Recently, Mitt Romney gave a speech trying to calm fears of the religious right of his Mormonism. I know that as a political liberal, I'm supposed to preach religious tolerance, but as a theological conservative, I want readers (especially my Bible study students) to be clear that Mormonism is not a Christian denomination. Even if you do not consider it a "cult," you have must realize that it is a drastically different religion unto itself.
For Governor Romney to claim that he believes that Jesus "is the son of god and the savior of all mankind" is grossly misleading. If he's willing to perpetrate this kind of deceit about his religion, how else could we expect him to lie?
Mormonism in a Nutshell
"Mormonism teaches that God used to be a man on another world and that he became a god by following the laws and ordinances of his god on his home world. He brought his wife to this world, a woman he had married on the other world. She is, essentially a goddess."
According to Mormonism, God had sex with Mary to produce the incarnate Jesus. Pre-incarnate, Jesus and Lucifer (Satan) were brothers. Satan did lead a revolt and he and his followers were turned into demons, that much is the same as Christianity.
"In Mormonism, men and women have the potential of becoming gods. President Lorenzo Snow said, "As god once was, man is. As God is, man may become." In order to reach this exalted state of godhood, a person must first become a good Mormon, pay a full ten percent tithe to the Mormon church, follow various laws and ordinances of the church, and be found worthy."
Mind you, I have no doubt that many Mormons are unaware of their church's actual doctrines and may indeed believe in the same true Jesus that Christians do- the LDS church after all, is notorious for it's secrecy, misrepresentation and changing it's official positions for the sake of legal and political expedience. They taught that minorities were the inferior and damned children of Cain. They practiced polygamy and the oppression of women, but now promote themselves as pro-family.
I may be a hypocrite and even a religious bigot, but I think that it is important that people know that Romney is either lying or deluded when he calls himself a Christian.
I consider myself a passionate believer. My faith in Jesus and my relationship with him constitute the core of my being. Be that as it may, the fact that Romney is so shamelessly pandering to the religious right is a bigger reason for me not to vote for him than his Mormonism.
Like it or, the United States is not a theocracy, it is a pluralistic- if not secular democracy. And that is as is should be. Our founding fathers deliberately wanted to avoid the kinds of conflicts that kept Europe mired in perpetual war for centuries.
After Christian Europeans were done killing Muslims in the crusades, they began killing each other. First Eastern Orthodox and Catholic, then Catholic and Protestants, then Protestants took revenge on Catholics and so on. Is it any wonder that atheists so often blame wars on religion?
Those first Pilgrims that came to Massachusetts looking for religious freedom? Were being persecuted by King James- yeah, as in the King James Bible. And while many of those founding fathers may indeed have been “Christians” as fundamentalist right-wingers are so quick to boast, they were also enlightened enough to know that no one denomination or sect should have too much influence lest they might behave very un Christ-like toward all the others.
Maybe when it comes down to it, perhaps our policy on a candidate’s religion should be “don’t ask-don’t tell.”
As a child I attended and as an adult I taught in Lutheran schools, but I’ve always believed in the separation of church and state. I believe that when he held up a coin with Caesar’s face on it and told His disciples to “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s,” Jesus may have been saying that He does too.
As Kennedy said in his speech over forty years ago, “I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute--where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote--where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference--and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.”
I have no doubt that many Mormons are unaware of their church's deeper doctrines and that they believe in the same true Jesus that Christians do- the LDS church after all, is notorious for it's secrecy, and changing it's official positions for the sake of legal and political expedience.
They taught that minorities were the inferior and damned children of Cain, now they claim to accept people of color. They practiced polygamy and the subjugation of women, but now promote themselves as pro-family.
Of course- The pre-reformation Church perpetrated all kinds of atrocities in Jesus' name, Catholics have the inquisition, Martin Luther was a pretty flagrant anti-Semite, Once the pilgrims got their religious liberty in New England, they proceeded to deny everyone else religious freedom (remember the Salem Witch trials?)... it goes on and on. No World religion or Christian denomination is immune. That's what we Lutherans call "original sin." We're all full of fear and hate.
