The New Republic

"...he will not abandon his personal faith for political gain."  

The word "again" should be added to the end of that quote.

- stgla

December 7, 2007 at 3:56pm

One of the things I heard about in several credible places on line today was the Mormon practice of baptizing dead people so that they and/or their families will be able to go to the Mormon heaven or be reborn as a Mormon. One of their targets has been Holocaust victims. They have gotten millions of names of Jewish Holocaust victims and had ceremonies to re-baptize them as Mormons. I heard enough today to know that this is true. This is both shockingly bizarre and outrageously demeaning and offensive. Mr. Romney is fairly high in the Church hieracrchy: What does he have to say about this?

- sabatia

December 7, 2007 at 6:27pm

sabita--As a Jew, I agree with you completely.  The redeeming fact, however, is that the Mormon church has some of the most complete records on the planet for searching your family tree.  We Jews are clever enough not to make a big deal about it, so that we can continue to utilize their research--for free!  But, you are correct; their motivation is disgusting, not to mention ridiculous.

- rishy

December 7, 2007 at 8:13pm

Is Yglesias the only person out there who gets that there are real and rather severe differences of theology between the LDS and pretty much every Christian group out there?  I have been struck by the extreme willingness of so many non-Christian posters on the various comment sections of the many TNR articles and blog entries devoted to Romney of late, who apparently consider themselves expert enough on Mormon and Christian beliefs to tell various Christian groups who or what they can and can't define as Christian.  How foolish is this?

rishy, I suspect that you, as a self-identified Jew, would be fairly apoplectic if I claimed to be a perfectly good Jew, despite not being circumcised, claiming the four Gospels as Scripture, and embracing Christ as the Messiah (or any other human who had walked the earth, for that matter, I suppose).  You'd have a right to be apoplectic, too, or at least I think most people would say you would.  

Yet when confronted with a church that puts Jesus Christ in its name, but in essence puts in Another Testament of Jesus Christ (as some commercials used to call the Book of Mormon) that trumps the New Testament in any place where they might disagree; that, while claiming Jesus as necessary for salvation, denies the sufficiency of Christ by adding in a whole bunch of laws about what you can and can't eat and wear (this would severely rankle most Protestant groups I know; I won't pretend to know enough of Catholic doctrine to address their belief on that issue); and which teaches as part of its history that the Christian church in general was "lost" or "fallen" or in some such false state until Joseph Smith did his thing; somehow I'm intolerant if I insist that these differences (among others) matter, rather a lot?  

The things about special underwear, secret rituals, and baptism of the dead, for example, while perhaps more overtly attention-grabbing and having a more definite "ick factor," tend to obscure that there are severe and non-trivial differences of doctrine and teaching between Mormonism and those Christian groups that it wants to belong to while claiming superiority to.  Romney was being seriously disingenuous in that statement of what he believes about Jesus; he can't possibly be so stupid that he doesn't know it means something completely different to him than it does to those Evangelicals he's trying to rally to his side.  

My repulsion at that speech is growing exponentially the more I think about it.  And it would be equally repulsive coming from, say, Harry Reid, although it's pretty hard to imagine him giving it.  But I'm also repulsed by folks making grand pronouncements about the congruence of the LDS and whatever Christian group you choose without knowing diddly-poo about either.

- cspencef

December 7, 2007 at 9:38pm

cspencef:

No mormon should be allowed to run for president without having rotten fruit thrown at him whenever he steps out into public.

- virginiacentrist

December 8, 2007 at 2:12am

Romney is a total douchebag.

I only hope this speech somehow hurts his campaign, though I doubt it will.  The nutters that make up the Mormon Church may have some concrete differences with your garden variety Evangelical nutters, but I don't think that's going to matter.  The threat of freethinking liberals taking over will loom too large for them to pass on this sanctimonious asshole.

- struelpetr

December 8, 2007 at 1:02pm