James Crabtree's FT Article: The Rise Of A New Generation Of Mormons

Much the best mainstream article I have ever read about the Mormons ever.

you may have to register, or something, to be able to see it

(h/t Matt L.)

If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

Want To Help The People Of Haiti? Try Donating To This Organization

My problem with most humanitarian relief efforts (& indeed, the ones often sponsored by my classmates & on bookface, etc.) is that I am often unable to find out how much of what I donate actually goes to help people. 25%? 95%?

Many of these organizations have so many paid people on staff, better than half of what they take in goes to cover their salaries.

There's one group I trust to use my money carefully--The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Don't worry. They won't use your donations to proselytize--humanitarian aid and the funds used to support those efforts are kept entirely separate and are often done in conjunction with other groups--a tactic that helps them to assure potential non-LDS donors that they are not using aid to get converts.

Check out this article in the Deseret News.

And see this page for the Church's official press release on their humanitarian involvement and how you can donate.

Mind you, none of this should be taken as an effort to disparage any of the many good groups trying to help Haitians devastated by the earthquake.

This is about finding the most efficient and effective way for those of us thousands of miles away to help the people of Haiti.

If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

Traditional Marriage Wins Big In Maine

No blaming Mormons this time. (who supposedly burned a lot of political capital being on the wrong side of history and all h/t Morgan H.)

Or African Americans who voted "yes" for Hope & Change and "no" for Adam & Steve.

No one would accuse Maine of being a particularly conservative, redneck, backwater state. And yet against the odds--and the overwhelming funding of gay marriage advocates--traditional marriage won the day.

Congratulations to everyone who manned phones, donated what they could, knocked doors and voted to defend marriage.

Given events of a year ago, today is a good day.

If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

More Evidence Mormons Have Joined The Club

A couple of weeks ago I cited a story about the support Mormons were receiving from some of their Prop 8 coalition friends and suggested (with supporting statements from Dr. Wiseman (an alias)) that perhaps this was the issue (Prop 8) and persecutorial (word? word.) backlash that would bring Mormons into the mainstream of political Christendom.

An article run in the NYT last week further buttresses this argument. From the Deseret News:

Declaring "no mob veto," a full-page ad in the New York Times on Friday denounced the "violence and intimidation" directed at members of the LDS Church who supported California's ban on gay marriage.

"When thugs ... terrorize any place of worship, especially those of a religious minority, responsible voices need to speak clearly: Religious wars are wrong; they are also dangerous," reads the advertisement paid for by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, based in Washington, D.C.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has come under fire from gay rights activists across the country since coming out in support of California's Proposition 8, an amendment to the state's constitution that defines marriage as a union between one man and one woman.

In a statement Friday, church officials expressed gratitude to the dozen civil rights and religious leaders, ranging from Catholic to evangelical Christian to Orthodox Jew, who attached their names to the advertisement.

"This was a thoughtful and generous gesture at a time when the right of free expression of people of faith has come under attack," said Elder M. Russell Ballard, a member of the LDS Church's Quorum of the Twelve, in a statement. "We join with those of all religious faiths and political persuasions who have called for reasoned and civil discourse on matters that affect our nation."

Of course, when it comes to intramural scrabbles about religious matters, many of these churches will still attack the LDS. Prop 8 cooperation (and other, similar cooperation) will not halt the institutional jealousies that arise from the increasing growth of the LDS church, but when it comes to matters of shared values, I think they will remember the horsepower members of the LDS church brought to the issue.

Indeed, Dr. Matt Holland (full disclosure, this professor is a friend and former mentor) seems to agree. From the same article:

Matthew Holland, a political science professor at Brigham Young University, said he sees an unprecedented show of support for the LDS Church from a wide spectrum of coalitions, affinities, associations and even some unexpected groups.

"The fact that they are willing to step forward and, in such a prominent way, be so supportive is something that we haven't really seen before," Holland said Friday night.

Many of the individuals who signed the ad are prominent national and international figures, Holland said, including Richard Cizik, vice president for Governmental Affairs of the National Association of Evangelicals; Nathan Diament, director of the Institute for Public Affairs of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America; William A. Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious & Civil Rights; Douglas Laycock, a law professor at the University of Michigan; and Chris Seiple, president of the Institute for Global Engagement.

Holland said he finds it significant that high-profile members of conservative Evangelical groups supported the ad because of divisive sentiments that emerged during LDS Church-member Mitt Romney's failed presidential campaign.

"These very prominent leaders from the Evangelical right are now stepping up to give voice and solidarity to the church," he said.

The next time Mitt Romney (or some other Mormon) runs for President and members of the religious right raise questions about his religion, whatever, he'll be able to point to his very good speech about religion in American and the important role Mormons have played in this country in defending marriage and the family.

I think these two things--the success of his 2008 campaign and Prop 8--will be a persuasive and unifying argument.

We'll see.


If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

National Review Sticks Up For Mormons, 1st Amendment

I'm tempting the Fair Use fates (again) by posting this, but I just don't see any other way around it. If you care about the 1st Amendment, you must read this article.

Last week in a Denver suburb, someone lit a Book of Mormon on fire and dropped it on the doorstep of a Mormon temple, presumably as a statement about the church’s support of Proposition 8 in California, an initiative that amended the state constitution to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman. In a move that may make gay-rights supporters’ heads spin, the incident is being investigated as a hate crime.

The outbreak of attacks on the Mormon church since the passage of Proposition 8 has been chilling: envelopes full of suspicious white powder were sent to church headquarters in Salt Lake City; protesters showed up en masse to intimidate Mormon small-business owners who supported the measure; a website was created to identify and shame members of the church who backed it; activists are targeting the relatives of prominent Mormons who gave money to pass it, as well as other Mormons who are only tangentially associated with the cause; some have even called for a boycott of the entire state of Utah.

The wisdom of hate-crimes legislation aside, there is no doubt that a lot of hate is being directed at Mormons as a group. But why single out Mormons? And why now?

Dozens of church bodies — including the Catholic Church, the Orthodox Christian bishops of California, and a wide variety of evangelicals — supported the proposition. It’s also worth considering that, while gay-rights advocates cannot discuss same-sex marriage for more than 30 seconds without making faulty analogies to Jim Crow-era anti-miscegenation laws, some 70 percent of blacks voted for Proposition 8. While there have been a few ugly racist statements by gay-rights supporters, such vile sentiment has been restricted. Not so the hatred directed at Mormons, who are convenient targets.

