Mormonism in American Politics
Many American Christians believe they should be governed by fellow Christians. What choice would they make in the 2012 Presidential election if they face two candidates, one of whom is a Mormon, another is widely believed to be a Mohammedan, both of whom claim to be Christians, and neither of whom [arguably] is a Christian?
Nothing is more central to politics than understanding the proper basis of legitimate authority. In 1648 the Thirty Years War ended with the Peace of Westphalia, which established the principle of cuius regio, eius religio - "whose states, his religion". The peace of Europe was to be was established on the principle that the religion of the prince of a state was to determine the religion of the state. Today, many Christians still believe that government, and surely the American Government, is divinely ordained and so it is a Christian duty to obey the secular rulers. Politics is an integral part of obedience to God. "True justice," Saint Augustine wrote, "exists only in the republic founded and governed by Christ." Earthly princes are merely the tools by which God imposes His will on the world. “Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God” (Romans 13:1 NKJV).
According to the Pew Research Center's U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, nearly 80 percent of Americans self-identify as Christian. Justice Joseph Story, who was appointed to the US Supreme Court by President Madison, said in an 1829 speech at Harvard: "The real object of the First Amendment was not to countenance, much less to advance Mohammedanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity, but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects and to prevent any national ecclesiastical patronage of the national government". At the time of the adoption of the Constitution in 1789, nine States had established churches [of various denominations] supported by taxpayers ; these churches were gradually disestablished, the last in 1833. The United Kingdom is only one of several European countries that retain an established church, and the British monarch is the head of the Church of England.
Article VI of the United States Constitution states in part that : " ... no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States." The clause now applies equally to actions of both state and local governments, because the Supreme Court has ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment’s dictum that states are not to deprive any person of liberty makes the First Amendment applicable to the states. Some people conclude that the US Constitution does not allow considering a candidate's religion or lack of religion as to whether or not that person may hold office. But the so-called "Test" clause prohibits restrictions under law concerning religious affiliation. It does not [and could not] regulate the preferences of individual voters with respect to the religious views of candidates, nor could in impede the public discussion of such preferences.
Sixty-five percent of Americans believe that the nation's founders intended the U.S. to be a Christian nation and 55% believe that the Constitution establishes a Christian nation, according to the “State of the First Amendment 2007” national survey released Sept. 11 by Vanderbilt University's First Amendment Center. The survey found that 74 percent of Republicans and 50 percent of Democrats believe that the US Constitution established a Christian nation.
A December 2006 FoxNews poll found that 32 percent of voters would be less likely to vote for a candidate if he were Mormon. Evangelicals were only slightly more hostile to Mormon candidates than the population at large, and Democrats were much more hostile. It may be that many secular-minded voters consider Mormonism particularly alien and threatening.
During the 2008 Presidential campaign, Republican candidate John McCain said: "I would probably have to say yes, that the Constitution established the United States of America as a Christian nation" [actually, the Constitution is a godless document and the government of the United States was set up as a formally secular institution]. In September 2007, McCain was asked about the possibility of a Muslim’s running for president. McCain said "I just have to say in all candor that since this nation was founded primarily on Christian principles, that’s a decision the American people would have to make, but personally, I prefer someone who I know who has a solid grounding in my faith..."
Barack Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961 to an American mother [an atheist] and a Kenyan father. When he was two, his parents divorced and Obama's Harvard-educated father, a muslim, returned to Kenya. In or about 1967, when Obama was approximately six (6) years old, his mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, married Lolo Soetoro, an oil manager and citizen of Indonesia [a muslim country], and moved to Jakarta, Indonesia with Obama. He attended the Basuki School, a "public school" with no particular religious agenda. There are allegations that copies of the registration for the school Obama attended list his name as “Barry Soetoro,” his citizenship as Indonesian and Obama’s religion is listed as Islam. [Obama also spent two years in a Catholic school] In or about 1971 , Obama’s mother sent Obama back to Hawaii to finish high school. In 1981, Obama traveled to Pakistan [another muslim country]. At the time of his travels to Pakistan, Obama was twenty (20) years old.
The Prophet Muhammad said, "No babe is born but upon Fitna (as a Muslim). It is his parents who make him a Jew or a Christian or a Polytheist." (Sahih Muslim, Book 033, Number 6426) The Rev. Franklin Graham, one of the nation's most prominent evangelical leaders, "I think the president's problem is that he was born a Muslim, his father was a Muslim. The seed of Islam is passed through the father like the seed of Judaism is passed through the mother. He was born a Muslim, his father gave him an Islamic name," Graham told CNN's John King in a televised interview. "Now it's obvious that the president has renounced the prophet Mohammed, and he has renounced Islam, and he has accepted Jesus Christ. That's what he says he has done. I cannot say that he hasn't. So I just have to believe that the president is what he has said..."
