Mormonism

After Mitt Romney secure the Republican nomination, prominent Southern Baptist pastor Robert Jeffress has said that Christians should vote for the Mormon candidate over President Obama since he “espouses unbiblical principles.” Such a sentiment is striking since Jeffress attacked Romney’s Mormon faith in the 2008 and 2012 primary elections, hoping that the GOP would nominate an evangelical Christian like Rick Perry over Romney as Mormonism is “a heresy from the pit of Hell.” Now, Jeffress is rallying evangelical support for Romney, despite his prior warning that electing a Mormon will lead to God’s judgment.

Jeffress told Janet Mefferd, who has also criticized Romney over his faith, that it is still better to vote for Romney, even though he is a member of a “cult” and “false religion” that believes in a “multiplicity of gods,” than Obama because of his stances on marriage equality and abortion rights. The pastor said defeating Obama is even worth potentially giving Mormon missionaries a tool to bolster “legitimacy of their faith” and make more converts.

I still think there are concerns out there among evangelicals about voting for a Mormon. I’ve made peace with it; the way I’ve made peace with it is to make it very clear on programs like yours that Mormonism is a cult, it is a false religion, Mormons worship a multiplicity of gods, they deny the Bible, in fact they think the Bible is so error-filled there had to be a second book of revelations. I want to make it very clear that I don’t believe Mormonism is Christianity but I do think that in this case it is better to vote for a non-Christian who supports biblical principles like life and marriage than voting for a professing Christian like Barack Obama who absolutely repudiates what Jesus Christ said about some key issues.

…

I don’t want to minimize the Mormonism issue. I had probably the most well-known pastor in America say to me last week; you know one concern is the mission implications of this, Mormons are so involved in missions overseas, they’ll be able to point to a Mormon president as legitimacy of their faith. So I think we need to be clear that Mormonism is a false religion that leads people away from rather than toward the true God, but having said that we are making this choice in spite of that.

He warned that America is “about to go over the moral and spiritual cliff from which there is no return” if Obama is re-elected, asserting that his administration is “openly involved in high-handed sins” and shaking its “fist in the face of God” on matters like same-sex marriage.

You know in the Old Testament the Bible had what it called high-handed sins, sins that were like a clenched fist in the face of God. We are now seeing an administration that is openly involved in high-handed sins: the embracing of gay marriage. A friend of mine said to me recently, ‘think about this just ten years ago if a pastor or a sandwich company were to say marriage is between a husband and a wife, a man and a woman, no one would have batted an eye at that, but today that is labeled as hate speech,’ now what has changed? It’s not the Bible or the message that has changed, it shows what has happened in our culture. I know this sounds alarmist but I believe we are at the precipice, we are at a tipping point in our country right now, we are about to go over not the fiscal cliff, we are about to go over the moral and spiritual cliff from which there is no return, and that is why it is imperative for Christians to get out and vote in this election.

As we have noted several times before, Religious Right radio show host Steve Deace has made a habit of inviting openly anti-Mormon activists onto his program to make the case that Christians cannot vote for Mitt Romney purely because of his faith.

Last night, Deace interviewed Stephen Mansfield, author of the forthcoming book "The Mormonizing of America: How the Mormon Religion Became Became a Dominant Force in Politics, Entertainment, and Pop Culture" to discuss the issue of Romey's Mormonism once again, during which Deace complained that whenever he criticizes Romney, he gets accused of being an anti-Mormon bigot.

Of course, Deace is not being accused of anti-Mormonism because he is criticizing Romney's inconsistent record or history of flip-flops but rather because he frequently offers air time to people who liken voting for Romney to voting for Satan. And, in fact, during the discussion with Mansfield, Deace openly wondered how voters can justify supporting candidates just because they might be good on some issues despite that fact they also "believe things that are so crazy" like Mormonism: 

What I have found is, you know, I can vet every other Republican candidate running for president the last two cycles, I can vet their record. I can talk about I don't like Rick Santorum's endorsement of Arlen Specter and nobody calls me an anti-Catholic bigot. I can vet the record of every other Republican running for ... I can vet Rudy Giuliani's record and nobody calls me a bigot against agnostics. But if I vet Mitt Romney's record, I'm a religious bigot and this continues on to this day.

