George W. Romney’s Franken-Son: Mitt & His ‘Noble’ Lies

Mitt is an admixture of lies and deceit. Chief among these is the dissimulation of the idea led by his wife, Ann, that Mitt is a sterling example of the nobility of his father a Moderate and highly respected Republican governor of Michigan. A man of highest character whom Mitt is channeling as he desperately seeks the American Presidency. Nothing could be further from the truth than the claim that Mitt is morally qualified to be the U.S. Commander-in-chief and chief executive.

George W. Romney Campaigning (Dayton Daily Archives 1968)

Wife Ann has been crisscrossing the country with her new strategy, harkening back to Mitt’s father, George W. Romney, in a vain attempt try to connect Mitt to the reasonable and moderate stances that his father took while governor of Michigan back in the 1960’s, and thus wash away the stains of Mitt’s groveling at the feet of the Tea Party insurgency. So endeared and enamored is Mitt to his father that Ann felt compelled to reveal that often when Mitt takes the speakers stand he pens on a paper the word “Dad.” This is very touching but completely misleading, Mitt is nothing at all like his famous and revered dad.

Ever in the Shadow of Dear-old Dad: Mitt Romney holds up a campaign poster of his father George Romney while on the trail in Michigan (October 2012)

Mitt is a monster manipulator and striver, who will do anything, say anything to be elected.  

Knitting Together the Mitt Monster
Mitt Romney has shown himself to be a kind of Frankenstein in the service of the Hard Right both ideologically and religiously. His powerful backers are holding their noses yet totally intent upon his success in winning on November 6th. Radical Republicans and Corporatists are willing to take the desperate chance that they can achieve their long sought goals through Mitt’s compliance and malleability in order to regain and reassemble the power and prestige they lost under the grand failure of another favored son of privilege, George W. Bush. But at what cost to the nation this charade, this dark deception? It is time to entertain fear of the cabal in the backrooms of K Street and religious oligarchy.

Presented to the American public as a man of “rock solid” character, benevolence, and mainstream values and moderate political goals, Mitt Romney has fallen fall short of that depiction. As one has said “as a candidate campaigns, so shall he govern.”

The turbulent torrent of lies, misstatements, crude pronouncements immediately followed by misleading/ineffective “apologies” or next day corrections has marked Mitt’s long, long pilgrimage toward the nation’s highest office.

Romney is the ultimate “etch-a-sketch” creature, created in the PR labs, Frank Luntz’s focus groups, and the think tanks of the most dangerous and aggressive corporatists of our times—a heartless, lifeless, assemblage of images and bumper sticker sayings—the perfect Frankenstein candidate. As Grover Norquist quipped, "we just want a man in the White House who will dutifully sign" (rubber stamp) any or all legislation or vetoes we put in front of him.

What do they want? A robotic bureaucrat who serves at the will of his backers and handlers, not a man of moral courage and sterling meddle as was George Romney his legendary father, a man of iron will, strong convictions, and unbending principles.  

George Romney’s Aide Speaks Out: Mitt’s Father’s Right-hand Man’s Memo
Earlier this month, Walt De Vies a former aide to George Romney, delivered a letter that compared Mitt Romney, with his father George W. Romney which he dlevered to a number of journalists and reporters, one of them was at the New York Times:

A longtime aide to George W. Romney issued a harshly worded critique of Mitt Romney, accusing him of shifting political positions in “erratic and startling ways” and failing to live up to the distinguished record of his father [George Romney], the former governor of Michigan.

(Break)

In a telephone interview, he said he was motivated to write the essay by “an accumulation” of Mr. Romney’s actions, like his comment about 47 percent of Americans and his decision to campaign with Donald Trump. Mr. De Vries said he was annoyed by Mr. Romney’s repeated references recently to his father as inspiration and influence on him.

“I just don’t see it”. “Where is it? Is it on issues, no? On the way he campaigns? No.” [De Vies] said.
(Emphasis Added)

More from the Essay by Walt De Vries on George Romney vs Mitt Romney:

George Romney’s strength as a politician and public officeholder was his ability and determination to develop and hold consistent policy positions over his life. While it seems that Mitt would say and do anything to close a deal – or an election.

George Romney’s constant mantra to those in and around his campaigns and his gubernatorial staff: “As you campaign, so shall you govern.”

(Break)

George Romney reached out to voters in union halls and factory gates, a rare venue for GOP candidates back then and still now. [George Romney] refused to engage in personal attacks and kept his campaigns issue-based.

Mitt Romney and the people around him see campaigns as television marketing and voters as targets to be manipulated. Voters, they believe, make up their minds late and will be swayed with saturation television advertising. The campaign managers seek – daily it seems – for a magic bullet to force on the electorate that will move undecided and weak voters to Romney. [Mitt Romney] Policy papers, positions are rare and short on content and meaning.
(Emphasis Added)

Also this insight into Mitt living in the shadow of his father. Writes De Vries:

After the first debate it was wife Ann who said that Mitt had written “Dad” on paper he had at the lectern. Mrs. Romney, described as choking up during a post-debate interview with CNN, said it signified that Mitt respected what his father “taught me and what kind of person you are and I’m going to honor that.”

While that might make for some good post-debate spin, perhaps exploitation of his late father’s memory and dramatic television, the conduct of Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign is a far cry from the kind of campaign and conduct, as a public servant, I saw during the seven years I worked in George Romney’s campaigns and served him as governor.

Mitt's New Idol: Corporate Money and Influence from the Koch Brothers and ALEC

Mitt: The Man from ALEC?
The Romney plan/program and agenda (what little of it there that is available) is that of the Koch Brothers and the powerful mega-wealthy corporatocracy now seeking supremacy and control of the nation via such groups as the New Traditionalist’s American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) which has taken over more than 20 individual state legislatures and railroaded the most extreme reversals and amendments to law in a lifetime. Here is Mitt Romney in 2009:

“Center reforms at the state level. Open the door to state plans designed to meet the various needs of their citizens. Before imposing a one-size-fits-all federal program, let the states serve as ‘the laboratories of democracy’.”

During the his second debate with President Obama, Romney used the terms in the second debate “States are the laboratories of democracy” again and throughout his positions and platforms (of the few that have been revealed) parallels to ALEC models and concepts have been exposed on Koch funded campaign denying climate change, his criticism of Obama regarding free reign for big oil and gas interests on drilling on public lands, his positions on privatizing public education (Romney used data from the ALEC Education Report Card to support his education pitches), his opposition to bargaining rights and public sector unions, and more recently his statements on closing down, or privatizing FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency). All these clearly show that even though he was probably not the first choice in the GOP primary field of candidates, he has now taken up the ALEC seal of approval.

 Read “Mitt Romney's meth labs of democracy” on DailyKos.  

The ‘Moral’ Mitt Monster and the ‘Noble Lie’
Mitt is a Mormon Bishop whom a Mormon scholar and historian has called unrepresentative of the Mormon religion. Dr. Gregory Prince, a Mormon Historian and powerful defender of his religion, was compelled to proclaim, “Mitt Romney is not the face of Mormonism”, in light of the 47% Statement from Mitt to high rolling donors in private at Boca Raton, Florida.

Mitt is a man whom many have labeled as “coreless” without a central set of established values, a man who possesses a serious “character flaw.” Mitt is a creature of the “Noble Lie.”

As Plato orated in his treatment of the “noble lie”:

“… the first and chief injunction that the god lays upon the rulers is that of nothing else are they to be such careful guardians, and so intently observant as of the intermixture of these metals in the souls of their offspring, and if sons are born to them with an infusion of brass or iron they shall by no means give way to pity in their treatment of them…”

This embodies the meaning-- such men as George Romney - a man of golden meddle-should mentor a son who, of the same class of good rulers and civic champions as his father, should be worthy of high office in his own right. To protect the elites and the aristocracy (the wealthy and the powerful) such leaders are given the right to participate in the use of the “Noble Lie”. From Wiki:

“In politics a noble lie is a myth or untruth, often, but not invariably, of a religious nature, knowingly told by an elite to maintain social harmony or to advance an agenda. The noble lie is a concept originated by Plato as described in the Republic.”

This use of the ‘Noble Lie’ is reinforced in the dubious practice of the Salt Lake Mormon hierarchy as shown in this quote: Marion G. Romney—a first cousin of George who was a former member of the First Presidency of the Church, its highest authority—famously related the instructions he’d received from the Mormon prophet Heber J. Grant:

"Standing by me, he put his arm over my shoulder and said: ‘Always keep your eye on the president of the church, and if he ever tells you to do anything, and it is wrong, and you do it, the Lord will bless you for it.’ Then with a twinkle in his eye, he said, 'But you don't need to worry. The Lord will never let his mouthpiece lead the people astray.'"

Source: “Defending the Faith: Defending the Faith: Keeping our eye on the president of the church” by Daniel Peterson, Deseret News, July 7 2011.

The fact of the matter is that the Living Prophet-the present President of the Mormon Church-can and may change his mind and create new revelation directly from God (Revelation is closed in the Christian Church doctrinal stance). New “truth” and/or revelation remains open in the Church of the Latter Day Saints (LDS) or Mormons. Many changes to the Mormon scripture and key doctrinal writings have been changed, altered, or revised-up to nearly 4,000 times. The possibility of change is ever present in the 'Mormon cult'.

With this kind of wink and nod from the LDS Mormon’s living prophet, the president of the cult, has taken serious and substantial positions and stands on public policy via politics.

Again from Daniel Peterson, Desert News on July 7, 2011:

The church seldom speaks out on public policy issues, but sometimes it does. Two notable examples involve the proposed Equal Rights Amendment around 1980 and California's Proposition 8 in 2008.

Both cases provoked angry controversy, even within the church. And some politically conservative members — full disclosure: I'm a very serious conservative myself — quickly pointed out that members on the opposing side seemed to be out of step with church leaders.

More recently, the church has engaged the vexing problem of illegal immigration. On June 10, 2011, its Public Affairs Department even issued an official statement on the topic. This time, albeit very gently, it's the ox of some politically conservative Latter-day Saints that was gored.

Since then, I've been fascinated and disturbed to hear some of them — people who have generally welcomed and agreed with the church's rare statements on public policy, who have sometimes even prided themselves on being more faithful than their politically liberal brothers and sisters ("Can a good Mormon really be a Democrat?") — express outrage at the church for meddling in politics.

