Would You Vote for a Mormon for President? (A Second Look)
The essay below first appeared in September of 2007 in anticipation of the ‘08 election. This version is updated for 2011.
Would you vote for a Mormon for President? Under the right conditions, I would.
By now, the name Mitt Romney is at least vaguely familiar to most of us. Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, is running for President and is a Mormon. So far, his fund-raising efforts have been fruitful, and the discomfort of many Republicans with the alternatives has kept Romney in a strong position in the polls. Though his chances of being the Republican nominee are smaller now that Rick Perry has entered the race, an eventual Romney nomination is far from impossible.
Some pundits claim the Christian Right will never allow that to happen. In their view, evangelicals view Mormonism as a cult and anyone associated with Mormonism as an embodiment of evil. One pundit, who happens to be a Mormon, wrote the following:
Everyone knows that Christian evangelicals hate Mormons so badly that if they had to choose between a bribe-taking, FBI-file-stealing, relentless-lie-telling, mud-slinging former first lady, and a Mormon ex-governor who doesn’t lie, who’s still married to his first wife, and who supports the entire Christian evangelical agenda, they’d still rather die than vote for a Mormon.
Is he right? More importantly, should he be right? I for one would vote for the Mormon Romney over any liberal Democrat likely to seek office, and I’d do so with only brief hesitation. Before you brand me a nutcase or a heretic, consider the following factors behind my thinking.
Mormonism’s worldview derives from Christianity’s
Sometimes incomplete information is worse than no information at all. (What if you know the guy two seats away from you on an airplane has a gun, but you don’t know he is an Air Marshal?) But when it comes to the big ideas that form the framework of a person’s worldview, every bit of truth is powerful and important. Being partly right is far better than being entirely wrong.
So when it comes to running a country, a Mormon candidate is not even close to the worst-case scenario. Consider what most Mormons believe. They believe there is one God (at least only one that matters in this part of the universe). He is the creator and moral authority over the human race. Human beings ought to be honest, kind and just. We will answer to God at the judgment. In addition to these basics, Mormonism holds that the Bible is very important, that the traditional family is very important and that marriage is sacred.
In short, Mormonism shares with Christianity the belief in a mighty God who expects clean living from His creatures.
Gospel-believers understand that all other religions are false religions
All who believe the gospel see Mormonism as a false religion. As a Baptist and a fundamentalist, I share that view. Mormonism ultimately fails to deliver on its most fundamental promise: eternal life with God’s blessing. The Bible is clear that eternal life is available only through faith in the fully-God, fully-man Jesus Christ apart from any trust in our own works of righteousness. But the fact that Mormonism denies this truth doesn’t make it unusual. Every religion but Christianity denies it. By default, those who claim no religion deny it as well.
To some, Mormonism is particularly spooky because “it’s a cult.” But should we care one way or the other about the spookiness factor? What determines the eternal efficacy of any belief system is whether it holds to the biblical gospel of grace. Mormonism doesn’t, but that puts it on par with Council-of-Trent Roman Catholicism and Orthodox Judaism.
So if evangelicals can be comfortable with candidates who embrace the Judeo-Christian worldview, why can’t they back candidates with a Judeo-Christian-Mormon worldview? When it comes to the gospel, the only difference between Mormonism and many other false systems is that Mormonism hasn’t been around as long.
Do we really believe that a good works-based religion (“cult” if you like) that spun off Christianity and shares several of its tenets is worse than the liberalized versions of Baptist, Episcopal, or Catholic, which have a lower view of human life, a lower view of the institution of the family, a lower view of the Bible and an even murkier view of who God is?
In any case, given our highly specific understanding of what a true Christian is, it’s unlikely that we’ll have one to vote for in 2012. Just by the law of averages, most candidates for high office will not be persons with a genuine faith in the biblical gospel of grace.
Not all non-Christian belief systems are equal
Compare what Mormonism gets right to the belief systems of several other likely presidential candidates. Many candidates have a vaguely high regard for religion in general. That is, they believe that Christianity and faiths like it are helpful in driving people toward ideals like kindness, peace, fairness and love. But they do not hold that any religion is actually true in the sense of being factual in any exclusive way.
