A few days ago I recommended to you Paul Edwards' article about the Reverend Rick Warren's unthinking tilt towards the left. It was a bold, balanced and relevant piece. Today, Edwards shows up in Town Hall with an important column about how Mitt Romney is successfully using the cry of religious bigotry to distract anyone from looking closely at the specfic weirdness of Mormonism. He is doing so, by the way, with the active compliance of many soft-headed conservatives. Here is part of Edwards' fine article:...The teachings of the Mormon Church are aberrant on fronts too numerous to mention. Mitt Romney has declared publicly his allegiance to his Mormon faith without citing one point where he disagrees with his church. Because Hewitt knows that many of the teachings of Mormonism are contrary to orthodoxy, he suggests that, like Kennedy and Giuliani, Romney doesn’t agree with his church on every point, without evidence to support the assertion.
Kennedy and Giuliani are on record on the points they diverge from their Church. Where is Romney on record on the points he disagrees with Mormonism? No such record exists. Until Romney himself denies it, we must assume the man believes the teachings of Joseph Smith in full; for Hugh to suggest otherwise flies in the face observable facts.
It is now becoming apparent that Governor Romney’s strategy for defending against legitimate questions about his Mormon faith is to cry “bigotry.” Governor Huckabee recently asked a writer for the New York Times magazine if Mormons didn’t believe that Jesus and Satan were brothers (a comment, by the way, that Huckabee has since apologized for). When the Associated Press picked up on the initial story, accusations of bigotry germinated in the blogosphere and spread like a virus through media, both old and new. Hugh Hewitt implied that by asking such a question Governor Huckabee might be a closet anti-Semite or an anti-Catholic bigot. But a simple visit to www.lds.org—an official LDS website—will readily show that the answer implied in Governor Huckabee’s question is the answer given by the LDS church! Is the LDS church bigoted against itself?
Every God-fearing American ought to be familiar with the teachings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. A man who holds to those teachings certainly is not disqualified from holding the office of president on that basis alone. But conservative evangelical Christians, who hold to the faith once for all delivered to the saints and who desire to defend that faith, are reasonable to ask themselves what a Mormon in the White House would do to elevate the profile of a false religion that presents itself as a form of Christianity. Dr. Albert Mohler recently wrote:
"As an evangelical Christian theologian, I must clarify that Mormonism is in no way consistent with orthodox Christianity. It borrows Christian themes and texts, but its most basic beliefs directly contradict the central teachings of Christianity.
Mormonism holds that God is an exalted man, with a physical body. Christianity teaches that God is Spirit. Mormonism denies the historic Christian understandings of the Trinity, the person and work of Christ, and the doctrine of salvation. Christianity promises salvation through Christ’s atonement and the sinner’s justification by faith. Mormonism promises deification. Christianity calls for personal faith in Jesus Christ. Mormonism calls for obedience to its own teachings as the path to exaltation. Mormonism replaces belief in the sole authority of the Bible with other writings, including the Book of Mormon. This list is only a brief summary of the vast chasm that separates Christianity from Mormonism. Put simply, Mormonism is not just another form of Christianity. It is a rejection of historic Christianity."
I presume that Hugh Hewitt does not believe Albert Mohler is a bigot. The question for Hugh Hewitt and other Romney defenders is whether it’s helpful for the body politic (or for Romney) to be so quick and so absolute in leveling the charge of bigotry at those who feel obligated to at least clarify their religious convictions before stating their convictions as they relate to the presidential politics of 2008.