His Child is Going Backwards: George Romney Marching for Civil Rights in Michigan 1963

George Romney’s Challenge: His Faith & Racism
Then it is also very important to remember that the LSD/Mormon Church did not support the 1965 Civil Rights Act either. Writing in 1963, D. H. Oliver, a black attorney in Utah, stated:

“By reason of their numerical strength the Mormons elect most of the public officials, through the entire state, and here is where conflict begins. In most instances these elected public officials, conscious of the spirit concealed behind the walls of the Temple, adhere strictly to the doctrines of their church in the performance of their public duty and thereby refuse to employ or appoint any Negroes in any position of authority or trust.

… it is claimed that the failure of the 35th session of the Utah Legislature to pass any Civil Rights legislation was due to hidden and behind the scenes opposition from the Mormon Church... Any church has a right to believe what it will but it has no right to impose those beliefs on others against their will, and when those beliefs are detrimental to the welfare of others to the extent of infringing on their right to earn a decent living, such a church has no right to use the machinery of the state to enforce those beliefs.”

Source: A Negro On Mormonism, by David H. Oliver, 1963, pp. 30-31.

Read more on the LDS & Civil Rights in the 1960’s in “Curse of Cain? Racism in the Mormon Church”

During this time LDS missionaries were instructed to avoid contacting blacks and known black areas. Dr. Glen Davidson reported in The Christian Century:

“Mormon missionaries are directed not to proselytize Negroes and to keep out of ‘areas of transition.’ Not even Joseph Fielding Smith's [earlier] invitation to "darkies" is tolerated in the mission program. The membership ranks are being filled with those whose religious commitment is to the maintenance of a racist society and who find Mormon theology a sanctimonious front for their convictions” (The Christian Century, Sept. 29, 1965, p. 1183).

While the Mormon’s have accepted Blacks into the priesthood they have not changed their scripture or the historic nature of their racial bias and bigotry enforced by their own sacred writings and polity. Mitt grew up in this milieu and attitude and while his father fought it off at this same time even Gov. George Romney went against the high office of the church and was counseled in this personal letter warning the governor away from promotion and acceptance of the civil rights movement.

From “Mormons and the Civil Rights Act" by Ed Brayton on January 26, 2012:

The Boston Globe posts an incredible letter from one of the Mormon “prophets” to then-Michigan Gov. George Romney in 1964, taking him to task for his support of the Civil Rights Act. Here it is converted from PDF to text:

Governor George W. Romney
Governor’s Mansion Lansing, Michigan

Dear George:

It was a real pleasure to greet and have a moment to visit with you and Lenore here this past week. It is wonderful to see how enthusiastically you are received by the good people of Utah.

After listening to your talk on Civil Rights, I am very much concerned. Several others have expressed the same concern to me. It does not altogether harmonize with my own understandings regarding this subject; therefore, I thought to drop you a note — not in my official Church position, but as a personal friend. Only President McKay can speak for the Church.

I felt, George, your views were most liberal on this vital problem in the light of the revelations, but nevertheless, I cannot deny you the right of your position if it represents your true belief and feelings.

I would like to suggest you read two items on this subject, both by the Prophet Joseph Smith. Turn to page 269 of Teachings Of The Prophet Joseph Smith by Joseph Fielding Smith, and read beginning the middle of the page under the caption, “The Status of the Negro,” giving particular attention to the closing sentence on page 270. Also, read from History of the Church, Period 1, Volume 2, beginning on page 436, under the heading, “The Prophet’s Views on Abolition,” which article continues to the bottom of page 440. After reading this last-mentioned statement by the Prophet, then come back to the last paragraph on page 438, and give it some real thought. When I reflect upon the Prophet’s statements and remember what happened to three of our nation’s presidents who were very active in the Negro cause, I am sobered by their demise. They went contrary to the teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith — unwittingly, no doubt, but nevertheless, the prophecy of Joseph Smith, “. . . those who are determined to pursue a course, which shows an opposition, and a feverish restlessness against the decrees of the Lord, will learn, when perhaps it is too late for their own good, that God can do His own work, without the aid of those who are not dictated by His counsel,” has and will continue to be fulfilled.

In this respect, let me give you a personal experience. A friend of mine in Arizona — not a Church member — a great champion of the colored race -— came to me after my call into the Twelve, and acknowledged President McKay to be a Prophet of God. He wanted me to ask President McKay to inquire of the Lord to see if the Lord would not lift the curse from the colored race and give them the privileges of the Priesthood. I explained to him that the Lord had placed the curse upon the Negro, which denied him the Priesthood; therefore, it was the Lord’s responsibility — not man’s — to change His decision. This friend of mine met a very tragic end by drowning. He was a most enthusiastic advocate of the colored cause and went about promoting for them all the privileges, social opportunities, and participation enjoyed by the Whites.

I am sure you know that the Prophet Joseph Smith, in connection with the Negro problem of this country, proposed to Congress that they sell public lands and buy up the Negro slaves and transport them back to Africa from whence they came. I am sure the Prophet, with his vision and understanding, foresaw the problems we are faced with today with this race, which caused him to promote this program.

The statements of the Prophet Joseph Smith have been a helpful influence on me because they accord with my own understandings regarding the Negro. I cannot, in my own feelings, accept the idea of public accommodations; the taking from the Whites their wishes to satisfy the Negros. I do not have any objection to recognizing the Negro in his place and giving him every opportunity for education, for employment, for whatever contribution he can make to the society of men and the protection and blessings of Government. Yet, all these things, in my judgment, should accord with the expressions of the Prophet Joseph Smith. It is not right to force any class or race of people upon those of a different social order or race classification. People are happier when placed in the environment and association of like interests, racial instincts, habits, and natural groupings.

I am enclosing a little booklet entitled Mormonism and the Negro, which you may already have. If not, it is an enlightening exposition and quite well reflects the Church position in regard to these people.

I am not against a Civil Rights Bill if it conforms to the views of the Prophet Joseph Smith according to the references above given. I fully agree the Negro is entitled to considerations, also stated above, but not full social benefits nor inter-marriage privileges with the Whites, nor should the Whites be forced to accept them into restricted White areas. In my judgment, the present proposed Bill of Rights is vicious legislation. There needs to be some modification. The position of the Church cannot change until the Lord changes it Himself. Certainly I am not for exploiting racial or religious prejudices, but it is the present play up to the Negro voters which is unnecessarily creating problems that by a more firm, sensible approach can be avoided. There will be a few die-hard leaders, but then that has always been true with any debatable issue. Principle — religious or otherwise —— cannot be abrogated for political expediency.

Now, don’t think I am against the Negro people, because I have several in my employ. We must understand and recognize their status and then, accordingly, provide for them. I just don’t think we can get around the Lord’s position in relation to the Negro without punishment for our acts; going contrary to that which He has revealed. The Lord will not permit His purposes to be frustrated by man.

Please understand I have a great respect and admiration for you, but because of my feelings I thought I should express myself as I have so you will know my personal position.

This letter is for your personal use only (also Lenore), and is not to be used in any other way. It does not require an answer.

With best wishes and success to you and Lenore always,
I am Faithfully your friend and brother,

Delbert L. Stapley
(Emphasis Added)

George Romney overrode this kind of advice, pushed ahead, and advocated and worked for civil rights. Son Mitt has a very racist national vice chair, John Sununu who is overtly racist and the Republican party is deeply racist as per the statement of Lawrence Wilkinson, former aide to Colon Powell, who just comes out an says it like it is that “the GOP is fully of racists” in response to right wing attacks on Powell’s endorsement of President Obama.

This theme was taken up earlier by many, including the Washington Post’s Barbara A. Reynolds in “GOP: red, white and racist?” back in January 2012:

“So that leaves Mitt Romney, who should also be judged by what he has not said. Romney served as a leader in the Mormon Church whose doctrine until 1978 stated that people with black skin were cursed by God, could not enter heaven, nor serve in the Mormon priesthood. It seems a fair-minded person would have condemned this policy but Romney apparently did not.”

What has Mitt done to intervene and alter the Old Southern Strategy established by Dick Nixon which along with religion is the main glue in the reliable southern block of “Christian© Biblical Values Voters”.

Actually Mitt has placed a frank discussion of his cult’s beliefs and practices off limits, he will not discuss his faith.

 See Frank Rich in “Mitt Romney is afraid to talk about his Mormon faith” (VIDEO)

From Walter Shapiro on June 8, 2012:

“This time around (national presidential election 2012), though, the flashpoint is likely to be Mitt Romney’s religion. Romney’s Mormonism is entwined with his biography: Not only was he a missionary in France, but he also served as a bishop and stake president, overseeing a dozen congregations in the Boston area. As Boston Globe reporters Michael Kranish and Scott Helman conclude in their biography, The Real Romney:

"The portrait of Romney that emerges from those he led and served with in the church is of a leader who was pulled between Mormonism’s conservative core views…and the demands…for a more elastic, more open-minded application of church doctrine.’ “

All this would be ho-hum material if Romney were a Methodist or an Episcopalian. But Romney’s church, with its polygamous past and its easily mocked missionary zeal (The Book of Mormon), is outside the American religious mainstream. And that means that we are just one incendiary Super PAC donor or one intemperate cable TV comment by a Democrat away from a major campaign flap over Mitt’s Mormonism. So with that in mind, what should the journalistic rules be regarding Romney’s religion?”

(Break)

“…left unanswered is the deeper question of the role of Romney’s religious faith in understanding his political persona.”

Source: “Romney’s Religion, What should journalists do with the Mormon thing?” by Walter Shapiro on June 8, 2012.  

Back to the 'Noble Lie'
We have this from ancient wisdom:

"Our form of government does not enter into rivalry with the institutions of others. We do not copy our neighbors, but are an example to them. It is true that we are called a democracy, for the administration is in the hands of the many and not of the few. But while the laws secure equal justice to all alike in their private disputes, the claim of excellence is also recognized; and when a citizen is in any way distinguished he is preferred to the public service, not as a matter of privilege, but as the reward of merit. "Neither is poverty a bar, for a man may benefit his country whatever be the obscurity of his conditions. There is no exclusiveness in our public life, and in our private intercourses we are not suspicious of one another, nor angry with our neighbor if he does what he likes; we do not give him sour looks which, though harmless, are not pleasant". -- Pericles (Athenian statesman, 5th century B.C.)

