U.S. News and World Report is reporting that a group called “Catholics for Obama” has been calling voters, asking such questions as “How can you vote for a Mormon who does not believe in Jesus Christ?” (Evidently, the calls also claim that President Obama does not support abortion and that Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest provider of abortions and lobbyist for the abortion license, “helps children to get healthcare and prenatal care and does not promote abortion.” But lay those misrepresentations aside for present purposes.)
The Catholic League for Civil and Religious Rights has condemned the anti-Mormon bigotry of these calls in the strongest possible terms. All Catholics should join in the condemnation. I don’t know who is behind these calls, but the Obama campaign should, in all decency, immediately try to figure it out and shut them down. This is only the most egregious of many nauseating examples of the anti-Mormon bigotry that has crawled out of the swamp in relation to Governor Romney’s nomination as the Republican candidate for president. Most examples are more subtle and “sophisticated”; but they are no less appalling. Of course, bigotry of any kind is appalling. But for those who recognize, as we all should, the extraordinary decency, generosity, and patriotism of the vast majority of our LDS fellow citizens, and their many (mainly unsung) contributions to the common good of our society, the defamation of Mormons and their faith is particularly grotesque. Whether or not we happen to support Governor Romney in this campaign, we Catholics should be united in our friendship with, and high regard for, the Latter-Day Saints.
October 2nd, 2012 | 11:55 am
“I don’t know who is behind these calls, but the Obama campaign should, in all decency, immediately try to figure it out and shut them down. ”
Amen. However, I simply fail to understand how anybody can suppose or expect that this would happen.
This is the President who, as state senator voted to condemn a child born alive in the pursuit of an abortion to summary execution-a position so abhorrent, extreme and absolute that a significant portion of fervent abortion supporters find it repellant. He absolutely lied to Cardinal Dolan about conscience protections and his healthcare law. Can anyone suppose that these things would be done by a man who had any decency?
At some point, thoughful people are going to have to realize that Obama reserves a very special contempt for Catholicism and that’s why there’s been a special focus on confrontation with, and division of Catholics. He must chuckle when he reflects on being sponsored by the Diocese of Chicago to attend “training”.
I hope the realization occurs while there is a chance to stop it’s advances.
October 2nd, 2012 | 12:09 pm
U.S. News and World Report is reporting that a group called “Catholics for Obama” has been calling voters, asking such questions as “How can you vote for a Mormon who does not believe in Jesus Christ?”
The report is based on a Deal Hudson piece writing about one alleged call reported to him by someone he knows. He concludes the piece, “Catholics across the nation should be prepared to receive these deceitful and dissembling phone calls. . . . These Catholics for Obama calls are coming your way—the scripts are written, their call centers are ready, and they are well-funded.” That is a lot to base on the report of one person receiving one call.
All the other reports of the alleged calls from Catholics for Obama are based either on the Deal Hudson piece or on the US News & World Report piece, which itself is based on the Deal Hudson piece.
Perhaps more will come to light, but right now this is all based on what Deal Hudson has claimed was told to him by one person.
October 2nd, 2012 | 12:11 pm
Catholic League for Civil and Religious Rights? Bill Donahue’s outfit?
I seem to recall many Republicans falsely claiming that Obama is a Muslim. Instead of condemning this and “shutting it down”, he has made birth certificate jokes in Michigan.
October 2nd, 2012 | 12:47 pm
[...] First Things: The Catholic League for Civil and Religious Rights has condemned the anti-Mormon bigotry of these [...]
October 2nd, 2012 | 12:59 pm
Thanks to Robert George for his very decent, kind, and intelligent post. Although I have not been a Mormon believer for many years, most of my family believes in it. And I have the greatest respect for Mormons and the Mormon Church. It has, and contiues to do much good.
It’s great to see Robert George, a man of courage, show even more courage in defending Mormons.
October 2nd, 2012 | 2:09 pm
U.S. News and World Report is reporting . . . .