Some candidates speak often of God but believe in a God who is nonpersonal. (God is all that is good in the universe, or worse, simply all that is in the universe.) These also tend to believe that if God is a personal being, He has no moral or ethical requirements for the human race that He has gone to the trouble to reveal. These leaders are quite comfortable joining in prayers and public religious rituals but recoil in horror whenever a religion claims to posses exclusive truth about God or forgiveness. They do not believe the Bible can be a source of any kind of certainty about right and wrong in the world.
Such candidates are left with a purely pragmatic process for arriving at moral beliefs. What seems to be helpful? What seems to advance human civilization (as though “advance” could have any meaning without a moral authority to tell us which way is forward)? For the worst of the lot, the only moral calculation is “What seems to be the social trend?”
Though a Mormon’s beliefs ultimately derive from the “apostles” in Salt Lake City (limited somewhat by a synthesis of the Book of Mormon, The Pearl of Great Price, The Doctrine and Covenants, and the Bible), a Mormon believes right and wrong are revealed and did not evolve by chance through the clash of social forces.
The Mormon articles of faith uphold religious freedom and the independent authority of government
Anyone who grew up as I did is naturally apprehensive about the idea of a Mormon in the White House. Won’t he try to force everyone to become Mormon? Won’t he be under the control of the authorities in Salt Lake City? Will he try to weaken orthodox Christianity?
The Mormon articles of faith, and Mormons’ history of taking them seriously, should be reassuring. Article 11 maintains the freedom of individuals to “worship how, where, or what they may.” And Article 12 acknowledges the need to honor, obey and “be subject” to civil authority. Mormons believe Joseph Smith wrote these articles himself, and everything I’ve seen suggests Mormons take the articles as seriously as their well-known belief in the sanctity of the family.
Mormonism is also no longer monolithic. Because it’s been around for a while now and views individual revelation as an ongoing phenomenon, it has dissenters in its ranks. Unlike the followers of, say, the Watchtower Society, it’s not uncommon to hear Mormons offer mild criticism of their own church. Mormons are not brainwashed automatons, acting in lockstep with a secret puppet master in a Utah temple.
I’m not a fan of Mormonism and would prefer to have a non-Mormon president. I’d also love to live in an America that attaches much greater value to its Christian roots and in which a large majority prefers to have a Bible-believing Christian in the White House. But we don’t live in that America. So the question is, what kind of human being makes for a good president for the America we have here and now? We shouldn’t be too quick to dismiss any candidate who has a strongly Bible-influenced view of right and wrong.
As for this particular race, I’d love to see a Paul Ryan, Marco Rubio or Scott Walker jump into the race, then miraculously dominate and win the nomination. But if the ballot in 2012 is Romney vs. Obama, I think the choice is obvious.
Aaron Blumer Bio
Aaron Blumer, SharperIron’s second publisher, is a Michigan native and graduate of Bob Jones University (Greenville, SC) and Central Baptist Theological Seminary (Plymouth, MN). He and his family live in a small town in western Wisconsin, not far from where he pastored Grace Baptist Church for thirteen years. He is employed in customer service for UnitedHealth Group and teaches high school rhetoric (and sometimes logic and government) at Baldwin Christian School.
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[RPittman][Aaron] Now, supposing you had the choice of Josef Stalin and Adolf Hilter, which do you think would be the lesser of two evils? or Herod and Nero?Now, supposing you had the choice of Joseph Stalin and Mitt Romney, who would you vote for?
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Greg Long, Ed.D. (SBTS)
Pastor of Adult Ministries
Grace Church, Des Moines, IA
Adjunct Instructor
School of Divinity
Liberty University
[Todd Wood] Aaron wrote, “My impression is that the average Mormon is only slightly more confused about God than the average “evangelical.”Well… you’re assuming evangelicals who have a clue. I’m not sure “most” of them do…. and I put “evangelicals” in quotes because so many now claim the term yet believe in many roads to heaven, etc.
