Posted on 11/20/2007 4:44:55 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
DALLAS - When a pair of Mormon missionaries knocked at the door of Jerry Pierce's home in a north Dallas suburb last month, he marshaled his arguments and stood his ground.
"I look forward to encounters like that. I like to talk to them about the nature of Christ and who Jesus is," said Pierce, a staunch Southern Baptist, the biggest Protestant denomination in the United States.
Mitt Romney, a Mormon, is running into similar resistance as he tries to win over Southern Baptists and other evangelical Protestants in the race for the Republican Party's nomination for the 2008 U.S. presidential election.
Romney will need the support of this traditional Republican base if he is to take on former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, who is running strongly in opinion polls despite his three marriages and a pro-abortion position that is anathema to many Republicans.
The reason Romney faces difficulties with Southern Baptists, according to many experts, is his Mormon faith. Not only do many Southern Baptists regard the Mormon church as a cult, they also regard it as a competitor that is winning -- or poaching -- converts from among the evangelical flock.
"There are now more Mormons that used to be Southern Baptist than any other denomination," said Dr. Richard Land, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, a 16-million strong group.
"As a consequence, Southern Baptists and other evangelicals have taught their people what Mormons believe and why it's beyond the boundaries of the Christian faith, to inoculate them against those Mormon missionaries," he told Reuters.
This is no small matter for people who take their faith as seriously as Southern Baptists do, and to counter the perceived threat they teach their members in Sunday School to be ready for that knock at the door and be wary of Mormon missionaries.
Romney himself did missionary work overseas.
Some say a Mormon in the White House would help the faith -- founded in 1830 in New York state by Joseph Smith and still struggling with the legacy of polygamy -- become more accepted. This is a dim prospect for evangelical leaders, who see themselves competing with the religion, literally, for souls.
"Many evangelicals do not want to see Mormonism mainstreamed," said Matthew Wilson, a political scientist at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.
For Romney, the stakes are high. He is casting himself as a social conservative family man opposed to abortion and gay marriage, in a bid to win over white evangelical Protestants, who account for about a third of the Republican electorate by some estimates.
A recent poll by the Pew Research Center found he only had the support of about 10 percent of white Republican and Republican-leaning evangelicals.
"There are a lot of conservative Christians who are going to look at the Mormon thing and say, 'Wait a minute, he may be conservative but he's a Mormon,' and they're not going to go there," said Steve Swofford, a pastor in the city of Rockwall, near Dallas, and former president of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention.
Romney has managed to make some headway with evangelicals who have yet to unite around a single Republican candidate.
He has received support from politically active evangelical leaders such as Paul Weyrich and there is a small group of bloggers called "Evangelicals for Mitt."
On the other hand, there is no group called "Mormons for Mitt" and Romney plays down his faith.
Many Americans associate Mormonism with polygamy, once a central tenet but now practiced by only about 40,000 renegades. One of those renegades, polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs, was sentenced to 10 years to life on November 20 for forcing a 14-year-old girl to marry her cousin.
Evangelical Protestants tend to be more aware than most that the Mormon church now opposes polygamy, but they have other bones of contention, such as Mormon efforts to recruit their members.
NUMBERS AND GROWTH
There is no hard data -- the Mormon church does not crunch numbers on the previous faiths of its converts -- but there is evidence pointing to Mormon inroads among Southern Baptists.
The Mormon faith is growing faster than almost any other. In 1963, its membership stood at two million but now is close to 13 million with over half outside of the United States.
"The church of course is growing everywhere, now somewhat faster overseas than in America. But we do not as a matter of policy attack other churches," said Mike Otterson, a spokesman for the Mormon church in Salt Lake City.
In America some of its fastest growth has been in Southern Baptist strongholds, notably the South, according to data provided by the Mormon church.
In the United States overall its membership grew by 3.2 percent from 2004 to 2006. But in 13 states of the South its numbers grew over the same period by 5.3 percent.
Evangelical soil can be fertile ground for Mormon growth.
Mormons and Southern Baptists take similar conservative stances on social issues and tend to vote Republican, so their cultural and political outlooks are not really in conflict.
"Some Southern Baptists will live near Mormon communities functioning at their best, where they will see in practice the kind of family-oriented, sober, diligent, and disciplined lives that Southern Baptists preach but do not always display," said Mark Noll of the University of Notre Dame.
Noll, a leading evangelical historian, also said the theological underpinnings of the faiths had some similarities.
"Southern Baptists maintain a vigorous doctrine of divine revelation. That latter belief is not too far from the Mormon belief that God spoke to and through Joseph Smith," he said.
About the same number as regard Jews as evil race that killed Christ.
Those beliefs ended 50 years ago. When this was a Christian nation Christians could fight over who had Christianity right and who had it wrong. But once the atheists started to take control, Christians welcome any Christian candidate for office no matter what brand.
