Category: Politics

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Mormonism and Joel Osteen

The same questions asked in the early church are being asked again in the 21st century. The Nicene Creed, a standard summary of Christianity, is threatened on a regular basis.

With the political scene heating up, and the Romney ticket becoming certain, the national debate is beginning to focus on the religious affiliation of candidates. This being the case, Romney’s Mormonism will take central stage again much like Kennedy’s Roman Catholicism in the 60’s.

Many evangelicals will taste the Republican pie certain of its bitter taste. However, they will claim its bitterness is tolerable. The more sophisticated evangelicals will argue that this is a necessary step, an incremental move that will bear fruit in the long term. The bottom line is Obama must go, and Romney is the likely candidate to assure this desired exit.

At the same time, there are a growing number of Christians who not only argue on the basis of Romney’s unconvincing credentials as a conservative, but also that his Mormon faith is unhealthy, and undesirable in the quest for a Christian republic.

Though many politicians play their religious syncretism with skill, Romney’s faith is unquestionably headed towards Utah. So, does this mean evangelicals need to back up in their creedal dogmatism? Or should they insist that a line is a line? Or did Athanasius die in vain?

Kennedy was quick to throw the pope under the bus. Will Romney do the same with Thomas S. Monson? Further, how will evangelicals undertake this theological analysis? Will they be able to distinguish properly between a non-Trinitarian and a worshiper of the One who is Three and One? These types of discussions will undoubtedly continue in the days ahead. Christians–many of whom I respect–have taken the “anything but” argument, and will push for a Romney presidency. If these evangelicals pursue this route–and there are many noble ones who will– may they be sure that they not confuse their Christ for an unknown god.

Mormonism–for all its moral qualities–is not Christian. Joel Osteen’s version of Jesus Christ is not Christian. His appeal to a broader view of Jesus–though politically savvy–is precisely the type of affirmation Jesus rejected. The Christian cannot afford to lose precision at this point. Our confession cannot be compromised:

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father,God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father.

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Romney and Mormonism

With the almost inevitable status of Mitt Romney as the Republican nominee, the American public will be getting a good dose of Mormon theology from all sorts of quarters. Some will likely misrepresent Mormonism, while others will present a more realistic version of Latter-Day-Saints’ theology. National Review has a sneak peak of their latest piece on American attitudes towards Mormonism:

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is, you may be surprised to learn, the largest religious organization in the United States after the Catholic Church, the Southern Baptist Convention, and the United Methodist Church. The Baptists and the Methodists are in decline, while the number of Catholics and Mormons is growing, with Mormons adding to their numbers at 2.5 times the Roman rate of redemption. It is likely that Joseph Smith soon will have more followers in the United States than does John Wesley; already the words “Salt Lake City” carry a religious resonance no longer detectable in place names such as “Aldersgate” — or “Boston” or “Philadelphia” for that matter. (If it weren’t for E. Digby Baltzell’s Puritan Boston and Quaker Philadelphia, the religious flavor of those places would be not only gone but also forgotten.)

Mormons and Catholics are alike in that they matter. Everybody knows who the pope is, and when there’s a papal vacancy the drama of the election leads practically every newspaper in the world, and all of Europe holds its breath. Very few Americans could pick Bryant Wright out of a police lineup or tell you that he is the president of the Southern Baptist Convention. What the Catholic Magisterium teaches influences public policy — and life — around the world. Mormons, likewise, have a kind of cultural electricity about them: There is no Broadway musical assembled to lampoon the beliefs of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, but The Book of Mormon keeps selling out. There are few if any websites dedicated to “unmasking” the Presbyterian Church U.S.A., but there are dozens dedicated to Mormons. The Catholic Church matters in part because it is global, and in some quarters it is still held in suspicion for that reason. The Mormons represent precisely the opposite condition: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the only major worldwide religion bearing a “Made in the U.S.A.” label. Forget apple pie: With its buttoned-down aesthetic, entrepreneurial structure, bland goodwill, and polished professionalism, it is as American as IBM.

Also, it drives people crazy.

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Douthat on Gingrich and the Tempting of the Religious Right

I always enjoy the New York Times Opinion Page because of Douthat’s pieces. Douthat makes the NYT seem reasonable at times. In this op-ed, he answers the question: “What face does the religious right want representing them? He answers with great conviction on why Newt Gingrich would not be one Christians should endorse.

He concludes the article with stunning authority:

Of course Christians are obliged to forgive a penitent, whatever his offenses — though a cynic might note that it’s easy for an adulterer to express contrition once he’s safely married to his mistress. But one can forgive a sinner without necessarily deciding that he should be anointed as the standard bearer for the very cause that he betrayed. Contrition is supposed to be its own reward. There’s no obligation to throw in the presidency as well.

