This is a guest post.  I thought this was so good I'm passing it on.

Surely a Mormon Can't Be President
by David Shurtleff ( Not a Mormon)
 Heliumites, bloggers, Political Scientists...lend me your eyes.
I come to criticize Mitt Romney not to praise him. The evil that
men do is highlighted by the media. The good is often buried under
labels... so let it be with Romney.
  The Media has touted that Romney is a Mormon, if it is so, it is
a grievous thing and may cost him the election.
 When the scandal laden Olympics was embarrassing our nation, Romney
stepped in and turned it into a showcase - Yet Romney is a MORMON,
and surely a MORMON cannot be President.
  Romney won the governorship of Massachusetts as a REPUBLICAN, yes,
in a state that gives us Sen. Kennedy. He showed the ability to work
with all people, of all political backgrounds - Yet Romney is a MORMON
and surely a MORMON cannot be President.
  Romney saved a state government facing fiscal disaster, bringing
economic expansion and staving off unemployment, something this nation
could use - Yet Romney is a MORMON, and surely a MORMON cannot be President.
  Unlike many politicians, Romney has remained faithful to his wedding
vows, keeping his commitments to his wife and blessing his children -
Yet Romney is a MORMON, and surely a MORMON cannot be President.
  The twelfth article of Romney's faith, one which he no doubt memorized
as a child, affirms that it is his duty to honor, obey, and sustain the
law - Yet Romney is a MORMON, and surely a MORMON cannot be President.
  Romney's faith group is recognized and respected by governments throughout
the world, it was so respected that it was miraculously allowed to build a
temple in communist East Germany before the wall came down - Yet Romney is
a MORMON, and surely a MORMON cannot be President.
  Romney's church teaches that the constitution is a divinely inspired document
and that this nation was established by the God of Heaven. Such respect for our
nation and it's founding document can make just another politician into a
statesman - Yet Romney is a MORMON, and surely a MORMON cannot be President.
  Romney's religious organization teaches love and compassion for all human
beings and provides millions of dollars in aid to many countries. It also sent
thousands of  volunteers to aid Katrina victims in our own country. That aid
is given freely, without regard to the religious preference of the recipients -
Yet Romney is a MORMON, and surely a MORMON cannot be President.
Wait a minute. What is it about being Mormon that disqualifies Mitt Romney from being an effective
president?  It is true that there may be theological differences that exist between Romney and others,
but he is not running for Bishop, Rabbi, Pope, Minister, Imam, or Pastor. He is running for President.
 
 

Mike says "I'm not a bigot!"
I kind of went crazy listening to Mike Gallagher defend his claim to non-bigotry on the subject of Mormonism last Thursday.  It went like this.  "I'll be damned if anyone is going to make me stop sharing my concerns about Mitt Romney's religion."  He says questioning a candidate's religion is valid because it most certainly does have an effect on how he or she would govern.  That's why he wouldn't vote for an atheist. Because not believing in God would have a lot of bearing on how a person governed; for example, how they thought about the source of our civil rights in America, and what role government should play etc.  So yes, if a person's religious beliefs would affect how they govern, that IS important. He even implies that Hugh Hewitt is being a little hypocritical here because Mike's reluctance to vote for Romney is no different than Hugh's to vote for an atheist.

Mike's Big Example
Mike granted that believing you "get to be a god or goddess of your own planet after you die" or that you wear "holy undergarments" doesn't count as something that effects how you would govern. (These throw-away lines of things he's not going to bring up, let us know next to nothing about Mormonism, but a lot about Mike's sources of information.  That source would be PAMI--the Professional Anti Mormon Industry.  Each year hundreds of anti-Mormon books, pamphlets and internet articles are published.  People make their living doing it.)  
So Mike has to produce an example--just so we know he's not really a bigot.  He really IS concerned about something that MATTERS--something that would affect how Mitt Romney governed. His example is the issue of Blacks and the priesthood in Mormonism.  This church policy was not changed until 1978.  Mike throws out a couple of statements that either show his extreme gullibility or that he is a liar.  He said this policy "had something to do with" Brigham Young believing that blacks skin color showed they were going to burn in hell. He says Mitt Romney was growing up in the 60's and 70's and would have been influenced by this stuff.  On his radio he also said that Mormons believed blacks "were evil." It's hard to believe that Mike is uneducated enough to believe that this is what Mormons believed.  Don't you, Mike, as a national radio show host, have some responsibility to check your facts and not throw out lines like "I think it had something to do with Brigham Young believing that . . .  ."?