I guess I still have lots of theological skepticism about Mormonism and trepidations about the possibility of a Mormon President, but that doesn't mean I should recklessly disparage Romney for being Mormon, or every single member of the LDS church.
Will Lutherans and Episcopalians refuse to vote for Mike Huckabee because he’s a Baptist? Or for Rudy Guliani because he’s Catholic? Or for Obama because he’s a member of the United Church of Christ, or for Senators Clinton or Edwards because they’re Methodists?
There's an old joke that goes like this; Guy dies, goes to Heaven, St. Peter gives him a tour. Through one door he hears this wonderful Gospel music, "Who's in there?" he asks, "Oh those are all the AME believers." A ways down the hall he hears shouting "AMENS" and "Hallelujahs!" "In there are the Pentecostals," Peter explains. As they pass another door he smells incense and hear sort of a droning of mumbles and chants. "who's that?" the man asks, "Greek Orthodox," replies Peter. A little further down the hall everything is silent, the man starts to ask St. Peter about it and Peter quickly puts his finger to his lips and whispers- "Shhh- those are the Lutherans, they think they're the only ones up here."
I googled this joke and it turns out that almost every demnomination hads their own version, including Mormons. Point is, we're all capable of tremendous bigotry.
The Lutheran college I attended was Missouri Synod and frankly, there was worse discrimination against kids who belonged to the Evangelical Lutheran Church than of non Lutherans.
I have to be theologically clear here.
- Jesus said in John 14:6 "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
- Orthodox ("orthodox" as in mainstream, not as in Greek Orthodox) Christianity recognizes the Apostle's and Nicean Creeds and does not recognize the Book of Mormon, John warns us in Revelation 22:18-19 "If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book."
- But Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 12:3 that "no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, "Jesus be cursed," and no one can say, "Jesus is Lord," except by the Holy Spirit."
- Romney did say that he believes that "Jesus is the Son of God and the savior of the world." Maybe that's something, of course if what I've been taught in the Lutheran church about Mormonism is true, he also thinks that Lucifer is Jesus' brother and that anyone can become god of their own planet if they're a good enough Mormon...
Want to have some fun? Check out BeliefNet's "God-o-Meter," supposedly it "scientifically measures factors such as rate of God-talk, effectiveness—saying God wants a capital gains tax cut doesn't guarantee a high rating—and other top-secret criteria."
What Romney did with his so-called “religion speech” the other day was try to get ahead of the curve. And he’s actually been quite successful. Mostly due to the fact that he pays image agencies millions to feed the media the angle that his campaign wants to present.
ReplyDeleteIn doing so, they’ve done a marvelous job blowing smoke. And they’ve angled it so that “conventional Christians” are made to seem like bigots for not accepting that Romney is a “real Christian.”
This is a beautiful deflection. But what is it a deflection from? It’s a deflection from Mormon doctrine, which says that THEY are the only true Christians! Joe Smith taught that all Christianity as presented thus far has been wrong. He rewrote whole sections of the Bible, and introduced an entirely different doctrine. And filled in the details with a story of how Jews escaped to the New World in 580 BC. And began to create warring kingdoms in America. God then cursed the “bad” group of Jews by giving them dark skin, and they are the American Indians.
Yes my friends, you heard that right! Mormons believe that American Indians are “cursed Jews.” Literally not one single piece of archeological evidence has ever surfaced that any of the kingdoms ever existed. Not a single stone from a single building. Nothing.
But Mormonism teaches that this is the REAL Christianity! Mormons refer to all non-Mormons as “gentiles,” and consider them spiritual heathens.
So it’s actually Romney that must answer whether HE thinks Huckabee is a “real Christian,” not the other way around.
But Romney’s multi-million dollar PR machine has turned the whole thing on it’s ear.