President Barack Obama stated at a press conference in Turkey on 06 April 2009 that we Americans “do not consider ourselves a Christian nation, or a Muslim nation, but rather, a nation of citizens who are, uh, bound by a set of values.” In June 2007, he told CBS, “Whatever we once were, we are no longer a Christian nation — at least, not just. We are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, and a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.” Note the progression. "The contribution of Muslims to the United States are too long to catalog because Muslims are so interwoven into the fabric of our communities and our country," Obama said at the iftar, the dinner that breaks the Ramadan fast. Obama noted the contributions of Muhammad Ali. In August 2010 Obama said "Islam has always been part of America and that American Muslims have made extraordinary contributions to our country" [one wag suggested that perhaps the president was thinking about the Barbary Pirates and their role in the founding of the U.S. Navy].
An August 2010 national survey by the Pew Research Center found that nearly one-in-five Americans (18%) now say Obama is a Muslim, up from 11% in March 2009. In the Pew poll taken in March 2009, only 17 percent of Republicans said that Obama was a Muslim. By August 2010, 31 percent held that belief. The belief that Obama is a Muslim increased most sharply among Republicans (up 14 points since 2009), especially conservative Republicans (up 16 points). But the number of independents who say Obama is a Muslim has also increased significantly (up eight points). Beliefs about Obama’s religion are closely linked to political judgments about him. Those who say he is a Muslim overwhelmingly disapprove of his job performance, while a majority of those who think he is a Christian approve of the job Obama is doing.
In December 2007 a Pew Research Center survey found that one-in-four respondents said that they would be less likely to vote for a Mormon candidate for president, and those who took this point of view expressed substantially more negative views of Romney, compared with those who express no such reservations about voting for a Mormon. "Furthermore, the group of Americans most likely to say they value religiosity in a president - white evangelical Protestants - is also the group most apt to be bothered by his religion. More than one-in-three evangelical Republicans (36%) expressed reservations about voting for a Mormon, a level of opposition much higher than that seen among the electorate overall. ... , the public views Mormons more favorably than Muslims (43% favorable) and atheists (35%) but more negatively compared with evangelical Christians (60% favorable), Catholics and Jews (76% favorable for each group). ... "
Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee keynoted the 1998 Southern Baptist Convention in Salt Lake City, where the convention's theme was to fight against Mormonism. Mike Huckabee played the "Mormon card" against Romney in Iowa and other evangelical strongholds. When asked whether he considered Mormonism a cult or religion the former Arkansas governor replied, "I think it's a religion. I really don't know much about it." But he knew enough apparently to comment "don't Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?" (He later apologized) According to official Mormon teaching, Jesus Christ is the first spirit child conceived and begotten by the Heavenly Father. But, since Satan was also a pre-existent spirit creation of the male and female earth gods, Christ must, therefore, be his relation. Mormon teaching conceptualized the “war in heaven” as a struggle within a dysfunctional family. The LDS Church believes that Satan is a Son of God just as all mankind is (Acts 17:29). Many members of other faiths have a hard time believing this doctrine. The critic will point to Colossians 1:16 as a prooftext that Jesus is the creator of all things in Heaven and earth and therefore cannot be Lucifer's brother.
Rev. Tom Goodhue, Executive Director Long Island Council of Churches (LICC) wrote that in the 2008 Republican Presidential primaries, " Mormons are angered at being labeled non-Christian but I would ask them to remember how their founder viewed all other churches: apostates in need of his restoration. ... a Mormon running for President tried to convince evangelical Christian leaders that he was more or less one of them, while a former Southern Baptist preacher, was called a bigot for asking if Mormonism teaches that Jesus and Satan are brothers. (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints does, in fact, teach that Jesus and Satan are "spiritual brothers." You can look it up on their Web site.)
Dr. Robert Jeffress, a big supporter of presidential hopeful Rick Perry, is the senior pastor of the 10,000-member First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. Jeffress was the center of controversy after he said Mormonism has “never been considered a part of mainstream Christianity.” The prominent evangelical pastor indicated that he thought Mormonism is a cult at the Values Voter Summit on Friday October 7, 2011. As Jeffress explained to The New York Times, “this idea that Mormonism is a theological cult is not news either. That has been the historical position of Christianity for a long time.” Brian Fischer of the American Family Association took another swipe at Romney (whom Fischer has repeatedly described as a non-Christian), declaring that the next president needs to be a man of “sincere authentic genuine Christian faith.”
Voters who agreed that Mormonism is a non-Christian cult would likely accept the pastor’s endorsement of Perry as the Republican field’s “committed follower of Christ.” The majority of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents tell pollsters it wouldn’t matter if a candidate was Mormon. This number rose after Romney entered the race for the nomination in 2008. Three quarters said it wouldn’t matter in a June 2011 Post-ABC poll, and Associated Press/GfK and CNN polls released in October 2011. But one in five Republicans still said it was a negative factor in their choice.
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