How Mormon Doctrine Shapes Romney’s World View

Cosmic Pyramid Schemes

by KIRK ROBINSON

As Mormon missionaries in the 1960s, Mitt Romney and I were required to present six “discussions” to “investigators” before baptizing them – he in France and I in northern California. Central to those discussions was the “Plan of Salvation” (POS); and central to it, the “Doctrine of Eternal Progression.” These doctrines are also the essence of the Mormon temple “endowment ceremony” in which covenants of allegiance to God and the Church are made, accompanied by oaths of secrecy.

The doctrines are unique to Mormonism and absolutely central to it. There is no way that Mitt Romney’s view of the world cannot have been shaped by them, especially given the rather cloistered life he has lived. Together with passages of Mormon scripture, they imply several disturbingly retrograde political views that define the Republican-Tea Party:

• Women are subordinate to men.
• People of color are, or were, morally underdeveloped compared to white people.
• Gays cannot become gods, i.e., will be damned.
• The correct political philosophy is libertarianism.
• The best form of government fosters free-market capitalism with minimal regulatory oversight of business and industry.
• Earth is only a temporary home to be used as a stepping stone, not necessarily to be preserved or conserved.
• War in the Middle East is inevitable as part of God’s plan for “the last days.”
• Lying for the cause of righteousness, such as winning the election, is morally acceptable.

The Plan of Salvation

This takes us back to before the creation of Earth, when we were spirit beings living in a “spirit world.” We were created out of “spirit matter” through a process of conception, gestation and birth involving a heavenly father (God) and mother on the planet Kolob. The firstborn spirit of our heavenly parents was Jesus, the second was Satan, and other notables included early Mormon leaders Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. They were especially “righteous” beings who were “fore-ordained” to play important roles in the historical unfolding of Mormon eschatology.

God eventually decided there were enough spirit children and it was time to start sending them away to college (my metaphor). So He created Earth and its myriad creatures for the college campus and solicited plans for a curriculum, graduation requirements, and future career tracks. Jesus and Satan each submitted a plan.

Jesus’s Plan

According to Jesus’s plan, the spirits who would decide to go to Earth would receive a mortal body, suffer and die, then be resurrected in a perfect union of spirit and body that would never suffer or die. A “veil of ignorance” would be placed across their minds so that they would not remember their pre-existence, and God’s commandments would be revealed to them through prophets. Importantly, they would have “free agency” to choose to obey them or not and would be responsible for their choices and actions.

Eternal Progression

All spirits who agreed to go along with Jesus’s plan will eventually receive resurrection as a graduation diploma and will be exalted to a level of glory commensurate with their earthly grades. The most righteous ones will receive the highest degree of eternal glory: the Celestial Kingdom. Others will go to the Terrestrial (middle) Kingdom or to the Telestial (lower) Kingdom. Each of these kingdoms is better than mortal existence, which is better than the spirit pre-existence. The three estates and the three kingdoms of glory represent a continuum of moral and material progress: an increase in righteousness leads to an increase in mastery and dominion over creation.

Satan’s Plan

Satan had a different plan. He knew that many spirits would be unable to resist temptations. He empathized with them and thought a much more compassionate plan would be to “force” them to live God’s commandments, so they could go to the Celestial Kingdom. The catch here is that they would have to be deprived of their free agency through dictatorial force. And this would be very bad because then they would not earn, and would therefore not merit, their eternal rewards.

There was another important difference between the two plans. Jesus told God that even though he would suffer for the sins of the world, he would give all glory for the salvation of mankind to God; while Satan said that since he devised the plan and would be doing all the work to ensure salvation for mankind, he would accept the glory for himself – and he wouldn’t have to suffer for people’s sins either, because they wouldn’t be allowed to sin.

War in Heaven

A “Council in Heaven” was held in which Jesus and Satan each pitched his plan. God liked Jesus’s plan best and gave the spirits an ultimatum, which was essentially this: “Follow Jesus or follow Satan of your own free agency. But if you follow Satan, you will be barred from eternal progression.” This fomented a “War in Heaven” in which one third of the spirits took sides with Satan and rejected Jesus’s plan, apparently out of sheer orneriness for they had nothing to gain thereby; and so they, along with Satan, were banished from the divine presence for all eternity.

The rest of us were eventually born into mortal bodies on Earth (with an untold number still waiting to be born), while Satan and his minions now occupy a kind of shadow Earth where they are constantly scheming and working to thwart Jesus’s plan.

The Status of Women

There was a rank order among all the spirits with respect to their degrees of righteousness. Jesus was the highest ranking spirit. Satan was second until his “fall.” The Biblical patriarchs and prophets were high achievers too, and so were “fore-ordained” to play a big role in the unfolding of the divine plan here on Earth. The rest of us were less stellar.

Because of the natural ranking of the spirits, there will be a roughly corresponding ranking among them as mortal beings too. Eternal progression can be compared to a foot race in which the starting points in the pre-existence were staggered according to the degrees of righteousness of the spirits, with the most righteous ones having a head start. Because of their superiority, they will tend to pull further ahead on Earth. The most righteous of all will naturally be great leaders and empire builders and the like. But for some inexplicable reason, the spiritual leaders will all be males. Women cannot hold the priesthood or become prophets in the Mormon Church, and they enjoy no ultimate decision-making authority. Their primary job is to serve men, which above all means homemaking, child bearing, and child rearing.

The Status of Blacks and American Indians

The more inferior spirits on Earth start at the back of the pack and tend to fall behind even while progressing. They are the descendants of Cain (Negroes) (here the race analogy tends to break down – pun intended) and the descendants of rebellious Laman and Lemuel in the Book of Mormon (Native Americans). God “marked” or “cursed” them with a dark skin to distinguish them. But because they have their free agency, through extra diligence they might eventually overcome their poor starts to join God’s elite. A 1978 “revelation” to then-Mormon prophet Spencer W. Kimball allowed blacks to hold the Mormon priesthood for the first time, presumably because they had then progressed sufficiently. There was once a passage in the Book of Mormon (it has been excised) that said the descendants of Laman and Lemuel would one day become “white and delightsome.”

Polygamy and the Status of Gays

The people who earn the best grades on Earth will get the best jobs upon graduation from Earth. They will be the most god-like beings and accordingly will receive Celestial glory. They will become gods, endlessly creating and ruling over their own cosmic empires. Also, despite the Mormon Church’s official repudiation of polygamy, which was a precondition for Utah statehood, it is still generally accepted that achieving godhood will require the institution of polygamy in the Hereafter, with husbands being “sealed” to multiple wives. Needless to say, gay people won’t participate in this, so they can’t become gods; which is to say that they will be damned in the sense of not continuing to progress for eternity.

Cosmic Pyramid Schemes

 It is a kind of axiom of Mormon doctrine that to be righteous is to follow “correct principles” that tend to produce successful and happy lives, conceived in both spiritual and material terms. Achieving godhood status is believed to be the highest possible source of happiness and joy. And presumably this grand POS will be repeated over and over for eternity, with new gods creating new worlds ad infinitum in a cosmic pyramid scheme. (This may go some distance in explaining why Utah is plagued to an unusual degree with earthly pyramid schemes in which trusting Mormons are bilked out of their life savings by trusted Mormons.)

The Status of Earth

 From the point of view of the POS, Earth and its myriad creatures exist primarily for the benefit of mankind, and thereby to glorify God. They are like a pair of shoes: It is prudent to take good care of your shoes, but their primary purpose is to help you get where you want to go, in the course of which wear and tear will be unavoidable. So don’t worry too much about global climate change or species extinctions. Yikes!

Free Agency vs. Compassion, Brotherly Love, and Cooperation

The POS illustrates the relative importance of two Mormon moral ideals: free agency, which entails taking responsibility for one’s choices and actions; and compassion, brotherly love, and cooperation, which require helping those in need. Each is in its own way commendable, but combining them in a way that is responsive to real circumstances can be challenging: Concerning people ostensibly in need, when is compassion the right response and when is demanding that they take responsibility for themselves the right response?

Of the two, free agency is in an important way more fundamental than compassion, as shown by the fact that God preferred a plan that emphasized the one over the other. It is more important than doing good deeds because only good that is done freely merits moral approbation and reward. Free agency is therefore a necessary condition for individual moral progress – and ultimately also for material progress as represented by gods creating worlds and exercising dominion over them. So far, so good, but . . .

