Huckabee defends admitted child molester

[pbrower2a]

His judgment of human character is just horrible.

Any good cabinet picks by him would be pure luck.

[pbrower2a]

Believing in redemption is scandalous.  It has always been thus.

It's fine to believe in redemption, but Huckabee goes out of his way to defend these people solely because of their Christianity. I don't believe he would be talking about redemption if this were some random child molester.


Yes, there is nothing wrong with redemption.  Being a Christian means hoping that all might one day be redeemed.  When it comes to child sex crimes and premeditated murderers, however, the perpetrators will have to seek redemption in the next world.  Not because they are inherently irredeemable, but because of public safety.    

Redemption doesn't mean that you don't have to face legal penalties.  It means that you are not defined by what you did, that you are not forever judged for it as being unworthy of respect and incapable of goodness.  If you do not believe that people can change and learn and grow from what they did in their youth, then you do not believe in redemption.

Redemption is not without a price -- namely, taking the worldly penalties (including shame, pain, imprisonment, and financial ruin) that one accepts if redemption is genuine.

A murderer is still a murderer in our world. A thief is still a thief in our world. A rapist is still a rapist in our world. If one accepts Christianity as true, then even being burned at the stake is a minor payment for eternal salvation.

[pbrower2a]

Believing in redemption is scandalous.  It has always been thus.

It's fine to believe in redemption, but Huckabee goes out of his way to defend these people solely because of their Christianity. I don't believe he would be talking about redemption if this were some random child molester.


Yes, there is nothing wrong with redemption.  Being a Christian means hoping that all might one day be redeemed.  When it comes to child sex crimes and premeditated murderers, however, the perpetrators will have to seek redemption in the next world.  Not because they are inherently irredeemable, but because of public safety.    

Redemption doesn't mean that you don't have to face legal penalties.  It means that you are not defined by what you did, that you are not forever judged for it as being unworthy of respect and incapable of goodness.  If you do not believe that people can change and learn and grow from what they did in their youth, then you do not believe in redemption.

Redemption is not without a price -- namely, taking the worldly penalties (including shame, pain, imprisonment, and financial ruin) that one accepts if redemption is genuine.

A murderer is still a murderer in our world. A thief is still a thief in our world. A rapist is still a rapist in our world. If one accepts Christianity as true, then even being burned at the stake is a minor payment for eternal salvation.

What kind of weird theology claims that being burned at the stake could be payment for salvation?  The idea that a person cannot be redeemed from sin if they do not suffer criminal penalties, or that they should live their entire lives being shamed by those around them for what they did completely misses the role of grace. Christianity is not "you deserve forgiveness if you suffer enough or what you did isn't that bad."

That is how the Inquisition operated. The heretic or non-Christian who repents of his 'sin' of identity is saved from far worse than any flames at a stake or being eaten alive by dogs (a Nazi horror done with no pretense of mercy.  The fault with such torment is that applying it is one of the sins (really CRIMES*) most difficult for God to forgive. (I am tempted to believe that God forgives the heretic or says "there is nothing to forgive" -- and condemns the Inquisitor.)
 
It is the value of eternal salvation that -- if one most fully believes -- that no torment in This World is excessive if it is necessary for salvation. Rarely does such torment prove necessary.

...God cannot pardon people in THIS WORLD from the honest, fair judgments of due process of law. Jesus never offered any get-out-of-jail-card to such overt criminals as thieves, rapists, and killers; such would have been a travesty of justice. It is the salvation from damnation for earthly sin.

*Sin can run the gamut of misdeeds from cutting in line (minor indulgence) to perpetrating the Holocaust. I remember a bakery in Texas that changed the "C" to "S" in "Cinnamon rolls", suggesting that a minor indulgence in life was worth "sinning" for.    

[pbrower2a]

A psychological explanation, page 90 (from a PDF of 200+ pages)

Do most people trust someone who seems to agree with them? Probably, but people differ enormously in gullibility. (People showing few right-wing authoritarian tendencies) are downright suspicious of someone who agrees with them when they can see ulterior motives might be at work. They pay attention to the circumstances in which the other fellow is operating. But (people with strong tendencies toward authoritarianism) do not, when they like the message.

Imagine a completely unethical, dishonest, power-hungry, dirt-bag, scum-bucket politician who will say whatever he has to say to get elected. ... Whom would he seek to lead, people with strong tendencies toward authoritarianism or people who have few authoritarian tendencies? Isn’t it obvious? The (gullible right-wing authoritarians) will open up their arms and wallets to you if you just sing their song, however poor your credibility. Those crabby non-authoritarian types, on the other hand, will eye you warily when your credibility is suspect because you sing their song?

