This rather lengthy article on the comments of Southern Baptist leader Richard Land had some things that were interesting to me.
Among them:
Asked why Evangelicals believe Mormons — whose church is officially called the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — are not Christians and what that says about Jews, Land says most Evangelicals, as well as Catholics, consider Mormon beliefs to be beyond the parameters of apostolic Christianity.
“I would look upon Catholicism as an erroneous understanding of the Christian faith; that’s why I’m a Baptist, not a Catholic,” Land says. “I would look upon Mormonism as another faith in the same sense that I would look upon Islam as another faith. I think the fairest and most charitable way to define Mormonism would be to call it the fourth Abrahamic religion — Judaism being the first, Christianity being the second, Islam being the third, and Mormonism being the fourth. And Joseph Smith would play the same character in Mormonism that Muhammad plays in Islam.”
I love it when people who are not of a certain faith try to define what people in that faith believe. It usually comes out sounding strange to our ears.
Now, of course, this was Land’s “charitable” description of Latter-day Saint belief.
Evangelicals who are “less charitable” call Mormonism a cult, Land notes.
“A cult is a form of faith which does not comply with the essential teachings of the Christian faith but claims to be within the Christian faith or to be the true expression of the Christian faith, as opposed to being another religion like Judaism,” Land says.
If I were Richard Land’s media adviser, I would tell him to describe the Latter-day Saint faith more like this instead:
Mormonism claims to be the restoration of the true Christianity that was practiced in the first century AD when the Savior walked the Earth. Mormonism thus say they are true Christians. They also share some of the evangelical beliefs that Jesus’ birth was predicted in the Old Testament. They say that prophets before Jesus’ birth preached about Christ, something that most evangelicals can agree with. Mormons claim that they are led by a modern-day prophet who is also preaching about Christ.
Personally, I do not believe this to be true, but this is what Mormons claim. Some evangelicals will describe them as a cult, others as a completely different religion — I don’t know which is true. All I can say is what they say they believe.”
Wouldn’t it be nice to see a “charitable” description along these lines?
I should point out that overall Land’s comments on Romney and Mormonism were more favorable than some. I like his take that liberals oppose Mormonism because they see us as “people of faith on steroids.” Based on my experience, and many articles on the internet discussing Romney, I believe that to be true.
At the end of the day, I agree with Land’s take that more liberals will oppose Romney than far-right evangelicals. Yes, I know about Bill Keller and his crazy antics. But Keller is the only evangelical leader with any following who has said such a thing — most evangelicals are in Land’s camp and respect Romney as an ally on governmental policy. Meanwhile, there is a long list of liberals who have expressed distaste for Romney simply because of his religion. (Damon Linker of NR and Jacob Weisberg of Slate are the two best-known).
Of course, the big reason liberals will oppose Romney is that they disagree with his policies, but for some of them anti-Mormon bigotry will be a factor, just as it will for far-right evangelicals.