I thought the discussion was refreshing in the humility of both gentlemen and I think that credit ought to be given them where it is due. I hope to see many more discussions between many more men and women on this issue and I pray that they are all conducted with such grace and forbearance.

Luke 9:62 NIV – Jesus replied, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”

The “plow” here is a metaphor for following Jesus and doing what he has called you to do. If Huckabee felt that God through the power of the Holy Spirit called him to he ministry and to be a pastor and he left it for politics, he “looked back” to do worldly things.

While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.
– Article VI. The Church.
By explicitly defining the pastoral office as the exclusive domain of males, the 2000 BF&M provision becomes the SBC's first-ever official position against women pastors.
Autonomous local congregations are not required to adopt male-only pastors as their theological position. Neither the BF&M nor the SBC provides any mechanism to trigger automatic expulsion of congregations that adopt practices or theology contrary to the BF&M. However, going against the SBC's official gender protocol that SBC defends on biblical grounds opens a local Baptist congregation to severe criticism and even further penalties. Some SBC churches that have hired a woman as pastor have been excluded from fellowship and membership in their local associations of Baptist churches. Fewer such expulsions have taken place within annual meetings of state conventions.[40]
While this language is new to BF&M, it does not represent an innovation in Southern Baptist thought. At the time the Baptist Faith and Message was revised in 2000, only .08% of all SBC churches were pastored by women. The BF&M gender restrictions inherently discourage any increase in that percentage.[41] A woman's role in ministry was one of the issues causing the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF) to break from the SBC.[42]

To completely ignore the point of the post, and of the interview itself – preferring to attack Huckabee for unrelated reasons – does nothing to improve the debate. Instead, it divides yet again.

I do not agree with many of Huckabee's positions, but I will certainly give him credit for this interview, and for his civility. I think others, the two of you included, could learn something from Huckabee's demeanor that night. Stay on point; stay civil; show respect for the opinions of others, even while disagreeing.

Jon Stewart is a Jew by inheritance; but, he doesn't speak like a person who ought to be a Jew in the spiritual sense.

About all the “interview” accomplished is that the expression “we can agree to disagree.”

The Southern Baptist Convention (the denominational name) keeps getting more and more right-wing fundamentalist and more like Jerry Falwell's version of Baptist.

“You don't like people from outside the state coming in and telling you what to do with your flag. In fact, if somebody came to Arkansas and told us what to do with our flag, we'd tell 'em what to do with the pole; that's what we'd do.”

Some Baptist preacher.

1. He makes no remarks about the interview itself.

2. In paragraph 1, he expressed his lack of understanding of how an ordained minister would want to switch to that of a politician. All politicians must make compromises; ministers should not.

3. In paragraph 2, he simply states his opinion about the realtionship between men and women (with no direct reference to Huckabee).

4. In paragraph 3, he simply states a fact. The last time that I checked, the SBC was opposed to women preachers.

So, as the lady in the Wendy's commercial asked, “Where's the beef?”

In my theologically educated opinion and also in my educated to be a public school teacher (and certified, too) opinion, men should stay out of trying to control women.

Of course, since Huckabee is a Southern Baptist, he probably agrees that women should have minority status in public life just like the women in the churches. The SBC is anti women preachers now.