Huckabee's Dangerous Associations

Mike Huckabee's associations with extremists are now coming to light.  I'll talk about a few here.  Let's start with Bill Gothard.

Matthew Murray, the killer of several persons at two Christian centers in Colorado recently, was homeschooled* in a family that followed the teachings of one Bill Gothard. http://www.denverpost.com/ci_7...    

Murray wrote before his killing spree:

I am 22 years old and I was raised in Bill Gothard's homeschool program all the way through high school. I went to both the Basic and Advanced Seminars. My Mother was fully into both Bill Gothard's programs AND the Charismatic movement.
What I found were all these other rules Irealized I could never live up to, yet, the man seemed to have a biblical basis for everything. In Februrary 2001 at age 17 I plunged into a dark suicidal depression all because I thought I had lost my "salvation" and somehow couldn't live up to the rules. Every single hour of every single day, up until October 2001 I thought about ways of suicide and hating myself for not being worthy enough and failing God.
"Me, I remember the beatings and the fighting and yelling and insane rules and all the Bill Gothard (expletive) and then trancing out . (expletive) . I'm still tranced out." [sic]

Here is some of the wisdom of Bill Gothard.

G求 Suggests that a man keep track of his wife's menstrual cycle and use it as a reminder of the sufferings and death of Jesus,
G求 Tells married couples to abstain from physical relations during the wife's menstrual cycle, seven days after the cycles, and the evening prior to worship.
G求 Does not believe a divorce can take place for any reason whatsoever.
G求 In 1986, he taught that the highly popular Cabbage Patch Dolls were causing strange and destructive behavior in children that could only be alleviated when the dolls were removed or destroyed.   In a letter from his organization, his followers were told that to enter into a written agreement to love a doll was a violation of the First Commandment. The threat as seen by Gothard was that by adopting a doll, children might not want to raise up their own godly children.  His newsletter claimed that in two situations the existence of Cabbage Patch and Troll dolls in the home effectively prevented the mothers from giving birth.  Once the offending toys were removed from the homes, the women were able to successfully give birth. The "cleansing of the home from evil influences," was credited to the attending midwives committed to Gothard's teaching.
G求 New parents of an adopted child must research the sins of the "biological parents," confessing them and casting the consequences off the child.
G求 Unless they have parental consent, adult single children should remain at home
G求 Wanted to wipe out contemporary Christian music, believing it would undermine parent's authority and lead to a "life of sin," namely drugs and immorality.
G求 Under no circumstances are we to borrow money or buy on credit.
G求 In his books provides information on how women are to select makeup and choose colors that enhance skin tone, how to choose a hair style, how to wear accessories and the place of accents on the clothing as well as how to stand (with illustrations) and why to avoid any slits in the skirt.
G求 Opposes women working outside the home
G求 Opposes business partnerships
G求 Teaches that God deliberately made people with deformities in order to glorify Himself.
G求 Encourages pregnant mothers to read the Bible to the embryos in their wombs for the purpose of relaxing the embryo and for teaching it Biblical truth
G求 Young people must allow their authorities to determine whom they will marry, and that God can bless no marriage if it goes against parental counsel
G求 Opposes dating: "through the deception of dating, Satan is able to reduce the fruitfulness of one's ministry both in singleness and in marriage."  Apparently, single people spend too much time pairing off and enjoying companionship with members of the opposite sex.  Hence, when they marry, they may soon get bored and "neglect the responsibilities of marriage to enjoy the benefits of singleness."
G求 In Gothard's booklet Establishing Biblical Standards of Courtship, there is a page for sons and daughters to cut out, which is a covenant they sign with their fathers to "... demonstrate your commitment to God's plan for courtship instead of man's philosophy of dating. ..." The young person must say to his or her father, "I will wait for your full release before entering into marriage." The father, in turn, tells his daughter that "I will protect you from unqualified men." To his son the father says, "I will protect you from strange women."  This covenant is "between a father and a son as witnessed by the Lord Jesus Christ," and must be signed by the child, the father, and the family's pastor.

Note:  Gothard has remained unmarried and has no children.  He has been charged with fondling women and admitted that his brother had "confessed to deception and fornication with several women."  It is estimated that over 2.5 million people have attended his seminars.  

Gothard's "ITC" program was described in this newspaper article thusly:

http://www.rickross.com/refere...

Inside a converted 300-room hotel, the prayer closet is a little room where kids are taken when they disobey staff at the Indianapolis Training Center (ITC). Once locked inside, the misbehaving youths are forced to sit and pray to Jesus, sometimes for days at a time. Some juvenile ITC residents have said the evangelical Christian teens and young adults who staffed the center sometimes forbade them from going to the bathroom, forcing them to sit in their own urine for hours. Some have complained of beatings with paddles by untrained staff that left bruises and welts. When not in isolation, the kids are forced to march and chant and pray, with gospel music playing almost constantly.

So how well does Huckabee know Gothard?  According to this newspaper article, Huckabee is a long time admirer of Gothard.
http://groups.google.com/group...  Allegedly, there is a Mike Huckabee letter of recommendation attached to one of Gothard's programs, but I have not been able to find a copy online yet.  http://www.charactercouncil.or...

The ITC article tells how Gothard has his hooks into Jeb Bush and his ignorant older brother George W.  Well, that's enough on Mr. Gothard.

Huckabee's extremist associations were recently criticized by Robert Novak.  

Huckabee's base is reflected by sponsors of Tuesday's fundraising luncheon (requesting up to $4,600 a couple) at the Houston home of Steven Hotze, a leader in the highly conservative Christian Reconstruction movement.

According to the Houston Chronicle, "Hotze has worked for years for government to be run according to the Bible."
 http://www.chron.com/disp/stor...

Here's another dangerous friend.  According to Truth Wins Out:

http://www.truthwinsout.org/ne...

In 1998, Mike Huckabee co-wrote the book, "Kids Who Kill" with Reconstructionist author George Grant. Grant is an ideologue with extreme, even dangerous religious views. The question is, does the former Arkansas governor share Grant's view of the role of Christianity in government? This passage is from Grant's 1987 book "The Changing of the Guard" (Ft. Worth, TX: Dominion Press, 1987), pp. 50-51.

"Christians have an obligation, a mandate, a commission, a holy responsibility to reclaim the land for Jesus Christ - to have dominion in the civil structures, just as in every other aspect of life and godliness. But it is dominion that we are after. Not just a voice. It is dominion we are after. Not just influence. It is dominion we are after. Not just equal time. It is dominion we are after. World conquest. That's what Christ has commissioned us to accomplish."

I've written way too much here.  I could have discussed, for example, the pictured Dr. Leininger, called the Sugar Daddy of the Christian Right.  http://www.tfn.org/files/fck/S...  

Leininger is a heavy supporter of voucher programs, which should be a line of questioning for reporters looking at Huckabee.

I'll try to look at more of Huckabee's friends at a later date.

Editorial note: some materials gathered from http://www.pfo.org/evol-fad.htm;  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B... http://www.rapidnet.com/~jbear...

[* Note: I am not opposed to "traditional" homeschooling, which members of my family have used]

Comments