How does this relate to Mitt Romney here just days before the election?
There are a ton of items of dissimulation involved in the Romney campaign and so many of Mitt’s verbose and angry, intense spiels of disordered facts and false assertions, so much so that even the president found it hard, if not impossible, to reply to Mitt’s motor-mouthing through dozens of his stump stands on issues. And then in the 3rd and final debate President Obama found the “coreless” Mitt parroting Obama’s own views and stances on a wide variety of issues seeking to appear as moderate as his father, Gov. George. Astounding? Confounding? Deceptive and untrue. It’s all boilerplate Romney use of the ‘Noble Lie’ principle, do whatever you need, but by all means win the election for your backers and backroom boys.

See Mitt Run. See Ann Defend. See Mitt and Ann run the gamut of ‘Four Pinocchios’ fact checked lies and distortions.

It’s all for the greater good and maximum gain of the extremist Republican establishment and K-Street powerbrokers, the resurrected Ralph Reed’s, and the war-loving Neo-Cons awaiting in the wings, just off stage, barely out of sight.

This from an overview of the “Noble Lie” from Plato’s Republic:

Plato presented the Noble Lie in a fictional tale, wherein Socrates provides the origin of the three social classes who compose the republic proposed by Plato; Socrates speaks of a socially stratified society, wherein the populace are told "a sort of Phoenician tale":

“… the earth, as being their mother, delivered them, and now, as if their land were their mother and their nurse, they ought to take thought for her and defend her against any attack, and regard the other citizens as their brothers and children of the self-same earth. . . While all of you, in the city, are brothers, we will say in our tale, yet god, in fashioning those of you who are fitted to hold rule, mingled gold in their generation, for which reason they are the most precious — but in the helpers, silver, and iron and brass in the farmers and other craftsmen. And, as you are all akin, though for the most part you will breed after your kinds, it may sometimes happen that a golden father would beget a silver son, and that a golden offspring would come from a silver sire, and that the rest would, in like manner, be born of one another. So that the first and chief injunction that the god lays upon the rulers is that of nothing else are they to be such careful guardians, and so intently observant as of the intermixture of these metals in the souls of their offspring, and if sons are born to them with an infusion of brass or iron they shall by no means give way to pity in their treatment of them, but shall assign to each the status due to his nature and thrust them out among the artisans or the farmers. And again, if from these there is born a son with unexpected gold or silver in his composition they shall honor such and bid them go up higher, some to the office of guardian, some to the assistanceship, alleging that there is an oracle that the city shall then be overthrown when the man of iron or brass is its guardian.”

The fictional Socrates, created by Plato, proposes and claims that if the people believed "this myth . . . that would have a good effect, making them more inclined to care for the state and one another. This is his noble lie: "a contrivance for one of those falsehoods that come into being in case of need, of which we were just now talking, some noble one…”

On the Reader:
"GEORGE AND MITT: Like Father, Like Son? Not quite" (pdf Version) - essay comparing Mitt Romney and George Romney by Michigander Walt De Vries (Text Version)

Related Slates:

Middling Mitt Romney Not of His Fathers'Sterling Civic Michigan Mettle (Gaskell & George Romney) (June 2012) - For Mitt Romney, Billy Graham ‘Sells Out’ His Faith &Jesus for Political Advantage (October 2012) - The Crushing Blow to Mitt’s Quix-Toxic Quest: ‘Good Samaritan’or ‘Corporate Bandit’ (October 2012) or all posts on Mitt Romney or George Romney.

Paul Ryan’s Evil Goddess: Ayn Rand’s Atheistic & Wanton Destruction of Public Life & Common Good

Ayn Rand, Paul Ryan Evil Goddess: She just won't go away, despite hiding Ryan's past worship under a rock, the Mormon Mitt Romney

Perhaps no one represents a more direct and serious threat to the public welfare today than Paul Ryan. A foolish and self assured rebel who heads up the Randian Crusade into the abyss (See “Ayn Rand Extreme Capitalism's Goddess of Selfishness 160 Current Economic Undertow”). Paul Ryan’s are the tenets representative of the kinds of greed and raw Corporatocracy (See also “The Virtue of Selfishness”) that festoon themselves as the New Traditionalism, a harsh route offered the country by the Romney/Ryan ticket.

“Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.” -- Theodore Roosevelt, April 19, 1906

The 2012 loyal base of the Republican Party, best described as Southern White Males (Texas Born-agains) with racial overtones, has no clue as to the utter reversal of brotherly love and American Exceptionalism that waits in the wings with Ryan and the supremacy and ascendancy of rogue powers such as the anti-public service and anti-government fanaticism and billionaire power-lust of the Koch Brothers, Americans for Prosperity and acolytes such as Kingmaker Karl Rove and his Citizens United “tool” Crossroads GPS, Ralph Reed, and now the beguiled religious players including Franklin Graham & Mark DeMoss, of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (See “Why is Billy Graham so involved in the 2012 elections?” on the Christian Century).

This march to the brink of doom for public life and shared responsibility for ones neighbor is so clearly the modern analogy of the lemmings unstoppable plunge off the civic cliff into the sea of chaos into the deep and dark turbulent waters of national nihilism visiting again the manifestation of misplaced power and the rule of the many by the so few. American Know Nothing religionists having gone deep into national politics represent a cohort of groups suffering from a kind of partisan and sectarian auto-immune disorder -- an inability to cope with what they perceive as foreign pathogens in their universe; threats to their bigotry and “moral “absolutism.

"And it seems to me perfectly in the cards that there will be within the next generation or so a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing...a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda, brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods." --Aldous Huxley, 1959

We are seeing the unraveling of civility and common sense. It’s the dark night, the miasma of evil ideology and rank divisiveness, which serves the few, the One Percent. (See “The 99 Percent for the 100 Percent: The Case for Deep Patriotism” in The Nation). We saw its apex in the debacle of 1929 and again we see it now. Yet many feel that we, as a social gathering of all the traditions and social groups of the world under one roof—America’s Big Tent of representative democracy, can tolerate and survive this quagmire of fraud and rules bending.

"Our form of government does not enter into rivalry with the institutions of others. We do not copy our neighbors, but are an example to them. It is true that we are called a democracy, for the administration is in the hands of the many and not of the few. But while the laws secure equal justice to all alike in their private disputes, the claim of excellence is also recognized; and when a citizen is in any way distinguished he is preferred to the public service, not as a matter of privilege, but as the reward of merit.

Neither is poverty a bar, for a man may benefit his country whatever be the obscurity of his conditions. There is no exclusiveness in our public life, and in our private intercourses we are not suspicious of one another, nor angry with our neighbor if he does what he likes; we do not give him sour looks which, though harmless, are not pleasant". -- Pericles (Athenian statesman, 5th century B.C.)

We cannot survive as a viable nation if we cannot stave off such an erosion of “full faith and confidence” in self-government that is giving unfair and unequal advantage to the few. Will we tear down, with malice what our Fore founders erected to save mankind from the tyranny, by continuing to allow the concentration of such daemonic power in the hands of so few?

God forbid.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis spoke stern warning: "We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both."

Rue the day Paul Ryan gave his heart to the pagan, sexpot, and anarchist, Ayn Rand, (aka Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum) the temptress of the sons of Baal. We shall all taste the sweet, thirst slacking waters of democracy turned bitter and acridly poisonous by the powdered shards of the Golden Calf made into a corrective diuretic by the God of the Ages, who punishes the foolishness and the disregard of the mighty toward the welfare of the many. “For God so loved the whole world he sent his only begotten son… that they should not perish….”

"The real difference between democracy and oligarchy is poverty and wealth. Wherever men rule by reason of their wealth, whether they be few of many, that is an oligarchy, and where the poor rule, that is democracy". -- Aristotle

"There is nothing mysterious about the foundations of a healthy and strong democracy. The basic things expected by our people of their political and economic system are simple. "They are:

• Equality of opportunity for youth and others;
• Jobs for those who can work;
• Security for those who need it;
• The ending of the special privileges for the few;
• The preservation of civil liberties for all;
• The enjoyment of the fruits of scientific progress in a wider and constantly rising standard of living."

--Franklin D. Roosevelt

On the Reader:

“Barack Obama Doesn’t Think Ayn Rand is a ‘Fountainhead’ of Ideas” by By Lyneka Little in the Wall Street Journal on October 26, 2012. 

Related Slates:

Ayn Rand Speaking With Precision for the 99 % (November 2011) - Just-Leave-Me-Alone Tea Party Hero John Galt BePraised: The High Hypocrisy of Galt’s Creator, Ayn Rand (April 2011) - Saint Ayn - Extolling Great Evil - Used As Source of TeaParty Political Punch Lines (April 2011) - Much Ado About Evil: Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged (April 2011)

Posted by guest commentator Morton M.

For Mitt Romney, Billy Graham ‘Sells Out’ His Faith & Jesus for Political Advantage

The Core Doctrine of the “divinity of Christ” as Christian doctrine is betrayed by Dr. Billy Graham for Political Advantage.

For decades Billy Graham as assumed the role of the presumptive U.S. “National Pastor.” He was led astray in his “mix” of conservative politics and far right religionism.

Praying to Different Deities: Billy Graham and Richard Nixon 1972

From the Washington Post October 18, 2012:

The Rev. Billy Graham’s Web site has removed an article labeling Mormonism a cult, a move that follows Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s visit to the evangelical leader.

The Asheville Citizen-Times reported the disappearance of the article earlier. The article had said that “Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, the Unification Church, Unitarians, Spiritists, Scientologists, and others” were cults. Mr. Graham, 93 years old, met with Mr. Romney last week, on Oct. 11 at his home in Montreat,North Carolina. Mr. Romney soon after addressed a crowd in Asheville, N.C.

(Break)

On his Web site, Mr. Graham says that a cult is a group that claims that it alone offers salvation. He doesn’t mention any religious groups by name, but says that cults often claim the books their founder wrote have equal authority to the Bible.

Source: “Mormonism as ‘Cult’ Removed From Billy Graham Site” by Siobhan Hughes in the Washington Post on October 18, 2012.

