“The Question” is back!
It’s Official…
As the Veepstakes heats up - pretty much beginning with Politico’s Allen declaring last week that Romney topped the McCain short list - we have been treated to numerous pro/con pieces of the various possibilities. And they all have asked The Question. It always comes in one of two forms, but the latest entry in this growing list of pointless prognostication, manages to hit both notes in one article! First there is the indirect swipe:
In addition, he was born in Michigan where his father was governor, and beat McCain by nine percentage points in the state’s primary this year. Romney also has strong support in Western states such as Nevada, where his fellow Mormons made up a quarter of the voters in the state’s January Republican primary, according to exit polls.
Then there is the direct shot:
Romney also brings negatives, including his Mormon religion, which some of the evangelicals who form a core Republican constituency describe as a cult and a disqualifier for their support. They also have condemned what they regard as his shifting positions on issues such as gay rights and abortion.
So, is it a negative or a positive? Well, if we buy the premise that people vote identity, not issue, the point for a MSM that always wants the Dem is to talk about it as much as possible. Saying that Romney is a Mormon either as a positive or a negative is not the point. What gets out there is “not like us,” “not like us,” “not like us.”
Yet another reason to just not talk about religion when it comes to candidates.
Speaking of Stuff We Keep Hearing About…
Seems McCain is “reaching out” to Evangelicals. Who knew? Forgive the sarcasm, but in the Internet age, every newspaper cannot rewrite every story, it just gets old. But this latest one from the Dallas Morning News (Dallas, along with Colorado Springs, is pretty much the center of the Evangelical universe) is fascinating because of its juxtaposition to a Weekly Standard piece on what’s happening with the Catholic vote.
The DMN piece is headlined about “religious” voters and yet do not mention Catholics at all! They remain a pretty significant group in this country, and they are religious, so what’s up? Evangelical myopia would be my initial diagnosis. as we looked at yesterday, they don’t seem to get along with anybody, really - leastwise independent Evangelicals. Which raises an interesting question.
What would happen if the Mormons and Catholics got together for a candidate, not just an issue?
Lowell: John and I were chatting about the great irony here: In purely doctrinal terms, Mormons and Catholics are in a more direct and uncompromising conflict that any other two Christian faiths. (Maybe that is why Fr. Neuhaus seems so viscerally and fiercely negative about Mormon theology and doctrine.) Both Catholics and Mormons claim divine authority direct from Jesus Christ, through the Apostle Peter. Simply put, if Catholics are right about their claim, Mormons are wrong, and vice versa.
And yet, of all faith group demographics, Romney did the best among . . . Catholics. Whenever there has been a moral issue in which the Mormons have become involved - same-sex marriage, for example - their strongest allies have been Catholics.
It’s really kind of funny when you think about it.
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5 Responses to ““The Question” is back!”
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CarlH on 08 Jul 2008 at 9:11 am #
“The Question” is back . . . and so is Mike Huckabee (if he really ever left). Kathryn Jean Lopez notes a pre-Independence day “Rediscovering God in America” conference (for pastors!) “co-sponsored” by the Huckster.
Why have we heard so little about this? And isn’t that the title of Newt Gingrich’s book and apparently a speaking tour? Coupled with the “Evangelical leaders” calling on McCain to “consider” Huckabee as his running mate, as reported by Christianity Today today, what are we to think? Interestingly, James Dobson apparently was not invited to the “Evangelical leaders” confab in Colorada. Hmmm, how long will Dr. remain consigned to the doghouse by some of the guardians of religious purity in politics?
KLO’s reflections on Huckabee as a possible VP selection are, as usual, withering.
lkm55 on 08 Jul 2008 at 2:39 pm #
If Obama is elected at least 2 Supreme court justices will retire so they can be replaced by a democratic president. Evangelical had better pull their heads out of their posteriors and get behind McCain. It’s their sitting on the fence that got him the nomination.