The Right Form of Government and Economic System

The POS pretty clearly supports a libertarian political philosophy, including free market capitalism with minimal regulatory oversight of business and industry. Anything less would necessitate a sacrifice of free agency.

In this connection, it is interesting that in the early days of Mormons in Utah, Brigham Young attempted to establish a very pure socialistic system, the “United Order,” that would have made Karl Marx envious. In doing so, he was clearly giving precedence to compassion, brotherly love, and cooperation over competition. Why? One can presumably imagine a morally perfect being, such as Jesus, who always chooses and does what is right without being forced to; and Brigham Young thought the Saints ought to give it a try. Unfortunately, the experiment failed. Too many of the Saints gave in to avarice when they saw a chance to make money selling stuff to overland travelers. And they weren’t anxious to share their lucre either.

The Best of  All Possible Worlds? 

In Mormon terms, the best of all possible worlds will be one in which all people freely live God’s commandments. If compassion is called for, like the “good Samaritan” they will show compassion even at the expense of personal inconvenience. And they will share their talents and possessions freely to advance the greater good – as was supposed to happen with the United Order experiment. However, real people and the real world being what they are, an astonishing amount of human suffering goes unalleviated – suffering that might be prevented or relieved to a considerable extent through the institution of government programs designed to promote the general welfare, e.g., Social Security and universal health care. Yet paradoxically, given the ethical primacy of respect for free agency over the duty of compassion, from the point of view of the POS such a world must be reckoned morally inferior to one in which there is more human suffering, perhaps much more, but less state coercion. This fact doesn’t fit comfortably with Jesus’s message of love and compassion in the New Testament. Ouch!

Mormon Exceptionalism

A person who has been indoctrinated with Mormon dogma, especially if he is also a male born into a privileged social and economic position, is physically attractive, intelligent, and charismatic, might easily come to believe that he is one of the fore-ordained or “chosen ones” of God who will play a critical role in the events of the last days, including perhaps saving the United States Constitution when it is “hanging by a thread,” as predicted in the uncanonized “White Horse Prophecy” that was reputedly delivered by the Mormon Church’s founder Joseph Smith in 1843. It is known that Mitt Romney had such delusions of grandeur when he was younger. Does he still?

Sinning for the Lord

Because Mormon eschatology views human history, from the War in Heaven through Armageddon, as a continuing war between the two great forces of good and evil , sinning for the Lord” might at times be a moral necessity. Indeed, in the opening pages of the Book of Mormon, the most prominent hero of the book, a revered Mormon prophet named Nephi, murdered a man named Laban in order to steal a genealogical record of his people to take with his family to the Americas. This act was ethically justified as follows: “And it came to pass that the Spirit said unto me again: Slay him, for the Lord hath delivered him into thy hands; Behold the Lord slayeth the wicked to bring forth his righteous purposes. It is better that one man should perish than a nation should dwindle and perish in unbelief.” (1 Nephi 4:12-13) (One can’t help but think of Romney’s shameless shape-shifting and etch-a-sketching.)

Armageddon

According to Mormon eschatology, we are now in the “last days” of our earthly estate, which explains the official name of the Mormon Church: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Surely Armageddon is not far off, when the forces of righteousness will permanently conquer and subdue the forces of evil. This will usher in a millennium of peace in which Jesus will return to Earth to rule, assisted by the most worthy of God’s children, a good many of whom will of course be Mormons. These elite will include men who are leaders of men and empire builders the likes of Mitt Romney. They will also be members of the “House of Israel,” which consists both of the descendants of the Biblical patriarch Jacob and people who are “adopted” into the House of Israel by being baptized Mormons. From the Mormon perspective, this implies a special affinity between Mormons and Jews that is reinforced by a common history of persecution. It’s an obvious step from this to the conclusion that ineluctable Armageddon will involve a war between the righteous nation of Israel and its supporters on the one side, and its enemies on the other. As things presently stand, we are talking here about a war to end all wars between Israel and Iran and their respective allies. Just what we don’t need!

Tipping point

Our nation has reached a point of extreme political and moral polarization, with the Republican-Tea Party on one side and the Democrat Party on the other, each vying for command of our future. One can say, accurately enough, that the one side fervently embraces the propositions listed at the beginning of this essay, while the other side vehemently rejects them. It is to be expected, therefore, that the views of the respective presidential nominees reflect this same stark opposition. While it is hardly likely that the upcoming election will resolve this clash of values for once and for all, all the indications are that it will mark a singular, momentous, and irreversible turning point in our nation’s history.

Mitt Romney reveals a bit too much about his Mormon faith

The more people who see this, the bigger the bullet to the head of Romney's campaign. He has been actively denying some of the things he says he believes in on this video.  It's very damning in that it's more proof that Romney WILL say ANYTHING to get elected. Even the major players of the GOP can't stand him--one of the FOX News spinners even says Romney seems like he was built in a lab by German scientists. Even though there are stacks of proof (like the following videos) showing him outright LYING, he still denies it, over and over. Is he being told to do that? Or is it his own idea to just deny everything he says if it contradicts what he's saying today? In one case, he says the opposite of what he had just said 2 minutes prior. It's unreal that this is all the Republicans could come up with. It's a joke!

A Not-So-Simple, Pretty Funny Question for the 73% of White Evangelicals Who Will Apparently Be Voting for Romney

A question that deserves an answer before election day.

October 31, 2012  |  

 

According to polls 73 percent of WHITE evangelicals will be voting for Mitt Romney.

If the polls are correct here’s the question I'd like to ask evangelicals using their own style of language/concerns/theological thinking as applied to their choice:

What’s the explanation for the fact that white American Evangelicals made the allegedly philandering lying ignorant braggart, lapsed Roman Catholic, Dinesh D'Souza,
their anti-Obama hero, but are embracing a pro-choice Mormon bishop who promoted abortion and Planned Parenthood in MA, and are working to elect that same  job-destroying tax-avoiding lying flip-flopping-tell-anyone-anything-they-want-to-hear Swiss bank account collecting draft dodger running with a disciple of the God-hating, Jesus-mocking hater-of-the-poor Ayn Rand, for their presidential candidate and look the other way as a crazed ultra-Zionist many Israeli Jews fear billionaire casino owner who is being investigated for allegedly making billions off the dirtiest Chinese gambling Communist Party-controlled outfit in the world funds the enterprise, at the very same time as Franklin Graham sold his ailing father Billy’s soul and denied core evangelical theology by taking Mormonism off the Billy Graham organization’s list of cults in order to help the Mormon pagan-ritual-performing, Trinity-denying, casino-money-grubbing billionaire-coddling, earth-destroying global-warming denying Mormon bishop win respectability for his dead-Jews-baptizing-polygamy-rooted-reality-denying-interplanetary Masonic lodge-embracing faith in an election against Obama, who is none of those things?

Go figure.

Why Romney’s Mormonism Matters

Secrecy, Deception and Bigotry
by RENATO WARDLE

It came as no surprise that Mitt Romney secured the GOP nomination for the 2012 elections. The current Republican Party is dominated by right-wing extremists hell-bent on galvanizing the United States into a militant Christian hegemony. Because of this fanatical atmosphere, it is completely natural that a Mormon would not only be running for president, but would also win the GOP nomination.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (aka the Mormons), with its history of religious severity, appears to be a perfect fit for the über-orthodoxy of the Tea Party-controlled GOP. Despite misgivings that many non-Mormon Republicans may have (most Christian groups don’t consider the Mormons to be Christians), the history and doctrine of the Mormon faith seem to go hand in hand with the kind of derelict bigotry and racism that the current GOP espouses.

Mitt Romney is a lifetime member of the Mormon Church, with deep roots that stretch back to the earliest days of Mormonism. Romney’s great grandfather practiced polygamy in Mexico in Colonia Juarez, Chihuahua, where many Mormon polygamists fled to evade the Edmunds Act of 1882. Romney has served in leadership positions in the church throughout his life, including being a bishop (the pastor of a church) as well as spending 30 months proselytizing in France as missionary from 1966-1969. These are all well-known facts that can be found through a variety sources, as well as from statements made by Romney himself. However, many facets of his involvement with the notoriously enigmatic sect remain completely unknown not only to most Americans but to many Mormons as well.

