All the talk of late about the histories of some of the evangelicals who have been getting behind
Mike Huckabee (see, for example, this
video compilation from People for the American Way, of some of televangelist
James Robison's 1970s'-era preaching, around the time that Huckabee worked for him) led me to open my box of 1980s-vintage Christian right literature, where I knew I had plenty of material from Huckabee backers
Tim and Beverly LaHaye. Back then, Bev had just founded Concerned Women for America, and Tim was launching his American Coalition for Traditional Values (ACTV) -- an early Christian right group that no longer exists.In my box of relics, I found a 1985 issue of
The Moral Majority Report, in which LaHaye wrote a column about an upcoming ACTV conference on "How to Win an Election," a rant against "secular-minded Americans" who make lenient laws towards "pornographers, abortionists, homosexuals and drug pushers." Here's the opening paragraph of the piece; see if you can catch a very odd -- but amusing -- misspelling:
The greatest mistake of Christians the past 50 years has been to avoid getting involved in running for public office. In spite of the fact that governors, authorities and those that work for them are called "Ministers of God" in Romans 13:1-6, Christians have rarely considered government service as a bonified position in which to serve the Lord.
ACTV soon folded, as documented by
Robert Dreyfuss in this great Rolling Stone piece from 2004 (well worth a read in light of LaHaye's efforts on Huckabee's behalf):