To date, 30 states have voted on initiatives addressing same-sex marriage, and in every state traditional marriage has come out on top. But somehow the fact that Mormons got involved during the latest statewide referendum constitutes a bridge too far? In truth, Mormons are a target of convenience in the opening salvo of what is sure to be a full-scale assault on much of America’s religious infrastructure, which gay activists perceive as a barrier to their aspirations. Among religious groups, Mormons are not the biggest obstacle to same-sex marriage — not by a long shot. But they are an easy target. Anti-Mormon bigotry is unfortunately common, and gay-rights activists are cynically exploiting that fact.

There are no websites dedicated to “outing” Catholics who supported Proposition 8, even though Catholic voters heavily outnumber Mormons. And the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is not remarkably strident in its beliefs on the subject. So far, no gay-rights activist has had the brass to burn a Qu’ran on the doorstep of a militant mosque where — forget marriage! — imams advocate the stoning of homosexuals.

Churches oppose same-sex marriage in part because it represents an implicit threat to freedom of conscience and belief. California already had one of the broadest civil-unions laws in the country. There was little in the way of government-sanctioned privileges that a state-issued marriage license would confer. But the drive for same-sex marriage is in practice about legislating moral conformity — demanding that everybody recognize homosexual relationships in the same way, regardless of their own beliefs. Freedom of conscience, or diversity of belief, is the last thing the homosexual lobby will tolerate: In New Mexico, a state civil-rights commission fined an evangelical wedding photographer $6,637 for politely declining to photograph a gay commitment ceremony. In California, the state Supreme Court ruled unanimously against two San Diego fertility doctors who refused to give in-vitro fertilization to a lesbian owing to their religious beliefs, even though they had referred her to another doctor. And just this week, evangelical dating site eHarmony, which hadn’t previously provided same-sex matchmaking services, announced it had been browbeaten into doing so by New Jersey’s Division on Civil Rights and the threat of litigation. The first 10,000 same-sex eHarmony registrants will receive a free six-month subscription. “That’s one of the things I asked for,” crowed Eric McKinley, who brought the charges against eHarmony.

Where do they go from here? Gay activists are already using the legal system to try to revoke the tax-exempt status of the Mormon church. If you believe that churches and synagogues, priests and rabbis won’t eventually be sued for their statements on sexuality, you’re kidding yourself. Chai Feldblum, a Georgetown University law professor and gay activist who helps draft federal legislation related to sexual orientation, says that, when religious liberty conflicts with gay rights, “I’m having a hard time coming up with any case in which religious liberty should win.” A National Public Radio report on the conflict noted that if previous cases are any guide, “the outlook is grim for religious groups.”

Given their cavalier disregard for the freedom of conscience, it’s little surprise that the gay lobby is equally disdainful of democracy: They began pursuing legal challenges to Proposition 8 practically before they were done tallying the votes. Lamentably, the state attorney general defending the will of the people will be former Jerry Brown, the liberal former governor who was an open opponent of the measure and tried to sabotage it. The legal challenges will be heard by the same state Supreme Court that overturned California’s previous law forbidding gay marriage back in May. There’s a real possibility the will of the people will be spurned a second time, democracy be damned. They’ve already burned the Book of Mormon. The First Amendment is next.

(emphasis added)


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Prop 8: Building A Strong Conservative Alliance

In the run-up to last week's round-table discussion on PJTV, I thought a lot about what I wanted to say. After consulting with my brother and a Wise Man, I concluded that I would speak to the strength of social conservatism, as evidenced by Prop 8's passage in California.

(In the end, it didn't really matter, as they just wanted to talk about conservatism on college campuses.)

Specifically, as prompted by this point from the aforementioned Wise Man, I wanted to talk about Mormonism's inclusion in the broader coalition of socially conservative Christians:

given the demographic change that now favours the Democratic Party and certainly the voting in California on Prop 8 bore this out--young people voted overwhelmingly against it--and seeing the excellent cooperation between Catholics, Evangelicals and Mormons--isn't now the time to embrace Mormons who are bucking the demographic trend (largest families amongst Christian denominations in America) into the Conservative alliance

Indeed, this may be the silver lining to the cloud of persecution facing Mormons post-Prop 8. There is no question that members of the Church of Jesus Christ played a lead role in GOTV in favor of Prop 8 and that they also funded much of the Yes on 8 ad campaign.

Members of other Christian faiths witnessed Mormons' efforts first-hand and have seen the persecution these efforts brought in the wake of Prop 8's passage.

A recent press release from the LDS church notes the common cause coalition being built by the fight for traditional marriage. Michael Barber, Professor at John Paul the Great Catholic University:

As a Catholic school, we stand beside our friends in the Mormon Church and of people of faith who work tirelessly to preserve the freedom of religion in America. We also strongly oppose any attempt to ridicule another person’s faith, even faiths with which we have strong historical and theological disagreements."

This is the key point: theological differences ought to be put aside in favor of a partnership in defense of common goals and values.

Mormons can and should make common cause with other faiths on issues regarding life (abortion, stem-cell research, assisted suicide, etc.), family (marriage, divorce, adoption, etc.) and other issues without having to get into debates about theological questions.

Chuck Colson, The Christian Post:

Two days after the election, 2,000 homosexual protesters surrounded a Mormon temple in Los Angeles chanting 'Mormon scum.' Protesters picketed Rick Warren's Saddleback Church, holding signs reading 'Purpose-Driven Hate.' Calvary Chapel in Chino Hills was spray painted. Church members' cars have been vandalized, and at least two Christians were assaulted. Protesters even hurled racial epithets at African-Americans because African-Americans voted overwhelmingly in favor of traditional marriage. What hypocrisy from those who spend all of their time preaching tolerance to the rest of us!

Apart from highlighting the hipocrisy of the tolerance crowd, this comment groups together 3 churches which never would have found themselves on the same side of any question prior to Prop 8. Calvary Chapel and Saddleback Church have typically been critical of Mormonism, but on marriage, they agree.

Again, this is where the focus should be.

Rod Dreher, Beliefnet.com:

Now is the time for traditional Christians -- Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox -- to come to the aid of our Mormon friends. They put themselves on the front line of the traditional marriage battle like no other church group. And now individual Mormons are paying a terrible price for standing up for something we all believe in. I don't know how we can stand with them from afar, but at least we can thank them, and speak out when we see them being abused. We might also think again about how we view them. … I have deep disagreements with Mormon theology. But they are our friends and allies and fellow citizens, and they deserve our thanks and support.

