This is just another way to gid at Romney.... by the supreme political evangelicals....

Anyone remember Ted Haggard??

I'm not religious at all, but it seems odd to me that a preacher saying Mormonism is NOT a Christian religion is automatically an insult to Mormons and the Mormon church.

There is nothing wrong with not being a Christian. And really, when you look at the teachings of the Book of Mormon, it isn't Christian. Christianity doesn't deal in magic underwear, magic golden tablets and Native Americans that are actually Jews. Does it?

Also too - The idea that God changed his mind about black people in 1978 is, well, not very Christian.

anyone remember jeremiah wright? no problems when barry praised and dedicated things to him and later when barry threw him under the bus. no problem with this either, unless you have a political bias

Tis the Season says as long as they do not bring their religious views to public office, Well let me enlighten you about the state of Utah. I was born and raised there and lived there for 42 years before I had enough brains to get out and quit being miserable. The mormon religion overflows right into the local and state government, and I for one had enough. For example, I moved to Nevada, and my wife and I went golfing last weekend, and we had a 6:40am tee time. After we checked in and got our cart, we went into the bar and ordered two Bailey's and coffee. Wow what a concept, having a mixed drink at 6:30 in the morning, in fact nevada never shuts down its bars, you can enjoy yourself 24/7. You can't do that in Utah, never have and never will because of the mormon religion. You know their prophecy states that they will all return to missouri, I can hardly wait for the day when they all pack up and go make another state miserable. You have to go to Utah to even begin to understand what I am talking about, there are so many laws that discriminate against non-mormons that I can't even begin to cite them all, if you live there and are a non-mormon you have to buckle down and live like they want you to live, and also in certain situations you can't get a good job in Utah if you are not a mormon, you see everything is owned by the mormons. I went to a job interview once in Utah and the HR guy's first question was what ward to you belong to? (a ward is like a neighborhood of mormons, and the number them, first ward, second ward...etc) So that was the shortest job interview I ever had, because I don't belong to any ward, translation...if you ain't mormon, you ain't working here. I rest my case.

Another example of the "religious" right showing their intolerance.

I can think of hundreds of reasons NOT to vote for Romney starting with he's a Republican. But the fact he's a Mormon is NOT one of them.

Religious ignorance is without question. While religious tolerance is without question one of the most fundamental precepts of our founding fathers, it becomes a dog that bites it's owner. Many are defending Romney's religious rights without considering the real issues of this debate. This debate is not about a persons right to believe and practice the religion of their choosing. This debate centers around the concept of deceit. Since it's inception Mormonism has preyed upon the Christian populace, selling itself as a Christian religion. Why do you suppose the name of the Mormon church was chosen? A person named Sidney Rigdon was instrumental in furnishing Smith with copies of a manuscript, that when intertwined with the King James Bible, became the Book of Mormon. Why is this applicable to the debate of a Presidential candidate? The deceptive practices of some religions, and especially the mind altering cults, lend the questionable nature of a persons fitfulness for the position of President. If one can be duped into believing and practicing a religion that is believed by many to be based on false lies, then can such person be easily misled into other venues? Mormonism is a cult, and is not a Christian religion. Mormons give Jesus no position of Supremacy, and is very similar to Islam. Joseph Smith is to Mormonism, what Mohammad is the Islam. While religion has never been a litmus tests for those running for public office, one cannot disregard the implications that are often indicators of a persons intellect. Like all cults, Mormonism preys upon the ignorance of it's victims, and one of the first lies of the many they tell is, "Mormonism is a Christian religion." It just isn't true, no matter how many time you tell a lie, it is still a lie.

Harry Reid, the Democratic majority leader of the Senate, is also a Mormon.  Guess as long as you are doing the bidding of the left, it is okay to be a Mormon.  I'm sure the Catholic Church looks at the Baptists, who supposedly broke off from the Catholics, also as a cult.

I love my country, therefore what is happening in the GOP worries me. We are involved in multiple wars, people losing everything, yet religious "leaders" pick NOW to divide people based solely on religion?

As a liberal I used to enjoy watching the GOP reap the the wrath from getting in bed with the ultra right wing. No more. We say that we are the example of freedom. If this continues we'll be the example of hypocrisy.

Who are the evangelicals to decide who is a Christian? What about Catholics, 7th day Adventists, Jehovah Witnesses, Quakers, Pentecostals, Lutherans, Christian Scientists......just to name a few. This language of exclusion is not new. It was used in Western Europe in the middle ages. The result: refugees who came to a new world, and based on their experiences, they crafted the constitution to prevent exactly what is happening now. The involvement of the church into state affairs.

BTW: if no longer separate from political activity, then why still benefit from the tax exempt status? Tax every church that is politically active.

