Article VI Blog

MyDD is one of the most liberal, shrilly liberal, blogs out there.  And yet

Will America ever elect a Mormon president? …. If they know what's good for them.

I am struck by the fact that what Lowell and I are doing here is defending the truly liberal position.  So much has happened to the conservative and liberal labels in my lifetime.

Speaking of "liberals," the inevitable blog "Mormons Against Romney" demonstrate something quite interesting with this video presentation.  The unsurprisingly anti-Romney piece ends "Vote Democrat."  That says that 1) the Dems are very afraid of Romney that they would target him so directly now, and 2) That this group clearly understand the proper relationship of religion and politics, but are not the least bit adverse to use religious labels to advance their political agenda.  In other words they violate their understanding.  Demostrating once again, the real problem here is the left, not Evangelical/Mormon squabbling.

Look, if you are for Fred Thompson, then let's talk politics, but now not only are we trying to decide if LDS is a "worthy" religion, we are questioning the religious credentials of our own.  EFM has clarified in a long string of posts.  Folks we are on very dangerous ground here.  This extends beyond a mere "religious test" all the way into a "genuine religious test."  Talk about setting yourself up as judge, jury and executioner!

Lowell:  My thoughts on this here.

Some interesting historical perspective.  And a little more.

The Question, Kennedy, and the courts — Lots of good background stuff here.

Boy, it sounds like there are plenty of stupid people to go around in this story.  Someone, somewhere, will undoubtedly use that as evidence of "Mormon cultishness" although I can't find any evidence of anything other than a guy that claims persecution.  Lowell, any comment?

Lowell:  There's not much to say about this.  The "joke," or play on words, that the school teacher used is one I've been hearing all my life, and really derives from the tendency of BYU students (and LDS people generally) to marry at a young age.  For people who are familiar with LDS culture, the reactions, overreactions, and counter-overreactions in this story are truly bizarre.

The thing about this story is that it has flashed across the wires faster than any story remotely related to this blog since it started.  In less than 24 hours I found it in several hundred outlets, that's amazing for an "odd" piece.  Why?  Of course, Mormon is hot and this is "evidence" of Mormon "weirdness."

These two links represent something fairly unsavory on the part of the MSM.  Stories that would normally be purely local, or even completely unworthy are now going to get all sorts of national attention.  It's a way to attack Romney without ever mentioning his name.  Mormons are different, this cannot be denied, but different is simply that, different, no judgment good or bad need be applied.  This is bigotry at its most insidious.  Like the claims of "different musculature" in blacks that swirled as civil rights really took hold in this country, people are going to be grabbing at straws to justify their prejudices.  It's a crying shame the press is low enough to feed them.  Or they will examine The Question as a mean of exploring them.

Lowell:  I actually did not mind the last article linked, from the Palm Beach Post, which seemed basically informative.  The Utah story is the kind of thing that shows up in the Salt Lake Tribune all the time.  The local jousting over the LDS Church is just part of life there, and Salt Lake Citizens who are not members of the Church just love to make fun of LDS symbols.  John's right — as those stories about provincial squabbles are picked up by the national media, both sides are just going to look strange or petty or both.

A little off topic strategy talk:

Is it just me, or is this "money primary" stuff getting just a bit silly?

And, the best thing about the left is they cannot keep their stories straight.  The most effective attack on Romney to date, not that it has been that effective, has been the "flip-flop" thing.  So, liberals decide to be disappointed because he has actually changed his views.  (HT: Instapundit)  You have got to love that.

Lowell adds:  It seems that liberals are upset when a candidate changes his views only when the change goes in a conservative direction.  Al Gore moved from pro-life to pro-choice, but no one seems to be accusing him of flip-flopping.

Another more political topic:  This op-ed piece makes the unconvincing argument that because "defeating Islamic radicals has become a priority for religious conservatives," such voters will overlook McCain's and Giuliani's voting records because of those candidates' strong anti-jihadist positions.  The writer can't sustain his burden of proof.  The most he can argue is that religious conservatives won't stay home on election day if a Giuliani is running against a Hillary Clinton. I'll buy that, but I'm not persuaded that religious conservatives would vote for a Giuliani over a Romney or a Thompson based solely on that issue.

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I am a long time, hardcore college basketball fan. (I grew up in Indiana and have high school teammates that played for Bob Knight, we are talking stuff that cuts to the core here)  Anyway, in more than 30 years of such hardcore fandom, I have never, ever wondered what the BYU athletes do with their temple garments during the game.  Given that Slate is home to the worst piece of anti-Mormon bigotry we have seen to date, one is forced to wonder if this well-sourced and seemingly respectful bit of religious arcania is not a potshot.  I mean no one asks if the Notre Dame guys take mass before they play.

Carol Platt Liebau on Mormons as the last "legitimate" target of bigotry.

Europe seems to be leading us on all things ugly and religious discrimination is no exception.  Should the bigtory Liebau discusses above continue to stand, we will be headed for the kinds of things this London Telegraph piece discusses.

An interesting analysis on Evangelicals in political action.  E.J. Dionne has something to say on the issue as well.  Dionne crows a bit too much, but then he would be interested in driving the wedge deeper.

Romney's raising big money.  I got to see him in action at this one.  If you had seen the crowd, you would not be quite as pessimistic as these two pieces try to sound.  More proof the MSM has it out for the conservative candidate.  Which takes us back to Slate up top….

There can be some amazing subelty to bigotry.  Consider this piece from Fort Wayne Indiana.  It is another small town paper looking at The Question and not bringing anything new to the table, but then this little gem appears

The LDS Church responded by embarking on a public-relations campaign to downplay its distinctiveness. In 1981, it added the subtitle “Another Testament of Jesus Christ” to the Book of Mormon, and in 1995 changed the church logo to show a super-sized “Jesus Christ” and a minimized “Latter-day Saints.” More recently, it has discouraged use of the term “Mormon,” encouraging members to identify themselves simply as Christians and to avoid discussing their doctrinal differences with other Christians.

 

Candidate Romney can be seen as pursuing this assimilationist program. Since setting his sights on the presidency, he has talked the evangelical talk – reminding evangelical leaders that, just as they do, he regards Jesus Christ as his “Lord and Savior,” for example, and by opposing embryonic stem cell research (which the LDS Church has no objection to). [emphasis added]

What? Are Mormons the Borg intent on "assimilating" the universe?  Why choose an adjective so full of sinsiter implication?  Who is assimilating whom here and to what end?  This thing just smacks of paranoia.

The most one note profile piece to date.  "Gay" D.C. paper The Blade looks at The Question and uses it as an excuse to talk about "gay Mormons."

News of endorsements has been rampant and is really outside this blog's scope, but this one, being from a very important military man, must be read.

Place your bets now as to when this "Odd News" piece will be used as a cudgel against Romney.  Of course, it could already be so in the same vein as Slate and basketball, but then the Examiner has not been quite so ugly as Slate.

The power of blogging.

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As careful readers of this blog know, it was Hugh Hewitt who first planted in our minds the idea for this blog.  That story's here. So it was with great pleasure that we conducted a telephone interview with Hugh on Friday, March 16.  Our subject was Hugh's new book, A Mormon in the White House?  Ten Things Every American Should Know About Mitt Romney.  To a great extent that book is about the same thing this blog is about: What should be the role, in a presidential campaign, of a candidate's religious views?

Note:  There is a Monday, March 19 Reading List  and Tuesday, March 20 Reading List as always.

Here's the transcript of our interview.  "LB" is Lowell Brown, "JS" is John Schroeder, and "HH" is, of course, Hugh Hewitt.  Enjoy!

__________________________________ 

LB:    John is going to start us off.