This is the time. On the most important questions that face American families (especially from a socially conservative, religious perspective), Mormons and "traditional" Christians see eye-to-eye.


If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

No On 8 Folks Really Helping Their Cause (Not Really) (UPDATED, Bumped)

As I've written several times in the past: For the homosexual community, this fight was never and will never be just about being allowed to be married. It is about forcing the rest of the United States to accept as normal every aspect of their lifestyle. It's about forcing it into our churches, schools, and the institution of marriage.

The word marriage has always described, for thousands of years, the unique relationship between man and wife. Words matter. Understandings and definitions of words matter. They affect how we look and think about the objects and ideas behind them.

I won't lump all homosexuals together, because I know there are many who just want to live and let live. But there are many, some in the video below, for whom the main goal is to militantly break down and destroy the thousands of years old understanding of marriage. They've demonstrated this over the course of the campaign for Prop 8 and violently in the aftermath of their loss by 600,000 votes in the liberal state of California.



(thanks to Lance G. for the vid)

And, of course, the Prop 8 loss caused someone to send suspicious white powder (code for 'maybe anthrax') to the Mormon temples in LA and SLC.

This sends a very clear message: 'Accept our lifestyle or die.'

Do they really think this will help their cause?

UPDATE 16 November 5:11am BST: Laura W. writes: "Not sure if you heard, but the little old lady who was spit on and vilified in that vid is pressing charges, and they are using that vid to identify the suspects...
Go, Little Old Lady!"

Sure enough, here's the article.

You know, in a democracy such as ours, these people have alternatives: They can try and persuade people to see the world the way they do and then vote accordingly, or they can harass sweet old ladies, threaten, vandalize, assault, send suspicious white powder (this is just a short list, readers have written me about more).

Given that they failed in California (California!), I wonder where they can succeed? This makes pro-marriage amendments 30 for 30 in terms of approval by statewide initiative (that is, amendments like this one have passed in the 30 states that have put it to a vote).

So, they'll follow the time honored tradition of liberal activists throughout the ages (like, the last 30 years or so): Get some liberal, activist judge to overturn the emphatically voted will of the people, you know, because she/he is more enlightened and knows better than the millions of Californians who voted to amend their constitution to protect marriage.

Mind you, this is a preemptive rant (the Bush Doctrine at work). I hope I don't really have to use it.


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National Review On Prop 8 & Attacks On Mormons

Thanks to Blake C. for this one:

On Tuesday, by a margin of 52 to 48 percent, voters in California amended their state constitution to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman, as did voters in Florida (62 to 38 percent) and Arizona (56 to 44 percent).

Those who argue social conservatism is behind the GOP’s current electoral malaise take note: In Arizona marriage outperformed John McCain by 2 percentage points, in Florida by 14 percentage points, and in California by 15 percentage points.

The Arizona win, reversing a defeat for a marriage amendment in that state in 2006, also restores to state marriage amendments an unblemished record of victory: They have won in 30 out of 30 states where they have been on the ballot.

What lesson can we take from Tuesday’s marriage victories? Here’s one obvious one: Americans still care a great deal about this issue. The California supreme court may have believed that the public would acquiesce when it foisted same-sex marriage on the state earlier this year. But the successful campaign to overturn its ruling was an astonishing effort, unprecedented for a social issue, that raised more than 100,000 volunteers and almost $40 million from over 60,000 donors.

How have the leaders of the movement for same-sex marriage responded to their California loss at the ballot box? The same way they usually do: by getting lawyers to make ever more outrageous arguments to impose their values on unwilling people. (The ACLU is preparing to argue that a one-sentence definition of marriage constitutes such a wholesale revision of California’s constitution that the California Supreme Court should invalidate Prop 8.)

Just before they lost on Tuesday in California, same-sex marriage advocates in California descended to a new low. A group affiliated with Moveon.org, United Healthcare Workers, and the California Nurses Association released a television ad, “Home Invasion,” which portrayed Mormon missionaries as ransacking a California home: “We’re from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. We’ve come to take away your rights.” (The ad was referring to the financial contributions Mormon citizens had made to the initiative campaign.) Are there any other religious minority groups whose political giving liberals believe should be stigmatized? Can we expect the Anti-Defamation League to speak up?

So far, not a single same-sex marriage advocate in California or outside of it has been willing to repudiate this vicious tactic: not MoveOn.org, of course, and not the ACLU or the Human Rights Campaign either. But also not, for example, Sen. Diane Feinstein, who appeared in an anti-Prop 8 TV ad saying that “we must always say no to discrimination.” But not, it seems, to bigotry.

The current conflict over marriage is in part a proxy for a larger ongoing conflict about the role of religious people and religious values in public life. As courts come to endorse the principle that sexual orientation is just like race, American government is going to find itself in the position of treating traditional faith communities just like racists. Voters should beware — if they are consulted on the matter.

(emphasis added)

Religious bigotry is the last acceptable form of bigotry in this country.

One of the lessons to be drawn from this election is that social conservatism is alive and well. Coupled with fiscal conservatism and strong-on-defense foreign policy positions, conservatism as a whole, has a bright future.

Conservatives must do as Ronald Reagan always did when confronted with a new problem: Return to first principles. It's why we are conservatives--because we have sure principles which we can always apply to new problems, if we work and think hard enough.


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Maureen Dowd is a hack

This morning we received the following email, having been forwarded to us mass-style:

Hello Everyone:

New York Times columnist Maureen Down wrote a hateful, offensive, and untruthful article about the Mormon Church yesterday (Sunday, Dec. 9th). In it, she describes Church leaders as "authoritarian", asserts that the Church today does not "grant[] women and blacks equal status", and declares that Joseph Smith was a "lusty, charismatic Prospero." (Prospero, in case you are not aware, is a character in Shakespeare's The Tempest that uses sorcery to control the play's other characters.) She exclusively quotes Jon Krakauer (author of "Under the Banner of Heaven") as her "expert" on Mormonism.

Ms. Dowd's column falls far below the standards of professional journalism. She is loose with the facts. Her disdain for Mormons is apparent. You may recall that radio talk-show host Don Imus was forced to publicly apologize and leave his job for calling the women of the Rutgers basketball team "nappy-headed hoes." Ms. Dowd's comments were equally offensive to Mormons. I believe that she, like Don Imus, should apologize and lose her job.


