Lordship, as the Bible says,
then all our activities, all our witnessing, all our preaching, all our
craftsmanship, all our stewardship, and all our political action will aim
at
nothing short of that sacred purpose.

Thus, Christian politics has as its primary intent the conquest of the
land - of men, families, institutions, bureaucracies, courts, and
governments for the Kingdom of Christ. It is to reinstitute the authority
of
God's Word as supreme over all judgments, over all legislation, over all
declarations, constitutions, and confederations. True Christian political
action seeks to rein the passions of men and curb the pattern of
digression
under God's rule. (pp. 50-51)

Grant has attained considerable influence within broader evangelical
circles. He once served as executive director for D. James Kennedy's
Coral
Ridge Ministries, and he has been a vocal advocate for evangelicals
withdrawing their children from public schools. Grant operates several
educational organizations in Franklin, Tennessee, including a Christian
school, and an adult education center. He is "reluctantly" in the process
of
developing a home-school curriculum.

Bill Gothard
Another strong Reconstructionist tie can be found in Rev. Huckabee's
longtime relationship with Bill Gothard. Gothard runs an outfit called
the
Institute In Basic Life Principles. As part of the teachings at his
institute, Gothard has espoused some very radical principles. The
evangelical non-profit Personal Freedom Outreach, whose mission is to
warn
fellow evangelicals about pronouncements which are considered heretical
from
an Evangelical point of view, criticized several very odd aspects of
Gothard's
theology:

Take for example Gothard's "Cabbage Patch" flap. In 1986, he taught
that
the highly popular Cabbage Patch Dolls were causing strange and
destructive
behavior in children that could only be alleviated when the dolls were
removed or destroyed.

In a letter from his organization, his followers were told by
representative Ginger Jones that to enter into a written agreement to
love a
doll was a violation of the First Commandment. The threat as seen by
Gothard
was that by adopting a doll, children might not want to raise up their
own
godly children. Children may "love" dolls as they do other toys but this
does not mean they worship them.

Testimonials were included with the above letter about the awful
effects
of the dolls with no allowance made for other environmental and social
factors in the homes. The Cabbage Patch doll became a scapegoat.

If only Gothard's teachings were limited to children's toys.
Unfortunately,
it is just one small and amusing manifestation of Gothard's extremism.
Gothard teaches that all of life's problems can be traced to poor
"character
choices." Those choices result in a large number of societal "ills,"
including homosexuality, divorce, contraception, crime - even mental
illness. In one video, Gothard claims that there is no such thing as
mental
illnesses, and everything that we call "mental illness" - including
schizophrenia - are the direct result of making poor character choices.
Among the many unaccredited "training institutes" that Gothard runs is
something called "The Medical Training Institute of America," which
emphasizes "the Biblical mandate to call for the elders of the church for
prayer before receiving medical treatment for a serious illness." He
describes the "power of crying out" to cure brain tumors, cancer and
infertility.

Gothard insists that families and communities must organize themselves on
a
strict interpretation of Christian Reconstructionist principles. In
addition
to Cabbage Patch Dolls, he also forbids dancing, dating, rock music (even
Christian rock) and "wrong clothes." Wives must submit to their husbands,
adults must submit to their patriarch (the husband's father), and couples
must discard all forms of birth control. Families should limit their
contact
with those who are not "saved," they should lock their misbehaving
children
into "prayer closets," and they should home-school their children.

To help families with that last injunction, Gothard maintains a home
school
curriculum, composed of a series of "wisdom booklets" in which "the Bible
is
the main textbook" for all subjects in the curriculum, including science
and
mathematics. Gothard's most famous home-school alumnus to date is
probably
Matthew Murray, the "Colorado Shooter" who killed four people in two
separate shooting sprees in Arvada and Colorado Springs. The particularly
tragic irony is that there is evidence that Matthew Murray may have been
suffering from mental illness - he reportedly heard voices, which is
often a
symptom of some forms of schizophrenia which Gothard dismissed as a mere
character flaw.