JS:    Lowell and I are here with our favorite radio talk show host and blogger, Hugh Hewitt, who unfortunately is responsible for the blog.  Our lives have never quite been the same.

LB:    Our blogfather.

JS:    That’s right.  And Hugh has his book out this week, A Mormon in the White House? 10 Things Every American Should Know About Mitt Romney, which is very, very kind to Article VI Blog, and we thank you for that Hugh.  

HH:    It was a pleasure.  I didn’t really know if you guys would do what you’ve done and I’m glad you have.  I think it is an incredible resource for the coming campaign, and not just for the Romney people but for every journalist who needs to get their arms around this issue.

JS:    Well, we appreciate that.  Hugh, because we are not real journalists, we are part time volunteer “pajama journalists,” we’ve done our best to prepare for this interview, but it may be a little bit scattered.  Let’s start with a silly question.  You have interviewed a lot of people for the book.  What was the one interview you most wanted that you didn’t get?

HH:    That’s a great question, actually.  I would say, the Prophet. [Referring to the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Gordon B. Hinckley. --Ed.]

JS:    OK.

LB:    He wouldn’t talk to you?

HH:    I tried to get over there a couple of times and always the timing was wrong.  They never said they would anyway, but a couple of times I would intersect with one of the 12, and that always blew up too, so that would be the number 1 and 2 through 13 and I suppose the other two members of the first presidency, so, that would have been interesting, but they are very careful not to involve themselves in this campaign.  And I think that led to a little bit more difficulty than normal.

LB:    They want to stay as far away as they can from looking like they are involved or endorsing or taking a position one way or the other.

HH:    Yes, yes.

JS:    While we are talking about that, that raises the issue that occurred, when was it Lowell, when the BYU contacts and that story blew up?  Was that — that was in the fall, wasn’t it?

LB:    It seems like it was September. [It was actually October 19, 2006.  We first blogged about it here. –Ed.]  

HH:    I cover that in the book.  That was much ado about nothing.  One enthusiastic email — I think they met — Josh Romney and a political consultant, and one other person — who met with Elder Holland to brief them. And an enthusiastic email went out and the Boston Globe immediately declared the Mormon Conspiracy to be underway.  And it was a laughable — one of many laughable articles on this campaign from the Globe which bears quite an animus towards Gov. Romney.

LB:    The funniest thing that stands out in my mind is the image of  a Boston Globe reporter staking out the LDS Church Administration Building, sitting somewhere across the street and keeping track of who went in and came out.  Apparently they actually did that.

HH:    Yup.  Trying to figure out if the vast web of connection was underway.  Or the illegal immigration story that tried to connect groundskeepers to Romney.  From Guatemala.  They really have a vendetta underway, a journalistic vendetta, of course.

JS:    Oh, there is no question about that.  Now I have a rather — I want to take a side track from the BYU event.  We had a bit of a dust up on our blog over that event with Patrick Hynes, who at the time was on Ankle Biting Pundits, who rather enthusiastically and uncritically passed that story on.  

HH:    Well, Patrick is working for John McCain.

JS:    Right.

HH:    So, anything he can pass on that will attempt to slow down momentum, either for Romney or Giuliani is to be expected, and I think Patrick does a fine job as a McCain operative, because that’s what he is.

JS:    Well, getting to my question,   — Understood. — But getting to my question, he was not at the time revealing that in his post where he did this, which we thought was necessary.  You have engaged him as a regular columnist at Town Hall, where you are managing Editor.    

HH:    Executive Editor, actually.

JS:    Oh.  Executive Editor.

HH:    I have no management duties.

JS:    OK.

HH:    Thank goodness.

JS:    So that was not really your decision to hire him then?

HH:    No, but I enthusiastically embrace it.  I want everyone in the campaign to have a home at TownHall.com.  

JS:    OK, but it is clearly as the McCain guy.

HH:    Yes.

LB:    As long as it’s disclosed.  Right?

HH:    Yes.  And it is disclosed.

JS:    OK.  I just found that an interesting decision because — well, Lowell took him on more than I did, but up until all that happened, he had not been completely forthcoming about his association with McCain.

HH:    And I think he figured out from that time forward, that that simply cannot be the case.

LB:    Yes, since then he has been open about it.  What I objected to at the time was that if you look up his company on the internet, they are in the business of creating favorable buzz on behalf of their clients.  Or negative buzz on behalf of their clients’ opponents.  Which is exactly what he was doing with stories about Romney.

JS:    The next place I think we’ll go — you mention this in the book, Hugh, and it was something Lowell and I found out very, very early on when we started the blog, somewhat disappointingly.  There appears to be a great dearth of case law related to Article 6, and I’m just wondering why, and what does that mean?

HH:    It’s self-executing .  That’s why.  For the longest time everyone understood what it meant, that one did not ever suffer penalty for their religious faith in the public life of the United States.  Much like the 14th Amendment removed disabilities to African Americans serving in the public life of the United States.  However, the internalization of that ethic seems to have frayed, even after the 1960 campaign.  And I was talking with Bill Bennett about this this morning.  The bar is so low when it comes to attacks on Mormons vis a vis any other minority, that it is shocking.  And I think that is because simply opinion leaders have not educated those who take their cues from them about what is and what is not acceptable concerning Mormon bashing.  And unless and until they do, it is going to continue, until it becomes unacceptable, or — we internalize from public figures, how to act.  And thus, many of us have watched the decline of Catholic bigotry.  We have watched the decline of attacks on gays and lesbians.  We have watched the decline of attacks on African Americans, on Muslims because of the public debate about those.  That has not yet happened about Mormons.  It has got to.

LB:    I'd like to follow up on that because we have been talking about this issue, and you have been also, in the context of essentially beating up on a religious minority.  But I noticed just a couple of days ago, and I sent this to you, a survey showing that the LDS church is now the fourth largest denomination in the United States.  Ahead of Presbyterians, Episcopalians, etc.  And so it is not really a minority religion at all.  Is it possible the problem results more from a combination of that unfamiliarity and lack of leadership you mention along with maybe some fear of the church’s apparent success?

HH:    Well, I don’t think it’s the latter.  Even though it is the fourth largest denomination, as, what are there about 5 million in America, now?  It remains a fairly distinct and insular religious minority in the United States as probably fewer Mormons than Jews, I would guess.  I’m not sure about that, but growing rapidly.  And the fact is that it remains very unknown to people.  So envy is not operating here, so much as I think historical hangover from the founding of the church and the persecution years, to the well developed sense of interest in it by mainstream media that has led to things like Mormon America, the Ostlings’ book.  The Under the Banner of Heaven book, which was really quite hurtful to the Mormons because of its purposeful, almost, confusion of the LDS church with the FLDS.  [By “FLDS,” Hugh is referring to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, headed by Warrant Jeffs, a notorious polygamist now on trial in Utah for two first-degree felony charges of accomplice rape.  There is no relationship between the Mormon Church and the FLDS. --Ed.] 

And then Big Love.  Again, more purposeful confusion of what is going on in the public square concerning mainstream LDS and its splinters.  So, I don’t think its envy.  I do think it’s a lot of combination of the other things.

JS:    Hugh, if I can just disagree with you a little bit.

HH:    Sure.

JS:    We recently did a series of posts on the Smoot hearings of 1901 through 1905, and the charges against Smoot, that resulted in those hearings and the challenge to his seating in the Senate, were originally brought by the Salt Lake City Ministerial Association.  

HH:    How interesting.

