What Is It About Mormonism?

[groovedaddy]

Our post-denominational age should be the perfect time for a Mormon to become president, or at least the Republican nominee. Mormons share nearly all the conservative commitments so beloved of the evangelicals who wield disproportionate influence in primary elections. Mormons also embody, in their efficient organizational style, the managerial competence that the party’s pro-business wing considers attractive. For the last half-century, Mormons have been so committed to the Republican Party that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints once felt the need to clarify that Republican affiliation is not an actual condition of church membership.

Yet the Mormons’ political loyalty is not fully reciprocated by their fellow Republicans. Twenty-nine percent of Republicans told the Harris Poll last year that they probably or definitely would not vote for a Mormon for president. Among evangelicals, some of the discomfort is narrowly religious: Mormon theology is sometimes understood as non-Christian and heretical. Elsewhere, the reasons for the aversion to Mormons are harder to pin down — bigotry can be funny that way — but they are certainly not theological. A majority of Americans have no idea what Mormons believe.

Mormonism’s political problem arises, in large part, from the disconcerting split between its public and private faces. The church’s most inviting public symbols — pairs of clean-cut missionaries in well-pressed white shirts — evoke the wholesome success of an all-American denomination with an idealistic commitment to clean living. Yet at the same time, secret, sacred temple rites and garments call to mind the church’s murky past, including its embrace of polygamy, which has not been the doctrine or practice of the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or LDS, for a century. Mormonism, it seems, is extreme in both respects: in its exaggerated normalcy and its exaggerated oddity. The marriage of these opposites leaves outsiders uncomfortable, wondering what Mormonism really is.

For Mitt Romney, the complex question of anti-Mormon bias boils down to the practical matter of how he can make it go away. Facing a traditional American anti-Catholicism, John F. Kennedy gave a speech during the 1960 presidential campaign declaring his private religion irrelevant to his qualifications for public office. For Romney, a Republican who would risk alienating “values voters” if he denied faith a central role in politics, emphasizing the separation of church and state is not an option. In his own religion speech, he coupled his promise to govern independently of the hierarchy of his own church with a profession of faith: “I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God and the savior of mankind.” Although this formulation is unlikely to satisfy those evangelicals who deny that the LDS church is Christian, Romney presumably calculated that speaking about Jesus Christ in terms that sound consistent with ordinary American Protestantism would reassure voters that there was in the end nothing especially unusual about Mormonism.

Something troubling is afoot here.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/magazine/06mormonism-t.html?th&emc=th

[bpeale]

1. they are a cult

as a FORMER mormon, they are a cult & if you read Pearl of Great Price you will know that.

[YOY]

2. To compare Kennedy to Romney is

to compare the core of Democratic voters to what the Republicans have become.

People who don't give a crap about race, creed, or color and to people who not only obsess over it but thrive on it.

[phantom power]

3. To whom do missionaries "evoke wholesome success?"

The effect is much more like "annoying pod people disturbing my afternoon."

And what is this shock that other people are hostile toward Mormons? This is what religions do. Fight amongst themselves.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

9. Annoying is right

I tried to be polite to some who came to my door, but they wouldn't take no for an answer. And a friend of mine was enticed to join the LDS church because one of the missionaries implied if she did, he'd marry her (he forgot about her entirely once she had joined; she got out of there as fast as she could). Their pushy methods and actions that, to my mind, aren't honorable, have given me a negative view of the organization.

[silverweb]

11. Annoying, persistent, and sneaky.

I used to manage an apartment building, where I had a young couple who were Mormons. After they moved, apparently they didn't let their local keepers know of their whereabouts.

Two young "missionaries" knocked on that apartment door regularly, asking for them and bothering the new tenants, who complained to me. I explained that the people they wanted had moved and the new tenants didn't know them, and they should stop bothering them.

Then they started knocking at my door weekly, insisting that I give them the previous tenants' forwarding information. They tried all kinds of different angles and ruses to persuade me -- completion of church records, property left behind, the possibility that they might need "help" ... even "concern" about their "spiritual welfare." I told them repeatedly I would not release that information and that they were to stop asking.

Then they decided to try converting me. Big mistake! I threatened them with a trespassing and harassment complaint if they didn't permanently bug off. That finally seemed to do the trick.

They were thoroughly irritating and obnoxious and, like you, I have a permanently negative view of the whole organization.

[leftyladyfrommo]

14. I lived inj Salt Lake City for several years. There the missionaries

come in threes.

Anyone can learn about Mormonism. There are lots of sources about the religion. It's not a big secret. I have even seen descriptions of what goes on inside the Temple.

The problem is that most people come from Catholic or Protestant backgrounds and believe me Mormonism is a whole lot different. I think the Evangelicals regard Mormonism as kind of a Satanic cult so they react very negatively. It's not a Satanic cult but it is really way out there.