Please take a few minutes to complete the following three steps:

1. Read the article entitled "Mitt's No JFK"

2. Send one short, RESPECTFUL email to publisher@nytimes.com and president@nytimes.com requesting that Ms. Dowd apologize and step down from her position.

3. Forward this email to all potentially interested friends/family in your email list.

Our first reaction to this email was surprise. We can't believe anyone still reads Dowd--a columnist whose scurrilous and spurious work would fit in better over at the Daily Kos or the Huffington Post.

If this email writer or anyone else thinks this is the first or worst or last of these types of columns, they had better brace themselves. Attention: much, much more to follow.

When you do write your email to the NYT publisher and president, make it a form letter. You'll be filling in a lot more names before this campaign is over.


***Update 1:26pm MST: From the Washington Post, a more "balanced" look at Mormonism (you know, one that doesn't rely on sensationalist John Krakauer for its information) by Michael Otterson entitled "Are Mormons Christians?"


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Mitt Romney Watch III

We're late to the game with these links, but the questions they address remain relevant to the ongoing issues surrounding Mitt Romney's campaign for President.

First, Romney's Mormon Question over at time.com. From Time you get about what you'd expect. Left of center writing for the slightly above average American reader. Time is for the intellectually curious who are interested in politics, but not that interested and not that intellectual. They want more than they get from a newspaper, but not what they might get from The Nation on the left or National Review on the right. So, option one is the superficial, mainstream look at Mitt Romney.

For the more ambitious, those who fancy themselves to be a bit more intellectual, check out the transcript of a lengthy interview/discussion with Professor Richard Bushman. Hat tip to our old man for finding and emailing us the link to this insightful dialogue.

All the heavy hitters from most of the major periodicals attended and many of them asked questions: John Fund from The Wall Street Journal, E.J. Dionne from The Washington Post, et al. The piece starts out with a prepared presentation by Bushman, followed by Q&A with members of the press.

Of particular interest to us was the evolution of Mormon politics since the church's inception. From the radicalism of Joseph Smith to the conservatism of the last century, Bushman explores the historical factors surrounding these ideologies. If you want to know about the compatibility of Mormonism and Democracy, this is your primer. Mormonism and Democratic Politics: Are They Compatible?


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Mitt Romney for President - Part IV

(hat tip: Matt Lybbert, thanks: Connor Boyack)

Friday, January 5

Dear Damon,

I appreciate your moderate and respectful reply to my objections. It is often hard for non-Mormons to understand how Mormons believe all we do. You at least see how Mormon beliefs and our way of life could be satisfying to educated, reasonable people, among whom you presumably would include Mitt Romney.

What troubles you is the implication of belief in prophetic revelation: Would Mormons perform any dire deed for their prophet no matter how contrary to conscience? And what about the belief that the United States and the Church might combine to dominate the world some day? Would Mitt Romney serve as the tool of Church leaders in facilitating a plan for world domination? His belief in revelation seems to require that he should.

These seem like perfectly legitimate questions, but they have a point only if you assume potentially dark motives on the part of Church leaders. You object that you do not use the word “fanatic” in your article, but the questions evoke the very image of fanaticism I was talking about: evil-minded religious leaders employing their spiritual authority over blindly loyal followers to magnify their own power. That is exactly the picture painted by the nineteenth-century polemicists who labeled Mormons fanatics. And they reached their conclusion in the same way as you do–by “teasing out” implications. The protestations of innocence by Mormons themselves mean nothing. Nor do their actions calm the fears. All that matters is that the reasoning from premise to conclusion–revelation to vicious action–is impregnable. Doubtless without meaning to, you are following the reasoning of the anti-fanatics to its fearful conclusion.

In evaluating the political implications of Mormon beliefs, you should use real facts about real events, not theoretical possibilities. Have Mormon leaders actually used their influence to manipulate politicians in the interest of world domination? What reason is there to think they have this on their minds? The reason Mormons are likely to find your analysis a phantasm is that we rarely, if ever, speculate about the world when the millennium comes. This is simply not on the agenda of active Mormon concerns, and it is certainly not a “core” belief. If anything, Mormons draw on the tradition that holds that many religions will flourish after the coming of Christ–a kind of American-style tolerance of all faiths. Mormons conscientiously carry the gospel to the world, but I have never heard a Mormon forecast political domination, much less collaboration with the United States government. Are you aware of Church leaders discussing such plans? No.

From your reply, I would judge that you are most concerned about loyalty to prophetic authority. Would Mitt Romney as president give way to immoral and illegal directives from Salt Lake? You make the subtle and interesting point that Mormons have no natural law tradition to constrain a Mormon president–either a president of the Church or the country. Since revelation trumps everything, where are the limits?

Your concern might be alleviated by considering how revelation actually works–in Mormonism and in biblical history. The scriptures themselves place heavy restraints on prophets. It makes a big difference that the moral law is enunciated endlessly in Mormon scriptures. The Ten Commandments were rehearsed in an early revelation, reinstalling them as fundamentals of the Church. Later, the Saints were told “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? You think that revelation wipes the slate clean, negating everything that went before. But that is not the way prophetic revelation works, now or ever.

The proper analogy is to the courts and the Constitution. The law is what the courts say it is, we assert hyperbolically. Theoretically nine 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 Joseph Smith, whose most extreme revelation–plural marriage–was based on plural marriage in the Bible. Prophets do not write on a blank slate. They carry forward everything that went before, adapting it to present circumstances. Like Supreme Court justices, they would put their own authority in jeopardy if they disregarded the past. The moral law, embedded in this revelatory tradition, exercises far greater influence on Mormon thought than the abstractions of natural law could possibly effect.

I am asking you not to focus so narrowly on what you take to be the logical implications of revelation. That is what critics of fanaticism have been doing for centuries. Look at the historical record of the past century as Mormons have entered national politics. Is there evidence of manipulation?

Consider the Church’s own renunciation of control over the consciences of Mormon politicians–a stand Catholics have not taken. Are you saying this is a false front? Keeping in mind the injunction in Mormon scripture to submit to lawful government, is there any real basis for concern?

Best,
Richard


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Mitt Romney for President - Part III

(hat tip: Matt Lybbert, thanks: Connor Boyack)

Thursday, January 4

Dear Richard,

I was delighted when I learned that you would be responding to my article on Mitt Romney. I admire your work on Joseph Smith and the beginnings of Mormonism, so I hoped for a critical engagement with the substance of my essay.

