Sects and Politics

So Iowa likes Huckabee.

I did not see that coming. And that's not sarcasm. I had filed Huckabee at the bottom of the list under "candidates with a gimmick," next to Biden (I run every year! Even when there is no election!) Tancredo (Immigrants...booooo) , Keyes (You didn't know I was in it!), Thompson (gung-GUNNNG!).

To put Huckabee's big win into perspective, please know the following facts:
356,000 Iowans played Red Rover, and sent the most Republicans over to the Huckabee side. But he was 4th overall -- after Clinton (Methodist, for the record).

Obama took 1/4 of the votes (about 89,000).
Huckabee took 11.4%. Let's generously call it 12%, or 42,000 votes. At Yankees Stadium, this is the number of people playing the "Guess the Attendance" game.

But now he's out there, all over my TEEvee, and I got somethin' to say.

Here is my full disclosure, for context, and to further confuse you about what color this blog is.

• foreign-born, so I can't be president (but Britany can). I can indeed vote.
• Baptist (the northern kind. now known as American Baptist, since the war ended). 400 years on my father's side...that we know about
• 2 generations removed from Mormon on my mother's side. My name's in that vault somewhere. but then, so is yours.
• because I am an unbaptized Baptist, I am also the worst kind of heathen. But Jesus and I talk about it every day, and he is very patient
• my first presidential election: Reagan-Mondale. I was for Mondale
• I sometimes vote republican in primaries. Because I vote in Massachusetts, and I want to be in the game
• Bush is an idiot. Oh, wait, that's not what we were talking about. How did that get filed under my deepest beliefs?

So Huckabee's an ordained minister. Ordained by WHOM? I got tired of reading this, and decided to find out. From his own site, "A significant part of his adult life was spent as a pastor and denominational leader." In the SBC (that's the Southern Baptist Convention) a theological degree, or seminary study is not required for ordination, nor a guarantee of it.

A church community ordinates their own pastor, on their own terms.
One can consider it a kind of honor. Not everyone can be ordained.

So Huckabee is a pastor in the same way that Romney is a priest. I guess is what I am saying.

I am surprised by the people who ask are Mormons christian? I answer, "my first clue is when a religion has the words 'Jesus Christ' in their name." Ditto Christian Scientists and, dare I say, Jews for Jesus.

Mitt Romney has had to make a speech about his faith recently, I think to see if he would be struck by lightning, or turn to salt. (Some people's gods are trickstery that way.) In his remarks, he said in essence what Huckabee has said - that his faith is deeply personal to him and so... sit on it.

I believe in my Mormon faith and I endeavor to live by it. My faith is the faith of my fathers - I will be true to them and to my beliefs. ~~ Romney, 12/6/07

My faith is my life - it defines me. I don't separate my faith from my personal and professional lives. ~~ Huckabee, date unknown. from his offical website.

Voters who are afraid of Romney's Mormonism might do better to be afraid of a citizenry who isn't sure who to vote for until they clarify their relationship with Jesus Christ.

"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross" ~~ Ron Paul, 12/18/07, quoting Lewis, often attributed to Long.

When Joe Leiberman, who practices orthodox Judaism, was a vice presidential candidate, people worried whether he would work on Saturday. Probably -- but still not as shocking as our Quaker president carpet bombing Cambodia.

There was worry he would do away with the national christmas tree, which we haven't had nearly as long as women have had the vote - in fact, Americans didn't care about christmas trees until the monarchy we rebelled against married into German culture. We should probably lose it anyway, and the only federal recognition of a religious holiday. Let christians have to finagle our sacred day off like everyone else.

In all this talk of when life begins, and how old the earth is, and whether Jesus and Satan were actually brothers, or whether that was a UFO over Shirley's house , I wonder if we will get back to talking about how to put a pin in this war and bargain a little peace with the enemy. You know, the radical religious one.