Since the information is in an opinion column, I don’t think it is accurate to say, “U.S. News and World Report is reporting . . . .” One would normally say something like, “Peter Roff, writing in U.S. News & World Report . . . .” When Peggy Noonan wrote in her column that the Romney campaign was a “rolling calamity,” it would have been very misleading to say, “The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the Romney campaign is a ‘rolling calamity.’”
And since the sole source used in the U.S. News & World Report opinion piece is Deal Hudson in Catholic Online, it would make more sense to cite Catholic Online as the source of the information. But that sounds a lot less impressive than saying, “U.S. News and World Report is reporting . . . .”
October 2nd, 2012 | 2:54 pm
It’s great to see Robert George, a man of courage, show even more courage in defending Mormons.
Bret Lythgoe,
It seems pretty clear to me that part of Robert George’s vision is the formation of a coalition of religious conservatives. So while I do think it is admirable that he defends Mormons and particularly Muslims, I think his motives are not entirely without political considerations.
October 2nd, 2012 | 3:02 pm
An interesting quote that appeared almost a year ago in First Thoughts:
Would opposing Romney for president because his success would “advance the cause of Mormonism and have eternally detrimental effects” be religion, or religious bigotry?
October 2nd, 2012 | 3:17 pm
Folks may be interested in some of the swamp talk that Mormons aim at others:
Joseph Smith said god told him that “all [non-Mormon] creeds were an abomination in his [god's] sight; that those professors were all corrupt;. You can read this defamation right on the official Internet site of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Here’s the link:
http://www.lds.org/scriptures/pgp/js-h/1.19?lang=eng#18
The Book of Mormon is just as insulting. Accoring to the Book of Mormon, “are save two churches only; the one is the church of the Lamb of God [the Mormon Church], and the other is the church of the devil [all the other churches]; wherefore, whoso belongeth not to the church of the Lamb of God belongeth to that great church, which is the mother of abominations; and she is the whore of all the earth.”
Read it, yourself, on the official Internet site of the Mormon Church. Here’s the link:
http://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/1-ne/14.10?lang=eng#9
October 2nd, 2012 | 4:05 pm
Why would telling anyone that Rmoney was a Mormon and didn’t believe in Jesus effect their vote if they didn’t already hold anti-Mormon bias or believe in a religious test for public office?
October 2nd, 2012 | 4:20 pm
Mormons are good citizens. As are Jews, and Budists. However, as we defend their integrity, we must respectfully warn them that what they teach is antithetical to Christianity.
October 2nd, 2012 | 4:41 pm
Given the sort of stuff taught at Jeremiah Wright’s church, why isn’t this much of a muchness? Besides, of course, the obvious fact that people don’t go into what is taught in Obama’s church?
October 2nd, 2012 | 6:33 pm
Pastor Spomer: Mormons are good citizens. As are Jews, and Budists.
Let’s not forget atheists.
October 2nd, 2012 | 7:46 pm
Pastor Spomer says…”we must respectfully warn them that what they teach is antithetical to Christianity.” You could not be more correct, The LDS Church teaches basic doctrines almost 180 degrees from modern day Christianity. But…….Mormons do teach faith and repentance through Jesus Christ. Mormons did name their church…”The Church of Jesus Christ….” Mormons are Christian and believe in the NT of the Bible. If Pastor Spomer were totally honest, the problem is interpretation of the Bible. Because Mormons interpret many scriptures significantly different than historical Christianity, Pastor Spomer and others declare them NON Christians.
October 2nd, 2012 | 8:05 pm
Pastor Spomer, you couldn’t be more wrong. From one of our Book of Mormon scriptures “26 And we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins.” We worship Christ as our savior and everything we do is in his name.
October 2nd, 2012 | 9:44 pm
Dandy, your implication with those two quotes–that Mormons are elitists who look down on and condemn other religions–could not be more wrong.
The first part of the first quote states that traditional creeds are not accurate about God. This is so terrible? The second half does not say that leaders of other religions are evil, but that, in the sense of Webster’s 1828 dictionary, which came out only two years before the Book of Mormon, are “4. Debased; rendered impure; changed to a worse state; as corrupt language.