I must admit, however, to being disappointed with your response. Instead of answering the questions I pose, you dismiss them as a product of my overheated and paranoid liberal imagination. Unwilling to concede the validity of anything I argued in my piece, you claim that what I wrote “makes no sense” to Mormons–all the while failing to point to a single factual inaccuracy in my article. Rather than engaging with the theological concerns I raise, you say that they all flow from my belief that Mormons are religious “fanatics.” Indeed, you consider this last point so decisive that you use variations on the word “fanatic” 14 times in your 1,000-word response–despite the fact that I never used it or any similarly harsh or dismissive adjective to describe Mormon beliefs in my article.

For the record, I don’t consider Mormons to be fanatics. I consider them to be very seriously religious, and I think that their faith deserves respect–certainly far more respect than it has typically been accorded in the press and by evangelical Protestants. I am deeply impressed by the audaciousness of Joseph Smith’s revelations. In addition to bringing forth a new 500-page book of scripture and setting out to correct (”retranslate”) the canonical Old and New Testaments, Smith denied the creation of the universe ex nihilo, proposed that God has a body, and suggested that human beings can evolve into Gods themselves. More remarkable still, he persuaded large numbers of people to accept these heterodox beliefs and to risk (and, in many cases, to lose) their lives defending their right to affirm them.

However odd Mormon beliefs may sound to orthodox Christians and doctrinaire secularists, these critics need to recognize that the LDS Church proclaims a vision of the world and God that speaks to something noble in the souls of millions of Mormons and the thousands of people who convert to the Church every year. (This is, in part, what Harold Bloom meant in The American Religion when he accurately described Joseph Smith as one of history’s great religious geniuses.)

It is precisely my respect for Mormonism–my desire to take it and its religious claims seriously–that leads to my disappointment at your response to my article. You say that arguments like mine “baffle” Mormons. But why? I made three interrelated assertions in my essay–that Mormons believe Jesus Christ will return sooner rather than later; that, when he returns, he is likely to rule the world from the territory of the United States; and that the president of the Church is considered to be a prophet of God. Then I teased out various possible political implications of these theological commitments. In your response, you do not take issue with my three assertions, presumably because they are accurate statements of core LDS beliefs. Where my article becomes baffling is thus apparently in its discussion of implications. Mormons, you imply, would never follow a morally questionable or politically perilous pronouncement by the prophet in Salt Lake City.

I do not doubt that you and many other Mormons believe this. But can you tell me (and other non-Mormons) why–on what basis–you believe it? A devout Roman Catholic, for example, would have plenty of theological resources to grapple with an analogous question about following a papal edict. She might begin by pointing out that the Pope is not considered a prophet and is only rarely presumed to speak infallibly. She might then appeal to natural law, which an authentic papal pronouncement could never contradict. Then there is the closed canon of scripture. And a series of binding councils stretching back to the early days of the church. And a nearly 2,000-year tradition of relatively settled dogma and doctrine on faith and morals.

As I explained in my article, Mormonism has none of these moderating safeguards. It considers its leader to be the “mouthpiece of God on Earth.” Mormon cosmology is arguably incompatible with natural law theory. It rejects the authority of every church council accepted by historic Christianity. And its scriptural and doctrinal traditions are fluid and radically open to revision in light of new prophetic revelations. On the other side of the ledger, I also suggested that the hierarchical structure of the LDS Church has tended to have a moderating influence on its leadership and that it might very well continue to do so in the coming years. To this you have added individual conscience, which you believe would keep Mormons from following a questionable prophetic commandment unthinkingly. This is a promising start, but it is only a start. Conscience, after all, is a notoriously unreliable guide to right action–one that is most effective when it supplements firmer sources of morality and belief.

Does Mormonism contain such sources? If so, what are they? I taught at Brigham Young University for two years and count several Mormons among my closest friends, and yet the answer to these questions remains a mystery to me. And LDS culture today is shot through with so many unsettling contradictions that I find it hard to see how this mystery could be dispelled anytime soon. The Church is profoundly conservative, but its theological and historical foundations are incredibly radical (involving not only multiple acts of prophesy and revelation but also the establishment of a polygamous theocracy in the intermountain west). I know many intellectually curious and skeptical Mormons, but their curiosity and skepticism nearly always remains cordoned off from their religious beliefs.

At the level of the ward (or parish), LDS church life is highly egalitarian, but individual Mormons tend to be extraordinarily deferential to ecclesiastical and political authority. I could go on.

As Mitt Romney prepares to become the most serious Mormon candidate for president in American history, members of the LDS Church (and especially its leading scholars and intellectuals) owe it to themselves and to their country to think deeply and publicly about these issues. The alternative–striking a purely defensive stance and hoping the questions and concerns will go away–is simply not a serious response.

Best,
Damon


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Mitt Romney for President - Part II

Mitt Romney’s Mormonism
by Richard Lyman Bushman
(hat tip: Matt Lybbert, thanks: Connor Boyack)

Dear Damon,

Your anxiety about a Mormon politician knuckling under to a Mormon Church president replays the debate in 1904 over the seating of Apostle Reed Smoot in the United States Senate. Senators kept questioning church president Joseph F. Smith about his control of Mormon politics. Over and over, he assured the committee that he had no intention of dictating Smoot’s votes in the Senate, but the questioning went on.

Now, a century later, we can judge the actual dangers of the Mormon Church to national politics from the historical record. Have any of the church presidents tried to manage Smoot, Ezra Taft Benson, Harry Reid, or Gordon Smith? The record is innocuous to say the least. There is no evidence that the church has used its influence in Washington to set up a millennial kingdom where Mormons will govern the world or even to exercise much sway on lesser matters. It’s a long way from actual history to the conclusion that “under a President Romney, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints would truly be in charge of the country–with its leadership having final say on matters of right and wrong.”

Mitt Romney’s insistence that he will follow his own conscience rather than church dictates is not only a personal view; it is church policy. The church website makes this explicit: Elected officials who are Latter-Day Saints make their own decisions and may not necessarily be in agreement with one another or even with a publicly stated church position.

While the church may communicate its views to them, as it may to any other elected official, it recognizes that these officials still must make their own choices based on their best judgment and with consideration of the constituencies whom they were elected to represent.