Mormonism has an extensive history of secretiveness, deception, and malfeasance. The clandestine nature of this religion is as prevalent as ever, as much with its extra-religious business affairs, as with its secretive religious practices. The Mormons have two distinctly different buildings that they use in the observance of their religious practices, namely, chapels and temples. Chapels are open to all members of the congregation plus visitors, and are the location of normal Sunday services such as “sacrament meeting” (Sunday mass) as well as Sunday school. Temples are only open to those members who adhere completely to the strict standards of Mormonism, including unwavering loyalty to the president of the church, regular church attendance, and, of course, paying full tithes (10 per cent of gross income, as well as monthly donations known as “fast offerings”).

Within the temples, various liturgies known as “temple ordinances” are carried out. These rites derive from Masonic rituals (Mormon founder Joseph Smith was a Mason) and include “baptism for the dead,” the so-called endowment (for living and dead), and “temple sealings” (temple marriages for living and dead). The level of secretiveness surrounding the temples is extraordinary, so much so that members of the Mormon Church who have not been to the temple have virtually no idea as to what they entail. Several details regarding these ordinances not only make Mitt Romney incapable of upholding the First Amendment, but also call into question where his true allegiances really are.

Before Mormons are allowed to enter a temple (there are well over 130 temples in operation today, and more being built), they must be interviewed by two separate tiers of ecclesiastical leadership to determine their worthiness to enter these edifices. These temple recommend interviews are the first issue of concern regarding Mitt Romney. Among the various questions asked of a member, one particular question goes as follows: “Do you support, affiliate with, or agree with any group or individual whose teachings or practices are contrary to or oppose those accepted by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?” The very nature of this question, coupled with several others regarding complete obedience to the president of the church (or “prophet”), put into question the overall allegiance of Mitt Romney (and, indeed, all Mormons).

If members are found to be in violation of this question (or any other from the list of questions), they will not be allowed to enter the temple. Being blocked from entering the temple is tantamount to being blocked from Heaven, albeit temporarily (they can always repent). The divisive nature of that particular question, coupled with its inherent ambiguity, provides the ecclesiastical leaders with carte blanche to blackmail members into complete obedience. The church leadership has proven to be quite draconian in the enforcement of member fealty (just put this question to Mormons in California relative to Prop 8).

Among the various ordinances performed in the temples, none are more divisive than the Law of Consecration. This rite requires members to pledge all their time, money, and abilities to the establishment of the kingdom of heaven on earth (the Mormon kingdom). Couple this with the demand to sustain the president of the church as the only prophet seer and revelator on earth and a particularly troubling form of absolute obedience emerges. Mormons are devoted to their faith on an extraordinary level. Shackled with the spiritual tyranny espoused by the Mormon faith, members literally must do what they are told by the prophet, and dissent only results in excommunication.

Another interesting facet of Mormonism that has seen some light recently is the White Horse Prophecy. The basis of this prophecy comes from a diary entry made by John Roberts who related that Joseph Smith had prophesied in 1840 regarding the uncertain future of the United States and that, at a certain point, the Constitution would “hang by a thread” and the leaders of the LDS Church would come forth to protect and restore the Constitution. Despite the continued controversy regarding the authenticity of this account, the White Horse Prophecy has been embraced by Mormon culture. Mitt Romney has denied that it is part of his own beliefs, despite his father’s own stance on the subject (he felt that Mormons would, in fact, save the Constitution). Glenn Beck has referred to this in his own crazed rants over and over. The White Horse prophecy is embedded into the very fabric of Mormonism.

Mitt Romney has said that he feels that voters do not need be concerned as to where he goes to church on Sunday. This is an incredible statement, given the secretive nature of Mormonism. With this secretiveness, it is impossible for voters to recognize the deception inherent in Romney’s statement. Voters may not be concerned if the church in question doesn’t demand absolute fealty, or employ various coercive means to control its members, or even place loyalty to the leaders of that church above allegiance to the United States. Unfortunately for Romney and for the U.S. Constitution, if he becomes the president, the Mormon faith is all those things and more.

Mormonism Seems Like a Cult to These Agnostic Eyes...

 Taking a look at the cult of Mormonism. Since religion has no place in government, it stands to reason that religious extremism to the point of cult status is a no-brainer as something not to stir into the melting pot of government policy. Religion takes rationality and discards it in favor of the irrational, mythical and ridiculous. Cults, even moreso...

(culled from several different sources, mainly Wikipedia, whose Mormon entries are surprisingly pro-Mormon)

Mormon Magic Underwear

the garment "when properly worn...provides protection against temptation and evil"

Mormons once declared war on the United States of America.

Mormon scripture teaches that this earth is just one of many inhabited worlds, and that there are many governing heavenly bodies, including a planet or star Kolob which is said to be nearest the throne of God. According to something called the King Follett discourse, the Supreme Being, the Father--God, himself, once passed through mortality like Jesus did, but how, when, or where that took place is unclear. Mormons are taught that God was once a mortal man who has completed the process of becoming an exalted being. The prevailing view among Mormons is that God once lived as a mortal on a planet with his own higher god. The goal of each adherent is to achieve "exaltation," and, as a result, they inherit all the attributes of God, including godhood. Mormons believe that they will become gods and goddesses in the afterlife, and will have "all power, glory, dominion, and knowledge".  It is a belief system that says Jesus is the spirit brother of Lucifer.


In Mormonism, an ordinance is a religious ritual of special significance, often involving the formation of a covenant with God. Ordinances are performed by the authority of the priesthood and in the name of Jesus Christ. The term has a meaning roughly similar to that of the term "sacrament" in other Christian denominations. Because Mormons believe that everyone must receive certain ordinances to be saved, Mormons perform ordinances on behalf of deceased persons.  These ordinances are performed vicariously or by "proxy" on behalf of the dead. Mormons believe that the deceased may accept or reject the offered ordinance in the spirit world. Ordinances on behalf of the dead are performed only when a deceased person's genealogical information has been submitted to a temple. Only saving ordinances are performed on behalf of deceased persons. a living person, acting as proxy, is baptized by immersion on behalf of a deceased person. After giving a short prayer that includes the name of the deceased individual, the proxy is immersed briefly in the water, then brought up again. Baptism for the dead is a distinctive ordinance of the church and is based on the belief that baptism is a required ordinance for entry into the Kingdom of God.

Fundamentalists within the Mormon tradition see religious authority as inerrant and unchanging, but tend to locate this authority within their view of "Priesthood", which is conceived of as more of a charismatic authority and often physical lineage than an external organization. In this view, ordination lineage becomes all-important and an external organization such as a church may "lose" its theological authority while the "priesthood" (conceived in this abstract and individualistic sense) may continue via an alternative lineage. Mormon fundamentalists frequently assert that priesthood is prior to the Church.

Mormon prophets declared that anything written outside church documents was suspect and anti-Mormon, fabricated for the sole purpose of destroying faith. (and hard evidence toward proving Mormonism is a cult--jef)

In addition to baptizing dead people, wearing magic underwear and the belief they will become gods, themselves when they die, Mormon fundamentalists believe in:

• plural marriage (polygamy)
• the law of consecration also known as the United Order
• the "Adam is God" teachings taught by Brigham Young and early Mormon leaders
• the principle of blood atonement
• the exclusion of black men from the priesthood
• the belief that missionaries should teach "without purse or scrip"

According to mainstream Mormons, the Seven Deadly Heresies, which are doctrine, it is heresy to believe the following:

1. God is progressing in knowledge and is learning new truths.
2. Church members can harmonize evolution and doctrine.
3. Temple marriage assures us of an eventual exaltation.
4. The doctrine of salvation for the dead offers men a second chance for salvation.
5. There is progression from one kingdom to another in the eternal worlds.
6. Adam is our father and our god, … he is the father of our spirits and our bodies, and … he is the one we worship. (which is counter to what fundamentalists believe)
7. We must be perfect to gain salvation.

There are many sites making valid claims that Joseph Smith was a scam artist who translated the Book of Mormon while looking at a stone inside of a hat. And that the Book of Mormon is a complete fraud or hoax. And there are plenty of stories of an accelerating exodus from the Mormon church.

