Lots of people have been talking about the lack of support among (so-called) conservatives for John McCain, but how many (so-called) evangelical voters would vote for Romney. I consider myself a pious Christian (though the greatest of sinners), and I would not--and, if it comes to it, will not--vote for Romney. A Romney nomination would give way too much credibility to Mormonism. It would be the same as if Tom Cruise won a major party nomination. Mormonism is nuts--almost as nuts as Scientology--and it doesn't need to be helped in any form or fashion.

Posted by: Kirk | February 5, 2008 8:15 PM

The problem with Romney is not Mormonism, but that there appears to be no "there" there. He has been such a Chameleon that the support for him by the Republican establishment is hard to explain.

Posted by: Reader John | February 5, 2008 8:35 PM

I'll take a MINO (Mormon In Name Only) in the White House, but I likely won't be able to vote for a serious Mormon to occupy the Oval Office.

If he seriously believes that, then he loses a lot of credibility with me.

Posted by: | February 5, 2008 8:45 PM

Read the links and they were quite informative. Another accurate but hilarious treatment of the history of Mormonism is done on South Park.My understanding is that the creators of the show were Mormon...

Posted by: Abigail | February 5, 2008 9:01 PM

Funnily enough the best explanation of Mormonism I've ever seen is an episode of South Park - it even has songs.

Posted by: Mont D. Law | February 5, 2008 9:48 PM

Yeah, Rod, the Spaulding "theory" was debunked ages ago. If you want sources, let me know and I'll email them to you.

I challenge you to read the Book of Mormon. I was thinking of sending you one anyway, so just let me know and you can have your own free copy.

I'm kind of disappointed, though, that you would stoop to this.

Posted by: DeeAnn | February 5, 2008 10:02 PM

It's very hard to look objectively at the faith you were raised in. Especially since mormonism, for all of its flaws works pretty well for most people who live in the faith. Most people who turn away from the faith of their childhood do so because it is not working for them. Once they find that it is not working for them, they go looking, discover things which they believe demonstrate the falsehood of the faith and feel like they can move on with a clear conscious. Very few people are happy in their faith and then lose it when presented with evidence of the false nature of what they believe.

And as I said before, the fact of the matter is that mormonism works for most mormons. So while it is easy enough for those of us who are not mormon to look at the religion and see the falsehoods upon which it was founded, we should not be surprised by the fact that these facts do not seem as credible or significant to mormon believers. Nor do I think it is fair or kind to be judgemental of mormons who are not moved by what to outsiders look to be unrefutable evidence against the claims of their faith. The simple truth of the matter is that if we had been born into a mormon family we would likely be similarly unimpressed.

Posted by: rebeccat | February 5, 2008 10:48 PM

Apparently Fawn Brodie debunked the Spalding story several decades ago in her critique of Joseph Smith, No Man Knows My History.

lds-mormon.com/hill.shtml

From Wikipedia:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fawn_Brodie

Fawn McKay Brodie (September 15, 1915 – January 10, 1981) was a biographer and professor of history at UCLA, best known for Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History, a work of psychobiography, and No Man Knows My History, the first prominent non-hagiographic biography of Joseph Smith, Jr., the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement.

Raised in Utah of a respected, if impoverished, Latter-day Saint (LDS) family, Fawn McKay drifted away from religion during her years of graduate work at the University of Chicago and married the ethnically Jewish national defense expert Bernard Brodie, with whom she had three children. Although Fawn Brodie eventually became one of the first tenured female professors of history at UCLA, she is best known for her five biographies, four of which incorporate (with varying degrees of success) the alleged insights of Freudian psychology.

