[Psudo]

For years there has been an institutional conflict between the LDS (often called Mormon) Church and Jews who objected to the LDS ritual of baptism-by-proxy for the salvation of those who were not baptized in life being used to "save" holocaust victims. After much negotiation between the two religions, the LDS Church promised to set up a system protocols and computerized restrictions on records to prevent holocaust victims from receiving proxy baptism. Jews saw names of holocaust victims continue to show up in LDS records and declared the talks to be a failure, claiming Mormons were not fulfilling their promise and perhaps did not intend to.

It took far too long, but the LDS Church did finally establish that system that would prevent the proxy-baptisms that Jews found so offensive from being performed. Jewish leaders were quickly invited to come see the changes and their effectiveness, and on 1 Sept. 2010 Jews and Mormons jointly announced the program's satisfactory performance. Relations between the two religions have finally been mended.

Unless you're Jewish or Mormon or closely connected to one group or the other, you probably haven't heard of this issue before. Even if you are, you may not have. Yet, for me personally and surely for many Jews and other Mormons, it's a sigh of relief. With the exception of this particular issue, Jews and Mormons typically have a better relations than Mormons and other Christian sects (most notably Evangelicals). The LDS Church is even allowed to operate a university campus within Jerusalem; think of the contrast between that and the Israeli/Palestinian or Jewish/Muslim relations surrounding that city. It was an embarrassment to have relations both with Jews and with mainline Christians simultaneously strained.

It's interesting that when religion comes up in discussions of politics the topic is almost exclusively the relationship between governmental and religious institutions. Religious institutions also have their political issues one with another, but these get far less attention. Sure, fewer people have connections to the religions involved, but this is a site overflowing with folks from the USA discussing Canadian politics. Clearly, one need not be part of the affected demographic to be interested in their politics. So this thread is an experiment: are there folks around the forum who are interested in interreligious politics? If so, now's the time to speak out.

[BartSimpson]

Um, I don't know where you got the idea that Evangelicals and Mormons don't get along. Evangelicals and Mormons tend to have a boatload of things in common and they tend to hold hands on a plethora of social issues (gay marriage, sex ed in schools, porn, drinking, drugs, etc.) much to the dismay of liberal and secular Christians.
While I do know some people who strenuously object to Mormonism, I also know a lot more Evangelicals who feel that it's better that the Mormons reach out to people, as they do, than for no one to reach out to them.

Mormons, I've observed, tend to be pretty open to interfaith cooperation mostly because they want to be accepted as a legitimate faith. In fairness, they probably do most of the hard work when it comes to interfaith efforts because they have something to prove.

Also, it is not remarkable that Israel allows the Mormons to have a campus in Jerusalem as Israel considers Jersusalem an open city for worship. Recently the Orthodox Jews had to allow for a Christian group to pray at the Wailing Wall and that was a big thing to the Orthodox.

[GreenTiger]

BartSimpson wrote:

Um, I don't know where you got the idea that Evangelicals and Mormons don't get along. Evangelicals and Mormons tend to have a boatload of things in common and they tend to hold hands on a plethora of social issues (gay marriage, sex ed in schools, porn, drinking, drugs, etc.) much to the dismay of liberal and secular Christians.
While I do know some people who strenuously object to Mormonism, I also know a lot more Evangelicals who feel that it's better that the Mormons reach out to people, as they do, than for no one to reach out to them.

Mormons, I've observed, tend to be pretty open to interfaith cooperation mostly because they want to be accepted as a legitimate faith. In fairness, they probably do most of the hard work when it comes to interfaith efforts because they have something to prove.

Also, it is not remarkable that Israel allows the Mormons to have a campus in Jerusalem as Israel considers Jersusalem an open city for worship. Recently the Orthodox Jews had to allow for a Christian group to pray at the Wailing Wall and that was a big thing to the Orthodox.

I didn't know Israel considers Jerusalem that open to religious worship. I was under the impression that they consider Jerusalem MINE!MINE ! NO WAY IN HELL is there room for anything else.

[BartSimpson]

GreenTiger wrote:

I didn't know Israel considers Jerusalem that open to religious worship. I was under the impression that they consider Jerusalem MINE!MINE ! NO WAY IN HELL is there room for anything else.

The only site in Jerusalem that had been off-limits to no-Jews was the Wailing Wall and now it is open to non-Jews.

[Trenacker]

I agree a recent editorial in the Christian Science Monitor decrying the fact that we seem prepared, as a nation, to institute a "litmus test" of religious belief for public office. It is a widely held, and probably correct, belief that a candidate for higher office cannot hope to win without a public confession of faith, usually Judeo-Christian. A majority of Americans appear to believe that an individual's degree of faith is a sound measure of his judgment and ability to lead. I fail, personally, to see how the two could be related.