JS:    Yes.  And the woman that wrote the book, Kathleen Flake, who is at the Vanderbilt Divinity School talked about the fact that part of the reason — now, she’s LDS, so we’ve got to take this with a grain of salt, but she talked about the fact that they had to create an issue — the ministerial association had to create an issue, to keep the funds flowing because they weren’t self-supporting and they had to bring in mission funds from the east coast.  And also, I do get some challenges in Godblogging from Christian pastors in largely Mormon communities.  Or creedal Christian pastors, to keep our terminology straight, in largely Mormon communities, who feel discrimination and frustration at being in such communities.

HH:    Really?

JS:    Yes.

HH:    Who’d think — I have never really believed that this was a problem, but you tell me that you think it is?

JS:    I’m not sure it’s a problem on the national scale.  I am not sure it would be a statistically significant problem if we did these numbers, but I do think it’s a really important issue for some people.    Yes.

HH:    You know, when I bring my lawyer’s ear to arguments about that, I often hear people projecting their own sense of failure onto communities.  I have heard that a lot, by the way.  Oh, the Mormons won’t do business with you, the Mormons work against you, etc., etc.  But I just have never seen that made by folks at a high enough level of success for me to credit them.  Does that make any sense?

JS:    Sure it does.  Sure it does.  And the people I hear it from are just pastors of ordinary churches and communities.

HH:    And so they have — on the other hand, when I went over there to do a series for Utah public television, in I guess it would be ’97 or so, the — I interviewed a few Catholic people — I did three interviews for that series.  And they had none of that argument going.  So.

JS:    Well, Lowell — my personal experience is in rural southern Utah where my wife and I like to vacation quite a bit.

HH:    So, I have not been there.

JS:    And Lowell likes to point out to me that there is probably a big difference between urban and rural Mormons as well.

HH:    And I think you are also going to find a big difference in any rural community vis a vis outsiders.  That’s what I would think.

LB:   There are differences among California Mormons, Utah Mormons, Massachusetts Mormons, Illinois Mormons, and Florida Mormons — they’re like anybody else, a product of the culture where they exist.  I haven’t lived in Salt Lake City for 25 years, but having grown up there, it is a phenomenon that I think is tough for some people, many people, to not be a Mormon and live in Utah.  I feel for those folks.  However, you’re right.  There are many non-LDS community leaders in Utah.  There was a Jewish governor of Utah in 1918, for example, which is pretty remarkable, considering the times.  And those successful folks there are the ones who are not the ones who complain, and they find a way to get along and be a part of the community.  

HH:    Yes.

LB:    I have a question that takes us slightly off that track.  In your book there was a very interesting quote from George Romney’s campaign for Governor in Michigan in 1962 where I guess then-governor, that Gov. Romney, made a pretty public fast, meaning as he was deciding to run, he fasted and prayed and sought divine guidance.  And the President of the Michigan AFL-CIO, Gus Scholle, made fun of that.  He said, "The big clown.  He thinks he has a private pipeline to God."  George Romney replied, “The same pipeline is available to Mr. Scholle if he cares to take advantage of it."

HH:    I saw you quoted that in your Meridian review today.  That was very interesting.

LB:    Could a candidate say that now?

HH:    Oh, sure.

LB:    I’m thinking of your book, Painting the Map Red, and your chapter on the left’s war on religion.  I wonder if a candidate could say that today without being laughed off the front page.

HH:    Well, you know the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff can’t say that homosexual acts are immoral anymore.  So, there is a changed political climate.  But whether or not — I think there is a difference between what elite media mocks and what Middle America hears.  And I think they still would applaud the George Romney response that was defending prayer.  That’s what it was.  He was defending prayer.

LB:    And making one of the greatest slap-downs I’ve ever seen, by the way.

HH:    The other thing that was fascinating about that, by the way, was that the Unions just hated George Romney so much because of his time at American Motors. and during the war years when he was helping to run the Detroit production stuff, that they, I think that the public in Michigan understood that it really wasn’t about his religion, it was just another round of the union lobby throw-down.  I have a question for you, Lowell.

LB:    Yes.

HH:    In your Meridian Review you said you cringed when I quoted from the King Follett Discourse and B.H. Roberts.  Why?

LB:    Well, I'll start with the King Follett Discourse, from a Mormon perspective. That is a speech by Joseph Smith, and is based on four different sets of contemporaneous notes taken by by four different people.  It is not taught as church doctrine, and — because there is uncertainty as to  whether the Prophet really said all those things.  So, as a life-long Mormon, I’ve grown up never hearing much about it except as sort of a passing reference in Sunday School every now and then, by a teacher who is curious about things like that.  So, its not really something that we hold out to the world as an expression of our doctrine, and, you couldn’t have known that.  I thought your book was extraordinarily fair and you clearly made a great effort and did a great job of being fair on those issues.  But that one did kind of make me wince.

HH:    So that’s interesting.  So the King Follett Discourse is not church doctrine?

LB:    No.  I think most people think that it is very interesting and probably basically accurate, but there are some statements in there that are pretty extraordinary, and the fact is that we like to be very, very accurate about doctrinal matters like that, and there is no truly reliable historical record as far as I know, of that talk.  Like I said, there are four different versions, and the one you read is probably an amalgamation of those four different versions that someone put together.

HH:    I’m sure it's from the Ostlings’ book.

LB:    Could be.

HH:    How about B.H. Roberts?

LB:    B.H. Roberts is well regarded, probably the first real Mormon intellectual.  He was quite a bright man.  He was elected to Congress, but I think never seated because of polygamy.  A lot of liberal Mormons nowadays like to quote him because he said lots of things that are somewhat edgy.  But he also is not a spokesman for the church and his writings are not considered expressions of church doctrine.  They are just the interesting views of an expounder, I guess.

HH:    And is he incorrect?

LB:    Actually, what he said is essentially what I have always been taught, when you get right down to the very bottom doctrines.  But a lot of people, and you didn’t do this, but many people like to dig up old quotes by 18th or 19th century Mormon leaders and quote those now as if they are expressions of current doctrine, and that’s not always the case.

HH:    Yes, you see I used it because the Ostlings had summarized it as being the easiest way to summarize doctrinal differences between LDS and evangelicals and Catholics.  But you are the third person who said I wish you hadn’t used B.H. Roberts.  And I’m wondering if that is because B.H. Roberts is so clear or because he is so cloudy.

LB:    I think it is more of the latter.  And the Ostlings book, by the way, is not regarded as a very fair book by most.

HH:    It isn’t?

LB:    No.  It’s not.  I think they tried hard.  And I don’t think they meant to be unfair.  But it is not well received in the Mormon scholar community.

HH:    OK.

JS:    Hugh, if you are really interested in that stuff, there are two books that I read that Lowell didn’t complain at me about.  One of them is How Wide the Divide?

HH:    That is by?

JS:    Robinson and Bloomberg.

HH:    Craig Bloomberg.  He’s supposed to be very good.

JS:    Yes.  And the other one is called A Different Jesus? — and why is his name escaping me?  The guy from BYU, Lowell.

LB:    Oh, Robert Millet.

JS:    Millet.

HH:    I’ll look for those.

JS:    They’re all theology — but if you are interested in seeing the theological divides, they’re helpful. Which brings me to another question I have.  Let’s see if you share a problem I share.  Because you are very accurate and kind, I think, not being the expert on our blog, with Mormon theology.  Have you been accused of being  a Mormon apologist yet?

HH:    No.  Because I tried, I made such a conscious decision to stay away from theology and to cloak myself in the view that I would quote Mormons talking about Mormons and quote anti-Mormons talking about anti-Mormons.  And then I would leave the field quickly and say all of this has nothing to do with politics.  So, I have not been accused of being a — it’s hard to when you quote Walter Martin — who may be the biggest name in anti-Mormon literature.  Is that fair to say, Lowell?

LB:    Frankly I’d never heard of him but from what you’ve quoted him as saying, it looks like that’s true.