Prior to Dr. Graham’s endorsement of Mitt Romney, previously coined a “Mormon Cult leader”, this was Billy Graham Evangelical Association’s’s theological position on the “cult” formerly known as the Church of Latter Day Saints (LDS) or Mormons:

Mitt Romney’s campaign just got an endorsement from Billy Graham. I’m sure that will change the minds of all of the Obama supporters in his congregation. There’s just this little hangup. Until a few month’s ago, Graham’s website said…

"A cult is any group which teaches doctrines or beliefs that deviate from the biblical message of the Christian faith. It is very important that we recognize cults and avoid any involvement with them. Cults often teach some Christian truth -mixed with error, which may be difficult to detect. There are some features common to most cults:

• They do not adhere solely to the sixty-six books of the Bible as the inspired Word of God. They add their “special revelations” to the Bible and view them as equally authoritative.
• They do not accept that our relationship to Jesus Christ is a reality “by grace through faith” alone, but promote instead a salvation by works.
• They do not give Jesus Christ, the divine Son of God, full recognition as the second Person of the Trinity, composed of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

Some of these groups are Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, the Unification Church, Unitarians, Spiritists, Scientologists, and others."

Source: "It’s God’s word… until it’s convenient for them to change it" by JT Eberhard on October 14, 2012.

Graham’s wrongful theological (Christology) choice to endorse Romney’s occultism via Romney’s bid for the presidency has serious consequences for his Protestant Tradition: Racism and Mormon Occultism has been allowed to trump the Core Doctrines held by the Protestant Faith; The Divinity of Christ & the Infallibility and Literal Interpretation of Scripture.  

Billy Graham Throws His Support to a Non-Christian Cult leader for U.S. President Thereby Promoting Occultism & the Errors of Mormonism Over and Against the Christian Faith

Romney visits with Rev. Billy Graham, Calls It A “Tremendous Honor,” the aging pastor led a prayer for the Romneys and promised to: “I'll do all I can to help you. And you can quote me on that,” according to a Romney advisor who sat in on the meeting.

Source: Buzzfeed article by Chris Giedner on October 11, 2012.

This not the first time Billy Graham has stepped into the deep weeds of Republican politics and gotten mucked down by his decision.

This time however Billy has very possibly dealt waning Protestantism a death blow. Giving approval to the election of a Mormon amounts to an endorsement of the truth and authenticity Mormonism, that nativist American cult and all its fantastical claims, its political aggressive pursuit of civil law and prohibitions, occult rites, and non-Christian moral practices.

“God is very precise in this point; He will say to such as (Mormons who) invent ways to worship Him of their own, coin means to mortify corruption, obtain comfort in their own mint: 'Who hath required this at your hands?' This is truly to be 'righteous over-much,' as Solomon speaks, when we will pretend to correct God's law (“The Book of Mormon” and supplements such as “The Pearl of Great Price, the “Doctrine” and “Covenants of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints”) of our own to His rule.” -- William Gurnall, (1617 –1679) English author and clergyman, in “How to Judge of the Truth of our Faith”

Note: Parenthetical Additions made above have been inserted to illustrate the kinds of ‘inventions’ made the subject of Gurnall’s powerful statement identifying heresy and false doctrines pretending false doctrines intent ‘to correct God’s law’.  

Crisis in November 2012: The intersection of cult racism and Religious Right Racism

Billy Graham began his ‘higher education’ at the racist Bob Jones College in 1933:

Lost in the spectacular news accounts of the election of a black man as president of the United States is another event — this time in higher education — that stands as a milestone in racial progress. In an eloquent statement, Stephen Jones, great-grandson of the founder and the fourth president of Bob Jones University, has apologized for the institution’s racist past.

President Jones stated, “For almost two centuries American Christianity, including BJU in its early stages, was characterized by the segregationist ethos of American culture. Consequently, for far too long, we allowed institutional policies regarding race to be shaped more directly by that ethos than by the principles and precepts of the Scriptures. We conformed to the culture rather than provide a clear Christian counterpoint to it.

“In so doing, we failed to accurately represent the Lord and to fulfill the commandment to love others as ourselves. For these failures we are profoundly sorry. Though no known antagonism toward minorities or expressions of racism on a personal level have ever been tolerated on our campus, we allowed institutional policies to remain in place that were racially hurtful.” (Emphasis Added)

To Graham’s credit he left Bob Jones for Wheaton College, but his Old South heritage concerning Blacks and racism seems never to have been fully suppressed or changed within his thinking. In one of many conversations with the disgraced Richard Nixon, Graham is heard supporting the views held by southern bigots with whom Nixon had forged his infamous “Southern Strategy.”

“(It is) Rev. Billy Graham who facilitated the re-emergence of evangelicals into the public social sphere following a long period of inward-direction that occupied most evangelicals following the public humiliation they had suffered after the Scopes trial.”

Source: “Mapping the Right: Historic Building Blocks of the Contemporary US Right” from “Roosevelt to Reagan - The Old Right Stuff” (Political Research Associates)
   

Billy Graham "Pastor to the Presidents": Preaching or Leeching? From Left to Right - George W.H. Bush, Bill Clinton, Billy Graham, (son) Franklin Graham and Jimmy Carter.

More Billy Graham Political History  

The endorsement of Mormonism, via Mitt Romney, is not Billy Graham’s first mistaken act of denial of the purity proclaimed by his ministry. Dr. Graham has been caught in the muck of mixing religion and politics repeatedly over a long time. The degree to which he did so is not fully known. Dr. Graham was caught up in the lies and the betrayal of the Republic in the Watergate affair.

However, there are several examples from the Nixon era, dark blemishes caught on tape one of which is when Rev. Billy Graham openly voiced a belief that Jews control the American media, calling it a "stranglehold" during a 1972 conversation with President Richard Nixon, according to a tape of the Oval Office meeting latger released by the National Archives:

"This stranglehold has got to be broken or the country's going down the drain," the nation's best-known preacher [Graham] declared as he agreed with a stream of bigoted Nixon comments about Jews and their perceived influence in American life.
"You believe that?" Nixon says after the "stranglehold" comment.
"Yes, sir," Graham says.
"Oh, boy," replies Nixon.
"So do I. I can't ever say that but I believe it."
"No, but if you get elected a second time, then we might be able to do something," Graham replies.

The description of this Nixon – Graham exchange by James Warren of the Chicago Tribune continues:

Thursday's release of 426 hours brings to about 2,600, out of a total of 3,700, the hours of recordings either publicly disclosed or returned to the Nixon family because they were deemed strictly personal. Many recordings, including the Graham tape, are edited to exclude content believed to disclose national security information, constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of privacy or reveal trade secrets, among other matters.

Previous tapes have underscored the complexity of Nixon, including his insecurity and occasional nastiness. Apologists tend to cite his fits of bigotry as ancillary to his policy achievements, with the Nixon estate claiming that his harshness was often a display of faux machismo in the presence of H.R. Haldeman or his other top aide, John Erlichman.

While other prominent figures, such as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, then a Nixon aide, can also be heard on tapes during mean-spirited discourses by Nixon, many assumed a more passive role. Graham is unusual for being a distinguished outsider actively taking part.

(Break)

Haldeman's diaries noted the conversation. He wrote that there was discussion "of the terrible problem arising from the total Jewish domination of the media, and agreement that this was something that would have to be dealt with."

He continues, "Graham has the strong feeling that the Bible says there are satanic Jews and there's where our problem arises." No such comments about the Bible are found on the tape released Thursday but, because it contains several long deletions, it's believed such remarks were excised.

Source: “Nixon And Billy Graham Anti-Semitism Caught On Tape” by James Warren, Chicago Tribune staff reporter, March 1, 2002.  

The Desperation of the GOP & Its Tea Party Zealots to Hang On To Power

It’s all about systemic racism & the willingness to endorse a cultish Mormon bishop over a Christian black: The GOP will do anything to win & so will Billy Graham.

The ugly, greedy motivations behind the Republican Southern Racial Strategy and the power lust of certain Fundamentalist Protestant Religious Leaders is exposed in the promotion of a Mormon Cult Leader for President of the United States over a confessed Christian President who is Black.

Real harm has been committed by the cable pundits in their ignoring the significance of the arm-twisting and the contrivances performed by certain Protestant leaders to “white wash” the challenge that Mormon Cultism raises to Fundamentalist Christian “Truth” and doctrine. These paid religo-politicos, theoloticians, have chosen to ignore their own historic teachings and infallible sacred doctrines in order to defeat America’s first Black President.  

These corrupted moralists have allowed and passively augmented the most bigoted and hateful language of Talk Radio and FOX Cable News to falsely portray as Barack Obama as not Christian, a secret Muslim, and Un-American. This Atwater strand, carried and expanded by Rupert Murdock’s faux news combine headed by racist Roger Ailes (cut in the image of Lee Atwood See the film Boogie Man: the Lee Atwater Story ), amoral and cutthroat Karl Rove, and a gaggle of Ol’ South Republicans inhabiting the U.S. Congress [men and women who hold and revere the glory and culture of antebellum Dixie] to undermine and destroy the goodness of our President for the purchase of power and control in pursuit of personal and corporate gain.

Although the Mormon Hierarchy loosened its prohibition on African Americans / Blacks from participating in their ‘preisthood’ nothing in the very explicit and damning writings of Joseph Smith’s other worldly “guides” has been “rewritten” or adjusted by rewrite. The offensive original writings and anti-Black doctrines still stand stating unchanged.

 Mormon founder Joseph Smith stated the following:

"For instance, the descendants of Cain cannot cast off their skin of blackness, at once, and immediately, although every soul of them should repent, obey the Gospel, and do right from this day forward. . . . Cain and his posterity must wear the mark, which God put upon them; and his white friends may wash the race of Cain with fuller’s soap every day, they cannot wash away God’s mark; The Lamanites, through transgression, became a loathsome, ignorant and filthy people, and were cursed with a skin of darkness yet, they have the promise, if they will believe, and work righteousness, that not many generations shall pass away before they shall become a white and delightsome people; but it will take some time to accomplish this at best."

Source: The Latter-Day Saints Millennial Star, vol. 14, p. 418

Dr. Richard Land and his promotion of Mormonism as a Fourth Abrahamic Religion

One religious operator, Dr. Richard Land, stands out as a man stained by hereditary SBC racism and years of religious pomposity based in his long control of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.

