According to the conservative News Max, Roger Ailes feels that "the clear and present danger confronting America is secularism." That might explain the blatant promotion of conservative Christianity on the "fair & balanced" Fox News. If there is any doubt that Fox has become a secular conduit for Christian proselytization, Monday's Fox & Friends should erase that completely. In an attempt to further walk back his offensive statement that the Newtown massacre was due to the elimination of God from the schools, Huckabee talked about how those who have eliminated God are shit out of luck. His self promoting sermon, about the necessity of God and the necessity for Christians to stop apologizing for God, so moved Gretchen Carlson that she wept. Seriously, this is the kind of stuff that you see on Christian broadcasting - but this is supposedly a "real news, fair & balanced network?" Really?
Steve Doocy began by reporting that "school prayer did return" to the Sandy Hook elementary school because "so many of the teachers," who were huddling in closets, prayed with their students. FACT CHECK - one of the teachers, at the behest of a student, said a prayer. (So I guess that those who got killed didn't pray?) Huckabee said it was "a common human reaction when all of our human answers fail and that's why we recognize that we really need God." As he did on his own show, Huckabee started off by saying that he wasn't talking about school prayer when he made his original comments. But that was followed with the comment that "we've created an atmosphere in this country where the only time we want to invoke God's name is after the tragedy." He praised the president for quoting scripture and whined about "how we criticize anybody who invokes God's name except after a tragedy."
Gretchen Carlson said that when she puts her children to bed she tells them that "God is always with you." She choked up when she added that "when you wake up know that he is with you." She started to cry when she talked about her how her church service was "so moving" and that "it was so wonderful to know that if you are a person with faith, that you have a lot of questions why, but you have something to hold on to."
Huckabee preached about how, if you're a believer, when you hit rock bottom it's not really the bottom because "we know there's a world that goes beyond the evil of this one... and if we didn't have that hope, if there was not then again I refer to what the president said last night, he spoke of heaven...if we don't believe that there is such a place, there's something beyond this physical life we live, then there is no hope." He added that it's important that "we quit apologizing for having spiritual conversations that we quit being ashamed that we believe in God and we recognize that it's the only thing that keeps us together when there's an inexplicable tragedy..."
While talking about the necessity of God is appropriate for a church service, is it really the role of Fox News to be pushing a Christian view that discounts those who do not have that belief? For many, faith is important in dealing with crises; but there are also other secular approaches. Is it appropriate for Mike Huckabee to be advancing a persecuted Christian meme (Christians being forced to apologize? Not on Fox!) in the midst of a tragedy? Is there any point at which Mike Huckabee and Fox News can stop making this about real issues and not Roger Ailes' agenda?