Looking For Our Readers To React
“During these down times, the demands and needs are great for families and ministries alike,” Huckabee said. “In many cases, families are turning to churches for assistance with food, clothing and other basics. Yet churches have to deal with less resources to meet those needs.”
The former Southern Baptist preacher and denominational leader warned that the troubled economy might have a detrimental effect on the work of churches and ministries if funds cannot be generated in new and creative ways.
Huckabee, an official spokesperson for Christian Values Network, will introduce the organization as a new way to help generate funds for churches and faith-based charities worldwide.
Christian Values Network is a free service that allows members to shop online at nearly 900 popular internet retailers who in turn pay a referral fee for every purchase made by a CVN member. A portion of the referral fee is given to the ministry of choice indicated by the CVN member.
“I believe God has established Christian Values Network for this unique time and place to help ministries in lean times,” said Huckabee, who serves as an advisor to Christian Values Network. “They are providing a very simple and practical solution: using people’s everyday Internet purchases to support their chosen organization.”
This strikes me as the old Huckster taking advantage of the current economic downturn to turn a paycheck, and trying to dress it up as “the Christian thing to do.” Many questions arise from something like this. Does this help or hurt his 2012 aspirations? (Does he really have them?) Actions like this are highly controversial in the creedal Christian community for theological reasons I will not go into here. How about the Mormon community?
Can I set aside my now natural and ingrained cynicism about all things Huckster and comment on this without expletive or vomit? Probably without vomit, but maybe not expletive, which is why we seek reader reaction. Have at it.
Lowell chimes in: In Mormonism the type of referral scheme in which Huckabee has gotten involved does not necessarily raise doctrinal issues; it is just not the way we do things. Our church’s financial and welfare system is large and complex, but based on simple principles: personal sacrifice (through tithing); reliance on family first, then the church; volunteer labor to produce goods and services for the needy; no dole, but a “hand up, instead of a hand out;” and no overhead costs for assistance to the poor. Huckabee’s plan looks more like mutual back-scratching among members of a faith community. I am not sure that is a good idea, especially on an organized basis, but it doesn’t bother me theologically. Economically it looks a little like a scam because nothing of value is being created, simply referral fees. What it doesn’t look like is something “God has established.”
Posted in Doctrinal Obedience, Miscellany, Political Strategy, Understanding Religion | 8 Comments » | 
Print this post
| 
Email This Post
Jerald on 31 Mar 2009 at 7:31 am #
Well, as you said, if Huckabee is behind it…
But I’ll try to stick to facts. A few red flags:
“A portion of the referal fee…” How much and where does the rest of it go?
Does Huckabee get any compensation for being “an official spokesperson”?
My personal take: Why does Huckabee always declare God’s direct direction in all of Huck’s pursuits? “I believe God has established Christian Values Network for this unique time and place to help ministries in lean times” said Huckabee. I don’t feel comfortable with this. It smells like a scam. Why can’t Huck just say, “As Christians this is something we are trying in hopes that it will help these ministries”? Why does Huck always make it sound like he gets all his ideas delivered to him by an angle?
My take as an LDS person? Well, we LDS folks don’t like mixing business with service. If we want to help somebody, we just give them our time, money, advice, or love. We don’t like using gimmics to get people to help people.
Mixing religious service with business is as bad or worse than trying to use religion improperly in politics. Anything that goes wrong with the business aspect will reflect negatively on the religion.
Additionally, one of the major criteria the LDS Church uses when giving out humanitarian aid is that the overhead of the organization dispersing the aid be very low or zero. We don’t like donating money to see it evaparate inside an organization before it reaches the people who need it.
That is why “A portion of the referal fee…” bothers me. And is Huck getting a cut? We may never know, but if his aim is really to help people, I think he is making enough elsewhere that he can do the “official spokesperson” work for free.
On the other hand, maybe he is doing if for free in the hopes of wracking up free publicity and goodwill. Or maybe his family, friends, and/or supporters are staffing the “Christian Values Network” and enjoying conpensation for it.
I don’t know why, but almost nothing that Huckabee does passes the smell test for me. I don’t want to demonize the guy, but the odor just doesn’t go away.
VB on 31 Mar 2009 at 7:58 am #
You guys just don’t get it.
Huckabee is God’s candidate, and he defines conservatism. The sooner you repent and support Huckabee in whatever he is doing the sooner he, that is Huckabee, can remake America in way that God wants it!!
Normally mixing religion with politics is a bad thing. But mixing true, that is Huckabee’s, religion with politics is the only way to save America.
If Huckabee says that “God has established Christian Values Network” then it is true. Huckabee, the true Christian, cannot lie.
And why wouldn’t God want to materially reward Huckabee for his great work of helping people and ministries and saving America? Doesn’t rightness and righteousness deserve blessing?
You guys just don’t get it.
/Sarcasm off
Lori on 31 Mar 2009 at 8:21 am #
“God has established” CVN? The height of arrogance and presumptuousness. Does he really think that a God who directs the salvation of all mankind doesn’t have better things to do? Lets face it, mankind establishes shopping clubs, not God.
Sherry on 31 Mar 2009 at 12:50 pm #
I have been away for a while, so I have missed a few posts, and I am as far from Huckabee-land as one can get and still be in the continental US, and I am LDS, but the attitude expressed in VB’s comment concerns and interests me. It says it is sarcastic, but I am having trouble figuring out the sarcasm. I have run into other places on the internet where the “Huckabee is God’s candidate” attitude was very serious, and comments like those in the VB post above involved no sarcasm. So I am wondering, how wide spread is this attitude? Is this a tiny faction within creedal Christianity, or is it more mainstream? Is Huckabee in the mainstream of creedal Christianity itself? Is Huckabee being hailed as a creedal Christian prophet? He seems to be awfully close to claiming to speak for God, isn’t that an odd position for someone who believes the heavens are closed? Or am I missing something? Would religions with such different beliefs as the Methodists, Calvinists, and Baptists, etc. all unite behind a single figure with a single doctrinal position (as in “true, that is Huckabee’s, religion” from VB above)?
