A New “Code” Meme, Putting Your Foot In…
From “Flip-flop” to “Too Perfect”…
I guess now that the flip-flop charge has been outed as code for “Mormon,” it is necessary to develop a new code word. It starts with Amy Goldstein in “American Thinker” who says that he is despised by the other candidates because:
- He can win
- Jealousy
- He isn’t beholden to interest groups
- His brains
- His wealth
- His experience
- He believes that America’s best days are ahead of it, and not a memory
- His beliefs
In other words, “Romney is just a little too good to be true.” In the NYTimes, Michael Luo contends that Romney is unpopular amongst the other candidates. He stops short of asking “why” but it furthers the meme to an extent. But then the meme take particularly virulent form on Thursday 12/17/07 on The New Republic web site, with a subscription required article, “Mormons and Money: Mitt Romney, His Church, and the Culture of Prosperity.”
From that conversation stemmed one of Weber’s most insightful concepts. Especially in a newly formed society, Weber concluded, religion serves as a kind of moral credit agency. Businessmen need a way to determine whose credit will be worthy and whose will not. Admission to a congregation is a method of establishing that creditworthiness. And religions with mechanisms for deciding who will belong to them will flourish in a commercial society in a way that religions emphasizing hand-me-down criteria of membership will not.
Even this decidedly pro-Romney piece feeds this particular beast:
Ironically, the presumed Achilles Heel of the Romney campaign, his Mormonism, should be a comfort to economic conservatives. Mormonism has many common values with Evangelical Christians and with Orthodox Jews. Self-reliance is highly treasured.
I doubt Lowell, Mitt Romney, or any other Mormon wants their faith defined by the approach to money, any more than I as an Evangelical do.
So, here is it is, not only is Romney “too good” but he is “too good because he is Mormon.” Sigh. There was a time we wanted our leaders to actually be more successful, more capable, than we were, but apparently those days have past.
The “too good” thing is a charge as old as politics, but what is unique here is the tie to Romney’s faith. As best as I can see that is just an effort to heighten suspicions. We are suspicious of the successful and we are suspicious of Mormons, but the two together and . . .
Lowell: Amy Goldstein’s piece is actually Romney-friendly, but she has identified much of what makes him so insufferable to so many. (Just search this blog for the word “Stepford” and you’ll see what I mean.)
When will we get back to judging a candidate on the issues?
And There Mike Huckabee Stands With His Foot In His Mouth . . .
The WaPo/Newsweek feature “On Faith” looks at Huck’s statement about bringing the constitution into line with “God’s standards.” As we pointed out at the time, in context his statements are not that bad, but his choices were going to be ammunition forever and ever and ever. Well, the responses contain the first shots with that ammo. Can we afford a president that could speak so unwisely?
But…
Even if wrong about it, many social conservatives worry that they are being used by the conservative establishment. They have fears, often overblown, that their issues are viewed as of second tier importance. They suspect that after they pay the bills and fill the cruises that they are mocked behind their backs.
Just a random thought. Political rhetoric and concern rises sharply for presidential elections, especially among social conservatives. The fact of the matter is that when it comes to the White House, social conservative issues are “second tier.” It has nothing to do with cruises or the Ivy League or anything of the sort. It has to do with the fact that aside from judicial appointments, there is nothing the president can do about social conservative issues by virtue of the constitution. That is just flat out how our government works.
A lot of social conservatives need to a simple civics lesson. If Roe v Wade is overturned tomorrow, abortion will still be legal in half the country by virtue of state laws passed prior to that decision. Social conservative issues are hard work, and we would be far better served getting about it.
Finally…
A noble, but probably misguided effort. Theology is not where Mormons and Evangelicals will find common ground.
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coltakashi on 24 Jan 2008 at 9:27 am #
The story about other candidates being hostile to Romney shows that Romney is nicer than they are. Being upset about not getting a congratulations call is vanity (a sin that Reverend Huckabee undoubtedly sermonized on, if he would ever release his sermons). Romney’s campaign ads pointing out inconsistencies in McCain’s prior positions is hardly worse than the “flip flop” tag that the other candidates throw at him constantly, without rational basis.
