Mormon leader dies; Mitt Romney pays respects

Last week marked the passing of two prominent church leaders. The head of the Eastern Orthodox church, Archbishop Christodoulos, died of cancer at the age of 69. Under his leadership, the orthodox began to restore the division among two of the main branches of Christianity, namely, the Roman Catholic and the Greek Orthodox churches, which split in 1054. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormons) also laid their Prophet to rest on Saturday. Gordon Hinckley, age 97, had been president of his church for 13 years, and made visible attempts to prove that his faith was as much Christian as any mainstream or evangelical group.

Mitt Romney, republican candidate for president, was in attendance at Hinckley’s funeral, taking time off from campaigning to pay his last respects. In a sense, the “prophet’s” death couldn’t have come at a worse time for Romney, because it once again thrusts Romney’s Mormon faith into the limelight. Despite his December speech in which he declared that his faith informs his character but his church would not guide his decisions as president, Romney’s decision to pause campaigning and visit Salt Lake City appears to indicate that he is Mormon first, presidential candidate second.

With Rudy Giuliani’s withdrawal from the race on Wednesday and his simultaneous endorsement of John McCain, the Romney camp hoped that Mike Huckabee’s supporters would see the former Massachusetts governor as the “true conservative” in the race and turn to Romney. This is what always happens when people who are not Christian try to assume that they know everything about Christian decisions and behavior. Gordon Hinckley may have convinced the likes of Larry King that Mormons are just as much Christians as Baptists are, but all Mike Huckabee had to do was raise the question, “Don’t Mormons believe that Jesus and Satan are brothers?” and evangelical Christians were reminded about all of the cultic beliefs of the LDS religion.

The power and wealth of the Latter-Day Saints has continued to grow exponentially. It is reported that they are the second-largest financial organization west of the Mississippi River. Would a Romney presidency increase that prestige and influence even more? When Mitt Romney was governor of Massachusetts, that state’s Supreme Court declared that homosexuals have a right to “marriage.” The governor used neither executive power nor influence to restore traditional marriage in Massachusetts. And what if gay marriage were to become the law of the land, a la Roe v Wade and the legalization of abortion? Wouldn’t that necessarily mean that polygamy, one of the long-standing tenets of fundamentalist Mormons, couldn’t be found unconstitutional? I mean, if two males can “marry,” then why not one male and four women?

My prediction is that if Huckabee discontinues his run for the presidency, he will not endorse Mitt Romney, and that a majority of evangelical Christians who support Huckabee now will not support a Mormon for the highest office in the land.

Here’s a link so that you can watch The God-Makers II, the sequel to 1983’s The God Makers, the classic expose of Mormonism.

UPDATE: *sigh* OK, Jeffrey, McCain's "attacks" were not dirty. Here's the link to the report that proves that Romney did, in fact, support timetables for withdrawing from Iraq, although he did say that they should be kept "secret" from the enemy. The difference is that McCain answers the timetable question with "100 years, if that's what it takes to achieve victory."

Furthermore, Christians should be as intolerant of false teaching, heresy, and the misleading deception of Mormonism as possible. Belief in their pseudo-christianity is incompatible with salvation.

UPDATE 2: The results are in from "Super Tuesday." McCain is on his way to the Republican nomination. Huckabee showed resiliency by winning five southern states where evangelicals supported him first, McCain second. Romney was victorious in his home state of Massachusetts and several Rocky Mountain states. In heavily Mormon Utah, Romney won a 90% majority of the vote.

I think it's safe to say that for evangelicals and Mormons, a candidate's religion does matter.