If you are a certain age, old, then you remember 1970’s American made-by-Christians movies.
You would hope, with no good reason, that they would not stink. You would pray that the Evangelical making the film was channeling Tarkovsky.
Then you would watch Whispering Mountain or Thief in the Night. Cruel people would laugh, but more sensitive souls just felt sad. These were movies so bad by such good hearted people that they cannot be parodied safely.
You were also petrified that your non-Christian friends would come on family film night and think it was to this that the Church of Bach, Handel, and Rembrandt had been reduced. The makers of such films had hearts in the right places, but little skill at making movies.
They were living proof for an entire generation that sincerity combined with ineptitude was unwatchable.
This left many of us wary of any film if it were labeled “Christian.” We have had to resist a the self-loathing posture that many adopt where they become leftists or overly culturally accommodated out of embarrassment. These F-word Evangelicals, who swear to fit into the broader culture, become so afraid of being in a religious ghetto that they become useful idiots to secularism.
Even those of us who (narrowly) avoid that pitfall cannot suppress a sense of dread whenever anybody calls themselves a “Christian leader.” We yearn for a John Calvin or a Pope Benedict, but fear another Jimmy Carter or Jim Bakker.
Evangelicals have not always been well served by their leaders in popular or political culture. The Robertson campaign of 1988 did little to dispel false stereotypes of the community. The result has been an extreme sensitivity on the part of many of us to leaders (to be charitable) not ready for prime-time.
Don’t get me wrong.
We will defend them in public out of family identity, but we also are quick to spot another equivalent of a well-intentioned Christian movie. The folks hearts were in the right place, but they are not ready for prime time.
It may not be fair (it almost surely is not), but this sense of impending doom will cost Huckabee his needed momentum in the presidential race. Comments by the candidate about a “bunker mentality” and seeming nice, but not ready with details about government programs, play to these fears. We want a good script from our candidates . . . not one that feels well intentioned but rotten. If Huckabee’s heart is in the right place, but he is not ready for prime time, then Christian voters, very quietly, begin to move away.
Can Huckabee fix it?
Only if he demonstrates deep knowledge about the War and government. Huckabee needs to show mastery of detail and lose the “bunker mentality” language that sounds more like Jimmy Carter than Ronald Reagan.
I don’t think he can fix it, which is why I suspect that Romney will surge again in Iowa if he will reach out to Evangelical voters by condemning the snide comments made about “fly over country” and about Evangelicals by some commentators. . .
If Romney does this, I suspect it will be enough to win the state or place a close second. After his expectations were knocked down by the Huckaboom, this will be a major victory for the Governor from Massachusetts.