The characterization of McCain as a playground bully is all too consistent with his reputation for anger over slights. McCain knows that Huckabee is not a real threat to his success, so he can be magnanimous to him, and vice versa. McCain does not appreciate competition. If Romney beats him for the nomination, he will be reconciled to it eventually, but not immediately. Whereas Romney will be a gracious loser as well as one who does not abuse his position as a winner.
American voters need to get serious now. This is not a reality show cooked up for the TV and Motion Picture Writer’s strike. It is not a blood sport like WWE wrestling, where we can delight in insults and blows and folding chairs thrown. We are supposed to be picking the leader of America for the next four years. It is clear that the only candidate who is acting like an adult in this fray is Mitt Romney (in my own humble opinion).
JLFuller on 24 Jan 2008 at 10:36 am #
Michael Lou in his piece in the NYT today says
I noticed that too. Although Mitt Romney has a lot experience in friendly venues, I am sure he does not in hostile ones – at least when he is alone. In the “no holds barred” politics of a presidential race what we see is how the candidates will deal with hostility. Romney needs to learn how to take a punch. More importantly, we also see how the candidates are able to handle people they really disagree with. In this case, we see how they handle someone they hate, to use Amy Goldstein’s term. But do we want someone who can shake your hand just before he jams an ice pick in your ear?
If Huckabee chooses someone who thinks like Ed Rollins-
what does that say about Huckabee?
McCain said
Not one of his better performances.
When I go back over Romney’s TV ads, I don’t see anything that wasn’t poised and respectful of the those he contrasted himself too. I have never heard him say anything that wasn’t courteous and gentlemanly. He has never over-reacted, that I can find. That tells me a lot about the kind of foreign and domestic policies a Romney presidency would insist upon. Just as important, I wonder what the other candidate’s foreign and domestic policies would be like based on what we have seen so far. How would they represent us? The encounter with the Democrats at the presidential debate in New Hampshire tells me a lot. It told me who the gentleman was. Since then, the behavior of the others tells me what they really are like too.
4thnephite on 24 Jan 2008 at 11:16 am #
Deeds will always trump words.
coltakashi on 24 Jan 2008 at 12:37 pm #
RE: The book trying to identify common ground between Mormons and Evangelicals: There are several books along this line that have been published in the last decade, especially as more Evangelicals have been willing to recognize that Mormons are worth talking to. Some of these books have aroused anger and censorship on the Evangelical side (including refusal to stock it in Christian book stores).
Professor Robert Millet of BYU has made a concerted effort over the last decade to communicate regularly and openly with ministers of other churches. He has a regular program with one Evangelical pastor in Utah in which they go together to both Mormon and Evangelical gatherings in the interest of better mutual understanding, and do a radio call-in program to answer questions. Millet has published a new book explaining Mormons to Evangelicals which was praised by Richard John Neuhaus in the December 2007 issue of First Things journal.
A couple of years ago, Millet and his Evangelical contacts were able to have a meeting in the Salt Lake Tabernacle in which Richard Mouw and other Evangelical writers discussed the relationship of the two communities. Mouw got beat up by some Evangelicals for explicitly stating at that meeting that much of the stuff about Mormonism that has been published by Evangelicals has been inaccurate.
Millet does not deny nor minimize the distinctions between the viewpoints of Mormons and Evangelicals on many fundamental issues about authority, scripture, revelation and the nature of God. At the same time, he tries to clear up distortions about Mormonism that energize the bias against Mormons, such as the notion that the Book of Mormon was authored by Satan, that Mormons are unthinking robots, or that they worship Joseph Smith rather than Jesus Christ.
The need for someone like Millet to do the same for Evangelicals is not as strong since Mormons buy and read books by popular Christian authors (they are carried in the Church-owned Deseret Book chain), and Mormons do not have an industry that publishes attacks on Evangelical theology. As many Evangelical churches have noted, there are some Mormons who join them, and many Evangelical church members who become Mormons. Oddly, from what I have seen, the Mormons who become Evangelicals tend to buy into the worst characterizations of their former church, while Evangelicals who become Mormons tend to talk about the positive aspects of their previous church experience, and that Mormon teachings have built onto those rather than supplanted them.
