Mike Huckabee - A Hypocritical Southern Baptist?

From Fox News South Carolina Debate Transcript:

CAMERON: Governor Huckabee, to change the subject a little bit and focus a moment on electability. Back in 1998, you were one of about 100 people who affirmed, in a full-page ad in the "New York Times," the Southern Baptist Convention's declaration that, quote, "A wife us to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband." Women voters in both parties harshly criticized that. Is that position politically viable in the general election of 2008, sir?

HUCKABEE: You know, it's interesting, everybody says religion is off limits, except we always can ask me the religious questions. So let me try to do my best to answer it. (APPLAUSE) And since -- if we're really going to have a religious service, I'd really feel more comfortable if I could pass the plates, because our campaign could use the money tonight, Carl.

First of all, if anybody knows my wife, I don't think they for one minute think that she's going to just sit by and let me do whatever I want to. That would be an absolute total misunderstanding of Janet Huckabee. The whole context of that passage -- and, by the way, it really was spoken to believers, to Christian believers. I'm not the least bit ashamed of my faith or the doctrines of it. I don't try to impose that as a governor and I wouldn't impose it as a president. But I certainly am going to practice it unashamedly, whether I'm a president or whether I'm not a president. But the point...... the point, and it comes from a passage of scripture in the New Testament Book of Ephesians is that as wives submit themselves to the husbands, the husbands also submit themselves, and it's not a matter of one being somehow superior over the other. It's both mutually showing their affection and submission as unto the Lord.

So with all due respect, it has nothing to do with presidency. I just wanted to clear up that little doctrinal quirk there so that there's nobody who misunderstands that it's really about doing what a marriage ought to do and that's marriage is not a 50/50 deal, where each partner gives 50 percent. Biblically, marriage is 100/100 deal. Each partner gives 100 percent of their devotion to the other and that's why marriage is an important institution, because it teaches us how to love. (APPLAUSE)

Based on the transcript, I agree 100% with Bruce Prescott who wrote that Mike Huckabee "deliberately lied about the interpretation of the SBC's Family Statement" at the debate last night in South Carolina.

As Prescott points out, the Southern Baptist Convention's 1998 Family Statement calls for a one-sided submission by the wife to the rule of her husband. Urging wives to "graciously submit" to their husbands, the Family Statement endorsed by Huckabee back in 1998 conveniently omits Ephesians 5:21 which begins with the statement "Submit yourselves to one another." Yet at last night's debate, Mike Huckabee clearly embraced Ephesians 5:21 and the concept of mutual submission - an egalitarian view completely out of step with those who embrace The Family Statement of Southern Baptist creed known as the Baptist Faith & Message 2000. The view of mutual submission was not embraced by the drafting committee of the Family Statement which Huckabee signed his name to. Committee member Dorothy Patterson declared that "When it comes to submitting to my husband even when he's wrong, I just do it. He is accountable to God." Another Southern Baptist, Reba Cobb of Louisville, noted that the language about wives submitting sends women "a terrible mixed message about what to do when a husband batters them" and leads some women to think they have no choice but to submit.

Just a few years ago, Russell Moore, theology dean and academic vice president at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary denounced the practice of "mutual submission." Touting "Biblical Patriarchy," Moore argued that evangelicals who practice "mutual submission" in marriage have been influenced by a "thoroughly feminized grassroots theology" which he says is "bubbling up" in academic and denominational life.

So, what's up Huck? Has your theology changed since 98? Or have you become another lying politician? Why did you purposefully misrepresent the Family Statement of the BFM2000? Perhaps it's because you realized that Patriarchy, eh complimentarianism, doesn't sell in the 21st century - even among Republicans in South Carolina?