We already know that Mike Huckabee has endorsed John Hagee, calling the man who says the Holocaust is God’s punishment against the Jews for crucifying Jesus (erm, the Romans did that) “one of the great Christian leaders of our nation.” But thanks to the Cincinnati Beacon (December 16, 2007), we know now that Huckabee’s connections extend to other bizarre corners of fundamentalist Christianity. As Governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee promoted the idea of taking Bill Gothard’s Institute in Basic Life Principles and expanding it into state-supported juvenile rehabilitation programs. Bill Gothard has taken a letter of endorsement from Mike Huckabee and used it to get his programs initiated in a variety of communities across the nation with local governmental funding.
Problem is that Bill Gothard’s programs include a stance against women working outside the home, crazy notions about Cabbage Patch dolls being the source of deviant behavior and modern medicine killing people, and a discipline program that includes beating children until they are bruised and welted. When the beatings don’t shove Jesus into kids, the next step is to lock them in closets for days, sitting in puddles of their own urine.
This is the program that Mike Huckabee endorsed. This is the Institute that Mike Huckabee tried to get expanded into the Arkansas social service infrastructure.
If Mike Huckabee becomes your next president, what does he have in store for you?
(Source: Cincinnati Beacon, December 16 2007)
Not quite.
Don’t forget, the charge against Jesus was blasphemy–against Jewish, not Roman religion. There was a trial of sorts by the Jewish Sanhedrin, controlled by the Sadducees, a particularly nasty bunch.
The Roman in charge, Pontius Pilate, first tried to release Jesus and execute Barrabas the murderer instead, since releasing a prisoner was the custom for a public holiday, but the crowd demanded Barabbas released instead. Pilate publicly ‘washed his hands’ of the matter.
One of the four Gospels (not all) has the Sadducees saying “his blood be on us and all our descendents” in order to convince the Romans to execute Jesus. Obviously this is the biblical verse that causes all the problems. This is the phrase that was removed from Mel Gibson’s Passion of Christ in the English subtitles, but left intact in the Amharic dialogue–and Arabic is similar enough to Amharic that Arab audiences would have no doubt of the meaning–that Jewish leaders found so deeply offensive.
Evidence for blaming the Romans? Some scholars have the Sadducees saying they had to bring Jesus to the Romans because it was not legal for them to carry out executions themselves, but this question of what they could do under Roman law has been disputed since they are reported to have later carried out the stoning of Stephen on their own authority.
But anyway, the very fact that Jesus ever lived, much less was executed in a certain way, has never been established with any historical evidence independent of Christian believers and the Bible.
For that matter, the very fact that Romans ever existed has never been established with any historical evidence independent of the Roman Empire–if there ever was such a thing.
Actually, Iroquois, that’s bullshit. Plenty of other cultures recorded the Romans, with evidence persisting to this day. No other cultural tradition recorded the existence of Jesus. There’s no evidence Jesus is anything but a legend like Robin Hood.
WHO recorded Romans? Tacitus? Nope, he was Roman–so-called. Livy, then? No. Roman. Primary sources Augustus, Velleius Paterculus, Seneca the Elder–all Romans and must be disqualified. We know those Romans did nothing but lie, lie, lie, and we cannot even think of looking at anything written by them–if they had actually existed of course.
That’s the sort of argument that should really really convince people like Huckabee and Hagee, or even people who are just thinking about listening to them, to say nothing of all those so-called Jewish leaders who are so bent out of shape about someone who wasn’t killed by people who never existed.
I am so glad to see this photo of Huckabee with Bill Gothard! Mike Huckabee is GREAT!!!!
So, Ruth, you don’t think that women should be allowed to work outside the home? Is the idea that you think makes Mike Huckabee’s presidential campaign so great?