A few points of religious history:

1. Obama is a Congregationalist--United Church of Christ--the same church as Colin Powell's wife was brought up in, and the Adams belonged to.

We (I am a member) burned witches in Salem in 1692, but repented of it by 1720--beginning the long trek to a more rational view of the Bible.

American democracy was founded on the Congregationalists' radical idea that all Church members--whatever their wealth--could vote. We answered Lincoln's Call for Volunteers in 1861, and died in great numbers in The War. The Unitarians split off in the early 1800s.

Obama did attend a religious school in Indonesia as a small child, but it was Catholic--St. Francis of Assisi.

2. The Baptists split off from the Congregationalists in the 1600s. They had to pay taxes to support the Congregational Church in New England, and the Church of England in the South.

Jefferson's 1807 letter, where he first extolled the "Separation of Church and State", was to the Danbury CT Baptists--who had to pay taxes to support the Congregational Church, for several more years.

3. Jefferson's Virginia Statute of Religious Liberty, was passed as part of a political deal. Virginia evangelicals (Baptists, Methodists, etc.) were prosecuted for practicing their religions in the 1770s. When Virginia needed troops for the American Revolution, the Evangelicals made religious liberty a condition of their fighting the British.

4. I believe that real religious freedom in America dates from a 1850s confrontation between New York's Roman Catholic Archbishop Hughes and the Protestant Mayor of New York. The Know-Nothings were burning Catholic churches across Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Their mobs were approaching New York City.

The Mayor summoned Hughes, and said "You must be worried about your churches."

Hughes--a tough Irishman, who started out as a railroad worker--fixed the Mayor with his cold blue eyes, and replied ominously, "We thought you'd be worried about your own."

The Mayor called out the militia, and the mobs dispersed.

5. If you want a Country where everyone has a gun, where religion is crucial in public life, and The Government does not tax, bother or control you, take a good look at Somalia.

Yeshu'a told his followers to take not what is Holy before dogs( another word for most of the uncircumcised)

christians are idiots and simpletons who want to live forever and the preachers want their money. it is a man-made religion

Does this mean romney won't be the gop nominee? You neocons/teabaggers are something else, you are going to be so easy to beat next year!!!!

no mormon will ever be elected President. much ado about nothing.

To all Mormons republicans, How does this make you feel about your fellow republicans? Republicans just want your vote. Thats great they belittle your faith & call you members of a cult.

MY example read readredhead-joesson post before mine. It shows how much your wanted by your fellow republicans!!!

Romney can certainly be viewed as a Conservative, and a religious man, but Mormonism is not Christianity in the world definition. It shares elements of Christianity, but continues beyond Christian teachings, thereby inherently changing some of those Christian teachings. Our country does support freedom to choose religious expression, so I would not disqualify anyone for participating in another faith, but it is not proper to lump Romney in with Christians. And it is important not to bash Christians because of Romney's views or statements, because those views and statements come from his background, not of Christianity.

This video is an outrage! Andrea Mitchell just lost all credibility inviting a Southern Baptist on her show to define Mormonism and members of the Church of JESUS CHRIST of Latter-Day Saints. Will this despicable bigotry and the spreading of LIES ever stop?

Here's the official declaration for what Mormons believe about Jesus Christ.

Sue, quit embarrassing yourself and go to www.mormon.org and find out what the Mormons actually believe about the deity of Jesus Christ. Here is an excerpt from the "Our Faith" section of the website. See if it sounds like we believe that He is only just another prophet-

"Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world and the Son of God. He is our Redeemer. The Holy Bible teaches us that Jesus Christ's mother was Mary, His father on earth was Joseph, that He was born in Bethlehem and raised in Nazareth, and labored with Joseph as a carpenter. When he turned 30, He began a three-year ministry of teaching, blessing, and healing the people of the Holy Land. He also organized His Church and gave His apostles "power and authority" (Luke 9:1) to assist in His work.

But what do we mean when we say He is the Savior of the world? The Redeemer? Each of these titles point to the truth that Jesus Christ is the only way by which we can return to live with our Heavenly Father. Jesus suffered and was crucified for the sins of the world, giving each of God's children the gift of repentance and forgiveness. Only by His mercy and grace can anyone be saved. His subsequent resurrection prepared the way for every person to overcome physical death as well. These events are called the Atonement. In short, Jesus Christ saves us from sin and death. For that, he is very literally our Savior and Redeemer.  In the future Jesus Christ will return to reign on earth in peace for a thousand years. Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and He will be our Lord forever."

Nuff said!

LET US TELL YOU WHAT WE BELIEVE!!! Don't rely on your paid minister or "Christian" bookstore's "Cult Section" to be an expert on us.

Here is a recent talk about Jesus Christ given by one of our Twelve Apostles at General Conference. You can read it, or on the right you can click to watch it.