Thus, Mormons do not go in for intense criticism of Evangelical beliefs, churches and members, but only of the attacks they make on Mormons and their church.
Every Mormon adult has had experiences of the antipathy of other churches’ ministers towards them, usually regarded as a comic overreaction to the “evil” Mormons. When I was a missionary in Japan, one US military chaplain avoided shaking hands with us and left the room as soon as he saw us. On the other hand, when my missionary companion and I had arrived in Nagano without a hotel reservation, a Protestant missionary who supported himself teaching at the local college saw us walking down the street and gave us a ride in his Mercedes to a nice inn. Of course, he gave us a briefing along the way about how strongly Buddhist the citizens were, being in the home of one of the oldest and most important Buddhist shrines in the country.
Even many of the most positive accounts of Mormons written by Evangelicals tend to be condescending. They assume that the deepest desire of the Mormon heart is to be accepted by other Christians into their “club”. There is a lot of wishful thinking that maybe Mormons will “see the light” and abandon their weird doctrines and become a more conventional Christian church en masse. This indeed is what appears to have happened with the Reorganized LDS Church (now Community of Christ) based in Independence, Missouri, which started basically as Mormons who decided not to move all the way to Utah, and which has relegated Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon to optional aspects of their inventory of beliefs.
The condescension also includes notions that Mormons are just not smart enough to understand the Bible, and it takes on the overtones of the older child correcting the errant, younger brother. While there is a lot of Evangelical literature that tries to reach out to Mormons, instead of explaining what Evangelicals believe and why it is correct, it tends to go into explaining (incorrectly) what Mormons believe, and why it is wrong. For some reason, that is true even among former Mormons who write this kind of literature. These works tend to give Evangelicals a bad reputation among Mormons, associated with intellectual dishonesty and laziness, which is unfair to the vast majority of Evangelicals, who at worst only buy this stuff in hopes of saving their Mormon neighbors.
One of the particular things that Mormons who have studied other churches wonder about is why Mormons are getting attacked for specific doctrines that are shared by other, classically Christian churches, such as the Eastern Orthodox doctrine of salvation as “theosis”, man being transformed by Christ’s grace into a divine being and joint heir with Christ.
The hope I have is that some day Evangelicals will take the same tack that Millet and others have taken, and simply do their best to explain their own beliefs, in terms that Mormons can understand, to Mormons, rather than telling Mormons that Mormons believe things that are irrational and even evil. So the content of a particular book like the one you cite is not as important as the intent of it, to try to increase mutual understanding rather than to make the other side cry “uncle” and admit that you are smarter than they are.
Note that Mormons do not have any general aversion to voting for a presidential candidate who is an Evangelical. Utah gave George W. Bush his largest popular vote in any state. They may, though, be reluctant to vote for an Evangelical who has identified himself with religious bias against Mormons. They get plenty of that without giving those guys the keys to Air Force One.
coltakashi on 24 Jan 2008 at 4:19 pm #
As to the apparent thesis of the New Republic article: Several years ago, Joel Kotkin wrote his book Tribes on the theme that group cultures that encouraged trust facilitated a more efficient business environment, and that this culture of trustworthiness was a foundation for the success of Jews, Chinese, and certain other groups. I don;t he cited it, because it is not clearly a present reality, but historically at the height of the Muslim empires, there was sufficient business trust that a check drawn on a “bank” in Morocco could be cashed in Indonesia.
Kotkin at the time noted that Mormons were an emerging “tribe”, with mutual trust linked to international ties that could mimic the success of the Jews and Chinese. Clearly, the international experience, language abilities, and connections of Mormons have helped make the BYU Management School a success, and with Kim B. Clark, former Dean of the Harvard Business School now president of BYU-Idaho, and his associate Steven C. Wheelwright now president at BYU-Hawaii, the potential for using existing Mormon capabilities into an international business “Tribe” is really there.
