7.27.2007 | Big Love

Have you seen the HBO original series, "Big Love?" If not, you're missing something. This is likely the show that Mormons, most especially Mormons running for national office, would prefer to disappear down the memory hole.

The show's premise? An ostensibly normal and successful businessman, Bill Henrickson (played superbly by Bill Paxton), attempts to balance his polygamous life with the demands of his community that he at least give lip service to not committing bigamy.

Bill fails at this task, and the dramatic tension among and between his three "sister wives" makes the show worth watching. Not to mention Bill's dealings with a cult-like compound of polygamists headed by a seriously power-mad creature named Roman Grant (played, also superbly, by Harry Dean Stanton).

So, why would this show be the show that Mitt Romney loves to hate? Simple. Because it shows how thin the veneer is between Mormons who sign on, in public, to be monogamous. In private, the sense is, hey, we're Mormons. We can have more than one wife -- it's biblical, you know. As in, the Hebrew prophets had multiple wives, didn't they?

Well, Mormons (or anyone else for that matter) may believe anything they want, but that does not make it so. Or moral. Why one wife, if there is clear evidence that ancient Israelites had multiple wives? Two things.

One, we are not living in the Near East of three thousand years ago. Different time and place; different cultural norms. Two, most important, Genesis, chapter 2. God created a woman, that's a, as in one, woman, Eve, to be Adam's wife:

2:24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

This is clearly the template for humanity; one man, one woman, with a charge, in Genesis 1:28, to "be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth."

Is this an oversimplification of God's plan? Perhaps. But God's power is made manifest in the first two chapters of Genesis. It's creation, after all...and I have to assume that if God intended us to have more than one wife, He'd have made some mention of this to Adam.

That Mormons, and Muslims, and others, don't adhere to this basic tenet is no reason to ignore what appears to be God's clear direction to us: one man; one woman. Complementing each other, both needed to fulfill God's plan for us. My close reading of Genesis reveals nothing as to whether God, somehow, believes men should dominate women. Or vice versa.

And, common sense dictates that when a man has more than one wife, they're all going to be short-changed. Treated, in a word, as inferiors. Polygamy is, simply, wrong. It denies the equality of men and women. Not that we are the same. That we are equal in human dignity in the eyes of God.

For mere men to make rules that denigrates the dignity of women is, also, simply wrong. In the case of having more than one wife, since it violates God's first template for our kind, it is also properly called an abomination.

6.19.2007 | "unfavorable scrutiny"

SDD — Same S***, Different Day. So it goes on the apparently endless campaign trail. This time it’s Kansas Senator Sam Brownback who’s been sent to detention by the political correctness that has infested both parties.

At issue is something labeled an “attack” on Gov. Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith. The basics, from the WaPo story:

An aide to GOP presidential candidate Sam Brownback has been reprimanded for sending e-mail to Iowa Republican leaders in an apparent attempt to draw unfavorable scrutiny to rival Mitt Romney’s Mormonism.

Emma Nemecek, the southeastern Iowa field director for Brownback’s presidential campaign and a former state representative candidate, violated campaign policy when she forwarded the June 6 e-mail from an interest group raising the questions, the Brownback campaign said Sunday.

Hmm, “unfavorable scrutiny.” Wouldn’t want any of that. While there must never be a religious test for public office, there needs to be a full, and public, exposition of what a candidate for president believes.

It is not a question of religious faith, which each of us must be free to choose. Rather, it’s the judgment of the candidate who chooses a particular religion. Before any libertarians start foaming at the mouth, let me ask this: would it be acceptable for a presidential candidate to belong to a religious sect or cult that claims women to be inferior, and who must be killed by their families if they are raped?

This would be any Wahabbi Muslim, by the way. There’s a reason why this sort of “honor killing” makes the news every now and again from Pakistan and other Islamic crudholes. Because it happens. There are other things in various religions that could give an American voter pause, and, rightly so.

So let’s not have any crocodile tears over any “unfavorable scrutiny” of Romney’s Mormonism. They believe some strange things; things that require not just faith, but which deny Christianity’s central notion of God incarnate: Jesus Christ, only begotten son of God, fully human, fully divine, who died for our sins so that we might live in Him.

So what? Nothing, if the beliefs of a candidate don’t involve things like honor killings, or keeping blacks from high church office. Oh, my bad. The Mormons stopped doing that, haven’t they? And polygamy? Depends who you ask. Well, perhaps “Big Love” is just fiction…

Let’s put that shoe in the other foot. If a Southern Baptist runs for high office, it would be legitimate to ask him, do you really believe that women “should be in submission” and “are not permitted to speak [in church]?” Well, there’s a lot of Baptists who believe that since this is Scriptural (1 Corinthians 14:34), that’s the way it has to be. I wouldn’t vote for someone who truly believed and applied this, and I’m a Baptist.