[napi21]

4. I think the big problem a lot of Christians have with Mormonism is

it's secrecy and because of that, there's a lot of unknowns. Mittens however has more problems than his Mormonism. Most of the Pubs dont trust him. He really has changed his positions on a lot of the things that are important to them. It's becoming more and more obvious to everybody that he is an opportunist that will do or say whatever it takes to win at the time.

[TygrBright]

5. Now THIS is fascinating:

>>The federal government soon criminalized the practice and then in effect outlawed membership in the Mormon Church until it would agree to give up polygamy. The Mormons appealed this persecution to the Supreme Court, which turned them down flat, holding that religious belief was protected by the First Amendment but that religious conduct was not.<<

The implications of this decision are amazing. If belief is protected but practice is not, then there is no Constitutional right to require "prayer times" in public schools-- and no basis for those desiring such concessions of time from an already too-inadequate bank of instructional hours to claim such Constitutional protection.

Nor is there any Constitutional protection for individuals wishing to display religious artifacts on public property (or indeed, any property they do not own, unless the owner gives explicit permission.) Such prohibitions are not an unconstitutional violation of an individual's right to hold any particular religious belief, they are a perfectly constitutional prohibition of religious practice which any property owner may enjoin. And which therefore becomes an obligation of the state as property holder, in respect of the Establishment clause.

Does any legal scholar here on DU know which specific decision this was, and whether it was superseded or reversed by any subsequent decisions?

intriguedly,
Bright

[cosmik debris]

6. There is a Constitutional principle:

The Constitution was not intended, nor can it be used to protect behavior that endangers the public welfare.

When applied to free speech, that means you can't incite riots.

When applied to free exercise of religion, that means that the courts get to decide what practices endanger the public. In other words, they take it on a case by case basis. The Navajo sued for the right to use Peyote. I believe they won. The Santeria followers sued for the right to perform animal sacrifice etc. and got a compromise.

I'm not sure what the status of the Mormon Church is, but I'm also interested.

[Jim__]

7. I think the decision was Reynolds v US

It contains:

In our opinion, the statute immediately under consideration is within the legislative power of Congress. It is constitutional and valid as prescribing a rule of action for all those residing in the Territories, and in places over which the United States have exclusive control. This being so, the only question which remains is, whether those who make polygamy a part of their religion are excepted from the operation of the statute. If they are, then those who do not make polygamy a part of their religious belief may be found guilty and punished, while those who do, must be acquitted and go free. This would be introducing a new element into criminal law. Laws are made for the government of actions, and while they cannot interfere with mere religious belief and opinions, they may with practices. Suppose one believed that human sacrifices were a necessary part of religious worship, would it be seriously contended that the civil government under which he lived could not interfere to prevent a sacrifice? Or if a wife religiously believed it was her duty to burn herself upon the funeral pile of her dead husband, would it be beyond the power of the civil government to prevent her carrying her belief into practice?

Some history on first amendment and religion can be found here

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

8. I've had run-ins with Mormons over genealogy

One posted information on living relatives online, indicating that they had baptized them into the Mormon faith. For those who don't know, genealogists refrain from posting information on living people because of privacy; and the LDS Church is not supposed to baptize living people in absentia against their will. Of course, the person who did this could not be contacted, and when I complained to the LDS Church, they merely said, "Hey, we didn't do it." No statement from them that this was against church policy AND no help in finding out how to get hold of the temple where the baptisms were performed (the temple was listed).

Mormons have gotten bad press from Jews, who were angered when the church baptized Holocaust victims wholesale.

I try to avoid the LDS genealogical site for another reason; much of their listed family trees aren't backed up with any documentation. I know for a fact that they have wrong information on some of my ancestors.

[phantom power]

10. Another problem for Mormonism -- it's in its adolescence.

That socially-awkward stage between cult and respectable religion. They've grown big enough to get everybody's attention, but they're still young enough that a lot of people feel free to observe that they're batshit crazy.

If they survive another couple hundred years, then they'll acquire that coveted veneer or respectability enjoyed by all "established" religions.

[fishwax]

12. the article condemns so-called "soft bigotry" against mormons, while glossing over the bigotry of

the church itself--of course, the church's traditional attitude towards African-Americans and Civil Rights wouldn't explain the distrust many republicans have of them, but even so ...

[Popol Vuh]

13. The Lost Book of Abraham

This video may illustrate a big reason why Mormons are not taken seriously by other Christian denominations. I myself view all the Abraham religions as I view the Easter Bunny or Fairy God Mother stories.. Sorry, but that's just the way I see it after researching the subject.

Anyway, this video should illustrate a large part of Mormonism foundation.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6418671664626483056