In a climate of culture war, any spokesman for conservative Christianity is destined to be a polarizing figure. (Just ask Tim Tebow.) But a religious right that rallied around Gingrich would be putting the worst possible face on its cause and at the worst possible time.

His candidacy isn’t a test of religious conservatives’ willingness to be good, forgiving Christians. It’s a test of their ability to see their cause through outsiders’ eyes, and to recognize what anointing a thrice-married adulterer as the champion of “family values” would say to the skeptical, the unconverted and above all to the young.

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Herman Cain Suspends Campaign!

Among many speculations, Presidential contender, Herman Cain is no more! “As of today, with a lot of prayer and soul searching, I am suspending my presidential campaign,” Cain said outside his campaign headquarters Saturday in Atlanta. Cain announced that he was suspending his campaign in light of the many false allegations, which he claims have brought hurt to both he and his family. Cain denied once again the truthfulness of the allegations to the crowd, while wife, Gloria, nodded and applauded.

But Cain is not ending his political career. The former candidate for president offered a Plan B He wants to continue his 9-9-9 plan; to push for a foreign policy of peace through strength and clarity; and an energy independence plan for America. Cain stressed that he will be making an endorsement in the near future and it will not “be the current occupant in the White House.” Cain concluded by saying that “he desires to move the shining city on the hill up to the top of the hill where it belongs.”

This marked the end of Cain’s meteoric rise in the national scene. Many will be waiting for a Cain endorsement in the days or weeks ahead. In the absence of Herman Cain, the Republican Party is left with three main contenders: Former Governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney; Former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich; and Texas Congressman, Ron Paul.

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Born-Again is not Enough

John Eidsmoe writes in his 1984 God and Caesar, that around 1976 evangelical Christians were animated to vote for a born-again Christian. His name was Jimmy Carter. Eidsmoe observes that few paid any attention “to whether or not Carter’s stand on the issues was compatible with their own (ix).” He writes that by 1980 the evangelical community was more sophisticated and came to the realization that “being born again was not in itself enough of a reason to vote for a candidate.” Evangelical voters since the late 70’s have remained interested in the candidate’s spiritual status, but they have since become more concerned with the candidate’s stand on issues. They want to know if his positions comport with a Christian view of the world.

I would argue that there needs to be an increased call to maturity to evangelical voters 30 years later. However, hopefully we will have learned our lesson: born-again is not enough.

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Rick Perry, Prayer, and Religion

Perry’s Day of Prayer has received all the expected fury from pluralistic liberals. James Moore concluded his HuffPo piece by saying:

Perry has used his office, his tax-paid time, state letterhead, and the Texas brand to promote a single religion. The man who would protect the Constitution as president begins his campaign with a gross violation of one of its most basic tenets.

Moore, like other religious “experts,” zoom in the audacity of a man to pray for his country in time of need. The often cited II Chronicles 7:14  cannot be cited enough. The early Jewish church understood that wickedness produces despair and ruin. Prayer is the turning point to a nation who  has abandoned the Triune God.

While the roster for the day of prayer seemed quite troubling, and while Perry may be using this event to catapult his presidential aspirations by alluring evangelical voters, the point remains: Christian prayer is still the starting point of politics and religion. Pluralism is the post-modern deception.

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Bachmann and Left Behind

With the political season officially picking up steam, the reader will probably see more political posts in the days ahead, together with posts of a theological nature also.

This Rolling Stone piece on Michelle Bachmann is quite offensive at times, but at other times it is quite revealing about who Michelle Bachman really is and what connections make her who she is. Among the many fascinating details, the writer finds this interesting connection between Bachmann and the Left Behind Series:

Bachmann is the champion of those tens of millions of Americans who have read and enjoyed the Left Behind books, the apocalyptic works of Christian fiction that posit an elaborate fantasy in which all the true believers are whisked off to heaven with a puff of smoke at the outset of Armageddon. Here on Earth, meanwhile, the guilty are bent to the will of a marauding Satan who appears at first in the guise of a smooth-talking, handsome, educated, pro-government, superficially pacifist, internationalist politician named Nicolae Carpathia — basically, Barack Obama. Bachmann has ties to the Left Behind crowd and has even said that Beverly LaHaye, wife of LB co-author and fundamentalist godfather Tim LaHaye, was her inspiration for entering politics.

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Conservatives and their Agenda

What are conservatives trying to conserve anyway? A few random social values; an unknown God? a few more freedoms than the liberal? Further, how can they conserve anything when they are so divided on what to conserve? Maybe Ambrose Bierce is right when he said that conservatives wish to retain existing evils while liberals want to replace them with others.

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Lexington on the Tea Party

I am certainly not in agreement with most of the Tea Party agenda–if there is one– but with this I agree.  Lexington says, “in how many other countries would a powerful populist movement demand less government, rather than endlessly and expensively more? . . . If that is what the tea party movement is for, more power to its elbow.” {HT: Peter Leithart}