5. Not genuine; infected with errors or mistakes. The text is corrupt.” Arguable, but hardly hostile. It’s OK for religions not to recognize the divine authority of other religions; it doesn’t mean that there are any negative feelings or judgement.
The second quote is even more innocuous. Your brackets imply that Mormons see only themselves as the church of the Lamb in that vision, and that (according to you) “all the other churches” are the church of the devil.
But LDS teaching specifically repudiates that. 2 Nephi 10:16 defines the church of the devil as only those who actively “fighteth against Zion.” Alma 40:11-13 clearly describes rewards in the afterlife as being determined by our righteousness here, not where our circumstances happened to make us sit on Sunday.
Indeed, another criticism often leveled against LDS belief is that it makes salvation too broad! Nearly everyone receives some degree of glorious reward. We are taught that many of those not of our faith in this life will inherit the highest kingdoms in eternity, and that many Latter-day Saints may fail to do so (indeed, the parable of the ten virgins strongly warns of this, does it not?).
Besides, a close reading shows that the Book of Mormon’s “church of the devil” is synonymous with the “whore of Babylon” in the biblical book of Revelation.
Why the eagerness to create animosity against Mormons, Dandy?
October 3rd, 2012 | 7:30 am
This is a specious argument. Catholics have a duty to point out the errors of Mormonism and to work against its influence in public life where possible. Catholics also have a duty to raise the profile of Christianity in public life. There is no bigotry in that, it’s simply common sense for a man to act according to his principles.
The difficulty arises because Obama’s Christianity is clearly unorthodox, his policies anti-Christian, and his rhetoric criminal (in the case of abortion, for example). So the Christian voter is faced with an unappealing choice between a Christian heretic (Obama), and a man who espouses a very strange un-Christian creed yet whose rhetoric is more in line with traditional Christianity (Romney). Anyone wrestling with that prudential judgment in no way merits the label “bigot.” George should be arguing for Romney from Christian prudence. His use of the phrase “anti-Mormon bigotry” is a red herring which seems designed to bully the simple.
October 3rd, 2012 | 9:41 am
John S wrote: His use of the phrase “anti-Mormon bigotry” is a red herring which seems designed to bully the simple.
Rather with this phrase he is simply using common parlance to describe these calls for what they are.
October 3rd, 2012 | 9:48 am
Catholics have a duty to point out the errors of Mormonism and to work against its influence in public life where possible.
John Sobieski,
Why limit it to Mormonism? Why not add Judaism, Islam, and all the various Christian denominations excluding Catholicism? It seems to me you are coming close to advising that if the choice is between a good Catholic and a good “non-Catholic,” Catholic voters should vote for the Catholic to advance Catholicism. That seems to me to approach religious bigotry. Although I suppose voters can apply a “religious test” for office if they choose to, that doesn’t seem to me to be in the spirit of American democracy, where we don’t discriminate based on race, color, creed, or national origin.
The question in voting for president is who can best lead the country, not whose religion might get a boost from having one of its adherents in office.
There is so little evidence that a Catholic anti-Romney, anti-Mormon campaign is being waged that I think Robert George’s post was irresponsible, but I would hope every American Catholic could answer, “Sure, I could vote for a Mormon like Mitt Romney in spite of our religious differences if I thought he’d make the best president.”
October 3rd, 2012 | 10:51 am
@Pauli: It’s demagoguery.
@Nickol: I don’t limit it to Mormonism. And I would advise Catholics to vote for Catholics, [i]all other things being equal[/i]. You rightly say that the question in voting for president is who can best lead the country. I would expect all Catholics should like to see it led to Jesus Christ. If I had a choice between a Catholic Romney and a Mormon Romney, I would vote for the former, and there would be nothing bigoted about doing so.
Between Romney and Obama, however, all things are not equal. Romney would make a better president, no doubt in my mind.