Say What You Mean Mike--Is Romney a Racist?
So do you have the courage to say what you only intimate: Is Mitt Romney a racist because of his religion?  Was he a racist governor of Massachusetts?  Was his father, George Romney, a racist governor of Michigan?  Mike knows these are ridiculous statements.  George Romney was a courageous and untiring leader in the fight for Civil Rights in his state in the 60's.  Wikipedia, for example, calls him a "strong supporter of Civil rights." And his son, Mitt Romney, doesn't have a racist bone in his body. Mike knows that.  So why use as his example of how someone's religious beliefs could affect how they govern, something that is simply witless and off point. Was it because he couldn't think of anything REAL.   Romney's religion, i.e., his values, led him and his wife Ann to support many inner city projects to promote education, etc..  His record as governor  reflects his actual values.

Scare Tactics
Then some brain dead caller phones in Mike's show to let us know that the Mormons have Temple Death Squads that eliminate people who have been through the temple and then leave the religion. Mike.  Why didn't you call this loonball out.  This is a lot like the one about Mormons doing human sacrifice in the temple.  Religious bigotry is when you WANT to dislike a religion so much that you will believe anything no matter how stupid, just because it is against a group of people you don't like.  Stereotyping is what the human mind does to "simplify a complex reality." "A stereotype is a standardized conception or image of a specific group or people or objects." In other words, "stereotypes are 'mental cookie cutters.'"

I have been a Mormon for almost 50 years.  People leave this church all the time.  This is what we do to them:  We call them up and invite them to social activities at the church.  We assign "home teachers" (men) and "Relief Society visiting teachers" (women) to go to their homes and bring cookies and ask if they need any help with anything (pruning trees, or moving, for example).  In other words, we try and fellowship them back into the fold.  We don't kill them. If you want to believe awful things about the Mormons so much that you will swallow this kind of nonsense, you are a bigot or uneducated backwoodsman. Sorry, it's true.

"You Don't Know What You Really Believe"
My personal favorite approach is the one that says "the Mormons themselves don't really know what they believe."  But if you want to buy some guy's book for $19.99, he'll tell you the Real Uncovered Unvarnished Secret Truth about Mormonism.  In this version of the universe, the Mormon leaders in Salt Lake, really know the truth, that they are devil worshipers or whatever, but they manage to keep it from the people.  Well, my husband is a regional leader in the Mormon church.  He spends lots of time with these Salt Lake City leaders.  He has had the opportunity to get to know them up close and personal.  Maybe he's "in on it" now and is doing a really good job of keeping the truth from me!  ( Oh, come on)

I will say it again.  If I want to know what a Baptist believes, I ask a Baptist.  Someone in a blog comment challenged me on where I get my information on Evangelical beliefs.  I read their books. (My current recommendation is anything by John Bevere.  I happen to think he really gets it right. I hope that recommendation doesn't cost him any sales.)   I listen to Charles Stanley (we have our differences), Allistair Begg, John MacArthur, Chuck Colson.  I attended three years of Bible Study Fellowship.  I loved it.  There was rarely a point in those three years of Bible study that I found myself differing from the BSF interpretation on anything. 

Ignorance
You, who are so convinced you know more than I do about what I believe, try and remember what it feels like to be told by a leftist what it means to be a evangelical Christian-that you are narrow minded, that you hate Mexicans, that you don't care about the environment, that you are so dangerous you shouldn't be allowed to vote. Their hateful comments about Christianity are motivated by fear and dislike.  I feel the same thing coming off Mike Gallagher and the people quick to call in and mock the Mormons.  Be honest Mike.  You know Mitt Romney is not a racist.  But you can't stand Mormonism, at least the highly stereotypical view of it you have been fed by your anti-Mormon sources. Your jubilation about Fred Thompson is touching.  (I can hear you thinking: "Oh, thank G*d I won't have to vote for a Mormon!") And your lack of real information about what Mormons believe is unconscionable for a radio show host.  Take a trip to Salt Lake City and let them show you around, like they did Al Sharpton.  It'll open your mind a little.

