How and Why Romney Bombed

The Reuters headline said: "Mitt Romney Vows Mormon Church Will Not Run White House." Unfortunately, this time Reuters got its story right. In his long-awaited speech designed to win over conservative evangelicals, Romney actually did say something to this effect, making many people wonder why he needed to make such a vow in the first place. It's a bit like hearing Giuliani vow that the mafia will not be running his White House—it is always dangerous to say what should go without saying, because it makes people wonder why you felt the need to say it. Is the Mormon church itching to run the White House, and does Romney need to stand firm against them?

It is true that John Kennedy made a similar vow in his famous 1960 speech on religion, and Romney was clearly modeling his speech on Kennedy's. But the two situations are not the same. When John Kennedy vowed that the Vatican would not control his administration, he was trying to assuage the historical fear of the Roman Catholic Church that had been instilled into generations of Anglo-Saxon Protestants. Kennedy shrewdly didn't say that the Vatican wouldn't try to interfere—something that his Protestant target audience would never have believed in a millions years anyway; instead, Kennedy said in effect, "I won't let the Vatican interfere." And many Protestants believed him—in large part, because no one really thought Kennedy took his religion seriously enough to affect his behavior one way or the other.

The Mormon church is not Romney's problem; it is Romney's own personal religiosity. On the one hand, Romney is too religious for those who don't like religion in public life—a fact that alienates him from those who could care less about a candidate's religion, so long as the candidate doesn't much care about it himself. On the other hand, Romney offends precisely those Christian evangelicals who agree with him most on the importance of religion in our civic life, many of whom would be his natural supporters if only he was a "real" Christian like them, and not a Mormon instead.

To say that someone is not a real Christian sounds rather insulting, like saying that he is not a good person. But when conservative Christians make this point about Romney, they are talking theology, not morality. Anyone with even a passing familiarity with the Mormon creed will understand at once why Romney felt little desire to debate its theological niceties with his target audience of Christian evangelicals, many of whom are inclined to see Mormonism not as a bona fide religion, but as a cult. In my state of Georgia, for example, there are Southern Baptist congregations that raise thousands of dollars to send missionaries to convert the Mormons to Christianity.

Yet if Romney was playing it safe by avoiding theology, he was treading on dangerous ground when he appealed to the American tradition of religious tolerance to make his case. Instead of trying to persuade the evangelicals that he was basically on their side, he did the worst thing he could do: he put them on the defensive. In his speech Romney came perilously close to suggesting: If you don't support me, you are violating the cherished principle of religious tolerance. But such a claim is simply untenable and, worse, highly offensive.

The Christian evangelicals who are troubled by Romney's candidacy do not pose a threat to the American principle of religious tolerance. On the contrary, they are prepared to tolerate Mormons in their society, just as they are prepared to tolerate atheists and Jews, Muslims and Hindus. No evangelical has said, "Romney should not be permitted to run for the Presidency because he is a Mormon." None has moved to have a constitutional amendment forbidding the election of a Mormon to the Presidency. That obviously would constitute religious intolerance, and Romney would have every right to wax indignant about it. But he has absolutely no grounds for raising the cry of religious intolerance simply because some evangelicals don't want to see a Mormon as President and are unwilling to support him. I have no trouble myself tolerating Satan-worshippers in America, but I would not be inclined to vote for one as President: Does that make me bigot? The question of who we prefer to lead us has nothing to do with the question of who we are willing to tolerate, and it did Romney no credit to conflate these two quite distinct questions. There is nothing wrong with evangelicals wishing to see one of their own in the White House, or with atheists wishing to see one of theirs in the same position.

Romney's best approach might have been to say nothing at all. Certainly that would have been preferable to trying to turn his candidacy into an issue of religious tolerance. Better still, he might have said frankly: "My religion is different and, yes, even a trifle odd. But it has not kept Mormons from dying for their country, or paying their taxes, or educating their kids, or making decent communities in which to live."

95% of the reviews were excellent.

Here's a review that's "excellent"...tho it tells you some of things Mitt's speech was lacking.

"Religion is seen as merely a private affair with no place in public life. It is as if they are intent on establishing a new religion in America - the religion of secularism. They are wrong.

Well, imagine that. Mitt believes what I believe here. (Now where are all those pro-Mitt FREEPERS hiding who keep chastising us, claiming that a candidate's faith is private & irrelevant to the public square?

Well, it's for these folks I urge them to re-read this phrase from Mitt...well, at least the sentence I cited that emerged from this side of his mouth!

Mitt said in the speech: It is important to recognize that while differences in theology exist between the churches in America, we share a common creed of moral convictions.

When he said that, my question was, "If this is true--that we share a 'common creed of moral convictions,' what 35-year long lunch was he out to between 1970 and 2005 when he promoted & advocated abortion-on-demand?

He is now saying that he is a self-confessed "heretic" of this "common creed of moral convictions" when he was pro-abortion for 35 years? How about now? Isn't he still pro-civil unions for homosexuals?

To top it off, how ironic was it for Mitt to say in this speech: Americans tire of those who would jettison their beliefs, even to gain the world.

Now that's ironic--coming from Gumby Romney!

believe that every faith I have encountered draws its adherents closer to God.

That's not what Jesus believed. He believed the Pharisaical sect of Judaism made others "twice the son of hell." He also told them in John 8 that they were not children of Abraham or children of God (notice how Mitt said "everyone" is a child of God?), but rather, Jesus said, the Pharisees' father was the devil.

Either Mitt hasn't encountered any other false faith besides his own, or he if he has, he was preaching heresy with this one line of his speech.

