President-elect Donald Trump has nominated former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee as the U.S. Ambassador to Israel.
Three months ago, Huckabee had a guest on his TV show, "Huckabee Today," who said the world will end any minute now.
“I do believe that we’re not just at the end times,” the guest, Max Lucado, said. “We're at the end of the end times. It's moving fast.”
Like Huckabee, Lucado is a preacher. And both agree the end of days is not something to panic over.
“Max, when you say that, it scares a lot of people,” Huckabee said. “They think 'oh no, the end of the world its just terrible.' You say... it's not something we should be afraid of. It's something we should embrace and look forward to.”
Evangelical Christians, like these two men, view their role in the world as part of a larger story.
The biblical events of the birth of humankind, the exile of the Jewish people and the death of Jesus, are the past. In the future, there will be a roaring apocalypse, with plagues and firestorms, before the relief of heaven — a story with a happy ending.
Right now, this is the apex, the chapter before the climax. Any moment, God will turn the page. Our job is to prepare and wait.
“There's a belief that at some point in the near future, there will be a rapture where all of the Christians go up to heaven,” said Daniel Hummel, a historian focusing on Christianity.
Hummel says in the evangelical worldview, Israel is special. The word “Israel” is mentioned thousands of times in biblical texts. Israel is a recurring place setting, a protagonist in some of the Bible's biggest events beginning in the Book of Genesis.
“Genesis 12:40 where God is talking to Abraham where he says ‘I will bless those that bless you.’”
Hummel says evangelical Christians interpret biblical passages literally. So, in Genesis when God is talking about Abraham, he is talking about Israel.
“The Bible tells us God promises to bless those that bless Israel,” Huckabee said in an ad for a nonprofit giving money to poor Israelis and Holocaust survivors.
This was years ago, before he was offered the job of working for President-elect Donald Trump as the U.S. Ambassador to Israel.
Huckabee claims he wasn't itching to get back into politics. He says he didn't even recognize the caller ID when Trump telephoned to offer him the job.
“And the voice on the other end: ‘Hey, this is Donald Trump. Would you be an ambassador to Israel?’ And I don't know if I picked myself or my phone up off the floor first,” he said.
Since 2008, Huckabee has hosted a variety show on-and-off called "Huckabee’s Jukebox." He says the Israeli ambassadorship is the one role he is willing to give that all up for.
“This is the only thing for which I would have that Isaiah moment and say: ‘Here am I, lord, send me.’”
Huckabee has long carried love for Israel, a connection only similar to the one he has for America. He estimates he has taken tens of thousands of people on trips to the country. He's visited Israel hundreds of times, even bringing along his daughter, incumbent Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
The first time he visited Israel was a trip with his college roommate after his senior year at Ouachita Baptist University.
“You've got to understand,” he said. “I did not grow up with the kind of capacity where I could have traveled anywhere — certainly not the Middle East.”
His roommate's father agreed to pay his way if he would accompany his son on a trek through the region. Huckabee says they went to Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Greece. But, for him, Israel stood out.
“And I'll never forget it,” he said. “Because here is a place I had never been to in my life, and it's the only place in the world where I had never been that I felt at home.”
When talking about Israel, the former governor likes to use the term “deed,” like the legal deed to a house. Because in his mind, God gave a permanent residential deed to the Jewish people when he made a covenant with Abraham thousands of years ago.
And that’s a problem for some people who are worried about the living conditions for Palestinians, people living in the West Bank or Gaza, the majority of whom aren’t Israeli citizens, but live under Israeli laws. Huckabee has made comments that advocates for Palestine find sickening.
“There are certain words I refuse to use,” Huckabee said on CNN eight years ago, “There is no such thing as a West Bank. It's Judea and Samaria. There’s no such thing as a settlement.”
Huckabee has held steadfast to his worldview in interviews since: there is no such thing as Palestine, there is no need for a two-state solution. Israel is entitled to have the land it rules, all of it.
Of course, an ambassador doesn't actually make policy. Their job is to carry out what their boss, the president, wants.
Historian Daniel Hummel says any American ambassador to Israel may have trouble standing out, a voice among the choir of advisors near the president.
On top of that, no matter how firmly his feet are dug in, Huckabee may not be able to prevent something like a two-state solution or Palestinian statehood.
“What Trump has said so far about what he wants to do in the Middle East is he wants to get deals done,” Hummel said.
And deals involve compromise.
“Particularly, the big goal for Trump would be a peace agreement between Saudi Arabia and Israel.”
So this role could be a juggle, between Huckabee's own religious beliefs, an evangelical conviction shared by millions, and the political whims of the world.
