“Open Season”
In yesterday’s post, we noted the “Mormon rumbles,” and that McKay Coppins piece on the role of Mormonism in the Mommy wars was once again ringing the Mormon bell. It seems Jennifer Rubin agrees:
So what is the point then of the piece, which goes on to paint Mormons as condescending and backward thinking when it comes to gender? (“These doctrinally-defined gender roles aren’t entirely unique — they’ve been preached by various sects for centuries — but Mormons have proven uniquely unwilling to bend them to fit modern times.”)
Does Mitt Romney believe in all that stuff ? Well that would be the only real relevance to the voters and the predominate conclusion of many readers I fear, namely to suggest that Mormon religious views (and in turn Romney’s) on gender are unacceptable in modern society. (This is after all a political blog, not a Web site on comparative religion.) Again, did the reporter try to interview Romney or ask the campaign about his views? The reporter sure doesn’t indicate that he did. Is there anything in Romney’s record to suggest he believes this? The reporter identifies none. And if there is no connection with Romney’s views or records, why should it be a problem? Or even the subject of political punditry?
Rubin does a masterful job of dismantling Coppins. Her main argument is that without talking to the Romneys such a piece is a rather blatant form of religion bashing and perhaps bigotry. It is, after all about the religion, not the Romneys’. She wonders if is is “open season on Mormonism?”
“Oh, of course not,” claim people like Weigel @ Slate and Alec MacGills @ TNR, but such denials in the end serve the real purpose – to associate Romney and Mormonism, all the while discussing how Mormonism is “different.” The denials are a form of dog whistle in and of themselves. What is truly shameful about this tendency, as it has been of much of religion reporting in the past for other faiths and other issues, is that it reduces to the faith to a pastiche, unreflective of what the faith really is and means to the lives of its adherents. Religion is misrepresented, often defamed, and increasingly opposed for the sake of electing a specific politician or achieving a specific policy goal.
Speaking of Mormon dog whistles, Jack Cafferty, who has an old history of saying stupid things aabout Romney and his faith, is at it again, echoing the “secrecy” thing. Cafferty on CNN – is anybody paying attention?…Hello?…Bueller?…Bueller?
Not surprisingly, a poll out of Virginia shows Evangelicals heavily favoring Romney over Obama. And yet, in the darker, rarely visited, corners of the internet (Hat Tip) we read:
Many naive Americans believe that Mormonism is merely another branch of protestant Christianity. Well that’s not what the founders and leaders of Mormonism believed.
According to its founder, Joseph Smith, and Brigham Young, Smith’s successor, Mormons are the only true people of God on the earth. All non-Mormons and their religions are “wrong, an abomination, blind, damned, of the devil, whores, not Christians, groveling in darkness, heathens, ignorant, devoid of fact, pagan and hatched in Hell.”
The author here describes Mormonism as “anti-Christian.” Mormons want little more than to be recognized AS Christian – this is just asinine. Which could explain why it is the dark, little visited corner of the internet.
Deep Background
At a recent convocation of about 700 mostly young evangelicals in Washington, D.C., speakers politely debated how Christians can best address culture and politics. Urging some political detachment was Jonathan Merritt, a Southern Baptist critic of conservative Christian activism and author of the just published book “A Faith of Our Own.” He accused “culture war” Christians of being “partisan, narrow, and divisive.”
Many young evangelicals are disillusioned with politics and how Christians have engaged it, many speakers insisted at the April 2012 “Q Ideas” conference in the nation’s capital. Only 25% of the 700 attendees reported approval of the tone of Christian political engagement over the past 30 years. A full 61% of attendees identified as “unaffiliated” with any political party or ideology.
Young, politically unaffiliated Evangelicals dissatisfied with the state of faith based political engagement – there are 2 ways to view this. One is “liberals in the making.” The other is young people that we need to engage and perhaps modify our approach to some extent
Relatedly, from that same organization:
The debate over religious freedom is shifting from a “cultural war” to a “conscience war,” Messner explained. Christians are increasingly inhibited from attempting to state a case for a society built on commonly shared religious values. In extreme cases religious believers could lose economic opportunities, such as firing Christian doctors for not performing abortions. More benignly, the new coercive framework advocates for reduced moral standards as religion is sidelined.
The shift noted is a shift from community focus to individual focus. That shift has been pushed in part by the Evangelical focus on personal salvation, often at the expense of other equally important aspects of faith. Is it any wonder that young Evangelicals are dissatisfied with cultural engagement. When there is no community being built political discussion is simply naked aggression.