In the very year that a black man was elected the head of the Southern Baptist Convention, Rev. Fred Luter Jr., it was Richard Land that embarrassed and betrayed his denomination with highly controversial racist remarks as reported below by the Baptist Press on June 1, 2012:

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP) -- Two reprimands have been issued to Richard Land by the trustee executive committee of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC).

The ERLC trustee executive committee also is terminating Land's weekly call-in radio show -- the venue where Land made comments about the Trayvon Martin killing that ignited intense controversy, prompting the formation of a trustee ad hoc investigative committee.

The ERLC, led by Land since 1988, must "redouble our efforts … to heal re-opened wounds," the executive committee said of Land's on-air comments about the intrusion of politics into the Trayvon Martin case and his references to President Obama and the Revs. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson by name.

At the outset of its reprimands and broadcast termination, the trustee committee stated that Land's statements "were very hurtful and offensive to the Trayvon Martin family and to many in the African-American community, including hundreds of thousands of African-American Southern Baptists. Damage was done to the state of race relations in the Southern Baptist Convention."

The two reprimands given to Richard Land by the ERLC trustee executive committee state:

"We reprimand Dr. Land for his hurtful, irresponsible, insensitive, and racially charged words on March 31, 2012 regarding the Trayvon Martin tragedy. It was appropriate for Dr. Land to issue the apology he made on May 9, 2012 and we are pleased he did so. We also convey our own deepest sympathies to the family of Trayvon Martin for the loss they have suffered. We, too, express our sorrow, regret, and apologies to them for Dr. Land's remarks. We are particularly disappointed in Dr. Land's words because they do not accurately reflect the body of his work over a long career at the ERLC toward racial reconciliation in the Southern Baptist Convention and American life. We must now redouble our efforts to regain lost ground, to heal re-opened wounds, and to realize the dream of a Southern Baptist Convention that is just as diverse as the population of our great Nation.”

Dr. Land was compelled to issue an apology after the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) Ethics and Liberty Committee removed him from his daily on-air program which was broadcast on the same “Christian” network which has also long aired the scurrilous and racist rants of one Michael Savage.



Again from the Baptist Press:

In his May 9 apology, Land apologized "for the harm my words of March 31, 2012, have caused to specific individuals, the cause of racial reconciliation, and the gospel of Jesus Christ." The five-part, two-page apology followed a May 2 meeting when Land met with 11 other SBC leaders, including several prominent African American pastors. As a result of the meeting, which lasted nearly five hours, Land said, "I have come to understand in sharper relief how damaging my words were."

Mormonism Is A Hoax
On the Basis of textual and historic as well as literary criticism Mormonism is seen as an elaborate, highly creative act of religious and cultish fiction:

Critics reject Smith's explanation of the origin of the Book of Mormon. Joseph Smith said that the Book of Mormon was originally an ancient native-American record written on golden plates, and that God gave him the power to translate it into English. Critics note that there is no physical proof of the existence of golden plates; Smith said that the angel Moroni reclaimed the plates once he had completed the translation. Smith acquired affidavits from 11 men, known as the Book of Mormon witnesses, claiming that they had been shown the plates; their testimony is typically published at the beginning of the Book of Mormon. While none of these men ever retracted their statement[dubious – discuss], critics nevertheless discount these testimonies for varying reasons, primarily because most of these men were closely interrelated.

Critics deny that the Book of Mormon is of ancient origin. They assert that portions of the Book of Mormon were plagiarized from modern publications of Smith's time, including the King James Bible, The Wonders of Nature, View of the Hebrews, and an unpublished manuscript written by Solomon Spalding.

Critics have varying theories about the true authorship of the Book of Mormon, but most conclude that Smith fabricated it himself, or possibly with the aid of Oliver Cowdery.

Source: Criticism of the Book of Mormon on Wiki.  

The Alarming Convergence of Mormon Racial Doctrine & Republican Use of Race for Political and Religious Advantage: Winning Elections in the Solid South.

The steady march of the current GOP is deeper and deeper into a revisionist view of slavery, affirmative action, and the meaning of charity and welfare. Numerous Republicans have been caught up in crude racial remarks and published statements/sentiments indicating that slavery was actually advantageous and desirable for African Americans. After all wasn’t their experience in pre-Civil War America far more preferable to living in Africa?

But here is the heart of it from Ron Rosenbaum over at Slate.com on October 8, 2012:

“I’ve spent some time putting “truth” claims and false equivalencies in perspective because I want to test the theory that there is one truth in political discourse that the media has almost entirely failed to recognize or fears to utter, one at the heart of presidential campaign reporting: The Republican Party is an institutionally, structurally racist entity. It’s the veritable elephant in the room of campaign coverage.

No, I’m not saying all Republicans are racist. I’m saying that as a party, ever since Goldwater and Nixon concocted the benighted, openly racist “Southern Strategy” in the ’60s, the Republican Party has profited from overt and covert racism.

(Break)

Which means in practice that the GOP starts out every presidential election with (depending on census changes in electoral vote numbers) some 100 electoral votes, more than a third of the way to the 270 electoral votes needed for victory.”

The Recent Change in the SBC Regarding People of Color Has Raised Old Resentments & Riled Backlash

Black Protestants have good cause to eye Republicans “warily”. From Southern Baptist Convergence by Molly Worthen in the New York Times on June 18, 2012:

The reasons for their alienation, rooted in history, are still with us today. Black Protestants may affirm Christ’s divinity, the Bible’s literal authority, and the other basic doctrines that white conservatives preach. But a statement of creed is not the same thing as lived religion. In many black churches, the crucible of slavery, Jim Crow and the civil rights movement has forged these doctrines into a theology quite different from the cocktail of personal moralism, prophecy and Christian libertarianism that has come to preoccupy the Christian right.

If conservative evangelicals are serious about making common political cause with black Protestants, they must revise their expectation that a free market and… a population that obeys their particular reading of scripture will correct the injustices ingrained in American society. They must rethink their approach to America’s history and its modern-day problems.

Black Protestants have good cause to eye Republicans warily and mistrust the label “evangelical”: the Christian right’s concerns do not match their own experience or priorities. Tony Evans, pastor of the Dallas megachurch Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship, is as a good candidate as any to represent “black evangelicalism”: he was the first African-American to earn a doctorate from the Dallas Theological Seminary, a bastion of fundamentalism. There he found that he “was getting evangelical training, but on the other hand, I was in this social reality, and I didn’t see them coming together,” he told me when I visited his church a couple of years ago.

At a seminary best known for teaching biblical inerrancy and prophecies of Armageddon, Evans wrote his doctoral thesis on James Cone, the dean of black liberation theology, a school of thought that critiques unjust social and economic conditions through the lens of the gospel. Today Evans spends more time working to keep troubled kids and teenagers in school and drug-free through his ministry, The Urban Alternative, than he does picking fights over classic evangelical obsessions like the theory of evolution. Evans is no liberal — he favors faith-based activism over government intervention and recently criticized President Obama for abandoning the Defense of Marriage Act — but as Evans explains it, “as a black evangelical, I live in two worlds. That’s a tension for me.”

The Heart of the Matter: Mitt Romney was (is) a Mormon Bishop, a high profile cult leader and his beliefs, while not restricted by the U.S. Constitution (guaranteeing freedom of religion and asserting there can be no “religious test” for public office, which includes Romney’s Mormon cult), must be assessed and decided upon by those who hold their historic Christian faith as inviolate, separate from Mormonism with its many pagan and occult practices and deceptions.  

To affirm and accept Mitt Romney as somehow “Christian” as the Latter Day Saints have long attempted to do, is to deny the central divinity of Christ and the literal and binding authority of Christian scripture.

The Fundamentalist Christian community, largely represented by the Southern Baptist Convention’s membership of 16 million, is confronted with an historic and deadly serious challenge.

Leaders like the now reprimanded and disciplined Richard Land have attempted to twist the arms of other leaders to hush their proclamation of the SBC’s coda of teaching: Mormonism is a devilish cult and a direct enemy of Evangelical Christianity, a group that is aggressive and determined to overtake Christianity as the Southern Baptist have loved and enjoyed for hundreds of years... since the Ascension of Christ.

According to Raymond Takashi Swenson, a Mormon USAF veteran in his comments on “Mormons and Evangelicals” on PBS, October 14, 2012:

“The fact is that the Southern Baptists are losing membership consistently by 50,000 to 100,000 a year, while the Mormon membership is growing by about a third of a million every year. Baptists see a direct connection between these numbers. Protestant pastors feel that conversion from their congregations is a direct threat to their incomes. They call it “sheep stealing”. There is confusion between the salvation of congregants and the career of their pastor. When pastors claim that Mormons have a venal motive to add members, they seem to be projecting their own views onto Mormons, because Mormons do not have a career clergy.”

What are Evangelical leaders of the movement saying about Romney—the Mormon? The fiery Pentecostal Assemblies of God’s George O. Wood rolls over to smooth over his desire to elect a Republican, Mormon occult and sex cult or not.

 The Assemblies of God, a Missouri-based Pentecostal group with more than 12,600 U.S. churches, has launched its first national voter education and registration drive in a presidential-election year. George O. Wood, the denomination's leader, said he was inspired to undertake the project by Champion the Vote, which works to identify and mobilize previously unregistered conservative Christians.

The Assemblies of God voter drive makes no mention of specific candidates or their religion, but the denomination is among the many Christian churches that, in an effort to counter what it considers heretical, has been challenging Mormonism as unbiblical. Pentecostals are known for spirit-filled worship, belief in divine healing and, according to surveys, their social conservatism.

"I think our people recognize we live in a pluralistic culture, therefore one has to look at a candidate and see what values and policies they have independent of what their religious association might be and make a determination on that basis," Wood said in a phone interview. "You can form friendships with people even though you don't agree with them doctrinally."

Source: “Evangelical leaders worry Romney's Mormonism could suppress conservative turnout” in an AP story published in the New Orleans Times Picayune by October 9, 2012.  

Conservative Christians believe they have a duty to point out false beliefs they fear could lead others astray and risk their eternal salvation.

