While not automatically opposed to a presidential candidate giving sermons, Mike Huckabee scares me. Giving a guest sermon at a church in New Hampshire yesterday, he said:
“When we become believers, it’s as if we have signed up to be part of God’s Army, to be soldiers for Christ,” Huckabee told the enthusiastic audience.
That mindset will reverse the push to Christianize the United States Military. I’m not interested. I don’t have a problem with religious soldiers, but our military must remain secular. We’re already too close to destroying that. Huckabee is not a step away from the brink.
“When you give yourself to Christ, some relationships have to go,” he said. “It’s no longer your life; you’ve signed it over.”
Likening service to God to service in the military, Huckabee said “there is suffering in the conditioning for battle” and “you obey the orders.”
Huckabee’s economic populism reflects this. Citizens sign their lives over to the state so that the state may save them, including those who don’t vote for Huckabee. Even if it doesn’t reach into religion, the state knows better what you should and shouldn’t do.