I hope Romney is not the vp nominee. Joe Lieberman had to swallow most of his priciples to run with Kerry. I don’t want ot see the same happen to Mitt. Mit Romney is in the same position Ronald Reagan wqas in 1976. He’s far better off to work for the party for the next 4 years, build his base, and win the big prize next time.
K.G. on 08 Jul 2008 at 8:51 pm #
It’s interesting for this Mormon to compare the Catholic/Mormon relationship with the Mormon/evangelical relationship. Catholics seem secure in their faith and do not find it necessary to criticize or marginalize the faith of othersr. They seem to welcome the opportunity to make common cause with fellow travelers.
Many evangelicals, on the other, are unable to see the commonalities they share with Mormons. Evangelical churches in my community refuse to join in community projects with Satan-inspired cultists.
Last evening on a thread discussing Mitt as a VP possibilility, an evangelical stated he and many other evangelicals “despise Mormons and would never vote for a cultist.”
In my experience, Catholics are warm and welcoming toward Mormons; evangelicals not so much. In some cases their hate toward Mormons is palpable. It’s an interesting contrast.
coltakashi on 10 Jul 2008 at 12:45 pm #
The Mormons were violently attacked by some American Protestant ministers back in the early 1830s, before many of the teachings that are the current focus of criticism were published by Joseph Smith. The focus of the attacks was not Mormon doctrines as much as Mormon unity and growth, which in democratic America threatened to take control of local government away from established residents.
As the Mormons continue to grow in numbers, and maintain a unified hierarchical structure that can invest capital to build churches in areas where the population might not be able to afford it on its own, I would suggest that some Protestant ministers see the LDS Church as a threat to the prosperity of their own congregations, and as direct competitors who don’t mind baptizing people who already are members of another church, which is viewed as a breach of etiquette by minsters who call it “sheep stealing”, as if the people belong to the minister rather than God. Many Protestant churches are financially independent and depend fully on local membership contributions, and cannot amortize their costs over a collection of richer and poorer congregations. From their viewpoint, it is easy to think of the LDS Church as an evil monolith, and to accept as true any criticism leveled against their enemy, especially when spreading falsehoods can insulate their congregants from listening to the Mormons and being tempted to join “the other side”. Since Mormons stand apart from Protestantism generally, it is easy to believe that the corollary of one’s own church or movement being the way to salvation is that outsiders like Mormons are going to the other place. And the ministers become customers to an anti-Mormon industry of people whose living is dependent on spreading fear of and resentment toward Mormons.
On the Mormon side, no one at the local level earns their living based on the membership of the local congregation. There is no direct financial incentive to seek converts, just a religious one. Local Protestant churches are not seen as a religious threat, though the enmity they engender often has social consequences when Mormons are in a minority. Mormon congregations in that position have many people who are former members of other churches in the vicinity, so they are unlikely to demonize their former co-religionists. And they know pretty well what those other churches teach, so there is no significant market in Mormonism for false information about Protestant denominations.
In the US, Catholics have also been viewed as distinct and potentially threatening by many Protestant ministers. That friction has roots going back through the struggles over Anglican versus Catholic dominion in Britain, and English domination over Ireland, and manifested in statutes and constitutional amendments passed a century ago that were targeted against Catholics in general and parochial schools in particular.
The shared status of outsiders from the Protestant mainstream in America has made Catholics and Mormons allies or at least cooperators in pursuit of religious tolerance and cooperation. The problem of secularization of Catholics totally overshadows the number of Catholics who join the LDS Church in America.
I suggest that the roots of the dichotomy between the Catholic and Protestant attitudes toward the LDS Church are not based on theological issues (there are similarities and differences between Mormons and all other Christian denominations) but rather on the social, organizational and financial distinctions between the two traditional Christian groups and how those are threatened or not threatened by Mormonism.
Bookmarks about Negatives on 22 Jul 2008 at 3:00 pm #
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