Huckabee: Spiritual ebb, gunfire linked
The nation’s spiritual decline is a key factor behind last weekend’s mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, as well as a string of gun deaths in Chicago, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said last week.
Some Republican politicians have drawn criticism for promising “thoughts and prayers,” instead of legislative solutions, every time there’s a shooting.
In his email, Huckabee suggested that those critics have it wrong.
“In fact, amid all the finger-pointing and blame-laying and repulsive attempts to turn these tragedies to political advantage before the bodies are even cold, I would posit that the lack of thought and prayers is probably the single biggest factor in what is behind them,” he stated.
Huckabee, who hosts a program on the Trinity Broadcasting Network, has previously portrayed gun violence as a spiritual problem.
Addressing a pastor’s conference in Salt Lake City on the eve of the 1998 Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting, Huckabee said a spate of deadly school shootings, including one near Jonesboro, had been driven by “the winds of spiritual change in a nation that has forgotten its God.”
Other evangelical leaders have also seen a link between declining spirituality and a rising tide of violence.
After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, televangelist Jerry Falwell blamed secularism and a host of other foes for the al-Qaida strikes.
“I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way — all of them who have tried to secularize America — I point the finger in their face and say, ‘You helped this happen.”’
After comments from then-President George W. Bush and others, Falwell backtracked, telling CNN: “I would never blame any human being except the terrorists, and if I left that impression with gays or lesbians or anyone else, I apologize.”
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