March 5, 2007
IDEAS HAVE CONSEQUENCES:
A Mormon president? I don't think so (Alex Beam, March 5, 2007, Boston Globe)
Can a Mormon be elected president in 2008?No.
Even Romney himself has his doubts. Last week's leaked campaign memo unearthed by Globe reporter Scott Helman stated that "Romney's sensitivity to his Mormon faith as a campaign issue is apparent throughout the plan. It acknowledges that some view Mormonism as weird and lists ways Romney should defend his faith, from highlighting the way he has lived his life, rather than which church he attends, to acknowledging theological differences with mainline Christian denominations while refusing to be drawn into an extensive discussion of Mormon doctrine and practices."
On the plus side, Romney and many observant Mormons seem to lead exemplary, enviable, and productive lives centered around the traditional nuclear family. But Romney would do well to refuse "to be drawn into an extensive discussion of Mormon doctrine and practices," because any such discussion inevitably raises more questions than it answers.
I have been watching the first two hours of a forthcoming WGBH-produced, four-hour special, "The Mormons," slated to air nationwide on PBS April 30 and May 1. (The second half is still being edited.) It's vintage public broadcasting, plodding at times -- if I see another covered wagon heading for Zion, I'll get motion sickness -- and cloyingly fair-minded. And there's the rub. The shows do not paint a flattering portrait of what filmmaker Helen Whitney calls "one of the most powerful, feared, and misunderstood religions in American history."
A neighbor summed up Mr. Romney's problem in a nutshell: "I'd love to have a Mormon family move in next door, but I couldn't vote for one for president." Posted by Orrin Judd at March 5, 2007 8:26 AM
A recent book, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling, by Richard Lyman Bushman, http://www.amazon.com/Joseph-Smith-Rough-Stone-Rolling/dp/1400042704
gives a history of the founder of Mormonism and of its early days.
The author is a self-proclaimed Mormon apologist with the credentials of a professional historian. Upon reading the book, one is forced to ask, if this be the good side of Mormonism, pray tell, what might be the bad side?
When the inconvenient archeological facts and the many glaring anachronisms in the so-called "Book of Mormon," are thrown in, one is left wondering how anyone could buy into it all.
I suggest that a detached appraisal of this matter presents a David Koresh-type operation which had been successfully tamed out of its most dangerous features.
Personally, I do not consider Mormon background an absolute disqualification. It may be a sort of invincible ignorance for which one may not be blamed if he had been brought up into the error. It has been pointed out, I believe by candidate Romney's wife, that he is the only Republican front-runner who is not a polygamist, the others being of the sequential type.
The good thing which may be said about Mormons is that the persecutions which their wackiness have brough down upon them have led them to take their "faith" seriously, which is more than can be said for most of us.
Posted by: Lou Gots at March 5, 2007 11:51 AMLou:
"I suggest that a detached appraisal of this matter presents a David Koresh-type operation which had been successfully tamed out of its most dangerous features."
Sounds like the discussions some here and other places have had about the future of a major world religion.
All religions start as cults, and Mormonism is still young enough that it isn't far from its cult roots. And it does have a lot of wacky beliefs, amusingly mocked in an episode of South Park.
Posted by: PapayaSF at March 5, 2007 4:46 PM