It's unlikely that a lot of American Christians will forget their deep dark resentments against the Mormons
It's not that a Mormon can't be a good and fair-minded president, altho I do have my doubts about this particular wobbly-principled Bryllcreme Golem who seems to be willing to say he believes in whichever principles that will serve him at the moment -- and those so-called principles are all across the board. Pro-choice, Anti-Choice, Pro-Gay Rights, Anti-Gay Rights... as they might say in a Law and Order episode, "So tell me, Governor Romney, why are we to believe that THESE principles you now espouse are going to last?"
It's the other way around.
It's the Christians who deeply deeply resent the Mormons, and not only for the Mountain Massacre.
An excellent PBS - Frontline 4-hour documentary on the history of the Mormons explained the antipathy. And the point they made was that Mormon dogma didn't just disagree with the tenets or the other Christians, the way Martin Luther or Zwingli did against other forms of Christianity -- the Mormons seemed to be telling ALL Christians -- Protestant, Catholic, etc -- that their whole basic concept of Christ and his teaching were flat-out absolutely wrong from the first word on -- that their religions were essentially, pagan.*
It is the Christians who felt they were being slapped in the faith. Certainly the Mormon's beliefs aren't any more ridiculous than those of the Christians. It's not that THEY are not Christians -- they just are perceived as not believing that any of those people who call themselves Christian are Christians at all, that they, the Mormons were arrogant, supercilious, dismissive.
And that's something the other Christians find difficult to accept.
Being neither Christian nor Mormon, I can only write about these things as this group or that's perception. But then, the poet Charles Olson, described history as being driven by MYTHOLOGY and that, he defined as
"That which is said about that which is said."
In other words, take Watergate. What really happened wasn't important. What Nixon said (including "I am not a crook") didn't matter. What moved the mountains was what people said about what HE said.
(That and the fact that the Mormons didn't even allow people of color into the inner church until very very recently, which tends to irritate a lot of African-American Christians.)
A lot of stuff for Governor Romney to overcome.
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* Description of Joseph Smith's vision on which he founded his church:
...But when he retired to that now-legendary grove of trees to ask God "which of all the sects was right, that I might know which to join," he was met with a startling response. By Smith's own account of Mormonism's First Vision, "a pillar of light" descended on him, containing two "Personages," who turned out to be Almighty God and his son Jesus Christ.
"I was answered [evidently by Jesus] that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that: 'they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof.'"
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See why they might be a little offended?
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It's the other way around.
It's the Christians who deeply deeply resent the Mormons, and not only for the Mountain Massacre.
An excellent PBS - Frontline 4-hour documentary on the history of the Mormons explained the antipathy. And the point they made was that Mormon dogma didn't just disagree with the tenets or the other Christians, the way Martin Luther or Zwingli did against other forms of Christianity -- the Mormons seemed to be telling ALL Christians -- Protestant, Catholic, etc -- that their whole basic concept of Christ and his teaching were flat-out absolutely wrong from the first word on -- that their religions were essentially, pagan.*
It is the Christians who felt they were being slapped in the faith. Certainly the Mormon's beliefs aren't any more ridiculous than those of the Christians. It's not that THEY are not Christians -- they just are perceived as not believing that any of those people who call themselves Christian are Christians at all, that they, the Mormons were arrogant, supercilious, dismissive.
And that's something the other Christians find difficult to accept.
Being neither Christian nor Mormon, I can only write about these things as this group or that's perception. But then, the poet Charles Olson, described history as being driven by MYTHOLOGY and that, he defined as
"That which is said about that which is said."
In other words, take Watergate. What really happened wasn't important. What Nixon said (including "I am not a crook") didn't matter. What moved the mountains was what people said about what HE said.
(That and the fact that the Mormons didn't even allow people of color into the inner church until very very recently, which tends to irritate a lot of African-American Christians.)
A lot of stuff for Governor Romney to overcome.
-----------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------
* Description of Joseph Smith's vision on which he founded his church:
...But when he retired to that now-legendary grove of trees to ask God "which of all the sects was right, that I might know which to join," he was met with a startling response. By Smith's own account of Mormonism's First Vision, "a pillar of light" descended on him, containing two "Personages," who turned out to be Almighty God and his son Jesus Christ.
"I was answered [evidently by Jesus] that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that: 'they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof.'"
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See why they might be a little offended?
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posted by Saintperle at
4:18 PM