All I claim is that Christians, and Americans of other faiths, or none at all, must never shrink from placing their beliefs in the light. But this has now apparently become an unbearable burden for Mormons to have this harsh light of clarity shed on their candidate.

6.06.2007 | Not a stumbling block

Mitt Romney defended his Mormon faith rather well at last night's gathering of the ten declared Republican candidates for president last night. He was forthright, did not evade the question, and should be respected for the apparent strength of his belief.

But here's where this Christian has to stop and specify: I respect Gov. Romney's strength of belief; I do not agree with or respect his actual belief. I find the Mormon faith to be interesting, and Mormons to be good people. But Mormonism is not Christian. It isn't even clear that it is a monotheistic faith, and there appear to be strong elements of idolatry.

A fairness doctrine kicks in here: so, too, have many Protestants described Roman Catholics ("cult", idolators), and Jews, Muslims, and nonbelievers of all stripes find our theology of the incarnation of Jesus to be strange if not outright idolatrous. But we have the advantage of having truth on our side...(can't find the HTML code for "grin", so, just imagine it to be here...)

We should all tend to that proverbial beam in our eye before we seek to remove the mote from the eyes of Latter Day Saints. In different words, what I would ask is good old American tolerance: to not insist those who believe differently from us to change or renounce their heartfelt belief to gain public office.

In other words, I would vote for Mitt Romney if he is the Republican nominee. Although my preference is Rudy Giuliani, Romney is still head and shoulders above any Democrat now in the race.

What would it take for me to make a candidate's religion a true stumbling block? If a candidate was a believer in a faith whose theology requires the rest of us to convert, or otherwise submit and accept second- or worse class citizenship.

Right now, only Islam among the major faiths comes to mind. Mormons are persistent evangelists, but aren't known for attempting to convert us all at the point of a sword.

[addendum Beliefnet has a comparison between the major elements of Christianity and Mormonism. This is sufficient for me; Mormonism is not a Christian faith to my mind.

Along these lines (departure from Christian belief), Mormons also believe that it wasn't our free will that got us kicked out of the Garden of Eden, rather, it was God's plan from the beginning. And, as a consequence, mankind is not totally depraved, but, rather, according to this summary at Beliefnet,

The Fall was a planned blessing from God, enabling people to experience human bodies, procreate, experience the joy of redemption, and to do good...

This is interesting; "a planned blessing." As for that doing good, well, based on the results to date, I'd vote for "totally depraved" as a more accurate description of our species.]

4.04.2007 | Lions, tigers, and Mormons, oh my - redux

Late last year, I posted my thoughts on having a Mormon, Mitt Romney, as our president. Now that Gov. Romney appears to be gaining on Rudy and McCain, it appears that the mainstream media is focusing, with greater focus, on Mormonism in the public square.

Case in point is the front-page story in the WaPo featuring those creepy, stick-together-no-matter-what LDSers. Well, the Post didn't exactly say those things. But the tone, and tenor, of the article captured precisely these thoughts. In that sense, faithful Mormons are being treated much the same way that those fish-on-Friday, Rosary-praying idolatrous Catholics were portrayed when John Kennedy ran for president. The polite sentiment was, and appears to still be for some groups, "We can tolerate them in our country, but they'd better not get any notions of being in charge."

Let me be plain: I think that now that a Mormon has a serious shot at the presidency, the mainstream media is starting to use every arrow in its quiver to ensure that this does not come to pass. Faithful Mormons, like faithful Jews, or faithful Christians (but not faithful Muslims; see below) are just too, well, faithful to God. Which, generally, means a big fat "No!" to many points of the conventional secular humanist agenda.

Mitt Romney, as a (generally) conservative Mormon, would be anathema to those on the left whose theology is best defined by abortion on demand, all power to the unions, protectionism, and statism in all things. Romney, as a Mormon, however, should also give any faithful Christian, conservative or otherwise, pause.

Let me be blunt about it: Mormon theology is just plain nuts; it is a cult, and substitutes the wisdom of their latter-day prophets for the truths we find in Scripture and 2,000 years of Christian tradition. On the other hand, Mitt Romney isn't running for Pope, or to be head of a seminary. He is running for a secular office, president of the United States.

