The NYT has written a long piece of Mike Huckabee. [1] Who is he?
Huckabee is an admirer of the late Jerry Falwell (whose son, Jerry Jr., recently endorsed his candidacy) and subscribes wholeheartedly to the principles of the Moral Majority. He also affirms the Baptist Faith and Message statement: ‘‘The Holy Bible . . . has truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter. Therefore, all Scripture is totally true and trustworthy.’’
Huckabee says he believes that the next president of the United States will have to lead Western civilization in a worldwide conflict with radical Islam.
He spent a year at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Tex., before dropping out to work for the televangelist James Robison, who bought him his first decent wardrobe and showed him how to use television.
As indicated by Alternet, [2] the fact that Huckabee dropped out of the seminary doesn’t keep him from claiming that he has a theology degree:
About a month ago, Republican presidential candidates were trying to position themselves as the best suited to combat global terrorism. Giuliani pointed to 9/11, McCain pointed to his military service several decades ago, and Mike Huckabee pointed to his ministerial training.
“I think I’m stronger than most people because I truly understand the nature of the war that we are in with Islamo fascism,” Huckabee told the Christian Broadcasting Network. “These are people that want to kill us. It’s a theocratic war. And I don’t know if anybody fully understands that. I’m the only guy on that stage with a theology degree. I think I understand it really well.”
Now, on its face, it’s a pretty unpersuasive pitch. After all, how much could Huckabee have learned at the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in the 1970s about 21st-century fundamentalist Islam? Probably not much.
But as it turns out,the theology-degree claim may be more than unconvincing; it may also be false.
Alternet published this email that Joe Carter, Huckabee’s research director, recently sent to Jim Geraghty of the National Review:
Jim, Governor Huckabee doesn’t have a theology degree. He only spent a year in seminary.
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