Huckabee has said he will not talk about what he called "intricate, nit-picky things of church doctrine" such as the role of women in the ministry, because he thinks issues like that aren't relevant to the presidency, according to newspaper articles like this one.One could argue that a person's beliefs about whether God has ordained limited roles for women is not a nit-picky matter for someone who would represent all Americans, more than half of them female.
What really caught my eye, however, was Huckebee's response to Newsweek magazine on whether he believes the Bible is inerrant. Huckabee said "I believe it is," though he acknowledged that much of it is expressed in figurative language. He then went on to define his understanding of inerrancy.
"Inerrant" means if you follow the direction of the Bible, it will not lead you into error.Huckabee is obviously trying to gain the support of voters from the religious right by using their language, but he apparently is not averse to giving it his own definition. Defining inerrancy on the basis of the Bible's influence rather than its content would probably fall far short of acceptable among those who believe in the verbal, plenary, infallible inspiration of every word in the Bible, at least in the no-longer-existing "autographs," or original versions.
I'd love to hear what others think about Huckabee's definition of inerrancy. Comments are welcome.
[Photo from MikeHuckabee.com]
6 comments:
Tony:
I have blogged about Huckabee at some length. Had the good fortune to shake hands with him about three weeks ago in South Carolina and got the immigration question in before it metastasized a few days later nationally.
Cathy, at baptistlife.com links a NY Mag story online that will be in print this Sunday.
His history with Pressler in Arkansas is fascinating; and now Randy Brinson of Redeem the vote is hooking up with Scarborough in Iowa to help Huckabee.
But you ask more than a fair question of his errancy.
No less than David Broder has spoken highly of a possible McCain/Huckabee ticket which would take the whole Baptist split political implications to a new level; what with Richard Jackson's former congregant teamed with a devotee of Jerry Vines, now forsaken by Pressler.
Stay on this. Bring it to Frank Page. South Carolina is gonna be a carnival, but will be a lot to learn there of what Pressler wrought with input from Jesse Helms, Harry Dent and Atwater who begat Rove who as we all know is funded indirectly by your Cooperative Program dollars through Richard Land.
Amen
And Oh, though some reviews direct elsewhere The soundtrack for There will be Blood is Brahms and Arvo Part. Lot of religion and politics in there.
Listen to Part's Magnificat as you consider Pressler and Rove and Huckabee. Look up the words about Abraham and what not
Tony,
While Huckabee is socially conservative, on the Southern Baptist scale he is clearly moderate to liberal on his view of the Bible.
Then again, he did deny the legitimacy of evolutionary theory, didn't he?
Still, he's not exactly a literalist.
Sounds like he leaves a lot of wiggle room.
Perhaps that's because he is defined not so much by the facts that he is a Christian or a Baptist or a preacher--but by the fact that he is a politician.
Huckabee may be best explained today[even better than the NY Sunday mag story] by the streetprophets.com blog that looks at HBee's interesting history with Randy Brinson of Redeem the Vote and how Brinson in particular may have played the religious left in Amy Sullivan's Wash Monthly piece back in april.
Tony,
You said,
"One could argue that a person's beliefs about whether God has ordained limited roles for women is not a nit-picky matter for someone who would represent all Americans, more than half of them female."
So do you think that a man who believes that women should not be pastors is not qualified to be President? Isn't that sort of like saying that a man who thinks the Pope is infallible is not qualified to be President?
Of course, everyone who believes that God created human beings must believe He ordained limited roles for both men and women, since by the very biology of the matter men and women cannot fill all the same roles. I guess what you are saying is that one could argue that you must accept his concept of what limitations God has placed on women in order to qualify to be President.
Mark Osgatharp
Good to see that the secular media is focusing their attention only on the urgent issues that 21st century Americans face.
Personally, I don't care about a politician's view of war, health care, the AIDS crisis in Africa, world hunger, or poverty.
What REALLY matters MOST is whether a candidate views the Bible as inerrant.
Give me a break.
I know this was posted like a month ago, but this is my first look at it. Anyway, I think Huckabee is confusing inerrancy with infallibility. I think Christians ought to affirm both of those things, though, so I don't see a problem. Besides that, when you compare Huckabee with the rest of the candidates, at least he regards the Bible to be infallible (if not also inerrant). Your other choices probably wouldn't even go that far. I'd rather have someone in office who regards the Bible as infallible, even if he doesn't think it's inerrant, than someone who doesn't give any genuine regard to Scripture in the first place. Just something to keep in mind. :)
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