While we've been concerned here with trivial matters, like why Princeton U. is blockading access to potential First Lady Michelle Obama's senior thesis until the day after the election, the ace professionals at Slate are on top of the crucial issue of the moment:
My search for the lost Huckabee tapes
Hanna Rosin
In her speculation about what might have been in the seldom-available tapes of sermons Mike Huckabee gave at his Baptist church in the 1980s, she concludes with this reason why he might be covering them up:
4. The Queasy Factor—In the one tape I did manage to get—bought on eBay from an enterprising Arkansan—Huckabee preaches on "The Practice of Patience." What could be more pleasant and innocuous, right? Not exactly. Huckabee is his trademark jovial self. He tells a couple of good stories, one about some urban farmers who mistook a watermelon for a mule egg, another about the time his father gave him his first bike—and it was a girl's bike. But all this is building up to a serious point. "How many times do we find ourselves on the surgery table of the Almighty God, who is trying to work His surgery to make us more like Christ, and we say 'God, let me out of here! Lord, don't touch me!' " he thunders towards the end. "It's not that we can't be Christians. The sad fact is most of us don't want to be enough to try our faith to the point of patience and perseverance."
It's one thing to know a presidential candidate was a pastor; that sounds worthy and leaderlike. But it's quite another to actually hear him work himself up into a lather about committing to Christ and not back it up with a joke.
Huh?
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
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26 comments:
totally agree ... if you believe in all that wack sh#t, you cannot be trusted. you might as well have faith in the easter bunny. anyone with a triple digit iq who believes that sh#t is secretly ashamed of it, make no mistake. smart to hide those tapes, huckster.
The important thing is that when she wrote it, it made sense to her.
Another good expression of the typical inability for those worldy and cosmopolitan white liberals to comprehend religious faith (for non-eastern religions that is).
Religion, if not imposed on others in the public realm, is a personal matter like what books and music people tend to buy.
I neither care that Romney is a mormon who believes in magic underwear or that Liberman is a consservative Jew who thinks only he and his choosen kind have a soul that God cares about. Those are private matters which don't affect me directly.
Being a "professional black" as someone mentioned here (making a life out of being a professional angry black victimlogist above all else) is another matter. Such people cannot help but impose their unfounded greviences and use their anger to extort others.
There is something not human about people who think that any smart person is faking his belief in God. My guess is that they are aliens impersonating human beings.
If you believe in God you probably also believe there were WMDs in Iraq. The ability to believe in things for which there is no direct evidence has proven a liability for a commander in chief...
Steve it's easy. Make fun of the dumb rubes who are Evangelicals. Prop Yuppie sense of entitlement/snobbery. Profit!
How did you miss this?
*[After a black person asks to join Huck's services...] ...Huckabee let him come to services, but only after much resistance from the congregation. Huckabee did the right thing, but he also had to mollify his congregation, and what sounded racially progressive in Pine Bluff in 1984 may be cringe-worthy now.*
What. The. Fuck. As far as I can tell (not that I really care) Huck did something more selfless, "progressive", and liberal, than exactly 99 percent of slate readers ever will--AGAINST THE PROCLIVITIES OF HIS CONGREGATION--and slate hints (wink, wink) that it is racism (of a sort, wink wink).
Pathetic idiots.
So what's the problem? 'Commit to Christ' and then 'back it up with a joke' ... that's like ham n'eggs, right?
Overt religiosity is a sign of "lower-classness" to upper class whites. Thence the slam on Huckabee's religion.
The cynical upper classes don't believe in anything but their own hipness. They find the presence of faith ... disturbing.
It seems that the writer's problem with Huck is not that he preaches, but that he *sincerely believes* what he preaches. He lacks that post-modern irony so necessary for the cosmopolitan elites. How could he actually call for commitment without a joke? (Of course Obama can be sincere without irony because his cause is real and serious, unlike Christianity).
Has anyone noticed how Obama can portray himself as God's chosen, but when Bush said that he is doing God's will he is ridiculed?
If you believe in God you probably also believe there were WMDs in Iraq. The ability to believe in things for which there is no direct evidence has proven a liability for a commander in chief...
I'm an atheist myself, but I want to thank you for providing direct evidence that foolish black-and-white generalizations aren't limited to the religious.
Steve it's easy. Make fun of the dumb rubes who are Evangelicals. Prop Yuppie sense of entitlement/snobbery. Profit!
It's called Steve actually having an independent mind of his own.
While he bashes, rightfully, the liberal elite for their out of touch race views, he also rightly bashes the Christian right for their religious views.
We all complain about liberals not being intellectually honest about race. Well, we should also have the same standards when it comes to using religion to make policy decisions.