...

At some level, when people believe things that are so crazy, does that cancel out where they're at on anything else?

When Deace was "vetting" the other GOP candidates, he never explicitly attacked any of them for their faith, yet he does exactly that to Romney on a regular basis.  So if Deace doesn't like being called an anti-Mormon bigot, perhaps he ought to stop offering air time to (and agreeing with) anti-Mormon activists.

Last month we noted that many Religious Right leaders have tried to rationalize their fundamentalist version of Christianity with voting for a Mormon candidate for president by arguing that it isn’t a problem since Romney supports “biblical values” and Obama, they allege, does not. Others, such as televangelist Joel Osteen and Pat Robertson, and activists like David Barton, have gone so far as to say that Mormons are indeed Christians.

Now, a group of pastors has released a document, For the Sake of the Gospel, saying that if Christian leaders decide to back Mitt Romney, they must clearly distinguish the theological differences between Mormonism and Christianity:

If an evangelical Christian chooses to vote for Mr. Romney (President Obama or any candidate), that is a decision between themselves and God.

The purpose of this call to evangelical Christians and leaders is two-fold:

1. To protect the purity and integrity of the Biblical Gospel.

2. To seize the opportunity to educate the America Public and Christians to the fundamental differences between historic Christian faith and that of the Latter-day Saints (Mormons).

…

It is our contention that the general population should not be left with any uncertainty whether the theological cult1 of which Mitt Romney is a faithful member, namely The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), and historic evangelical Christianity are one and the same faith. This we adamantly deny!

Jerry Johnson of the Nicene Council spoke to Janet Mefferd yesterday about the document and like others such as Warren Cole Smith of World Magazine, cautioned that electing a Mormon president would give the church a powerful tool in their mission work and warned against pastors describing Romney as a Christian. He told Mefferd that he would not vote for either Romney or Obama, lamenting that “the two major parties have given us the choice between voting for the Beast or the False Prophet” and calling the two candidates “twin evils.”

Johnson: Why can’t the Christian Church understand that this election cycle goes beyond Mitt Romney, beyond Barack Obama, even beyond the United States of America, it has to be about the Gospel. Too many Christians are just willing to either rationalize like Pat Robertson and Joel Osteen, they’re willing to rationalize and become very pragmatic, and it appears, I don’t know if they realize they’re doing this, but my question to them would be: what’s more important, the United States of America and its Constitution or the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ?

Mefferd: Well that’s a no-brainer right there, yet you have a lot of Christians who say ‘we have to endorse Romney, we have to get behind Romney, or we’ll get Obama for a second term,’ what do you say to those Christians?

Johnson: I say to them that in this election cycle the two major parties have given us the choice between voting for the Beast or the False Prophet. I for one, I’m not going to vote for either. This is not an issue of the lesser of two evils; I actually see two twin evils here.

Johnson also posted a video outlining “why Mormonism is a cult”:

Back in January, Rick Santorum kicked off his Florida campaign by speaking at Florida’s Worldwide Christian Center, whose pastor, Rev. O’Neal Dozier, is a fervently anti-gay and anti-Muslim activist with close ties to leading Republican officials across the state, and co-chaired Santorum’s Florida campaign. During the Florida campaign and even after Romney all but locked up the party’s nomination, Dozier has consistently warned that his nomination would jeopardize the future of the GOP with black voters because according to Dozier, who is African American, “blacks are not going to vote for anyone of the Mormon faith.” Dozier even went so far as to write a letter to Southern Baptist leader Richard Land urging him to press Romney to explicitly “renounce” past Mormon doctrines on race. While speaking yesterday with conservative talk show host Steve Deace, who has hosted anti-Mormon activists before, Dozier appeared to be using a Bryan Fischer-like tactic of stoking anti-Mormon animosity but under the guise of insinuating that Democrats are to blame for attacks on his religion, accusing the left of potentially making Romney’s faith an issue in the future.