October 3rd, 2012 | 10:58 am
Thank you, Mr. Robert George, for calling out this bigotry. As a Mormon, I appreciate someone standing up for me. I have many fine Catholic friends and I would do the same for them.
October 3rd, 2012 | 11:12 am
Defamation is, of course, wrong. But when voting I do take into account the religious affiliations of the candidates. If religion does not affect their behaviour of what significance is it? I consider the known opinions of the religions and the character of those adherents of which I have some knowledge, assuming that the candidates will probably be somewhat similar.
October 3rd, 2012 | 12:42 pm
[...] way — laments an obnoxious recent case of anti-Mormon propaganda during this political season (“Anti-Mormonism Crawls Out of the Swamp”) while, down in Arizona, a thirty-year-old Mormon border patrol agent (recently called as second [...]
October 3rd, 2012 | 1:37 pm
John Sobieski,
When in the world have there been two candidates for any political office where all things were equal except they were of different religions? In theory, I see nothing wrong in a voter using religion as a tie-breaker, but in actual practice, I can’t imagine it happening.
I would expect all Catholics should like to see it led to Jesus Christ.
This is most definitely not something a president of the United States should even contemplate doing or, I would argue, that voters should think about.
October 3rd, 2012 | 1:46 pm
[...] FIRST THINGS, “Anti-Mormonism Crawls out of the Swamp“ [...]
October 3rd, 2012 | 2:01 pm
@JohnSobieski : The Obama folks come out with a phone campaign which is truly designed to target “simple”, undecided Catholics, yet Robert George is the demagogue who is intent on bullying them. Hysterical.
October 3rd, 2012 | 4:00 pm
@Nickol: It is a matter of Church teaching, I am afraid, that a good Catholic President has a responsibility to hold as an ideal, the leading of the state to Jesus Christ. Read Leo XIII’s encyclical Libertas.
@Pauli: Robert George is undermining the natural and healthy reaction Catholics have toward theological error, as well as the Church’s teaching with respect to the duties of the state toward God. The consequence will be a reluctance to point out errors in charity for fear of being guilty of bigotry. Ultimately, the whole point of religious liberty–free and open theological discourse–is undermined. We need to get over the simple fact that people subscribe to a religion because they believe it to be true, and all the others false.
October 3rd, 2012 | 4:07 pm
I can think of nothing more mischievous than the sort of communitariansim that allows ethnic or religious solidarities and allegiances to override republican unity.
If a citizen’s suitability for public office are to vary in accordance with his religious affiliations, how is the republic one and indivisible?
October 3rd, 2012 | 4:37 pm
Relative to any attack on or misrepresentation of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the following is instructive. The Lord Jesus Christ, the God and Savior of this world, encountered and addressed this issue during his earthly ministry. He said relative to such attacks made on him or his Church, whether out of ignorance or malice “Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake…Rejoice, and be exceedingly glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.” (Matthew 5: 10-12).
No one should attack another person’s religion. Be builders rather than destroyers.
Phillip C. Smith
October 3rd, 2012 | 4:41 pm
@Michael PS: Look around the world, and everywhere there is strife within a state, there is probably division along religious lines. The Founders were well aware that the health of this country depended on a good measure of unity in religion. Read Washington’s Farewell Address, for example. The idea that one’s religion can be sealed off in the private realm is a dream, as realistic as unicorns.
October 3rd, 2012 | 5:58 pm
Michael PS: If a citizen’s suitability for public office are to vary in accordance with his religious affiliations, how is the republic one and indivisible?
I am not arguing that this is true in this particular case, but imagine fundamentalists and theocrats. Is their suitability not undermined by their religious affiliation?
October 4th, 2012 | 5:31 am
John Sobieski wrote, “The Founders were well aware that the health of this country depended on a good measure of unity in religion”
The views of the Founders can best be gleaned from the Constitution.
