I remember when I finally learned the difference between liking someone and loving them. It was one of the most liberating truths I’ve ever learned. As Christians, we are commanded to love everyone, but nowhere are we commanded to like those that we love. I love everyone, but there are a lot of people that I simply don’t like. I don’t mean that I have any ill-will toward them, but only that I’ll never invite them over to my house for supper. 

Mike Huckabee is someone that I love, but don’t like. This former Governor of Arkansas and GOP presidential candidate, is also a former Southern Baptist pastor, who traded his pulpit for political office and stump speeches. Now, I can’t say that he has sinned in doing so, because I don’t know his heart, but I can certainly say that he, like everyone else who has ever stepped down from the pulpit into politics, has been soiled by it. 

Granted, Mike Huckabee is now on a 56-city tour to promote his new book, he has his own television show on Fox, and was even one of the featured speakers at last week’s CPAC Convention. Yet, what price is this preacher paying for his newfound notoriety? Has he, like Dr. Faust, sold his soul for the price of political clout? 

Permit me to illustrate what I’m talking about. During the presidential campaign, Mike Huckabee was asked in a CNN/You Tube debate “what Jesus would do” about capital punishment. Huckabee answered, “Jesus was too smart to run for public office. That’s what Jesus would do.” Although his answer won him the biggest laugh of the night, I found it no laughing matter. 

To me, Governor Huckabee’s answer did a horrible disservice to the Word of God, since the Bible clearly teaches that if a man “sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed” (Genesis 9:6). By opting for a laugh from the debate’s audience rather than informing it that Jesus was already on record as having spoken clearly on the subject, this former pastor now turned politician did what most politicians would, but what no true preacher of the Gospel ever should. While Mr. Huckabee’s response to this political hot potato was certainly politically expedient, it was also completely spiritually unedifying. 

There is simply no way for a preacher to become a politician, at least not a successful politician, without being soiled by it. As it has been aptly observed, “Politics is a dirty business.” The political stump speech and the pulpit sermon are world’s apart, and no one can go from one to the other without being drastically changed. The world of the prophet—not a false prophet, but the true prophet of God—and that of the politician—not a true statesman, but your typical modern-day politician—are worlds apart. They are mutually exclusive and in many ways diametrically opposed to one another. For instance, consider the following:

1. The preacher is someone who deals in truth, no matter how unpopular it makes him. A politician is someone who for political expediency’s sake deals in lies, never coming any closer to the truth than a half-truth. 


2. The preacher tells the congregation the truths that they need to hear, no matter how much it jeopardizes his pulpit or his pastorate. The politician is someone who tells the electorate the lies that they want to hear in order to secure for himself political office.  


3. Whereas the preacher’s sermons are based on the eternal and never-changing Word of God, the politician’s stump speeches are based on the latest in a never-ending line of ever-changing public opinion polls.


4. To the preacher, compromise is a vice for which he must answer to God. To the politician, compromise is a virtue without which it is impossible to govern.


5. The preacher must always sacrifice pragmatism for principle, never believing that the ends justify the means. On the other hand, the politician frequently sacrifices principle for pragmatism, always believing that the ends justify the means.

Swapping the pulpit sermon for the political stump speech? God forbid! Compromising the truth in order to win an election? Never! Soiled by dirty politics rather than sanctified by Christ for His use in the world today? Don’t be preposterous!