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News & ArtsMonday, January 30, 2012
2012 / Religion Mitt's Mormonism Creeps Back into the Spotlight
Posted by Paul Constant on Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 11:25 AM
It's that time of the election cycle again: Salon digs back into the White Horse Prophecy, an alleged belief among Church of Latter-Day Saints elders that the presidency would one day belong to a Mormon.
Romney avoids mentioning it, but [Mormon Church founder Joseph] Smith ran for president in 1844 as an independent commander in chief of an “army of God” advocating the overthrow of the U.S. government in favor of a Mormon-ruled theocracy. Challenging Democrat James Polk and Whig Henry Clay, Smith prophesied that if the U.S. Congress did not accede to his demands that “they shall be broken up as a government and God shall damn them.” Smith viewed capturing the presidency as part of the mission of the church. He had predicted the emergence of “the one Mighty and Strong” — a leader who would “set in order the house of God” — and became the first of many prominent Mormon men to claim the mantle.
Smith’s insertion of religion into politics and his call for a “theodemocracy where God and people hold the power to conduct the affairs of men in righteous matters” created a sensation and drew hostility from the outside world. But his candidacy was cut short when he was shot to death by an anti-Mormon vigilante mob. Out of Smith’s national political ambitions grew what would become known in Mormon circles as the “White Horse Prophecy” — a belief ingrained in Mormon culture and passed down through generations by church leaders that the day would come when the U.S. Constitution would “hang like a thread as fine as a silk fiber” and the Mormon priesthood would save it.
Romney is the product of this culture. At BYU, he was idolized by fellow students and referred to, only half jokingly, as the “One Mighty and Strong.” He was the “alpha male” in the rarefied Cougar pack, according to Michael D. Moody, a BYU classmate and fellow member of the group.
Romney scoffed at the White Horse prophecy back in 2008. I'm willing to bet he won't even address the question this time around, as he seems to be saying the matter has been settled. But now, as Romney settles back into frontrunner status, the Mormon stories are gaining more traction, including this Gawker story about how the Romneys converted Ann Romney's atheist father to Mormonism after he died. Can the magic underpants story be far behind?
The reality is everybody hated them because they were a bunch of assholes, 10,000x worse than even Scientologists are today, and they got chased across the country (from New York to Pennsylvania to Ohio to Illinois to Iowa to Missouri,.. ) until they finally ended up in the desert where nobody bothered to chase them off.
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By Chris Lehmann
Harper's Magazine, Oct. 2011, pp. 33-41 (subscription only, but probably available at your local library)
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"Romney avoids mentioning it, but Smith ran for president in 1844 as an independent commander in chief of an army of God advocating the overthrow of the U.S. government in favor of a Mormon-ruled theocracy."
I can see why they are touchy about anything being discussed, then. That will play very poorly in all of America that isn't Utah.
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Poof! All dead Mormons are now Juggalos. I have decreed it thus.
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Would it be possible to create a self-sustaining postmortem conversion loop? The energy generated would solve so many of the world's problems.
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"Do not be discouraged by your repeated failures to get into the Union as a State. We shall succeed, we shall pull the wool over the eyes of the American people and make them swallow Mormonism, polygamy and all.
We shall drop the old issue between the Mormons and the Liberals in Utah, ally ourselves with the two great national parties, dividing ourselves about equally, so as to fall in with the one in power. We don't know and we don't care about the issue. We must be at peace with them in order to get into the Union. After that we can snap our fingers in their faces, restore the good old times when we dwelt undisturbed in these valleys of the mountains, and cast out devils as we used to do." Brigham Young said in a sermon delivered in the Salt Lake Tabernacle, July 12, 1875.
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'having a disdain for organized religion'≠atheist
moron
they perform ordinances on their behalf.
words have meaning, retard.
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However, just like a part of me liked showing "liberal" Europe up by electing a black man whose father was from East Africa there is a part of me who is proud of the fact in the USA someone can be a member of a religion less than 4% of the country adheres to and still achieve the highest office of the land.
I'm atheist, I'm gay, I'm to the left of President Obama, but Romney's Mormonism can't really bother me more than any other candidate's religion...if anything I think there is a bit of uniquely American success story in the history of that Church in the USA.
And I'm all for intelligent and rational discussion and debate on theological issues or political issues or whatnot. But what I am puzzled about is while you may have issues with Mormon theology, and church involvement in politics -- why do you have to degrade it by making fun and mocking the things folks hold sacred when you disagree with them. I'm an excommunicated Mormon, I have no love for the church nor its theology, but I recognize that a lot of people do and they are entitled to their beliefs and they deserve, as human beings to have those beliefs respected while you disagree with them.
Case in point -- why is it OK to refer to Mormon Temple Garments as "Magic Underpants"? You wouldn't dare call a Jewish persons yarmulke as a "magic beanie" or a Sikh's turban as a "head towel"..so why is it OK to mock Mormon's in that way?
Just wanna know...
Jews and Sikhs are treated with more sensitivity than Christians because they have long histories of being the victims of hate crimes. When was the last time someone was killed or beaten in this country simply for being Mormon?
People are entitled to believe what they want, but they are not entitled to have their beliefs respected, especially if those beliefs make no sense. You probably wouldn't respect the beliefs of someone who believes that Freemasons control the world, or that aliens are beaming commands into their head, because those beliefs have zero credible evidence to support them and plenty of evidence to contradict them. We don't respect religion for the exact same reason.
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