I beg to differ, bro.
Evangelical says, “There is a God, and I am not Him.” Latter-day Saint says, “There is a God, and you and I are literally His sons.”
Evangelical clearly knows the divide. Latter-day Saint says there is no divide.
Evangelical clearly says there are two circles: One is Creator. And the other is creatures. Latter-day Saint says there is one circle. One round.
There is no overlap.
But if we’re going to classify the “Mormon worldview” or Mormon view of God, where does it fit? It’s polytheistic ultimately but tries to have it both ways. Is it pantheistic? Though their idea of God is not one in which God is infinite and non-contingent, He is still distinct from the creation, am I right?
So lumping it in with “Judeo-Christian” is probably too sloppy but I’m not sure where else it goes.
@Roland…
Nobody is claiming that people can always judge perfectly who the best available candidate is. Given how many Stalin eventually killed, it’s not easy to say those who thought Hitler “better” were wrong. Of course, it’s a bit apples and oranges since they we’re not talking about the same kind of selection process… and the voters did not get to see everything ol’ Adolph would turn out to be.
But what I’m talking about is backing the best available guy vs. refraining from the vote or perhaps missing an opportunity to “vote against” someone evil. So a more valid comparison would be what if those who backed Hitler had done nothing instead? Same result. So I think the “Hasn’t worked” argument is defeated. It is not evident that refraining from supporting the best/least evil candidate has better results than supporting him.
As for the “we always vote for a lesser of evils if we vote at all” argument. I think it still stands. Though it’s true that there’s a difference between voting for an option you loathe only slightly less than the other vs. voting for someone with attractive qualities though not perfect, the difference is relative. Anyone we vote for is either slightly lesser of two evils or a whole lot lesser of two evils.
In any case, a vote need not be understood as an endorsement of all the candidate is and believes. It only means you see him as better than the alternative. If indeed you do see him as better, there must be at least one difference that is “attractive” (even if it’s nothing more than “He will raise taxes .0001 % less than the other guy will.”)
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
[RP] At the risk of sounding cynical, politics may be one of the downfalls of Christian influence in America. Somehow, I don’t recall Christ calling us to win elections but I do remember our Lord saying, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature (Mark 16:15).”The old false dichotomy again. Of course we can’t preach the gospel and win elections. Utterly impossible. And of course we can’t do anything Jesus didn’t command us to do, like post stuff on the Internet, for example.
The “we always vote for a lesser of two evils if we vote at all” argument.
Still stands. Saying it plays into the hands of some supposedly undesirable group doesn’t defeat it. To defeat it, we need an argument that answers the nature of the candidates. I’ve alleged that they all imperfect. Am I incorrect? I’ve argued that since they are always imperfect we are always voting for the one who is best of those available. I’ve also argued that “best” is the same as “least undesireable.” So to defeat that argument, we need something that either shows the candidates are not always flawed or that voting the best is not the same as voting for the least flawed.
As for “the pols,” in Romans 13, God says they are very important, serve Him, and are worthy of honor.
I’m out of time, but briefly revisiting the “voting the best/least flawed candidate hasn’t worked” counterargument:
As I said, nobody is claiming it works out well every time. The Chancellor Hitler case may or may not have turned out as you suppose if voters who backed him had elected some third party guy. Since you say he rigged the thing anyway (I haven’t read up on that part of the history so I wouldn’t know), it kind makes the question of how people voted a bit irrelevant. He was going to find a way to gain power in any case.
But the truth of that situation and it’s relevance here is really simpler even than that.
Hitler deceived voters. Since the ability to deceive voters is not unique to the “least of the evils” candidate (the one who looks worse could also be deceiving), the case only proves that voting in general is an imperfect process. It doesn’t prove that voting for the least unattractive candidate results in disaster.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
[RPittman][Greg Long]Well, I’m not sure why you have that idea, because that idea would be incorrect. Please don’t make assumptions or judgments about my thoughts or motives. LOL or no LOL.[RPittman]Stalin would be eliminated because he’s not a native-born American citizen as required by the Constitution and Romney would win but I wouldn’t vote for him … I would protest … . . Greg, somehow your persistent questioning of my posts gives me the idea that you think you’re slick and clever … LOL … . 8-)[Aaron] Now, supposing you had the choice of Josef Stalin and Adolf Hilter, which do you think would be the lesser of two evils? or Herod and Nero?Now, supposing you had the choice of Joseph Stalin and Mitt Romney, who would you vote for?