From “Mormonism, voter enthusiasm concern evangelicals” by Rachel Zoll, AP Religion Writer in the Denver Post, October 9, 2012:

“[Albert] Mohler (a Southern Baptist leader) and other academics took up the issue in a discussion last month at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, the flagship training ground for future leaders of the nearly 16 million-member denomination. Called "The Mormon Moment? Religious Conviction and the 2012 Election," the speakers went to great lengths to emphasize that religion should not be a consideration when voting.”

This new Far Right Religionists’ tactic is exactly the opposite of the endorsement and support these very Evangelicals gave G.W. Bush as their chosen “Christian-in-Chief.”

This in clear reversal of the Far Right Religionist’s previous bodacious and defiant political promotion of George W. Bush as a born-gain Christian-a Republican who was hailed their “Christian-in-Chief.”

It all boils down to the fact that Mitt the Mormon is not a “Christian” and that inspire of the danger and the challenge to their church membership and sacred “infallible” doctrine, these leaders will support the occult Mormonism over and against the nation’s first Black President whom they falsely and maliciously label a “secret Muslim”.  

Endnotes & Follow Up

Here are Chris Cillizza and Aaron Blake, on The Fix:

When Romney delivered his “Faith in America” speech in 2007, the Southern Baptist response was to label Mormonism a “theological cult” and “false religion.”

What’s surprising in 2012 is the relative lack of anxiety on the other side, among evangelicals who for years considered Mormonism a “cult” that was to be feared, not embraced.

In fact, the relative ambivalence among prominent evangelicals about this new “Mormon moment” — and the fact that Romney’s campaign could mainstream Mormonism right into the Oval Office — could radically shift the dynamics on America’s political and religious landscape.

“You can already see the change in thinking among many evangelicals who see Mitt Romney more as the Republican candidate for president and less as a Mormon,” said Leith Anderson, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, who declined, when asked, to label Mormonism a “cult.”

Source: “The unexpected evangelical silence on Mitt Romney’s Mormonism” by Jonathan Merritt, Religion News Service in the Washington Post June 12, 2012.  

Matt Viser in “Romney’s run evokes pride, fear in Mormons” in The Boston Globe on May 29, 2012:

“For Mormons, this is a potentially volatile moment. They are deeply proud that their faith’s most prominent adherent, Mitt Romney, is steps away from a presidential nomination and could push the faith further into the mainstream.”

What do the Evangelicals say about the Cult of Mormonism?

Here’s just one example, again returning to the AP story “Mormonism, voter enthusiasm concern evangelicals” by Rachel Zoll on October 9, 2012:

As [Steve] Strang was getting out the vote last month, the news editor of his best-known magazine, Charisma, wrote a column calling Mormonism "bizarre" and a "Christianesque cult." Another columnist called Mormon doctrines "creepy and (with apologies to Mitt Romney) demonic."

Janet Parshall, a veteran Christian broadcaster now with Moody Radio, invited on her show Tricia Erickson, a former Mormon turned born-again Christian and author of "Can Mitt Romney Serve Two Masters? The Mormon Church Versus the Office of the Presidency of the United States of America."

Parshall effusively praised Mormons for their dedication to family and compassion for others. She spoke fondly about working with Mormons in Washington. "When we would fight for pro-family issues, boy I tell you, we'd be able to do that with our Mormon friends because they shared the same kinds of values that we did," Parshall said. But she said there was a need to point out "what is biblically correct and what is not." In the ensuing interview, Erickson went on to call Mormonism blasphemous and describe rituals inside Mormon temples, which are for Mormons in good standing only, as "silly," "bizarre" and "violent."

How Twisted is the “Hour of Decision” for Billy Graham and other ‘Sold out” Evangelicals?

These religious ‘operators’ [many owning and controlling multi-million dollar religiously-based empires] have ‘sold out’ to stay in the “faith-based” funding loop. They fear the reversal or end of the G.W. Bush originated larder and spoils in the form of “faith-based funding” which has by now funneled billions of dollars to church groups from federal taxpayer sources.

See Faith-based Funding on Theocracy Watch.

"We want to fund programs that save Americans one soul at a time." -- President George W. Bush, January, 2004, in a speech in New Orleans

How Much Taxpayer Money Has Gone to Religious Purposes via Faith-Based Federal Funding?

“The March, 2004, issue of Church and State reports that the "Faith Czar" Jim Towey announced to reporters that $40 billion dollars was now available to religious charities.

By studying White House press releases and the White House web site, Daniel Zwerdling found that religious groups could apply to more than a hundred federal programs that gave out more than $65 billion. In addition, religious groups could apply for more money through state-administered programs.”

Source: “The Rise of the Religious Right in the Republican Party” on Theocracy Watch.

These amounts were reported as allocated prior to 2006. By now additional tens of billions more have been piped into, showered upon receptive sectarian groups and far right religionist schemes. Many Evangelical leaders are caught up and trapped in this ‘bribe’ given in exchange for their efforts to control and maneuver the “values-voter base” so totally necessary to the National Republican and Tea Party Movement (the strongest TP membership of this base is in those Ol’ Southern States, the Confederacy). This year the ‘choice’ is impossible, a Black or a Mormon Cult Leader: Obama or Romney. It is on the basis of the bias and bigotry of this group a totally IMPOSSIBLE choice for this Dixie Base.

Here’s how it comes down to an Evangelical Leader:

"The fact is that Mitt Romney is a Mormon, and many of our people are very, very uncomfortable about voting for a Mormon, as I am. I supported somebody else in the primary. But, hey, we have no option," said Steve Strang, an influential Pentecostal publisher.”

Source: "Mormonism, voter enthusiasm concern evangelicals" by Rachel Zoll AP religion writer on October 9, 2012.  

How do the Evangelical Republican religious leaders manage this 2012 “no way out” dilemma?

Here’s the magic scenario:

Russell Moore, a theologian and a seminary dean, said a candidate's religious outlook should be examined specifically for "whether or not the person is going to be able to work for the common good." But he and others warned that supporting a candidate for president does not mean accepting his faith. Says Moore: "If a President Romney is elected we're the people who are willing to, if we're invited into the Oval Office, say, 'President Romney, here's where we agree with you, here's what we like about what you're doing, and we sincerely want to plead with you to believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ so you don't perish everlasting.'"

Source: “Evangelical leaders worry Romney's Mormonism could suppress conservative turnout” in an AP story published in the New Orleans Times Picayune by October 9, 2012. 

Oil & Water - Political Pews and Evangelical Page Views: Billy Graham Evangelical Council Political Advertisement supporting Mitt Romney that appeared in full page ads in USA Today, the Wall Street Journal and others publications nationwide.

Let’s see that again - Evangelicals are Pushing Romney Their rationale… Elect a Mormon, a cult bishop they proclaim; hope Evangelicals are invited to have an open door to the Oval Office, hope Evangelicals have a two-way dialogue, and then tell the Cult Leader:  

“We (pandering Evangelical leaders) sincerely want to plead with you to believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ (rather than your occult Book of Mormon) so you don’t perish everlasting (burn eternally in Hell.)”

How, beguiled and diluted is this contrivance? Put Romney in the White House and then try to convert him to ‘true born-again’ salvation? This is absurd and an abomination to the Christian faith.

Billy Graham (on the brink of death) is the nation’s most prominent Evangelical leader. He now leads his followers down the path to perdition and denial of the Gospel and Salvation found in Jesus Christ by endorsing the anti-Evangelical/Christian Mormon Cult via Mitt Romney and therefore grant Protestant approval to the doctrine of Mormonism.

Christianity Claims Only One Way to God: Jesus—There is no salvation by any other.

 It was Jesus Christ who proclaimed:

“Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” -- John 14:6

The Book of Acts of the Apostles Makes a Clear Statement of Christ’s Centrality to the Christian Faith at the exclusion of all other religions or cults:

“Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” -- Acts 4:12

Afterthought: Will Mitt Take the Oath of Office on the Book of Mormon?
The most alarming information that the media is not bringing to the American People is the reality that Mitt Romney truly believes that when he dies, if he has kept his symbolic blood oaths and covenants to the Mormon Church, he will become a literal God in his next life. This is extremely important because Mitt Romney absolutely must put the Prophet and the religion of Mormonism first, before his allegiance to our country. His very eternal exaltation to godhood depends on it.  

Watch VIDEO “Mitt Romney and the Mormon Church” by Thom Hartmann & Tricia Erickson

As a Mormon "God", Mitt believes that he will be given his very own planet-kingdom in which to call his wife, Ann, into by her secret name, given only to Mitt in the secret Mormon temple ceremony. If Mitt does not call Ann into his kingdom, she will be placed in one of the lower Mormon “kingdoms of glory”, which puts Mitt in charge of Ann’s literal Mormon salvation and eternal life destination. If Mitt does call Ann into his kingdom, he and she will have relations to populate it with spirit children.  

Watch a VIDEO of the entire secret Mormon “Endowment” Ceremony.

Description: This is the entire Mormon Temple Endowment Ceremony (with movie) that is in every temple in the world except the Manti, Utah and Salt Lake City, Utah temples. (Break) Take special note of the "Law of Consecration" that is at the 58:40 mark. [Mitt Romney has sworn to obey this oath countless times.] Do you really want the President of the United States to be a man who has sworn to "consecrate" all of his "time, talents and everything with which the Lord has blessed him with or with which he will be blessed with" to the Mormon Church?!?!

If in fact Mormon religious beliefs, doctrines, and practices are truly genuine Christian, then the greater Christian congregation of the world should be freely admitted to the Mormon Temples and should be allowed to freely observe and partake in its secret rites, oaths, and covenants including their secret ‘endowment ceremony”. Obviously Mormons reject and dispute this claim and with good reason they are not Christian they are an invented religion.

What is at Stake for the Cult of Mormonism with Mitt Romney, candidate for U.S. President? Several observers point out that Romney may be able to do far more for the faith now than he ever has - whether as a missionary in France or a church leader in Massachusetts.

For a faith whose signature work has been going door to door to win converts - and whose adherents cheerfully answer questions by anyone who asks - Romney provides an amplified form of outreach.

“It will be good for the church, because many people around the world have really weird ideas of Mormons,’’ said Bob Bennett, a former US senator, a Mormon, and a Romney supporter, in an interview. “To have someone who is well educated, successful in his career, successful in his family have this high a profile sends the message to the world: The Mormons are not the crazy cult that many of you think we are.’’