I don’t know whether people understand this or not but the Mormon religion believes that the Negros were cursed, that they were cursed in the pre-existence because of something they did in the pre-existence and in this life they are cursed, they are cursed with black skin, a flat nose and big lips. They believe this, this is written all through their doctrine, it’s in there, it’s in the Mormon book and it’s also in the Journal of Discourses, Brigham Young is one of the main ones who said these things and other prophets that they have had. I tell you, listen to me very, very carefully, when Mitt Romney is fully vetted by the Democratic Party, I don’t think a black person, a Jewish person, I don’t think any minorities will want to come nowhere next to him.

…

Here’s my fear, Mitt Romney being the face and the leader now of the Republican Party. What does that do to the Republican Party? Number one, it will taint the Republican Party. And a nomination of Mitt Romney will widen the racial divide in this country.

Now that Rick Santorum has dropped out and Newt Gingrich is merely going through the motions, it is all but inevitable that Mitt Romney is going to secure the Republican presidential nomination.  As such, Religious Right leaders have seen the handwriting on the wall and begun lining up to support him.

But not everyone is willing to do so, partially because of Romney's long history of changing his political principles to win office, but also because of his Mormon faith.  As Bryan Fischer made clear yesterday, there is a not insignificant percentage of the Religious Right base that simply will not vote for a "spiritually compromised candidate" like Romney

Similarly, Steve Deace is an influential right-wing radio host in Iowa who endorsed Newt Gingrich but is now struggling with the prospect of having to support Romney.  And while Deace appears to be willing to at least entertain the idea of voting for Romney out of necessity simply because of the issue of Israel, he is equally willing to give air time to vehement anti-Mormon critics like Tricia Erickson to make the case on his program that being a Mormon in and of itself demonstrates that Romney's judgement cannot be trusted:

I think that the leader of the free world, especially in the times that we're in today, we cannot afford a Mormon experiment. We have to have someone at the head of our country with sound judgment. If this man does not have the judgment to be able to discern fact from fiction on the most basic things like the horrifically false religion that he's in. If he doesn't have the wherewithal to understand that he has lived a lie all of his life and continues the lie, then how do we trust the judgment of this man to put him at the head of our country with everything that's going on? I mean, if he cannot even figure out fact from fiction in the way that he's been raised, how can we trust his judgement at the head of our nation?

Gary Cass of the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission is an anti-gay, anti-Islam Religious Right activist who dedicates an inordinate amount of effort to attacking the faith of leaders like Barack Obama.

So it should come as no surprise that Cass is also anti-Mormon, as he is now saying that Mitt Romney's faith should be an important issue in evaluating "his fitness for office" and calling on Romney to "renounce the historic Mormon hostility to Christianity":

Mormonism has always been at odds with Christianity and openly denies the Trinity and the gospel of grace.

As a Bishop in the Mormon Church, Romney is free to believe its strange doctrines, practice their Masonic rituals, even wear their sacred underwear, but Romney's Mormon beliefs are not Christian.

Historically Mormons have hated and insulted Christians beginning with its founder, the polygamous Joseph Smith who said he wanted to be the Mohammed of the Americas.

Romney hopes Christians fall for the lie they believe the same things we do.

Mitt Romney, Presidential candidate and Mormon Bishop, in his 2007 speech regarding his Mormon faith sounded conciliatory towards other faiths. But his position is not consistent with the Mormon beliefs he adamantly affirmed in whole and from which he refused to distance himself. The Mormon faith has, from its inception, attacked all other religions, especially orthodox Christianity.

Romney's Mormon beliefs are not Christian. Mormonism's antipathy toward Christianity should not be so quickly forgotten. This is an important aspect of any evaluation the American voters make regarding his fitness for office.

If Romney wants the Christian vote, more than the Mormon dollars supporting his campaign, he must demonstrate real respect, not rhetoric. If he does not renounce the historic Mormon hostility to Christianity, then we must conclude that he agrees with his church's defamation of the past.

