According to Kevin Mooney of CNSNews.com:
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and a group of evangelical leaders called for a new “Great Awakening” spiritual revival of the American people Friday, at a press conference in Washington ... Huckabee, a former Republican contender for the presidential nomination, said the “Great Awakening” is needed to help revitalize the nation’s founding principles and cultural standing so that innocent life can be spared.
Specifically, the innocent life Huck is speaking of is that of the unborn. He says that the "success or failure of the pro-life cause is directly tied to the spiritual health and well-being of American civilization."
Lost on Huckabee and evangelical and fundamentalist Christians is the possibility that one can be a spiritual and/or religious person and still believe that abortion is an acceptable alternative. I did a post on this back in March titled A religious defense for a woman's right to abortion, which I hope is helpful in this connection.
Therefore, instead of a revival, I think an new Age of Enlightenment is needed.
Huckabee also wants to bring the Founding Fathers into the matter. This would be a good place to point to the extremely valuable blog American Creation, which deals in detail about the religious history of nation's founding. I recently added this blog to my blogroll and want to strongly urge everyone to go enjoy the helpful info found there.
Mooney's article goes on to state:
The separation that exists now between contemporary Americans and the Founding Fathers can be traced in large part to judicial activism and historical revision, Huckabee said in response to a question from CNSNews.com.
Huckabee should speak of historical revision when in the next paragraph we find him suggesting that
Out of the 56 signers to the Declaration of Independence, 26 had biblical or seminary degrees, Huckabee pointed out. This simple fact is routinely overlooked in educational institutions, he lamented.
I firmly believe this is either an outright lie on Huckabee's part or at the very least an example of ignorance. There is a helpful little site that gives information about all the signers of the Declaration of Independence.
All I could gather from my own examination is that John Witherspoon was indeed a Presbyterian Minister with four years of divinity school under his belt and a later award of a Doctor's Degree of Divinity. Robert Treat Paine was said to have begun the study of theology, but no mention was made of any degrees. William Williams evidently studied theology with his Pastor father. So at best, Huckabee's claim is greatly inflated.
No doubt the absolute biggest misrepresentation of the Religious Right on this subject is the idea that the Founders of our country were religious in the same manner that they are. It just wasn't so.
The facts are that slightly over ninety percent of Americans today believe in God and at the same time a majority believe that women should have the right to an abortion. Thus, the Religious Right are not wanting a "revival" so much as a mass conversion to their way of thinking.
They would love to use the power of our government in order to make that happen by force.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Mike Huckabee calls for revival
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6 comments:
Excellent post. You hit it completely with the comparison between today's believers and those of the 18th Century. However, be careful about using evangelicals and fundamentalists in the same sentence. There are evangelicals out there who believe as you and I.
I have some hardcore fundamentalists in my family, also some evangelicals and yeah, they are different. Although I would by no stretch of the imagination ever consider myself a fundamentalist, I might hold on to at least some of the evangelical genes even though I give that group crap all the time, I hate radicalism and that's pretty much the element that seems to be the most powerful. But I hadn't thought of it, I think Mountain Man makes a good point. So yeah, I'm probably more Buddhist really on the spiritual level, but with some Jesus thrown in, too. Although I do believe from studying, that at least my best inclination is to think that there's a good possibility during all of those "missing years", he was hanging out in the Buddhist camp himself. Really quite much in common.
I agree there is a bit of a difference between fundamentalists and evanglecials theologically speaking. But when it comes to the matter of abortion, in which context I connected them, I don't see a lot of difference.
Baptist Press has an interesting article
[http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?id=27235&ref=BPNews-RSSFeed0122] that looks at a recent Barna survey.
I quote from that article:
"One of the myths about the 2008 election is that the evangelical vote is splintering over issues such as abortion and homosexuality," Barna Group President David Kinnaman said in a statement. "In fact, when defined based upon a consistent set of theological perspectives, evangelicals remain very united on abortion and homosexuality."
The same tells us that 94% of evangelicals think of abortion as the nation's top moral problem.
However, I'm confident that more evangelicals than fundamentalists believe in the separation of church and state.
I have no problem whatsoever with those who object to abortion for religious reasons. My problem is with those who would use the government to enforce their religious belief on everyone else.
Another problem I have is that fundamentalists, evangelicals, and Catholics, have for the most part controlled the religious debate on abortion. I don't believe pro-choice belief is in and of itself anti-religion.
I totally agree with you, Doug, 100% with everything you said here. Haven't checked out the link, will do so, but you've certainly hit the nail on the head here. I have no problem whatsoever with those who object to abortion for religious reasons. I think if they do, then they probably should speak their opinion. That's what we all do. But certainly they ought not as so often happens, on this and other issues, want to legislate their beliefs using the government to mandate what should be one of those civil rights. It's like the gay marriage thing, too. Really, you don't like abortion, don't have one, you don't like gay marriage, don't marry someone of your same sex, but please just quit trying to pass legislation against things you personally don't agree with on whatever fake religious grounds claimed. Not the government's job to even get involved despite what these folks might think.
The whole idea makes me sick.
Diane - I agree.
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