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Greg Long, Ed.D. (SBTS)
Pastor of Adult Ministries
Grace Church, Des Moines, IA
Adjunct Instructor
School of Divinity
Liberty University
The potential for revenge is my primary concern about the Mormon church gaining the ultimate political leadership of this country. The Mormon Church has been persecuted for it entire existence. When Brigham Young stood at an overview of the Salt Lake Valley he reportedly said something to the effect, “This is the place.” But the reason he led a group of settlers to what is now Utah was because they were chased-out of the borders of the United States at the time. Polygamy is one of the great conflicts the LDS Church has with Christianity. When Utah applied to Congress for statehood, “One of the conditions for granting Utah statehood was that a ban on polygamy be written into the state constitution” (Wikipedia, “Utah”). Though still illegal, the LDS church has disowned polygamy but has never eradicated it.
History clearly shows that when a persecuted group gains politcial power over its oppressor it takes revenge on the oppressor. Though the election of Mitt Romney to the Presidency will most likely not result in a revolution, the French Revolution is a stark reminder that vengeance is an extremely strong emotion and is a motivator for an oppressed group to take political power. And if a person says, “That can’t happen here,” he or she ignores the sin nature of Man and history itself.
Jimfrank, I don’t think so. The LDS Prophet and Apostles have way too much at stake to take political sides. Church news is already pumping messages of neutrality.
Aaron, Mormonism appears to me as polytheistic paganism packaged beautifully in Protestant cultural conservatism, Catholic hierarchy, thorough business organization, and America patriotism. Concerning all these externals, I don’t care for the hierarchy. But the LDS Church displays my cultural conservative heritage better than almost anyone in the country. I am impressed by their hard-working, business organization. And I love the flag-waving, band-playing, apple-pie eating, and anthem singing of our LDS towns. It is community and families back in the days of Norman Rockwell.
Now, supposing you had the choice of Josef Stalin and Adolf Hilter, which do you think would be the lesser of two evils?Hitler right? Because his incompetence meant that his influence was mostly over by 1945. Stalin’s lasted far longer and killed far more people.
However, you rarely make a good argument by running to the extremes. And this is a good case of that. I doubt you are suggesting that Hitler and Romney are somehow similar. If you are, then your thoughts have far less credibility than I previously imagined. If you are not, then it is hard to understand the relevance of bringing them up.
With respect to Romney, he has a pretty long political career. Can anyone here show any of his decisions, policies, leadership initiatives, etc that are negatively impacted by his Mormonism?
[RP] Stalin would be eliminated because he’s not a native-born American citizen as required by the Constitution and Romney would win but I wouldn’t vote for him … I would protest … . . Greg, somehow your persistent questioning of my posts gives me the idea that you think you’re slick and clever … LOL .…so Roland posts that voting for the lesser of two evils is like voting for Hitler against Stalin.
Then, when Greg says “What if the choice is Stalin vs. Romney?”, Roland decides he can dismiss the question on the grounds that we could never have that set of choices in the US!
LOL indeed.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
Pardon me, Todd, but that is exactly what I’m warning against. Political power is “the ultimate aprhrodisiac.” Better men than you and I have succumbed to a lust for power. That’s why men and women once elected stay 30 years or more in Congress. That is why they run for high office. That is also why organizations such as the LDS Church give money to BOTH sides, in order to gain access to power.
Permit me to speculate, but it is my belief that the primary goal of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints is to gain LEGITIMACY. They’ve coopted much if not most of our theological terminology, turned it on its head, and then tell people “We’re Christians just like them.” They want to be “mainstream.” And now they have a legitimate chance to put one of their men in the White House. Once this happens, payback begins. They will be able to use government assets and resources to settle old scores. If you follow politics you will read much these days about “crony capitalism.” The LDS Church knows all about crony capitalism.
