Posted on 01/08/2008 4:09:13 PM PST by tantiboh
Mitt Romney is facing an unexpected challenge in Iowa from rival Mike Huckabee, who has enjoyed a groundswell of support from religious voters, particularly evangelical Christians wary of the clean-cut former Massachusetts governor because of his Mormon religion.
The common worry among evangelicals is that if Romney were to capture the White House, his presidency would give legitimacy to a religion they believe is a cult. Since the LDS church places heavy emphasis on proselytizing -- there are 53,000 LDS missionaries worldwide -- many mainstream Christians are afraid that Mormon recruiting efforts would increase and that LDS membership rolls would swell.
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THE ONLY PROBLEM with those fears is that they don't add up. Evangelicals may be surprised to learn that the growth of church membership in Massachusetts slowed substantially during Romney's tenure as governor. In fact, one could make the absurdly simplistic argument that Romney was bad for Mormonism.
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ONE WAY TO GAUGE what might happen under a President Romney would be to look at what happened during the period of the 2002 Olympic Winter Games. Held in Salt Lake City, they were dubbed the "Mormon Olympics."
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Despite all the increased attention, worldwide the Church grew only slightly, and in fact in the year leading up to the games the total number of congregations fell. Overall, from 2000 to 2004, there was a 10.9 percent increase in memberships and a 3.6 percent increase in congregations.
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The LDS church is likely to continue its current modest-but-impressive growth whether or not Romney wins the White House. Perhaps the only real worry for evangelicals is that, if elected, the former Massachusetts governor will demonstrate to Americans that Mormons don't have horns.
Carrie Sheffield, a member of the LDS Church, is a writer living in Washington, D.C.
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
I thought he was evangellical....lol
Which one?..the one for today, or the one for after he gets the nomination? The one he touted in socialist Massachusetts, or the one he touts now
Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's.
Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and all these things will be added unto you.
It’s not playing a victim card if you’re a victim. Mormonism has been maligned and mistreated in this election cycle and it’s shameful, particularly when that bias is generated by those who would call themselves Christians.
Fox News has already called New Hampshire for McCain.
Yes, I saw that. It’s disappointing. Ah, well, we move forward. Romney’s got a strong headwind against him, but it’s not hopeless for him just yet.
Hence, I repeat my question.
Too bad there isn’t a holy book that decrees the IRS, Department of Education, Energy, HHS and HUD to be unpardonable sins.
From the article...
The transcripts of the Leavitt meetings, held over several days in 1996, offer a glimpse of the extent to which faith can influence political philosophy and the degree to which Leavitt incorporated his Mormon faith into his administration.
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In the transcripts, Leavitt said he felt an obligation, looking ahead to an easy 1996 re-election win, to use the “blessing” of his popularity to convey a message strong on values.
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John Green, a senior fellow with the Pew Center for Religion and Public Life, said the Leavitt meetings are unusual. Religious scholars often look to doctrine to shape public policy, and those efforts formed the foundation for President Bush’s Faith-based Initiatives. But elected officials usually don’t engage in the scriptural study themselves, he said.
“That’s just really intriguing to me. I have heard of examples before, but they’re so rare that I can’t summon them up,” Green said.
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Several hundred pages of material, including five days of transcripts of “Early Morning Seminary” meetings held during Gov. Mike Leavitt’s administration, have been pulled from the Utah Archives on Leavitt’s request.
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Nope, nothin unusual here. Just par for the course in Utah. And you wonder if Evangelicals moving here might be just a tad bit uncomfortable and need to change their worship in any way??? Google it okie, there are plenty of resources on the internet that will tell you about actual experiences of Christians in Utah.
Many of my large extended family members live in Utah and tend to line up under three religions: Mormon, Catholic and Lutheran (as well as other denominations). Every religion that is in the U.S. is also in Utah to include Pagans, Hindus, etc. As far as I know, there has been no ethnic nor religious cleansing in the state.
Mormons share our values; you have an objection to this?
Have you ever been to Utah?
Do you know any Mormons?
I posted this on another thread. I post it again modified:
Does anybody here know, or care, about the history of western civilization? Looking at it through spiritual eyes, the real underlying history of Europe and Britain has been the history of the bloody struggle for, first, the Bible, secondly, for the truth contained therein.
