All aboard the “RAPture Express.”

Baptist Trumpet

Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who is exploring a bid for the presidency in 2016, wrote a column called "RAPture Express" as a high school senior and college freshman for the Baptist Trumpet, the weekly newspaper of the Baptist Missionary Association of Arkansas.

BuzzFeed News previously reported on his columns that were published in 1973. Huckabee also wrote the column in the year 1974 and 1975, the best of which have been included below.

The articles paint a picture of Huckabee as very much involved in the ministry (he would become a Baptist pastor) and covers topics such as gays, drinking, pot, how to dress, and Watergate.

"It's a column that I wrote for the Baptist Trumpet newspaper. It was actually even before I went to college, I was writing it when I was a senior in high school. I was 17 years old and I wrote this weekly column in the newspaper and it was sort of an advice column for teenagers who were believers," said Huckabee in a radio interview discussing BuzzFeed News' first story.

"So the term the 'Rapture Express' came from the very popular term in the 70's for 'rap,' meaning to converse and of course rapture was something we were all talking about in the 70s. So much talking about the second coming. But anyway, I did this so, BuzzFeed, I don't know how they got em', I'm not sure, don't really care, but they found sets, a whole selection of the columns I wrote, on which I discussed things like dating, dancing, smoking, I mean all sorts of issues that would be relevant to a 1973 teenager. Cause that's when it was, 1973. I was 17."

Here are the highlights:

On "Short Skirts!": "Some of the newer fashions include the very-low cut dresses on girls, extremely tight pants on guys, as well as the halters, bra-less looks on some girls...Don't make the temple of God look like some trashy slum-house."

Baptist Trumpet

On young people who drink: "The young person who drinks is to be pitied. Not from a pious view, but a compassionate one. The way of the drinker is destruction."

Baptist Trumpet

View Entire List ›