Apparently It Is Theo-nerd Day Today, but there is more…
Things might be actually be slowing for the holidays. They certainly are on the serious side of things, but that has not prevented a plethora of coverage of the stuff that is nothing more than morbid curiosity at best, or an effort to significantly alter the American political discussion on the other.
Starting Easily…
Tom Bevan belatedly looks at Romney’s MTP appearance last Sunday.
First, I think Romney made a significant mistake by refusing to acknowledge that his church was wrong to discriminate against blacks up until 1978.
This is a statement that shows a significant lack of understanding of religion other than protestantism. Protestants are the only religion I know that is good at admitting mistakes. Heck, even the Roman Catholic Church took a few centuries to get around to admitting mistakes regarding Galileo. Simply put, churches believe they hold Truth – to admit a mistake is to admit they are other than the holder of complete and authoritative Truth. That is something they cannot afford. This results in semantic games. I could find examples from virtually any brand of faith, including my own. In asking this of Romney Bevan asks for precisely what Romney said he would not do in The Speech, denounce his Mormon faith – which by the way is not something we should ask of any candidate of any faith. We ask candidate to keep faith in perspective, but not deny it. That is an important distinction.
Moving To History…
The Economist looks at Mormonism. This piece is outlined as history but ends up straying into theology quite a bit. There is nothing new here, most of it is well covered territory. However, I am struck by the fact that we never see pieces like this about Catholicism for Guiliani, or the Baptist movements for Huckabee. Baptist history is actually quite colorful . . . .
And Then The Trouble Really Starts…
South Carolinians for Romney note that Anti-Mormon sermons in evangelical churches seems to be thicker than usual. Such sermons are staples in some churches, but the timing is interesting. My favorite, however, is this post in which a non-Mormon attempts to critique the FOXNews Mormon Q&A from yesterday. This kind of stuff is always out there, but there is a noticeable renewed vigor to it.
Which Brings Us To The Heart Of The Matter…
Slate:
Southern Baptists vs. the Mormons
Mike Huckabee’s and Mitt Romney’s faiths have tangled before.
The article then goes on to look at the transfer of membership between the SBC and the CJCLDS that has been going on and the efforts, particularly on the part of the SBC, to stem the flow.
So, what is all this accomplishing? Simple, it is allowing the left to paint to religious groups as battling each other for membership against the backdrop of a presidential election. And thus the stereotype of the Evangelical as small-minded and easily led is reinforced.
As I have contended all along, the only thing that can result from all this religious talk in a presidential election is a lessening of the religious voice in the public square. At this point I fear we are setting up the left to nail us to the wall in the general.
As evidence, the Boston Herald aids John McCain in trying to use this, vainly, as a wedge issue in the PRIMARY!
In constrast to Romney’s call to bring religion back to the public square and the Christian-themed ads of ex-Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, McCain, a former Navy pilot who was a POW in Vietnam, said that while faith got him through difficult times, it should remain a private matter.
“I believe America is a Judeo-Christian-valued nation,” McCain said. “I’m a fervent believer in redemption.”
Funny how much The Speech has morphed in two short weeks….
They are already trying
Consider this from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. We start with a little “spin” wherein Romney’s failure to mention atheists in the speech is morphed:
Romney’s attack on disbelievers prompted Christopher Hitchens . . . . [Emphasis added.]
And we arrive at a hysterical conclusion:
And yet those with no religious beliefs are shut out from political power.
They are not “shut out,” they may be minority, but shut out by any stretch. Besides they seems to have a pretty strong non-political constituency, you know, the judiciary.
Which brings me to . . .
. . . a follow-up on something from yesterday. remember that Harold Meyerson piece we mentioned briefly? It really deserves more of a going over than what we gave it, and fortunately I have two blogging friends that have risen to the challenge. Laer at Cheat-Seeking Missles and Dadmanly. Thanks for saving us the trouble, gentlemen!
Lowell drops in with a couple of relevant comments: Right here in California there are already push-poll type e-mails going around. I saw this one today in an e-mail. It takes you to a “survey.” I decided to try, and indicated my preference for Romney. Before long I was looking at a page warning that electing a Mormon president would “mainstream” that faith. Go ahead, take the poll yourself, see if you learn something.
And here we have another writer who’s quite convinced that Mormons just aren’t telling the truth about their beliefs. When does that canard officially become simply boring?
Analogy of the week…
John Mark Reynolds compares Mike Huckabee to a really bad 1970’s “Christian” movie. (There is a redundancy in there, trust me on this.)
Now that we are back into some Huck critique, permit a bit of a personal reflection, prompted by this blog post from a fellow Presbyterian:
The “Government Equals Society” fallacy views government as the means by which society acts.