Clues that your Mormon religion might just be a cult:

1. Teaching that the doctrine of the Mormon Church is reality, the doctrine is to be accepted, not understood. 
2. Reality is black and white, good and evil, spiritual world versus physical word. As an example, the Mormon Church cult is the only true church on the face of the earth. 
3. Mormon Church members are taught to feel part of an elite corps. Following and accepting church doctrine insures members eternal life and a delightful life in heaven. 
4. The Mormon Church promotes a sense of community with love and friendship, with special flattery and attention to new members 
5. Mormon Church members are manipulated through fear and guilt, fear that if they don’t practice church doctrine faithfully, that they will fail to reach the highest levels of heaven, fear that if they don’t wear their garments, that they will not be protected by God. 
6. Mormon Church members are taught that any problems that they may have are due to their own inadequacies. If they are having marital, financial or other difficult problems, it is because they are not following church doctrine, or are not praying enough. Guilt, fear and shame are present in the minds of Mormons, if they are not loyal, and fail to follow the church doctrine. 
7. Unlike non-cult organizations, Mormon Church members find it difficult to leave, when they find out that church teachings are false, or otherwise become disenchanted with the church. Terrible things may happen to them, and their family if they leave. Those who do leave, often lose their family, friends and other social contacts within the Mormon community.

 ++++++++

While I'm out on pretty much all of mankind's attempts at defining "God" via religion through various explorations of dogma, guilt, deprivation, mythology, harsh judgment, superstition, puritanism, and the fear of dying, I have always believed that having the freedom to believe whatever you want to believe and having the right to do so openly and without fear of persecution is a fundamental human right to protect and keep intact. And for the most part, these various religions are relatively benign. But across the board, the demon of every religion that fucks with believers and non-believers alike, is fundamentalism. And its devil is extreme fundamentalism. I think those with extreme fundamentalist views should not hold positions in government because they believe their lives and fates to be preordained by a higher power, a supreme being, a god. It's not rational as a matter of public policy. Believe what you want, but the problem with your beliefs if they are fundamentalist is that you are so sold on your beliefs, you think God wants everyone to comply with your indoctrination--whether we want to or not. And the fundies consider themselves tools for God's will in the hands of God.

When fundamentalism of a particular religion becomes so extreme that it breaks away from its more grounded--yet extreme in their own right-- denominations and beliefs, that is when a denomination morphs from a sect into a cult. And what I gather from a layman's understanding of cult behavior and dogma, Mormonism is no different from, say, Branch Davidians or the Jim Jones Ministry as far as their cult status is defined. I don't doubt or question their faith, or even that they are Christians--but their views and practices are more extreme than mainstream Christianity, which can be annoying and troublesome enough on its own. Everyone ,who was ever in a cult, denied that their cult was a cult while they where members of the cult. When they leave the cult, they almost invariably use the term "cult" to describe their former religious affiliation.

Admittedly, I view all religions--particularly, as I said, fundamentalist factions of those religions--with a suspicious eye. But I view cults with even more drastic suspicion because they are obsessed, preoccupied--however one would prefer to define their attention to it--with the end of the world. And Mormons are no different from other doomsday cults. Their prophecy (paraphrased) states:

...when America degenerates to the point where “the Constitution hangs by a thread” -- which most TV pundits agree we’re there already -- a Mormon will be elected President of the United States, triggering the end of the world as we know it; the overthrow of “gentile” rule; and the long-promised Second Coming of Jesus Christ in Independence, Missouri.

Mitt Romney was raised to believe that if he is elected president, Mitt Romney will rule the world (or whatever is left of it) as the Mormon gods’ Viceroy.

~~A Mormon President, a documentary made by a Mormon

So, Romney was raised to believe that if he's elected president, he'll be fulfilling the Mormon doomsday prophecy. I don't care what he believes, but I DO care how he acts on those beliefs, and let's face it, cult members don't have a very strong track record of responding rationally when faced with extreme circumstances. Just the fact they believe in the power of prayer to magically whisk their troubles away or to verify God's fatal refusal to help is bad enough.

Politically Romney and Obama are more alike than they differ--despite the differences each's loyalists claim to the contrary. But the dangerous difference---beyond having Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Karl Rove, the Koch Brothers, et al, constantly pushing bad policy on Romney all the time---or having Eric Holder, Larry Summers, Tim Geithner and Monsanto the devil executives as cabinet members or advisors to Obama---is the fact that Mitt Romney's religious faith is in a doomsday cult which believes and practices the things I described above. Anyone's free to believe it, knock yourself out--but that steaming pile of bullshit affects the way he governs, and if he believes simply by being elected president in November, he's fulfilling his doomsday cult's doomsday prophecy, it's not any significant stretch to assume that will affect the way he governs. What a fucking disaster!

And that's piled on top of the fact that Romney will say anything, including the opposite of something he might have just said, in order to be elected. And he makes no attempt to hide the fact he lies constantly--Obama doesn't either, I know, but Obama isn't a member of a doomsday cult. And if choosing the lesser of 2 evils is the philosophy a voter uses to determine for whom they will vote, "cult member" ALWAYS trumps "socialist," "suspected Muslim," and "questionable citizenship status" as the "worst" of of those supposed "evils."--jef

In the interest of fairness, here are some graphics which show Mormons in a more positive light than I have shined on them so far in this blog entry:

If We Wake Up With a Mormon in the White House...

...What Happens? What Joseph Smith's Run for President Suggests About Mitt Romney
The truth about the man with 33 wives -- and what that tells us about Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney. 

"I intend to lay a foundation that will revolutionize the whole world."--Joseph Smith, Jr.

CHAPTER ONE:
According to a controversial Joseph Smith prophecy, when America degenerates to the point where “the Constitution hangs by a thread” -- and most TV pundits agree we’re there already -- at this time, a Mormon will be elected President of the United States, triggering a whole series of disaster-film plot twists: the end of the world as we know it; the overthrow of “gentile” rule; and the long-promised Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Only, instead of teleporting Himself somewhere interesting like Jerusalem, say the Mormons, Jesus will stage his comeback in Independence, Missouri.

Let me put it another way. Mitt Romney was raised to believe that if Mitt Romney is elected president, Mitt Romney will rule the world (or whatever is left of it) as the Mormon gods’ Viceroy, while Jesus Christ stumbles through tornado country, making crop circles in a corn field, or whatever it is you do there.

If you don’t believe me, it’s because you don’t know the operating software system Romney runs on. A slow and stupid operating system, sure, but it may soon be hooked up to about 5,000 nuclear warheads and a global empire, so ignoring it won’t save you.

It sounds too crazy to be true, I know -- but by now we liberal elites should know not to trust our instincts. Look at what happened in the case of Barack Obama: rather than taking at face value his stated ideas about financial reform (Obama made Larry Summers, architect of the financial deregulation disaster, his economics brain-bug), about health care (he ran on the least progressive and most pro-industry health care plan of the three major Democratic candidates), and about the American empire (which were neocon-friendly), liberal media elites projected onto him everything they wanted him to be: an idealized secular humanist version of Obama. By dismissing the “obvious” surface of our presidential politics, the media set us up for the biggest political Obummer of the century.

That’s where this movie comes in. A Mormon President tells the story of some stupid and confused hillbillies and the boner-wielding con man who leads them to ruin. In other words, it’s about us. In January 2013.
Forget about being clever, folks: To paraphrase a line from Starship Troopers, “To fight stupid, we must become stupid.”

CHAPTER TWO: Mugged by Moroni

If it’s not clear by now, the problem with reviewing A Mormon President is this: The movie was supposed to be unintentionally funny, softball material, a 21st century version of those old “Crown” history films they used to show in my public school civics class. It was supposed to serve one purpose: To make me look like I have talent. It would play the Washington Generals to my Harlem Globetrotters.

But I done figured wrong. As the story of Joseph Smith’s 1844 run for president unfolded into something weirder and scarier than I had bargained for, I started to realize it didn’t matter if the movie was unintentionally funny or not. Like it or not, my smug lack of curiosity about Mitt Romney’s religious identity was crumbling before a straight-to-DVD production. I found myself, as it were, Mugged by Moroni.

Now that I know a little more about Mitt Romney 1.0 --  that is, Joseph Smith, Jr., who was not only the first Mormon, but the first Mormon to run for president -- I’m not finding much to laugh at anymore.
Let me cut to the quick here and make things clear, in case I’m starting to sound like the Mel Gibson character in Conspiracy Theory.

First of all, although Joseph Smith's candidacy was equal parts tragedy and farce (in a Tommy Boy sort of way), he did offer a template for a future Mormon president with the example he set as ruler over the township of Nauvoo, Illinois, a unique post granted him via special city charter by the Illinois governor after the Mormons' cruel expulsion from Missouri in 1838.

