Changing One’s Mind
I’m not a fan of mudslinging politics and get progressively tired of the candidates attempts to dig up dirt on each other. I admit that there may be a place for it in a sense. Voters should be informed and since our (and the media’s) attention spans are so short reminders of a person’s political and legal record can he helpful. But honestly I really don’t care about when Obama first wanted to be President (was it 1st or 3rd grade!!!) or if Hillary planted questions in her audience (isn’t that what politicians do???).
But one thing I read recently did surprise me. Apparently pastor and Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee isn’t allowing the public or media access to his sermons. Granted he has faced some embarrassing moments recently as public comments he made in the 90’s have resurfaced (quarantining AIDS patients and comparing environmentalism to pornography…), but it just seems weird to me that a pastor should hide his sermons. Is he embarrassed by what he preached? Has his theology changed? Is he just afraid of controversy?
One thing I’ve noticed about politics and often the church as well is the sheer aversion to admitting that one has changed one’s mind. If a politician voted one way 20 years ago, they apparently have to stick by that decision. They never say, “well, I have grown and changed as a person and I would vote differently now.” Same with pastors. Since their words are often delivered as nearly divinely inspired to recant or speak of an evolving theology is strictly taboo. I have no clue what Huckabee’s issue with his sermons is, I just wish this fear of admitting change and growth didn’t plague our politics and churches. I’d much rather have truth and transparency than backpedalling and cover-ups.
Maybe that’s just me. I have no problem admitting that my theology has changed drastically over the last ten years. Some of it has changed over the last year for that matter. I’m sure there are papers I wrote in college that I would cringe to read these days, and not just for the poor writing style (like the one for my Theology of Culture class where I named Postmodernism as the greatest threat to Christianity today…). Similarly I am sure there are archived threads on The Ooze and elsewhere that could get me labeled an official theological schizophrenic. I’m okay with that. I like to continue to learn and to grow. I don’t want to ever arrive and cement my thoughts in one static location to never be challenged again. That scares me way more than having to admit I was wrong or that I’ve changed.
But I also would never run for President.
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I laughed out loud when I read the line about reading former college papers. I remember preparing to defend a literal 6 day creation my freshman year of college and then writing about the danger of literalists in a paper my senior year.
Maybe the issue is that he doesn’t want to lose votes based on certain theological issues. As long as he’s right IDEALOGICALLY – pro-life, pro-family (ha), anti-evolution – he’s got the red states in his pocket. But if they find out he’s a pre-millenialist instead of a post-millenialist or some other tomfoolery, he could lose some votes. Who knows… I’m just stabbing in the dark, really.
I think you’re on to something there Jake. That’s probably part of it.
My other guess is that he’s afraid of how extreme his positions would come across if they were heard in sermon format. Most pastors I know (especially conservative pastors) speak very “authoritatively” from the pulpit. Not much pandering to differing opinions or nuancing of ones statements. In other words, he might be afraid that his sermons are not “politic” enough and would reveal him as an extremist.
I think it’s your last couple of sentences that are the most revealing … most of us would never run for president or any other high office these days because we’ve seen what the process does to the “man” so to speak. No one can stand up under that sort of scrutiny.
I’m a model citizen now … but I was nearly arrested for shop lifting in college and smoked pot. Who can stand? And who knows their own future? Why the media expects such perfection from the past in politicians is beyond me. I expect that they behave themselves now, while they’re in office … but the past is in the past and only reveals that they’re human.
I don’t know Huckabee’s reasons for witholding his sermons, but if I were him, I certainly would. Once I did a funeral for a mother and four children. The father had locked them in their house and burned their house to the ground. A reporter at the service asked for a copy of my sermon. He then deftly edited it to make me look like a fool with very bad theology and a terribly uncaring spirit. I suspect if the media did get a hold of Huckabee’s sermons, they were skewer them beyond recognition until whatever gospel truth they contained looked like a facist manifesto.
My opinion is that if your theological views aren’t at least slightly different from year to year then you’re not to be trusted since it shows lack of growth. There’s no way that your beliefs (I’m speaking to everyone here) are so spot-on correct that you have no need to adjust them, or even completely reject them, every so often.
I agree. I have changed in the last 4 years so much I almost want to delete my blog. Well some of it. Being a Calvinist wasn’t very much fun.
Yeah, that is a puzzling thing, this idea that something you said 20 years ago is held against you forever, politically. Never mind that most of us have had polar philosophical changes three or four times in that span of time.
That’s why I like Obama’s response to questions about earlier marijuana use. Did he inhale? “Yes,” he said. “That was the point.” He doesn’t smoke it anymore so let’s move on.
My Theology of Culture papers are valuable to me because it cements my credibility with fundamentalists.
Honestly, and this sounds cynical I guess, I think Huckabee doesn’t release them because his is an art of pandering. Pandering doesn’t work if it’s broadcast widely, and from what I can tell Huckabee sought political advancement through ministry, and that meant saying what he thought people would want to hear.
Who knows what he actually believes? I suspect it depends on the audience in front of him.
Now this whole comment probably just cancelled out my delightfully conservative Theology of Culture papers.
Pistol Pete raises a very good point. Anything you say in print will be distorted and used against you.
For example, when my first book came out, a priest posted one of her sermons online that railed against the current crop of politics and faith books – she cited my book “Red and Blue Church, Black and Blue God” (The actual book title is “Red and Blue God, Black and Blue Church”) as the worst stating I was promoting beating up God. I emailed the church office asking if they could kindly correct this point, adding that the point of the book was when we make God out to be a member of a particular party, the church becomes a political pawn and thus loses its ability to be a prophetic witness to the world. No answer. Fortunately the sermon has now gone offline.
Also, I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve interviewed someone for The Door and I get mail that goes something like this … In your interview with (insert controversial interviewee), I can’t believe you think that … when all I am doing is allowing the subject to tell their story and ask probing Qs as need be.
And you’ll be surprised (or maybe you won’t) at how many people take what I say in a satirical vein as literal truth – look at the hate mail Jonathan Swift got for penning his book “A Modest Propsal” because people though he actually intended the Irish to eat their own children.
I can see if a journalist wanted Huckabee’s sermons because they wanted to do an in-depth piece about Huckabee’s faith journey. I would hope that his theology has developed over the past twenty years – I know my thinking has been greatly shaped by the recent works of N.T. Wright, Brian McLaren and John Caputo – three authors that weren’t on my radar when I was at Divinity School back in the ’90s. But something tells me they’ll be trolling for bits they can extrapolate and use out of context against him.
I’m not saying I support Huckabee – his Christmas message poltical ad and a few other moves that have made Huckabee and Mitt Romney major Door fodder. (See http://www.wittenburgdoor.com). Yes, other candidates are doing some rather silly spiritual slip-ups and they will be satirized as warranted.
I am always amazed at the number of people who don’t seem to “get” satire at all. I remember the time a former youth pastor (I was an adult youth volunteer at the time) came in an gave us a copy of that Onion article that “quotes” J.K. Rowling as claiming to be a Satanist. He thought it was for real and brought it to us because he knew we liked Harry Potter. I had to explain to him that it was from The Onion, and then had to explain to him that The Onion was satire and therefore was not a reliable source of information.