Frequently we hear that society has a responsibility to the poor. Most Christians of all stripes would agree. But listen to the sentence that often follows such a declaration. It goes something like this, “Therefore, ‘society’ should raise the minimum wage, grant universal healthcare, and redistribute wealth through taxation.” Notice the common theme. They are all government imposed solutions. Why not respond, “Therefore, ‘society’ should find ways to create stable families, get churches and volunteer organizations involved in the lives of the poor, and lend money to the poor through microenterprise funds.” This isn’t an “either/or” proposition. Rather it highlights that the default solutions for too many Christians: Government. Non-governmental non-bureaucratic solutions are an afterthought, secondary in importance, if they come to mind at all. This is the functional equivalent of saying “government” is “society.”
In reality, government is only one institution of society. Society includes individuals. It includes other institutions like the family, churches, volunteer organizations, businesses, and a variety of local governments. It includes countless informal networks. Society is much broader than government.
It is the fallacious thinking criticized here that leads, in part, to identity politics. It is natural to want society to look like us, and if we include that natural inclination with the government = society fallacy, identity politics are born. I say this born of personal experience, that is very much a description of the genesis of my very foolish first presidential vote, to which I confessed yesterday.
I think this conflation is typical of the young. Yesterday I was reading a quote, one of those should-remember-the-first-rule-of-holes quotes, from a Huckabee staffer who shall remain nameless. This individual is one of several Huckabee staffers that I consider a friend. It dawned on me as I read it that this individual, whom I respect a great deal, is ten years my junior. Just enough to have missed the trenches of the Carter years where I learned the hard lessons this blog exists to teach.
Could youth vs. age be the underlying factor in the Huckabee v the Establishment meme? And isn’t respect for your elders a Christian virtue?
Speaking of Huckabee…
The AP reports that he is using a network of pastors to aid his campaign. I hope those pastors keep meticulous records because the IRS is going to have a field day with that one. And while any individual int eh nation can do what ever they want politically with their free time, I wonder what this says about “higher callings” and all?
Notable Quoteables…
Hugh Hewitt in his Townhall column today:
Mike Huckabee played the anti-Mormon card against Romney, and it hasn’t worked, thus proving the old adage that if it doesn’t kill you, it makes you stronger. A lot of GOP primary voters were wondering if Romney could overcome that inevitable bit of unAmerican nastiness, and Huckabee’s introduction of the issue early allowed Romney to handle it and allay the fears of the pragmatist, Al Davis “Just Win Baby” Republicans. Had the Mormon issue not been so crassly injected by Huckabee –by accident or intentional act– a significant number of primary participants would have voted wondering if Romney could cope with it when launched by Hillary or a 527. Now they know he can. And the surfacing of the bigotry on the left has reminded values voters that the secular absolutists don’t just hate Romney’s LDS faith, but all sincerely held beliefs in a Creator. The noisy fringe will be as embarrassed of their anti-Mormon tirades in ten years as the anti-Catholic voters of 1960 were by 1970. It isn’t wrong to debate theology at all, or to wholly reject Mormon beliefs. It is very wrong to carry that debate into the public square and declare a private or public religious test for office. 2007 has seen this debate play out –again. All but the very blind know it has been decided against the test enthusiasts. [emphasis added]
Let’s just hope they have not sacrificed the Evangelical political voice in the interim. Then Dean Barnett at The Weekly Standard.
Huckabee has risen because of identity-based politics. The bottom line rationale for his candidacy is frighteningly close to that of a Jesse Jackson campaign. Addressing a sliver of the electorate, Huckabee in essence says, “Vote for me because I’m one of you.”
Hey Dean! We drew the Jackson analogy a long time ago. UPDATE from John: Now Instapundit has picked up the JJ meme. Another missed copyright opportunity. Doggone it!
Finally…
With new polling out showing Romney and Huckabee in a dead heat in South Carolina, do you think this is more wishful thinking than reporting? Just wondering.
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JLFuller on 20 Dec 2007 at 9:18 am #
The FOX news questions piece was a hatchet job. I am surprised anyone at Church HQ responded. It surprises me that Fox did this. I can only assume some inexperienced kid, maybe an intern, was given the assignment to do some background and got confused with the difference between honest journalism and yellow journalism. But still, some editor put it up for all the world to see. You would never have this mess presented by Britt Hume or the real grown ups.
The Seattle PI has had a one-sided burn for the LDS Church for decades. Back in 1968 they had a full front page spread “expose” on the Church complete with above the fold 2 inch headlines and photos. Nothing new here. It seemed enormously out of proportion considering the paucity of membership there at the time.
Huck’s enlistment of pastors as part of his campaign strategy kind of borders on an invitation to the IRS doesn’t it?