You are going against all the evidence of history and stated church policy in contriving the purely theoretical possibility of Mormon domination. Is that not the stuff from which all paranoid projections on world history have been manufactured?

Liberals must be particularly cautious in speculating about the political intentions of religious groups because of their fascination with fanaticism. Fanaticism is one of the most firmly entrenched stereotypes in the liberal mind. The fanatic is the polar opposite of all that the liberal stands for and thus constitutes a particularly delicious enemy.

Joseph Smith ran up against the fear of fanaticism almost from the beginning. It was the chief underlying cause of the recurrent expulsions the Mormons suffered. When non-Mormons could find no specific infractions to warrant prosecution in the courts, they resorted to vigilante action to drive the Mormons out. The Mormon presence was unbearable because they were so obviously fanatics. Quite typically, the fear of fanaticism led democrats into undemocratic extremes. Mormons were deprived of their property and the right to live and vote in a supposedly open society. In 1846, after a decade and a half of recurring attacks in Missouri and Illinois, a body of armed citizens forced out the pitiful remains of the Mormon population in Nauvoo by training six cannons on the town.

The stereotype of fanaticism is essentially a logical construction. The seemingly airtight logic is that anyone who claims to speak for God must believe he possesses absolute truth with an implied commission to impose that truth on everyone else.

Mohammed, to whom Joseph Smith was frequently compared, used violence. Joseph Smith, lacking the means, tyrannized his own followers and refused to acknowledge the truth of any other doctrines but his own. You assume that Mormon leaders, by the same token, will want to commandeer the United States government to advance their cause.

Nothing Mormons can do will ever alleviate these fears. It did not help that the right of individual conscience in religious matters was made an article of faith, or that the Nauvoo city council passed a toleration act for every conceivable religious group including Catholics, Jews, and “Muhammadans.”

Whatever they said, their neighbors could not believe that the Mormons’ ultimate goal was not to compel everyone to believe as they did.

Your essay chooses not to look at the historical record, because specific facts are irrelevant in explicating fanaticism. It is the logic of revelation that counts. The Mormons have to be interested in world domination because their doctrine requires it of them. Furthermore, they are all dupes of the chief fanatic and will willingly do anything he requires. You cite as proof of this extravagant claim “more than one” undergraduate who said he would kill if commanded. No mention was made of students who said they would have refused. That method is in keeping with the management of the fanatic stereotype. There is no effort to give a balanced picture. Certain key facts or incidents are made archetypal. In unguarded moments or exceptional instances the true nature of the fanatic mind reveals itself.

The unquestioned belief in the potency of fanaticism makes facts unnecessary. Readers know in advance what to expect just as they foresee the ending of a romantic movie far in advance. The art of writing in this mode is to mobilize all of the foreknown elements and arrange them to reach an expected conclusion.

Damon, I thought you moved along judiciously through most of the essay, but you blew your cover in the paragraph of questions to Mitt Romney. There, you try to nail him on his beliefs about the church president being a prophet. It follows necessarily, you think, that, if Romney believes in current prophecy, the church will run the country under his presidency. That leap from assumption to conclusion in one bound is only possible if you are steeped in the logic of fanaticism. For Mormons themselves, it makes no sense.

You are caught in the dilemma that ensnares everyone preoccupied with fanaticism. You describe Mormonism in a way that makes perfect sense to non-Mormons and no sense to Mormons themselves. This means, to me, that you are describing the inside of your own mind as much as the reality of Mormonism. Mormons will hear a lot of this so long as Romney is in the race, and it will baffle them every time.

Best,
Richard Lyman Bushman


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Mitt Romney for President - Part I

We've been made aware (hat tip: Matt Lybbert, thanks also to Connor Boyack) of an excellent discussion going on over at The New Republic. A notoriously left-leaning publication, the article, written by former BYU professor Damon Linker gives a fairly even-handed (maybe we call it "even handed" because we're so jaded by Mormon's typically poor treatment in the press? Andrew Sullivan anyone?) treatment of Mormon history and the possibility of a Mormon Mitt Romney in the White House.

Stay tuned for a response from Dr. Richard Bushman (Professor of History, Columbia University), a reply from Linker, and a final repartee from Bushman.

The Big Test
By Damon Linker

Within days of stepping down as governor of Massachusetts on January 4, Mitt Romney is expected to announce his candidacy for president. Shortly after that, Romney will almost certainly need to deliver a major speech about his Mormon faith–a speech in the mold of John F. Kennedy’s 1960 address to the Baptist ministers of Houston, Texas, in which the candidate attempted to reassure voters that they had no reason to fear his Catholicism. Yet Romney’s task will be much more complicated. Whereas Kennedy set voters’ minds at ease by declaring in unambiguous terms that he considered the separation of church and state to be “absolute,” Romney intends to run for president as the candidate of the religious right, which believes in blurring the distinction between politics and religion. Romney thus needs to convince voters that they have nothing to fear from his Mormonism while simultaneously placing that faith at the core of his identity and his quest for the White House.

This is a task that may very well prove impossible. Romney’s strategy relies on the assumption that public suspicion of his Mormonism–a recent poll showed that 43 percent of Americans would never vote for a Mormon–is rooted in ignorance and that this suspicion will therefore diminish as voters learn more about his faith. It is far more likely, however, that as citizens educate themselves about the political implications of Mormon theology, concerns about the possibility of a Mormon president will actually increase. And these apprehensions will be extremely difficult to dispel–because they will be thoroughly justified.

The religious right has been enormously successful at convincing journalists not to raise questions about the political implications of a candidate’s religious beliefs. Analyzing the dangers of generic “religion” to the nation’s political life is considered perfectly acceptable–indeed, it has become a cottage industry in recent years–but exploring the complicated interactions between politics and the theological outlooks of specific religious traditions supposedly smacks of bigotry. The focus on Kennedy’s Catholicism in 1960, for example, is today widely derided as a shameful expression of anti-Catholic prejudice that ought never to be repeated.

This is unfortunate. However useful and necessary it may be to engage in theoretical reflection on politics and “religion,” the fact is that there is no such thing as religion in the abstract. There are, rather, particular religious traditions, each of which has its own distinctive history of political engagement (or disengagement, as the case may be). And, certainly, the political history of pre-Vatican II Catholicism–with its overt hostility to modernity, democracy, liberalism, and religious “error,” as well as its emphasis on the absolute authority of the Pope in matters of faith and morals–raised perfectly legitimate questions and concerns about what it would mean for the United States to elect a Catholic to the nation’s highest office.