HH:    So that is, I think, a complete immunization from anyone saying its an apologist.  Plus there are so many quotes from people like Mark Halperin and Christopher Hitchens in the book that very few people could effectively accuse me of being an apologist for the faith.

JS:    I happen to feel that way about the way I blog, and yet I have been accused of it on more than one occasion.

HH:    I do get emails from cranks.  But that’s not the same thing.  I don’t worry about cranks.

LB:    We all get that mail.  Both of you have been very careful to say that you don’t agree with Mormon theology, and that’s pretty clear.  I think that immunizes you from any claim that you are apologists.

HH:    I hope so.

JS:    And I try to stay away from the theological stuff too.  But you know, for example the place where I get it is the typical arguments that say, well, ex-Mormons say this and ex-Mormons say that, to which I really respond, well, would you like me to bring in the ex-Presbyterians or the ex-Young Life people?

HH:    In fact, I cringed on one of my radio show interviews.  I’m not sure which one it was because I’ve done so many this week.  We had an ex-Mormon call.  And usually that means, here comes a roundhouse.  But this fellow at the end said, so now I’m an evangelical, but I’m going to vote for Mitt Romney because he is an extraordinarily well-qualified candidate and probably the best person to be President.  It was the Laura Ingraham show.  That’s exactly what it was.  And I said, whew!  I was just ready for the experience because a lot of people view their own religious dramas as somehow at stake in this.  And they are not.  It’s the American drama that is at stake in this.

JS:    That’s an excellent point Hugh.  Let’s go back for a second.  You talked about how opinion leaders haven’t taught us since the 60’s.  One of the questions I had written down is that the Democrats really have been playing identity politics, since the 60’s and maybe even for a decade or two before.  Do you think that Bush-Rove played identity politics with evangelicals in the last two election cycles and do you think that has helped make this current debate coarser?

HH:    No, I don’t think they did.  I think that Bush has actually conducted — I’ll back up, there is no doubt the Republican Party has identified people of faith as a core component of their majority, though not a majority of their majority.  That means mass attending, weekly mass attending Catholics, Evangelicals, Mormons, Orthodox Jews, those people have to be ID’d and motivated and as they say in the business, touched, to remind them to go out and vote.  And that is very much part of the Republican Party base and that is a very good thing in politics to do.  At the same time I don’t think W is attempting to not have secular Americans vote for him.  But he is also not dishonest about his faith. 

And in fact I see in Romney’s responses to my questions the same unwillingness to diminish his own convictions that W has been faithful to as well.  He is not going to attempt to be other than what he is.  It would have been easier for Romney to have sort of accepted the Hitchens invitation to indicate he is not a faithful Mormon.  But he rejected that.  And it would have been easier for George Bush when he was asked who was the most influential person in his life to have cited George Washington, or Abraham Lincoln, but he cited Jesus Christ.  So I find that not coarsening at all, but refreshingly candid and I think it is very, very endearing in both candidates.

JS:    Well, the follow up comment and follow up question.  Did you catch the Romneys on Larry King last night?

HH:    No, I had Duane tape it and we will be playing a lot of it on the show today.  How did it go

JS:    It went — I didn’t catch all of it but I read the transcript this morning.  I happen to think Romney hit finally the perfect formulation on the answer to the religion question because he proceeded talking about a person of faith, and the difference faith has made in his life by saying, "Look, my theology is different than yours."  Which is what he did in your book, but usually on his sound bite TV appearances, he doesn’t get that statement in.

HH:    He did do that in my book and I think maybe as the reactions have flowed in, he has recognized that’s the best way to deal with this.  It’s not about theology.  Did he follow by saying, look at my family, because this is what Lowell said in the Meridian Review today. 

JS:     Well, that’s exactly what he did.

LB:    Yeah, he did.  And I actually thought he was quoting from your book.  It was funny.  I think he has realized that theme works, and it was the identical language, almost, that was in your book.

HH:    People believe different things, but look at my family.  And it has the additional benefit of  not upsetting Mormons.  He’s not, he’s not trimming.

JS:    Now, a follow up question to that.  There is a lot of pressure out there, including a USA Today piece by two Mormon political science professors about six or eight weeks ago about Romney to do a “Kennedy speech.”  I’ve argued on the blog that I don’t think he should because of precisely the reasons we’re talking about.  First of all, the Kennedy speech, Kennedy sort of backed away from Catholicism.  It was sort of I’m a Catholic, but I’m not a real serious Catholic.  And I think if Romney said that about being a Mormon, he would be painted as just being disingenuous and secondly because I think the press is so much different that it was then, that he would be opening himself up to far more press questions than he ought to have to deal with.

HH:    I am with you.  I think at this point, he’s almost, I’ll have to read the Larry King thing, but I think eventually he is going to say, "asked and answered."  And I hope he starts referring people to my book, but he should say something like–

JS:    Actually he should refer them to Article 6 blog, Hugh, but that’s –

HH:    (laughter) He’s going to say I have been happy, because it is an important thing for Americans to know, to discuss my faith in detail, with a number of authors, whether Atlantic Monthly Magazine or Hugh Hewitt in his book, or on Larry King, and I have done it a lot.  But there comes a point where the repetition of these questions begins to fray the acceptable approach of Americans to discussions about religion.  And I think we have reached it.  So, at this point forward I am going to tell people I am proud of my church and proud of my family and they can go read about this at length, in A Mormon in the White House, a fine book by that wonderful author, Hugh Hewitt, although I don’t like all of it in the book, and then be done with it.  Because I don’t think a big speech would matter.  It’s a different world.  The big speech was kind of a surprise in 1960.  And his dad did a similar thing in ’66 in Salt Lake City with the Protestant pastors  of Salt Lake City.  But, you know, everybody who wants to know his answers on these questions now have a variety of resources available for them to get them.  I just want to know if you two think that’s the case.

JS:    Yes, I do.  I certainly do.  Lowell?  

HH:     I don’t know that there is any other relevant question left to ask.  Lowell, do you?

LB:    Well, here’s a follow up question I have for Hugh, which kind of answers his question to me.   In your book you quote Romney as follows, he says what we have just been talking about:

"To understand my faith people should look at my home and how we live," Romney at one point suggested.  "Of course, doctrines and theology are different, church to church, but what my church teaches is evidenced by what I have become and what my family has become."

So you say:

This is a powerful response to opponents of Romney who base their opposition on theology . . . Romney is very bluntly underscoring that despite deep differences, the practical impact of his Mormon faith on moms and dads and kids is quite obviously productive of tight and devoted families."

Now, my question, and my answer, I guess, is: I wonder whether this will get out.  I don’t think — I think among people who are conservatives that will strike a great chord, and I think it will indeed get out.  But I wonder how much the left is going to hate that and how hard they’ll hit it and if they’ll get away with hitting it.

HH:    Well, I don’t think they can get away with hitting it, so they won’t.  If you begin to attack someone’s successful family life as irrelevant to the American experience, or to the Presidential campaign, I think you’ll run straight into the red state/blue state divide, only at a much deeper level.  So, I think he’s going to always say that, and I hope he always says that because it is an indication of character to raise a family of well-adjusted productive, happily married children.  It just is.  For people to argue that that’s not true is going to fly in the face of not just American experience, but common sense.  

LB:    Well, the Nation magazines of the world and the Mother Jones magazines will make fun of the "Leave It to Beaver, too-perfect family," but I don’t think that resonates with anybody but their own readership.

HH:    And I also think that the more they do [that], the more they will find themselves alienating voters rather than including voters.  When Howard Dean says, We've got to get away from guns, gays and — what was the other one? — He ended up shooting himself in the foot because what matters to people, matters to people, if I can have a truism.  And families matter to people, a whole bunch. 