Brodie's controversial depiction of Joseph Smith as a fraudulent "genius of improvisation" has been described as a "beautifully written biography ... the work of a mature scholar [that] represented the first genuine effort to come to grips with the contradictory evidence about Smith's early life." Her psychobiography of Thomas Jefferson became a best-seller and reintroduced Jefferson’s purported slave mistress, Sally Hemings, to popular consciousness even before advances in DNA testing increased evidence of a sexual liaison. Nevertheless, Brodie's study of the early Richard Nixon, completed while she was dying of cancer, demonstrated the hazards of psychobiography in the hands of an author who loathed her subject.

Posted by: Eric W | February 5, 2008 10:53 PM

Dan, DeeAnn, I welcome you defending your faith on this blog. I don't believe your faith is true, and you, as Mormons, don't believe mine is true. I've got no problem with that. Please post links debunking the criticism.

Posted by: Rod Dreher | February 5, 2008 11:37 PM

"I wouldn't worry to much about Rod's opinion. He literally eats a dead guy - once a week - sometimes more."

Wrong; he literally eats the Living God.

Posted by: Max Schadenfreude | February 6, 2008 1:08 AM

That is to say, if you're going to ridicule the doctrine of transubstantiation, at least get the doctrine right.

Sorry, since Mr. Dreher didn't bother give the Mormons that courtesy I thought the rules had changed.

Posted by: Mont D. Law | February 6, 2008 1:52 AM

Ok Rod,
Here's a short article that gets to the meat of the argument:
http://tinyurl.com/2tp3jt

This one goes into more detail about the different "theories" surrounding the authorship of the Book of Mormon. You might find it interesting:
http://tinyurl.com/fefu8

Rod,
I guess I have a bit more respect for your faith than you do mine. I believe that the Orthodox church has a lot of truth in it. I don't agree with everything, obviously, but there's a lot of good and truth there. So I wouldn't say that I think your church is false, I would say that it's true as far as it goes and maybe there are a few errors here or there.

If you really looked at Mormonism with objectivity, I think you would be pleasantly surprised. Did you know that Joseph Smith received a revelation in 1833 that said to use meat sparingly? (I was going to post that on your meat thread, but I've been too busy)

D & C 89:12 Yea, flesh also of beasts and of the fowls of the air, I, the Lord, have ordained for the use of man with thanksgiving; nevertheless they are to be used sparingly;

This is part of what Mormons call the "Word of Wisdom" which advocates against alcohol, tobacco, tea and coffee, and gives guidance for for what to consume. (Whole grains, meat sparingly, etc...) You can read the whole thing here: http://scriptures.lds.org/en/dc/89

And when was the last time you heard of a big scandal in the leadership of the LDS church? Occasionally there is a story about a mormon "bishop" or former "mormon bishop", but when you realize that there are over 25,000 LDS congregations in the world, each lead by a bishop who is a lay leader (not paid to be a bishop and has a real job - he's just a volunteer) and each bishop serves only for about 5 years (and usually don't serve in that capacity again), you realize there are a LOT of former and current LDS bishops out there. If a handful make bad choices, it's unfortunate but not indicative of a problem in Mormonism.

More info about the LDS church:
http://www.mormon.org/mormonorg/eng/

http://www.mormontestimonies.org/Main_Page

Peace,
DeeAnn

Posted by: DeeAnn | February 6, 2008 5:32 AM

ok, where did my big long post with the links go?

Posted by: DeeAnn | February 6, 2008 6:14 AM

DeeAnn -

While I always hear the Mormons say the Bible is equal to the Book of Mormon, in practice it has always, without fail, been that the Mormons I have met read the Book of Mormon and have a far greater, far more thorough understanding of it than the Bible.

Posted by: spaniel | February 6, 2008 8:43 AM

Spaniel,
You make some good points. A little history might be helpful. In the early part of the church, the Bible was used much more than the Book of Mormon. If you read Joseph Smith's speeches, he very rarely quoted from the Book of Mormon, but constantly quoted from the Bible.

Fast forward to 20 years ago. Our then prophet Ezra Taft Benson came out and admonished us for not using the Book of Mormon like we should. He encouraged us all to read from it each day.

