Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Have A Little Faith

I hope it doesn't get me into trouble with my liberal friends, but I kind of feel sorry for Mitt Romney. Part of me wants to revel in the fact that other Republicans seem to be delighting in all of the infighting that has been taking place over the past couple of months, leaving us all to wonder if there will be anyone left standing to take up the nomination by the time the convention rolls around next summer. I don't know if Nietzsche was a Republican, but whatever doesn't kill these men and women might not make them stronger. It might just make them want to give up public service all together.
Take for example the conservative right's willingness to chew on each other unrelentingly until it's time to chew on Democrats. Last week, Texas pastor Robert Jeffress, gave an interview in which he said that Mormonism was not a Christian faith and was a cult. Mitt Romney is, via this reasoning, part of a cult. Opinions seem to run like longhorn steers in Texas, but this one was notable because it came out of the same mouth that introduced Governor Rick Perry just moments before. It was reminiscent of all of the fuss stirred up about Barack Obama's faith during the election of 2008: Is he a Muslim? Does Jeremiah Wright speak for him? Of course back then these slings and arrows were being flung by the other party. Even though Rick Perry was quick to distance himself from Pastor Jeffress' comments, the question of one person's faith has become an issue again.
Like way back when people worried that the Vatican would take root in the United States if John F. Kennedy was elected. That didn't happen, and I doubt that Mister Romney has any visions of moving the White House to Salt Lake City either. It is the kind of “poisonous language doesn’t advance our cause.” What cause might that be? For the good pastor, it would be working to choose another evangelical “who embraces historic Christianity." You know, the kind that that is certain that "all Scripture is divinely inspired and serves as the final authority in all matters of belief and behavior." Baptism, by the way, is not a cult. But they know one when they see it.
Maybe Mitt could help himself out by talking Tom Cruise into taking a shot at the next GOP debate.

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