Most (all?) religions describe some unusual divine intervention as part of their foundations: voices from burning bushes, gods being disassembled and then reassembled or rising from the frozen earth and ascending to heaven, hearing voices in the wilderness. All these things are said to have happened long ago and, as such, we have only the very vaguest way to decide their truth. The LDS describe miracles no stranger than any of these and offers more recent eyewitness accounts. Why anyone should reject these recent revelations but accept ancient, far less well documented revelations is a mystery to me.

AlanK writes: "Why anyone should reject these recent revelations but accept ancient, far less well documented revelations is a mystery to me."

I think the issue Mormonism raises is that if its core revelations are unbelievable, even as it has successfully attracted millions of believers, then the core revelations of other religions are also brought into question.

"I don't think the founding myths of Mormonism are any less believable than the founding myths of any other religion" pardon me but wtf? that sounds like relativistic claptrap. Mormonism's x-ray specs, golden tablets found, translated, lost, retranslated, etc. along with a ton of other fraudulent activity is somehow on par with the belief (or story) of God so loving man that he became manifest in the flesh, taught mankind love, peace, and understanding, and then died for us, afterwards being resurrected as proof of eternal life? Or is on a par with Buddhism, in which a prince gives up all worldly pleasure to seek eternal truth, endures many hardships, endowing mankind with many genuine insights, and a way of living that if practiced can lead to a life or real meaning?

I have nothing against Mormons, or Mitt running for President, he was born one and I can easily understand how he does not wish to leave the faith of his friends and family, nor do I care if he is a devout Mormon or one in name only, as long as his character and intentions are good I won't freak out about his religion (I won't vote for him because of his politics) but neither will I buy into the "all religions are basically the same" bullshit as a way of exhibiting a phony tolerance. Giving up your critical thinking is not the same as accepting other people's basic right to believe they way they want to.

AlanK, mac. The reason why Christianity has endured, as Buddhism has as well, I think is partly based on the elegance and beauty that each story tells. It is not so easy for me to dismiss out of hand the possibility that one of these stories just might be true. At the very least there exists a sublime genius to each religion. Comparing Christianity to Mormonism is like comparing Shakespeare to Jacky Collins. One is genius, the other is trash. For me, ndmackenzie nothing is brought into question except your ability to reason beyond smugness.

Now there's a laugh. Blackton writes:

-- Mormonism's x-ray specs, golden tablets found, translated, lost, retranslated, etc. along with a ton of other fraudulent activity is somehow on par with the belief (or story) of God so loving man that he became manifest in the flesh, taught mankind love, peace, and understanding, and then died for us, afterwards being resurrected as proof of eternal life?

Do you have any proof for the last half of that sentence or are you merely asking us to take as divine truth the foundational beliefs of Christianity.

Romney giving "The Speech" now is crazy, for the reasons Noam mentioned above but also because there's no way it could work politically for Romney the way it did for JFK.

Let me explain. JFK's speech did not attempt to explain Catholicism to America or to distance himself from his faith. Instead, he made a firm, unrelenting case for the separation of church and state, and he let that conviction alone assure Americans that he would not cede presidential authority to any ecclesiastical body. Take one line, for example: "I believe in an America... where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference." Even considering that this was before the "culture wars" of the 1970s and beyond, there were probably more than a few people in that audience who disagreed with this perspective as a matter of public policy, and for whom indeed breaking down the wall between church and state was an important priority. Nevertheless, JFK was willing to sacrifice these potential votes in favor of appealing to more moderate hearts with palpable but surmountable misgivings about Catholicism. And even in 1960 not many of the more fundamentalist voters would have gone Democratic anyway, so the political calculus penciled in.

Contrast JFK's position with Romney's today. He's in a lose-lose situation since he's obviously not going to leave his faith out to dry. On the one hand, Romney can't fully assuage the fears of conservatives and general election moderates unless he draws a firm line of demarcation between his faith and his governance, as JFK did. On the other hand, unlike the 1960 Democratic base that backed JFK, the 2008 GOP base will not only not view such a church-state wall favorably in the slightest, it could sink his campaign, completely undermining his pitch touting himself as the "real conservative" and giving, of all people, Mike Huckabee a perfect opening to fill the values void. I mean, just imagine Romney delivering the same line I quoted above, except to a modern audience of the religious right. How does he leave the podium that night without a healthy coat of tar and feathers?

It's not that it's jut a fine line. It's microscopic. It's unwalkable. And I can't imagine Romney doesn't know this, so it doesn't make sense that he'd actually deliver "The Speech" that night. What I fully expect instead is that Romney will give a talk that has the thin veneer of JFK (platitudes about religious liberty and the like) but quickly shifts to become red-meat for the religious right, laden with those subtle evangelical signals that Bush mastered and with your standard menu of hot-button social issues. In other words, it won't deal with Mormonism at all. It'll just change the subject.

I think primwallflow is exactly right on this.  Kennedy spoke to a different country and a different base in a different time and place.  Although the audience he chose to make his statement to was most likely (as primwallflow points out) more disposed to lower the wall of seperation, it was most disposed to lowering that wall with regard to Baptists.  Not Catholics.  What Kennedy was addressing was the ancient suspicion that Catholics owed their allegiance to Rome and not to America and the  Constitution.  He was attempting to refute nativism as well as religious bigotry and was helped by the fact that the country had evolved to a point where enough people were ready for that argument that the speech was effective.  And although the Democratic electorate was more urban and liberal than the Republican electorate at that time, it was also more rural and southern and Baptist (and inherently suspicious of Catholicism....not "religion" as such) in those pre-civil rights days.  Texas was a Democratic state in a primary election, and in a general as well.

