I'm no fan of Mitt Romney, but could people please stop attacking him for being a Mormon? It's a little cheap. Sure, he belongs to a minority religion that has beliefs that seems strange to outsiders, but every religion has beliefs that, viewed from the standpoint of science, logic, or another religion, seem strange.
A recent On the Media portrait quotes Judy Woodruff asking Romney about the supposed Mormon beliefs that "Jesus Christ will appear again in the state of Missouri or that God has a material body, that he was fathered by another God." Passing over the Missouri part, aren't the latter parts rather similar to some mainstream Christian beliefs? I'm Jewish, so my knowledge of Christian doctrine is imperfect, but I've always understood that Christians believe that Jesus was both God and the son of God and that he had a material body. I'm sure the Mormon views are different in ways that are theologically very important (Jesus wasn't the son of another God, in the mainstream view), but there are lots of theological differences between Christian denominations. Some Christians believe that they actually drink the blood and eat the body of Christ during the Eucharist ceremony (I expect some outsiders regard that as odd); others believe the ceremony is only symbolic.
The previous Dean of my law school was a Mormon, and he was a lovely fellow who made an excellent Dean and got a lot done for the school. I don't recommend that anyone vote for Romney, but let's leave his religion out of it.
1 comment:
Sorry, no. If you want to be president, then everything, absolutely everything, is fair game.
If you want to have a private life, complete with private religious beliefs, then stay a private person.
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