Missouri Baptist Convention (MBC) officials joined former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee by sponsoring an invitation-only conference call in support of embattled Republican Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin.
The email inviting Baptists to join the conference call about “How to make a proper response to the Todd Akin controversy” carried the Missouri Baptist Convention (MBC) logo.
The Aug. 24 call was convened by Don Hinkle, editor of the MBC newspaper The Pathway, who is being investigated by the Internal Revenue Service for possibly violating federal tax law that bans nonprofit charities from endorsing candidates.
“I had the pleasure of emceeing a conference call today featuring former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, David Barton, former Oklahoma Congressman J.C. Watts, Ohio Congressman Bob McEwen, MBC Executive Director John Yeats and David Baker, pastor, First Baptist Church, Belton,” Hinkle wrote in a blog after the event. “Hundreds of Missouri pastors joined in.”
Hinkle said all the speakers expressed support for Akin, who is under fire for recent comments about rape and pregnancy for which he later apologized.
“It is time for a groundswell of grassroots support to rise up in support of Todd Akin,” Hinkle wrote.
The Politico, one of a couple of media outlets privy to notification about the invitation-only conference call, said Huckabee, an ordained Southern Baptist minister and one-time president of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention, told pastors “this could be a Mount Carmel moment,” an allusion to the story of Elijah contesting the prophets of Baal in 1 Kings 18.
“You know, you bring your gods; we’ll bring ours,” Huckabee said. “We’ll see whose God answers the prayers and brings fire from heaven. That’s kind of where I’m praying: that there will be fire from heaven, and we’ll see it clearly, and everyone else will too.”
Yeats, recording secretary of the Southern Baptist Convention who was director of communications and public policy for the Louisiana Baptist Convention before his election last October as Missouri Baptists’ executive director, told the group that he counseled Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) after he was linked to a prostitution ring in 2007.
“As I think about Congressman Akin, his quote, ‘transgression,’ was not nearly as vile as Vitter’s,” Yeats said. “So I think this thing is survivable. … I still think he has a real shot at winning the race here in Missouri.”
“It’s certainly been a political setback for him,” Hinkle said in an interview on The Takeway radio program. “However I do not believe in the state of Missouri it’s fatal.”
Hinkle admitted that Akin’s reference to “legitimate rape” seldom resulting in pregnancy was a poor choice of words, but said the controversy has a bright side for social conservatives.
“Social conservatives, who make up a tremendous amount of the Republican Party, are happy that abortion is now back center, part of the national conversation, and we are glad in that sense that we’re able to have this conversation about abortion,” Hinkle said.
(ABP)
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