Deep Ironies
From David Hill @ The Hill:
First, a lot of Americans have probably figured out this prejudice against Mormons and feel badly about it. Despite notions that we’re a mean-spirited, bigoted society, we’re not. In fact, there are undoubtedly far more open hearts than haters and the former will work hard to prove that the American public isn’t prejudiced, just as many worked diligently four years ago to sweep the first African-American into office. It must be a sweet irony for Republicans to soak in that we’ll finally have the affirmative action candidate for the presidency. Barack Obama may have been the first African-American president, but Mitt Romney will be the first Latter-day Saint president, by the numbers a bigger achievement.
I am more than a bit certain that the last thing Mitt Romney wants is to be elected on am affirmative action basis. Romney should be elected becasue his is capable, competent and unquestionable the the best qualified candidate for the job. However, there is a very rich irony in the fact that supporters of the current president, elected in part in rejection of prejudice, would use prejudice against a political opponent.
But the deepest irony come from Jim Treacher @ The Daily Caller:
Hey, if we’re going to talk about how presidential candidates treated dogs decades ago, let’s talk about how presidential candidates treated dogs decades ago.
Can you name the author of this quote?
“With Lolo, I learned how to eat small green chill peppers raw with dinner (plenty of rice), and, away from the dinner table, I was introduced to dog meat (tough), snake meat (tougher), and roasted grasshopper (crunchy). Like many Indonesians, Lolo followed a brand of Islam that could make room for the remnants of more ancient animist and Hindu faiths. He explained that a man took on the powers of whatever he ate: One day soon, he promised, he would bring home a piece of tiger meat for us to share.”
Yep, that’s Barack Obama, writing about his childhood with his stepfather Lolo Soetoro in Indonesia, from Chapter Two of his bestseller Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance.
That’s going to leave a smile on my face all day long!
Lowell adds . . .
Monday Politico’s Mike Allen began his Playbook update, which is e-mailed to subscribers nationwide, with this (emphasis is in the original):
COMING ATTRACTIONS – David Axelrod tells us the Obama campaign will make a major umbrella issue of what he calls “Romney’s penchant for secrecy”: “George Bush felt it was appropriate to release the names of his bundlers. John McCain did. But not Mitt Romney. Why did George Bush and John McCain release multiple years of tax returns, but not Mitt Romney? Why did Mitt Romney leave Massachusetts government with the hard drives from his computers, and why did his senior aides leave with the hard drives from their computers? Why won’t he be more forthcoming about some of these offshore investments?
“Harkening back to my youth, which extends far beyond yours, there was a show called, ‘I’ve Got A Secret.’ Increasingly, I think that would be the appropriate title for the Romney campaign. There are central issues, but this is a disturbing one and it goes to that question of, like, ‘Who is this guy? What does he stand for? What does he believe? What do we know about him?’”
Keep in mind, this is right off the top — the very first thing Allen published on Monday morning.
One one level, it’s funny. Mike Allen appears regularly on the Hugh Hewitt Show and does seem to be open-minded and good-natured. But to start off Monday morning pretty much announcing the Obama campaign’s theme of the week does make Allen seem like a megaphone for David Axelrod. Of course, the MSM and the left side of the digital punditocracy — which is nothing if not reliable and predictable — dutifully picked up on the prescribed meme. Jack Cafferty, as John notes above, was one of them. I must say, Axelrod’s effort is a brilliantly cynical way to prepare fertile ground for discussions of Mormon “secrecy.”
Just thought I’d mention that.
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JLF9999 on 18 Apr 2012 at 10:02 am #
Once more some folks trot out the time worn “Mormons believe all other churches are evil and Mormons have the exclusivity on real Christianity” nonsense. Why do some people feel compelled to advance that old canard when the truthful answer can be had so easily by just asking the Church what it all that means?
So, for those who actually believe what some uninformed or deliberately disingenuous commenter has said, let’s get it corrected.
Joseph Smith said God rejected creeds not people who genuinly believe and practice Christianity to the the best of their understanding. The reason creeds are abhorant is because they separate people rather than bring them together. Christian creeds have been used as political tools. In some cases, creeds are used as weapons against other people. They have been used inaccurately to define people and Christ. That is the problem. It was particularly bad 200 years ago.
The other never ending story is that Mormons are the only true church. What is implied by our detractors is that other Christians are not true Christians. That is not the case. What Mormons mean when making such comments is that the priesthood is found in only one church. The truth they speak about is concerning authority not a belief in Jesus Christ. The differences in practice of Christian worhip is not the issue if the worshipper is doing the best he can with what he believes and understands.