So, since then, there has been more of an emphasis on daily reading of the Book of Mormon, but this is not to the exclusion of the Bible, or shouldn't be. We also believe the Doctrine and Covenants to be equal to the Book of Mormon and Bible, yet it is probably read and used the least frequently of the three. The emphasis kind of ebbs and flows, depending on what we need to focus on.

The Book of Mormon is what makes us unique, so I think it's important for LDS to have a strong testimony of that book, and you don't get that without reading and studying. It's kind of taken for granted that we believe the Bible since around here pretty much everyone does. Our testimony of the Bible is not under constant attack, so naturally we focus on where the most resistance is.

In Sunday School we have a 4 year rotation of books that we study. This year it's the Book of Mormon. In the next 3 years it will be:

New Testament
Old Testament
Doctrine and Covenants/Pearl of Great Price

So 2 out of every 4 years we are studying the Bible in Sunday School.

I really don't know what else to say other than, I hold the Bible in equal regard to the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants/Pearl of Great Price. I probably read the Book of Mormon more, but I also read the Bible pretty regularly and often study them both together. I read the Doctrine and Covenants much less frequently at this time, but I still hold it in equal regard.

DeeAnn

Posted by: DeeAnn | February 6, 2008 9:43 AM

Mormons use the King James Version of the Bible as our official version. Some of the Joseph Smith Translation is in the footnotes. I don't find the "Inspired Version" as Joseph Smith's translation (loose use of word translation here. More of an inspired commentary really) is called ridiculous, however. I find it, well, rather inspiring. :-)

Posted by: DeeAnn | February 6, 2008 10:16 AM

I'm going to venture into some uncertain turf here.

I am going to be honest but not intentionally cruel. DeeAnn seems unusually forthright so I would like her honest feedback to something I've been wondering about for a long time.

In my experience, Mormons have an awkard social edge to them. I went to engineering school in Arizona and for the first time met some Mormons. I didn't know that at the time, but these students seemed hard working but a little nerdy and very uncertain of themselves socially. So what, I thought, we're engineers. We're all a bit nerdy, I thought.

I then found out these students were Mormon. I didn't really know much about their doctrines so I read up a bit on them and was intrigued at a specifically American version of Christianity. Home grown. These students didn't really hang out together, but I noticed they were unpopular, mostly because they couldn't seem to really adjust to living among 'regular' engineers. (Who are pretty normal, actually, compared to other people.) They didn't really have a developed sense of humor, they didn't seem at ease, etc. Turns out there were so many things that they didn't do that others did do, some of them so very innocuous, like drinking caffeine. That seemed excessive and just unnecessarily black and white in thinking.

That seemed the nut of it. These students just weren't prepared socially for a world of greys. They had this awkward quality to them because they had drawn this very bright line of blacks and whites that really seemed overdone. There was a childhood, almost backwards quality to the way they interacted with the rest of the group.

They were good students though.

Later that year I went on an internship at a copper mine and roomed with a soft spoken man who, justice have it, was an electrical engineer named Jack who was a Mormon.

Long story short, he was a solid guy and most importantly was a true exemplar of the Mormon ethos. He was warm, quiet, intelligent, honest, and industrious. He embodied, as far as I could tell, the ideal Mormon persona. None of that stilted awkwardness I experienced in my own university.

What I took away from all this was nothing about Mormons per se but about the downsides to religions that are too restrictive. Mormons are strongly family and community oriented and the downside is that they seem like fish out of water when around 'normal' people, nonMormons.

Besides Jack, there is a thin-ness, a flatness, a lack of maturity to the interactions I've experienced to many people of piety because they can't allow themselves a real, vibrant life because they have all these negations and strictures to obey.

I know that devoutly religious people are just like everyone else, and that they are cynical, kind, intelligent, etc like everyone else. I grew up in the Midwest where it was bad taste to trumpet one's religion beyond going to church on Sunday. This was in the 70s. So to me this Evangelical business seems more like a fad and a bit of a craze.

