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What We Are Reading At Article VI Blog

Posted by: John Schroeder at 05:38 am, March 18th 2008 &mdash 2 Comments »

The Dems Have Played With Fire . . .

. . . and they are reaping the whirlwind. They are playing religious identity politics, and they are learning it is a force probably beyond their control. The Republicans have hinted at it, but that have been largely balanced by forces arguing against it, because identity politics are largely un-Republican. Charles Krauthammer thinks identity politics is all the Democrats have left to distinguish the candidates.

Of course, they have played identity politics for a very long time now, but racial identity and religious identity are two very different things. Religious identity comes with these pesky truth claims that make people hold it much tighter, and distinguishing religious competition from political competition is very, very difficult as an intellectual exercise; many just can’t pull it off. And thus religious identity is a much more volatile game and I think the Dems are being hanged by their own over-confidence.

It does not help when we see the MSM’s obvious double standard when it comes to religion in the primary from the different parties. American political memory is short, but not this short. Romney has been out only a matter of weeks and even casual observers can detect the obvious differences in the coverage and that is going to haunt the Dems deeply. But apparently they cannot help themselves.

They have a very real problem. Said Peter Wehner on the Commentary magazine blog:

It strikes me that the religious Left commits some of the same fundamental errors as the religious Right did during its heyday: too closely associating Christianity with politics; implying that a proper reading of the Bible will easily translate into a partisan agenda; tending to belittle and demonize political opponents. Both Pat Robertson’s and Jim Wallis’s willingness to vulgarize their Christian faith in order to advance their political agendas has been problematic for both sides.

But where the religious Left has set itself apart is in its stand on political issues. It was wrong, profoundly wrong, in its views on the nature and threat of Soviet communism; on its enchantment with “liberation theology” and Marxist dictators like Fidel Castro and Daniel Ortega; in its unmitigated hostility toward capitalism; in its one-sided criticisms of Israel; in its opposition to welfare reform. The list goes on. And as Reverend Wright has reminded us, there is a very deep, almost bottomless, hatred for America that runs through the hard Left and among some on the religious Left.

For decades, all the media glare has been on the short-comings of the Robertsons and Falwells. Fair enough: they are deeply flawed figures. But it’s long past time to concentrate attention on the words and mindset of those on the hard religious Left–people who attempt to pretty up the noxious views of Ward Churchill and Noam Chomsky in the garb of religious faith and “social justice.”

I could not agree more. The Democratic left is ill-equipped to pull itself back from this brink. The Repubican party, by nature of its fundamentals will recover, but for the Dems this is a natural result of its fundamentals - Their self-destruction continues.

Has Romney Created The Perfect Mormon Storm?

That seems to be the opinion of Richard Bushman.

Bushman said in the last 10 years, there has been huge exposure of Mormonism to the world. The “perfect storm” of Mormonism, Bushman called it, began with the Olympics in Salt Lake City, moved past Joseph Smith’s 200th birthday and onto Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign.

Mitt was in charge of two out of three of those cited events. So do all those Mormons we have heard from who wish Mormons would “keep their heads low” dislike Romney?

This is going to be looked upon as a fascinating period in American history.

Lowell, chiming in: There are Mormons I know who dreaded Romney’s entry into the race because of the attacks and ridicule that they (correctly, it turns out) thought would be heaped upon their church. Others I know (who overwhelmingly seem to be politically liberal Mormons) are now sorry Romney entered the race because they think his “flip-flopping” and collaboration with “right-wing” groups reflect poorly on their church.

I reject both points of view, which I am convinced are represented in very small minorities.

Of the first group, I ask: Should we hide our faith “under a bushel?” Since when is it part of our religion — not only Mormonism but Christianity at large — to keep a low profile? How do we square that notion with “go ye into all the world?” Besides, I don’t know about you, but I am not willing to live in a virtual Mormon ghetto.

And to the second group, I say: Remember that a political candidate does not represent his or her church. That is a ridiculous burden to place on anyone. After all, aren’t liberals supposed to be sophisticated, not provincial? In any case, I’ll make you a deal: You don’t have to be responsible for Mitt Romney, and I won’t be responsible for Harry Reid. That’s a fair trade, although I really think I am getting the better part of the bargain, given the hyper-partisan manner in which Senator Reid conducts himself.

Deep Thinking . . .

I found this blog post very interesting.

Everyday people follow politics as though it was their religion. Democrats and Republicans cite their respective political parties’ positions as if they were gospel, and adhere to overarching principles and their corresponding candidates with a passion unmatched in social circles except maybe sports and “the Church.”

I think there is a very important point here. The confusion between the two hurts both.
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2 Responses to “What We Are Reading At Article VI Blog”

coltakashi on 18 Mar 2008 at 12:58 pm #

Professor Bushman’s metaphor was not meant to be pejorative. After all, he was a featured speaker in many of the Joseph Smith 200th birthday events he refers to. To a certain extent, the PBS miniseries on “The Mormons” was part of that as well. The events Bushman cites made it impossible to ignore Mormonism. They brought it the forefront of consciousness of many people, both in the US and internationally.