Now he did qualify it by saying "every faith I HAVE ENCOUNTERED," but for this statement to be generally true, we'd have to conclude that no Americans have substituted any systemitized formal idol in place of the true God (I'm not talking about random, informal idols).

Joseph Farah's WorldNetDaily column also hit this Romney statement quite hard.

"What do I believe about Jesus Christ? I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of mankind. My church's beliefs about Christ may not all be the same as those of other faiths."

For one thing, LDS believe Jesus was a son of God...just like Mitt went on to say that "everyone is a child of God." (I mean LDS even think Satan was a "child of God"--a younger spirit brother to elder Jesus)

I don't understand why he couldn't have just come out & said what LDS HQ said 30 years ago:

“It is true that many of the Christian churches worship a different Jesus Christ that is worshipped by the Mormons.” – LDS publication, Ensign Magazine, May 1977, p. 26

Would that really have been so difficult to say?

IF Mitt was authentic when he said these words today... These are not bases for criticism but rather a test of our tolerance. Religious tolerance would be a shallow principle indeed if it were reserved only for faiths with which we agree.

...THEN why, oh, why, oh why, does Mitt (who said he "will not...disavow one or another of its (faith) precepts") reserve tolerance for other faiths than the historic Christian one?

Why is he so intolerant of our "abominable" creeds? Why is he so intolerant of our so-called "corrupt" professors?

He said he "will not...disavow one or another of its (faith of his fathers) precepts...I believe in my Mormon faith...I will be true to them and to my beliefs."

So the very first "precept" of a Mormon is that the rest of all of us other churches are "apostates." This is true because by their very definition, their belief system is called "restorationist." No 100% apostasy; no restoration needed; no first vision necessary.

When is Mitt going to apologize for a 10% tithe to a church that labels us as "apostates," as "corrupt," as believing creeds--EVERY creed we believe--as an "abomination before the Lord."

If you can't be consistent & lambast ALL perceived intolerance, then that is not your bottom line absolute...instead, you're using it as a strategic club to bash anyone who critiques Romney.

Yeah let's compare Samuel Adams' quotes vs. Mitt & Co.:

Adams: Let...statemen & altruists unite their endeavors to renovate the age by...educating their little boys & girls...leading them in the study & practice of the exalted virtues of the Christian system." (Source: Samuel Adams and John Adams, "Four Letters," 1802, pp.9-10)

So, while Adams talked about the "exalted virtues of the Christian system..."

...Romney's speech conveniently failed to mention that while he supposedly (well, he said in the speech, anyway) that "we do not inist on a single strain of religion," boy, he must have suffered temporary amnesia about the so-called "fathers of his faith" insisting upon labeling other religious "strains" as follows:

I asked the personages who stood above me in the light, which of all the sects was right — and which I should join. I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong, and the personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in His sight: that those professors were all corrupt..." (Pearl of Great Price, Joseph Smith - History, vv. 18-19)

Boy, I would have sworn Mitt talked about "tolerance!"

Let's compare Adams' comments of the Christian system to that of the ancestor of Romney, his great-greatt uncle Orson Pratt:

"The Roman Catholic, Greek, and Protestant church, is the great corrupt, ecclesiastical power, represented by great Babylon...." (Orson Pratt, Orson Pratt, Writings of an Apostle, "Divine Authenticity," no.6, p.84...Pratt in The Seer, p. 255, called this "great Babylon" the "whore of Babylon.")

"...all other churches are entirely destitute of all authority from God; and any person who receives baptism or the Lord's supper from their hands will highly offend God, for he looks upon them as the most corrupt people." (Orson Pratt, The Seer, p. 255).

(Pratt, I guess, was just following after the prophet both he and Mitt sustain:

"...all the priests who adhere to the sectarian religions of the day with all their followers, without one exception, receive their portion with the devil and his angels." (The Elders Journal, Joseph Smith Jr., editor, vol.1, no.4, p.60).

In the speech Mitt said: Let me assure you that no authorities of my church, or of any other church for that matter, will ever exert influence on presidential decisions. Their authority is theirs, within the province of church affairs, and it ends where the affairs of the nation begin.

The question when I read that part of his speech was: What about Romney's temple oath? He was to "consecrate himself, his time, talents and EVERYTHING he now has, or WILL HAVE IN THE FUTURE, for the building up of the Kingdom of God here upon the earth, and FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF ZION."

Romney: No candidate should become the spokesman for his faith.

Is this true, yes or no, maybe so?

While on the one hand Mitt has seemed to have backed off the "feelers" he put out earlier in the week when he was seemingly experimenting more with trying to genericize "faith" in this speech...on the other hand my reaction when he said that was: "Yeah, tell that to the LDS PR division that is gambling that Mitt becomes the LDS ticket to mainstream acceptance as "Christian."

It seems to me that "if elected," not necessarily Mitt as much as LDS HQ will plaster his White House presence all over the media. The spin machines will launch into unprecedented full cycle. Capitalization would be the operative word.

(It just so happens to be my opinion that eternal spiritual consequences will result from such mammoth PRism. The LDS church wouldn't commit to mega-up its marketing in 2009 unless it'd translate into the "bottom line"--more LDS conversions...and the more LDS we have who believe that very few wind up permanently hell, the more spiritual surprises will arise).

Finally, my "faith" is not a "faith in America" (title of his speech). If Romney's faith is there, he is making America into an idol.

At one point, Romney talked about the "precepts" of the "faith of his fathers". At this point, I invite other posters to explicitely highlight what are some of those "precepts" from the "faith of his fathers."

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