Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders decided to play a theologian in a speech to the Women’s Leadership Summit sponsored by Turning Point USA this summer, and it wasn’t a good look. The video is now circulating on social media.
She opened with a paraphrase of a well-known quote: “All it takes for evil to win is for good people to stand around and do nothing.”
She wrapped her speech about “evil” with red, white and blue “love of America.” The result was bad theology mixed with bad politics.
Sanders mocked Democrats for saying things like, “The murderers are the real victims,” “The terrorists are the oppressed” and “We should render aid and comfort to the enemy.” As if those are real statements by Democrats.
“In a classic Trump move, she smoothly conflated Hamas with Palestinians and liberal Democrats.”
In a classic Trump move, she smoothly conflated Hamas with Palestinians and liberal Democrats. In her hands, evil became a giant branding iron stamped on the forehead of her political opponents.
A certain boldness is required for a politician to choose “evil” as her subject. The theological giants wrestled with the problem of evil — Augustine, Aquinas, Martin Luther and John Calvin among them. Every theologian since has attempted to solve the problem of evil.
Sanders has no such reticence identifying evil. She is the daughter of a Southern Baptist preacher, Mike Huckabee. But it would be a stretch to suggest his theology, based as it is on dispensational and apocalyptic fantasy, would be of much use to his politician daughter.
Using a well-worn rhetorical device of repetition, Sanders said at least three times, “I disagree” with all these Democrats. According to Sanders, this “is not disagreement” or a “basic misunderstanding.” This is evil. Democrats are “crazy” but she is “normal.”
Sanders stumbled over the most common expression of Jewish faith, “The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” She said, “The God of Abraham, Jacob and Jesus Christ.” How odd. But that’s a mere slip of the tongue compared to Sanders attempting to lecture us on evil. She could not have selected a more complex subject.
She informed her audience the struggle against evil is a commandment. Quoting Scripture she invoked Jesus — “Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness” (Matthew 5:10). While this has nothing to do with evil, it was her attempt to equate her message against evil with Jesus and righteousness. Her pretentious assumption was that she and MAGA evangelicals possess the righteousness all others lack.
Not content to call her movement “righteous,” she also quoted Moses saying, “Justice you shall pursue.”
Terrence Tilley, in The Evils of Theodicy, argues people like Sanders “participate in the practice of legitimating the coercive and marginalizing structure which is the heritage of Constantinian Christianity.” Sanders has a huge stake in justifying the way things are as God’s will. Thus, she believes it is God’s will to destroy Hamas and “annihilate Iran.” But God is OK with coddling Russia, China and North Korea.
“Sanders used the word ‘evil’ to shut down all thought and dissent.”
Sanders used the word “evil” to shut down all thought and dissent. Terry Eagleton notes the word “evil” used in the so-called “war against terrorism” really means: “Don’t look for a political explanation. If terrorists are simply Satanic, then you do not need to investigate what lies behind their atrocious acts of violence. You can ignore the plight of the Palestinian people. … The word ‘evil’ means you (are not obliged) to recognize them as rational creatures, however desperately wrongheaded.”
How Sanders equates her understanding of evil with Christian theology is unthinkable.
The governor grabbed the wrong end of the snake. Instead of declaring her enemies “evil,” she should have talked about the confession of sin. Christian confession of sin is a first-person activity. As Christians we are obligated to reveal our sins so we might have some hope of being freed from sin through the work of the Holy Spirit.
There is no confession from Sanders, despite the misappropriation of the holy by her and her Trump-infused party. There’s only her Christian nationalist credo of American exceptionalism and the presumption that America is more righteous than all other nations.
The theological hucksterism of Gov. Sanders shows the nut doesn’t fall far from the tree. Her father, the American ambassador to Israel, has an incredulous definition of genocide: “If Israel wanted to commit genocide, they could have done it in two and a half hours. They have the military capacity. Gaza is the size of Las Vegas. They intentionally did not.”
Yet more than 74,000 people have been killed during Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, according to the territory’s health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and militants in its figures but says around half were women and children. That compares to about 1,200 people killed and 240 taken hostage by Hamas fighters in the early morning attacks on October 7.
The disparity in the number killed wipes out any consideration of “an eye for an eye,” as the Levitical law says.
There is nothing commendable in Sanders’ dark speech about “evil.” Bad theology is about trying to put God on your side.
Theologically, Sanders is an ancient pagan; her need for revenge is a dead giveaway. Her vision of God as capricious, bad-tempered, wrathful and resentful has more in common with the gods of Greece and Rome than the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Rodney W. Kennedy is a pastor and writer. He is the author of 11 books, including his latest, Dancing with Metaphors in the Pulpit.