Today it is the fundamentalist Southern Whites that hold their hands out to the JEWS whom they now call God's Chosen People. They are the ones who donate the money to get Jews out of Russia and into Israel.
The South and its religious and polticial views have changed greatly over the last 50 years. When the South hated MORMONS the Democrats referred to the South as THEIR SOLID SOUTH. Republicans don't hate Jews, Blacks or Mormons. That is what Democrats do.
Good grief, I swear the Romney Sleaze Machine churns this up for the misdirection/martyrdom angle.
There’s a big steaming heap of reasons to despise the idea of a Romney administration and NONE of them have anything to do with Mormonism. The vast bulk of what people think they know about Mormonism isn’t even true anyway.
Vote against him and defeat him because he’s a paper-thin pretender to the conservative throne, a flip-flopping panderer of the first order, a shallow slick creepiness of the highest caliber. His religion doesn’t enter into it.
The question is not, is it possible for men to continue to prophesy for God? The question is, were these men true prophets of God?
If a man is a true prophet from God EVERY prophecy he makes in the name of God will come true. Google Joseph Smith false prophesies and you will see that he clearly doesn't pass God's test for a true prophet.
And whoever the demorats run will win. Hell will freeze over before I would vote for him.
“Evangelical Protestants tend to be more aware than most that the Mormon church now opposes polygamy,”
Not the whole truth, as is common with what mormons tell you
about what they believe.
First, they do not oppose polygamy. If their “prophet” got
the message tonight that polygamy is “OK now for this time”
it would be back on the front burner as A-OK.
Second, mormons believe couples are sealed for eternity (also
opposed to Biblical teaching, btw). Mormons who were
polygamous in times past are sealed to ALL their wives forever...
STILL.
In the mormon view of heaven, polygamy is practiced
and is A-OK.
Finally, there are mormons who continue to practice polygamy
today, despite what the church currently teaches.
Many of us do not oppose mormonism because of polygamy, but
because it is a cult, trying to pass itself off as Christianity
and as Biblical. It isn’t.
Many of us oppose the candidacy of Mitt because we believe
he is a RINO and in a cult.
ampu
“Republicans don’t hate Jews, Blacks or Mormons. That is what Democrats do.”
Exactly, FRiend.
It’s not the LDS, it’s the liberal stance, stupid.
True Christians won’t vote for someone in a cult. Period.
Go Fred.
What was Christianity in Rome when it was starting out?
You realy do not understand the meaning of a cult do you?!
Anything that teaches anything other than the idea that only God through the sacrifice of his Son Jesus can atone for the sins of a man and change his heart is considered a cult from the Christian perspective.
The idea being that man can do absolutely nothing to secure his place in heavan or in the good graces of God except rely on God himself to save him.
The Mormon church is not a cult as in being of the “occult”. It’s not devil worship, it’s not evil. In my opinion it is wrong headed and incorrect in important Christian teachings but it’s not harmful to America, our way of life or our freedoms. It is not harmful to me or mine.
There are good things about it, many good things, emphasis on family and good works, healthy living, and economic independence and responsibility. I am not going to not vote for a person because that person does not share my interpretation of the bible. As a Catholic, I think the dictum of “bible alone” is totally fallacious. So??? Big deal! I could call that a “cult” too with all the negative implications of that word. But using the word “cult” to describe the Mormon church strikes me as a kind of crazy fear- mongering superstitious description I just do not get.
Yes, I certainly do, and I understand the word from which it is derived. The word is NOT a casual insult to be directed against a church with which one does not agree.
It MEANS:
1: formal religious veneration : worship
2: a system of religious beliefs and ritual; also : its body of adherents
3: a religion regarded as unorthodox or spurious; also : its body of adherents
(Just as the Early Church was in Rome.)
4: a system for the cure of disease based on dogma set forth by its promulgator
5 a: great devotion to a person, idea, object, movement, or work (as a film or book); especially : such devotion regarded as a literary or intellectual fad b: the object of such devotion c: a usually small group of people characterized by such devotion
I used to work for, still work with, Mormons. You are spot on.
I have a feeling that Huckabee is going to win it all; the nomination and the Presidency.
As usual a great analysis CT.
“When the South hated MORMONS the Democrats referred to the South as THEIR SOLID SOUTH. Republicans don’t hate Jews, Blacks or Mormons. That is what Democrats do.”
Has it ever crossed your mind that Jews consider Jesus a false impostor messiah? Contrariwise, Christians, south or elsewhere, don’t hate Jews because of it, we do, however, consider Jews in gross error for rejecting Christ.
Similarly, Christians don’t hate Mormons. We do, however, consider them as seriously in error as Judaism.
You like to throw the word “hate” around. Assuming you are a conservative, this being a conservative site, you don’t hate democrats do you? I don’t, though I strongly oppose their “doctrine.”
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