{"id":1154,"date":"2007-07-17T12:36:01","date_gmt":"2007-07-17T12:36:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/2007\/07\/romneys-not-the-first-mormon-t.html"},"modified":"2007-07-17T12:36:01","modified_gmt":"2007-07-17T12:36:01","slug":"romneys-not-the-first-mormon-t","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/07\/romneys-not-the-first-mormon-t.html","title":{"rendered":"Romney’s Not The First Mormon to Run for President"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"joseph-smith_idol.jpg\"When I was growing up, my mom taught me there were three things not to talk about in public: religion, sex and politics. Don\u2019t worry, this post won\u2019t be about sex! But Republican Mitt Romney\u2019s candidacy is igniting conversations about religion and politics all over the country, and that conversation is either spilling over into our pop culture–or our pop culture is driving it.
\nThe latest example is a new documentary being filmed and produced about the history (as well as the challenges) of the first Mormon candidate who ran for president of the United States. If you believe the producers of “A Mormon President,” <\/a>there are sub-currents of anti-Mormon feelings in the U.S. that need to be uncovered, and their expose of Joseph Smith’s 1844 presidential run is the tool that will accomplish the task.
\nThe documentary’s producer, Adam Christing, states that “those who
\nwant to understand Romney’s challenge today must first understand Joseph Smith.” I don’t think I could disagree more.<\/p>\n


\nJoseph Smith was the founder of the religion, claiming to have received a vision from God to add to the Bible and change traditional Christian theology. He preached that Jesus came to America after his visit to Israel, but that the gospels of those events had been lost and buried. To his followers, Smith was a courageous prophet who stood against tradition, was persecuted for speaking the truth, and murdered when he intended to run for President.
\nTo his detractors, Smith was a con artist and sleazy teller of tall tales, whose failing movement was forced from Missouri and Illinois and would have died but for an ambitious Brigham Young and the journey to Utah. Smith was beloved by his followers and loathed by his detractors. The facts of history has not been kind to him.
\nI can see Christing\u2019s point that “Joseph Smith is one of the most captivating religious figures in U.S. history.” But I find him captivating because he got away with a story that in many ways has not held up to scrutiny, especially the fallacies in his “revelation” from God. Christing says “there is evidence that a political conspiracy was hatched to murder him shortly after he announced his run for president.” But back then there wasn’t much discernable difference between a conspiracy, a gang, or a mob wanting to run undesirable elements out of town.
\nMitt Romney is different. He didn’t found a religion. He claims to be a practicer (not a preacher) of it. He came in late to lead the rescue effort at the scandal-plagued Salt Lake City Winter Olympics and was elected governor as a republican in the primarily democratic state of Massachusetts. He\u2019s made a ton of money, both as a creator (and eliminator) of jobs. He\u2019s been successful as a mainstream businessman and politician.
\nFew people “hate” him. They hate Mormon history. Or, they hate that they lost their jobs when he downsized them. And his run for the presidency is not challenged by people\u2019s naivet\u00e9 about a young start-up radical religion, but rather it is impeded by an evangelically-trained Christian culture. The pastors and organizations that bought “The Purpose-Driven Life”<\/a> saw “The Passion of the Christ” and helped to elect George W. Bush are the same ones who have trained their congregations to view the Mormon posture that it is a “Christian denomination” as false.
\nI think “A Mormon President” will be interesting to history buffs, given its access to sites such as Haun’s Mill in Missouri (where 17 Mormons were massacred in 1838), Joseph Smith\u2019s gravesite, and the jail cell in Carthage, Illinois where he was murdered. But I think the relevancy to Romney\u2019s run is overplayed, and will be until someone documents the theological (not just circumstantial) issues in play. Our world of pop culture may not be as keenly aware of such things, but then again, it didn\u2019t predict the success of Gibson\u2019s “Passion” or Bush’s election and re-election.
\nAs a student of history and faith-based issues, I’ll want to see the Christing’s documentary when it is out in the fall, but I doubt it’ll effect my vote on Romney. I suspect I’m not alone in that opinion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was growing up, my mom taught me there were three things not to talk about in public: religion, sex and politics. Don\u2019t worry, this post won\u2019t be about sex! But Republican Mitt Romney\u2019s candidacy is igniting conversations about religion and politics all over the country, and that conversation is either spilling over into…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,12,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movies","category-politics","category-pop-culture"],"yoast_head":"\nRomney's Not The First Mormon to Run for President<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/07\/romneys-not-the-first-mormon-t.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Romney's Not The First Mormon to Run for President\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When I was growing up, my mom taught me there were three things not to talk about in public: religion, sex and politics. Don\u2019t worry, this post won\u2019t be about sex! But Republican Mitt Romney\u2019s candidacy is igniting conversations about religion and politics all over the country, and that conversation is either spilling over into…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/07\/romneys-not-the-first-mormon-t.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Idol Chatter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-07-17T12:36:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/files\/import\/joseph-smith_idol.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Douglas Howe\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Romney's Not The First Mormon to Run for President","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/07\/romneys-not-the-first-mormon-t.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Romney's Not The First Mormon to Run for President","og_description":"When I was growing up, my mom taught me there were three things not to talk about in public: religion, sex and politics. Don\u2019t worry, this post won\u2019t be about sex! But Republican Mitt Romney\u2019s candidacy is igniting conversations about religion and politics all over the country, and that conversation is either spilling over into…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/07\/romneys-not-the-first-mormon-t.html","og_site_name":"Idol Chatter","article_published_time":"2007-07-17T12:36:01+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/files\/import\/joseph-smith_idol.jpg"}],"author":"Douglas Howe","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/07\/romneys-not-the-first-mormon-t.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/07\/romneys-not-the-first-mormon-t.html","name":"Romney's Not The First Mormon to Run for President","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/07\/romneys-not-the-first-mormon-t.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/07\/romneys-not-the-first-mormon-t.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/files\/import\/joseph-smith_idol.jpg","datePublished":"2007-07-17T12:36:01+00:00","dateModified":"2007-07-17T12:36:01+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/a05dabea7186e9c2898a41a6713aa98a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/07\/romneys-not-the-first-mormon-t.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/07\/romneys-not-the-first-mormon-t.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/07\/romneys-not-the-first-mormon-t.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/files\/import\/joseph-smith_idol.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/files\/import\/joseph-smith_idol.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/07\/romneys-not-the-first-mormon-t.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Romney’s Not The First Mormon to Run for President"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/","name":"Idol Chatter","description":"Beliefnet Entertainment blog, TV blog, Movie blog, Religion in entertainment blog","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/a05dabea7186e9c2898a41a6713aa98a","name":"Douglas Howe","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/7e3\/7e32c99b36f419c4c074635d65150806x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/7e3\/7e32c99b36f419c4c074635d65150806x96.jpg","caption":"Douglas Howe"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/author\/dhowe"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1154\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}