So the scum-bucket politicians will usually head for the right-wing authoritarians, because the (right-wing authoritarians) hunger for social endorsement of their beliefs so much they’re apt to trust anyone who tells them they’re right. Heck, Adolf Hitler was elected Chancellor of Germany running on a law-and-order platform just a few years after he tried to overthrow the government through an armed insurrection.

You sometimes hear that paranoia runs at a gallop in “right-wingers”. But maybe you can see how that’s an oversimplification. Authoritarian followers are highly suspicious of their many out-groups; but they are credulous to the point of self-delusion when it comes to their in-groups. So (in another experiment the author ran) subjects were told a Christian Crusade was coming to town led by a TV evangelist. The evangelist (the subjects were further told), knowing that people would give more money at the end of the evening if he gave them the kind of service they liked, asked around to see what that might be.

Finding out that folks in your city liked a “personal testimonial” crusade, he gave them one featuring his own emotional testimonial to Jesus’ saving grace. How sincere do you think he was? Most subjects had their doubts, given the circumstances. But (right-wing authoritarians) almost always trusted him.


http://members.shaw.ca/jeanaltemeyer/drbob/TheAuthoritarians.pdf

My comment:

Mike Huckabee belongs gets his support from the gullible... but he has shown himself gullible, too. Such goes with the territory of right-wing authoritarianism: double standards in which affinity creates moral tolerability.

Should he be the Republican nominee, then Democrats will be able to Mike Huckabee FROM THE RIGHT on law and order. Liberals have largely abandoned the idea that criminals are good people who made bad choices; criminals are instead bad people who do exactly what one expects of bad people. 

[pbrower2a]

Liberals have largely abandoned the idea that criminals are good people who made bad choices; criminals are instead bad people who do exactly what one expects of bad people. 

This is literally the only thing that keeps me voting D. If the parties switched on this, I would never have a difficult choice of conscience in the polling booth ever again. For once, I hope you are right.

Liberals are much more likely to pay attention to mainstream psychology -- which the Right often considers a black art. It is far easier to explain crime with words like 'psychopath' or 'sociopath' than to speak of a 'poor misguided soul'. Most people, even denizens of the worst hell-holes of urban deprivation, avoid doing crime.

[pbrower2a]

Believing in redemption is scandalous.  It has always been thus.

It's fine to believe in redemption, but Huckabee goes out of his way to defend these people solely because of their Christianity. I don't believe he would be talking about redemption if this were some random child molester.


Yes, there is nothing wrong with redemption.  Being a Christian means hoping that all might one day be redeemed.  When it comes to child sex crimes and premeditated murderers, however, the perpetrators will have to seek redemption in the next world.  Not because they are inherently irredeemable, but because of public safety.    

Redemption doesn't mean that you don't have to face legal penalties.  It means that you are not defined by what you did, that you are not forever judged for it as being unworthy of respect and incapable of goodness.  If you do not believe that people can change and learn and grow from what they did in their youth, then you do not believe in redemption.

Redemption is not without a price -- namely, taking the worldly penalties (including shame, pain, imprisonment, and financial ruin) that one accepts if redemption is genuine.

A murderer is still a murderer in our world. A thief is still a thief in our world. A rapist is still a rapist in our world. If one accepts Christianity as true, then even being burned at the stake is a minor payment for eternal salvation.

What kind of weird theology claims that being burned at the stake could be payment for salvation?  The idea that a person cannot be redeemed from sin if they do not suffer criminal penalties, or that they should live their entire lives being shamed by those around them for what they did completely misses the role of grace. Christianity is not "you deserve forgiveness if you suffer enough or what you did isn't that bad."

For the unbeliever, Christ is nothing more than a new Kevin Trudeau, promising something too good to be true.  Works-based plans of salvation make more sense to people at one level, and I include many folks who profess to be "Christians" in this because it seems unfair that a murderer/child molester, or someone as awful as a Hitler or a Stalin could have a deathbed revelation and truly accept Christ and receive an eternal reward and be forever in the same Heaven that a "good person" goes to.  The real attraction to works-based plans of salvation is that it seems to offer folks some control over their eternity.  ("I can be good and make the cut!") 

I recall seeing an account an incident related to the trial of Adolf Eichmann. A Christian evangelist went to Jerusalem. A Jew asked what the evangelist was there to save, and the evangelist replied "Eichmann".

The same Jew asked, "but what of all my relatives that he killed?"

The evangelist said, "They are in Hell for not accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior".

Another Jew said, "So I will be content to go to Hell where my relatives are, and you can be with your pervert forever!"

... All in all I find the Jewish promise of Heaven to all righteous people far more satisfying for humanity as a whole than any credal toadying limited to any single culture. That is a far better hope than almost any other religion can offer.