Source: “Romney’s run evokes pride, fear in Mormons: Anxious how faith will be perceived on grand political stage”, The Boston Globe May 29, 2012.

The near unreal possibility that Billy Graham would throw over his Fundamentalist beliefs in historic Christianity for Mitt Romney’s Mormon Hoax is earthshaking and will continue to destroy Graham’s own faith and credibility as a honored Protestant leader and the former “Nation’s Pastor.” As for the LDS, it dictates the vote for its members…

That dynamic, of course, should be familiar to Catholics; and Baptists, Muslims, Orthodox Jews, and even Zen Buddhists have also wrestled with ordaining women. But none of those faiths ordain every adult and adolescent male, so that the sacred authority extends so powerfully and thoroughly into the household.

But the question of whether Romney shares the Mormon perspective on women’s proper role should be especially important to voters given the church’s history of political activism. Mormons fought tooth and nail against the Equal Rights Amendment, even excommunicating members of the church who publicly split on the issue.

More recently, the church took what The New York Times called “an extraordinary role” in passing Proposition 8 in California, the successful ballot measure that banned same-sex marriage in the state. Just this month, The Daily Beast’s Jamie Reno reported that David Twede, the managing editor of Mormon Think, said he’d been threatened with excommunication for writing critically about Romney. And the church has interfered in smaller secular matters as well, even reportedly using its religious authority to tell the faithful which side to take in a local zoning fight.

The Mormon Church issues orders to members of the cult to vote in specific ways in public elections:

Marion G. Romney—a first cousin of George (Mitt’s father) who was a former member of the First Presidency of the Church, its highest authority - famously related the instructions he’d received from the Mormon prophet: “Always keep your eye on the president of the church, and if he ever tells you to do anything, and it is wrong, and you do it, the Lord will bless you for it.”

Source: “Jim Lehrer: Ask Mitt Romney if He Stands By Mormonism’s Views of Women” by Stacey Solie on October 2, 2012.

So the instructions are clear: To the Mormons, do as your church demands, to the evangelicals, ignore your church and support the Mormon.

Billy Graham & Mitt Romney:
“It is wrong, and you do it, and the Lord will bless you for it.” 

On the Reader:
“Mormonism & Schism on the Christian Right” by Frederick Clarkson (October 2012) and “Billy Graham Prays With Romney But Mormonism Still a "Cult", Indicates Graham's Website” by TroutFishing (October 2012)

Related Slates: 
Southern Baptists in the Political Nutcracker: Vote Occult Leader, Black Man or Neither - The Crushing Blow to Mitt’s Quix-Toxic Quest: ‘Good Samaritan’ or ‘Corporate Bandit’

Reposted with permission of the original author.

Fundamentalists in the Political Nutcracker: Vote Occult Leader, Black Man or Neither

The largest fundamentalist protestant group in America is now undergoing what may be the religious ‘Waterloo’ of the 21st Century. This shocking direct assault on Fundamentalists’ basic Christian beliefs and Biblical standards is a direct challenge: Its latent and enduring post-Civil War Jim Crow racism is riled and it is confronted by a direct and relentless challenge form its strong rival, America’s largest home-grown, nativist sex & heretical, powerful occult cult - Mormonism.  

The Impossible Born-again Baptist Choice: Deny Christ of the Gospels or Vote for a Black.  

There Is No Way Out Except Not to Vote at All
A Southern Baptist wishing to vote in the November Presidential Election faces, what is for many, a completely illogical and unacceptable decision. It’s an ideological and religious deadlock. Vote for a cult that is aggressively challenging via its dominance and faith or vote for a Black President-who has been propagandized into a socialist and a leader (Read: FOX News, Christian Radio Networks) who does not represent America.

The slogan “Take Back America” is ringing in the angry Tea Partisan’s (Tea Party Republicans) ears and there is no logical or practical way out.

Lingering racism still remains the dominate dank ‘shadow’ of the culture of hotly religious, rural America both North and South, it has grown and flourished in what some are determined to call a “post racial” era. This is an ongoing ideological attempt/trick to say equality and race-based things are OK now, passé--Blacks have no further legitimate claim to discrimination, disenfranchisement or reprisals based on color—We’ve moved on... or so they claim.

America has indeed moved on. But the place to which it has moved is both dangerous and contemptible in its denials and its continued subscription to the old racial stereotypes and bigotry of the antebellum of the Old South.

The intense angst and anger, the grieving over the ascendency of a Black Man to the nation’s highest office and to the position of our Commander-in-chief has rekindled a dark and foreboding tide of irrational thought and dysfunction. Congress is deeply pitted in behaviors unbecoming our Constitution and the work of Abraham Lincoln to preserve and advance the Federal Union.  

Black or Occult: A Choice That is “No Choice” for America’s Fundamentalist White Male

Over 16 million Southern Baptist Convention regular church goes and others (aligned with Dr. Richard Land, SBC’s policies godfather) are pitted against the Mormon cultist (said to be the fastest growing religion in America) whose converts are coming substantially from the ranks of former nominally Christian ranks, including those of the once-dominate American religious faith, political, and cultural force- the Southern Baptists. Mormons claim worldwide membership of over 14 million.

 So what is a man who clings culturally to his religion, his pick-up, and his guns to do?

Not all that Ancient Rites on the American Right: Mitt Romney's Mormonism is causing major shifts in the rhetoric of the Religious Right-Wing (Mormon Ritual in the Temple 1890's)

 

The historic development of John Smith’s peculiar cultish blend of Protestant Christianity religion, the Jewish Kabbalah [Joseph Smith and Kabbalah: The Occult Connection, by Lance S. Owens], Masonic rites, and other occult elements have worked into this religion which gives a Mormon man his religious basis for the domination and sexual freedom to have many female partners [both via Secret Mormon Endowment Ceremony] polygamy here on earth, pledged brides, and (for those “elites” who achieve “god-hood”) a planet to inhabit and populate with their offspring—an anti-Christian belief which is alluring and lustfully and carnally self-serving.

There is neither time or place to properly expand upon the tortuous route that John Smith’s cult as taken from its inception around 1830 until today’s historic clash of American voters in a Cultural War over the presidency.

Scholars find that Mormonism holds a theological “truth” that its head-living prophet represents God’s authority to revise and extend the Canon of the Christian New Testament into today.

Thus on many crucial and central tenets of Mormon belief there is an on-going fluidity and the ever present possibility of an abrupt sacred change vested in Mormonism’s present leader. It’s estimated that these changes the faith and secret and public practice of the Mormon ‘theology’ has already undergone 4,000 separate revisions, rewrites, and changes. Beginning, most notably with Joseph Smith himself.  

Mormonism Is Nimble
This cult’s nimble ability to morph faith and practice to fit the contemporary needs is totally inconceivable to the Fundamentalist Baptist who holds to the final warnings and cures of Revelation 22 ending God’s will and demands spelled out in inerrant scripture and precise behavioral practice of the God dictated and inspired New Testament are changeless and without error as written:  

Revelation 22: The New International Version

John, the Revelator and the Angel
6 The angel said to me, “These words are trustworthy and true. The Lord, the God who inspires the prophets, sent his angel to show his servants the things that must soon take place.”
7 “Look, I am coming soon! Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy written in this scroll.”
8 I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I had heard and seen them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who had been showing them to me.
9 But he said to me, “Don’t do that! I am a fellow servant with you and with your fellow prophets and with all who keep the words of this scroll. Worship God!”
10 Then he told me, “Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this scroll, because the time is near.
11 Let the one who does wrong continue to do wrong; let the vile person continue to be vile; let the one who does right continue to do right; and let the holy person continue to be holy.”

Epilogue: Invitation and Warning
12 “Look, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done.
13 I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.
14 “Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city.
15 Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.
16 “I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you [a] this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star.”
17 The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let the one who hears say, “Come!” Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life.
18 I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this scroll: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to that person the plagues described in this scroll. 19 And if anyone takes words away from this scroll of prophecy, God will take away from that person any share in the tree of life and in the Holy City, which are described in this scroll.
20 He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. 21 The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people. Amen.

For the lay Christian the following article lays down the rule: the non-negotiable principle called Biblical Inerrancy:

Divine authority
For a believer in biblical inerrancy, Holy Scripture is the Word of God, and carries the full authority of God. Every single statement of the Bible calls for instant and unqualified acceptance.[42] Every doctrine of the Bible is the teaching of God and therefore requires full agreement.[43] Every promise of the Bible calls for unshakable trust in its fulfillment.[44] Every command of the Bible is the directive of God himself and therefore demands willing observance.[45]

Sufficiency
According to some believers, the Bible contains everything that they need to know in order to obtain salvation and to live a Christian life,[46] and there are no deficiencies in Scripture that need to be filled with by tradition, pronouncements of the Pope, new revelations, or present-day development of doctrine.[47] (Break) Many who believe in the Inspiration of scripture teach that it is infallible but not inerrant. Those who subscribe to infallibility believe that what the scriptures say regarding matters of faith and Christian practice are wholly useful and true.

Source: Biblical Inerrancy (from Wiki on scripture)

The “Nut” That Must Be Cracked  

Mitt Romney Must Not Be Elected President: He’s not Born-again

Well-Known Fundamentalist Author and real “Christian” Mover and shaker, Tim LaHaye (author of the Left Behind phenomena), takes a fundamentalist stance: Only A Born-again Christian Can Be President of the United States-- "Only Christians should hold high office.”

So what do the millions of “Values Voters”, members of the fundamentalist Southern Baptist Convention, the Pentecostals, conservative Roman Catholics, and hoards of Mega-Church believers do faced with Mitt Romney, the non-Christian leader of an anti-Evangelical, Sect-Mormonism, a non-Christian, and a 'Republican' who is asking for their vote as a “severely conservative” Republican?  

Internecine Battles: Fundamentalist v. Mainline
This sea change in America is an all-out-no-holds-barred attack upon the Methodists, Presbyterians, and other major Protestant denominations which are labeled "apostate" in the view of this militant army of Pentecostals, Fundamentalist Catholics, and Fundamentalist Independents. The Mainline Churches' "liberal" stances on human sexuality and the co-operation with the World Council of Churches are but two examples of this tradition’s gigantic "sins."

