Mike Huckabee proved Sunday he is just a little too comfortable fighting for souls for Christ.

He delivered the sermon at an evangelical church in New Hampshire, and his words should leave non-Christians and reasonable people of every faith troubled. 

"When we become believers, it's as if we have signed up to be part of God's Army, to be soldiers for Christ," Huckabee told the enthusiastic audience... "When you give yourself to Christ, some relationships have to go," he said. "It's no longer your life; you've signed it over." 

Likening service to God to service in the military, Huckabee said "there is suffering in the conditioning for battle" and "you obey the orders." 

Mother Mary. Do we really want a president who believes he signed his life over to Christ? Or anyone else, for that matter? I mean at least Bush makes it clear by both word and deed that he doesn't actually believe all that God and heaven and hell stuff. 

But Huckabee does. He has the glint in his eye of a man who sees things the rest of us don't, like Satan and spirits and Holy Ghosts.

And he trots out the born-again Chuck Norris, aka "Huckabee's Oprah," just in case you don't believe him. 

Huckabee's campaign did not allow cameras into the church, and the candidate did not make an appeal for votes as part of his sermon. But a church official invited members to attend an event a mile away, where Huckabee held a rally with actor Chuck Norris and where free clam chowder was served.

Faithful (not in the Huckabee sense) Pensito Review readers will recall that some have questioned Huckabee's replacement of his wife with Chuck Norris at high-profile events, leading at least one commentor to wonder if Chuck Norris is Huckabee's wife. His behavior in New Hampshire would suggest it's possible. 

In his campaign stops in New Hampshire, Huckabee has generally focused on appealing to nonreligious voters, playing the bass guitar and emphasizing his support of small government, local control of schools and gun rights - popular causes among Granite State Republicans.

Norris, who has endorsed him, has been at his side at nearly every event. Huckabee is projected to finish third in the New Hampshire primary behind McCain and Romney. 

It was just a month or so ago that Mike Huckabee, the former Baptist preacher and Arkansas governor, claimed that the hidden hand of God was behind the surprising success of his candidacy: According to Huck …. 

There's only one explanation for it, and it's not a human one. It's the same power that helped the little boy with two fish and five loaves feed a crowd of 5,000 people. And that's the only way our campaign could be doing what it's doing. I'm not being facetious, nor am I trying to be trite. There literally are thousands of people across this country who are praying that a little will become much. And it has. And it defies all explanation. It has confounded the pundits, and I'm enjoying every minute of their trying to figure it out. And until they look at it from an experience just beyond human they'll never figure it out. And that's probably just as well. 

That's honestly why it's happening. 

Of course, no pundit has ever been even slightly confused about the reason for Huckabee's success. It is quite simple: Christianist voters rejected the other candidates one by one - Giuliani, McCain, Romney, Brownback and Thompson -- because they found them all to be insufficiently doctrinaire about the rightwing's bizarre hate-filled version of Christ's teachings.

Huckabee became their only choice by default. But now Huckabee is trailing at a distant third in New Hampshire in a series of polls: 

An American Research Group poll of 600 likely Republican voters, McCain is at 35 percent, Romney 27 percent, Mike Huckabee 12 percent, Rudy Giuliani 10 percent, Rep. Ron Paul 7 percent, Rep. Duncan Hunter 2 percent, Fred Thompson 2 percent, and Alan Keyes 1 percent. 

A CNN /WMUR poll of ... 341 likely Republican voters, McCain leads with 32 percent, followed by Romney, 26 percent; Huckabee, 14 percent; Giuliani, 11 percent; and Paul, 10 percent. 

A McClatchy /MSNBC poll of 400 likely Republican voters, McCain is at 32 percent, followed by Romney, 24 percent; Huckabee, 12 percent; Giuliani, 9 percent; and Paul, 8 percent. 

A Rasmussen automated poll of 1,240 ... 1,102 likely Republican voters, McCain is at 32 percent, Romney, 30 percent; Huckabee, 11 percent; Paul, 11 percent; and Giuliani, 9 percent. 

If Huckabee comes in third in New Hampshire today, it would be nice to think that a reporter would ask him to explain why it was God's will for him to lose in the Granite State.

Don't hold your breath, of course. Huckabee would do well to look at George Bush's claim in 2005 that God told him to invade Iraq and Afghanistan: Bushit has claimed he was on a mission from God when he launched the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, according to a senior Palestinian politician in an interview to be broadcast by the BBC later this month. 

Poor george revealed the extent of his religious fervour when he met a Palestinian delegation during the Israeli-Palestinian summit at the Egpytian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, four months after the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. 

One of the delegates, Nabil Shaath, who was Palestinian foreign minister at the time, said: "President Bush said to all of us: 'I am driven with a mission from God'. God would tell me, 'George go and fight these terrorists in Afghanistan'. And I did. And then God would tell me 'George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq'. And I did." 

The great deciderer went on: "And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, 'Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East'. And, by God, I'm gonna do it." 

Maybe God was joking when he told bushit to invade Iraq. After all, they both apparently share a love of practical jokes: bushit loves towel-snaps and making up snarky, demeaning nicknames - and God invented the duck-billed platypus.