This is how sinful human nature operates. The Mormons have been persecuted for their entire existence. As Christians and as voters we ignore the potential of revenge at our peril.
But here is an issue, brother, to consider as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is somewhat similar to Evangelical Dispensationalism in America. Neither really believe they will have nationwide absolute power in the near future. There will not be a successful Church takeover of the U.S. government. They will not be able to carry out vengeance as underdogs. Thing are not going to get better. Until Jesus come.
The worldview is premillennialism. The worst is yet to come. LDS friends might come out swinging when in conversations because they feel defensive, but they do not believe nor will they act like Christian Crusaders or militant Muslims. It is wired in their worldview.
Also, consider typical Mormon masculinity.
But again, I am no prophet, nor the son of a prophet.
Just an opinion. :)
We’re discussing the idea here of choosing what we perceive as “the lesser of two evils.” My point all along has been that this is poor thinking and a very poor way of making choices.“Lesser of two evils” is a necessary part of life in just about every area of life. Part of principled living is to be able to identify wise decisions in a broken and fallen world. You can poo-poo the idea that anyone less than Jesus is voting for the lesser of two evils, but in order to do so, you have to deny the biblical teaching on sin. Even the best Christians are still sinners who do evil things. Besides, in the world of politics, there is a great deal of legitimate debate about what is actually evil. And sometimes, none of the options might be evil.
Had they stuck with their commitment to a democratic government, although it wasn’t working very well, they may have avoided the agony and destruction of WWII.Maybe. Or they may have been communist. And rather than a decade of problems, there would have been multiplied decades, and multiplied millions more deaths. Which is better? 6 million deaths in four years? Or 70 million deaths in 70 years? If you had the responsibility to choose, which would you choose?
We can’t look into the future. We can only go on the application of wisdom to life.
One of the principles we should be driven by is the principle to save something for the next guy. Losing $100 because we can’t get $1000 is just bad principle in most cases. It’s why the abortion lobby is winning and the pro-life lobby is not. Pro-lifers tend to be all or nothing people. If they can’t get it all, they won’t take any. Pro-abortion people are incrementalists. If they can’t get it all, they will take what they can get. One worked; the other has not.
The connection to Romney is that folks are looking to him because of his reputation for efficiently running large enterprises and straightening out messes. They’re willing to overlook the objectionable things if he can be our savior from this economic mess.That’s not entirely bad. It’s certainly better than someone is both objectionable and can’t clean up the mess. All things being equal, a better economy is better than a bad one, even if there are objectionable things about the person cleaning it up.
Thus, we are justifying the abandonment of our ideological conservatism in a vote for one who is less than a true conservative.Voting for less than a true conservative is not abandoning conservatism. It may simply be an attempt to save a chance for conservatism next time. Sometimes, the wisest principle is take what you can get.
Furthermore, Romney brings an alien and aberrant philosophy to our Judeo-Christian principles of government.I am not sure that is true, but we could entertain an argument to that end. As I said, can you tell us how his Mormonism affects any of his policies/positions/principles/etc?
GW curtailed our liberty with the myth of homeland security (even John Whitehead says we are living in a police state)[‘/quote] That’s not true. That’s chicken little type stuff.Sometimes our “friends” harm our cause more than our “enemies.”Sometimes. But not always. Typically our friends help us more than our enemies.Fear-mongering can cause us to run into a worse trap.Isn’t this what you are doing? You are preaching fear based on Romney’s Mormonism, but you haven’t shown us any reason to actually be afraid. And in the meantime, your philosophy would lead to the reelection of Obama. Would that be good?
I am not fan of Romney, and I hope he doesn’t get the nomination. But we can at least talk about facts rather than this generic message of “Be afraid of him because he’s a Mormon.”
Again I ask, Can you show any examples of how his Mormonism affects his policies or leadership in politics?
