The old joke among religious scholars is that so-called mainstream religions are just successful cults. But yesterday, according to Texas Governor Rick Perry’s pastor of choice Robert Jeffress, the definition was broadened:
Jeffress, who endorsed Perry and introduced him at the Values Voter Summit, claimed that one of the reasons who he’s opposed to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is because Mormonism is a “cult,” although he said he never discussed that issue with Perry.
The problem with Romney isn’t his religion, at least not with a majority of voters. The problem is he’s a Mormon running for pastor-in-chief in a primary dominated by fundamentalist Protestant and Catholic voters. This is a group which specifically views Mormons, among a dizzying array of other groups, as evil, sinful heretics not fit to inhabit the same Christian nation they’ve been led to believe the United States was intended by God to be. They have been intentionally conditioned to fire up the hatred and contempt as fast as a lit match put to gasoline.
I learned many of the few details I do know about the religion from an episode of Southpark, so take this brief review with a grain of salt. My understanding is Mormons accept the Old and New Testament including a belief in Jesus Christ as the savior of mankind — which to my logical mind makes them Christian by definition.
The big difference is Mormons have a third book in their Bible with some additional myths about God and Jesus. Some of them may sound pretty screwy, Paleo-Indians are a lost tribe of Israelites and the Garden of Eden was in Missouri for example. But for skeptics like FtB readers they’re not any less plausible than a universe created in six days a few thousand years ago, or a divine global flood where the land and sea biomes were preserved to repopulate the earth on a giant magic ark made by three or four people using Bronze-age technology. Some of the beliefs are unique among any branch of Biblical faith:
Many Mormons believe that God once lived on a planet with his own higher god (however, while this is the predominant view among Mormons, not all Mormons believe this) and that those who go to the celestial kingdom will eventually themselves become gods, a doctrine known as eternal progression.
But ardent believers often reserve their greatest contempt for competing faith-based beliefs and so it is with the religious right and Mormons. If you frequent groups of right-wing fundamentalists it won’t take long to hear what they really think of Mormons. And what they really think is exactly what Robert Jeffress said: cult, heretics, not real Christians, and a few terms not fit to publish.
There was a time, about 150 years ago, when Mormons were actively, shamefully persecuted by US Christiandom. Homes and churches burned, whole families chased out of the state by mobs, some Mormons or suspected Mormons were even murdered. Ironic considering the mobs committing the atrocities were almost exclusively self-professed peaceful, loving followers of Jesus Christ. Even after that period mostly ended Mormons continued to be harassed. It’s no wonder they became insular and pulled up stakes for the Western frontier, where they could live well away from their greatest threat: fellow Christians.
Jeffress’s comments, and the widely held opinion it was drawn from, remind us that the spirit of that discrimination is alive and well in the 21st century. That’s Romney’s real problem, and despite the fact that poll after poll shows he has the best chance of defeating Obama, it may prove insurmountable before the official race even begins.
Fucking finally. After being unable to get online all day yesterday, I had an aggravating fight with this blogs software. The autosave became sentient, not only would it not save, it disapeared from view and then started grabbing sections from older unedited versions and publishing them in what looked like an act of rebellion.
The Mormons had problems for several reasons, one being Joseph Smith’s greed for land and insistence that those who lived around him accept that God had chosen the Mormons to annex their property. There were none clean in Missouri nor Illinois.
In the stopped clock department, Jefress is actually right about Mormonism. The more you look at it, the weirder it gets.
I’m not sure I agree that the primaries are dominated by “dominated by fundamentalist Protestant and Catholic voters.” Pretty much all protestants, I’d guess. Many of whom, probably including Jeffress, don’t think Catholics are Christian either.
Nope, it’s just as weird as any other religion, including mainstream Christianity. We just don’t see mainstream Christianity (or even Catholicism) as weird because we’ve all been indoctrinated by their myths since childhood.