But religious folk 'fit in' with everyone else. The Mormons, on the other hand, that I've met, are so insular that they seem to have this flatness to them.

Which leads me to Mitt. When he first appeared, I thought: "My god! That's the Mormon awkwardness!" If you hammered his thumb it wouldn't seem real. I guess in retrospect that is tailor made for politics. But nothing he says, and I mean NOTHING, seems authentic to me. Is this less a function of his being a flip/flopper than mainstream America perceiving the insularity of 'Mormon-ness'?

Or, more likely, both? At any rate, I was stunned at how well Mitt embodied the falsity I had seen 10 years before in Arizona. The great shock to me is that Mitt never seemed to realize how utterly false he seems to the rest of America. Do Mormons perceive this too, DeeAnn?

Do Mormons ever talk about this flatness that I am describing here? This awkwardness? Because Mitt does seem to be craven and phony, but he may also embody this awkwardness as a separate social fact, as a coincidence.

Anyway, DeeAnn, I think you see my point. I am intrigued with Mormon social self-perception. I think Americans think Mormon doctrine is indeed odd but that one to one, this is a non-issue.

What say you? (Can you tell I work in psychology? Whew.)

Posted by: spaniel | February 6, 2008 11:08 AM

ok, where did my big long post with the links go?

Rats, I didn't think when I suggested that you do that. I didn't remember that the software tends to hold back posts with links. I'll see if I can find it and post it. If not, I apologize for making that suggestion -- I totally forgot about the software.

Posted by: Rod Dreher | February 6, 2008 11:36 AM

Spaniel,

You're definitely on to something; I agree there's an awkwardness about us, and I think it stems from our perception of other's perception of us. In my family, there are graduate degrees from top-tier universities including Harvard, but often when people find out we're Mormon, it's as if we suddenly have no thinking skills whatsoever, and we are some kind of sheep that can be easily duped by blatant forgeries and frauds.
This is ironic, because people like Rod have no problem referencing the Solomon Spaulding theory of the Book of Mormon, something I would be really embarrassed to be associated with. Fact is, the Book of Mormon's historicity does not lend itself to really easy arguments for or against, and I say that as a believing Mormon. There are people who believe the BoM came to Joseph Smith word-for-word from God, and there are people who think it came to him from his imagination and surroundings, and I think both points of view are equally naive.
But anyway, back to your original point- there definitely is an awkwardness about us. Imagine walking around with all of your education and experience in the world, and having people think you believe a vast, obviously-proposterous lie that is so blatant on it's face that it's impossible that a reasonable person could believe it.
It's hard to relate when so many people voice that point of view as Rod did yesterday.
Dig a little deeper, folks...

Posted by: Dan | February 6, 2008 11:50 AM

I'm grateful for Dan's and DeeAnn's thoughtful responses. Whew! There were several ways to uncharitably interpret what I had written (You moron! Not all Mormons are like that! A sample size of 20 is not big enough and you know it!) but I just wanted to throw it out there in good faith, so to speak.

What shocked me about Mitt the most was that HE didn't seem to grasp how phony he seemed. It undermined every single thing he said and did. He also just has a bad voice. Obama has a great voice.

Hillary, she has a bad voice too. She too doesn't come off very well to me either. different story, though.

Social intelligence is knowing, among other things, how others see you. Mitt doesn't seem to have much of that. He keeps trying to reinvent himself but his interior seems so hollow. But he's probably a good guy, too, dogs on tops of cars notwithstanding. Someone should clue him in. Because he obviously works so furiously, but his every deed undercuts him.

