Saving Candidate Romney
Perry has gotten into trouble, as one of those religious leaders he and other Republicans seek out for endorsements has caused embarrassment by, well, saying what he believes:
“Evangelical Christians should not vote for Mitt Romney because he’s a Mormon, therefore not a real Christian,” Jeffress said.
“Historically, evangelical Christianity has never embraced Mormonism as a branch of Christianity. Mormonism has always been treated as a cult. In fact, the Southern Baptist Convention, which is the largest Protestant denomination in the world, officially labels Mormonism as a cult. It does not embrace the historic tenets of evangelical Christianity,” he said.
Jeffress added, “Mitt Romney is a good, moral person, but that does not make him a Christian.”
This does not surprise me. Years ago, when I was interviewing candidates to teach a college class in Western Religious Traditions, I asked a candidate–a Southern Baptist Minister with a doctorate in Theology–what religions he would include in the instruction.
“Well, Christianity, of course. And Islam.” Then he stopped.
“How about Judaism?” I asked, noting the other major creed that is naturally a part of the course.
“Not really,” he replied. “Judaism is more of a culture than a religion.”
Taken aback that he would actually dismiss Judaism as a religion, I was tempted to have him go into that more, but decided to get back to that later. I put forward, “How about Mormonism?”
“Oh no,” he answered instantly. “That’s a cult.”
A bit later, I asked him what kind of field trips or personal projects he might have students take part in. Our previous teacher had taken students to some pretty cool places, like those monasteries in the mountains where people sit under streams of cold water while meditating.
“I would recommend they attend a Christian church service,” he said.
At first I saw absolutely nothing wrong with that, but considering his previous replies, decided to dig a little deeper. “Why specifically a Christian one?” I ventured.
“Because,” he said confidently, “this is Japan, and if Japanese young people are going to convert, they are probably going to become Christians.”
By this time, I was already through with the guy, but of course that would have disqualified him even if he hadn’t talked himself out of a position already. It was pretty clear that his intent was not, as the course intended, to objectively study the beliefs and practices of a variety of faiths, but rather to inject his own biases and beliefs into the course, and perhaps even to proselytize.
Having had the experience of that interview, I was completely unsurprised at what this pastor who endorsed Perry said. The only surprising thing is that he either naively felt nobody would see anything wrong with the statement, or he felt that it needed to be said, no matter who it offended. Either one is likely the result of insulation, of feeling so safely ensconced and empowered that one either does not see any other points of view, or feels confident that one can have one’s way, at least where it counts.
This is important to note in light of the significance of separation of church and state. Most people on the religious right hate the concept, or have fooled themselves into believing that the principle only means that government is forbidden to interfere with churches, but that churches are completely free to interfere and impose themselves upon government to their heart’s content–as if the two were different things.
These people tend to believe that those who fight for the separation of church and state are mostly atheists trying to attack religion. The thing is, separation of church and state does as much if not more to protect religion than it does to protect atheists. That is, in fact, its actual purpose–many groups which came to the United States and formed colonies were fleeing religious persecution. Not by atheists, or by Islam, but persecution by their Christian brethren. Sectarian strife is about as old as sectarianism itself.
Jeffress’ statement is an excellent example of this. Imagine if church and state became wedded, and his were the controlling denomination. Of course Muslims would feel the sting very quickly–look at how many right-wingers want to deny Muslims the right to build Mosques even today.
But what about Mormons? What rights would they retain? Probably very few. I’m sure it would begin slowly, with less-applicable restrictions like stronger laws against bigamy, but it would quickly trend towards declassifications–Mormonism cannot call themselves churches/temples, Mormonism is not a religion, they cannot claim tax-exempt status, etc. It would probably not be long before the lack of benefits started to trend toward the imposition of restrictions.
It would likely not be long after that when other edicts–er, laws would start closing in on other sects, like laws concerning fealty to foreign leaders aimed at Catholicism, etc.
Not that this would only happen if Southern Baptists found themselves in the driver’s seat; it would likely happen no matter which religion had influence.
Nor would it necessarily be done out of any ill intention. Such is the danger of religion, that people of a certain belief are convinced that those outside their group are in mortal peril of damnation, and wish to “help” the others by showing them the true way which will lead them to eternal salvation.
The irony is, if those on the religious right really understood the purpose of separation of church and state and the effect it has had, they would embrace it, not resent it. When an atheist files a lawsuit against a religious encroachment, religious people would be wise to go out there and stand behind the atheist all the way–or even be there to file the lawsuit first themselves.