The only possible downside to that whole argument is, and I discuss this in the book, is that a lot of families are unhappy.  And they are unhappy because terrible things have happened.  But I don’t think they are going to blame someone who didn’t have terrible things happen to their family for that.  It will be interesting to watch.  But I don’t think so.

JS:     Well, that steps right — actually I had one more question I wanted to ask you but I’ll put it off because that steps into the question you hinted on the show last night that you want us to ask, why do you think the left has reacted so hard to your Hannity and Colmes appearance?

HH:    Because they don’t like the candor and the honesty.  I have specific examples.   You guys have specific examples, of the left attacking his faith, which are much harsher than the theological critiques being leveled, if at all, from conservatives.  And those theological critiques are typically cloaked in love and admiration but concern over the impact of a Mormon President.  Very different.  There is hatred on the left for Romney.  There is concern on the right for Romney.  And the right’s leaders have many among them, for instance, Chuck Colson and Jerry Falwell, who reject even that expression of concern.  So, I think the reason the usual suspects got all bent out of shape, if they don’t want people to notice this, they want to get the knives into the back of Romney, and they want America to believe the evangelicals put them there.

LB:    Have you noticed, Hugh, that in the case of two examples I am thinking of, the Damon Linker piece in the New Republic, and his later comments; and also the Jacob Weisberg piece on Slate, both of those gentlemen actually made an effort to make a serious argument about either the weirdness of Mormonism, in Weisberg’s case, or the problem of Salt Lake City calling the shots in Linker’s case? And I thought it was interesting that two men who are intelligent, experienced folks, made a great effort at making an argument that can’t be made.

HH:    Yes they did.  And in fact, both of them made efforts to legitimize previously illegitimate arguments in the American public discourse, the mainstream from positions of great influence.  Slate is a Washington Post publication and the New Republic is one of America’s great brands when it comes to opinion journalism.  So that means, not just them, but their organizations attempted to legitimize previously illegitimate arguments. 

It is — if I were an intellectual historian — I am not — I would look at this moment and say, what is going on here?  And I do believe the argument I make in the book.  It’s the opening salvo in the war on faith.  And it is the attempt to turn the weakest flank, if I could use a military metaphor,  of people with faith coalition.  And that weakest link is the Mormon religion because there are some within the coalition that will accept the existence of Mormons in political battles on such subjects as marriage, but when it comes down to it, they remember their theological divide when it comes time to assess Romney.  And so the left is going to attempt to turn that flank and it is important that the right not allow them to.

LB:    I have a two part follow up that I think sort of gets us to the money question that John probably wants to get to also.  Number one, have you seen anybody on the right go to such lengths to attack Romney intellectually?  I think the answer is probably no.

HH:    No.

LB:    And number two is, if people on the right, conservative Christians and the other conservatives, do attack Romney religiously, are we opening the door for attacks like Weisberg’s and Linker’s to have credibility and respectability.

HH:    Absolutely.  Bishop Chaput was very explicit on this, that if you believe in Fatima and Lourdes, for example, you cannot be out attacking John the Baptist appearing with Joseph Smith, because Fatima and Lourdes occur after that — it can’t be Weisberg’s argument that, oh, they’ve been around longer.  That’s what his argument was, that the Catholics and the Jews, their miracle accounts are older.  No, they’re not.  They’re more recent.  And so, the Catholics are very aware of what’s going on here.  Perhaps my advantage in assessing this is that I have been on both sides of the river that is evangelical wisdom and Catholicism.  So I think that what Chaput instantly recognized is that the attach on the miraculous is an attack on all faith based people, because even though we have great apologetic efforts under way across the faithful spectrum, everybody wants it, in the end if it becomes illegitimate for public figures to believe in the miraculous, all people of faith are out of the public square.

JS:    Well said.  I think that is the point of our blog.  Certainly from my perspective.  And that’s certainly why I picked up this effort when I did.  It’s because I’m defending far more than this candidate and a religion.  I am defending my voice in politics and my faith in politics.

HH:    And that’s our joint project.  And that’s why — the book will be out — it will start — then it’s a lateral to you guys, because I’ve got to go on and start doing other news.  but it is very much an alarm that ought to be going up among all people of faith, that this is the attempt to turn the flank.  And be very, very leery of it.  And that’s why the left went crazy on their blogs.

JS:    They did.  Hugh, you brought it up so I want to go back to this question.  I find your personal faith journey a very, very interesting one because crossing the chasm from Roman Catholicism to Presbyterianism is not a mild trip, theologically, ecclesiastically, or culturally, and I am curious, how do you think that — you’ve talked about it to some extent, how do you think that has effected your ability to see this issue and these questions more clearly than somebody who was born, bred and raised Southern Baptist or Presbyterian, or whatever?

HH:    Only in this respect, it has allowed me to begin reporting on religion in 1992.  I have been reporting on religion for 15 years for PBS or in my books, in my columns and therefore it is an experience level that makes it more interesting.  And it has been able to allow me to talk to people who ordinarily might not talk to me because I have been all over the map and remain comfortable in many traditions and so I, I don’t often discuss and dump in the book my own personal views on this. I did in the Embarrassed Believer and in Searching for God in America, for example, and I sat down with Elder Neal Maxwell.  But it’s not central to it, except that the experience I’ve had of reporting on religion has been assisted by it and that experience helped me, certainly, to gain access to a number of people to talk to about this.  I think probably Gov. Romney agreed to a no holds barred series of interviews because of the credibility I had achieved with some Mormons out of my work with Neal Maxwell.  Lowell, you think that’s probably the case?

LB:    I think so.  He was a remarkable guy who opened many doors and yours was just one of the big ones that he opened.

HH:    Yup.

JS:    Now, here is the interesting question, from my part, sort of, moving off the religion issue a little bit, but not really.  I said something on the blog the other day — well, actually, you linked last night to the John Mark Reynolds piece about Romney vs. Rudy.

HH:    That was an interesting way to put it — the prodigal vs. the ally.

JS:    Yeah, wasn’t it?  I argued in that, when I linked to it on our blog, I sort of said that McCain is certainly a lousy Republican and it is hard to say otherwise, and I understand, therefore, you opposition to it, but in terms of being an evangelical Republican, Rudy is a pretty lousy evangelical, so while I like you, would vote for him if he was the nominee, I would do it through gritted teach.  I don’t sense that from you.  

HH:    Oh, no.  I won’t have gritted teach at all.  And the reason is I think that on the issues that matter to me, he will be almost identical to Romney.  And that is that he will appoint the same quality of judges as Romney will and so, the public life of presidents is what I am most concerned with.  And I always go back to this:  If you assess Lincoln, Jefferson and Washington on theological grounds, you would grit your teeth and vote for them.  But you would be happy you did.

JS:    Well, I’m not saying that on grounds of religion, I’m saying that on grounds of stance on life, stance on marriage –

HH:    I know that.  But, on those issues, all that he can do that will effect those issues is appoint judges.  And so, I think they are going to be functionally the same in appointing judges.  The reason that I am, as I say in the book, it’s a long campaign and I’m going to wait.  The reason if, the California primary were held today, I would vote for Romney, I think he is the stronger general election candidate.  I was shown a video of Bill Maher showing  five different pictures of Rudy in drag.  Five different occasions where he was having fun.  But, that just doesn’t really work very well out on the campaign trail.  It will be exploited.  I don’t put any particular downside to it, except that I know it’s going to be the subject of ridicule in the course of the Presidential campaign.  And so I just think, Romney’s a better general election candidate.

LB:    Speaking of Romney, we have only a couple of minutes left, you’ve spent lots and lots of time with him.  What’s the total amount of time you’ve spent interviewing him?

