I Am Appalled.

One thing that really eats me up with all the critics in the election (all of them, not just critics of Huckabee, they just triggered this post), is the misdirected refutation. I was listening to a talk radio show earlier called, “The American View“, and one of the things I noticed was that they seemed to think there was only one American view. I understand being and absolutist, but there’s a difference between there only being one way to heaven, and there only being one way to view America, or to view the Constitution, or to view a policy. But that’s a side note. What I really wanted to address is some of the things they said against Huckabee in this broadcast. They took clips of Huckabee’s interview with Tim Russert on Meet the Press and they critiqued it. I want to look at some of the things they said. Some of it absolutely appalled me. Not because they were critiquing a the candidate I’m supporting, but because of the way they did it, it was a beautiful example of miss-the-mark refutation, and a display of narrow mindedness. It was such a bad witness. 

If somebody says they are a Christian, and they believe in these certain values, don’t tell them they are not. These talk show hosts insinuated that Huckabee was not a Christian by saying, “If you are a Christian you understand these things. And he doesn’t get it.” You may not agree with his policies, and that’s fine. That’s your right. But just because you don’t think his ideas advance the values he’s claiming doesn’t mean that he’s lying when he says he values that. It just means you have different ideas about how to uphold that value. Just because he answers the question differently than you think you would have doesn’t mean that he’s not a Christian. The talk show hosts started talking about the scripture in which Jesus says, “if you don’t confess me before men”, and they actually tried to convince the audience that Huckabee “ran away” from professing Christ because he tried to take the attention off of the fact that he was a pastor and put it onto the fact that he was a governor for longer. He wasn’t running from Christ. He was redirecting the conversation back to the reason the conversation was even happening: the Presidency. He’s running for President of the United States, not pastor of the United States.

The communication on this talk show was horrible.  I don’t know about you, but I’m thinking it’s probably not a good witness to be comparing a professing Christian to a snake charmer because he is a smooth speaker and he can answer the question without offending people. 

Huckabee was talking about how he gets asked the God question a lot, and how he wishes that didn’t always come up, and the talk show hosts were trying to convince their audience that those are wonderful opportunities for Huckabee to “give a thirty minute sermon”. (Now I understand that the 30 minutes was sarcastic.) But the thought that every question about God is an opportunity for a sermon is just false. It’s a platform, not a pulpit. There’s a difference. A big one. I applaud Huckabee for NOT giving a sermon every time somebody asks a question about God. You cannot do that as President of the United States and expect to win respect of other countries’ leaders, especially ones that disagree with you. Again, he’s not running to be the pastor of the United States, he’s running to be the President of the United States. That being said, I think Huckabee should expect to be asked those questions, he is the only preacher up there, so naturally the questions will go to him. (That doesn’t make it right, but it’s reality.)

When asked about his quote from his book on homosexuality, and told that it could be perceived as him trying to push his faith on other people, Huckabee responded “It’s not a faith issue, it’s deeper than that.” Their response was, “What? It’s deeper than a spiritual issue? Nothing is deeper than a spiritual issue.” Two logical fallacies in that.

1.) Straw Man fallacy: (Twisting the argument and attacking the twisted argument) He said “faith” issue, not “spiritual” issue. There’s a difference. The twisted the his point and then attacked it. Faith doesn’t equal spiritual. I have faith in the Constitution. It is definitely not a spiritual issue. Your convictions don’t always translate into the spiritual realm. 

2.) Second logical fallacy: Equivocation. (Changing the meaning of a word in the middle of an argument) Huckabee was finding the most common ground with as many people as possible. His point was that it’s not wrong because his religion said so, it’s wrong because at a human level it’s violating a right, a natural order, etc. When Huckabee said “faith” he was referring to religion, not “values”, “God”, or “the substance of things not seen”.

I don’t have a problem with people who disagree with me, or a candidate I support. Go for it. You have that right. But don’t attack their character because you don’t like their policies. Not only is that a bad witness. It’s also unethical. Can you say “ad hominem”?

 

Oooh, look, another fallacy.

 

I’m not saying everything the hosts said was false, or wrong (though a large percentage of it was). But the way the presented it made me ashamed to be associated with them as a Christian. It’s not enough to be right. You have to be able to present it. Professionally. And making judgements about a person’s commitment to Christ because you disagree with their policies or the way they answered the question is not it.