Evidently I can't post a link, I will try again

They won't let me paste a link, so here is the entire talk by Jeffrey R Holland;

As Elder Ballard noted earlier in this session, various cross-currents of our times have brought increasing public attention to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Lord told the ancients this latter-day work would be “a marvellous work and a wonder,”¹ and it is. But even as we invite one and all to examine closely the marvel of it, there is one thing we would not like anyone to wonder about—that is whether or not we are “Christians.”

By and large any controversy in this matter has swirled around two doctrinal issues—our view of the Godhead and our belief in the principle of continuing revelation leading to an open scriptural canon. In addressing this we do not need to be apologists for our faith, but we would like not to be misunderstood. So with a desire to increase understanding and unequivocally declare our Christianity, I speak today on the first of those two doctrinal issues just mentioned.

Our first and foremost article of faith in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is “We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost.”² We believe these three divine persons constituting a single Godhead are united in purpose, in manner, in testimony, in mission. We believe Them to be filled with the same godly sense of mercy and love, justice and grace, patience, forgiveness, and redemption. I think it is accurate to say we believe They are one in every significant and eternal aspect imaginable except believing Them to be three persons combined in one substance, a Trinitarian notion never set forth in the scriptures because it is not true.

Indeed no less a source than the stalwart Harper’s Bible Dictionary records that “the formal doctrine of the Trinity as it was defined by the great church councils of the fourth and fifth centuries is not to be found in the [New Testament].”³

So any criticism that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints does not hold the contemporary Christian view of God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost is not a comment about our commitment to Christ but rather a recognition (accurate, I might add) that our view of the Godhead breaks with post–New Testament Christian history and returns to the doctrine taught by Jesus Himself. Now, a word about that post–New Testament history might be helpful.

In the year A.D. 325 the Roman emperor Constantine convened the Council of Nicaea to address—among other things—the growing issue of God’s alleged “trinity in unity.” What emerged from the heated contentions of churchmen, philosophers, and ecclesiastical dignitaries came to be known (after another 125 years and three more major councils)⁴ as the Nicene Creed, with later reformulations such as the Athanasian Creed. These various evolutions and iterations of creeds—and others to come over the centuries—declared the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost to be abstract, absolute, transcendent, immanent, consubstantial, coeternal, and unknowable, without body, parts, or passions and dwelling outside space and time. In such creeds all three members are separate persons, but they are a single being, the oft-noted “mystery of the trinity.” They are three distinct persons, yet not three Gods but one. All three persons are incomprehensible, yet it is one God who is incomprehensible.

We agree with our critics on at least that point—that such a formulation for divinity is truly incomprehensible. With such a confusing definition of God being imposed upon the church, little wonder that a fourth-century monk cried out, “Woe is me! They have taken my God away from me, … and I know not whom to adore or to address.”⁵ How are we to trust, love, worship, to say nothing of strive to be like, One who is incomprehensible and unknowable? What of Jesus’s prayer to His Father in Heaven that “this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent”?⁶

It is not our purpose to demean any person’s belief nor the doctrine of any religion. We extend to all the same respect for their doctrine that we are asking for ours. (That, too, is an article of our faith.) But if one says we are not Christians because we do not hold a fourth- or fifth-century view of the Godhead, then what of those first Christian Saints, many of whom were eyewitnesses of the living Christ, who did not hold such a view either?⁷

We declare it is self-evident from the scriptures that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are separate persons, three divine beings, noting such unequivocal illustrations as the Savior’s great Intercessory Prayer just mentioned, His baptism at the hands of John, the experience on the Mount of Transfiguration, and the martyrdom of Stephen—to name just four.

With these New Testament sources and more⁸ ringing in our ears, it may be redundant to ask what Jesus meant when He said, “The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do.”⁹ On another occasion He said, “I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.”¹⁰ Of His antagonists He said, “[They have] … seen and hated both me and my Father.”¹¹ And there is, of course, that always deferential subordination to His Father that had Jesus say, “Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God.”¹² “My father is greater than I.”¹³

To whom was Jesus pleading so fervently all those years, including in such anguished cries as “O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me”¹⁴ and “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken

Jeffrey R Holland Continued-

“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me”?¹⁵ To acknowledge the scriptural evidence that otherwise perfectly united members of the Godhead are nevertheless separate and distinct beings is not to be guilty of polytheism; it is, rather, part of the great revelation Jesus came to deliver concerning the nature of divine beings. Perhaps the Apostle Paul said it best: “Christ Jesus … being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God.”¹⁶

A related reason The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is excluded from the Christian category by some is because we believe, as did the ancient prophets and apostles, in an embodied—but certainly glorified—God.¹⁷ To those who criticize this scripturally based belief, I ask at least rhetorically: If the idea of an embodied God is repugnant, why are the central doctrines and singularly most distinguishing characteristics of all Christianity the Incarnation, the Atonement, and the physical Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ? If having a body is not only not needed but not desirable by Deity, why did the Redeemer of mankind redeem His body, redeeming it from the grasp of death and the grave, guaranteeing it would never again be separated from His spirit in time or eternity?¹⁸Any who dismiss the concept of an embodied God dismiss both the mortal and the resurrected Christ. No one claiming to be a true Christian will want to do that.