HH:    Oh, six or seven hours probably.

LB:    What’s your personal impression of him?  Is he the real deal?

HH:    He is a — I’ve begun using the term "incandescent intelligence."  So, I spent time with him in my office.  I spent time with him on the west coast.  I spent time — a couple of trips to Boston.  I talked to him on the phone.  I’ve seen him at fundraisers. 

He is the same person wherever you find him.  I think that’s very important for people to know.  And when you see people shift, and it happens in politics a lot, they’re different in small settings and large settings and public and in private with their family, not with their family, with their friends, not with their friends — he’s the same person in each place, which — I’m not a psychologist — and I don’t understand it much, but it speaks to me of integration of personality.  And confidence. 

I also, I mentioned this to Bennett this morning,  Bill brought it up first, Hamilton, in either Federalist 70 or 71 or 72, that the most important thing in a President is energy in the executive.  You’ve got to be alive to the office.  You’ve got to just have it, that electricity, the ability to manage all sorts of different stuff, and he does, in enormous quantity.  I think the reason the McCain campaign is running out of steam is that he’s run out of energy.  I think the reason that Hillary is going to have trouble is that she is so palpably not connected to the same kind of energy that Bill Clinton had, and that Obama has, but maybe her organization will carry her through.

So yes, he is the real deal.  What people mean by the real deal is different from person to person, but I hope I have communicated what I think it is by that.

LB:    You also say, if we can ask one more question, that Romney should have a stable of “high profile Christians of the most orthodox sort,”  people who can step forward at key moments and talk about his faith issues.  Who?  Who are those people?

HH:    I think Mark DeMoss is one of them because of his long standing association with so many great names in the evangelical movement, like Chuck Colson, like Bill Brite, like Jerry Falwell.  Very high profile people.  And at the same time, he is not a pastor.  Chuck Colson would be a great one as well, to speak to this issue, if he does get engaged in the campaign.  But those are the — mostly I am going to look for very, very successful men of business and politics who will, like Jim DeMint, very orthodox Presbyterian senator out of South Carolina, he’s going to be a very effective spokesperson in this.  I also like the fact that Rudy Giuliani, on my program, said in no uncertain terms, we are so far past this conversation that it shouldn’t be occurring.  

JS:    Agreed.

HH:    Ok?  And McCain’s spokesman has said a similar thing, but I have not heard Sen. McCain say it yet.  I suspect that he will.  Someone needs to ask Hillary and Obama about it soon.  and then it has to be rigorously enforced.  And that way we can raise the bar against the Weisbergs and the Linkers and The Nation magazine.  And so, hopefully, that will be a bipartisan effort.

JS:    Well, I think it needs to be enforced within the campaigns as well, because while you are right, a McCain spokesman has said that, there continues to be rumbling out of McCain associates in South Carolina.  

HH:    There have been.  And that’s troubling.  That’s very troubling.  By McCain associates, you mean previously volunteers and associates have attacked Romney for his Mormon beliefs.

JS:    That’s right.

HH:    And that needs to be disavowed and distance needs to be established from people who do that.  It has to be de-legitimized.

JS:    I’m done.  You done, Lowell?

LB:    I think so.  Have you given interviews to other blogs, by the way?

HH:    Nope.  You are the first blog interview.

LB:    I thought so.  We feel honored.

HH:    Well, you guys have done all the hard work.  You know it’s going to be very interesting to see what happens to Article VI Blog as the issue — because for a while no one really thought Romney was going to be that big of an issue.  The early polling.  But now they realize, with the New Hampshire poll yesterday, and with the moving up of the California primary, and when I was on with Wolf Blitzer yesterday, he informed me that James Carville thinks that McCain’s not even going to make it to Iowa, he’s going to drop out.  And then its going to be a very clear choice between Giuliani and Romney, and then this whole issue is going to be dug into by every reporter in America.  And they are going to figure out, where do I go to for this?  And yes, I hope they buy the book, but then they’re going to want to — the book is static, it’s in time, it comes out in march of 2007 and it sits there, and stuff happens after it.  And I think you guys are the go-to resource for that. 

The other thing is I hope on Article 6 blog you keep on the front page a list of the seminal articles, like the Weisberg article and the Linker article, so people can see what we’re talking about in one place at one time.

JS:    We have a link called Resources for that stuff, because the list actually grew larger than the we could keep on the sidebar.

HH:    Interesting.

JS:    So at the — it probably needs to be updated because it really starts with the Novak piece and Amy Sullivan’s piece from way back last summer.

HH:    And to the Atlantic Monthly piece.

JS:    And Terry Eastland’s piece from the Standard, which is more than a year old now.

HH:    I think that was the first major piece.  Yeah.

JS:    Yeah.  So we call that the Resources Page, it’s in the top links bar on the blog, and it takes you to all that stuff.  I don’t know if we’ve got — have we put Linker and Weisberg on there yet?

LB:    I don’t think so.  It’s one of our challenges with our day job is to find a way to find the time to make the blog accessible to everybody who wants to get to it.  So, we will work on that.

HH:    And have you two turned into experts in the media yet?

LB:    What do you mean by that?

HH:    Have other media people called you for quotes?

LB:    Not yet.

JS:    Not yet, no.

HH:    See, that’s what should be happening now.  Or very soon.  That you are journalists is undeniable, I think.  You have been covering this issue, although you are doing it as an avocation rather than as a vocation, and you have been doing original interviewing and original sourcing and that sort of stuff, so they should start coming to you, rather than going directly to the church.  It’s very — it’s a fascinating thing, and I hope it turns out that way, because it is what ought to happen.

LB:    Well, there is this guy who has a radio talk show who lets us on his show every now and again to talk about this issue.

HH:    Well, the other thing that’s happened is I hope you talked to Politico.  Politico ought to absorb your blog.  But, we’ll see if that’s what happens in time.

LB:    Well, we’ll be in touch with them.

HH:    Alright, gentlemen. 

Posted in Book Reviews, Doctrinal Obedience, Electability, Interviews, Religious Bigotry, Understanding Religion | 1 Comment » |  Print this post |  Email This Post

CNSNews declares the dust up about the firing of the prosecuters a "Media-Manufactured Crisis."  Given that no candidate is discussing Romney's faith, I wonder…?

Lowell:   Donning my lawyer hat, all I can say about this is, it's too early to say much, other than that presidents dismiss U.S. attorneys all the time.  Clinton fired all 92 when he first took office.  I believe other presidents have done the same thing.

Howard Dean is reaching out to Evangelicals?!?!

In an hour-long interview at Democratic National Committee headquarters Tuesday, Dean also revealed that he has been quietly meeting with well-known Christian evangelical leaders in order to build new bridges between them and the Democratic Party.

You know, a "bridge" requires a foundation.  But that is such a cheat, "well-known," indeed.  Who?  And what are the contents of those conversations.  I can hear the whispers, "You know who they are running…."

The heat (well, the cussing) continues on Hugh Hewitt's on TV contention that most of the anti-Mormon rhetoric comes from the left, while the evidence supporting Hugh continues to mount.  Somebody at Kos thinks Romney is still in control at Bain Capital and attacks him on recent actions.  He left Bain behind a long, long time ago.  And Bill Maher gets down right ugly.  Now, Maher just hates religion in general, and he admits it, but he picks out stuff in some cases centuries old to us to attack Mormonism.  Don't want to get too deeply into the Mormon apologetics here, but I could waste a bunch of electrons showing where Maher is wrong, and I imagine Lowell could go on a lot more.  But note, for Maher, and much of the left, the attack is a about religion in general, and he is just picking on Mormons in this instance.  Every time, creedal Christians attack Mormons, they provide fuel for the left's fires.

