A Different God? Mitt Romney, the Religious Right, and the Mormon Question

BYU Studies ^ | Reviewer Roger Terry of author Craig Foster's book

[svcw]

Since you made the claim please give one example of hate towards mormons by Colofornian.

[ari-freedom]

If Romney was a real mormon he wouldn’t be supportive of gay marriage. He wouldn’t be pro-abortion. Even Harry Reid is more pro-life than this guy.

[svcw]

PS: You did get that this particular post is from an lds publication, IE: BYU, right.

[ari-freedom]

Harry Reid told his BYU audience in 2007 when he was speaking to them “I am a Democrat BECAUSE I am a Mormon, not in spite of it.”

Hillary could say the same thing about being a Methodist. Jimmy Carter could say the same thing about being a Southern Baptist. Kennedy and Pelosi could say the same thing about being Catholic. Jerry Nadler could say the same thing about being Jewish. If you want to be a liberal then you will find a way to justify it even if it doesn’t make sense.

[Colofornian]

“The Mormon Question”?? Exactly what the hell is that supposed to mean?? For reference: History of “The Jewish Question”

You're hilarious, Bean Counter.

I only repeated the very headline. Guess where the headline came from, Bean Counter? You think I made it up?

Sorry, this is from BYU Studies...put out by Mormon Brigham Young University. Are you going to get on their case for producing such a headline?

Yes?
Or hypocritically no?

Go back to counting that which you're better at...

[svcw]

Romney is a temple worthy mormon, which means he has been deemed by the lds authorities as a mormon in good standing. (Reid also is temple worthy.)

[Vendome]

Well dangit.

Stole my thundering line.

Dude is looking for his Epstein excuse.

[Colofornian]

Hillary could say the same thing about being a Methodist.

Except would the most prestigious Methodist university provide a big platform to make that claim?

Jimmy Carter could say the same thing about being a Southern Baptist.

Carter was Baptist; I'm not sure he was "Southern" Baptist. Even so: What A#1 Baptist university would have given him such a platform to make such a claim?

Kennedy and Pelosi could say the same thing about being Catholic.

Did Notre Dame invite them to make similar claims?

[Eva]

Romney has already made the move to abandon the conservative Republicans. He is not running the Iowa straw poll and one other early conservative poll. Romney has made statements affirming Romneycare and more recently, global warming. Romney is running as a Massachusetts Republican.

I think that the Republican Party in WA State is setting up to endorse Romney. There are lots of signs, including the fact that he was the key note speaker at our convention last year. Romney said all the right things last year and even cried like Glenn Beck, but this year, he’s already backing off his conservatism.

[Ransomed]

“...voting records show 92% of mormons vote for mormons regardless of their political governance. IE Romney and Reid are only two examples.

What % of LDS voted for Harry Reid or any other LDS dem against a non-LDS republican? 92%?

Freegards

[svcw]

I was wrong about the 92% for Romney it was 94%. I had read that 92% of lds voted for Reid but cannot find that reference, all I am finding today is that a majority of lds voted for Reid.
I’ll keep looking. What was stated in what I just read was that they voted for Reid because he was a mormon.

[FreeMaine]

Bump for later reading. I’m to tired to get into anything this deep tonight.

[Elsie]

Foster presents a good deal of information that most Latter-day Saints will not be well acquainted with, such as the difference between evangelical and fundamentalist Christians, the emergence of the charismatic movement, the rise and fall of the Moral Majority, and the subsequent establishment of the Christian Coalition.

There's a DIFFERENCE?

[Ransomed]

Yeah, I found the Romney thing(that’s bad enough), but holy cow, 92% for Reid would be even worse. I guess its possible but LDS REALLY go for the ‘pubs normally, to my understanding, and 92% is a HUGE number.

Freegards

[Dogbert41]

Romney needs to know the true Jesus. Because if he truely gets to know Him, he’ll repent for supporting teenage girls to be taken out of state without their parents knowldege or permission to get abortions when he was governor of Massachussettes.

That’s asking alot, I know. But clearly, the Mormon god isn’t doing it for him.

[Elsie]

Because official Church curriculum does not address in detail the period from about 1850 until World War II or even later, most Mormons are rather uneducated regarding their political past, particularly the theocratic era that prevailed until the Edmunds–Tucker Act precipitated several changes, including the Manifesto in 1890 and the disbanding of the People’s Party in 1891.

They are pretty ignorant about their THEOLOGICAL past as well.

And HISTORICAL past, too!

[Elsie]

So many things in this world are upside down. I wish we could go back to a time when blacks were republican and mormons were democrats.

The ELECTED ones ARE!!!

[Elsie]

But I also suspect a good many would not have voted for Reagan had he been Mormon.

Isn't SUSPICION wonderful!!