That is not a bad thing. The mission of the Church of Jesus Christ is to “go into all the world”. The Doctrine & Covenants begins with “the Lord’s preface” to the revelations given to Joseph Smith, stating that God, knowing the calamity that would come to the earth (preparatory to Christ’s Second Coming), called Joseph as a prophet, and gave him commandments, to teach the original gospel again, and give mankind a choice of responding and preparing for the events of the last days. Joseph said the resurrected warrior Moroni warned him that his (Joseph’s) name would be held for good or evil among all nations. In other words, people would hail him or stone him. It comes with the territory.

And it’s not a bad thing for people in other faiths and denominations to be confronted by the example of the Mormons so they can ask themselves, What do I believe about God and Christ? Do I believe God is real? Do I believe Christ will come again? Do I believe that God cares about me? Do I believe there are things I need to believe, say, and do to prepare for the hereafter?

One of the most foundational of doctrines for Latter-day Saints is the freedom God gave mankind in the Garden of Eden to make our own choices, to choose salvation or misery. Mormons are taught to respect the choice of others, and at the same time their respect for the freedom we all have means that they owe it to us “deciders” (as President Bush puts it) to know about the option they offer, one that they believe God wants them to offer to all mankind.

One of the inevitable side effects of bad information being published about the Latter-day Saints and their beliefs is that it gives Mormons an opportunity to offer to correct the information people think they have about the Church and its doctrines and practices. Rather than have the misinformation stay hidden in people’s minds, times of public discussion of the Church bring it out in the open, where the people can reevaluate it, and where Latter-day Saints can offer to correct it. The net result is that more correct information is disseminated and bad information is cast out, rather than being passed on in an unquestioning way.

After all, many Latter-day Saints, both men and women, spend years of their lives, both before marriage and after retirement, telling their amazing story to hundreds of thousands of people every year, confronting skepticism and downright hostility and defamation, and pressing forward, looking for the few souls who respond to their message, that amazing things denote the participation of God, and that the lack of amazing things, of “marvellous works and wonders” denotes the absence of God. A rational searcher for God will find Him doing the miraculous among mankind.

The significance of the EVENTS driving interest in Mormonism is that they coincide with a time of unprecedented international dialogue through the internet. For the first time, Mormons are able to communicate directly with the readers of newspapers and magazines, correcting false information held by both reporters and the public. Mormons believe that the tone of their apologetics and defense of their faith will demonstrate that their message deserves to be taken seriously, as opposed to the poisoned pens of the most acid critics of Mormonism.

The Church is taking advantage of the fact that people anywhere in the world can use the internet to read detailed information about the Church and its doctrines and people, at any time of the day. They don’t have to feel intimidated by the presence of Mormon missionaries or their own disapproving clergy.

Not every person will lay aside prejudice. Not every person is willikng to put enough energy into studying a religion to really find out what makes Mormons motivated to believe and act as they do.

The New York Times remark about the contrast between the “normalcy” of Mormons and the “unusual” nature of their beliefs, is indicative of how clueless the Times can be. Mormons are “normal” precisely because they believe in miraculous things: the reality of God and Christ, the abiding guidance of the Holy Spirit, the marvelous future that is offered to all mankind, the assurance that God has not left us without essential guidance in a new and confusing world. Mormons are “normal” because they believe that intelligence is a core attribute of God that He wants us, His children, to obtain. Mormons are “normal” because they believe that all men, women and children of every nation and race and religion are just as much children of God the Father as they are, extending back into the past as well, and that is why they search out their ancestors and perform baptisms for those who died before they could receive it.

In a world where there are competing doctrines and viewpoints and “moralities”, Mormons are “normal” because they are not confused about the values that guide their lives, and the lives of their children. Their “unusual” doctrines boil down to this: God still speaks to mankind, and he has specific tasks for us, to prepare ourselves for an eternity with Him. The Book of Mormon as an instrument of communication from God is remarkably pedestrian. Instead of visions of Gabriel dictating to Mohammad, it is an artifact, a written record like many of its era around the world, inscribed on metal to preserve it to be read by future generations. Unlike the parchment that has deteriorated in so many of the Dead Sea Scrolls, or the papyrus that burned or crumbled in the libraries of Herculaneum, metal records of bronze, silver and gold have lasted over millenia, preserving the declarations of Darius and the religious rites of the ancient Italians. The really miraculous thing was the ability to dictate a translation of the record on the metal sheets, in the days when the meaning of hieroglyphs was just being recovered, and the interpretation of other written languages, like Mayan and Minoan B, was still far in the future. Yet the translated text bears sufficient detailed information in both form and content that is indicative of an authentic text from ancient Israel. The Book of Mormon is not like any other book produced in ante-bellum America. It lacks the earmarks of the romantic literature of the time. There is no semblance to the concerns of Jane Austen or even Lew Wallace (author of Ben Hur). It is a narrative that is primarily didactic, describing history only to the minimum extent necessary to give context to its sermons and testimonies.

The Book of Mormon presents itself for all the world to examine, to puzzle out. Its authors are emphatic that it is the world that is being judged, based on its response to the book, and not the book by the world. For that judgment to occur, the world must confront the book. And so, anything that places the book before the world is in the end a positive development.
4thnephite on 18 Mar 2008 at 1:56 pm #

Comment on Obama speech. He has dug a deeper hole. Was it necessary to talk about the past, his past. I believe many more questions need to be asked. He has confirmed to me I do not want him anywhere near the White House. We need to move forward and not in his direction.