When we see politicians using religion as an instrument of war, God suffers or so it seems to me.
coltakashi on 20 Dec 2007 at 4:32 pm #
The Slate article about Southern Baptsist vs. Mormons is pretty accurate and informative. One thing it makes clear is that Reverend Huckabee cannot be honest when he denies knowing much about Mormonism, since, as the story relates, in the 1980s (when Huckabee was a pastor) the SBC realized that 40% of Mormon converts in the US had apparently once been affiliated with Baptist congregations, and the SBC embarked on a vigorous program to educate pastors and members about the dangers of Mormonism. I have no doubt that among his many sermons as a pastor, Huckabee has denounced Mormonism any number of times. If he doesn’t want to be associated with calling several million prospective voters–with campaign money– “cultists”, he should be more circumspect about attacking a candidate who is one of their number on the sole grounds of being one of their number.
The article is particularly clear that the SBC’s campaign of badmouthing Mormons has elicited no response from the Mormons themselves. The Mormons have “turned the other cheek”. I think they got that advice from the Bible.
The vivid statement that the Mormon temples in Dallas and Atlanta were “throwing down the gauntlet” is hogwash. Temples are an expense for the Church that is made when they can be efficiently utilized by a nearby population of existing Mormons. Since those who are not active Mormons can’t even go inside the temples after the public open house, they are hardly significant means of proselyting. They simply serve as evidence that the Mormon population in a city has reached “critical mass”. After all, the newest temples are in the heart of Mormon country, in Rexburg, Idaho (home of BYU-Idaho) and two new temples in southern Salt Lake County, each only a fifteen minute drive from temples to the north and south. The offense taken by Baptist ministers at seeing these temples is in the mind of the beholder. Temple construction does give the biggest bigots an opportunity to reveal themselves.
Another point made in the article is that the SBC is the de facto church of the South, which raises the question of its responsibility for the South’s history of slavery, segregation and racism. Mormons had a largely theoretical racial distinction in their internal church priesthood that was ended 30 years ago, which did not apply to Indians, Hispanics, Asians or Polynesians, never had segregated congregations, included few people who ever owned slaves and did not have government supported segregation or racial inequality in Utah. There was never any need to “desegregate” the schools in Utah. On the other hand, the South, where the SBC has been dominant for over a century, had all of the worst aspects of racial discrimination, and many racially segregated congregations even into the 1980s and beyond.
I think what the SBC fails to realize is that their campaign attacking Mormons ends up producing MORE Mormons in the end due to two factors: (1) IN my experience, at least one in ten Mormon converts first looked into the LDS Church because they became curious about a religion that could elicit such vehement denunciations. The more SBC campaigns, the more of those kind of converts to Mormonism they generate, from all religions and none. (2) Other people get disgusted at the hatred that they see encouraged by the anti-Mormon campaign, and their loyalty to the Baptists drops, making them more willing to listen to Mormon missionaries.
According to non-Mormon, Evangelical Christian sociologist Rodney Stark, people are attracted to Mormonism because, among other factors, it offers them an opportunity to make sacrifices in a noble cause. The SBC would be advised to create programs that attract people who are attracted by Mormonism, rather than attacking the Mormons. My guess is that if they do demographic research, they will find that converts from the SBC to Mormonism are people who are generally more intent on living the gospel than average, who are not content to believe that their salvation is already guaranteed and they can now relax. They are people who are willing to contemplate major changes in their lives, even ones that separate them from family and neighbors, in the cause of what they believe is truth. In short, they are some of the best Christians among the Baptists, and they are being attracted to a church that does not denigrate other churches, but simply offers a challenging religion that entails real effort in the enterprise of seeking to achieve “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”
This point also goes to the central criticism of Mormonism, that it is “not Christian”. If 40% of American converts to Mormonism used to be Baptists, who attended Baptist services and Bible study groups, and who understand the Baptist concept of who Christ is, then they have apparently decided that Mormonism IS Christianity, and meets the criteria of Christianity that they were previously taught. I think you can confirm that by a survey of any such converts. They KNOW what a Baptist “Christian” is, and they also KNOW they are still Christians, even within the Mormon Church. Ergo, they are Christians, and millions of Mormons are witnesses that they are still Christians.
Some of the discussions in the pages of Christianity Today in recent months have concerned the unwillingness of many Evangelicals to accept the importance of spiritual communication apart from the text of the Bible. Breakpoint commentary has spoken of a study that was done at one leading Megachurch which found that while the programs attracted many people, they did not necessarily turn them into Christians whose faith and behavior was measurably different from what it was when they walked in the door. While many disagree with Mormon precepts, the CJCLDS does address these two issues with great effectiveness. Since these are felt lacks in Evangelical Christianity that have been pointed out by Evangelical ministers themselves, perhaps the real reason for conversions from the SBC to Mormonism is the failure to address these needs.
I therefore offer the hypothesis that the SBC is blaming the Mormons for a problem that is within itself. The Mormons do not target Baptists (you can read the manual the missionaries use at lds.org, which does not “target” any other church’s doctrines). They are simply issuing a general invitation, and the reason so many Baptists accept is a function of their already existing discontent with their former religious affiliation.