Traditional or historic Christianity has brought untold millions to the belief that Jesus is the Christ. They kept His name alive for two thousand years when paganism ruled the world. If that is not Christianity then I don’t know what is. What those ancient fathers and preservers of Christ’s name lacked, and what the restoration brought about, was the authority to take the next step and bind in heaven promises made on earth. The promise of baptism is the main one made to believers that could not and cannot be fulfilled without men who have the authority and knowledge to do so.
The priesthood is the sole power which can bind on earth and in heaven. No man takes it on himself. That means none of the other non-LDS claimants have that authority. It had to be restored because it was lost when the last apostle died. The exercise of priesthood authority lays with the apostles not the priesthood bearer. When the last apostle died the entire living priesthood lost its authority too. That means no one had authority to pass it on. Without a living apostle no man holding the priesthood, righteous as he may have been, had authority to perform any eternal ordinances including baptism.
Rockgod28 on 18 Apr 2012 at 2:41 pm #
I went to the original article by Jennifer Rubin and read the comments at the Washington Post.
It was full of the most aweful kind of bigotry, if not outright hostility.
Jennifer Rubin was accused of being a ‘shill’ or by not being civil to another reporter for being negative about another reporter’s article.
Most of the venom of the commentors was saved for the Mormon ‘cult’ and Mitt Romney.
There were calls for Mitt Romney to admit he gave money to the “racist” Mormon Church for banning blacks from inclusion in the priesthood to admitting he wears magic underwear.
Only in America can a potential President of the United States can be asked what kind of underwear they have on magic or otherwise.
The panic by Team Obama is beginning much, much earlier than I expected as Mitt Romney leads on the polls to become President of the United States.
The fear of losing is setting in. Real fear.
Any attack on Mitt Romney is countered. The mommy war is a failure, class warfare is a failure and so Team Obama at the whistle of David Alexrod is doing their best to attack what seems to be Romney’s only weakness: Mormonism.
The direct attacks are still avoided by using class warfare, but as mentioned here the code words are getting set up for religious attacks.
The only way for Obama could win now is to turn the economy around using the Clinton playbook. (It’s the economy $#up!d) It isn’t possible for a number of reasons.
First Obama killed energy production in all areas and all investments in Green Technology in solar and wind are bankrupt. That alone destroys any possibility of economic recovery.
Second the President has political debts to pay that he can’t ignore not the least of which is the promise of ‘flexiblity’.
Third is Team Obama’s lack of economic understanding as evidenced in the first example of being able to get unemployment under 8%.
Fourth is nearly the whole Democratic Party’s ideology on the limited capital (money) to take from the producers of American production to give by government mandate (force) to consumers without compensation by taxes, regulation, fees, and other laws.
I can continue to list many more reasons why President Obama can not compete with Mitt Romney in the 2012 on the issues, policy and especially the economy.
All Barak Obama has left is to use to attempt to win is to attack Mitt Romney’s religion.
According to President Barak Obama’s track record as a failure in every aspect of the office of the President of the United States there is only one last thing left: re-election.
Barak Obama has been sold to the American people as a master campaigner. The president has nothing to run on at all.
Nothing except class envy, religious bigotry and fear.
Not a winning combination to the simple message of Mitt Romney for Americans to believe in America (themselves).
coltakashi on 19 Apr 2012 at 12:03 am #
Thank you as always for being the place that pulls together the most significant developments in the election campaign.
A common belief of the extreme Left and extreme Right is that, if you possess the truth, you have a warrant to enforce that truth through a crusade to take possession of the holy city of Washington. That was Obama’s image four years ago, and it is the image that strongly conservative Evangelicals have sought in Gingrich and Santorum.
However, Romney does not fit the Knights Templar template. He is not self-righteous in the sense of believing that being right is the same as having authority to coerce everyone else to do what you know is right. That is a Mormon trait. Mormon teachings and culture combine a strong conviction of clear truths with an unbending commitment to the freedom of every person to make her own choice whether to believe it or not. Mormons strictly avoid alcohol, but don’t push for prohibition for others. Mormons believe in keeping sexual relations within marriage, but do not seek government criminalization of adultery.
People whose only experience of religious conviction is its association with self righteous coercive crusades, assume that Mormonism’s strong certitude must be associated with a threat of coercion, but that is simply false.
Romney does not call for support by claiming that God told him to run for president. In addition to the acculturation of many Evangelicals to be suspicious of Mormons, Romney’s rejection of the Crusader mentality disappoints their expectations for a crusading conqueror. He lacks the sense of self righteousness that certain Evangelicals expect from their pastors and their political leaders.
However, that means that the scare stories Obama’s campaign will push about Mormons will also ring hollow in the presence of Romney’s obvious tolerance for others.
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