Cracking Huckabee's Coded Language

The blogosphere and some of the mainstream news media are abuzz trying to decipher what Mike Huckabee meant at a campaign stop a couple days ago when he said,

"I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution. But I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God. And that's what we need to do is amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than trying to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view of how we treat each other and how we treat the family."

He's saying a lot more than the average evangelical realizes.

The average evangelical might assume that Huckabee is merely talking about a constitutional amendment to prohibit gay marriages. James Dobson and others have been advocating that for the past few years.

What the typical evangelical doesn't realize is that Huckabee's wording also sends a coded message to the storm troopers of the Religious Right -- the Christian Reconstructionists.

Most evangelicals believe in democracy. Christian Reconstructionists don't. Reconstructionists are militant biblicists. In their eyes, the law of Moses -- every jot and tittle of it -- is God's blueprint for every society, for all time. In their eyes, before the Pilgrims landed or John Winthrop ever set sail, God chose this nation to be "a city set on a hill" -- meaning a Christian Bible theocracy. They are determined to restore America to its Puritan roots -- by force of law and politics, or by force of arms, if necessary.

I'm not saying Mike Huckabee is a Christian Reconstructionist. Technically, he's not. Like Paul Pressler, who recently attended a Houston fundraiser for Huckabee's campaign at the home of Reconstructionist Steven Hotze, Huckabee is a pre-millenialist. Reconstructionists are post-millenialists.

No, I'm not saying Mike Huckabee is a Christian Reconstructionist. I am saying that he's sending coded signals to them. Signals that will convince Christian Reconstructionists that he's a man who could help them set up their theocracy.

Talk about making the Constitution conform to the Bible is like striking a match to the kindling for a fire. What it will consume is our pluralistic democracy.