Within a couple of years after settling in Nauvoo -- a city whose population quickly grew to parity with Chicago’s -- Smith transformed his fiefdom into a sort of Mormon Bantustan. He was Mayor, and Chief Justice, and got away with calling himself "King, Priest, and Ruler over Israel on Earth." Creepiest of all, he led the Nauvoo Legion, a unit roughly one-third the size of the total United States military. Not one for half measures, Smith gave himself the rank of “Lt. General,” the highest rank held by an American military officer since George Washington.

In 1841, Lt. Gen. Joseph Smith displayed his might by leading a huge military parade. One historian interviewed for A Mormon President compares the procession to “a May Day parade in the Soviet Union during the Cold War. And this terrified a number of people, who, at that point, really switched gears and said, ‘These people are dangerous and we need to protect ourselves.'"

The grand martial display marked how far the Mormons had come in a short time. Three years earlier, Smith and his followers had felt the full force of an official order signed by Missouri governor Lilburn Boggs, which went like this: "The Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated, or driven from the state, if necessary, for the public peace. Their outrages are beyond all description."

Before watching A Mormon President, I knew something about how the Missourians had massacred the Mormons prior to running them out of that godforsaken state. What I didn’t know was that a Mormon was the one who had apparently started all the extermination talk. The movie shows a perennial second banana, Sidney Rigdon -- who is played by a Billy Crystal look-alike in an Abe Lincoln beard -- making a speech in which he threatens Missouri's "gentiles" with "a war of extermination."

Here’s the thing about extermination threats: When you’re the weird little minority in a sea of armed, whiskey-guzzling Christians, it is generally a bad strategy to speak publicly of your intention to wipe out everybody else.

The Missourians were slow to react. There’s something about suicidal cultists that makes the sure-to-win side hesitate. (Are they hiding something we don’t know about? There’s got to be some angle we’re not catching!) Gov. Boggs grew weary of waiting and signed the order. The locals went to work massacring the men, the womenfolk, and the children, before finally driving other Mormons out of the state. Smith, Rigdon, and others landed in a Missouri jail… from which they eventually made their escape.

Safe at last in Nauvoo, Illinois, Smith made a riverside prophecy that the Missouri governor would "die by violent hands within one year." Which brings us to the thug who served as head of Smith’s security detail: Orrin Porter Rockwell. In the film, he resembles a 19th century Hells Angel biker, if a little meaner and crazier. Soon after the boss's prophecy, Rockwell slipped back over to Missouri and… next thing you know… someone is blasting Gov. Boggs with four shots -- two balls of buckshot in the neck, two in the head -- leaving him all but dead.

A couple of years later, Smith's thoughts turned national. He established an inner circle called “the Council of 50," which was “like an Ollie North thing,” as one historian describes it in A Mormon President. This group ran Smith’s campaign and planned his takeover of power, with the idea of helping him run things from inside the White House.

In his final display of power -- the one that led to his downfall -- Smith declared martial law in his principality and used his mighty Nauvoo Legion to destroy the Nauvoo Expositor's printing press in reaction to the newspaper's having dared criticize his polygamy and power-lust. This led to his being thrown into the pokey once again… where he soon found himself shot and bayoneted by an armed mob. Before meeting his grisly demise, he offered up the White Horse Prophecy, a revelation that he (or some worthy Mormon in years to come) was pre-ordained to become president at a time when the “Constitution is hanging by a thread as fine as a silk fiber.”

The prophecy is not accepted as church doctrine but remains part of Mormon lore. Adam Christing, the director of A Mormon President, explained it to me this way: “It’s just like in our time. The prophecy says, ‘The government is in disarray. The Constitution is going to be hanging by a thread, and the gentiles are going to screw it up so bad that it’s going to take God’s people to save the day.’ I do think there’s been a tiny underground hope in Mormon Land, if you will, that Romney could be the fulfillment of that White Horse Prophecy. Like a knight-in-shining-armor thing."

Romney, a seventh-generation Mormon who has served as a Latter-day Saint bishop, has distanced himself from the founder's theocratic talk, just as he has repudiated plural marriage. "That's not official church doctrine," he said of the White Horse Prophecy in a 2011 Salt Lake Tribune interview. "There are a lot of things that are speculation and discussion by church members and even church leaders that aren't official church doctrine. I don't put that at the heart of my religious belief."

But Christing told me he believes Romney has taken a secret oath pledging his loyalty first and foremost to his church: "There are, still today, very secret ceremonies in the Mormon temple, which Romney has participated in -- virtually all of those, including something called the Oath of Consecration, where he consecrates his money, his time, his talents. His whole life, really.”

Here is the Oath of Consecration: “You and each of you covenant and promise before God, angels, and these witnesses at this altar, that you do accept the law of consecration as contained in this, The Book of Doctrine and Covenants, in that you do consecrate yourselves, your time, talents, and everything with which the Lord has blessed you, or with which he may bless you, to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, for the building up of the kingdom of God on the earth and for the establishment of Zion."

"There was a time when sharing this info was dangerous," Christing said in an email. "Now, it's probably on Google. To me, the interesting thing is that the oath of consecration is specifically directed to the Mormon church (not God)."

CHAPTER THREE: Joseph Smith's Game

And then there is the matter of polygamy. By the time he was murdered, Joseph Smith had amassed 33 wives, eleven of whom were married and still living with their husbands. They ranged in age from 14 to roughly 60, according to an expert interviewed in the film.

Christing, who belongs to the second largest Mormon branch, the Reorganized Church of Latter-day Saints, treats Smith’s polygamy not just as a historical quirk but as an element of the behaviors we might associate with a sociopathic cult leader: “When Joseph reads to his wife Emma the ‘revelation’ from God instructing Joseph to marry as many wives as he can, he reads her a ‘letter’ from God telling his wife that if she doesn’t accept it, she’ll be damned. So if you believe that Smith was the prophet -- basically he’s saying to his wife, ‘If you don’t believe this, you’re going to hell.’”

Emma wasn't the only one thus coerced. Christing adds: “Imagine if you’re an 18-year-old woman. You’ve maybe left your family, or come with one family member from England, and you’ve arrived on a boat at New Orleans, and you come up the Mississippi River, and you get off the boat in Nauvoo, and there’s Brigham Young and Joseph Smith. And Joseph says, ‘God gave me a revelation to take plural wives, and if I don’t, an angel of God will kill me. An angel appeared to me with a drawn sword, and he’ll kill me.’ That’s a little bit of pressure to get from the ‘prophet,’ you know?”

The journey from England to Illinois was the one taken by Mitt Romney’s great-great-great grandfather, Miles Romney, along with his wife, Elizabeth, from the miserable factory town of Preston, England, to Illinois. Miles, an architect, was tasked with assisting the construction of the Nauvoo Temple.

One of the interviewees in A Mormon President is a gorgeous Mormon with a pre-Raphaelite face draped with perfectly silk dark hair. Her name is Kara Lyn Roundy. When she speaks of Joseph Smith, she lights up: “All I know is that there’s one prophet at the head of the church who has been given the keys to the holy priesthood. And he has been ordained by God…. It is so key for people to understand: There is only one Church on the face of the planet that has all the keys of the priesthood, and that is in the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.” When this MMILF gushes over Joseph Smith, you want to agree with her. You might even want to know what his secret was. The more one learns about his shameless pick-up techniques, the more one realizes there’s a Mormon version of The Game just waiting to be revealed to shy nerds everywhere.

On the topic of Mitt Romney, she says: “I think Mitt Romney is brilliant. He is a briiiiiiilliant businessman. I mean, he turns businesses around. He’s the first guy who took charge of the Olympics, profited $70 million."

CUT TO: Still image of a smiling Romney holding the Olympic flame.

CUT TO: Still image of Romney clutching gold medals as the camera zooms in, Ken Burns-style, on his smile.

"I mean, who’s ever done that?" Roundy says. "That’s the kind of guy I want running my country.”

A Mormon President has other funny moments. Over a PBS-ready piano soundtrack, experts on Mormonism try to persuade the viewer that, despite his status as prophet, Joseph Smith had a "regular Joe" side. “He was the kind of guy who would get down on the floor and wrestle with kids," one historian says.

CUT TO: Handsome Actor Guy With Suspiciously Romney-Like Facial Structure, in 1830s frontiersman costume, rolling through a meadow with kids.

