Mitt Romeny’s Speech And Religion: What He Should And Shouldn’t Say To Evangelicals About His Mormonism

As I write this, Mitt Romney is yet hours away from giving his RNC convention speech later this evening.  That said, his speech is obviously already written, and moreover he and his speechwriters wouldn’t have listened to a pissant like me, anyway.

So I’m not really writing this to Mitt Romney; I’m writing it to his audience – especially to his evangelical audience (of which I happen to be a member).

Should Mitt Romney talk about his [Mormon] religion?  My answer is, “Yes and no.”  Let me talk about the “no” part first.

What should Romney NOT say to the evangelicals who make up a whopping portion of his voters?

Mitt Romney should not try to convince evangelicals – who know better – that he is a Christian just like they are.  He simply isn’t; Mormonism has a very different understanding of the Person and Work of Jesus Christ than do orthodox, Trinitarian, evangelical Christians.

If Mitt Romney tries to tell evangelicals that Mormonism – which holds that “God” Himself was merely once a created being (punting on the question of who created our particular “God”), and that this same “God” who was Himself created then later created Christ who is only an angel (and in fact the spirit brother of Lucifer the devil) – is no different from evangelical Christianity, he will do nothing more than offend us and actually LOSE our vote.

This is where the more troubling aspects of Mormonism come into play:

From Brigham Young (as in “Brigham Young University”):

“When our father Adam came into the garden of Eden, he came into it with a celestial body, and brought Eve, one of his wives, with him. He helped to make and organize this world. He is MICHAEL, the Archangel, the ANCIENT OF DAYS! about whom holy men have written and spoken—He is our FATHER and our GOD, and the only God with whom WE have to do. Every man upon the earth, professing Christians or non-professing, must hear it, and will know it sooner or later.”

and:

“When the Virgin Mary conceived the child Jesus, the Father had begotten him in his own likeness. He was not begotten by the Holy Ghost. And who is the Father? He is the first of the human family”.  Young explained that Adam “was begotten by his Father in heaven” in the same way that Adam begat his own sons and daughters, and that there were “three distinct characters, namely, Eloheim, Yahovah, and Michael.” Then, reiterating, he said that “Jesus, our elder brother, was begotten in the flesh by the same character that was in the Garden of Eden, and who is our Father in Heaven.”

Hey, Mitt, whatever you do, please don’t tell me you’re a Christian just like I am.  Because I will be legitimately offended and start wondering what else you might be lying about.

Adam Smith likewise made it ABUNDANTLY CLEAR that Mormons are NOT Christians like orthodox Christians:

18 My object in going to inquire of the Lord was to know which of all the sects was right, that I might know which to join. No sooner, therefore, did I get possession of myself, so as to be able to speak, than I asked the Personages who stood above me in the light, which of all the sects was right (for at this time it had never entered into my heart that all were wrong)—and which I should join.

 19 I was answered 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.”

 20 He again forbade me to join with any of them; and many other things did he say unto me, which I cannot write at this time.

Joseph Smith very specifically said that no orthodox, historical Christian denomination was valid.  Which is to say that from the very beginning, Mormonism recognized the gulf between Mormons and those who had called themselves “Christian” for 2,000 years before Mormonism.

Please don’t contradict your own Mormon history and tell us that you’re a “Christian,” Mitt.  Because unless you repudiate your Mormonism, you just aint a Christian by any orthodox or historical standard.  And if you just flat-out try to deny the crucial and critical differences between Mormonism and Christianity, you will outrage the very people you need to depend upon most for your election.

That’s the “no” part to the question, “Should Mitt Romney talk about his religion.”  What about the “yes” part?

Mitt Romney should talk about faith in the generic sense of the term; not the specific content of his faith, and not that his “faith” is a Christian faith.  Mitt Romney should indicate that he is a religious person with a religious worldview.

And I submit that Mitt Romney should – without directly claiming himself a “Christian” – affirm a Judeo-Christian worldview.

Because while Mormons do NOT embrace the same theology as historic, orthodox Christianity as understand by evangelicals, Mormons most certainly DO have a Judeo-Christian view of the world and have a Judeo-Christian view toward morality in general.

And given that, I am comfortable having a “Mormon” who isn’t going to do anything in any way, shape or form to propagate his Mormonism, as my president.  Especially given the fact that the man he is running against has a form of “Christianity” that is even FURTHER away from historic, orthodox Christianity than Mormonism.

When the militant homosexual agenda is “Christian,” as it is on Obama’s view; when the militant abortion agenda that has murdered 54.5 million babies since Roe v. Wade was imposed in 1973 is “Christian,” as it is on Obama’s view; when “Christianity” is a Marxist core with a candy coating of “liberation theology,” as it is on Obama’s view; when “Christianity” allows you to spend some 25 years in a Marxist, racist, anti-American “church” as Obama’s “Christianity” allowed him to do in Jeremiah Wright’s Trinity United Church” (and see here); when “Christianity” means explicitly rejecting individual salvation by faith in Jesus Christ alone into a Marxist “collective salvation” as Obama’s “faith” does; you are very far from “Christian,” indeed.

The true nature of Obama’s “salvation” in his own words:

“… working on issues of crime and education and employment and seeing that in some ways certain portions of the African American community are doing as bad if not worse, and recognizing that my fate remain tied up with their fates, that my individual salvation is not going to come about without a collective salvation for the country.

“Collective” as in “collectivist.”  And “collectivist” as in “communist.”  Because Obama’s “Christianity” is a candy coating over a hard nut of Marxism just as Jeremiah Wright’s “Christianity” is.

