God-o-Meter would not ordinarily dredge up a nearly decade-old story on Mike Huckabee proclaiming the need to “take this nation back for Christ.” But God-o-Meter does not run the world; Matt Drudge does. And the lead story on The Drudge Report right now is a 1998 report in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette about Huckabee’s speech to a pastors’ conference in which Huckabee made his “take back this nation remarks.”
Well, God-o-Meter readers may ask, What of it? Those remarks came years ago and Huckabee was–in case you haven’t heard–an ordained Baptist minister. But Huckabee wasn’t speaking as a church leader. He was speaking as governor of Arkansas, a slightly more secular office. A few other choice excerpts from his speech:

“The reason we have so much government is because we have so much broken humanity,” he said. “And the reason we have so much broken humanity is because sin reigns in the hearts and lives of human beings instead of the Savior.”
“I’m often asked why taxes are so high and government is so big. It’s because the faith we have in local churches has become so small. If we’d been doing what we should have — giving a dime from every dollar to help the widows, the orphans and the poor — we now wouldn’t be giving nearly 50 cents of every dollar to a government that’s doing … what we should have been doing all along.”
“I didn’t get into politics because I thought government had a better answer. I got into politics because I knew government didn’t have the real answers, that the real answers lie in accepting Jesus Christ into our lives.”

Since Huckabee said all this some time ago, God-o-Meter hopes an enterprising reporter will ask him whether his mission as president would be to take the nation back for Christ. And, depending on his response, GOM will consider adding a new “11” rating.

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