Romney Finds Religion

[cbayer]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/neil-j-young/romney-finds-religion_b_1846542.html


Neil J. Young
Historian, Princeton University
Romney Finds Religion
Posted: 08/31/2012 10:49 am



Republicans meeting in Tampa this week and Americans watching the GOP convention at home heard a lot about something the Romney campaign hasn't wanted to talk about before: Mitt Romney's Mormon faith. On Thursday night, a series of Romney's fellow members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints took to the stage in Tampa to speak about their religion and Romney's leadership in the LDS Church. Later in the night, Romney spent little time discussing the topic that he's mostly avoided on the campaign trail, but he did mention the experience of having grown up Mormon in Michigan. "That might have seemed unusual or out of place," Romney said, "but I don't remember it that way. My friends cared more about what sports teams we followed than what church we went to."

The attention to Romney's Mormonism on Thursday night capped a week of efforts in Tampa to promote Romney as a deeply religious man after a campaign season that had avoided such talk. Throughout the convention, various GOP operatives, conservative pundits and Romney campaign officials repeatedly referred to Romney as a "man of faith" and a "man of God." The convention speakers too made such references, including Paul Ryan's acknowledgment that though he and Romney "go to different churches," the GOP presidential nominee was a "prayerful and faithful" man.

Romney campaign officials insist that they had long intended to wait until Tampa to introduce the story of Romney's Mormon faith into the campaign. "The convention is a good platform for telling all the dimensions of Romney's life," including Mormonism, a senior Romney adviser explained to the website BuzzFeed.

But what the Romney campaign doesn't want to acknowledge is the fact that Romney is talking about Mormonism now because he couldn't talk about it before. The painful but obvious truth is that Romney had to keep silent about his faith until he had won the Republican nomination because his Mormonism proved too much of a liability in the evangelical-heavy GOP primaries.

more at link

[jeepnstein]

1. I had a colleage quote scripture...

the other day as an indicator that we should vote for him. When I reminded him that Romney doesn't necessarily think as highly of the Bible as he does, as evidenced by Romney's membership in the Mormon Church, he quickly shut his mouth. Ask a Mormon about the Bible some time and you'll quickly discover it's just another document that is open to change any time the prophet finds it convenient. This is one of the major reasons that Biblically conservative evangelicals have a certain enmity with Mormons, theologically speaking.

I'm sure he's off trying to figure out another reason to vote for the clown. For many "Christians" service to God has become secondary to service to their political party.

[cbayer]

2. I have to give the RNC and Romney some credit for "mainstreaming" Mormonism

during the convention. I think that was their goal and that they did quite a bit to accomplish it.

I could see many right wing christians saying, "he's more like us than he is not", at this point

[jeepnstein]

4. And nothing could be farther from the truth.

[cbayer]

5. Do you want to elaborate?

[jeepnstein]

7. The part about him being "like us"...

He might as well be from another planet.

[TlalocW]

3. Well, yeah, in Michigan, you're probably not going to have much trouble...

Growing up Mormon. Try it in Texas or somewhere in the south, buddy.

TlalocW

[dimbear]

6. Mormons see the human adventure as a step toward godhood. They consider that

wealth is a sign of God's approval. It seems to me that being president would look good on your application too.

Baptists, will you help a guy out?