You can say all KINDS of things under it's protective mantra.

[ari-freedom]

"Did Notre Dame invite them to make similar claims? "

You mean like they did with Obama?

[Elsie]

My point was that many freepers REALLY despise Mormonism and Mormons.

And I really don't know why this is; for MORMONs are always so loving and kind to others...

---

Joseph Smith continues: "for the teachers of religion of the different sects understood the same passages of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible" (from 1:12). "What is it that inspires professors of Christianity generally with a hope of salvation? It is that smooth, sophisticated influence of the devil, by which he deceives the whole world" (, p.270).

 

Questions put to Joseph Smith: "'Do you believe the Bible?' [Smith:]'If we do, we are the only people under heaven that does, for there are none of the religious sects of the day that do'. When asked 'Will everybody be damned, but Mormons'? [Smith replied] 'Yes, and a great portion of them, unless they repent, and work righteousness." (, p. 119).

 

Brigham Young stated this repeatedly: "When the light came to me I saw that all the so-called Christian world was grovelling in darkness" ( 5:73); "The Christian world, so-called, are heathens as to the knowledge of the salvation of God" ( 8:171); "With a regard to true theology, a more ignorant people never lived than the present so-called Christian world" ( 8:199); "And who is there that acknowledges [God's] hand? ...You may wander east, west, north, and south, and you cannot find it in any church or government on the earth, except the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" (, vol. 6, p.24); "Should you ask why we differ from other Christians, as they are called, it is simply because they are not Christians as the New Testament defines Christianity" ( 10:230).

 

Orson Pratt proclaimed: "Both Catholics and Protestants are nothing less than the 'whore of Babylon' whom the Lord denounces by the mouth of John the Revelator as having corrupted all the earth by their fornications and wickedness. Any person who shall be so corrupt as to receive a holy ordinance of the Gospel from the ministers of any of these apostate churches will be sent down to hell with them, unless they repent" (, p. 255).

 

Pratt also said: "This great apostasy commenced about the close of the first century of the Christian era, and it has been waxing worse and worse from then until now" (, vol.18, p.44) and: "But as there has been no Christian Church on the earth for a great many centuries past, until the present century, the people have lost sight of the pattern that God has given according to which the Christian Church should be established, and they have denominated a great variety of people Christian Churches, because they profess to be ...But there has been a long apostasy, during which the nations have been cursed with apostate churches in great abundance" (, 18:172).

 

President John Taylor stated: "Christianity...is a perfect pack of nonsense...the devil could not invent a better engine to spread his work than the Christianity of the nineteenth century." (, vol. 6, p.167); "Where shall we look for the true order or authority of God? It cannot be found in any nation of Christendom." (, 10:127).

James Talmage said: "A self-suggesting interpretation of history indicates that there has been a great departure from the way of salvation as laid down by the Savior, a universal apostasy from the Church of Christ". (, p.182).

 

President Joseph Fielding Smith said: "Doctrines were corrupted, authority lost, and a false order of religion took the place of the gospel of Jesus Christ, just as it had been the case in former dispensations, and the people were left in spiritual darkness." (, p.266). "For hundreds of years the world was wrapped in a veil of spiritual darkness, until there was not one fundamental truth belonging to the place of salvation ...Joseph Smith declared that in the year 1820 the Lord revealed to him that all the 'Christian' churches were in error, teaching for commandments the doctrines of men" (, vol. 3, p.282).

 

More recent statements by apostle Bruce McConkie are also very clear: "Apostasy was universal...And this darkness still prevails except among those who have come to a knowledge of the restored gospel" (, vol 3, p.265); "Thus the signs of the times include the prevailing apostate darkness in the sects of Christendom and in the religious world in general" (The Millennial Messiah, p.403); "a perverted Christianity holds sway among the so-called Christians of apostate Christendom" (, p.132); "virtually all the millions of apostate Christendom have abased themselves before the mythical throne of a mythical Christ whom they vainly suppose to be a spirit essence who is incorporeal uncreated, immaterial and three-in-one with the Father and Holy Spirit" (, p.269); "Gnosticism is one of the great pagan philosophies which antedated Christ and the Christian Era and which was later commingled with pure Christianity to form the apostate religion that has prevailed in the world since the early days of that era." (, p.316).

 

President George Q. Cannon said: "After the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized, there were only two churches upon the earth. They were known respectively as the Church of the Lamb of God and Babylon. The various organizations which are called churches throughout Christendom, though differing in their creeds and organizations, have one common origin. They all belong to Babylon" (Gospel Truth, p.324).

 

President Wilford Woodruff stated: "the Gospel of modern Christendom shuts up the Lord, and stops all communication with Him. I want nothing to do with such a Gospel, I would rather prefer the Gospel of the dark ages, so called" (, vol. 2, p.196).