I am always struck at how we say we want self-knowledge, yet introspection is such a poor way to achieve it. We take years to realize what a candid or stray comment from a stranger could tell us in 1 minute. I've overheard people talk about me and it hurt like Hell but it was very enlightening. I suppose this could fit into Rod's preoccupation with the limits of the autonomous self, that even the apparent transparency of introspection is not all it's cracked up to be, and that self-knowledge is still best sought after within the context of a network of engaged, humane relationships.

Posted by: spaniel | February 6, 2008 12:20 PM

My problem with Mitt Romney is that he reminds of John Kerry and that he just keep on saying he is a conservative but also when he talks he seems to say what you want to hear and is not very straight forward and makes me feel like he talks down to me like I hear when a boss talks down to his laborers and is going to fire me. I also do not feel very comfortable with his Mormon faith especially when I had mormon's come to my house and try to make me join and it was a bad when they tried to change my Catholics faith and trying to say what I believe was wrong and it made me very angry. I believe in Jesus Christ and that he is the way, the truth and light in my life and no one can change that NO ONE! So I just do not feel comfortable with Mitt Romney but I do think he is a good business man and has a nice family. I just feel there is nothing inside his core!

Posted by: Wendy | February 6, 2008 1:13 PM

Wendy,

I promise you Mitt Romney is not out to hurt or fire you. And there is something inside his core; it just may be something you and I can't relate to very well.
And I can also guarantee you he's a Christian.

Posted by: Dan | February 6, 2008 1:49 PM

Rod,

Very disapointing. Not that it would matter to you. I'm sure all sorts of ugly things could be found about any religion, including your own. But you've managed to show your true colors. It is what I had suspected about you all along but hoped I was wrong.

I had for the most part respected your articles and found you to be an inteligent writer. When one wonders why great people don't run for office and the same old corrupt politicians go at it every 4 years, you would be an example why. You have abused your power as a writer to spread falsehoods, hate and bigotry. And the fact that you've done it under the banner of your "Christianity" and a spiritual website is gross. So much for being a respecter of others and welcoming to other beliefs.
When I see people do this sort of thing, and then see how many others get on the bandwagon, I wonder how on judgment day you will justify that to the Lord?? I wonder who you'll be pointing your finger at next, after all....

"we're not going to have ol' Mittens to kick around much longer."

Posted by: G. | February 6, 2008 9:34 PM

Rod, I'm surprised by your tacit approval of the Spengler quote. That selection is full mistakes about issues surrounding the Mormon faith, many of which have been addressed in an expansive literature, e.g. the Spalding reference.

You have plenty of legitimate aspects of the Mormon faith that strain a rationalist's credulity to beat up on Mormons without needing to resort to cheap shots such as Spengler's, so why do you do it?

Posted by: john f. | February 7, 2008 9:30 AM

Daniel,

Once again, I commend you to By The Hand of Mormon, for a treatment of Biblical passages in the BoM. And the most that can be said about the Book of Abraham is that the documents many believe to be the source of the Book of Abraham are actually the Book of Breathings. In any case, neither of those issues invalidates the core claims of our faith. The way prophets through the ages have delivered to us the texts and teachings we have has been at times a convoluted process that often looks like plagiarism, historical revision, and any number of other things Joseph Smith is accused of. When Harold Bloom called Joseph Smith an "authentic Hebrew prophet," he was not making a claim for Joseph's Divine calling; he was simply stating that how Joseph arrived at his revelations - like it or not - looks a lot like how other prophets have gone about it.
You are correct to point out that Bushman and other Mormons (like me) are puzzled and doubtful of many things Joseph Smith said and did. I believe he was flat-out mistaken or overzealous about many things, but the scriptures show that prophets down through the ages have often been intemperate, rough, and sometimes a little bit crazy. Bushman claimed after writing RSR that he believes more than ever, and after reading it, I do too.

Posted by: Dan | February 7, 2008 5:34 PM

Mr. Spengler has broken one of the 10 commandments. Thou shalt not bear false witness.

Posted by: kw | February 12, 2008 10:56 PM