The Constitution (Article 6 and First Amendment) lays down a separation between state and religion. On the one hand, the state requires no special religious declaration for public office, demonstrating its independence of religion (Article 6); on the other, it cannot intervene in religious matters, because Congress cannot legislate to establish a religion or prohibit its free exercise (First Amendment).
This is in stark contrast to the Ancien Régime, where the roi très-chrétien ruled “by the grace of God” and religious dissent was a challenge to the basis of his authority.
More than that, these provisions can be justified only on the assumption that individuals’ private opinions will have no impact on the due discharge of their public functions and that the relations between private individuals and public officials will be governed by common rules – which comes down to asserting the primacy of these rules over personal beliefs.
John F Kennedy summed this up well, when he said that he believed in an America, “where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him, or the people who might elect him.”
October 4th, 2012 | 7:44 am
Pastor Spoomer: Were those individuals who accepted Christ, prior to circa 325 AD, Christians?
October 4th, 2012 | 10:16 am
@Michael PS: You cannot understand the constitution in isolation from its context. It worked because it unified a number of Christian states. It would not have worked otherwise. It would never have even been proposed.
With slight shades of difference, you have the same religion, manners, habits, and political principles. – George Washington’s Farewell Address
October 4th, 2012 | 11:54 am
John Sobieski
As the Catholic historian, Lord Acton, observed, in 1889, “It is an old story that the federal constitution, unlike that of Hérault de Séchelles, makes no allusion to the Deity; that there is none in the president’s oath; and that in 1796 it was stated officially that the government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion. No three men had more to do with the new order than Franklin, Adams, and Jefferson. Franklin’s irreligious tone was such that his manuscripts, like Bentham’s, were suppressed, to the present year. Adams called the Christian faith a horrid blasphemy. Of Jefferson we are assured that, if not an absolute atheist, he had no belief in a future existence; and he hoped that the French arms “would bring at length kings, nobles, and priests to the scaffolds which they have been so long deluging with human blood.” If Calvin prompted the Revolution, it was after he had suffered from contact with Tom Paine; and we must make room for other influences which, in that generation, swayed the world from the rising to the setting sun.”
The similarities with Revolutionary France are very notable.
October 4th, 2012 | 12:03 pm
Yes Bret, and Christ has always been God. And there has always been, and always will be, one God. The very idea of God with a capital “G” necessitates singularity. There can not be two all powerful beings, by definition. If we are referring to a being that is not All mighty, or not always existing, or not unchanging, then we are not yet referring to God. Neither the Bible nor Christianity are polytheistic. Consult Isaiah.
To debate theology with someone, is not to attack them, it is to take them seriously, and respectfully. We debate our peers.
P.S. Forgive the typos- I’m using an iPad.
October 4th, 2012 | 2:26 pm
For those who say Mormons believe in the same Jesus as those of Christianity, take a look at this:
“In bearing testimony of Jesus Christ, President Hinckley spoke of those outside the Church who say Latter-day Saints ‘do not believe in the traditional Christ.’ ‘No, I don’t. The traditional Christ of whom they speak is not the Christ of whom I speak. For the Christ of whom I speak has been revealed in this the Dispensation of the Fullness of Times. He together with His Father, appeared to the boy Joseph Smith in the year 1820, and when Joseph left the grove that day, he knew more of the nature of God than all the learned ministers of the gospel of the ages.’” (LDS Church News Week ending June 20, 1998, p. 7).
I guess when your former boss says there is a difference, there must be a difference.
October 4th, 2012 | 3:12 pm
[...] and Politicized Religion Thursday, October 4, 2012 Anna Williams Robert P. George yesterday wrote about the phone calls allegedly made by the group Catholics for Obama to ask voters questions like “How can you vote [...]
October 4th, 2012 | 3:28 pm
Please, don’t any one misunderstand, I would very much want Mormons to be part of Christendom. I hope that they are flexible enough to adopt a monotheistic understanding of God. If the LDS church were to begin a reaquaintence with the Nicean Creed, I would hope that it would be accepted in like manner as the previous rejection of polygamy.