Whoa, Amber Alert! Try that one again, fellas.

A Utah-dad type tells the camera: “Joseph Smith wouldn’t be someone I’d want to live next door to me.”
Wait a minute -- can you say that in a Mormon movie?

Another interviewee, credibly silver-haired, says: “He was all of the things that a classic Old Testament prophet said they were -- and Joseph is saying, ‘I am the same kind of prophet.’ And if it’s true, it’s scary. And if it’s false, Joseph Smith is a charlatan.”

So this movie isn't really the Mormon Schlock I had expected -- or had hoped -- it would be. But all this is mere backdrop to its main focus: Smith’s run for the presidency, a subject that the voice-over correctly points out “has never been told before." It is a story I knew nothing about, and cared even less about, until A Mormon President forced me to.

CHAPTER FOUR: The Outlaw and the Insider

Smith's presidential campaign is not only relevant to our looming tragicomedy of 2013, but also the perfect E-Z to swallow entrée into the bizarre and unnerving nexus between Mormonism and presidential politics -- an area many liberals would prefer to avoid, as if merely bringing up future-President Romney’s Mormonism reveals a lack of faith in the American system, or maybe even a cryptic intolerance.

In early 1844 Smith announced he was running as the “outsider” candidate of his day. “Tell the people we have had Whig and Democrats Presidents long enough,” he declared. “We care not a fig for Whig or Democrat; they are both alike to us.”

Sounds familiar, don’t it? In fact, it’s so familiar it’s kind of humiliating. These days, our version of the “he-gets-it” political analyst is one who takes pride in “seeing through the discredited left-right, Republocrat bullshit” -- which makes such a pundit nothing more than warmed-over Mormon Prophet meat.

At least Smith had a few snappy lines when he went after the hacks of his time. He surveyed the field of candidates in 1844 -- twiddle-dee-dee Whigs like Henry Clay and incumbent President John Tyler; twiddle-dee-dum Democrats like ex-President Martin van Buren, John C. Calhoun, and dark-horse James K. Polk -- and he scowled: “I mourn for the depravity of the world; I despise the imbecility of American statesmen; I detest shrinkage of candidates for office, from pledges and responsibility."

The white male American electorate in those days was roughly evenly divided between Whig voters and Democrat voters. Smith planned to leverage that electoral split to his advantage. The parties seemed incapable of addressing the Big Issues of slavery and territorial expansion (i.e., admitting Texas into the Union). It was understood that taking a stand on slavery could lead to civil war; and taking a stand on expansion could lead to war with Mexico, war with Britain, civil war, or some combination thereof.

The establishment parties' tiptoeing around the major questions of the day created an opportunity for a maverick like Smith, who pledged to rid the nation of slavery through "voluntary" abolition by Southern slave states (which may bring to mind Romney's plan to solve illegal immigration by flicking on the super-secret voluntary self-deporting gene in Mexicans). Smith also advocated the re-establishment of the national bank (which may recall Romney's role as the biggest booster of the Federal Reserve among the Republican candidates). Smith, further, wasn't shy about saying he favored the annexation of Texas and the Oregon territories, as well as Canada and Mexico (not to mention all the wives inhabiting those far-flung places… which makes one consider Romney's grim and aggressive monogamy, which seems bound to explode in ways that could make us all rue the day Abraham Lincoln signed into law anti-polygamy legislation…).

Crawling further out onto a political limb, Smith demanded radical penal reform, calling for the release of all inmates but murderers and the abolition of debtors' prisons (and this is a bug in the Operating System that may be ignored, except that it highlights the difference between Smith, an outlaw, and Romney, an insider).
So far, I’m making Joseph Smith’s politics out to be more respectable than they really were. The story of his run for president really gets its start with his founding of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Weird events accelerate at a parabolic rate, right up to his murder-by-cuckold-mob in June 1844.

Joseph Smith started peddling his very own Anti-Depressant for scared and lonely frontier settlers in 1830. It really was “new & improved” -- a re-branded version of Judeo-Christianity made especially for the Second Great Awakening, a time of competing religious products that offered hysterical reinterpretations of the same damn book about the same actions taking place in the same place on the other side of the globe. According to a Smith “revelation,” America itself was the new Promised Land. He got his followers to prepare a landing pad for Jesus in what would be the hometown of Harry S. Truman, the only human being ever to drop the atom bomb.

Coincidence? It better well fucking be, or we are gentile toast, folks.

Things get scary in A Mormon President when an “ex-Mormon pastor” named Shawn McCraney says: “I absolutely believe that the [Mormon] church today is the living embodiment of everything Joseph Smith represented. He was the seed; they are the fruit.” Meaning: Mitt Romney is The Fruit. I know it doesn’t sound right, saying that -- especially considering that Mormons were the big reason why Prop 8 passed in California -- but there it is.

Then the director of the Mormonism Research Ministry, standing before the monstrous LDS temple in Salt Lake City, tells the viewer: “The Mormon Church’s basic premise is that all of the churches are wrong, that their creeds are an abomination, and that their professors are corrupt, and that really there are no true churches on the face of the earth, except for the LDS church.”

Holy shit! No wonder Mormons are the nicest people in America: They hate our fucking guts!

CHAPTER FIVE: The Director's Tale

The Reorganized Church of Latter-day Saints was made possible by the aforementioned second banana Sidney Rigdon. After Smith was killed-by-mob, Rigdon, no longer able to stomach polygamy, broke away from Smith's successor, the many-wived Brigham Young, and founded the second largest Mormon church (out of some 400 branches), the one Adam Christing grew up in.

Christing wears many hats: Filmmaker, entrepreneur, magician, amateur historian, philosopher, corporate events speaking pro, and… standup comic.

One doesn’t usually associate Mormons with funny, but that just shows how little we “gentiles” know. “I do think I’m very funny, in terms of my standup show,” Christing told me. “But I gravitate more toward philosophy. I also own the domain -- believe it or not -- themeaningoflife.com. I actually lost well over $50,000 trying to develop that site, so right now it’s in limbo.” When it comes to his stage act, Christing is the Shecky Greene of Reorganized Mormons. A sampling of his material:

“I was just in Los Angeles, and I was speaking at this animal rights barbecue, and...”

“I'd like to go to assertiveness training class. First I need to check with my wife.”

He has the comic pause down perfectly. He is able to light a given joke's delayed-action fuse and wait for the laughter to ripple through the crowd. His demo reel is a thing of beauty. It looks like it was lifted directly from an old SCTV episode, with Christing as a Latter-day Bobby Bittman.

In 1990, he founded Clean Comedians, to promote a brand of standup comedy perfect for corporate events, in that it has zero profanity. The organization also offers its clients a money-back guarantee: “If it isn’t funny, we’ll refund your money.” One fan was President George W. Bush, who was so blown away by Clean Comedians Bush impersonators, Steve Bridges, that he teamed up with him at a White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

In 2005, Christing sold Clean Comedians and soon started plowing roughly $350,000 into A Mormon President, which he did not complete until 2011 (and is still tinkering with today, in preparation for further screenings). “I’ve been obsessed with the story of Joseph Smith since I was young,” he said. “I’ve got a huge library of everything related to Joseph Smith. And the more I read, the more complex he became to me. Is this guy a fraud? Does he really think he’s a prophet?”

He took no money from any particular group: “I didn’t want to make a puff piece. The Mormon Church, in my opinion -- if you go to the Temple, and you watch one of the films in the Visitor Center, they’re not going to show you his polygamy, they’re not going to show you his politics or what he did to the Nauvoo Expositor. And those were very huge factors in his life. So you won’t know, ‘Why did anyone want to kill this guy?’ On the other hand, if you watch certain Evangelical Christian films, they make him seem like a monster, like the film The God Makers. I feel like that’s way over the top. This guy was a wonderful human being in many ways: very charismatic, loved children, very generous. But he also had these other aspects to his personality -- the secrecy stuff, and an enormous ego... I just wanted to tell the most accurate account of his life that I could, from multiple perspectives. And that’s why I didn’t take money from anybody.... The Mormon Church didn’t finance it, no Evangelical ministry financed it. Just individuals who wanted to make an accurate film. And I think we succeeded.”