However, it is just as likely that they would not, on the grounds that they would be perfectly fine with such sectarian persecution, confident that it would be their sect that was doing the persecuting. Er, excuse me–doing the “saving.”
The irony is, if those on the religious right really understood the purpose of separation of church and state and the effect it has had, they would embrace it, not resent it.
The greater irony is that Jefferson’s 1802 letter to a religious community in Connecticut (seeking freedom of worship) that first mentioned the “wall of separation” — was sent to Baptists, who were the persecuted fringe cultish heterodox movement back then!
http://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9806/danpre.html
This nation is full of clowns and things are going to continue to circle the bowl here.
Be glad of your Japanese PR status and I for one hope you guys can pull things together so I can rejoin you later this decade.
Spain isn’t looking too good right now either, so Japan’s probably your best hope.
http://electoral-vote.com/
has an interesting write-up you might like reading.
Boy, the internet makes living in Japan so much easier to stay up-to-date.
I went weeks between getting news from the US, 1993-1995.
Heck, between April 1995 (when I left NCB) and November 1995 (when my new workplace got the internet) I was rather completely unplugged from any news at all.
And it was glorious.
You should have asked him whether he considers Catholicism a “cult”.
Uhm, I’ve worked with a couple of Mormons from time to time. If I’m not mistaking, the Mormons decided a long time ago to pay taxes. There is this entity called the corporation church. It is a real corporation and it is the Mormon church.
The most amazing thing, is that Christ himself, clearly commands his followers to separate church and state.
This is all fundamental to my understanding of intellegence. If you can’t analytically understand the fundamental importance of separation of church and state, I can’t hardly believe you know how to walk, talk or chew gum.
I suppose it was a mistake on my part, but at the age of 11, I decided to be a catholic because the priest at mass (which I had to attend as a kid – though purely as a form of moral education – it was clear from my parents what religion I chose or practiced was my choice) clearly stated that Christ was telling his followers to separate church from state and that that is what Catholics believed. To me that, if that was true, that was good enough for me. Even at the age of 11, I believed that this was divine wisdom, or conversely, if Christ had said the opposite, I would have gone agnostic forty years sooner.
So to hear an adult unable to see the wisdom of this, a self professed Christian, when Christ himself clearly comes down on the side of the founding father’s, another very wise collection of men, just tells you how frigging stupid these people are. And to think someone so dense would presume to have the arrogance to tell people, many having to be far better than him in cognitive activities, is quite stunning.
If I can figure this out at 11, when I knew nothing, how is it an adult can’t figure this out, let alone one with an advance degree, of any caliber?
You know, if Christ’s wisdom isn’t enough for these people, they might go with the founding fathers. If that’s not enough for them, they might take a look at the long sorry history of state based religion, and state based religion would have probably prevented their brand of religion from ever occurring in the first place. Dolts.
Tim:
LDS has a long history in this regard, including its assets being confiscated by the government more than a century ago, culminating in a SCOTUS decision in the 70’s or so. But from what I understand, the church itself has tax-exempt status today (that being an issue in the gay-marriage proposition in California a bit back), though it also has businesses, some of which do and some of which do not fall under that umbrella.
As for the rest, I think it’s all to well-known a point that most Christians do not follow Christ, just as most Reagan-cherishing Republicans now claim they despise they very things Reagan approved of. It’s a weird state, where one idolizes a person or thing but acts against almost everything they stand for. Is there even a name for that? I am trying hard to think of a non-conservative analogy, but I keep coming back to right-wing paradoxes. People who care about fetuses of poor people but plainly despise them when they are born. Pro-lifers who approve of the death penalty. Small-government types who want bigger military budgets. Die-hard American patriots who want to secede at the drop of a hat. People who hate socialized medicine but love Medicare.
It is almost as if to be a Republican today, you have to be a mass of contradictions–perhaps not as hard as it sounds if you are, as Colbert put it, thinking from your gut. It’s not about the facts (which have a liberal bias), but about what you want. It’s about abolishing cake and eating it, too.
@Luis
Well I think you hit upon the central theme of the Republicans: they are an alignment of resenters and desenters. There was a fork in the road for the country, and the country took, in their mind, the wrong fork. For themn history turned out the wrong way. So they want to set the clock back. That’s why they are resenters. But there’s a reason why the fork taken, was took, so to speak, and given the success the country enjoyed it had more to do with pragmatism.