Ever since Mitt Romney called out Bryan Fischer for his relentless bigotry at the Values Voter Summit, Fischer has been on a mission to ensure that Romney does not win the Republican nomination and has been increasingly willing to attack Romney's Mormon faith as part of this effort.

Yesterday, Fischer ramped it up a notch, declaring on his radio program that having a believer in a false religion in Mormonism inhabiting the White House would be a threat to the spiritual health of this nation:

[Mormonism] is not a Christian faith. It is, as Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Church in Dallas says, a false religion. So it's kind of a striking things and I know it concerns a number of spiritual leaders, and I count myself among them, is what this would mean for the spiritual health of the United States of America is a worshiper of a false god occupied the White House. You know, what that would mean for the spiritual future of America and what it might reveal about the spiritual weakness of America if the American people, particularly the so-called conservatives, the people of faith in America, would promote someone to the highest office in the land who is a follower of a counterfeit faith, a false religion.

Isn’t it interesting how right-wing personalities like Bryan Fischer and Janet Mefferd consistently say that no one on the Right attacks Mitt Romney over his Mormon faith…and then go on to claim that Mormons are under Satan’s deception and don’t care about public office because they are waiting to become gods, respectively. And Fischer and Mefferd are far from the only ones who are trying to make the Mormon religion into an election issue.

On Monday’s edition of Crosstalk, Vic Eliason of Voice of Christian Youth America advised listeners against supporting a Mormon candidate for president because they are praying to “the wrong God.” Eliason in 2008 hosted a presidential candidate debate with other Religious Right leaders that you will not be surprised to learn Romney did not attend.

Channeling Mike Huckabee, Eliason said that “Mormons do believe that Jesus and Beelzebub, or the devil, are kid brothers.” He went on to say that Mormons “believe that someday God is going to put you on your own planet and you will be a God in charge of your own planet,” warning that “if those things happen, who knows, we might have a president who would suddenly evacuate the White House and go to another planet and become a God!”:

Eliason: There are those and those have raised the question about a Mormon president. Well I am sure that he is a very crafty individual and a man who is much experienced in doing various things. But when we come to the belief system again, the Bible says ‘if any man lack wisdom let him ask of God.’ So we’ve seen presidents bow in prayer asking God for wisdom, we’ve seen those things happen. But if you’re asking from the wrong God, what kind of wisdom are you going to have?

And the other thing of course, when we’re thinking of a person lacking wisdom, the Mormons do believe that Jesus and Beelzebub, or the devil, are kid brothers. So those in other religions have different, unique things that cause people with a Judeo-Christian background to say, ‘whoa, wait a minute.’ There are those, if you are a true Mormon, you believe that someday God is going to put you on your own planet and you will be a God in charge of your own planet. The question is—I mean, if those things happen, who knows, we might have a president who would suddenly evacuate the White House and go to another planet and become a God!

Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, has been busy spinning bizarre theories about how the media will have to try to make voters uncomfortable with Mitt Romney's faith in order to help President Obama because Evangelical Christian voters would have no qualms about voting for a Mormon.

The only problem with Land's conspiracy theory is that it is constantly being undermined by others, like the new president of the South Carolina Baptist Convention, Brad Atkins, who says that Christians would have a much easier time voting for a thrice-married serial adulterer like Newt Gingrich before ever voting for a Mormon like Romney: 

The Rev. Brad Atkins, tabbed in November to lead the group for the coming year, told Patch on Friday that while Gingrich's infidelities may represent a major obstacle for some Christian voters, it isn't an issue that necessarily excludes the former speaker from consideration. Rather, it's an issue that calls for prayerful consideration of Gingrich's numerous public confessions to his wrongdoings.

The issue presented by Romney's faith may be more deeply rooted to South Carolinians.

"In South Carolina, Romney's Mormonism will be more of a cause of concern than Gingrich's infidelity," said Atkins, the pastor at Powdersville First Baptist Church in the Upstate.

"Conservatives can process and pray their way through the issue of forgiveness toward a Christian that has had infidelity in their life, but will struggle to understand how anyone could be a Mormon and call themselves 'Christian.'"