Huckabee mostly was responding to backlash over comments he made the day of the shooting to Fox News host Neil Cavuto in response to that question. He had suggested that the removal of God from public schools was partly to blame.
"... e've made it a place where we do not want to talk about eternity, life, what responsibility means, accountability," Huckabee told Cavuto. "... e're not just going to have to be accountable to the police ... but we stand one day before a holy God in judgment."
On his Dec. 15 show, Huckabee pushed back at criticism that he was saying the massacre would not have happened if there was prayer in schools.
"Well, I said nothing of the sort. It's far more than just taking prayer or Bible reading out of the schools," he said, going on to suggest that America casting out God from the public square has led to a culture where mass shootings take root.
The full text of Huckabee's comments during his Saturday show follows:
"Well, maybe it's simply the attempt to express our collective shock when we say we're trying to make sense of the horrific shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. But we're not going to make sense, not from that which is totally disconnected from the cognitive capacity of any rational human being. The governor of Connecticut, Dan Malloy, got it right when he said, 'Evil has visited this community.' President Obama, in an emotional statement from the White House, spoke more as a parent than a politician, and he quoted the Bible to bring comfort to the nation. Churches were filled in Newtown, Ct., last night as candlelight vigils were held to grieve for the 27 innocent people killed and the countless lives of those shattered by a few seconds of crazed carnage.
"On Friday, Neil Cavuto asked me, 'Where was God?' And I said that for 50 years we've systematically attempted to have God removed from our schools, our public activities, but then at the moment we have a calamity, we wonder where He was. Well, the predictable Left lit up the airwaves and blogosphere with a vile and vicious reaction and jumped to the conclusion that I said that if we had prayer in school, the shooting wouldn't have happened. Well, I said nothing of the sort. It's far more than just taking prayer or Bible reading out of the schools. It's the fact that people sue a city so we aren't confronted with a manger scene or a Christmas carol; that lawsuits are filed to remove a cross that's a memorial to fallen soldiers. Churches and Christian-owned businesses are told to surrender their values under the edict of government orders to provide tax-funded abortion pills. We carefully and intentionally stop saying things are sinful, and we call them disorders. Sometimes we even say they're normal.
"And to get to where we have to abandon bedrock moral truths, then we are asked, 'Well, where was God?' And I respond that as I see it, we've escorted Him right out of our culture, and we've marched Him off the public square, and then we express our surprise that a culture without Him actually reflects what it's become. As soon as the tragedy unfolded, I think God did show up. He showed up in the lives of teachers who put their lives between a gunman and their students. He showed up in policemen who rushed into the school not knowing if they would be met with a barrage of bullets. He showed up in the form of hugs and tears for children, parents and teachers who had lived through the slaughter. He showed up at the overflow church services where people lit candles and prayed. And He showed up at the White House, where the president invoked His name and quoted from His Book.
"And in a few days or weeks, we'll probably ask God to excuse Himself from view, and we will announce in our arrogant pride that we are now enlightened and educated and we have evolved beyond needing Him. And somebody's going to suggest that we pass a law to stop all this kind of thing. I might want to point out that we don't have to pass a new law. There's one that's been around a while that works if we teach it and observe it: 'Thou shalt not kill.' Well, there are about nine others, but to tell you about them would require bringing God back, and we know how unacceptable that might be."
John Evans is a writer in Houston. Get Baptist Press headlines and breaking news on Twitter (@BaptistPress), Facebook (Facebook.com/BaptistPress ) and in your email ( baptistpress.com/SubscribeBP.asp).
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