Article VI Blog

Is nothing beneath the Boston Globe?

Im the latest profile entry they discuss the Romney SLC/Olympic experience, and manage to paint Romney's greatest challenge there as backing off some sort of Mormon "cabal." At some point in all of this the Boston Globe has ceased to be ignorant, or misguided, or even merely biased - they have become simply contemptable.

Let them hate Romney, that is their perogative. But to smear an entire religion in the name of political opposition should be beneath even the worst of the left-leaning MSM. This may be a new low. It is a one thing to play on the misguided suspicions of people that do not know or have not studied Mormonism, but this is more, this is an allegation of conspiracy.

What's worse, the allegation is to conduct, oh Lord heaven forbid, Mormon evangelism.

Remember now, I am the evangelical one - I like Mormons a lot, but I'd just as soon there not be any more of them simply because I think my religion is better - but they have the same right to try and spread their religion as I do mine, it's not a conspiracy - IT"S WHAT RELIGIONS DO!

Elsewhere - when you can't get media attention otherwise, put out an outrageous press release and hope for the best. Lowell predicted it to me privately, but I did not think it would actually happen. Some ultra-fundamentalist nutter named Bill Wilson has proclaimed the Church of Christ a "dangerous cult" while discussing Fred Thompson's rather colorful relationships with the opposite sex. (The CoC is unique in that it claims no creed save the Bible, but unlike the LDS, it is generally accepted as within the Christian mainstream) Having brought up the cult word, he cannot resist a shot at Romney in the concluding paragraph. I hesitated to link to this because I think we may give it more attention than it would otherwise get, but it was just to silly, and utterly random, to ignore.

That's about it for Romney and religion today; however, I did find some other stuff that might be of interest to our readers.

The Washington Post profiles Pentecostalism in Africa and starts the story this way:

As the miracle-healer descended from the sky in an immaculate white helicopter, his disciples cheered with joy: "Hallelujah! Praise Jesus."

Gospel songs thundered through the speakers as televangelist Benny Hinn landed outside Uganda's national stadium last month, before addressing 40,000 enraptured faithful.

Now, to be entirely frank, most Evangelicals find Benny Hinn tasteless and "out there" - but they do consider him in the fold of conventional Christianity, even if on its furthest edges. And yet, when I read that opening paragraph I have a hard time telling the difference between that and the Mormon story of Joseph Smith and the golden tablets, they both have a similar "feel."

Which is, I think the point. Once you concede the supernatural, it becomes very difficult to distinguish the real from the false. If you deny the Joseph Smith stories, you must deny the miracle stories in your own faith as well. If you are going to disagree with Mormons, you need to be pretty smart about it - simply dismissing them as somehow "fantastical" will cost you more than you know.

In a presidential campaign, the specific religious affilition of a candidate should just be one of these little bits of trivia that gets tossed around - so should this.

Finally, forgiveness is a religious topic.

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