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Mitt's Mormonism and the 'Evangelical Vote'

Can conservative Protestants vote for a member of what they consider a cult?

Robert Millet, professor of ancient Christian Scriptures at Brigham Young University, and Gerald McDermott, professor of religion at Roanoke College, are co-authors of Claiming Christ: A Mormon-Evangelical Debate, to be published in September by Brazos Press. The book discusses a wide range of topics, including how to understand the biblical canon, the Book of Mormon, the Trinity, faith and works, and other theological subjects. Here they ask how much the theological divide between Mormons and evangelicals should matter when considering a Mormon candidate's presidential campaign.

As we enter the summer, Mitt Romney remains the most conservative among the top three candidates for the Republican presidential nomination. But can Romney get the votes of evangelicals, whose support is essential to winning the nomination?



Romney is attractive to evangelicals for a number of reasons. Unlike Rudy Giuliani and John McCain, Romney is clearly conservative on both social and fiscal issues. He talks about the need to protect traditional marriage and is opposed to abortion on demand and stem-cell research. He was also a successful venture capitalist who, after running his own company, rescued the 2002 Winter Olympics from financial disaster. Furthermore, Romney can claim political success. As a conservative governor in liberal Massachusetts, he eliminated an inherited deficit and pushed through major healthcare reform.

Some analysts say Romney's social conservatism is very recent and politically motivated. They point out that in his 2002 gubernatorial campaign, Romney proclaimed support for Roe v. Wade and promised he would not change the state's abortion policies. In the same year, he endorsed RU-486, an abortion-inducing drug.

Romney says he has had a true change of heart. If so, he is not the first governor-turned-presidential-candidate to have changed his mind on abortion. Ronald Reagan signed a liberal abortion law for California and later said he regretted it.

But evangelicals are reluctant to vote for a Mormon. Historically, evangelicals and Mormons have demonized each other. Evangelicals consider the Church of Latter-day Saints to be a cult and typically think Mormons are not real Christians.

Evangelicals accuse Mormons of adding new revelation (the Book of Mormon) to the Bible. They think Mormons teach that humans are saved by good works rather than by Jesus Christ, and that humans are of the same species as Jesus and can someday attain his status. In addition, evangelicals say, Mormons reject key Christian doctrines such as the Trinity and creatio ex nihilo (God creating the world out of nothing).

Yet America has a history of electing presidents with religious beliefs outside the orbit of traditional Christianity. George Washington was a deist who usually referred to the deity in vague and impersonal terms. Thomas Jefferson believed the doctrines of the Trinity, atonement, and original sin were essentially pagan and rejected the possibility of miracles or resurrection. John Adams also denied the Trinity, along with most orthodox Christian doctrine, while holding to a Stoic-like resignation to fate. Abraham Lincoln and his wife attended séances, and William Howard Taft was a Unitarian—which means he rejected the deity of Christ.

Besides, Mormon beliefs are not as un-evangelical as most evangelicals think. Unlike Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons hold firmly to the deity of Christ. For Latter-Day Saints, Jesus is not only the Son of God but also God the Son. Evangelical pollster George Barna found in 2001 that while only 33 percent of American Catholics, Lutherans, and Methodists agreed that Jesus was "without sin," Mormons were among the "most likely" to say that Jesus was sinless.


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Comments

Displaying 1–3 of 85 comments

Jim (One star only)

June 12, 2007  10:33pm

As an ex-Mormon, I can tell you that the difference between Mormonism and Christianity is like night and day! Mormonism teaches that all good Mormon men can progress to become a god and rule over his own planet with his many wives; that God was once a man who lived on another planet and worked hard enough to become the god of this earth; that he has a body of flesh and bones and is not a spirit; he has hundreds of wives and millions of children; he had a father, who had a father, etc; and he is eternally progressing, learning new things to become even smarter. The Mormon Jesus was not born of a virgin because Mary was married to God first; that Jesus is the brother of Lucifer; that he is eternally progressing also and someday can become a god of his own planet; that he is married to several women and has multiple children. This is not the God nor Jesus of the Bible. This is only a small amount of the many doctrinal differences that exist between Mormonism and Christianity.

Marsha Norton

June 12, 2007  9:29pm

I am appalled by the article on Mitt Romney! Evangelicals are not the ones who accuse Mormons of adding revelations, believing salvation by works, teaching that men can attain godhood, or purporting that they are the same species as Jesus. Those are prominent LDS beliefs! As “A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction,” CT owes its readers a Biblical perspective, not one that paints Christians as hatemongers when they expose Mormon teachings. This article showed Mormonism in a favorable light, while also painting Christians as narrow-minded. It did acknowledge that there are fundamental differences in belief systems, but it did not say that the Mormon belief system could cost someone their eternal soul! This is too high a price to be “politically correct.”

R.T. Myers

June 12, 2007  8:46am

I'm pretty much with Luther on politics and religion. What worries me about any candidate is an overtly religious position rather than a thoughtful consideration of the Common Good. I would say the same for both Democrats and Republicans. It's fine if a leader is a person of faith, but didn't Jesus say something to the effect, "When you pray go into your closet and shut the door"? I much rather prefer a politician in the tradition of the late Dag Hammaskjold whose faith was not uncovered until his untimely death in a plane crash while serving on a peace mission as the Secretary General of the United Nations. Of course, I find my own political convictions closer to the Greens so religious posturing of the Republicans and Democrats isn't very impressive from my perspective.

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