“I used to walk the floor and shed tears of sorrow. If anything will make a woman’s heart ache, it is for her husband to take another wife.”

The AP reports on Mitt Romney’s polygamous ancestry:

Polygamy was not just a historical footnote but a prominent element in the family tree of the former Massachusetts governor now seeking to become the first LDS president. Romney’s great-grandfather, Miles Park Romney, married his fifth wife in 1897. That was more than six years after LDS church leaders banned polygamy and more than three decades after a federal law barred the practice. Romney’s great-grandmother, Hannah Hood Hill, was the daughter of polygamists. She wrote vividly in her autobiography about how she “used to walk the floor and shed tears of sorrow” over her own husband’s multiple marriages. Romney’s great-great-grandfather Parley P. Pratt, an apostle in the church, had 12 wives. In an 1852 sermon, Parley P. Pratt’s brother and fellow apostle, Orson Pratt, became the first church official to publicly proclaim and defend polygamy as a direct revelation from God. Romney’s father, former Michigan Gov. George Romney, was born in Chihuahua, Mexico, where church members fled in the 1800s to escape religious persecution and U.S. laws forbidding polygamy. He and his family did not return to the United States until 1912, more than two decades after the church issued “The Manifesto” banning polygamy. “When you read the family’s history, you realize how important polygamy was to them,” said Todd Compton, a Mormon and independent historian who wrote a book about the polygamous life of the church’s founder, Joseph Smith. “They left America and started again as pioneers, after they had done it over and over again previously.” B. Carmon Hardy, a polygamy expert and retired history professor at California State University-Fullerton, said polygamy was “a very important part of Miles Park Romney’s family.”

Upcoming Movie: Mountain Meadows Massascre

Ann Romney on Faith

Is America Ready for a Mormon President?

“They’ll bring up every anti-Mormon bullet point you’ve ever seen, and probably a few you haven’t”

Mormon Tom Williams worries about the Romney candidacy stirring up exposure and opposition to the Mormon religion:

“I’ll tell you what they’ll do. There will be discussions of LDS temple ceremonies, temple garments, polygamy, priesthood restrictions on blacks, blood atonement, Adam-God theory, etc., etc. They’ll bring up every anti-Mormon bullet point you’ve ever seen, and probably a few you haven’t. There will be quotes taken out of context, distortions of doctrine and kernels of truth buried in landfills of inaccuracy. This will put leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in an absolute no-win situation: If they try to respond to the doctrinal distortions aimed at Romney they will be perceived as defending him and thus supporting his candidacy; if they do nothing, the anti-Mormon assertions will be seen as true. Your 19-year-old missionary serving in Mississippi will spend the rest of his mission trying to explain the Mountain Meadows Massacre and the Adam-God theory, things he probably knows nothing about.” (links added)

“There will be quotes taken out of context, distortions of doctrine and kernels of truth buried in landfills of inaccuracy”? That makes for some great writing, but has this proven to be the case? The media so far has done an impressive job giving accurate portrayals of Mormonism. “If they try to respond to the doctrinal distortions aimed at Romney they will be perceived as defending him and thus supporting his candidacy…” Baloney. The Mormon PR machine is perfectly capable of clearing up distortions and inaccuracies without somehow defending him as a candidate. I think the real issue is that the Mormon Church dislikes publicly dealing with sticky, controversial issues, especially when it might mean publicly, explicitly repudiating the statements of past leaders, or simply stirring up curiosity or interest in something they wish would just go away.

Ostling On Mormonism

Another great example of Mormonism being exposed in the public because of Mitt’s candidacy.

“The practice of polygamy, which the church banned 117 years ago, and the unusual secrecy about its rituals are among the most cited examples. But even the story about the church’s founding is unusual to nonbelievers: God appeared to Joseph Smith and told him that all existing forms of Christianity were “an abomination” and then directed Smith to a hillside in upstate New York where, with the help of the angel Moroni, Smith recovered a set of golden tablets that revealed the real word of God. Smith had further revelations, which Mormons treat as scripture alongside the Bible, including that Jesus would eventually return to reign from Missouri… In addition to the problematic history of polygamy and the church, there is a second discarded teaching, on race, that has lingered for some in their thinking about Mormonism. Until 1978, the Mormons barred anyone with African blood from the church’s “priesthood,” to which virtually all men and boys eventually belong. Although that doctrine was abandoned, it caused significant disillusionment among blacks who had joined the church — both in the United States and abroad… Evangelism extends beyond the grave, too, through vicarious “baptisms for the dead,” a practice that is considered odd by many Christians and that drew outrage among Jews when Mormons turned their attention to victims of the Holocaust… The Mormon Church also maintains an unusual level of secrecy about internal administration and its considerable wealth. It imposes strict privacy regarding rituals in its temples, with the inner sanctums themselves restricted to certified members of the faith. Only Mormons in good standing, for instance, can attend a wedding ceremony inside a Mormon temple… Finally, the most difficult question may be: Are Mormons really Christians? They profess themselves to be — though it’s a different version from that preached in Catholic and Protestant churches. Mormons reject traditional Christian beliefs about God, Jesus and the Trinity. Given Joseph Smith’s teaching that God declared all creeds before Mormonism “an abomination,” it is not surprising that Roman Catholics and most Protestants require rebaptism of converts from Mormonism. (Mormons likewise rebaptize Catholics and Protestants.)” – Richard N. Ostling in the Washington Post

Thanks Mitt, Mormonism is Getting the Spotlight

… albeit from a man who believes all religion is hogwash. I’d like to have five minutes with Bill Maher to show him he has religious presuppositions in his worldview as well. Be advised, there is some crude language in this clip.

Click here to read some Mormon commentary on this.

Jerusalem or Missouri?