Huckabee Claimed Jesus ‘On The Cross’ Supported The Death Penalty

[TwilightGardener]

FLASHBACK: Huckabee Claimed Jesus ‘On The Cross’ Supported The Death Penalty

At Wednesday’s CNN/YouTube debate, a questioner asked former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee “what would Jesus do” on the death penalty. He replied:

"Jesus was too smart to ever run for public office, Anderson. That’s what Jesus would do."

Huckabee dodged the question that time. But in 1997, Huckabee claimed that Jesus would have agreed with him on supporting the death penalty. Shortly before a triple execution in Arkansas in Jan. 1997, a caller called into Huckabee’s show on Arkansas Educational Television Network and asking how he squared his Christian teachings with his support for the death penalty. As the Arkansas Times reported on Jan. 22, 1997:

“Interestingly enough,” Huckabee allowed, “if there was ever an occasion for someone to have argued against the death penalty, I think Jesus could have done so on the cross and said, ‘This is an unjust punishment and I deserve clemency’.”

Jesus, though, did not ask for clemency. Therefore, according to Huckabee’s logic, Jesus must have been in favor of capital punishment.

--more--
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/12/01/huckabee-jesus/

[maddiejoan]

1. Father, Why Do you Forsake Me?

Doesn't count?

Perhaps Jesus should have been more clear.

[Mr_Monday]

2. Jesus was in favor of "dying for our sins"

Huckabee's argument has no logic, it's just fundie rationalization.

[GreenPartyVoter]

12. Agreed

[saltpoint]

3. More pseudo-Christian gruel from ex-fundie minister Mike Huckabee.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. I am no theologian, but if I recall correctly...

the whole idea behind Jesus' crucifixion was that it WAS an unjust punishment and that by accepting it he was supposed to be taking on and expiating the sins of all mankind. So if he'd asked for clemency because he deserved it, that would have ruined the whole thing.

Seems to me Huckleberry's theology is a little shaky there.

[rufus dog]

7. that is my take also

Seems as a strange justification from the Huck.

[Faygo Kid]

5. I have said it before here: Huckabee is a dangerous nutcase.

Mr. Smileyface no doubt thinks his "surge" in the polls is due to God's will, not the voters. Just check what he has said about the issues, and his beliefs personally. He is closer to a Dominionist than he is to traditional Christian beliefs.

The Republican Party has gone feral.

[TwilightGardener]

8. "Feral"--good word. And I'm pretty sure Jesus is not happy

with the blasphemous, cynical manner in which Hucky uses him: either as a justification to take a life, or as a political weapon and vote-getter.

[sandnsea]

6. Forgive Them. They know not what they do.

*sigh* It's pretty dang clear to me.

[zabet]

9. From my point of view,

Hucksterbee does not follow the
teachings of the Bible.
My uncle is a minister of a Church.
My older sister was murdered several
years ago. The trial resulted in a
death penalty conviction. Half of my
family got angry with my Uncle because
even though it was his niece he lost due
to a violent crime, he believed and stated
that killing the guilty was not in accordance
with the teachings of the Bible.

[panader0]

22. How about the Amish on this subject.

Forgiveness. What a concept.

[rAVES]

10. Yes I imagine he also supported the rape and pillage of the Middle east, rasism...

Guns, and murdering abortion doctors.....

[Cha]

11. How gawd damn stupid

do have to be to say that?

[TwilightGardener]

13. But almost worse, is dodging the same question now--

why didn't he say the same thing? Sounds like he had it all thought out, after all.

[Cha]

19. Because he's a Huckster politician

and he learned that '97 shite didn't fly.

Huckster huckabee..your all in one peddler of fascism under the guise of Bible Thumping.

[Vickers]

14. Hmmmm...He also didn't ask for a cheeseburger.

...that must mean He disliked cheeseburgers.

:crazy:

[patrice]

15. Jesus was killed because he would not abdicate his personal conscience

to his church or to the state.