Nor is there likewise any real ultimate historical reverence or toleration of the Jewish and Muslim--Abrahamic faiths, or the Buddhists. Read their literature. The Fundamentalist Magazine, Tim LaHaye, "Only Christians should hold high office." (LaHaye's definition of "Christian" is on his own narrow terms and does not include many Mainline Christian believers with less Fundamentalist views than those of LaHaye).

Former Michigan Republican State Rep. Joanne Voorhees' simply stated conviction (quoted by the Grand Rapids Press, Grand Rapids, Michigan on January 22, 2004) was Christians are the only folk she would endorse or support for public office. She explicitly trusts only her brand of Christians.

The general public, perhaps casually agreeing with her sentiments, fails to understand Voorhees' thinking, practice, and parlance. “Qualified Christians” according to Voorhees are very specific, narrowly defined believers. Society thinks of Christian as a broad, inclusive term. Voorhees defines/limits Christian to narrow, specific dogmas and exclusivity. Her "Christians" must adhere to exacting/specific religious demands.

 It's a problem. Voorhees, was, at the time, still an elected official who must do all the people's business: her approved "Christians," other Christians and faiths, as well as everyone else's business. She was, as an elected state legislator, was sworn to uphold a national constitution disallowing religious testing for public office. Yet, in practice, Voorhees espoused religious tests for public office--conflicting with the constitution and putting herself above it.

Voorhees' subsequent restatement: "Christian" includes the Jewish faith--awkwardly and inaccurately attempted to mitigate damage her candid expression of her "selective" Christians Only viewpoint had previously created (See ALSO this posting).  

Romney’s Mormonism is a Gigantic Fundamentalist Christian Obstacle  

Joseph Smith said he had a revelation where Jesus told him that all the religions at that time were an abomination in His sight. From a panel discussion at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary entitled “Baptist panel OK’s vote for a Mormon” on September 11, 2012. From the seminary president R. Albert Mohler Jr:

"Throughout most of Christian history, folks haven't struggled with this question because they didn't have the luxury of struggling with it. ... The separation of the priestly role from government is something that has to happen in the minds of American evangelicals," Mohler said, warning against viewing government as an idol.

More from Russell D. Moore, Dean of the School of Theology at Southern Seminary:

‘Moore agreed, saying U.S. Christians have been guilty of trying to Christianize American history. "So many evangelicals want to go back and claim Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln and John Adams as orthodox, evangelical Christians," Moore said. "The problem with that [is that] Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were great men who did fantastic things for our country, but once you start claiming them as orthodox evangelical Christians, you're not elevating those men, you're downgrading the Gospel into something that fits whatever they happen to hold. And you wind up with [modern-day] politicians who learn the language of evangelical faith in order to use it, in order to manipulate people into supporting them." The four-member panel said Americans on multiple occasions have elected candidates who did not hold to evangelical beliefs. Among them were Unitarian William Howard Taft and Catholic John F. Kennedy.’

A Dialogue on “Mormonism & Christians” that appeared on WNET in PBS’s Mormons & Christians program led by reporter Lucky Severson featured commentary from the following guests: Stephen Davis a professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Claremont McKenna College, Patrick Mason, Chair of Mormon Studies, Claremont Graduate University and Richard Mouw, President and Professor of Christian philosophy at the Fuller School of Theology. From the program “Mormons & Christians”:

Professor Stephen Davis: “If the question is Mormonism a legitimate expression of Christianity, honestly I would have to say no. I think that legitimate expressions of Christianity can be found in Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Protestantism, virtually all the Protestant denominations, but not Mormonism, because too many of their doctrines and beliefs are non-Christian.” Patrick Mason: Mormons in a lot of ways are scarred from a long history of misrepresentation in what they see as false reports about the church or unfair treatment of the church, and this goes all the way back to the 1830s. [PBS Correspondent] Severson: That was when Joseph Smith said he had a revelation where Jesus told him that all the religions at that time were an abomination in his sight. From then on Mormons, who were seen by some as lower-class, superstitious dupes, were targets of ridicule and violence eventually leading to the assassination of Joseph Smith. In the 1860s, the government sent the army to Utah to keep an eye on the Mormons. The army established this fort overlooking Salt Lake City. The cannons that were here were aimed at the Mormons.

But the most vocal critics of Mormons have long been evangelicals. Richard Mouw, President and Professor of Christian philosophy at the Fuller School of Theology, says one reason is because Mormons have been such good proselytizers.

Richard Mouw: Mormonism began as this evangelistic program of going out and getting converts, and very often converts from the traditional denominations, and so evangelicals and Mormons have had an unusually hostile relationship over the years because they have been sort of competing proselytizing programs, but also they traded the rhetoric in very hostile terms. Patrick Mason: There’s a sense of them-against-us that in some ways gets inflated among the grassroots membership of the church. But there is no doubt that for many people (Mormons) they see evangelicals as the enemy, and they need to be converted.

Civil Rights Flip-flop of the Radical Right: Father George Romney marched with civil rights activist in the 1960's - The Son, Mitt Romney  chooses a different path - one paved with political expediency (Segregation Protest Sign, National Archives)

The question is not whether it is right for a Mormon or a Black man to run for the Presidency in 2012. Civil Rights for Blacks have been established. There is no constitutional basis for a “religious test for public office” but there remains the choice.

The question is what will this iron-clad “core” of the Tea Party Controlled, Fundamentalist infused “block” of Republican voters (largely in Southern States) do when it comes their turn to vote. A racial example from the fundamentalist school of thought:

Jon Hubbard, a Republican member of the Arkansas House of Representatives, has written a new book in which he says slavery was "a blessing" for African-Americans, among other questionable statements. Hubbard, a first term Republican from Jonesboro, Ark., makes a series of racially charged statements in the self-published book, including saying that integration of schools is hurting white students, that African slaves had better lives under slavery than in Africa, that blacks are not contributing to society.... Hubbard in his Book: “… the institution of slavery that the black race has long believed to be an abomination upon its people may actually have been a blessing in disguise. The blacks who could endure those conditions and circumstances would someday be rewarded with citizenship in the greatest nation ever established upon the face of the Earth.” (Pages 183-89)

Source: “Jon Hubbard, Arkansas Legislator, Says Slavery May 'Have Been A Blessing' In New Book” in the Huffington Post by John Celock on October 5, 2012.


A final anecdote from a Kos respondent:

"My very evangelical, Republican mother and I had a conversation about this last week. For reasons that defy logical explanation, she is very enthusiastic about Romney. She is one of the Republican dead-enders that loved Dubya all the way to the bitter end in 2008, so that ought to tell you something. As for Romney's Mormonism, she simply said that she would "just have to let God deal with that." Mmmmm-kay. You'll vote to impose your faith on everyone in every other way possible, but it's OK… Gotcha. I suspect to “let God deal with the fact that Romney is a Mormon”…that a lot of Southern evangelicals have this same mindset when it comes to Romney's Mormonism. What makes the hypocrisy even more amazing is that they are completely oblivious to it."

And then there’s this insight on Race & the GOP:

The issue here is whether the Republican Party has racism "baked into the cake", not whether racism is limited to the South. It is not a question of individualized, subjective racist intent, which is certainly ubiquitous as far as I can tell, but rather it is structural racism. Republicans adopted the "Southern Strategy" and thereby put racism into their very structure. 

Will they lay aside their racial prejudices and ancient discriminations and abuses or will they deny and betray the central tenet and core of their Fundamentalist Christian faith and endorse and support a Bishop from a rival occultist cult - Mormonism.  

The impossible choice, deny Christ of the Gospels or vote for a Black. Now is a historic moment of impossible decision: Whom will the Fundamentalist Choose?

UPDATE: AP Story "Evangelical leaders worry Romney's Mormonism could suppress conservative turnout"

CLIPS from the last night's October 9, 2012 AP Story:

"...what had been thought of as a hypothetical question for American evangelicals for years, Southern Baptist leader Al Mohler said recently, is now a reality with this election and is being tested in a contest that will likely be decided by slim margins.

(break)

"The fact is that Mitt Romney is a Mormon, and many of our people are very, very uncomfortable about voting for a Mormon, as I am. I supported somebody else in the primary. But, hey, we have no option," said Steve Strang, an influential Pentecostal publisher, in a conference call with pastors last week. Strang was speaking to participants in Pulpit Freedom Sunday, an annual challenge to IRS rules on churches' political activity.

(break)

Evangelicals make up about a third of voters who are registered or lean Republican. Some Republicans have estimated that a significant number of Christian conservatives have not been voting in presidential elections and have focused on getting them registered. But that effort has a new wrinkle this year: Romney is the first Mormon nominee for president from a major party.

(break)

Pastors are struggling to get that message across while still making clear that important doctrinal differences with Mormons remain. Conservative Christians believe they have a duty to point out beliefs they fear could lead others astray and risk their salvation.

As Strang was getting out the vote last month, the news editor of his best-known magazine, Charisma, wrote a column calling Mormonism "bizarre" and a "Christianesque cult." Another columnist called Mormon doctrines "creepy and (with apologies to Mitt Romney) demonic."

Mohler and other academics took up the issue in a discussion last month at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, the flagship training ground for future leaders of the nearly 16 million-member denomination. Called "The Mormon Moment? Religious Conviction and the 2012 Election," the speakers went to great lengths to emphasize that religion should not be a consideration when voting.

END of UPDATE

On the Reader:

Watch PBS Frontline "Election 2012" on Mitt Romney (and President Obama) and his history as a Bishop and leader in the Mormon church, see Romney artifacts or read more about the Southern Baptist Convention and Richard Land's (fundamentalists') dilemma in ""We Always Need a JESUS CANDIDATE"? - Just WhoWill be God's People's Choice for President in 2012” (January 2012).

Related Slates:

The Crushing Blow to Mitt’s Quix-Toxic Quest: ‘Good Samaritan’ or ‘Corporate Bandit’  (October 2012) - Middling Mitt Romney Not of His Fathers' SterlingCivic Michigan Mettle (Gaskell & George Romney) (June 2012) - Mitt Romney: America’s Nascent Holy “god” & PossiblePresident? (February 2012) - Welcome to Planet Willard: Michigan's Wayward Son MittRomney to Rule His Own World (January 2012)

Cross-posted by guest commentator Morton from the McGuffey Gazette to Kos.