CHAPTER SIX: Romney's Twisted Roots

Some Mormons hold that Smith was “assassinated” in a “conspiracy.” The theory first made the rounds in The Carthage Conspiracy, a book published in 1975, at the height of Watergate and Church Committee hearings, a time when such theories were briefly recognized as political realities. Getting murdered in a conspiracy involving powerful Whig Party bosses is a more romantic way for a prophet to go than being gunned down by drunken cuckolds in blackface as you try to squeeze your way out a second-story window.

The lack of grassy knoll or programmed patsy seems not to matter to Christing and others who believe. “Absolutely, absolutely,” the filmmaker said, when I asked him if Smith was the victim of a conspiracy. “With the J.F.K. thing, the speculation gets pretty wild. I think it’s a little simpler with Joseph Smith.”

Almost everyone within a 100 mile radius of Smith wanted this frontier Charlie Manson dead. Not because he wanted to bring about world peace (as J.F.K. conspiracy theorists like Oliver Stone allege), but rather because he seduced their wives and fucked their sense of normalcy. An assassination-by-conspiracy, however, renders the death more significant and less mundane.

While Mormon historical revisionism attempts to turn Smith’s embarrassing Last Act into the stuff of historical tragedy, two generations of Romneys have been revising and refining his run for the presidency, undoing Smith’s “mistakes.” Before the rise of the current presumptive Republican nominee, the closest LDS member to finish what the first Mormon had started was probably Mitt’s dad, Gov. George W. Romney, who ran as the moderate Rockefeller Republican candidate, to the left of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, in 1968.

Back then, the surface reality in America had become so weird and violent that nothing in Mormonism really shocked anyone. If it turned out that George W. Romney wore “Mormon underwear” (the subject of quips made by satirists-in-chief Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert), it might even have won him a few votes. Another difference: In '68, the Republicans had yet to mold and fired up the Christian Right bloc. The Evangelicals, after all, are the ones most put off by Mormonism. They take its polytheism to heart, although they’ve learned to keep quiet about it, except in online forums like Free Republic.

The Romneys are to Mormons as Mayflower families are to America as a whole: After his great-great grandfather helped erect the Nauvoo Temple, where Smith held his military parade in 1841, Mitt's great-grandfather was born among this original LDS band. After Smith’s murder, the church split. Most followed Smith's pro-polygamy-wingman, Brigham Young, to the Utah Territory; a small number stayed with Smith’s widow, Emma Smith, and founded the breakaway Reorganized Church of Latter-Day Saints, the anti-polygamy branch that Christing was later born into.

The Romneys went with the polygamists. And they stayed with the polygamists. In fact, you couldn’t pry polygamy from the Romney clan with a crowbar if you tried. Abraham Lincoln, father of the Republican Party, certainly did his best, when he signed the 1862 Anti-Bigamy Act, which outlawed plural marriage in U.S. territories. But that didn’t stop Miles P. Romney, Mitt’s great-grandfather, from racking up five wives.

Another notable Republican, Sen. George Edmunds, made life even harder for frontier swingers with the Edmunds Anti-Polygamy Act of 1882, which pushed Mitt's great-granddad deep into the hinterlands, wives in tow. By the time the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints itself renounced polygamy in 1890, Miles P. Romney and his brood hightailed it to Mexico, feds on their tail, crossing the Rio Grande as voluntarily as an illegal Mexican immigrant might under President Romney in years to come.

Folks didn't take kindly to Mitt's great-grandpa, as this editorial in the Apache Chief more than suggests:

“Hang a few of their polygamist leaders such as... Romney,” the newspaper wrote. The piece went on to single out Miles P. Romney as “a mass of putrid pus and rotten goose pimples; a skunk, with the face of a baboon, the character of a louse, the breath of a buzzard, and the record of a perjurer and common drunkard.”

And that’s the final edited version! Imagine the early drafts!

Miles and his wives settled in Mexico. The Romney clan remained there long enough for Mitt’s own father, George W. Romney, to be born in Chihuahua, meaning Mitt’s dad grew up with one grandpa and a whole bunch of grandmas. He went on to serve as the 43rd governor of Michigan. Because of his provenance, "birther” talk abounded during his run for president.

If you look at the refinement of Mormon presidential candidates… from Joseph Smith, through George W. Romney, up to Mitt today… you can almost watch time-motion political calibration evolve to match the Zeitgeist of America. Smith, the consummate outsider candidate in 1844, drew too much attention to the Mormon stuff and ended up the victim of lynch-mob murder. George W. Romney started out as the centrist candidate in the year 1968, only to make the mistake of saying in a television interview that he had been “brainwashed” into supporting the Vietnam war by American diplomats and military officials. That off-the-cuff quote sank his chances.

By now, the Mormon President Project has been perfected. Mitt stands as an empty reflection of an American Winner. He's the corporate jock with the gray temples, the chiseled features, and the starched dickishness most people expect from their bosses. This is a country that made a hit reality show out of an asshole firing people -- and that is the electorate counted on by the latest Joseph Smith upgrade.

It is because he has so skillfully and aggressively made himself all things to all Establishment-center-righties that A Mormon President may be the clearest window into Mitt’s soul. For me, one peek was enough to send me loading up on canned foods and planning my move to an undisclosed location near Mormon Zion. Because when Mitt Romney becomes the Mormon President foretold by Smith, and he sends those bombs into Iran to herald the start of the Thousand Year Mormon Rule, and Jesus teleports down to that Missouri cornfield to freak everyone out with his crop circles -- I want to be ready. I don’t want some cheery clean-cut Mormon baptizing my bones after I’m dead. If Romney wins, I figure I’ve got two months to get baptized and make myself into one of the 13 million who rules over the rest of you 7 billion fools.

The Romney Doctrine

Is Mitt Romney Ready for the World?

by LAWRENCE S. WITTNER

 

If current polls are correct, Mitt Romney seems likely to become the 2012 Republican presidential candidate and the next president of the United States.  Therefore, we should carefully examine his first major foreign and military policy address—delivered on October 7 at the Citadel, in Charleston, South Carolina—and ponder the question:  Is Mitt Romney ready for the world?

Romney began his speech with a heavy dose of fear.  Iran, he warned, could well become “a fully activated nuclear weapons state, threatening its neighbors, [and] dominating the world’s oil supply.”  Indeed, “Iran’s suicidal fanatics could blackmail the world.”  In Afghanistan, the Taliban might well “find a path back to power,” with the country sinking “back into the medieval terrors of fundamentalist rule.”  Pakistan’s instability could end up placing nuclear weapons “in the hands of Islamic jihadists,” while “the malign socialism” of Venezuela and Cuba could “undermine the prospects of democracy” in Latin America.  Then, of course, there are the heavy dancers.  China’s leaders could well take that nation down “a darker path, intimidating their neighbors, brushing aside an inferior American Navy in the Pacific, and building a global alliance of authoritarian states.” And Russia might well “bludgeon the countries of the former Soviet Union into submission, and intimidate Europe with the levers of its energy resources.”  Nor should people forget “Islamic fundamentalism, with which we have been at war since Sept. 11, 2001.”

Fortunately, though, there is help for a beleaguered world on the horizon.  “God did not create this country to be a nation of followers,” Romney explained.  “America is not destined to be one of several equally balanced global powers.”  Instead, “the United States should always retain military supremacy.”  As president, he would not “wave the white flag of surrender” but, rather, “devote” himself to building “an American century.”  As he explained:  “The twenty-first century can and must be an American century.”  He would “not surrender America’s role in the world. . . .  If you do not want America to be the strongest nation on earth, I am not your president.”

And how, exactly, would this American century be achieved?  To provide the major pillar for the new order, Romney would “reverse President Obama’s massive defense cuts.”  (The fact that there were no defense cuts during the Obama years—indeed, that Obama took office with an annual Defense Department budget of $513 billion and, as of September 30 of this year, had an annual Defense Department budget of $530 billion, plus increased spending for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—seems not to have thrown Romney off stride.)  In the production of new U.S. warships alone, Romney promised to increase the annual number from nine to fifteen.  He would also dramatically upgrade the (still unworkable) national missile defense system.  “In an American century,” he argued, America needed “the strongest military in the world.”

Of course, this military behemoth (currently costing almost as much as the military forces of all other nations combined) would have lots of work to do.  In Afghanistan, for example, Romney would call a halt to plans for U.S. military withdrawal.  Meanwhile, he would “speak with our generals in the field, and receive the best recommendation of our military commanders” as to “the force level necessary to secure our gains and complete our mission successfully.”  That might require a lot of troops, a lot of money, and a lot of time.

