Huckabee Declines New Baptist Covenant Invite Over Carter Comments
Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee withdrew his participation from a 2008 Baptist convocation in disappointment of former president Jimmy Carter's recent controversial remarks on President George W. Bush.
Huckabee was one of three recently invited Republican politicians added to the speaker line-up for the New Baptist Covenant Celebration – a broad Baptist meeting in America part of a new initiative to counter the "negative" Baptist image and demonstrate Baptist unity around social concerns. The effort for a new Baptist voice was spearheaded by Carter.
"While I continue to have great respect for President Carter as a fellow Christian believer and Baptist, I'm deeply disappointed by the unusually harsh comments made in my state this past weekend regarding President Bush, and feel that it represents an unprecedented personal attack on a sitting president by a former president which is unbecoming the office as well as unbecoming to one whose conference is supposed to be about civility and bringing people together," Huckabee told Florida Baptist Witness on Monday.
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The presidential hopeful was referring to Carter's interview with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on Saturday in which he said: "I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history."
Carter clarified on Monday to NBC's Today that he was responding to a question comparing the Bush administration's foreign policy to that of Richard Nixon.
"And I think Richard Nixon had a very good and productive foreign policy and my remarks were maybe careless or misinterpreted. But I wasn't comparing the overall administration, and I was certainly not talking personally about any president," he said.
"I think this administration's foreign policy compared to president Nixon's was much worse," Carter added, but he said he did not mean to call it the worst in history.
Carter had announced Huckabee's involvement in the New Baptist Covenant Celebration last Thursday, responding to criticism that the January 2008 meeting may have presidential political overtones with the early enlistment of former president Bill Clinton and former vice president Al Gore and the timing of the event, which is expected to draw some 20,000 Baptists from around the continent.
While Huckabee said he had only "tentatively" agreed to participate, in light of the "very harsh comments" toward Bush and the roster of speakers - including the "very, very liberal" Marian Wright Edelman, founder of the Children's Defense Fund - the presidential candidate felt it would be best for him to withdraw.
The New Baptist Covenant Celebration is being organized under the umbrella of the North American Baptist Fellowship – a division of the Baptist World Alliance.
"I feel it would be best for me to decline the invitation and to not appear to be giving approval to what could be a political, rather than spiritual agenda," he told Florida Baptist Witness.
Huckabee said he had not yet notified Carter or Mercer University president Bill Underwood – who helped spearhead the initiative – of his decision to withdraw, but would attempt to do so soon, according to the Florida newspaper.
Still, news of his decision was publicized and participants of the January celebration expressed disappointment in Huckabee's withdrawal and reaffirmed the event not as a political move but as "purely Christian."
"It is unfortunate that Mike Huckabee is letting comments made in the political arena determine his participation in a purely Christian event designed to bring Baptists together across racial, geographic, economic and social barriers," said Alan Stanford, executive director of the North American Baptist Fellowship, according to the Associated Baptist Press.
In addition to efforts to involve Republican Baptists, organizers of the new covenant have also pushed for the participation of Southern Baptists who have not been formally invited to the convocation. Some Southern Baptists, including Oklahoma pastor Wade Burleson, have indicated some support. Others have expressed interest but have not yet confirmed their participation. Many, however, remain skeptical of the new initiative and dissident with Carter who has questioned the exclusivity of salvation through Christ.
The New Baptist Covenant Celebration will be a three-day meeting in Atlanta under the theme "Unity in Christ." Participating Baptists say they will explore opportunities to work together as partners to share the gospel of Jesus Christ, specifically committing themselves to such causes as poverty, justice and AIDS.