Feet of Clay
One of my heros growing up was Sir Thomas More.  The movie, "A Man for All Seasons" came out the year after I graduated from high school--life's zenith of idealism and impressionability.  His integrity was legendary even in his own day.  I never forgot his movie speech when his daughter Margaret  was trying to persuade him to sign the act that permitted King Henry VIII to divorce Catherine and marry Anne Boleyn so that he could get out of prison.  "When a man takes an oath, Meg, he's holding his own self in his own hands. Like water. (He cups his hands) And if he opens his fingers then he needn't hope to find himself again. Some men aren't capable of this, but I'd be loathe to think your father one of them." Sigh.  We were all looking for "good men" like that, who wouldn't sell their souls for influence or filtfhly lucre.

It was Erasmus, the great scholar and man of Christian letters, More's close friend, who called him an  omnium horarum: a man for all seasons.  His learning and devotion to his family and his duty were monumental.  He deep devotion to God was inextricably tied to his devotion to the authority of the Holy Roman church and he thought that without it, man would quickly descend into anarchy, a word he brought into English usage.  For this devotion the church made him a saint.

A Fight to the Death
Imagine my horror when many years later I was reading a book about another of my heroes, William Tyndale, who translated the Bible into English so that "a common plow-boy could read it"  (paraphrase) and paid for this service with his life.  Sir Thomas More was his arch enemy and was merciless in his attacks on Tyndale, who died at the stake, praying, "Oh God, open the King of England's eyes!"  Sir Thomas was his bitter enemy, as he was the bitter enemy of all the reformers.  He said, "If Tyndale's testament be taken up, then shall false heresies be preached, then shall the sacraments be set at naught, then shall fasting and prayer be neglected, then shall holy saints be blasphemed, then shall Almighty God be displeased, then shall he withdraw his grace and let all run to ruin."  His attacks were vitriolic and the language was bitter. Tyndale was "a hell-hound in the kennel of the devil...." according to More.
Hmmm.  There's a familiar ring to that charge.

Fear
I remember the first time I saw a book in my neighbor's bookshelf called "Mormonism: The Doctrine of Devils." It was not the last time I heard how influenced we were by the Archfiend.  The 12 Mormon Apostles are secretly in league with the Devil.  Mormons perform human sacrifice in their temples.  (You think that's a joke but someone told my husband's secretary that to try and persuade her not to go to a Mormon meetinghouse.)  My Presbyterian neighbor would not let her children play with my children. Fear.  When the local high school asked the local Mormon bishop if they could use our building one day for a school youth leadership activity  (it was right next to the school), one mother of a student kept her daughter home, refusing to let her step foot into our building.  Fear again.  Sir Thomas More was afraid of what would come of William Tyndale's heresies, so he used any and all means to frighten people away from the perceived poison that would infect the body of the Church.

Disillusioned
More was a great Christian man in so many ways.  It was said of him that when he heard any woman in his township was in labor he would go to his knees and pray until she was delivered.  But against the reformers' heresies he was without pity.  He helped send as many as he could to the rack or the stake.  I practically choked to read of his determined persecution of those who wanted to translate the Bible into English.  This was my Hero!

The Procrustean Bed
Remember the Greek myth of Procrustes who would put up travelers for a night in his bed but as they slept, he would "make sure" they fit that bed exactly by rather unsavory means.  The Procrustean Bed of doctrine has a peculiarly strong attraction to men of faith.  How quickly they become willing to chop off a man's head or stretch him on a rack to make him measure up exactly to the measure of their own bedstead (experience).  Sadly, the history of Christianity is the history of various Procrustean-like zealots.  And if you are Protestant or Evangelical, you have them in your traditions too. The Puritans hung a woman for being a quaker and banished Anne Hutchinson and Roger Williams from the Massachusetts Bay Colony, so that  presumably, they could continue in doctrinal purity, their acknowledgment of God's sovereignty and Grace intact.
 
