What Would Jesus Do?

You’ll probably here a quote from this answer over and over again from last night’s debate…

Mike Huckabee was asked, “would Jesus support the death penalty?”
The clip you’ll probably hear is, “Jesus was to smart to never run for public office.”

But there’s a whole minute before that you probably won’t see due to time. As Gov. of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee is the only person running on the GOP ticket who’s ever had to give his signature to approve a death penalty and I don’t think he took his decision lightly.

There are those who say… how can you be pro life and believe in a death penalty, because there’s a real difference between the process of adjudication where a person is deemed guilty after a thorough judicial process, and is put to death by all of us as citizens under a law, as opposed to an individual making a decision to terminate a life that has never been deemed guilty because the life never was given the chance to even exist.

Thoughts on the debate

I didn’t get to see the GOP debate but I’ve read and seen some good things about Mike Huckabee.
Chris sent me a text shortly after it was all over and asked if Huckabee was as cool as he seemed.
I assured him (for what it’s worth) I was a huge fan.

Watching the post coverage there were some critics of Huckabee on Anderson Cooper’s wrap-up or thought he was “out there” because he wanted to abolish the IRS. They seemed to think this was just a dumb idea and seemed to think that Huckabee just wants to get rid of the IRS and has no plans to replace it – apparently they missed his comments about the FairTax and their completely ignorant on the topic. Glad these analysts get paid the big bucks instead of me.

ABC’s Nightline gave a pretty good run down from what I could tell. But the only clips of Huckabee focused on his one-liner jokes rather than any of his substantive comments. It will be interesting to see how NPR and others cover the debate.

There’s also some great responses online already.
Continue reading Thoughts on the debate

NPR says Mike Huckabee commands attention

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Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee suddenly finds himself in the media’s spotlight. He has hovered just below the media radar and had not been taken seriously for the GOP presidential nomination. But his lead in one Iowa poll changes that.

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Hucakbee a fiscal conservative

Huckabee is a Fiscal Conservative
By Dick Morris

As Mike Huckabee rises in the polls, an inevitable process of vetting him for conservative credentials is under way in which people who know nothing of Arkansas or of the circumstances of his governorship weigh in knowingly about his record. As his political consultant in the early ’90s and one who has been following Arkansas politics for 30 years, let me clue you in: Mike Huckabee is a fiscal conservative.

A recent column by Bob Novak excoriated Huckabee for a “47 percent increase in state tax burden.” But during Huckabee’s years in office, total state tax burden — all 50 states combined — rose by twice as much: 98 percent, increasing from $743 billion in 1993 to $1.47 trillion in 2005.

In Arkansas, the income tax when he took office was 1 percent for the poorest taxpayers and 7 percent for the richest, exactly where it stood when he left the statehouse 11 years later. But, in the interim, he doubled the standard deduction and the child care credit, repealed capital gains taxes for home sales, lowered the capital gains rate, expanded the homestead exemption and set up tax-free savings accounts for medical care and college tuition.

Most impressively, when he had to pass an income tax surcharge amid the drop in revenues after Sept. 11, 2001, he repealed it three years later when he didn’t need it any longer.
Continue reading Hucakbee a fiscal conservative

Re: Dominion over all

Ok. Just so you know, I finished reading the article and I can say I agree with most of what the author said. Although I don’t think homeschooling is the only way this “bottom-up” philosophy can take place – I think “bottom-up” is the way we should be making change in our world.

Calling it dominion is a huge turn off to me, but changing the world through our own personal actions and faith and not by legislation is what I’m totally about.

It’s impossible to expect that a culture that’s been in meltdown mode for over a century can be rescued by some kind of miraculous, overnight, 51% to 49%, “top-down,” legislative acts that might hopefully force the country move “our way.”…
Our national mindset of “government as eternal safety-net” is too dead set against it. Besides, even though almost all legislation deals with matters of right and wrong, the kind of restored morality we’d like to see simply can’t be legislated. Laws alone can’t force people to “be good;” only Christ and adherence to His moral standards can do that.

AMEN! The author goes on to say that while some of these homeschooled, “Christian Soldier Repairmen” will become elected officials, they can still have an affect through their lives, regardless of what laws are in place.

…the bottom-up principle still retains a powerful place in the halls of government because the lives of young Christians seeking to become lawmakers are always under the critical magnifying glass and microscope of public opinion. So, whether in pre-candidate mode as a next door neighbor or ultimately as a respected regional representative, exemplary behavior will serve as a life-style model as to what truly good governors and governments (minimal, freedom oriented and Bible-based) are supposed to be about. This “bottom-up-ness” will be especially vivid as Christian officials make their Bible-based moral compass and biblical worldview principles explicit through the quality of their legislation and their public speeches and writings. They’ll also be making a difference by direct impact on the personal lives of their fellow office holders, and the same as it relates to ever-skeptical cynics in the humanist media.

I think he’s painting too broad of a paint stroke here with the “humanist media” but I understand his point. No matter where we are, as elected officials, as road workers, as bankers, as members of the main stream media, or even as bloggers or members of the non-so-main stream media, we should be having a positive influence on those around us.

This huge army of fully engaged adults will, daily, be influencing their fellow workers through winsome friendship evangelism as well as by bringing character, integrity, good example and product-advancing, employer-pleasing breakthroughs to their jobs.

YES! “Work not as unto man, but as unto the Lord.”

Sure, the bottom-up philosophy is a tall order, but, by thinking in terms of one voter, one new office holder, one new group of friends at work, one new child being taught at home by God’s people, it won’t be long before millions will have observed and become convinced, voluntarily, that the way of the Lord is the better way.

It takes one person standing up for Christ to make a difference. And that one person tells another one, who tells another one, who tells another one, until everyone is convinced, voluntarily, that the Lord is the better way.

And to answer my previous questions – Jesus didn’t call His disciples to take on political office, or mass protests, or fighting back against authority because His way was/is different. He called His disciples to make changes one on one and to change hearts, not laws.

Dominion over all

A friend sent me a link to this article… Homeschoolers: Recapturing the Culture One Million Converts at a Time

I’ll admit, I haven’t finished reading it all the way through yet. I got sidetracked when I read this:

Every square inch of the planet is the Lord’s, and His people are expected to take dominion over all of it through inspiring leadership in every sector of society.

I have to ask:
Why didn’t Jesus encourage the disciples to run for office? Why didn’t He encourage them to stand up and fight the Roman soldiers when they came to arrest Him? Shouldn’t they have had dominion over that situation as well? Why didn’t He encourage them to stage mass protests in the street against the Roman authorities or even the Jewish authorities?

Why do we keep thinking we have to change all the laws so we can win? Why can’t we just live out our faith in such away that people will be drawn to Christ?

Oh well….. I digress. Guess I should try and finish reading the article before I start criticizing it….