Lowell:  Bill Maher is not someone I take seriously, I'm afraid . . . .

But there is more evidence from the left, this time from The Nation (HT: Hugh Hewitt) discussing the recently sacked chief of staff for the AG, Kyle Sampson, they say:

Hence it fell to Kyle Sampson to get rid of the federal prosecutors without bothering the boss. Kyle was the right person to do it. He's a Mormon, a Brigham Young University graduate. You can depend on them.

Now, admittedly, the fact of Sampson's religious affiliation is a part of the NYTimes profile linked in the pull quote, but why was it necessary to mention it in this piece?  What connection is their between Sampson's faith and his actions in the firings?  (What was wrong with the firings to begin with? – but that is not our issue.)  The answer, of course, is that there is no connection, but the writers want to make one in the reader's mind.  Sort of like reporting when a rapist is black, but not when he is white, it creates a connect that "all rapists are black."  This is a shot at Romney, likely because as a turnaround specialist at Bain Capital, Romney has overseen more than a few lay-offs, and even that has nothing to do with his religion.

Lowell:  You know, I hate it when people expose us (Mormons) as the nasty, heartless hatchet men that we are.

The fractures in the "religious right" continue.  This is an opportunity for Romney if he plays it right.

A Mormon apologist gets into the tall grass.

Lowell:  Well, all he's really doing is quoting an 1835 "declaration of belief regarding governments and laws in general" published by the Church when it was trying to make clear that Mormonism was not a threat to the nation, to Missouri,or to the then-established order (meaning slavery, among other things).  One can imagine the concerns the early Mormons provoked as a bunch of Yankees settling in the slavery battleground of Missouri during that difficult era. But that's a story for another post.

Early Update:  Romney reformulated a bit on Larry King last night and Hotline quotes.

On his religion: "My religion's theology may be different than that of other faiths, but my religion is like other religions. It has its own unusual beliefs, for those who weren't born in the church and yet it has also taught me to be a better person than I would have been. Look, I'm not perfect. But I have a better marriage because of my faith. My kids, I think, are better kids because of their faith. And I'm, frankly, a better person than I would have been otherwise."

By jove, I think that nails it.  He is much better off admitting the differences while embracing the similarities, instead of just emphasizing the similarities.  It takes so much ammunition away from the opposition with the admission.

Lowell: This is the same meme that appears in Hugh Hewitt's Book, A Mormon in the White House?  Ten Things Every American Should Know About Mitt Romney. It will be fascinating to watch how well this is accepted.  I think it will be almost unassailable. 

Shameless self-promotion alert:  In this morning's edition of Meridian Magazine, a popular e-zine for Mormons, there is an in-depth review of Hugh's book, from an LDS perspective, written by our own Lowell Brown.  Enjoy!

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We don't usually do straight political stuff here, not our expertise, but some things cannot be left uncommented upon.  John McCain during his big announcement-before-the-announcement appearance on David Letterman said American lives have been "wasted" in Iraq.  This from our military hero candidate?!?!?  He tried to apologize today.  But as was the case yesterday with the "Romney's religion is NOT fair game" story, the bell, as they say, has been rung.  Plausible deniability and claims of tongue slips buy you a lot in this world, but some comments are beyond apology.  American lives in pursuit of American policy ARE NEVER wasted.  You want to take a shot at the current administration, fine, but aim those shots carefully, very carefully.

Lowell: The comments of reliably liberal Newsweek writer Jonathan Alter this week are timely:

In recent years, the word apology has reverted in politics to its original meaning in Greek, which is "defense." . . . Exhibit A is McCain, whose career-enhancing apologies are legion. A partial list includes apologizing for making a "confession" tape during his captivity by the North Vietnamese; for committing adultery during his first marriage; for his role in the Keating Five savings-and-loan scandal; for a nasty joke about Chelsea Clinton; for comparing Newt Gingrich's popularity to Jeffrey Dahmer's, and, during the 2000 campaign, for calling Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell "agents of intolerance." . . .

 

But McCain's reputation for using contrition to charm his way out of trouble might be catching up with him. When ABC News asked Vice President Cheney last week about McCain's comments that Donald Rumsfeld was "perhaps the worst secretary of Defense ever," Cheney replied archly: "John said some nasty things about me the other day, and then next time he saw me, ran over to me and apologized. Maybe he'll apologize to Rumsfeld."

Ouch! 

Speaking of yesterday and McCain's attempt to declare religion off limits.  You'll recall we said:

Sadly, I expect the stuff that has been spreading in South Carolina and elsewhere to continue.

Well, today we were greeted with a story out of South Carolina:

Anonymous mailings critical of GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, on the eve of what has become an all-important Spartanburg straw poll, have raised the specter of a long, nasty battle between now and the 2008 S.C. Republican primary.

 

[...]

 

A second piece was sent via electronic mail from the address “upstaterepublican@gmail.com.” It said it was from “Martin W.” and attacked Romney’s faith.

 

The e-mail is headlined: “Mitt Romney has a family secret he doesn’t want you to know.”

 

It says: “Those dark suspicions you hide deep inside yourself about Mormonism are trying to tell you something. Trust your instincts! The light of truth will burn through the smoke and mirrors of Mitt Romney’s movie star looks and crafty words!”

This is the downside of the Internet.  It makes these sort of tactics just too easy.  We've seen them before.  During the 2000 campaign I received a number of similar emails about W, only in that case they were designed to make me think W was a cross between Billy Graham and the Pope – urban legend kind of stuff.  But this is the first time I have ever seen anyone called a liar because of their faith.  You can say Romney's faith is wrong; you can, if you must, say that his faith guarantees his eternal damnation – such are religious statements – but how can you call him a liar without evidence?  And when you do so anonymously, you only put the lie to the charge.

Lowell:  There is much to say about this story.  Most disgusting is the effort to play off the ignorance and fears of voters.  It's an old, tried and true bigot's tool.  And where, oh where, is John McCain's denunciation of these slimy tactics?  John says: Guliani's too for that matter.

Theology and political thinking lay a very odd angle.  Bill Simon talked to K-Lo about Rudy and said

Could the thrice-married legal-abortion advocate who marched in gay-pride parades have a problem with conservative Catholics — who would probably prefer that the Republican party’s first Catholic presidential nominee not have these distinctions? Stressing that he was speaking for himself and not the presidential candidate, Simon quipped: “As a Catholic, I am glad that there is forgiveness in our Church.”

One of K-Lo's reader's had an interesting take.  But here is what I am wondering, is forgiveness only extended to Catholics?  I could be in serious trouble . . . .

Lowell:  There is a difference between forgiveness and trust:  Christians are certainly required to forgive past wrongs, but not necessarily to place the wrongdoer in a position of trust!

I first ran into "The Top Ten Mormon Facts" at a blog that writes about the reformed protestant theology I essentially hold, and I did not think much of it.  As I understand it, with the possible exception of the handshake thing, they are accurate, if uncomplimentary, reflections of Mormon belief.  (Lowell?)  For a blog about theology to draw theological distinctions without further comment struck me as legitimate.  But then it gets weird.  I find the blog where I first encountered it, took it from here without attribution.  And then a leftie used it as ammunition against us creedals headlining his post referring to it "Christianists on Mormons."  I have contended all along, The Question is going to reflect as badly on us creedals as it does on anyone else.

We know that most Evangelical leadership has said Romney's faith should not be an issue, but they have remained non-committal beyond that.  I am beginning to think we need more.  If Evangelicals do not actively involve themselves in this, defending Romney against all such attack, even while retaining the ability to vote for another, and Romney loses, the left will paint it as religious bigotry.  We will be delegitimized, not just by the left as we already are, but in the great "undecided" which is where elections are decided.

