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There are no stupid questions…
…but there are plenty of embarrassingly revealing ones, as demonstrated in this Mike Huckabee moment:
I asked Huckabee, who describes himself as the only Republican candidate with a degree in theology, if he considered Mormonism a cult or a religion. ‘‘I think it’s a religion,’’ he said. ‘‘I really don’t know much about it.’’
I was about to jot down this piece of boilerplate when Huckabee surprised me with a question of his own: ‘‘Don’t Mormons,’’ he asked in an innocent voice, ‘‘believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?’’
This is Mitt Romney’s fault, naturally, and not for simply being a Mormon with the temerity to run for president. If only Romney had more forthrightly and courageously explained the tenets of his faith to the populace when he had the chance, Huckabee could have taken copious notes and so avoided sounding like…well, like most of us in this country. That is, non-Mormon Americans who know little of the religion outside of what they learned from the latest episode of Big Love.
I’m kidding about Romney here (a little). Though he did pass up a rare opportunity to address the aspect of his candidacy that seems to concern many voters, each person owns his or her own ignorance and is alone responsible for remedying it. The take-home point is simple: Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minister, doesn’t even know what he doesn’t know about other people’s faiths, and that makes touting the superiority of one’s own faith a dangerous practice.
Actually, that’s a lesson to be heeded even by people not running for president.
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“Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minister, doesn’t even know what he doesn’t know about other people’s faiths…”
Slightly OT, but I once attended a backwater redneck (yes, redundant, I know) Baptist funeral, and I walked away thinking that one didn’t need to know a whole lot to be an ordained Baptist minister. I’d never been to anything quite like it.
This was supposed to be a funeral, a service of comfort, etc., but all he talked about at length was, I suspect, all he knew: gotta get yourself saved. I’ve been to religious — and Baptist — funerals before, and none of them offered as the funeral service a sermon on getting saved. None.
Another clue that this preacher was clueless came when the service was closed out with one of the deceased’s favorite songs. I don’t remember which song it was, but I remember the performer: Pink Floyd.
Another clue that this preacher was clueless came when the service was closed out with one of the deceased’s favorite songs. I don’t remember which song it was, but I remember the performer: Pink Floyd.
Get out. Really?
That’s utterly surreal.
I’ve been to a few Baptist funerals myself, and don’t recall gittin’ saved as the main theme of the sermon. Interesting.