The immediate fear from the left is that Romney's faith in God, as interpreted through his Mormon theology, will result in a rock-solid brand of conservatism. Similar in some ways to that of evangelical George W. Bush's conservatism. We're not arguing purity here, merely stating that President Bush is much more conservative in matters of public policy than any Democrat, and that his conservatism is grounded in his Christian faith.

As for Mitt Romney, all that I care about is that there be no religious test for public office. Not that I would support a member of any faith. I wouldn't vote for a satanist, obviously. And I would not vote for a Muslim. No, I don't equate Muslims with satanists. But Islam's theology, among many other things, requires that all submit to the will of Allah, as given in the Koran.

To which I say, bullocks. The Muslim faith and its entire history have one, continual and continuing feature: conquer and convert. In this way, Islam is fundamentally at odds with the First Amendment in a way that Christianity (and Judaism and Mormonism) is not.

We Christians would certainly prefer if all would accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. But we know, after a long and brutal history, that this conversion can not be forced by any but the Holy Spirit. We in the here and now must encourage this conversion, but must never, ever force it.

Let me state this differently. I am a Baptist. We are, collectively, the largest single Protestant denomination in the United States. It is safe to assume, that given our history of suffering persecution at the hands of state-sponsored religions, we'd be the last to assent to a theocratic government. Baptists, if nothing else, must agree on the strict separation of church and state and on freedom of conscience.

I'd like to think that my brethren in other denominations also agree that freedom of conscience must trump all other political virtues. Which means, among other things, that no leader's vision of God will be imposed on our citizens. What about having a president whose beliefs are starkly different than ours, as Mitt Romney's appear to be?

Does not matter, so long as two questions may be answered in the affirmative: "Do all have freedom to worship, or not, as their conscience dictates," and "Will the candidate pledge to uphold our laws and our Constitution."

12.28.2006 | Lions, tigers, and Mormons, oh my!

The cover story of the current issue of The New Republic is titled "A Mormon in the White House?" The article is a detailed and, as is usual for TNR, an in-depth review of the history of the Latter Day Saints and key elements of Mormon Theology.

All of this, of course, is in service of showing how presidential aspirations of Mitt Romney, the governor of Massachusetts, might be problematical for serious Christians. TNR's problems with Romney appear to have more to do with his conservative approach to public policy, but they also throw in what I would call the "Dread Pirate Theocrat" warning.

TNR is, usually, a bellwether of what passes for wisdom on the center-left. And this article in the January 1-15, 2007 TNR is nothing less than an attempt to smear a faithful Mormon candidate. Please do not misunderstand. I don't view Mormonism as a Christian faith. But I do view Mormons, and I've met quite a few during my extensive travels in the American Mountain West, as some of the best citizens this nation has ever produced.

Mormons as a group come close to meeting all of the points in the Boy Scout law. You know, trustworthy, loyal, helpful, and...reverent. Which is what gives the TNR writer, and more than a few evangelicals, pause.

Let me be blunt about it: Mormon theology is just plain nuts; it is a cult, and substitutes the wisdom of their latter-day prophets for the truths we find in Scripture and 2,000 years of Christian tradition. On the other hand, Mitt Romney isn't running for Pope, or to be head of a seminary. He (may be) running for a secular office, president of the United States.

But the immediate fear from the left? This, from TNR:

Romney intends to run for president as the candidate of the religious right, which believes in blurring the distinction between politics and religion.

One must wonder as to how many of us on the "religious right" believe in "blurring the distinction between politics and religion." At least in the way implied by TNR. And that way, make no mistake, is their way of shouting, "Beware the Dread Pirate Theocons."

Let me state this differently. I am a Baptist. We are, collectively, the largest single Protestant denomination in the United States. It is safe to assume, that given our history of suffering persecution at the hands of state-sponsored religions, we'd be the last to assent to a theocratic government. Baptists, if nothing else, must agree on the strict separation of church and state.

I'd like to think that my brethren in other denominations also agree that freedom of conscience must trump all other political virtues. Which means, among other things, that no leader's vision of God will be imposed on our citizens. What about having a president whose beliefs are starkly different than ours, as Mitt Romney's appear to be?

This is an extremely difficult question to answer in the abstract. The best answer I can give is, "it depends." It depends on the specific views of the candidate, and how likely that candidate is to attempt to impose all or any of those views on others.

For example, I would probably never vote for a Muslim. For any office. Why? Because their theology requires them to place us non-Muslims in a state of submission to Islam. This would extend to any candidate whose theology required them to forcibly convert or subdue the rest of us.

So far, I don't believe that this includes Mormons.