Any orthodox Christian can tell you – and quote the Bible to prove it – that individuals are saved by their individual and personal faith in Jesus Christ in a dependence upon His righteousness and His substitutionary death in our place on the Cross.   My faith – regardless of the color of my skin – is not “tied up” in ANYTHING other than the Person and Work of Jesus Christ, God the Son, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, who shares in and participates in the divine essence of the eternal Father.

Barack Obama does NOT have a Judeo-Christian worldview in any way, shape or form.

Obama’s “Christianity” is Jeremiah Wright’s “them Jews” Christianity:

And it most definitely is NOT “Judeo-Christian.”

This will very probably be the very first election in American history in which neither major party candidate is a true Christian.

That said, I am FAR more comfortable as a Christian and particularly as an evangelical Christian voting for Mitt Romney than I am voting for a radical Marxist heretic like Barack Hussein Obama.

Mitt Romney needs to convey those significant ways that he thinks just like evangelical Christians without insulting us by saying he’s no different than we are.  He needs to focus on morality and on worldview and get away from specific content of the Christian – or Mormon – faith.

Will The World End May 21? Why No Man Knows The Day Or The Hour

The Lord Jesus Christ told us He would return like a thief in the night, and to watch and wait for Him.  So I would never presume that that return could NOT occur on May 21.

But I also know that the same Lord Jesus said regarding that same return, “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone” (Matthew 24:36).

Harold Camping (who has already proven himself to be a false prophet over his false prediction of this very day back in 1994) has apparently said that “no one knows” only refers to the unbelieving world.  What makes that claim asinine is that according to that view Jesus Christ Himself is an unbeliever in Jesus Christ.  Because He told us that He the Son would also not know the time of His return.

So, let us just say that while I truly wish to be ready when my Lord returns for me, I have my doubts about Camping and his bogus timetable.

Interestingly, all the hype surrounding false prophet Harold Camping actually DOES reveal the truth about another prophecy of Jesus.  Jesus said (in the same chapter that He said no one knows the day or the hour of His return):

“And Jesus answered and said to them, “See to it that no one misleads you.  For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will mislead many” (Matthew 24:4-5).

And in light of all the media hype regarding Harold Camping pseudo-second coming, do you not see how it will be as false Messiah’s start popping up and people just like Camping will say, “Here He is! (Matthew 24:23-25)”???

Having said that I will go ahead and set my alarm for Sunday morning in spite of Camping’s assurances that doing so is completely unnecessary, let me move on to explaining just WHY no one can know the day or the hour of Christ’s return.

What if there was a code in the Bible placed by God that actually said that Jesus would return on May 21, 2011, or some other day?

What that would mean is that there truly is no human freedom.  What that would mean is that human beings are ultimately not responsible for anything; because no matter what human beings do or do not do, the end is inexorable.  Be good or be wicked; it matters not.

And that is simply not true.

God – through His prophets and through His Son – told us about the events surrounding the last days culminating in the ultimate return of Jesus Christ as King of kings and Lord of lords (Revelation 19:16).  Here is an interesting site that provides a great many of these biblical prophetic signs which I plan to read as soon as I get through writing this piece.

Think of some of those prophecies, and how uncanny they are.  The birth of the nation Israel (see prophecies #29 and 30 on the list above).  The very Russian-and-Iran-led Arab confederation predicted by the prophets 2,600 years ago as attacking that reborn Israel exists today (see prophecies #54, 56-58).  As does an army of 200 million from the East – prophesied at a time when there weren’t 200 million human beings on the whole planet (prophecy #61).  Along with the capacity to dry up the mighty Euprhates River for that army to cross (see prophecy #60).  Then there is the technology for the mark of the beast without which no man may buy or sell (prophecy #23).  All of these and so many other events are coming together right now.  And they are amazing; YOU try to make accurate specific predictions of what will happen in 2,000 years, and then have them all begin to come together at the same time!

But were all these things “determined” to happen on a given date and time, or did God – who knows the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10) – rather understand that a wicked human species would one day rise against Him in a way that would result in the end of the present world?

There’s a line from a movie I remember enjoying: “Infinite goodness is creating a being you know in advance is going to complain.” – Captain Cutshaw, in The Ninth Configuration.  And the fact of the matter is that God DID know that humanity would choose evil, and that God the Son would have to come to die in our place, to take the blame for our sins, if we were going to have a relationship with God on earth or in heaven.  Read the first fourteen verses of Ephesians chapter 1, especially verses 4-5.  God knew that Adam and Even would sin.  He knew that He would have to assume a human nature and die in our place so we could live in Him and with Him.

Through His prophets, and those to whom He revealed Himself, God progressively unfolded His plan for the human race in history.  He gave the law as a tutor, knowing we would not be able to keep it, to lead us toward Christ (Galatians 3:24).  He provided the substitutionary blood of animal sacrifices knowing that ultimately He would have to become the ultimate once-for-all-time (extending backward and forward in time) sacrifice (Hebrews 10:4).

But God didn’t just dictate.  Human beings aren’t just puppets acting out the roles and speaking according to the script that He programmed us with.  Rather, the God who created us knew what we would do; He knew the choices we would make and the situations that we would make them in.

God knew all possible worlds.  And He chose which of those worlds to create.  There are worlds in which I would not be born.  There are worlds in which I would not have been saved.  God sovereignly chose which world to create.  And He knew everything that would happen, including all the counterfactuals (what would have happened; what would have happened had I zigged instead of zagged?) for every single human being in this world that He alone chose and He alone created.

Which is to say that God knew what no human being could possibly know.

And God did not share that knowledge with humanity.  He didn’t even share it with Harold Camping.

Unlike Harold Camping, I lack the ability to make definitive, catagorical statements about what will happen tommorow.  But I’m guessing Sunday morning will find Camping waking up with egg all over his face.