This may turn into a GD but I’m just making an observation.
A story in the Los Angeles Times reports that evangelicals don’t trust Mitt Romney. There aren’t sure he can receive divine guidance. At least not by the God they understand and believe in.
Presumeably GW Bush is guided by God in the evangelicals opinion.
In that case all I can ask is what in hell hath Got wrought?
Look at it this way: If an evangelical truly believes that only a Christian should be President, then a Mormon is further away from the religious beliefs of evangelicals than any standard Protestant, Catholic, or Eastern Orthodox Christian. Indeed, the beliefs of Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Unitarians, or Christian Scientists are no closer to those of standard Protestants, Catholics, or Eastern Orthodox Christians than are the beliefs of Jewish or Moslem believers. The beliefs of Mormans, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Unitarians, or Christian Scientists are only slightly closer to the beliefs of Protestants, Catholics, or Eastern Orthodox believers than are the beliefs of Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Jainist, or Bahai believers.
So at least an evangelical is being consistent if he rejects a Mormon for President as much as a Jew or a Moslem. Please note that I am not making any statement about what beliefs are correct. I am also not making any statement about whether it’s a good thing to reject a political candidate because his religion. I’m saying that someone would be inconsistent if they were to say that they’re going to reject any candidate whose religious beliefs are different from theirs and then say, “Oops, I forgot about candidate X, whose political beliefs are the same as mine but whose religious beliefs are completely different from mine. I’m just going to ignore my own rule. I’m going to vote for candidate X and refuse to answer the question of why I’m voting for someone whose beliefs are completely different from mine.”
I have not real argument with Christians, or anyone else, who selects their political leaders on the basis of religion.
My point is the inanity of still insisting on those leaders being guided by God when a president who claims to be guided by God has blundered as badly as GW BUsh has.
David Simmons writes:
> My point is the inanity of still insisting on those leaders being guided by God
> when a president who claims to be guided by God has blundered as badly as
> GW BUsh has.
I suspect that those evangelicals who stick with Bush despite everything are saying to themselves, “Bush claims to be an evangelical and he uses the language of an evangelical, so he must actually be an evangelical. An evangelical taking his guidance from God can’t make a mistake about what to do in this war. Therefore, Bush’s actions must be right. If they appear not to be right, it’s because someone else is lying to us about the state of the war.” This is obviously a bad argument, but these evangelicals decided beforehand that they support the war, and they have no intentions of being swayed by reasonable arguments. Allowing someone who isn’t a Christian to become President would prevent them from making this bad argument anymore, so they don’t want a non-Christian as President.
I think religious conservatives have genuine cause to worry about the depths of Romney’s commitment to their values. Who’s to say how many complete reversals of his views might lie ahead? It would be annoying for them if they help get him elected and a month after his inauguration he announces that upon further reflection he’s decided that abortions and gay marriages are okay after all.
He looks like Sam on Cheers to me (Ted Danson, I think). I think of him as having the sincerity of Sam trying to get into bed with a woman, with the charm of Sam as well.
IOW, Romney doesn’t have my vote. Oh, say what you want about issues and positions and records–I don’t agree with his, btw, but I can’t get past the Sam Malone similarity. YMMV.
FWIW, I am in no way an evangelical, I just mention this to show that it’s not only envangelicals who have issues with Mit.
I’m pretty sure that Mormons consider themselves Christian. After all it is The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter Day Saints.
Oh yes, but Evangelicals don’t consider Mormons as Christians, which is what Wendell was saying. (Mormons’ beliefs are actually quite far apart from mainstream Christians’ beliefs, but since they recognize the divinity of Christ I think it’s fair to consider them Christians.)
I really would like to know the reasoning behind insisting that a politician be guided by God when the evidence shows, to me at least, that those who claim to be so guided have no better record than others.
Mormons may consider themselves to be Christians, but most Protestants, Catholics, and Eastern Orthodox consider them to be heretical. Here’s a summary of Mormon belief:
Note that they don’t consider Jesus to be God. Jesus is a sort of high-level being just below God. (Or something like that. It’s rather hard to explain just what Mormons think about Jesus.) Also, they consider various other documents besides the Bible to be divinely inspired.
In saying that most Christians consider Mormons to be heretical, I mean most of them who’ve actually thought about the beliefs of Mormons. Of course, a great deal (perhaps a majority) of people who call themselves Christian in the U.S. don’t go to church much and don’t even much understand standard Christian teachings. To them Mormons are just some other slightly oddball Protestant denomination.