Evil is sin; sin is evil. Voting for sinful people is voting for evil at some level. So any vote is always for a choice of the lesser of two evils. It is not only not ‘inane and silly’; it is impossible to do otherwise.
I think you are missing the point I am making about Hitler and Stalin. Now you want to compare Hitler to other choices in Germany. But that wasn’t your question, I don’t believe. In post #51, your question was Hitler vs Stalin, and now you don’t want to answer your own question, whether Hitler’s evil is better or worse than Stalin’s. I am going to go out on a limb and say 6 million deaths and a decade of evil ruling is horrible; but it is less evil than 70 million deaths and several decades of it. I may be crazy on that, but do you disagree? You don’t think that 6 million deaths is less evil than 70?
As for conservatism and giving up conservatism, voting for Reagan or either Bush was not an ideal conservative, but conservatives didn’t give up by voting for them.
As for John Whitehead, who cares? Anyone can say something on the internet. I doubt that police brutality is greater now than before; it is just more public than it used to be because of the ubiquity of video recording devices and the instant news of the internet. DHS has a lot of problems, but generally speaking, civil liberty is among their greatest. They are much more challenged by bad management.
As for fear, you can say you aren’t saying “Fear Romney because he’s Mormon,” but for all the world that’s what it sounds like. You are not telling us to fear him because of his policies. Your focus is on his Mormonism. You think his Mormonism is going to bring bad things to our country and you appear to be fearful of that. You appear to be trying to get others to be fearful of it. If you weren’t fearful of it, why the concern about Mormonism? Why not just focus on his policies?
With respect to worldview, of course we all live according to our worldview. It’s essentially a way of interpreting the world combined with a heirarchy of values for decision making in the world. Everyone has one, whether we are big fans of it or not. Christian and Mormon worldviews have many distinctions, but they also have some similarities. But that’s not really the issue.
But at the end of the day, you haven’t given us any policy or decision that Romney has made distinctly based on his Mormonism. The issue is this: Where has Romney’s Mormon worldview affected his policies or decisions? Give us some examples of how Mormonism affects that.
And BTW, you still haven’t answered your own question about voting for either Hitler or Stalin. How would you answer that?
it is my belief that the primary goal of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints is to gain LEGITIMACY.I think this is certainly the case… there is no need to be a prophet to see it. We’re talking about a religion that has only existed since the 19th century compared to a world religious scene dominated by religions from many centuries to millennia old.
Roland…
1. The “voting for Romney vs. a liberal humanist = like voting for Hitler” argument is probably not working. Readers will make up their own minds, but I’m pretty sure most can see that a few similarities in what people are hoping the leader will do for them doesn’t come close to proving the thesis that all votes for “lesser of 2 evils” are votes for disaster.
2. On the idea that evil is something qualitatively different… just one question: is sin evil?
(If you say no, you have some work to do to convince readers. If you say yes, you effectively accept the “we always vote for the lesser of evils if we vote at all” argument.)
I’ll grant that there is a difference between your garden variety sinners and the popular understanding of “an evil man.” But where does that difference lie? Anyone who does not know Christ is a person blinded by the god of this age, hostile toward God, spiritually dead, etc. But we all know that the unregenerate do not all have equally evil character.
Let’s suppose for a moment that an election between two men of manifestly evil character requires us to vote for neither. I don’t find this idea untenable. It may be impossible to get any clear idea which of two is better, in any case.
But what does this have to do with a Romney vs. Obama scenario?
The things that make for good character (vs. “evil character”) are evident in varying degrees in both men. I wouldn’t call either of them an “evil candidate,” except in the sense that we’re all evil to some degree. (I’d say Obama has some pretty evil ideas, but he believes they are really good for people… as far as I can tell)
So it comes down to this:
- If we’re speaking of “lesser of two evils” in the popular sense of “extreme evil character” — the question is irrelevant. This is not a choice we’re facing.
- If we’re speaking of “lesser of two evils” in the theologically precise sense of “all men are sinners” — we always vote for the lesser of evils (as best we can tell) if we vote at all.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
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