[pbrower2a]

Believing in redemption is scandalous.  It has always been thus.

It's fine to believe in redemption, but Huckabee goes out of his way to defend these people solely because of their Christianity. I don't believe he would be talking about redemption if this were some random child molester.


Yes, there is nothing wrong with redemption.  Being a Christian means hoping that all might one day be redeemed.  When it comes to child sex crimes and premeditated murderers, however, the perpetrators will have to seek redemption in the next world.  Not because they are inherently irredeemable, but because of public safety.    

Redemption doesn't mean that you don't have to face legal penalties.  It means that you are not defined by what you did, that you are not forever judged for it as being unworthy of respect and incapable of goodness.  If you do not believe that people can change and learn and grow from what they did in their youth, then you do not believe in redemption.

Redemption is not without a price -- namely, taking the worldly penalties (including shame, pain, imprisonment, and financial ruin) that one accepts if redemption is genuine.

A murderer is still a murderer in our world. A thief is still a thief in our world. A rapist is still a rapist in our world. If one accepts Christianity as true, then even being burned at the stake is a minor payment for eternal salvation.

What kind of weird theology claims that being burned at the stake could be payment for salvation?  The idea that a person cannot be redeemed from sin if they do not suffer criminal penalties, or that they should live their entire lives being shamed by those around them for what they did completely misses the role of grace. Christianity is not "you deserve forgiveness if you suffer enough or what you did isn't that bad."

For the unbeliever, Christ is nothing more than a new Kevin Trudeau, promising something too good to be true.  Works-based plans of salvation make more sense to people at one level, and I include many folks who profess to be "Christians" in this because it seems unfair that a murderer/child molester, or someone as awful as a Hitler or a Stalin could have a deathbed revelation and truly accept Christ and receive an eternal reward and be forever in the same Heaven that a "good person" goes to.  The real attraction to works-based plans of salvation is that it seems to offer folks some control over their eternity.  ("I can be good and make the cut!") 

I recall seeing an account an incident related to the trial of Adolf Eichmann. A Christian evangelist went to Jerusalem. A Jew asked what the evangelist was there to save, and the evangelist replied "Eichmann".

The same Jew asked, "but what of all my relatives that he killed?"

The evangelist said, "They are in Hell for not accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior".

Another Jew said, "So I will be content to go to Hell where my relatives are, and you can be with your pervert forever!"

... All in all I find the Jewish promise of Heaven to all righteous people far more satisfying for humanity as a whole than any credal toadying limited to any single culture. That is a far better hope than almost any other religion can offer.

1. This never happened
2. This is a total misrepresentation of Christianity
3. This is actually a disgusting post on the level of Snowstalker

I read the story... I forget where.

It's the evangelist who almost certainly misrepresented Christianity.

If there really is a hell, it is not so horrible because of any climatic extremes, offensive scenery, vile smells, or cacophonous sounds. It would be the souls there. Who'd want to be where Geoffrey Dahmer is?

 

[pbrower2a]

Child molestation is damnable and inexcusable. Children need to develop some wholesome trust in humanity as a whole, and child sexual abuse utterly destroys such trust.

Children of a certain age (latency) have no interest in sex. Sex can only hurt them; they cannot enjoy it. I think that we can all agree on this: adults must repress any urge to mess with a child sexually. This is an absolute, and there are no excuses.  Not alcohol or drugs, and certainly not religion.

[pbrower2a]

I'm probably digging myself into a hole here considering this forum, but it's a bit excusable for a 14 year old, especially one who was growing up in a household like this that doesn't know any better because of how closed off some topics must be. And honestly that goes for probably anyone of that age. Not denying the results can be horrific, but we're not talking about a 27 year old man doing this.

So it's excusable for a certain type of evangelical Christianity to so fundamentally ill prepare a teenager as to make that teenager think it's okay to molest girls and for the family to think it's okay to deal with such matters 'internally'?

If that's the case, then their faith is worth f-ck all.

Have you ever counseled a parent whose child has committed sexual abuse?

I can imagine the contradictions of guilt and denial.

Fundamentalist Christians can be good people -- so long as they toe the line consistently. But if I were a brilliant girl brought up as Rachel Dolezal was I would find some way to escape through some cultural rebellion.  There are so many tempting alternatives -- from secularism to alternative expressions of fundamentalism (in the latter, Islam is the most blatant. alternative to Christian fundamentalism).

Her big rebellion was not in cutting ties to the white race; her rebellion was in finding secularism. 

That is the safest. But in view of the fundamentalist view that humanity is inherently depraved I can understand some of the more dangerous forms of rebellion -- like the depravity of crime, including sex offenses.