According to the God-o-Meter, Thompson is the must secular candidate running on either side: his rank is only a 3! Yet, he has a far greater understanding of how a Christian should view the role of government than the top ranking theocrat and his followers do.

A woman asked him if he would “as a Christian, as a conservative” continue President Bush’s programs to combat global AIDS.
“Christ didn’t tell us to go to the government and pass a bill to get some of these social problems dealt with. He told us to do it,” Thompson said.
“The government has its role, but we need to keep firmly in mind the role of the government, and the role of us as individuals and as Christians on the other.”

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Helping the poor, elderly and the infirm used to be the job of the church but we’ve abdicated it to the federal government to the determent of those need the love of Christ. We think we have compassion but the federal government has proven that they are unable to handle the job of caring for the poor, elderly and the infirm (government waste,fraud, inadequate care, bureaucratic red tape, etc). The federal government has spent $700 billion on poverty since the 60’s and yet we still have poverty because the federal government can’t handle all the issues related to poverty. It’s not equipped to do so but the church is.
Huckabee believes in a Christian obligation to help:

The brothers fell for Mr. Huckabee last August when they saw him draw applause on “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” for explaining that he believed in a Christian obligation to care for prenatal “life” and also education, health care, jobs and other aspects of “life.” “It is a new kind of evangelical conservative position,” Brett Harris said.

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But if it’s the Christians who are obligated, then why are we trying to make the federal government do it while we go about our lives doing other things (an 8-week study of the Purpose Drive Life, a four week study on discipleship)? Since when has the federal government become the church? Is this what Huckabee means when says he wants to take back the nation for Christ?
This is just another recycled version of the social gospel. But the social gospel isn’t the gospel, the gospel is the power of God to transform our lives through Christ not the federal government and the kingdom of God isn’t the federal government, it’s the church. Matthew 5-7 describes the church, not the state.
Thompson gets it, too bad Huckabee, the “Christian leader,” doesn’t.
BTW, why does the federal government have to give money for global AIDS. The church has to ability to rise millions worldwide to help, why aren’t we? Why do we turn to the federal government to do it when we have the ability to do it ourselves and show the people the love of Christ while we’re doing it?