I wonder if the people of Arkansas declined to give Rosin any tapes because she was a liberal, Jewish woman who is hostile of Christianity. Perhaps we should give those hicks credit for perceiving cultural enemies bent on defamation of their leader and of their religion.
"Has anyone noticed how Obama can portray himself as God's chosen, but when Bush said that he is doing God's will he is ridiculed?"
Right. Lefties have no problem at all with creating and worshipping saints, as long as it's based on politics and not religion. Ghandi and MLK are good examples.
Pushing any morality is great as long as it's not a religious morality.
She's merely acknowledging an anti-Christain anti-religious prejudice among certain sectors of the populace (her included) which might cost him votes.
anyone wants to see some really repulsive whiterpeopele action, google up Rosin's appearance on the Daily Show.
The problem with democracy is the average idiot thinks he is smarter and wiser than St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Jerome.
Maybe I should read the SLATE article but from the excerpt, I now have increased respect for Huckabee. So what if he cares deeply about religion and gets fervent in delivering from the pulpit. Has anyone here every been to Orthodox Jewish proceedings? I hear the men can engage in very amplified debates bordering on the insane.
In America, the worst people are the ones that believe in nothing but their own superiority. At least Huck acknowledges that he is below the Lord and must account in someway. I have always found that these people will more often than not listen to reason. Lot's of people love to rag on them because they believe in evolution. But that is 1 belief and of limited practical importance. Contrast that fact with Obama's limitless liberalism and false beliefs therein.
Huck's sermon also tells what it means to be a man: to test one's self and one's beliefs. Not bad in my estimation.
Justin
"It seems that the writer's problem with Huck is not that he preaches, but that he *sincerely believes* what he preaches."
I often wonder if the same fools really believe the unempirical tripe about zero group differences that they employ for the purposes of moral posturing--a position that is more falsifiable than any supernatural claim. Except I'd be less irritated if they actually did believe in the ZGD worldview.
The clueless seem to have a hard time distinguishing between "no evidence for" and "no reason to believe in." No, there's no evidence; YES, there's every reason to believe. Not for nothing the Mormons and Haredim are the only ones breeding (you know, the only real measure of success in the universe?).
Personally, I believe it's a lot of pigswallow - and I'd believe (in the right doctrine) in a second if I could because it's good for you.
Overt religiosity is a sign of "lower-classness" to upper class whites. Thence the slam on Huckabee's religion.
The cynical upper classes don't believe in anything but their own hipness. They find the presence of faith ... disturbing.
Oh I dunno. I grew up attending the richest Episcopal church in a medium-sized city - pretty durn snooty - and there were LOTS of true believers there.
She's horrified that he asked his congregation to believe in Christ. Hmm. What does she think Christian preachers do? ("Wait, I thought he was just a Christian preacher in some kind of post-modern ironic sense, but he really meant it!")
Yeah. I'm a cosmopolitan white liberal, and I don't see anything odd about him working up a lather talking about Christ. He's a Christian preacher, of course he's supposed to be enthusiastic about Jesus!
To all those cynical non-believers. Some people have said that all the great prophets have been cynical non-believers too. They were always the ones who knew the Tabernacle was empty, all that was inside was dust. It's only a symbol. But these cynical prophets were the loudest proponents of that same Tabernacle, because they understood the power of symbolism.
Whatever you think about Mr. Huckabee and Jesus, the man speaks well. To me that says: he thinks well. The two go hand in hand.
Hanna Rosin writes about evangelicals, not like a fellow human being dissecting foolish beliefs, but like an anthropologist studying an alien culture. Here's a slice of Q&A from her book tour:
Fairfax Station, Va.: I just wanted to say, I found your book fascinating. As a liberal Jew, I'm disturbed by fundamentalism -- in any religion -- and can say I probably would find your task of getting to know these kids, well, creepy. But I got the feeling from your book that however distasteful I found their beliefs and politics, these people out on Route 7 have big hearts. I'm still creeped out by them, but a little less so now.
Hanna Rosin: Hi. I hear these adjectives a lot from friends: "scary," "creepy." I'm glad I at least convinced you they have big hearts, which many of them do. There definitely were moments on campus where I felt the atmosphere to be oppressive, like I wished one of the students would just scream or blast some music or dye their hair purple or do something utterly juvenile[...]
Nowhere can I find that the actual beliefs of the students and faculty are challenged by Rosin. Those beliefs are, in fact, buncombe and hogwash, and eminently challengeable. But to Rosin their ideological confusion is the least important element about them. The strongest feeling I get from Rosin is that she feels she's studing the echt goyim: White "scary" people with "political ambitions." While most White goyim themselves look at these kids as most atypical (and faintly ridiculous).
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