This is why Mormons mostly get a pass among Americans Christians with only a superficial knowledge of theology. However, it’s important to know that in the U.S., at least, Mormons tend to vote for conservatives, often quite thoroughly right-wing ones. So now leaders of the religious right find themselves suddenly having to say, in effect, to their followers (some of who are right-wing Christians with a reasonably good knowledge of Christian theology and some of whom are right-wing but only vaguely understand standard Christian theology), “You know those Mormons who live in your community and mostly vote just as conservatively as you do? You know how I’ve been not commenting on their beliefs since their politics are the same as mine? I’ve been quiet about them because I don’t want to irritate fellow conservatives. Well, forget about that. They’re not Christians, so you can’t vote for one of them as President.”
So they apply a religious test for public office.
That’s OK for a private citizen, I guess.
And then again, some evangelicals don’t consider Catholics to be Christian, either (for reasons I have yet to figure out).
Isn’t there something in Mormonism that states that when man dies, he goes to heaven, but when a woman dies, she goes to heaven to serve the men? Or am I completely wrong? (could well be, it’s been years since I thought about LDS).
David Simmons writes:
> So they apply a religious test for public office.
>
> That’s OK for a private citizen, I guess.
I’m just reporting on what they say and do. I’m not agreeing with them. Also, note that they don’t make a big deal about the fact that in certain areas of the U.S. (like Utah), most of the political candidates are Mormon, since most of the voters are Mormon. The leaders of the Christian right don’t even talk about these people most of the time, since they know that to get sufficient support to get right-wing legislation passed in Congress, they have to have Mormons (who, again, are mostly conservative) on their side. This means that they have to be quiet about Mormon representative and senators, but then they have to object when one of them runs for President. So, in effect, what they are saying is that Mormons are theologically wrong and shouldn’t be in power, except when it’s necessary to keep them as allies. Yes, the Christian right is inconsistent.
Yeah, you’re completely wrong. 
am I? Won’t be the first or last time…
I don’t know any Christians who think God is personally guiding George W. Bush’s actions.
I know a lot who thought in 2000 he was the candidate most likely to try to put their political and religious agenda into practice. That seemed a good enough reason to vote for him.
Now? Even conservative evangelicals will probably tell you privately (though not publicly) that he’s proven both utterly incompetent and totally uninterested in their agenda. Harriet Miers was the breaking point for many (given an opportunty to change the balance of the Supreme Court, Bush’s first inclination was not to appoint a conservative but to appoint a pal). Bush’s perceived support for illegal aliens was the breaking point for many others.
Like most people, religious conservatives will circle the wagons and defend Bush when they hear liberals attack him- but you might be surprised at how little repect Bush commands most religious conservatives really commands.
I get the feeling that one of them does, GW himself. So I guess your take is that others think he is wrong when he says he seeks, and finds, God’s guidance. Those quoted in the cite indicated that being guided by God is crucial. If they don’t think GW is so guided, why do they support him?
So why do they defend someone they regard as incompetent? His roughly 30% approval poll numbers are generally thought to include mainly religious conservatives. Considering the total number of them, 30% of the whole pupulation probably includes a majority of all religious conservatives. So privately the condemn GW but they tell poll takers that they approve his actions?
Is their disdain on account of his poor general performance or because they think he hasn’t pushed their agenda like they thought he would?
This is utter horseshit. My mother’s whole family is Mormon, and if you said to them, “I understand you don’t believe Jesus to be God”, they’d laugh you out of the room for an imbecile.
Here’s what the Mormons say about Jesus:
Show me the heretical part, if you would.
Can’t remember where I saw it (may have even been here) but here goes: Mormons are Christian in about the same way that Christians are Jewish.
I believe that the issue comes from the classic concept of the Trinity, with God the Father, Jesus and the Holy Ghost as separate manifestations of a single God, where in Mormonism they are three completely separate individuals.
Recently, Mormonism apparently is stressing more of the “godness” of the other two member, but through the early to mid 80s when I left the church, Jesus was not called a god per se, although he was referred to as the Lord and as the god of the old testament.
We never referred to Jesus as a god, and usually called the Father, “Heavenly Father,” but if a reference was made to “God” then it referred to the Father and not the Son.