As I follow the current run for president and consider the political landscape, I continue to be struck by the Mormon issue. It’s not fading away… especially among our evangelical friends. You don’t have to look very far to find a worried evangelical declaring that a vote for a Mormon is a vote for the dark side (or something like that).
Why such a strong objection to a presidential candidate with otherwise capable skills? It still comes back to basic old theology. I suppose they’d say it’s nothing personal, but Mormons are deceived and a Mormon president would deceive the nation. Some are much more kind in their attacks on Mormon’s in politics. For example, one senior pastor named Bob Merrit (who just happens to be Michele Bachmann’s pastor), “delivered a July 2007 sermon titled, ‘Raise Your Religious IQ — Investigating Mormonism’ (available for download via iTunes). He said:
“‘I very respectfully push back and I say (to Mormons) you have taken something extra and added it to (God’s word) to make all of it untrue,’ Merritt said. ‘Think of it this way: what does your car need to run properly? It needs pure, refined petroleum — it needs gasoline. And what happens when you dilute the gasoline with something like water? The car doesn’t run. I think that’s a good analogy for what our Mormon friends have done with God’s word. … The whole thing is diluted, and honestly it just doesn’t work’” (Jamshid Ghazi Askar, “Michele Bachmann’s pastor on Mormonism,” Deseret News, Sept. 6, 2011).
Did I hear that right? He thinks Mormon’s have diluted God’s word? Talk about diluting God’s word, how about a continuous rash of Christian theologians in the 4th and 5th centuries arguing over the very definition of God and finally settling on the most incomprehensible definition of God by majority vote! No one did more to “dilute” the word of God than those man-made council’s. And to think that the entirety of today’s Christendom rests on such a frail foundation.
Fortunately, God has reasserted the truth about Himself--yes, the New Testament truth that was forgotten, ignored and lost for some reason in the 4th and 5th centuries—by appearing to a 14 year-old boy in upstate New York. Nothing “added” as Mr. Merritt suggests, just simply God re-revealed.
Now I’m just a basic guy, but this true God revealed is way more comprehensible and personal than that god defined by argument and majority vote. One thing we can agree on is that God is a loving Father in Heaven and extends His mercies to His children on earth. If a Mormon can believe that, what harm could possible come to the nation under skilled leadership of a Mormon president?
