Mike Huckabee

==Pastoral career==
[[File:Mike Huckabee at Thomas Road Baptist Church.jpg|thumb|right|Huckabee playing bass guitar at [[Thomas Road Baptist Church]] in 2008]]
At age 21, Huckabee was a staffer for [[Televangelism|televangelist]] [[James Robison (televangelist)|James Robison]].<ref name="scottparks"/> Robison commented, "His convictions shape his character and his character will shape his policies. His whole life has been shaped by moral absolutes."<ref name="scottparks"/> Prior to his political career, he served as pastor at Immanuel Baptist Church in [[Pine Bluff, Arkansas]], from 1980 to 1986, and the Beech Street First Baptist Church in [[Texarkana, Arkansas|Texarkana]], from 1986 to 1992.

Huckabee started 24-hour television stations in both Pine Bluff and Texarkana, where he produced documentaries and hosted a program called ''Positive Alternatives''.<ref name = "Barone 136–137"/> He encouraged the all-white Immanuel Baptist Church to accept black members in the mid-1980s.<ref name="scottparks"/><ref name="Isikoff"/> Years later, he wrote about the insights he gained as a minister:

{{blockquote|My experience dealing every day with real people who were genuinely affected by policies created by government gave me a deep understanding of the fragility of the human spirit and vulnerability of so many families who struggled from week to week. I was in the ICU at 2 a.m. with families faced with the decision to disconnect a respirator on their loved one; I counseled fifteen-year-old pregnant girls who were afraid to tell their parents about their condition; I spent hours hearing the grief of women who had been physically and emotionally clobbered by an abusive husband; I saw the anguish in the faces of an elderly couple when their declining health forced them to sell their home, give up their independence, and move into a long-term-care facility; I listened to countless young couples pour out their souls as they struggled to get their marriages into survival mode when confronted with overextended debt ...<ref>Huckabee, ''From Hope to Higher Ground'', p. 7</ref>}}

In 1989, Huckabee ran against [[Ronnie Floyd]] of Springdale for the presidency of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention. Huckabee won and served as president from 1989 to 1991.<ref>Robert Marus for the Associated Baptist Press. January 21, 2008 [https://www.baptiststandard.com/resources/archives/48-2008-archives/7450-huckabees-role-in-sbc-conflict-presaged-political-balancing-act Huckabee's role in SBC conflict presaged political balancing act] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160824024727/https://www.baptiststandard.com/resources/archives/48-2008-archives/7450-huckabees-role-in-sbc-conflict-presaged-political-balancing-act |date=August 24, 2016 }}</ref>

Huckabee has received two [[honorary doctor]]ates: a Doctor of Humane Letters, received from [[John Brown University]] in 1991, and a Doctor of Laws from [[Ouachita Baptist University]] in 1992.<ref>{{cite web|author=Talkers Magazine|title=defender of the month 1998|url=http://www.ccrkba.org/defender1998.htm#May|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080512082835/http://www.ccrkba.org/defender1998.htm#May|archive-date=May 12, 2008|access-date=October 16, 2008|publisher=[[CCRKBA]]}}<br />{{cite news|title=Mike Huckabee|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|url=http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/h/mike_huckabee|access-date=January 6, 2015}}</ref>