John also piqued my curiosity with his comment about Huckabee’s actions being controversial in the creedal Christian community for theological reasons. If there is a short explanation, could you give it? If not, could you give a link where I could learn more?
I may not be anywhere near Huckabee-land, but there are some creedal Christians in the town where I live. I’d really like to understand them better.
coltakashi on 31 Mar 2009 at 12:50 pm #
Back in the 19th Century in Utah, the LDS church established the Zions Cooperative Mercantile Institution (ZCMI) to promote an integrated economy that was not dependent on imported goods. The ZCMI retail stores in Salt Lake city were considered the earliest department stores in America. Mormons were encouraged to shop at ZCMI retailers in order to support their fellow members, including production enterprises all around the state. People who worked in ZCMI production projects were, in a cash-starved economy, paid in ZCMI “scrip” that could be used to buy things at ZCMI stores, but had no value outside the system. (I read the transcript of an early LDS Church ecclesiastical court hearing that was called to discipline a member for a number of things, among which was his refusal to accept ZCMI scrip as his wages.) It has been suggested by some historians that this tendency of Mormons to minimize purchases from “Gentile” merchants (many of whom were Jews!) was among the stronger motives for the Gentile community in Utah to push Congress for laws that undercut the dominance of the LDS Church in Utah, even more than local merchants cared about the practice of polygamy. As the church allowed Utah to become more secular, ZCMI became a more typical commercial enterprise. It took decades for the Church to spin off various commercial enterprises, including its hospital system.
Some of the concepts behind it, however, were revived during the Depression as the Church established the current Church Welfare System. The Church has farms of all sorts where food is produced, with a core of employed workers but much donated member labor, where it grows potatoes and wheat (here in eastern Washington), beef (Florida), dairy (Maryland), and nuts (California). The Bishop’s Storehouses stock essential foods and members and non-member people in need can use a Bishop’s authorization to “purchase” basic foods to help them through a crisis. People who are given that assistance are also asked to fulfill specific assignments, depending on their capacity, to contribute to the system. These storehouses are also the source of much of the food aid that is brought together on short notice during disaster response.
Mormons make donations to aid the needy by fasting once a month for two meals and donating at least the amount of money saved to their local congregation. Funds not needed locally are forwarded to Church HQ for use in other congregations.
I have been in congregations where we participated in efforts to help needy people in the community at large, such as a soup kitchen or food bank. This includes food gathering by the Boy Scouts.
A decade ago, President Gordon B. Hinckley started the Perpetual Education Fund, modeled on the Perpetual Emigration Fund that was a revolving loan program to help Mormons emigrate to Utah. It provides education funding in less developed nations, and those who complete their educations then pay back into the fund. The basic money comes form voluntary donations. This can be very cost effective in many nations, giving members the skills to earn more and care for their families as well as make donations to the needy in their own communities.
Basically, Huckabee’s project sounds no more wicked, or righteoous, than some of the commercial enterprises of AARP. I wonder if they are screening the quality of the goods and services, though.
pdale on 31 Mar 2009 at 4:33 pm #
Coltakashi mentions that there were times in the past when we LDS were encouraged to do business only among ourselves (and there is still some of that thinking). I think we were guilty of not always having good Christian feelings toward those who booted us out of a few cities in the 1830′s and 40′s. Took us a while to get over that (I think most of us have). Or maybe we thought that taking care of our own was the best way to be good Christian. I admit to doing business that way in my younger years.
Then, 20 years or so ago, it occurred to me that everyone is my neighbor. My two good realtor friends in my Salt Lake ward weren’t too happy with me when I listed with a lady who was definitely not LDS. What she was was a darn good realtor. The LDS guys thought I should have listed with them because we were members of the same Elders’ Quorum. I was thinking business expertise was kind of important to me, since I needed to get my family to Arizona, and the lady realtor knew her stuff.
I’ve lived in the South and New Jersey and the West, and from what I see just about every religion and culture is guilty of ethnocentric business behavior.
I’m off topic, but had to add my thoughts. As for Huckabee, maybe his intentions are good here. Then again, he’s a gifted talker/salesman, so who knows what’s behind it all.
TVHall on 31 Mar 2009 at 5:33 pm #
I have to agree with Jerald about the clause, “A portion of the referral fee is given to the ministry of choice indicated by the CVN member.” That sends up a flare or two, especially when uttered by the Huckster.
I also was intrigued by John’s allusion to actions that are “highly controversial in the creedal Christian community,” but repsect his decision not to air them in this forum. As members of a church that eschews a paid clergy, Mormons are used to (for lack of a better way to put it) looking passed this type of thing.
Finally, the Huckster’s reference to God’s part in all this is unseemly, at best. But then that is also standard fare for someone of the Huckster’s bent.
Jan on 02 Apr 2009 at 3:21 pm #
LDS faithful are warned to guard against the practice of priestcraft. The scriptures say of priestcraft “that men preach and set themselves up for a light unto the world that they may get gain and praise of the world; but they seek not the welfare of Zion.” Under that definition, priestcraft means that individuals, under the guise of acting under the authority of God, make money or seek fame. Huckabee’s actions and words continually blur the line between serving God and serving Huckabee. He does not inspire trust. Claiming authority from God to be a spokesman for a shopping network to increase their profit and your ministry’s coffers smacks of priestcraft.