His church wanted him to shutup and quit rocking the boat. The state wanted him to shutup about Justice and stop getting the rabble all het up. He wouldn't cooperate, so church and state collaborated to kill him.

Be it Capitol Punishment or War, there is no greater abdication of personal conscience than when we delegate the dirty business of killing others, and especially when, although individuals always bear essential responsibility for what they do, the collective always also shares in the criminal's/enemy's guilt by failing to provide or do what it could for the criminal/enemy to avoid their crime in the first place.

Huckabee's answer was a total abdication of the moral leadership that he aspires to. He IS a moral coward. But then, you wouldn't expect someone who makes his living off of being the moral conscience of others to stand up and say EACH AND EVERY ONE OF US IS COMPLETELY RESPONSIBLE FOR OUR OWN MORALITY, no one and no thing can do this with or for you.

[TwilightGardener]

17. Excellent analysis.

[patrice]

28. Old, fallen Catholic here. I remember Pro-Life when it was the Real Thing.

They lost their way, forgot about Social Justice, sold their souls for political power, forgot their Baltimore Catechism where it says "God made us Free" and we were told that's because Freedom is necessary so each of us can choose to obey and to love and that's why oppressing someone's Freedom is one of the greatest sins there is. Maybe all of that was just some artifact of being raised in the '60s, when the Nuns had to explain to us what the Civil Rights movement was about.

I belong to the Church with No Walls now, the one that respects the Liberation Theologists that Popes have been known to slap in public when they encounter them. I guess I can understand a little, when you're a missionary in a foreign country and you get a bunch of your folks killed by the local dictator for being too "free", that's a BAD thing, but I think **Americans** could use a good healthy dose of Liberation Theology right now.

[TwilightGardener]

30. I'm still Catholic (a little bit lapsed, I don't attend Mass regularly)--

I attended Catholic school, and I did retain some very important lessons from those days, about valuing life--whatever form it takes. The Catholic Church, for all of its problems, is still not nearly as hypocritical on the life issue as many of the Protestant denominations, IMO.

[patrice]

32. I still love the Mass, miss it too.

It also seems as though there's been a whole lot of extrapolation on dogma, so that now you hear this is doctrine, that is doctrine, when it comes to things such as women in the priesthood, homosexuality, and abortion, but I recall that all dogma is contained in the Nicene Creed and these other things are matters of personal conscience that each of us is supposed to take individual responsibility for and accept the consequences, good or bad, if we're right or if we're wrong.

[ThoughtCriminal]

23. So .. He's OK with Pontius Pilate?

What role-model for the GOP!

[TwilightGardener]

24. By his own logic, HE is Pontius Pilate.

[Ishoutandscream2]

16. And this guy is running for president

Unreal, only in America.

[kurth]

18. Jesus Supported Waterboarding

because he was silent on waterboarding?

What an idiot.

[TwilightGardener]

21. Jesus supports EVERYTHING Amurka does. Don't you forget that.

[bunnies]

20. Cacabee scares the bajeezus out of me.

:scared:

[WCGreen]

25. Don't forgive them father for what they did...

Kill 'em all and we will sort it out later...

That would make me feel good pops...

[patrice]

29. Hey, acts are not necessary to Salvation, therefore, what you do

doesn't matter. "Faith" is ALL that is required.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

26. What's comical is that Jesus DID oppose capital punishment in the Gospels

It's not, as some would have it, that he never commented on the matter.

Stoning, as in the "cast the first stone" story, was a formal method of execution.

So we know exactly what he would say about, for instance, the electric chair... "let him who is without sin throw the switch."

And he would say, "let the nation that is without sin drop the first bomb."

[TwilightGardener]

27. LOL! I forgot about that! He STOPPED capital punishment!

[patrice]

31. I thought his answer to that question and the way they all laughed

was one of the most disgusting things I ever heard. We're talking about CAPITOL PUNISHMENT here!!! One of the saddest experiences there is. How???!! could a Christian man make a joke out of it!!!!???!!!