Of course, this is still a somewhat new phenomenon in Mormondom. The surge in Mormon higher education has come in the last half of the 20th Century, with programs that helped all Americans also raising Mormon education levels, including the GI Bill and various student grant and loan benefits. Those made me and my brother the first generation in our family to graduate from college. Mormons have been transformed in a generation from a largely agrarian and blue collar membership (including people working at the Kennecott Copper Company like my Dad) with some business entrepreneurs and a small elite of college educated people, into a demographic group with at least as many PhDs as any other in the country, somewhat overrepresented in American academia. With the establishment of the law school at BYU, and the unintended result that, instead of going home after graduation, they married and settled down locally, the number of attorneys per capita in Utah is among the highest in the country for a state.
Mormons still have plenty of blue collar workers, but they are emerging into prosperity on a scale hard to imagine a century ago, in the wake of the national persecutions of the Church and its members.
This phenomenon of growing wealth and ability in an elite class has been noted among Evangelicals as well, as a recent book about the new Evangelical Elite shows. However, there is one difference. By and large, the Evangelical Elite appears to be a distinct class from the pastors who lead most Evangelical congregations. Many in the “Elite” tend to be impatient with their local churches, and put their religious energies into parachurch organizations where they can employ all their talents.
On the other hand, because Mormons do not have a career clergy, and call their leaders from among each congregation, to serve as unpaid “amateurs”, the pastors of a Mormon congregation are usually precisely the “elite” people who have obtained the most success in their chosen professions. Being a lawyer in a small, middle income neighborhood is almost begging to be called as a bishop. Thus, in my very blue-collar ward in Kearns, Utah, where most men worked for Kennecott Copper or for the Post Office (my Dad and five others in our ward), our bishop and then stake president was an architect for the Church (he later became a general authority), while his predecessor as stake president was a mining engineer, two anomalous professionals. So the Mormon achievement elites are also the Mormon pastors. And Mitt Romney is a perfect example.
So you get people running Mormon congregations who have business experience planning and running companies and faculties. Even though their jobs are demanding, they give of their spare time to serve their fellow church members, even while fulfilling their roles as husbands and fathers. It is a discipline, to give the Church a high priority alongside one’s career, that is inculcated with the experience of taking two years out of the middle of your college education, and your personal advancement, to serve as a missionary, putting other’s needs first. And among other things, it forces them to serve people who are far less prosperous than themselves. Indeed, they disproportionately spend their time and efforts in the Church serving those who lack the most in material terms. I think it helps to keep them anchored in reality, along with the humility before God that it also calls on them to have.
Another example of this is Mike Young, president of the University of Utah. Mike and I served in Japan together. He was at or near the top of his class at Harvard Law (possibly overlapping with Romney), clerked for Justice Rehnquist, and established the Japanese Law program at Columbia, when he was president of the Manhattan Stake.
In many cases, they will be asked to make a full time sacrifice to serve the Church, giving up their careers for three years to serve as a mission president, overseeing 150 to 200 young men and women and few older couples. One example is Joel McKinnon, a successful building contractor from Orlando who was Romney’s companion in France as the other Assistant to the President who took over leading the mission for several months. He was my bishop in the DC suburb of Camp Springs, Maryland. He is currently mission presdient in Montreal. Or it might be some other special full time calling, such as Clark’s call to become president at BYU-Idaho.
And then a smaller group are called to become full time General Authorities. Lance B. Wickman is a member of the First Quorum of Seventy, sort of the general staff of the Church, and he is also its chief legal counsel. He was a senior partner with Morrison and Foerster, and when the Soviet Union fell apart and Russia opened to the world, he was able to arrange to have his law firm transfer him to Moscow, where he was able to help the Church do crucial legal work so it could operate in Russia. (He’s also a former Army infantry captain who served two years in Vietnam.) He is just one example of the fact that LDS Church leaders are generally people who were outstanding in their chosen professions before they were asked by the Church to give it all up and work for the Church.
So whatever success in the ways of the world that Mormons achieve, it should be remembered that those who are living the Mormon lifestyle are giving priority to their families and the Church, not for financial compensation but from a sense of service. They do not use the Church to advance their careers; rather, the Church uses these men (and women) to advance its own work of caring for its members, in an organization whose largest challenge is keeping up with its rate of expansion.