Now, to anyone within the sound of my voice who has wondered regarding our Christianity, I bear this witness. I testify that Jesus Christ is the literal, living Son of our literal, living God. This Jesus is our Savior and Redeemer who, under the guidance of the Father, was the Creator of heaven and earth and all things that in them are. I bear witness that He was born of a virgin mother, that in His lifetime He performed mighty miracles observed by legions of His disciples and by His enemies as well. I testify that He had power over death because He was divine but that He willingly subjected Himself to death for our sake because for a period of time He was also mortal. I declare that in His willing submission to death He took upon Himself the sins of the world, paying an infinite price for every sorrow and sickness, every heartache and unhappiness from Adam to the end of the world. In doing so He conquered both the grave physically and hell spiritually and set the human family free. I bear witness that He was literally resurrected from the tomb and, after ascending to His Father to complete the process of that Resurrection, He appeared, repeatedly, to hundreds of disciples in the Old World and in the New. I know He is the Holy One of Israel, the Messiah who will one day come again in final glory, to reign on earth as Lord of lords and King of kings. I know that there is no other name given under heaven whereby a man can be saved and that only by relying wholly upon His merits, mercy, and everlasting grace¹⁹ can we gain eternal life.

My additional testimony regarding this resplendent doctrine is that in preparation for His millennial latter-day reign, Jesus has already come, more than once, in embodied majestic glory. In the spring of 1820, a 14-year-old boy, confused by many of these very doctrines that still confuse much of Christendom, went into a grove of trees to pray. In answer to that earnest prayer offered at such a tender age, the Father and the Son appeared as embodied, glorified beings to the boy prophet Joseph Smith. That day marked the beginning of the return of the true, New Testament gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and the restoration of other prophetic truths offered from Adam down to the present day.

I testify that my witness of these things is true and that the heavens are open to all who seek the same confirmation. Through the Holy Spirit of Truth, may we all know “the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom [He has] sent.”²⁰ Then may we live Their teachings and be true Christians in deed, as well as in word, I pray in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

95% percent of Americans are biblically illiterate; 98% would not know the theological difference between a Mormon and a Christian, and would not know the difference between the "gospel" and the "law" in a sermon. Most preachers can't tell the difference. They get in a pulpit and preach moralistic crap that has nothing to do with Christ and the freedom we have been given to risk loving in a new and radical way. The controversy among so called "evangelicals" (the word means ' good news ' and believe me when they support Palin, Bachmann, Perry that is not good news) about whether God's love is without limit is hilarious. The stupid media is blowing it way out of proportion - but because some yahoo pastor from a huge church in grand Rapids Michigan writes a book the media calls it new. Ignorance goes deep in the media and the American public when it comes to religion. They are just as ignorant when it comes to knowing the difference between communism, socialism and fascism. Just wait - when the new corporate fascism is elected - they will finally realize that electing business people to government was idiotic, since business is self serving and for profit and does not give a rip about the long term. It's about immediate materialistic satisfaction - our elections are about the same thing. So Mormonism or Christianity? does it make a difference? If the candidates are stupid I would say no.

[Spotted this goodie on the net!]

LDS a "cult"? What about the "rapture"?

by Bruce Rockwell

Mitt Romney, a Mormon, is "not a Christian" and Mormonism is a "cult," according to Rev. Robert Jeffress, pastor of the Dallas (TX) First Baptist Church.
His "cult" remark is based on his belief that the Latter-day Saints church (which didn't exist before 1830) is outside "the mainstream of Christianity."
But Jeffress hypocritically promotes the popular evangelical "rapture" (theologically the "any-moment pretribulation rapture") which is outside mainstream Christianity (Google "Pretrib Rapture Politics") and which also didn't exist before 1830 (Google "Pretrib Rapture Diehards" and "Pretrib Rapture Dishonesty")!
And there are 50 million American rapture cultists (some of whom turn Wikipedia into "Wicked-pedia" by constantly distorting the real facts about the rapture's bizarre, 181-year-old history) compared with only 14 million LDS members.
The most accurate documentation on pretrib rapture history that I have found is in a nonfiction book titled "The Rapture Plot" which is carried by leading online bookstores. I know also that the same 300-page work can also be borrowed through inter-library loan at any library.
Latter-day Saints believe in fairness, which is why I feel called to share this message.