I want to vigorously second Trebuchet. Growing up Catholic, I was taught that Protestants were nice but silly, spiritually light weight people, with the Mormons being sillier than most. Hatred really wasn’t in the mix. Also Catholics at that time were pretty clear that Kennedy’s election meant that there should NOT be a religious test for the presidency. Of course, the late pope appointed a bunch of right wing idiots to be American bishops, so things are going down hill rapidly.
Really? We had to wait for Jeffress’s comments to confirm discrimination?
There is a reason why that surfaced in October. Perry has stumbled, and knows that he does not have the luxury of time given that the red states are cannibalizing each other to get the lion-share of the primary election dollars.
Not an issue, since Romney is not making it out of the primaries. He never could — he is a Mormon, but worse, he was pro-choice, pro-AGW, pro-Obamacare (but at the state level only).
Unfortunately, Perry is going to be #45.
Indeed. Magic underwear and gold plates are really weird
Stone tablets and burning bushes? Not so much any more.
There there is that wafer thingy. Apparently right before you put one of ’em in your mouth, if a priest mumbles something, it turns into the flesh and blood of 2000 year-old dead Jew. OK, that is ghoulish, not weird.
And that belief about a three-in-one god born of a virgin who sacrifices himself to spare his own creation from his own wrath?
Why, that is insanity, not weirdness.
I grew up with Mormon & fundamentalist relatives, and I have always found individual Saints, as the older Mormon call themselves, more tolerant than Baptists, in part I imagine, due to the history in Missouri & Illinois. Yeah, Mormon did some bad things too (Mountain Meadow Massacre), and the church leadership is as intolerant as any evangelical church, but it doesn’t surprise that the two most liberal Republicans are Mormon. I can understand the fundies being suspicious of Huntsman & Romney for being too liberal, but it’s funny to see them attacked for religion – Huntsman is pretty clearly a jack Mormon & Romney isn’t too far off.
The primary difference between Mormonism and older religions is that Mormonism is recent enough that we have documentary evidence that the religion’s founder was a con man.
There was a time, about 150 years ago, when Mormons were actively, shamefully persecuted by US Christiandom. Homes and churches burned, whole families chased out of the state by mobs, some Mormons or suspected Mormons were even murdered.
Uh–the Mormons did a lot of that themselves.
Google the Danites. Google Nauvoo Expositor. Google the Liberty Pole oration. Google the Gallatin Election Day Battle. Google Mormons+Utes+Battle Creek to find out just how much of cowardly scumbags they were.
Some bad things did happen to them, but, believe me, they dished out plenty of death, destruction and hate, all on their own.
Yes, I’m aware that Mormons did their own persecution. I don’t say this to defend Mormons, to me Mormonism, Christianity, scientology, it’s built on premises equally absurd and laugbable. I have no favorite or scapegoat.
Maybe it’s just because Mormons haven’t been around long enough, or did not exist in more brutal times. But Mormon acts of barbarism pale in comparison to the Inquisition, or other acts of savagery by Kings and religious authorities from Islam and Judiasm right through to Aztecs and Hindus, basically almost any sizable religion that’s been around since ancient times has them beat by a country mile.
Um, it’s Willard “Mitt” Romney. He was, alas, my governor for 4 years (and I voted Green in 2002; no way was Tom Finneran’s handpicked token “D” getting elected after the midget and the bald guy cancelled each other out).
By 2006, Romney couldn’t have been elected dogcatcher in Belmont. And they kinda like him there.
I grew up in Jackson and Clay counties in MO; we remember all about the Mormons (hell, my Brownie leader was mormon, and had the first basement of canned goods I’d ever seen). Mormons are kinda crazy, but at least they’ll dance.
Depending upon who shows up to vote in the [R] primaries, I think we’re really contracting the field. It’s down now to Romney or Perry, with Cain as the protest vote. Everyone else can quit already (and yes, feel free to continue googling or yahooing or binging Santorum).
I know, I know, but for a day or two it was very hard to edit text let alone titles. New server.