Lowell:  The blog post John refers to is 90% anti-Mormon claptrap.  The author is clearly bigoted and either twists most of the doctrines listed beyond recognition, or presents them in a ridiculous manner.  Perhaps most important, the beliefs are not presented in anything close to a respectful manner.  Shouldn't that be a clue to the trustworthiness of the piece?  Just remember my first rule of understanding a religion that is not one's own:  Do not ask that religion's critics what its adherents believe; ask the faith's believers.

At the risk of dignifying the anti-Mormon attack post, here's just one example. The author states that in the eternal world, exalted Mormon women "will spend eternity in full submission to their god-husband."  This will be news to my wife.  We believe that men and women who receive the greatest blessings in the life to come will be equal eternal partners. There is no doubt of this.  Notably, the linked post's only interpretive sources are anti-Mormon writers.  In contrast, anyone who wants to read what a current member of the Church's Quorum of the Twelve Apostles recently taught to BYU students on the role of women will find those teachings here. An excerpt:

There are those who suggest that males are favored of the Lord because they are ordained to hold the priesthood. Anyone who believes this does not understand the great plan of happiness. The . . . natures of men and women were specified by God Himself, and it is simply not within His character to diminish the roles and responsibilities of any of His children.

 

As President Joseph Fielding Smith (1876–1972) explained, “The Lord offers to his daughters every spiritual gift and blessing that can be obtained by his sons.” . . . All of us, men and women alike, receive the gift of the Holy Ghost and are entitled to personal revelation. We may all take upon us the Lord’s name, become sons and daughters of Christ . . . and achieve exaltation in the celestial kingdom. These spiritual blessings are available to men and women alike, according to their faithfulness and their effort to receive them.

On a separate subject, here is an interesting bit of analysis from Charles W. Dunn, dean of the Robertson School of Government, at Pat Robertson's Regent University.  He begins with this:

Will history repeat itself? Can Mitt Romney do for Mormons what Jack Kennedy did for Catholics? To do so, Romney must negate America’s anti-Mormon prejudice, especially among evangelical Christians. Some parallels suggest that he could.

Finally, you just have to love a guy that thinks positive.

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We have before on this blog quoted from the book "How Wide The Divide?" by Craig Bloomberg (Evangelical New Testament scholar) and Stephen Robinson (CJCLDS New Testament scholar).  Specifically we quoted Robinson as follows:

Another frustration Evangelicals often experience in dealing with Latter-day Saints is the fact that we have no professional clergy, no creeds or catechisms, and no theologians in the strict sense. Pure LDS orthodoxy can be a moving target, depending on which Mormon one talks to. Indeed, my part of this book represents only the views of one Latter-day Saint, though I hope a credible one. I do not speak in this volume for the LDS Church, only for myself, but I think I qualify as the world’s authority on what I believe, and I consider myself a reasonably devout and well-informed Latter-day Saint. [Emphasis added.]

I could not help but reflect on that quote as I read the later portion of the subject book here.  In the wake of the 1890 Manifesto and the Smoot hearings the CJCLDS underwent enormous change.  Polygamy had been a bedrock on which the church had been built and now it was jettisoned.  Flake spends roughly the last third of the book examining how president/prophet Joseph F. Smith and The Quorum were able to pull off this seeming ecclesiastical miracle without schism.  (It should be noted there are schismatic Mormon groups to this day, but they are statistically and poltically insignificant, criminals in religious guise.)

To my creedal Christian eye, the astonishing fact was that it was such an amazing and difficult accomplishment.  From my basic understanding of a prophetic, revelatory faith, changes in direction would be fairly easy – "the prophet says so and off we march."  Which as an aside shows the utter ignorance of that South Carolina woman, Cindi Mosteller that looks like she is McCain's Mormon attack pit bull.  Lowell quoted an article quoting her sometime back this way:

On Tuesday, Mosteller, who is a Baptist, said, "The question is: Does Governor Romney support Joseph Smith's doctrines? We as evangelicals don't believe we can go in and change Paul's doctrine. I don't see how you move around this."

This reveals on Mosteller's part, and I think that of many others she represents, a particular ignorance of creedal Christian faith and history, since she assumes orthodoxy never, ever changes, and Mormon faith and history since she assumes it would have an orthodoxy in the same sense we do, and that that orthodoxy had never changed.  But I digress.

The plain fact of the matter is that Mormonism has an orthodoxy.  It is both more plastic and more individualistic than creedal Christian orthodoxy, but it is no simple matter of prophetic declaration.  This is born out in the political, liturgical, and ecclesiastical maneuvering which occurred in the wake of the Smoot hearings that Flake goes to such great lengths to examine in the later portion of the book.  I am reasonably certain that her examination of such would be uncomfortable for a Mormon to read.  It is my understanding that Flake is Mormon (she did undergrad at BYU) but she does not fail to turn a very scholarly eye on things that are deeply devout, making what appears to be very spiritual appear to be very pragmatic. I will leave the detailed discussion of events to the book.

These facts should, however, be a comfort to creedal Christians that fear Mormon faith in a presidential candidate.  The Mormon ship simply will not turn on a dime as this history illustrates.  For example, a Mormon in power would not therefore give license to Mormons to return to their polygamous ways.  Forget for the fact that a President could not make it legal by Executive Order anyway; the church itself would rebel against such a thing because it would violate their current orthodoxy.  Any prophet that tried to turn the church in that direction would need to be as opportunistic, shrewd, and most importantly patient, as Joseph F Smith was.  Even one that is as opportunistic and shrewd could not accomplish the feat today as the cultural conditions in the church simply are not ripe for it.  Such a prophetic utterance would, if I understand how it worked 100 years ago properly, create an enormous crisis in the church, but the more likely outcome would be an ousting of the current prophet and a gross weakening of the office, as would happen if any other religious figure in any other normative religion defied orthodoxy.

The events surrounding the Smoot hearings demonstrate practically that there is a Mormon orthodoxy and it is tightly held.

Lowell comments:  I have one clarification.  I am still reading the Flake book, so can't comment in great detail, but I will quote Richard Lyman Bushman, a Mormon emeritus professor of history at Columbia, on the question of prophetic revision of Mormon doctrine (link may require subscription):

But [the concern that LDS Church leaders will dictate policy to a Mormon president] –rooted as it is in logic rather than reality–does not take into account how revelation actually works. In Mormonism and in biblical history, the prophetic tradition itself places heavy restraints on prophets. It makes a big difference that the moral law is enunciated repeatedly in Mormon scriptures. The Ten Commandments were restated in an early revelation, installing them as fundamentals of the church. Later, the saints were told that "no power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood, only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned." Could all this be overthrown by a new revelation? Linker thinks that revelation negates everything that came before, but this is not the case. The best analogy is to the courts and the Constitution. Theoretically, five Supreme Court justices can overturn any previous interpretation of the Constitution on a whim. But, in fact, they don't, and we know they can't. Their authority depends on reasoning outward from the Constitution and all previous decisions. The same is true for prophets. They work outward from the words of previous prophets, reinterpreting past prophecy for the present. That was certainly true for church founder Joseph Smith, whose most extreme revelation, plural marriage, was based on plural marriage in the Bible. Prophets do not write on a blank slate. Like Supreme Court justices, they would put their own authority in jeopardy if they disregarded the past.

So I think Steven Robinson's claim that "LDS orthodoxy can be a moving target" vastly overstates the case.  LDS orthodoxy may evolve, but it does so exceedingly rarely and almost always at a glacial pace.  History is full of examples:  Polygamy and African-American access to the Mormon priesthood, for example.  Neither change happened overnight, although both were critical to the church's continued success.

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