So Kennedy simply had to reassure folks that he would not take his orders from Pope Pious, and the more "nominal" and secular a Catholic he was, the better.

Romney's task is more complicated.  He has to persuade a fundamentalist Christian base that his strange and very un-Baptist faith is not so strange and un-Baptist in order to establish a commonality of the values of "faith" without either abandoning his own or getting into too much detail about it.  And he has to look ahead to a general election and reassure a larger audience that he, like Kennedy, owes his ultimate allegiance to the Constitution and not the very weird doctrines and ideas of Mormonism.

So he has to embrace to embrace Mormanism and deny it at the same time.  Kennedy simply had to acknowledge a nominal Catholicism and assign it a secondary place.  His audience was content with a degree of secularism if it assuaged their religious and nativist prejudices about the "foreigness" of his church.

I don't see how Romney threads that particular needle.  Especially with Reverend Huckabee gaining on him.    

Most of you feel that giving "The Speech" is a tactical mistake for Romney.  As a former constituent who watched him for four years as governor, I can assure you that a mistake for Romney is a boon to our country.  In a crowded field, he reigns as the sleaziest of the candidates.

Mitt's "Christian" issue is not the issue. Except for the extreme right wing of the Evangelical movement, Americans no longer vote religion, except they are slightly more likely to support someone of their own religious or ethnic background. No Mitt's real problem is his lack of moral compass.

He spent ten years repeatedly reassuring the folks in Massachusetts that he was pro-abortion rights, gay rights, and gun control laws. This was not the "youthful" past, but consistent right up to the moment, around 2006, that he decided to seek higher office. His religion was never an issue in Mass. He governed as a moderate.

His "conversions" were all too self-serving, politically-expedient, and "wonderously" timely. His pandering has been so extreme that it has crossed the line from typical-of-any-politician to shamelessness. This is the reason that Mass. Republicans, from ultra-conservatives to moderates, are less than enthused about a man they know well. They have learned through direct experience over time that Mitt will do or say anything (or spend any amount of money), to buy or snooker voters into supporting him. Mitt is decent man whose overweening ambition has brought out a deep flaw in his character, or lack there of. His pandering is so shabby and gutless. While I don't like Rude Rudy, I admire his willingness to stick to his values, whether we agree with them or not. That's called courage, something Mitt seems to be lacking.

"My sense is that a lot of people in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina only have the vaguest notion, if any, that Romney may not be a standard-issue protestant Christian."

This statement shows a complete lack of faith in the intelligence, knowledge, and sentience of Republican primary voters.

I like it.

ndmackenzie, it is called faith. I suggest you look it up in the dictionary. My point is not which is true but which is more believable, but it seems you are unable to comprehend what I write so I won't even bother to explain anymore.

As this discussion winds to a close, moving most appropriately to where Mr Romney stands on a range of issues and the extent to which he can be trusted, let me just mention that I was in no way supporting the LDS. However, I have been to Salt Lake City, talked to some elders, and seen the holy relics they portray while lifting their voices in song. I cannot see how this is qualitatively different from many other faiths, and if they do not yet have Bach to write their music or Wren to build their temples or Leonardo to convince us that the word can be made flesh or just the sheer time to turn the language and the symbols of their faith into poetry...well, ars longa vita brevis as someone might have said watching those poor benighted Christians with their foolish unwillingness to visit the glorious temples we sensitive people have erected to immortal Jupiter.

It strikes me that a lot of people are missing the point here.  What anybody here thinks of Romney's Mormon beliefs is pretty well beside the point, since (unless I miss my guess) very few regular posters on these blog comment forums are likely to vote for Romney under any circumstances, including at gunpoint, for reasons that have virtually nothing to do with how he spends his Sunday mornings.  

However, for a substantial chunk of those whom Romney has been counting on to propel him to nomination as the "true conservative" in the race, any talk of special underwear and secret signs and whatnot is going to be a major creepfest.  Not that Romney would be so stupid as to spend his "religion speech" on such things, but no doubt some enterprising reporters here and there will take the occasion to write up a "Mormonism primer" or some such thing.  Even if not, a good many of that evangelical base will have such things dredged up in their head from the time when the youth pastor or whoever gave the "cult talk" to the high school Sunday school class or youth group meeting backintheday.  (As a recovering Southern Baptist myself I remember these things well.)  Particularly with Pastor Mike coming up fast in the rearview, any such stuff whether in the mainstream press or (maybe more damagingly) dimly remembered from youthhood can't help right now.  Whether Romney missed his window of opportunity to give such a speech or is jumping the gun on it, I'm not smart enough to say.  But now is not the time.

Should any of this matter?  No, but then no one said this was an ideal presidential campaign system.  To some degree Romney has made his bed and now has to lie in it.  This speech now only has potential to cause a lot of Republican voters to wonder if Romney is really the guy they want to get in bed with, so to speak.  Bad, bad timing.