Much of the bruhaha over Obama's alleged Muslim roots has to do with a sneaking suspicion that he is, frankly, "not like the rest of us." This perception often arises from bigotry -- the assumption that somebody who is black must secretly despise whites; that somebody who is a liberal Democrat aims to fundamentally alter the social structure of the nation as we know it; that somebody who is visibly so different may be an outright traitor or plant at a time of apparent national trauma. In short, it is easy to believe that he is an alien (read: Muslim) because he doesn't look like one of the majority. This perception is enhanced by the amount of time devoted in the media to tracking and giving a full hearing to all of the many accusations and crackpot theories out there.

Media is frankly disgusting these days. It's a race to the bottom for ratings. The visual media seems to have adopted the strange idea that "balance" and "impartial journalism" are only attained when one gives equal time to two sides of an argument. It pretends that "right" is neutral. That is incorrect. Right is only impartial. However, as Amanpour has argued, certain behaviors are obviously immoral: nobody would dream of giving "equal time" to a genocidaire. It shouldn't take such extreme examples to wake us from this national stupor.

Also, just to add a bit of interesting color to this argument: I was raised Jewish in New York, which is one of the bastions of American Judaism in terms of demographics, but far removed from the areas where Mormonism is widely practiced in the United States. I have never heard of the dispute mentioned in the original post.

[CKASlacker]

Trenacker wrote:

I agree a recent editorial in the Christian Science Monitor decrying the fact that we seem prepared, as a nation, to institute a "litmus test" of religious belief for public office. It is a widely held, and probably correct, belief that a candidate for higher office cannot hope to win without a public confession of faith, usually Judeo-Christian. A majority of Americans appear to believe that an individual's degree of faith is a sound measure of his judgment and ability to lead. I fail, personally, to see how the two could be related.

Funny, but I've thought of this before -- specifically Jefferson, and wondered whether he would likely get elected in this day and age, despite the fact of his importance as a founding father and all. Although a "Christian", he openly questioned the value of faith, strongly advocated separation of church/state (I think he's actually credited with inventing that term), decried priests and other organized religions, and basically stated that what one needed to know about Jesus and his life you could simply read up for oneself! He took the effort to write up the Jefferson bible, attempting to extract the doctrine / teaching of Jesus from the miracles and other supernatural abilities.

In short, he would probably be denounced as some sort of devil-worshiping heathen today, and in no way fit to serve in the Office of the President.

[Psudo]

BartSimpson wrote:

Um, I don't know where you got the idea that Evangelicals and Mormons don't get along.

One can Google for "Are Mormons Christian?" and see plenty of reasons to doubt the relationship's strength. Also, remember all the questioning of whether Evangelicals would vote for Romney in the 2008 election cycle.

That being said, I agree that Evangelicals and Mormons have plenty in common and should properly be allies both in secular politics and in interfaith relations.

BartSimpson wrote:

Also, it is not remarkable that Israel allows the Mormons to have a campus in Jerusalem as Israel considers Jersusalem an open city for worship. Recently the Orthodox Jews had to allow for a Christian group to pray at the Wailing Wall and that was a big thing to the Orthodox.

Perhaps the exceptions gave me a false impression. The only other detail I know on the subject is that Mormons had to promise not to evangelize in order to be allowed to construct BYU Jerusalem, our university there.

Trenacker wrote:

Media is frankly disgusting these days. It's a race to the bottom for ratings.

Clearly true.

Trenacker wrote:

I was raised Jewish in New York, which is one of the bastions of American Judaism in terms of demographics, but far removed from the areas where Mormonism is widely practiced in the United States. I have never heard of the dispute mentioned in the original post.

Interesting. The Jewish group that negotiated with the LDS Church is the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants, headquartered in New York. Perhaps the issue was between representatives of both religions rather than their rank-and-file populations. I only know of it as an intellectual exercise and a curiosity, which fits that theory.

It might also interest you to know that Mormon-majority Utah had a Jewish Governor from 1917 to 1921, Simon Bamberger. He was a Democrat and a Progressive of the Theodore Roosevelt stripe, remembered for reforming finance in Utah in a way that mitigated the effects of the Great Depression on the area and calling a special legislative session to ratify the US Constitutional Amendment on women's suffrage. Utah is still proud to have ratified women's suffrage so early and readily as we did, 17th of the 36 state ratifications required for an amendment to the US Constitution.

CKASlacker wrote:

[Jefferson] would probably be denounced as some sort of devil-worshiping heathen today, and in no way fit to serve in the Office of the President.

Jefferson always struck me as the only example of a true deist among the founding fathers (at least the few I've read about). I can think of reasons not to vote for him, but I think his strict opposition to mysticism makes him more appropriate for modern politics, not less.

Your point is well taken, that people who promote a religious litmus test would denounce him. I doubt, though, such people have any political influence beyond getting on TV sometimes. Even among conservative Republicans, people who think Obama is a Muslim are somewhat of a laughingstock. Conservative firebrand Ann Coulter's latest two columns have been mocking the idea, for example.