A very different, though arguably more troubling, set of questions and concerns are posed by the prospect of the nation electing a president who is an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS). In some ways, Catholicism and Mormonism present diametrically opposed political challenges to liberal democracy. With Kennedy’s faith, the concern was over the extent of his deference to a foreign ecclesiastical authority. The genuine and profound loyalty of Mormons to the United States and its political system is, by contrast, undeniable. Indeed, LDS patriotism flows directly from Mormon theology. And that is precisely the problem.

With few exceptions, America’s Christian, Jewish, and Islamic communities have roots in Europe and the Middle East. However Americanized these communities may be in doctrine and spiritual outlook, their theologies ultimately derive from older and richer traditions that predate the United States. This is true even of the many branches of Protestantism that began and flourished in the New World, nearly all of which have built on Calvinist theological motifs.

Not so for Mormonism. Radicalizing traditional Protestant worries about corruption in the historic church, the religion founded in 1830 by Joseph Smith in upstate New York has understood itself from the beginning to be a “great restoration” of authentic Christianity after an 1,800-year “apostasy” that began with the death of the original apostles. That this restoration took place in the United States was no accident, according to Mormon theology. Smith produced a 500-page document, The Book of Mormon, containing the record of an ancient civilization, descended from the biblical Israelites, that supposedly lived, flourished, and collapsed in the Americas 1,000 years before the arrival of Christopher Columbus. Jesus Christ visited these people after his resurrection in Jerusalem, spreading his gospel in the New World and planting the seeds of its rebirth many centuries later by Smith himself.

In later revelations, Smith went even further in placing the United States–both geographically and politically–at the focal point of sacred history. The Garden of Eden, he claimed, was located in Jackson County, Missouri. The American Founders were “raised up” by God in order to establish a free government that would allow the restoration to occur and the LDS Church to spread the restored gospel throughout the nation and the world. (Accordingly, all 30,000 undergraduates at LDS-owned Brigham Young University (BYU) are required to take “American Heritage”–a course that teaches the “American system of government and institutions in the context of the Restored Gospel.”)

The centrality of the United States to Mormon theology extends beyond the past and present to encompass the end times as well. Like many of the religious groups to emerge from the Second Great Awakening of the early nineteenth century, Mormons are millennialists who believe themselves to be living in the years just prior to the second coming of Christ; hence the words “latter day” in the church’s official title. Where the LDS differs from other communities gripped by eschatology, however, is in the vital role it envisions the United States playing in the end times. The Mormon “Articles of Faith” teach that, when Christ returns, he will reign “personally upon the earth” for 1,000 years, and LDS interpretations of a passage in Isaiah have led some to conclude that this rule will be directed from two locations–one in Jerusalem and the other in “Zion” (the United States). This belief has caused Mormons to view U.S. politics as a stage on which the ultimate divine drama is likely to play itself out, with a Mormon in the leading role. Joseph Smith certainly thought so, which at least partially explains why he spent the final months of his life–he was gunned down by a mob in Carthage, Illinois, on June 27, 1844– running for president of the United States.

Mormons differ from mainstream Christians in another respect as well: their emphasis on the centrality of prophecy. Christianity in both the Catholic and Protestant traditions holds that direct revelation ended many centuries ago, before the scriptural canon was closed in the late fourth century. Numerous heterodox movements have made contrary claims, of course, but Mormonism is unique in the emphasis it places on prophetic utterances. Not only was the religion founded by a self-proclaimed prophet who brought forth new works of scripture (The Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and The Pearl of Great Price) and even rewrote (”retranslated”) passages of the canonical Old and New Testaments in light of his personal revelations; but the man who holds the office of the president of the LDS Church is also considered to be a prophet–”the mouthpiece of God on Earth,” in the words of Mormon theologian and Apostle Bruce McConkie–whose statements override both scripture and tradition.

The truly radical implications of this view were brought home to me during two years (1998-2000) I spent as a (non-Mormon) visiting professor in the political science department at BYU. Like good teachers everywhere, another non-Mormon colleague and I posed moral and ethical dilemmas in our classes in order to encourage our students to reflect on the character of the beliefs they brought to the classroom. What would they do, we wondered, if the prophet in Salt Lake City commanded them to commit murder in the name of their faith, much as the God of the Old Testament supposedly instructed the ancient Israelites to wipe out the Canaanites? More than one pious young Mormon invariably responded by declaring that he would execute the prophet’s commands, no matter what.

The point is not that Americans need to beware a covert genocidal plot by Mormons. On the contrary, LDS prophetic declarations since the late nineteenth century have tended to moderate church teaching, moving the community into greater conformity with mainstream American values–abolishing polygamy in 1890, for instance, and opening the Mormon priesthood to black members of the church in 1978. Yet the response of the BYU students nevertheless points to a potentially dangerous problem in LDS theology–namely that, by elevating prophecy above other sources of revealed truth and by insisting that the words of a prophet supersede mainstream Christian as well as established LDS scripture and tradition, Mormonism opens the door to prophetically inspired acts and innovations, the content of which cannot be predetermined in any way.

Thoughtful Mormons are well-aware of this problem, but the peculiarities of the church and its founding make devising a solution extremely difficult. One option would be for the LDS Church to follow the lead of the Catholic Church in developing a tradition of philosophical reflection on natural law or some other moral ideal to which God and his prophets are assumed to be bound or co-equal. This rationalist tradition could then be used to check the veracity of prophetic pronouncements. The difficulty, however, is that Smith encouraged his followers to cultivate suspicion of philosophy. Mormons assume that the centuries-long “apostasy” that preceded Smith was caused in large part by the rationalizing of faith that took place in the early church. According to Smith, it was questions like the one Socrates posed to Euthyphro–does God love what is good because it is good, or is it good because God loves it?–that led the church fathers and early church councils into theological and doctrinal errors that corrupted Christianity for nearly 18 centuries. To this day, the Mormon church teaches genuine respect for reason only when it operates within the narrow limits set for it by LDS prophecy.