The Republicans are a collection of wealthy elites who resent the new deal, southerner revisionist who resent the out come of the civil war, racist who resent the out come of the civil rights movement, social conservatives who resent the growth in civil liberties as championed by ACLU, militarist and nationalist who resent the outcome of the civil war. As time goes by, it becomes a pretty sizable group, and because they have wealthy economic elites, they are well funded and won’t go away. They use a moral or some other high principle as a pretext to justify their positions, but it’s just a pretext. Thus you get the right wing paradox.
This view is made simple by looking at Germany in between the wars. For nationalist, the outcome of the first war was wrong. They develope a stabbed in the back mythology to explain the outcome (it wasn’t the nation’s fault). They blamed the outcome on liberals and Jews stabbing the country in the back. They wanted to go back in time to refight it to get the correct out come. When they got their chance at power they did two things. They stabbed back at those they had mythologized as villians, to a horrific extent. They then embarked on refighting the war. In the first they lost in the west and won in the east. In the second,they won in the west and lost in the east. Oops, same outcome, no back stabbing. Nationalist left their nation smoldering in ruins, occupied and divided by their enemies. Though, these days, the world seemed like a better place when there was two Germanies (or three if you count Austria, or four if you count Switzerland).
Trying to reset history was, and is, a huge mistake. Part of the theme of republicans all being idiots, I guess.
Excuse the ramblings…
Perry’s campaign has been running on fumes for a while anyway. Even without the Jeffrees flap, he’s well on his way to being yesterday’s news.
But ‘Mormonism is a cult’ is a far more prevalent mindset than most people realise. You can condemn Jeffrees all you want (for the record, Perry has softly denounced Jeffrees remarks, not that it’ll do him any good), but the ‘faithful’ were spreading the word long before Romney became a national figure. I’m sure many people in his backwater agree with him, and his naivete lay in his miscalculating the media reaction. And this belief is not just prevalent among Republicans. I have a friend who is very left wing, and he’s used that line since the ’08 primaries. He’s also a lapsed Catholic – gay, athiest, etc. – but apparently he’s not THAT lapsed.
The fact is, many Catholics and Evangelicals don’t consider Mormanism is Christianity… period. And the ones who are de-legitimizing Mormonism by calling it a cult have their reasons, an important one being that we can actually trace the complete life history of founder Joseph Smith, who didn’t live far enough into the past for him to take on the aura of a sacred figure. Plus, he does seem like he was a charlatan. But that aside, the fact remains that Mormonism is very unlike the other, longer-established forms of Christianity. They reject the notion of a Holy Trinity; they believe there are multiple Gods as opposed to only one; God is a material being with a human form and made of flesh and bone; there is a Heavenly Mother who is God’s wife; and they study “newly discovered” books that are meant to be addendums to the Bible. To an alien touching down on Planet Earth, these concepts are probably no crazier than the so-called mainstream ideas and practices of various faiths that have been mainstreamed into our culture for far longer than Mormanism. (Frankly, the Holy Trinity never made much sense to me.) But within the context of Christianity, these are radical ideas, and it galls Catholics, fundie Protestants etc. to hear Mormons claim they are Christians when their brand of Christianity bears no resemblance to any of the others. That Mormons are also actively courting and converting Evangelicals doesn’t help matters any.
So, again, it’s not like there are no reasons for this pushback (and please note that I said “reasons”, not “justifications”). And – although Romney is going to be more accepted among the overall electorate than he will with the hard-core Repubs – I’ll wager that most people privately view Mormonism as strange in much the same way mainstream Americans view Sikhs or members of the Falun Gong. They’re human beings, they’re productive members of the society, but they’re still “other”, quote unquote, and therefore weird, maybe even a little intimidating. This is typical sociological prejudice, and I’m sure the Democratic party would rather not have a Mormon candidate if they could help it, not if they want a smooth election victory. They wouldn’t want a Seventh Day Adventist, a Christian Scientist or a Jehovahs Witness, either.
“You should have asked him whether he considers Catholicism a ‘cult’.”
He probably would have said no, and that may very well be what he genuinely believes. But if you asked him two or three generations earlier, I’d guarantee he’d have said yes. Back then, Protestants attitudes and feelings towards Catholics were much like what some Christians feel about Mormons now. It’s the fear and resentment of newness. Give it a few generations, and, as they say in the Scriptures, this too shall pass.