With What Measure
There is a verse regarded as scripture by Mormons that is given in warning to the whole earth. It announces that the Lord is coming again in Person to the earth-- "the day when the Lord shall come to recompense unto every man according to his work, and measure to every man according to the measure which he has measured to his fellow man."  (Doctrine & Covenants 1: 10) If you have lifted others, you will be lifted.  If you have pounded others, you will be pounded.  If you have been merciful, you will receive mercy.  If you have been critical, you will be criticized.  Insert your own adverb. How magnificently simple and elegant and just. It will apply to every man and woman alike, of whatever religious creed.  You can even read a description of the way it will play out in the last 16 verses of Matthew 25.

Mariner's Church Again
After my first post, I had an email from a niece who grew up in Irvine, CA in the shadow of Mariner's church. Here's what she wrote: "When I was a kid they  [Mariners] were notorious for being Anti Mormon and prided themselves in having a huge youth program that would help kids from other religions "find Jesus".  I've had a couple of run ins with them, one when I was really young -maybe 8 when my friend's mom (a member of their church) tried to bible bash with me and tell me how wrong my religion was for not letting unmarried women enter Heaven [ NOT a Mormon doctrine--] and two, when I was a teen I went to one of their youth group nights because it was kind of the social thing to do for the night.  When we got there the speaker was an ex-Mormon basically bashing our religion to all the kids.  She talked about how she got pregnant at 16 and her church abandoned her, how no religion should do that and that we didn't understand Christ.  I felt sick the whole time.  It was really bad.  Obviously I brought this up because you have had a good experience with them which I found to be very surprising.  Maybe they have changed."  The lesson of Sir Thomas More is that you can be completely sincere and well-intentioned yet completely wrong.
Indeed.  Maybe someone told Mariners about how judgment day works. And P.S., the Mormon Church never, ever publishes anything against another church, or teaches its members how to criticize another faith, or has Anti-Anybody nights or movies or classes.  Not ever.  We certainly have our faults but we're pretty convinced of the necessity of doing unto others as we would have them do unto us. (Matt 7:12)









 

Mormons and Evangelicals Dialogue in Irvine CA

I was visiting in Mission Viejo this last weekend and had the good fortune of attending "An Evangelical and a Latter-day Saint in Conversation," a discussion between Evangelical pastor Greg Johnson and Dr. Robert Millet, the dean of the BYU religion faculty and noted Mormon author. These two men live in Utah and are friends, actual friends!  They recommended what they called "convicted civility," an ability to disagree on matters of religion and faith in a respectful manner--actually listening to what the other guy says he believes and then believing that he knows what he believes better than the other guy does. Remember the Golden Rule?  It was a discussion according to the Golden Rule and it was really nice.  Greg heads up an organization in Utah that—gasp!—believes in talking to Mormons in his community called “Standing Together.”

I believe in that too.  Kudos to Mariners Church in Irvine, California for sponsoring this night of dialogue.  I get so tired of hearing non-Mormons “preach the truth in love” to me, and when they are through explaining why my Jesus is so different from theirs, I feel like I’m looking in a funhouse mirror.  Why don’t they find out what we believe from our sources?  No need to agree with me.  But you could ask.

"Touchstone"
I subscribe to a wonderful magazine called Touchstone that is my favorite monthly read.  (Check it out)  It’s cultural and spiritual commentary with wit, a high church flavor and razor sharp intellectual insight.  Most contributors are Catholic, Anglican, Episcopalian or Lutheran.  I can’t imagine not asking someone like that if I had a question about their faith rather than buying a book entitled “Unveiling the Real Secret Hidden Truth of Catholicism.”  I’m not that stupid.

Mike Gallagher's Bigotry
Apparently Mike Gallagher is.  In his current column he says ”But if a presidential candidate has a set of religious beliefs that seem contrary to the vast majority of Bible-believing Christians and those beliefs might cause someone to decide not to vote for that person, how can that possibly be called bigotry?”  Hate to tell you this Mike, but that IS the definition of bigotry.  It’s like a simple equation.

We’re not talking about having religious beliefs that would affect the way a person saw the founding documents of this country or that affected how he felt about America.  Mormons love this country and believe that God guided the founding of it so that there would be a beacon of freedom in the world.  Mike just doesn’t like Mitt’s beliefs because they are different from his.  Check the dictionary.  We call that bigotry.  Or ignorant—and proud of it.

If you want to know, ask.  And if you’re just curious and don’t want to ask those clean cut young men in white shirts and name tags—ask me.  I’m not trying to convert anybody.