March 19, 2007
The Second Commandment Republicans
by Joe Klein
TIME
The weakness of modern religion is its obsession with sin, G.K. Chesterton once observed. "A modern morality," he wrote, "can only point with absolute conviction to the horrors that follow breaches of the law." And so it has been with the religious conservatives who have overwhelmed the latter-day Republican Party. For preachers like Jerry Falwell, James Dobson and Pat Robertson, the prospect of hell has always been far more vivid than the possibility of heaven. Presidential candidates like Robertson, Pat Buchanan and Gary Bauer have loaded up on the "Thou Shalt Nots" and rarely, if ever, mentioned the grace and serenity that come from doing "for the least of these."
But there is a striking change in the 2008 Republican presidential field. There are two candidates with strong religious credentials, Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas and former Governor Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, and both spend far more time talking about good works than about sin, although each has the requisite positions on abortion and gay marriage. Indeed, it was Huckabee who reminded me of Chesterton's lament. "I'm a 'grace' Christian," Huckabee told me over lunch recently, "not a 'law' Christian. The Second Commandment--do unto others--is the basic tenet of my faith. And so I believe that life begins at conception, but I don't believe it ends at birth. I believe we have a responsibility to feed the hungry, to provide a good education, a safe neighborhood, health care ... That's why I talk so much about the need for music and art programs in our schools. I know some conservatives think it's foolish, but I just believe it's necessary to build whole, creative individuals."
Huckabee is a political inconvenience, a destroyer of stereotypes. He is probably best known as the fellow who lost 100 lbs. in a year, and made living well through exercise and good nutrition one of his signature issues as Governor. But the real significance of Huckabee--and, to a lesser extent, Brownback--is that he represents the introduction of a new constituency into the political process: "Second Commandment" Christians, those more interested in salvation than damnation, people like the California pastor Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life. Huckabee says, "Our church in Little Rock is very similar to Rick Warren's. We've gone from 25 members to about 5,000 in eight years. Our focus has been to minister to people who were otherwise neglected. We built a ministry center before we even had a sanctuary. We held our services in warehouses until a year or two ago." The center contains a range of faith-based initiatives: welfare to work, job training, programs for recovering alcoholics and drug addicts, a food bank. "We are a multicultural, multiracial congregation, with rich and poor," Huckabee says. "I play the bass in the Praise band."
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