More on Mormon Presidents

A full page in yesterday’s National Post (“Words from the Prophet,” p. A19) is devoted to the burning issue of whether it is safe for the US to elect a Mormon President—more evidence of the growing religious intolerance in North America. With the smirking subhead “Is America Ready for a Mormon President?” As if the issue were simply the timing. The piece, by Damon Linker, reveals that Mormonism differs from both Protestantism and Catholicism in holding that “revelation,” prophecy, continues even today. This is scary, he suggests, because it means a President Romney would be taking orders from the current prophet in Salt Lake City, as opposed to published writings or an established body of belief.

Shades of the old rumours that, if Al Smith won the Presidency, the Pope would move the Vatican to New York City.

This is wrong; there is no real difference between Mormonism and mainstream Christianity on this. Both Catholicism and Protestantism also believe that revelations continue today. Prophecy is one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit cited in the New Testament. The many Catholic apparitions of Mary often offer private revelations. Among Protestants, Pat Robertson has just released his annual list of prophecies for the new year.

And any Catholic or Protestant president sincere in his faith would also be taking advice from a spiritual advisor of some sort.

The author of the Post article is trying to make Mormonism sound stranger and less mainstream than it is: appealing to prejudice, in effect.

As for me, I would far rather elect somebody to office who admitted a moral check on his actions than someone who did not.

The piece raises the question, what if Prophet Hinckley in Utah ordered Romney to murder someone? Would he go and do it?

But the question is silly: “Thou shalt not kill” is in the Ten Commandments for Mormons just as it is for Catholics or Protestants. Moreover, when someone embraces a religious teaching, he does not surrender his reason, or his conscience, or his sense of right and wrong. These things are absolutes, and are not subject to personal whim. They cannot be changed. A religious teaching informs and educates our conscience and reason; it does not go against them, or we simply, if we are not either madmen or evil, change our religion.

Only the non-religious suppose these things, conscience and reason, can be altered at will or on command. That is the doctrine of relativists, and religions are, per se, absolutist.

If, therefore, Prophet Hinckley ordered something obviously immoral, he would simply be revealing himself, to Romney just as much as to the rest of us, as a false prophet. “By their fruits you shall know them.” Just as, if the Pope in Rome came out advocating something obviously immoral ex cathedra, he would simply be demonstrating to me as a Catholic that he is not legitimately pope, or not really infallible.

At this point, if I were an American and eligible to vote in their primaries, I think I’d support Romney purely as a matter of principle, to fight anti-religious prejudice.