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Mitt Romney and the “Mormon Question”
The latest dust-up on the already tedious 2012 presidential campaign trail was triggered several days ago when a pastor and Rick Perry supporter told interviewers that Christians should refrain from voting for Mormon candidates like Mitt Romney (and presumably, Jon Huntsman too) for president because, he asserted, Mormonism is a cult.
As a Christian pastor myself (Lutheran), I decided to address the two questions raised by that controversial statement: Is Mormonism a cult? Should Christians refrain from voting for non-Christians?
As always, I reserve the right to be wrong and you can find my take on those two questions here.
8 Responses to “Mitt Romney and the “Mormon Question””
The Baptist pastor’s name is Robert Jefferess. He was on MSNBC’s Hardball explaining his comments. He did not say that Christians should not vote for non-Christians. He did not say that Christians should not vote for Mormons. He did say that the Mormon religion is a cult, but a theological cult as Mark Daniels describes. Not a Jim Jones/cult.
I don’t agree with Robert Jefferess, but for reasons he did express, not for what he did not say at all.
“theological cult”
hmm… so is Judaism a cult too?
Islam?
Hinduism?
(1) Allen: What the pastor said in the interview I saw was that, if Christians are given the choice between voting for a Christian or a non-Christian, they should vote for the Christian.
(2) Shannon: I would think from the post itself that it would be impossible to infer that the label “cult” could be ascribed to Judaism, Islam, or Hinduism. But since you apparently did so infer, for clarity’s sake, while orthodox Christianity does not agree with other religions’ understandings of God, salvation, etc., it does not label them as cults. I hope this clears up the misunderstanding you experienced.
The major distinction of a “cult” is:
An organized group that demonstrates the power, and will, to pressure a member to separate from family and society, and cease contact with them.
Most of the listed religions do not fall into that category.
I’m not defending the pastor, but just to clarify. According to the video I saw (interview with Andersen Cooper):
1) He said that if given the choice between Obama (who he awkwardly conceded is a Christian) and Romney, he would vote for Romney. So, that contradicts the assertion that he would advocate that Christian always vote for the Christian. He qualified that statement with something like “given two acceptable candidates…”
2) I’m pretty sure I heard him say that Islam is also a cult, in his view. He seems to be equating cult with non-Christianity, which seems to be different than the definition Mark is using.
For the record, as a Mormon (or, more specifically and verbosely: a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), I couldn’t care less whether people think I’m Christian. Christianity is a label which means what we want it to mean. In my opinion, if Christianity means something like “conforming with the traditional teachings and practices of established Christian churches”*, then it is a meaningless (not to mention recursive) definition. I define Christianity as “following the teachings of Christ and accepting him as my Savior.” Unfortunately, since what that means is also debatable, it doesn’t settle the question. But that is my point: from an objective perspective, the question is intractable and a waste of time.
*Mark, I respect your point of view and have no intention of getting into a religious debate here, but I wanted to mention that Mormons would generally disagree with your assertion that our beliefs depart from the core doctrines as taught in the Bible. The examples you cite, in my opinion, are departures from a particular interpretation of the Bible. However, it is true that we don’t rely on the Bible alone as our doctrinal source. We see these additional sources as complementary, not contradictory. But, if the fact that we rely on additional sources makes us, by your definition, non-Christian, I refer back to my previous argument: the reliance on the Bible alone as the source of all Christian doctrine is part of the “traditional teachings and practices of established Christian churches” that I referred to, and therefore cannot, in my view, be objectively used as the definition of Christianity.
Again, I don’t intend to change your mind, but for the record I wanted to share another point of view on the subject.
Mark-
Yes he did say that, but you eluded to him as saying much more.
What did Jesus say about others Preaching in his name…?
I suspect that you are skirting around God’s teaching. What is your point Pastor Daniels?
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