October 4th, 2012 | 6:44 pm
Pastor Spomer: hi, thanks for your response. You clearly seem to me to have the best of intentions. You’ve always been very respectful. My point is that many who followed Christ, before the great Council of Nicaea, did not believe that there was just one God. Now, perhaps they were wrong, but were they not Christian? And if they were Christian, even though they had a wrong conception of the theological nature of God, why not Mormons? Why is belief in the Council of Nicaea the sole criterion for establishing whether someone is Christian or not, rather than, what I consider to be a more rational criterion for establishing whether someone is Christian (as opposed to correct, an important distinction; after all, you believe, I’m assuming, that Catholics are Christian, just not correct), his/her acceptance of the New Testament, especially Christ dying for our sins, and rising on the third day, which Mormons manifestly do?
October 4th, 2012 | 8:42 pm
Bret, You point is a good one. A good example would be children, who understanding of their faith is meger. One could say that all of us, to some degree, live with misunderstanding.
However, if one looks at the other side of the equation, there’s trouble. If we reduce saving faith to “believing in Jesus”, then one could believe in Apollo, provided one called him “Jesus”.
Faith, is not faith in a doctrine, it is faith in a person, Jesus. Jesus saves us, despite our poverty of understanding. However, doctrine is important in identifying Who Jesus/God is. As Jesus said to the woman at the well, “You worship what you do not know.” Likewise, Paul told the Athenians Who their “unknown god” was.
In the same way, Christians must respectfully serve their Mormon friends in explaining what the faith is, and Who is Jesus.
October 5th, 2012 | 4:48 am
If we are talking about something more than a useful taxonomy for the study of comparative religion, there is a serious problem in trying to define Christians by their tenets or the Church by its teaching.
One can, of course, try to set up an explicitly doctrinal test – “The true faith is contained in the three catholic creeds,” or “The true faith is that Jesus Christ is Lord,” although, if anyone objects that one’s chosen formula is too inclusive/exclusive, it is difficult to discover grounds on which to refute him.
In the Ante-Nicene age, the connotation was, not so much doctrinal as sacramental. A Christian was someone who had been received into the Church by baptism. If we ask, “Which church?” then, if we are to avoid tautology, we cannot argue that “The true church is the one that teaches the true faith” and “The true faith is what the true church teaches.” What we need is an historic definition.
October 5th, 2012 | 8:06 am
Hi Pastor Spomer: thank you. You make a good point, as well. Clearly the truth matters. But, as you point out, we all live with misunderstanding. To borrow from Paul, we all see through a glass darkly. No one really knows, fully, who or what God is.
When one looks at Mormons, what they worship, is the same Christ that any Christian sees in the New Testament, except that He’s a material being, in Mormonism. They worship a being who heals people of spiritual and physical disease, who came to die and be resurrected, so that all humans can be saved. Sure, they don’t understand the metaphysical aspects of the Trinity, (but, as we both agree, no one does, fully) But they understand the essence of why Christ came: to save humanity.
I’m not saying the understanding of the metaphysics is unimportant. And one can, of course, continue to try and show that Mormonism is wrong, but the practical essence of Christianity, (Christ died, and rose again, to save us, as depicted in the NT) is the same for all Christians, including Mormons. Would God, in your eyes, restrict salvation to those who accept that Christ died and rose for them, to save them of their sins, but were ignorant of His metaphysical status?
Thanks again, for your respectful comments, and good will.
October 5th, 2012 | 11:30 am
[...] original article can also be found on First Things. 38.895111 -77.036365 Share this:MoreLike this:LikeBe the first to like [...]
October 5th, 2012 | 11:37 am
Which Pope was it that said that Mormons are so far removed from Christianity that they can’t even be considered heretics, but rather an entirely new and different religion?
October 8th, 2012 | 10:57 am
[...] thanks to reader Prof. Dan Peterson, we have this brief commentary from Robert George about the Catholic push poll John writes about above. Maybe it was push-back like George’s [...]
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