Throughout his address, Romney never acknowledged that, at least on occasion, U.S. foreign policy might have been plagued by faulty judgments or methods.  Naturally, then, he did not mention the unnecessary Iraq war, the past U.S. support of Osama bin Laden, or other embarrassing ventures.  This assumption that the U.S. officials can never err—with the notable exception, of course, of the evil Barack Obama—is implicit in Romney’s promise that he would “never, ever apologize for America.”

Despite this nationalist emphasis, Romney did not entirely omit reference to the United Nations and other international institutions.  But he discussed them in a very demeaning way.  “Too often,” he declared “these bodies prize the act of negotiating over the outcome to be reached.  And shamefully, they can become forums for the tantrums of tyrants. . . .  The United States must fight to return these bodies to their proper role.”  Nor did he see any reason to obey them—or the international law they represented—when it did not suit the U.S. government.  He observed:  “While America should work with other nations, we always reserve the right to act alone to protect our vital national interests.”

Romney’s speech was also noteworthy for the international issues he did not address.  They included nuclear arms control and disarmament, global climate change, world health (such as the AIDS epidemic), and the tottering global economy.  Presumably he did not consider these important—or at least capable of being dealt with through the instrumentalities of a massive military buildup and an American century.

One wonders what citizens and statesmen of other nations think of this potential world leader who argues that his country is confronted everywhere by malignant enemies, must forever be militarily supreme, is exempt from following international law, can do no wrong, has been created by God, and must dominate the planet for the rest of this century.  Perhaps, in addition to questioning whether Romney is ready for the world, we should ask:  Is the world ready for Romney?

Glenn Beck Playing with Fire on Religious Faith ('Beware false prophets', anyone?)

Mormon Talkshow Host Beck Claims "God speaks through Me"

In his pivotal address to the Southern Baptists in 1960, John F. Kennedy cautioned those suspicious of his Catholic faith, "Today, I may be the victim, but tomorrow it may be you -- until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped apart at a time of great national peril." But with his furious assault this weekend against President Obama's faith, Glenn Beck didn't merely ignore JFK's warning and the biblical admonition to judge not lest ye be judged. In declaring his followers' judgment of Obama, "People aren't recognizing his version of Christianity," the Mormon Beck could have been describing himself.

During his rally Saturday, Beck proclaimed, "America today begins to turn back to God." And while he didn't say which one, he made clear on Sunday it wasn't the Almighty worshipped by Barack Obama:

"I don't know what that is, other than it's not Muslim, it's not Christian. It's a perversion of the gospel of Jesus Christ as most Christians know it."

Sadly for the Fox News host, as many of his Tea Bagging allies view his Mormon faith in precisely the same terms.

As CNN reported on Friday, "Some evangelicals are defensive over partnering with Glenn Beck, a Mormon." And as ThinkProgress noted, a Christian NewsWire press release titled "Glenn Beck's Mormonism Will Not Lead to Revival" was harsher still:

Glenn Beck promotes a false gospel. However, many of his political ideas can help America. ... Mormonism is not a Christian denomination but a cult of Christianity. ... Many endorse false gospels including Mormonism.

If that language of condemnation sounds familiar, it should. As former Massachusetts Governor and LDS member Mitt Romney ramped up his 2008 presidential run, Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network offered a similar primer in a document titled, "How Do I Recognize a Cult?" Mormon religious beliefs, CBN concluded, "are, to put is simply, wrong":

Mormonism teaches that God is not the only deity and that we all have the potential of becoming gods. (Ibid., p. 576.) (Remember that Satan's fall came about because he wanted to be like God.)... There has been constant revision of Mormon doctrine over the years, as church leaders have changed their minds on a number of subjects including polygamy, which was once sanctioned by the church.

In summary, the Mormon church is a prosperous, growing organization that has produced many people of exemplary character. But when it comes to spiritual matters, the Mormons are far from the truth.

As the 2008 GOP primaries approached, Mitt Romney faced an enormous hurdle among the heavily evangelical Republican base. A December 2007 Pew Research Poll found that 45% of evangelicals did not consider Mormons to be Christians. 25% were less likely to vote for an LDS candidate as a result. (A Gallup poll was also a warning to John McCain and Rudy Giuliani, where a candidate who was "72 years of age" or "married three times" was less likely than a Mormon to get Americans' backing.) So, it came as no surprise that on December 6, 2007, Romney tried to follow in JFK's footsteps with his speech, Faith in America."

In a speech that featured only one mention of the word "Mormon," Romney sought to walk a tightrope, proclaiming his own religion's just place in the American pantheon of faith without in any way describing it. Ironically, Romney took pains to sing the praises of the rites (and stereotypes) of other faiths while excluding his own:

"I believe that every faith I have encountered draws its adherents closer to God. And in every faith I have come to know, there are features I wish were in my own: I love the profound ceremony of the Catholic Mass, the approachability of God in the prayers of the Evangelicals, the tenderness of spirit among the Pentecostals, the confident independence of the Lutherans, the ancient traditions of the Jews, unchanged through the ages, and the commitment to frequent prayer of the Muslims."

But when it came to his core message, Romney stressed the Constitution was on his side:

"There are some who would have a presidential candidate describe and explain his church's distinctive doctrines. To do so would enable the very religious test the founders prohibited in the Constitution. No candidate should become the spokesman for his faith."

Too bad Mitt Romney, like Glenn Beck, advocates a religious test of his own.

To be sure, atheists and agnostics have no place in leading Mitt Romney's America. That meaning was unambiguous in Romney's 2006 declaration to Fox News that "People in this country want a person of faith to lead them as their president." The former Massachusetts Governor made the point even more broadly today, proclaiming simply "Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom." Columnist and former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan observed the omission in Romney's 2007 speech, concluding "he would have lost the idiot vote" if GOP primary voters thought "this Romney character likes to laud atheists."

But it is not merely the unbelievers who would be disempowered and disenfranchised by Romney even as his Mormon brethren would welcomed among America's chosen faiths. The roughly five to seven million Muslims in America, too, are second class citizens in Romney USA.

As Mansoor Ijaz wrote in the Christian Science Monitor:

I asked Mr. Romney whether he would consider including qualified Americans of the Islamic faith in his cabinet as advisers on national security matters, given his position that "jihadism" is the principal foreign policy threat facing America today. He answered, "...based on the numbers of American Muslims [as a percentage] in our population, I cannot see that a cabinet position would be justified. But of course, I would imagine that Muslims could serve at lower levels of my administration."

(Despite Romney's protestations that he was misquoted, Ijaz stands by his account.)

This is not to say that the Glenn Beck and Mitt Romney won't succeed with their strange political bedfellows. After all, supposed cult member Romney gave the May 2007 commencement address at Pat Robertson's Regent University, during which he praised "Dr. Robertson's dedication to strengthening and then nurturing the pillars of this community and our country." Three years later, Beck himself spoke to the graduates of the late Jerry Falwell's Liberty University, telling them, among other things, "shoot to kill."

But as CNN detailed, the suspicion of Beck's own faith among his would-be allies runs deep. Brannon Howse, a conservative writer and founder of Worldview Weekend, announced, ""While I applaud and agree with many of Glenn Beck's conservative and constitutional views, that does not give me or any other Bible-believing Christian justification to compromise Biblical truth by spiritually joining Beck."

And so it goes. As Glenn Beck touts that "return to God," many of his political fellow travelers demand Muslim Americans renounce their freedom of religion in lower Manhattan. Others target mosques in Tennessee and elsewhere. All involved would do well to heed the words of President Kennedy from that day in Houston 50 years ago:

"For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been -- and may someday be again -- a Jew, or a Quaker, or a Unitarian, or a Baptist."

Or a Mormon.

***

(First off, to most people, it's obvious the Beck is a douchebag profiting off the fears of desperate and superstitious Americans during the worst economic times since the last Depression. During that first depression, there were tons of doomsday sayers like Beck preaching against progress and fairness--teaching that attaining and keeping wealth was every citizen's top priority, not feeding the poor or housing the homeless. I find it funny that a religion that says an 800 year old man built a boat and gathered two of every animal on that boat to survive a flood can throw rocks at any other religion--they're all just myth and superstition for people who can't grasp the scientific method &/or who fear dying. Still, Mormonism is some crazy hooey! I want to see just one pair of Mormon underwear before I die. And...can Mormons be Freemasons...?--jef)