Huckabee's God Act

From the LA Times comes a rather disturbing tale of the way in which Mike Huckabee wielded his religious sword as Governor of Arkansas. In particular, one incident involved quick passage of a bill designed to aid tornado victims in the town of Arkadelphia.

Five days after the tornado tore through the state, this city of 10,000 lay in ruins. The cyclone destroyed an office building, a bank, a pharmacy and 70 other businesses. The electricity was out. The National Guard patrolled the streets. Six people were dead.

In Little Rock, GOP Gov. Mike Huckabee was reviewing a disaster insurance measure that he intended to support when he become troubled: The bill, drawing on centuries-old legal terminology, referred to natural disasters as "acts of God."

So, because he could not fathom his God wreaking such senseless destruction upon the world, Huckabee held up the measure for three more weeks, imploring lawmakers to change the apparently contentious wording from "acts of God" to "natural disasters." Clearly, as one Arkansas state legislator suggested at the time, Job and Exodus--with their numerous super-natural plagues--do not appear to be Huckabee's favorite parts of the Old Testament.

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But Huckabee is not the first minister to consider the question of whether or not we should see the hand of God when disaster strikes down upon the earth. Following the South Asian tsunami that killed 147,000 people, many religious leaders were (like Jerry Falwell regarding the 9/11 attacks) quick to read the tragedy as divine retribution. That "blame the victim" response seemed to help a lot of people come to grips with an event of such magnitude. But there were Huckabee-like dissenters, as one Greek Orthodox theologian put it,

"I personally don't attach any theological significance to this--I listen to what the scientists say. God is always the fall guy. We incriminate Him completely unjustly."

But in the Arkansas tornado case, in which the then-Governor also felt the need to go to bat for the man upstairs, we see a distinction between Romney and Huckabee. While the former feels that what is most important is to have religious faith, whatever that faith may be (excepting fundamentalist Islam), Huckabee would prefer it if everyone in the country saw the light and practiced his specific version of Christianity. Huck explains:

"When I became governor of Arkansas in 1996, I recognized the same moral authority--God's authority--that I did as pastor. . . I not only want to know Him, I want others to be able to see Him through the decisions I make and by the way I make the."

Indeed, he's quite serious about his goal of taking back the nation "for Christ." Of course, the obvious question to all this preaching is, what about those who don't share Huckabee's (and Romney's) beliefs? What of the roughly 5.5 million Jews who live here? Or the 3 million Muslims? Hindus number around 1 million in the U.S. And let's not forget those tax-paying American citizens who identify themselves as either atheist or agnostic, they total a whopping 25 million. Does Huckabee expect that all these people will "see Him" sometime soon? Furthermore, does Mike also honor the Constitutional principle of protecting the minority from the tyranny of a religious majority?

Of course, this is to say nothing of the legions of devout Christians who don't much like the idea of a proselytizing Baptist president. To many in the nation, Huckabee's proclamations are not themselves an "act of God," but a really tired God act.


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