The media had no problem mocking, denigrating and making fun of both Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush concerning their explicit Christian beliefs. Rick Perry was blasted for saying out loud what many of us are thinking about the Obama administration's war on religion. The treatment of Rick Santorum's overt religiosity is admittedly less virulent, but he is only recently being taken seriously as a potential nominee. Perhaps his day is yet to come.
What is it about Mormonism that makes it hard to talk about. Maybe people just don't know what to make of it. Many believers count Mormons among the other flocks with such names as Lutheran, Presbyterian, or Catholic. I personally believe it is a Christian-based cult as opposed to a sect of Christianity. The fact is that Mormons are theologically too far off center to be included in the mainstream of orthodox Christianity, like Jehovah's Witnesses or Branch Davidians or the practitioners of Christian Science or hundreds of other groups who take snatches of the Bible and transform them into cultic beliefs that deny basic truths which are sine qua non of true Christianity.
What does any of this have to do with Mitt Romney's suitability as President of the United States? Just this: if he can't see the obvious logical fallacies in his religious beliefs, what other areas of his vision may be equally blind. I realize that many modern non-believers have a similar attitude toward all of us who hold our faith dear. The difference with Mormonism is that it was clearly invented by a charlatan back in the middle of the 19th century. Most of the distinctives of Mormonism can be traced back to the spurious revelations claimed by Joseph Smith which soon after proved to be completely fabricated.
I must seriously consider that my faith is viewed in a similar light by those who do not subscribe to it. After all, I sincerely believe that a man came to earth and claimed to be God, after which he was executed by the legitimate secular authorities and buried. Then he came back to life to validate his claims of divinity. This all sounds very much like science fiction except that there are a hundred logical reasons why it is all believable. None of it has ever been convincingly disproved; in fact, many people who set out to disprove it end up believers.
In contrast, Joseph Smith's version of things has been soundly refuted. I have to wonder why Mitt Romney can't see that. I am left thinking that he doesn't really believe it. I think it may be like his one-time belief in a woman's right to choose, or his belief that a single-payer government health care system was the answer to Massachusettes' health care woes. This may be just me, but I think it may be why the multi-millionaire is wearing blue jeans with his dress shirts at campaign appearances. He wants to look like one of us, no matter how ridiculous it may look.
So while it is outside of our political calculation in this pluralistic representative democracy whether our President is a Mormon (or Catholic or whatever,) it is legitimate to question the intellectual integrity of all candidates for the office. As much as I would like our next President to be a Bible-bred, orthodox Christian living his faith in genuine openness and humility, I know I may have to settle for less in the lesser-of-two-evils world of two party politics in America. But I still struggle with the concept of the leader of the free world actually believing in something like spiritual underwear.
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