Today’s Reading List – April 20, 2007 | Article VI Blog

We continue our links to Professor John Mark Reynolds' series of posts, this time with no. 2 of 6, beguilingly entitled "This Next Presidential Election 2/6: Direct and Dispose the Hearts of all Christian Rulers." There's too much heft to his piece for me to excerpt it; you need to read the whole thing.

Rabbi Levi Brackman writes about Why Mitt Romney's Mormonism is Important. His reasoning is novel, as far as we can tell:

In common with Judaism Mormonism is a tolerant religion and the eleventh of their Articles of Faith states: “We claim the privilege of worshipping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.”

Thus, a true Mormon does not believe in a one size fits all religion where all unbelievers are condemned to hell and damnation or to a life as second class citizens. Like Judaism the Mormon Church of LDS respects the mode of worship of others different to their own. They would thus never compel others to accept their religion.

This article is entitled "Hollywood Republicans Lean to Romney In '08," but it's about how much Romney has earned in California. There's not a word about "Hollywood" or the entertainment community. And– with no evidence at all– the author suggests that the $3.5 million Romney has already taken in from the Golden State somehow came from . . . Mormons.

John comments: While I have not given a dime to the Romney campaign or to its predeccessor the Commenweatlh PAC, I have attended fund-raisers for both here in California. It is quite helpful to gather background and establish contacts. I did meet several prominent California Mormons at the PAC fund-raiser about a year ago. However, at the campaign event just as few weeks agao, aside from Romney's immediate family, we were all creedal, at least amongst the people I spoke with. Lowell calls it a "suggestion" – I'm thinking "assertion without evidence."

The dean of a not especially well-known law school located in Southern California, the mission of which is "to champion a Christian theory of jurisprudence in the marketplace of ideas," holds forth on The Question. In the dean's view, Romney's Mormonism means Christian voters should not give him their vote. A sampling of the blogger's reasoning:

[B]elieving in Mormonism is clearly ridiculous. A detailed study of what Mormons believe shows it to be quite incredible in many ways.

Makes me wonder whether the author is channeling Jacob Weisberg.

John comments: When pushed, people who are at least trying to make a reasonable argument against voting for a Mormon seem to always come down into one of two places when pushed. Either the "inherent unreasonableness" of the LDS faith or "LDS lies." These foundational arguments are so awful as to almost not need dispute; however, please consider:

No faith formulation is entirely and inherently reasonable, despite what its adherents may think. I certainly find my creedal faith more reasonable than the LDS faith, or I'd change. But having said that all religion is a matter of reason – tempered with faith. We creedals are as open to this attack as the LDS. Making it is a bit like shooting yourself in the foot.

Every faith has its adherents that are both unreasonable and/or liars. A faith tradition cannot be discarded as worthy of a place in a religiously diverse nation simply because some of it adherents are dishonorable or poor-thinking. Again, I could run a litany of creedal Christian liars and charlatans and ones that are thoughtless. It would be as long or longer than a similar list for Mormons. Again, a self-inflicted wound.

Finally, if Mormonism is indeed so unreasonable and so deceptive, how is it that the plethora of Mormon government officials throughout history have been able to do their jobs? Where is the scandal in Mass. where Romney has just finished four years of exemplary service as governor? At a minimum, anybody that wants to assert these things about Mormonism must concede that Mitt Romney and any other Mormon similarly accomplished must be an "exceptional" Mormon somehow. And if they are so exceptional, why then can we not vote for that individual? After all, we need exceptional people in government service.

We make a grave mistake when we confuse religious truth claims with social religious legitimacy. I do not hold the truth claims of the LDS faith to be true. Lowell, contrarily does not hold the truth claims of my creedal Christian, Calvinist, Presbyterian faith to be true. But that does not mean we cannot acknolwedge the place of both in our social and governmental fabric. It is in fact the deepest wisdom of our nation that we can.

Finally, it was only a matter of time before someone came up with a list of the Top 10 Religious Conservatives, and how the presidential candidates are wooing them.

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