But the obstacles to Mormons developing a binding moral theory go beyond the church’s generalized suspicion of autonomous reason; their concept of God seems to deny the very possibility of such a theory. Unlike the God of Catholics and Protestants–who is usually portrayed as the transcendent, all-powerful, all-good, and all-wise creator of the temporal universe out of nothingness–Smith’s God is a finite being who evolved into his present state of divinity from a condition very much like our own and then merely “organized” preexisting matter in order to form the world. As a result of this highly unorthodox revelation, there is simply no room for a natural morality in Mormon theology, since Mormonism tacitly denies that the natural world possesses any intrinsic or God-given moral purpose. Everything we know–or could ever know–about right and wrong comes entirely from divine commands communicated to humanity by prophets. The idea of appealing to a higher principle against the word of a prophet–the idea, in other words, of using one’s own mind to cast moral or intellectual doubt on the veracity of a prophetic pronouncement–therefore makes no sense in the Mormon conceptual universe.

These limitations have led some leaders of the church to propose that Mormons should look to the currently accepted canon of scriptures revealed by Smith as the standard by which to assess all future revelations. In the words of Joseph Fielding Smith, the tenth president of the church, official LDS scriptural texts should be used as “the measuring yardsticks, or balances, by which we measure every man’s doctrine.” This moderate and moderating view remains a controversial position in the church, however, and for good reason. None other than Joseph Smith and his successor-prophet Brigham Young seemed to take a different stance toward the authority of revelation. Compared with “living oracles,” Young declared, canonical works of scripture “are nothing,” because they “do not convey the word of God direct to us now, as do the words of a Prophet or a man bearing the Holy Priesthood in our day and generation.” To which Smith replied, “Brother Brigham has told you the word of the Lord, and he has told you the truth.”

It is impossible to know how Mormons will resolve this significant tension over the coming years. The church’s current president, 96-year-old Gordon B. Hinckley, has certainly shown no sign of theological radicalism during his eleven-year tenure as prophet. As those who have caught one of his many jovial appearances on “Larry King Live” will have noted, Hinckley is an exceedingly unthreatening figure. And whoever succeeds him may very well prove to be equally anodyne. In practice, the rigidly hierarchical institutional structure of the LDS Church–with the prophet as well as the two counselors with whom he shares the “First Presidency” drawn from the “Quorum of Twelve Apostles”–is remarkably effective at enforcing theological conservatism. It is simply very difficult to rise to the top of the organization without being a consummate company man.

Yet the fact remains that, as it is currently constituted, Mormonism lacks the intellectual or spiritual resources to challenge a declaration of the prophet who runs the church, regardless of how theologically or morally outrageous that declaration might be. Members of the church may insist that non-Mormons have nothing to worry about, since God would never issue an immoral edict, but that is quite obviously a matter of faith–a faith that non-Mormons do not share. As long as the LDS Church continues to insist that its leader serves as a direct conduit from God–a God whose ways are, to a considerable extent, inscrutable to human reason–Mormonism will remain a theologically unstable, and thus politically perilous, religion.

Article VI of the U.S. Constitution famously stipulates that “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” Though the Framers meant to prohibit a test compelling office-seekers to affirm a particular set of religious views, it makes sense to treat the proscription as applying negatively as well–as prohibiting a test that would exclude members of certain religious sects from holding office. In our time of heightened sectarian tensions–when devout believers and secularists increasingly perceive themselves to be stationed on opposite sides of a cultural chasm–it is crucially important that Americans remain committed to allowing every qualified citizen to run for public office, regardless of his or her religious views.

But defending the constitutional right of every qualified citizen to run for office is not the same as saying that a candidate’s religious views should be a matter of indifference to voters. In the case of Mitt Romney, citizens have every reason to seek clarification about the character of his Mormonism. Does he believe, for example, that we are living through the “latter days” of human history, just prior to the second coming of Christ? And does he think that, when the Lord returns, he will rule over the world from the territory of the United States? Does Romney believe that the president of the Mormon Church is a genuine prophet of God? If so, how would he respond to a command from this prophet on matters of public policy? And, if his faith would require him to follow this hypothetical command, would it not be accurate to say that, under a President Romney, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints would truly be in charge of the country–with its leadership having final say on matters of right and wrong?

One suspects that, if pressed in this way, Romney would seek to assure voters that he would never follow such a command if it conflicted in any way with his oath of office. How such a statement would square with his professed Mormon faith is far from clear, however. Under modern conditions, some religions–Protestantism, post-Vatican II Catholicism, Judaism–have spawned liberal traditions that treat faith primarily as a repository of moral wisdom instead of as a source of absolute truth. Other religions, by contrast, have tended to require believers to accept everything or nothing at all. Mormonism (like Islam, another faith founded in prophecy) is one of the latter, binary religions. When a Mormon stops accepting the binding truth of prophetic revelation, he effectively becomes a lapsed Mormon.

At the beginning of his political career, that description seemed to fit Romney pretty well. In his failed bid to unseat Senator Edward Kennedy in 1994, Romney responded to questions about his faith by stating that he was not running “to be a spokesman for my church.” In the same campaign, Romney also asserted that states should be free to decide whether to allow same-sex marriage, and he demonized Republican “extremists” for seeking to “force their beliefs on others.” These remarks would be unusual for any devout Mormon, but they are especially noteworthy because Romney made them at a time when the LDS Church was actively working to ensure that Hawaii would not become the first state in the nation to–in the words of a church statement issued in February 1994–”give legal authorization or other official approval or support to marriages between persons of the same gender.” Even on abortion–the issue that, more than any other, unites conservative Catholics, Protestants, and Mormons–Romney portrayed himself as a moderate as recently as 2002, claiming in his run for Massachusetts governor that he “would protect the current pro-choice status quo” in the state because “women should be free to choose based on their own beliefs, not the government’s.”

But the Mitt Romney currently contemplating a run for the White House is a very different candidate. Seeking to serve as the standard-bearer for the religious right, he now staunchly opposes abortion and supports a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. He claims, in short, to be a man of deep piety who wishes to increase the role of conservative religion in the nation’s public life. Far from soft-pedaling his faith, as he once did, he now embraces it as central to his political strategy.

A cynic would say that Romney has changed his positions in order to win the Republican nomination and that, in his heart, he’s most likely a lukewarm believer in the doctrines of his church. In that case, non-Mormons may have nothing to fear from a Romney candidacy (though religious conservatives may have grounds for concern about how well he will represent their cause). But there is another possibility: Romney may have undergone an authentic religious rebirth during the last few years–a rebirth that has led him to embrace the fundamental tenets of his church more fully than ever before in his political career. If so, voters need to know it. And they need to think long and hard about the possible consequences of making such a man the president of the United States.


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