It is my understanding that this country of ours owes its great system of liberty and freedom traceable to none other than the Bible. Traceable to the religious foment in Britain (and before that, continental Europe) that brought our forefathers to this country seeking religious liberty. Liberty they could practice their Bible based belief…without being persecuted for it.
Sure, the desire for religious truth was a nasty affair, frought with many fits and starts, and errors by imperfect men along the way, a trail marked with the blood of many martyrs. It was, and still is, a noble venture, this search for truth.
Thanks be to God, with our Bibles in the land of freedom, we have now the opportunity most of those in the preceding 2000 years never had.
Truth contained within the Bible has been the goal…and the only authority recognized by Christians. Until yesterday, that is, now other forms of authority have arisen to challenge it: like the Koran, and the book of Mormon.
Americans have benefited from this long 2000 year process of blood and martyrdom, we have can search out truth…and we need look no further than the Bible alone. We Biblicists view Mormonism with its extrabiblical revelation, Joe Smith and his golden plates, God coming from the planet Kolob, Masonic-like temple ceremonies, becoming gods, etc., with abhorrence.
It has taken 2000 years to come full circle back to true Biblical faith. For a Biblicist to reverse his long standing search for truth, and capitulate to such an extrabiblical fraud as Mormonism after all this would be to flippantly dismiss the entire process!
I, for one, am appalled at the ignorance of the history of western civilization displayed by so many today. And by the attitude displayed by Christians, apparently, to them, all the blood spilled for Biblical truth is meaningless. Anybody ever searched out what brought the pilgrims here?
Do you know any Mormons?
HaHaHaHa....ROTFL.
Click on my name.
If you dislike Mormons so much and trust them so little, why are you in Utah?
CTR
BTW, I consider myself Evangelical.
I'm not Mormon, though the company I work for was founded by Mormons (they hired me), I still have Mormon co-workers today, and for a while one of my state reps (whom I very highly respect) is Mormon. That Romney is Mormon doesn't matter in the least to me, any more than his father's being Mormon mattered when I lived under the latter's governorship.
But Mitt is not his father, and Mitt's conduct of elements of his governorship is why I would be very hard-pressed to vote for him come November.
But I wouldn't worry about the LDS church. Whether Mitt wins or loses, if nobody LDS goes off the deep end and plays the religion card, you all will be seen henceforth as being mainstream Americans. JFK brought previously-suspect Roman Catholics "into the fold": the same will happen here.
Did you see those charts on the bottom of my profile page? Yep, that there is Mormon genealogy. Six and seven generations of my family on all sides. I own a wonderful piece of a ranch in some of God's greatest creation, right smack dab in the heart of Color Country, Utah, between Bryce Canyon, Zions National Park, and Cedar Breaks Monument. Why should I have to leave? Because it is uncomfortable? Ha!
One thing I will tell you, is that I had never even met a Christian other than Catholic when I was growing up in Color Country. There were a handful of Catholics who had summer residences, and a traveling circuit Priest who came by my town on occasion to issue the sacraments to the Catholics. Everyone else I knew were Mormon. 99% of my County were Mormon, and to this day 90% still are. That is one reason I am involved in my local politics. I am a State delegate.
Don't even pretend to tell me the experiences of Mormonism OR being an Evangelical in Utah. You couldn't possibly have a clue.
Dont forget Romney’s Mom who ran for office as a extreme anti-life candidate....
Romney was proud of his mother’s pro-choice/pro-abortion stance...
This family for generations have been screaming liberals...
So, without my arguing one way or the other, here’s the philosophical question: are Mormons second-class citizens? If fundamentally Romney can’t get nominated because he is a Mormon, does that put a glass ceiling over the heads of Mormons? You argue that JFK brought Catholics into the fold; if Romney can’t win, will the effect be the same, or will the “invalidity” of Mormons for the highest office simply be reinforced by his defeat?
“he is a Mormon. When he was governor of MA, it wasn’t an issue.”
Well it wouldnt be would it???
Romney ran on how liberal and anti-Godly he was...
In a debate in 2002, he and the Democrat candidate for Gov both tried to prove they were more dangerous to unborn Mass citizens...they said they were more pro-abortion...
He was sickening and hardly could have been accused of being a man of God...
He was as secular and atheist as an other pagan...
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