While little is known about Gothard outside the evangelical movement, he
claims to have built a large following of 2.5 million alumni of his
25-hour
basic seminar since 1964. Matthew Murray's parents are reportedly among
his
alumni. Another alumnus is none other than Rev. Mike Huckabee, who wrote
this endorsement of Gothard's prison program, which was implemented in at
least one Arkansas state prison:

As a person who has actually been through the Basic Seminar, I am
confident that these are some of the best programs available for
instilling
character into the lives of people.

Huckabee has also Gothard's "Character Cities" program, which is a
secular
front organization which tries to inject Reconstructionist goals into
local
politics under the radar. So far, 171 cities, 37 counties and 8 states
have
adopted resolutions. In 1997, the Ocala Star-Banner reported on a meeting
Gothard held in Little Rock with members of Huckabee's administration:

Gothard has described his meeting in Little Rock as the start of
something
big. He said it laid the groundwork for "the most exciting opportunity I
can
imagine" to merge the institute's teachings with government programs. In
a
letter published on the institute's Internet site, Gothard said his
organization has been asked to "present a plan and contract to
restructure
( Arkansas' ) welfare program, their educational system and their
juvenile
justice methods." He also claims that Gov. Huckabee's aides "have already
begun taking steps" to put the proposal into action.

What Does Rev. Huckabee Believe?
It's hard to know where Huckabee himself stands in all of this since he
is
coy about addressing how he sees the role of church and state. In his
1997
book, Character Is The Issue: How People With Integrity Can Revolutionize
America, Huckabee claimed that he despised "legalism" in the Church as
much
as liberalism (p. 74). Nevertheless, he casts the struggle between
liberalism, which he describes as godless, and his form of Christianity
as a
political fight in which only one side can emerge victorious:

Here's the bottom line not just for Arkansas and America, but for the
world: one worldview will prevail. Either by numbers or persuasion, one
side
of this polarized culture will defeat the other in setting public policy.
When two irreconcilable views emerge, one is going to dominate. Ours will
either be a worldview with humans at the center or with God at the
center.
Standards of right and wrong are either what we establish as human beings
(standards which can be changed to suit us), or they are what God has set
in
motion since the creation of the world.

. The winning worldview will dominate public policy, the laws we make,
and
every other detail of our existence. (p. 137)

Huckabee clearly believes that his campaign is a part of "what God has
set
in motion." Those beliefs echoed throughout his address to students at
Jerry
Falwell's Liberty University, where he explained why he thought his poll
numbers were rising:

There's only one explanation for it, and it's not a human one. It's the
same power that helped a little boy with two fish and five loaves feed a
crowd of five thousand people. (Applause and cheers)

And that's the only way that our campaign could be doing what it's
doing.
And I'm not being facetious, nor am I trying to be trite. There literally
are thousands of people across this country who are praying that a little
will become much, and it has. And it defies all explanation. It has
confounded the pundants, and I'm enjoying every minute of their trying to
figure it out. And until they look at it from a. just experience beyond
human, they'll never figure it out. And that's probably just as well.
That's
honestly why it's happening.

Hat tips: Wayne Besen, Cincinnati Beacon

This guy is just too scary.

It's good that we found out in time to spread the word on him.

Last time that great scribe johac <jhachmann@remove.sbcglobal.net>
chipped away at his/her stone these gems of wisdom for posterity ...

I don't think he's going to win, but if he believes even half of this
nonsense, we are in deep trouble.

At the caucuses I saw on TV Huckabee's supporters looked processed as
they were doing their prayer thing. They looked demonic. Only the sight
of xian fundys in a prayer circle could move a non believer to wonder if
demonic procession could be real :-)

Last time that great scribe johac <jhachmann@remove.sbcglobal.net>
chipped away at his/her stone these gems of wisdom for posterity ...

I don't think he's going to win, but if he believes even half of this
nonsense, we are in deep trouble.

At the caucuses I saw on TV Huckabee's supporters looked processed as
they were doing their prayer thing. They looked demonic. Only the sight
of xian fundys in a prayer circle could move a non believer to wonder if
demonic procession could be real :-)