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Papa Louie, I respect your faith though I disagree with your theology intensely, as I’m sure I would with Romney’s. However I support Mitt because I believe his qualities as CEO and especially as a guy who demands to hear both sides of an issue fully, with debate, before making big decisions, and as someone who can get along with “the other side”, is critical. As I could with McCain, I can visualize Romney working productively with both conservatives and liberals.

Frank Pastore, a local evangelical talk-show host/Christian apologist, had an Akin-style rundown on his show this afternoon about the speech, focusing scrutiny on what Mitt said that, from a theological perspective, is troublesome or downright misleading. I cannot find the audio, but notes are here. Frank’s point is that he will vote for Mitt if he is the nominee, but that Romney should be honest and not try to make Mormonism seem like it’s Christianity.

Frum said that.

To be blunt, Romney is saying:

It is legitimate to ask a candidate, “Is Jesus the son of God?”

But it is illegitimate to ask a candidate, “Is Jesus the brother of Lucifer?”

#61 corona, you already know why Romney has to draw the line somewhere on the questions he will answer during his campaign. If he answers your trivia question, there will be a million more to follow. He would never be able to talk about what he plans to do as President. There are plenty of sources you can turn to for answers to Mormon trivia without the need to distract Romney from his campaign. However, as a Mormon who is not running for office, I can try to answer your question from the Bible.

Mormons believe that we were all spirit children of God before we came to earth, which can be inferred from:

Heb. 12:9 – Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?

The idea that Lucifer was our brother in the spirit world and a brother to Christ (who Mormons believe was the first and eldest spirit child of God) can be inferred from:

Isa. 14:12 – How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!

The Bible says Lucifer was in heaven and was a “son of the morning” (one of the eldest.) It doesn’t say he was a “creation of the morning”, it says “son”. So, if he was not a child of God, whose child was he?

The important thing here is that he used his free will to rebel against God and was cast out of heaven with his followers. Additional Mormon scripture adds another aspect to Lucifer’s fall from heaven:

Moses 4:3 – “…Satan rebelled against me, and sought to destroy the agency of man, which I, the Lord God, had given him…”

This is why Mormons do not believe it is appropriate to compel anyone to believe. Conversion by persuasion is fine, but conversion by the sword is never right. One should always be free to choose one’s own beliefs as long as those beliefs do not take away someone else’s right to choose.

Mitts’ performance has us all “drinking the sand” because in this “sound bite age” we are denied the chance to see our candidates give long presentations. We live in perpetual fear that one comment or another will be taken out of text and used as ammunition by the other camp. There are people on this board who, before today, wouldn’t have trusted a word out of Mitt’s mouth, who now think he’s not too bad. That, my friends, is called “drinking the sand”.

So now we rejoice because one candidate has the cojones to stand up and say basically, if our Founding Fathers could believe as they chose, and still estabilish this great nation, then I should be able to do the same. With that, he manages to poke his thumb in the eyes of his anti-Mormon attackers. This makes all of us, who have had to endure 7+ years of Bush-Babble and “Compassionate Conservative Reasoning” want to throw our hats in the air and cheer for Mitt…

At this level, I expect a candidate to be a competent public speaker. Mitt’s performance is just “okay” for me, but heads and tails above what I’ve seen the others do so far (Oh Fred, why can’t you speak as well as you write?). But… can Mitt lead? Does he have a plan? Will he fight to secure our borders and enforce immigration laws currently on the books? Or, once in office, will he serve like a meek RINO, coasting on the status quo and cowering before liberal attacks?

Our country cannot survive a liberal in the Oval Office right now, and we certainly can’t afford another weak Republican. One good speech doesn’t prove Mitt to me.

We NEED a Theodore Roosevelt or a Ronald Reagan; someone who can command, and not just speak.

The MSM/DNC doesn’t mind letting a Republican play the coveted “victim” role once in a while, so long as MSM/DNC gets to portray America as a bigoted, ignorant country that fears and “hates” diverse religions….

http://jimmyakin.typepad.com/defensor_fidei/2007/12/not-impressed.html

Nobody seems to think that being a Mormon affects the way that Harry Reid performs his responsibilities as Senate Majority Leader.

lol. So I guess we can only hope that Mitt is half the man Harry Reid is?

I haven’t heard anyone talking about being worried that Mitt will “take secret directives from Salt Lake City.” What I have heard is concern that he believes the things that the Book of Mormon and other Mormon texts (eg. The Pearl of Great Price and Doctrine and Covenants) teach.

I think most people here want a candidtate who is influenced by his religious beliefs. We want someone who has a moral foundation. In fact, one of the main problems that I have with Mitt is that he seems to have lost that foundation when it was convenient to get elected and keep him governor, and now has regained it when it is convenient to get him elected president. In fact, now he makes speaches about it.

I’ll call him the ‘True Missing Republican’ and pray he shows up one of these days.

Strict Darwinian evolutionists have been trying to find a scrap of evidence for his evolutionary counterpart for over one hundred years. Like the missing link, it’s probably true that he doesn’t exist. For the record, Rudy balance the NYC budget – the third largest economy in the US – lowered taxes AND wound up with a surplus while reducing crime, etc. For fiscal conservatives, that’s an excellent record.

I didn’t know that Reid was a Mormon. Is he? If so, I’m absolutely sickened by the MSM double standard, but I tend to have constant Maloxx moments with the MSM these days.