Are Mormons "Christians" -- conflating two separate issues ...

I always get a large charge out of people who, in trying to oppose a particular position, illogically and very subtly attempt to conflate two separate and distinct issues.  I just saw it happen again in the discussion of Mitt Romney's Mormonism.

At about 4:00 a.m., E.D.T., the Huffington Post had a piece on its website, the "short link" to which was entitled "Mormons Are Not Christians, Pastors Say".  A click on that link took me to an article entitled "Mitt Romney's Mormonism: Pastors Say Mormons Not Christians, But Defend Candidate Against Attacks."  The point of the article is clearly stated in its first paragraphs:

                The debate over whether a largely Protestant nation is uneasy with a potential Mormon president was reignited this week after back-to-back attacks on Republican front-runner Mitt Romney's Mormonism at the high-profile Values Voters Summit in Washington, D.C.  After prominent Texas megachurch pastor Rev. Robert Jeffress told audiences on Friday that Mormonism is a "cult" and conservative Christian activist Bryan Fischer took the stage the next day to echo similar views, a new survey released Saturday afternoon says that three out of four pastors agree, at the least, that Mormons are not Christians.

                As part of a larger survey conducted by Nashville-based Lifeway Research a yearago, 1,000 pastors were polled from around the country who represented dozens of denominations. Results, originally scheduled to be released in the coming weeks, were put out early after reporters requested data because of attacks on Romney at the summit, said Ed Stetzer, president of the Southern Baptist-affiliated organization. "The view that Mormons are not Christians is the widely and strongly held view among Protestant pastors. That does not mean they do not respect Mormons as persons, share their values on family and have much in common. Yet, they simply view Mormonism as a distinct religion outside of basic teachings of Christianity. Many of these pastors may know Mormons who consider themselves Christians, but Protestant pastors overwhelmingly do not consider them such," said Stetzer. "I know this is an unpleasant question to many, and one that some will use as a hammer on evangelicals."

                Mormons do not believe in the traditional Christian Trinity of God as the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. They also have scripture in addition the Bible, such as the Book of Mormon, and believe in prophets such as Joseph Smith, Jr., who founded the Latter Day Saint movement.  (emphasis mine).

               The article then went on to present polling data regarding whether Americans would support a Mormon candidate for President of the United States.

                While the Lifeway survey indicates that a majority of pastors may not support the Mormon religion, surveys on whether Americans would support a Mormon candidate are more mixed. A Pew Research Center survey from the summer said that one in four voters would be less likely to vote for a Mormon candidate and found that 34 percent of white evangelical Protestants held this view. A Gallup poll released in June also that almost 20 percent of Republicans and independents would not vote for a Mormon president, compared to 27 percent of Democrats who said the same.

               The article then presented the comment that is illogically conflated with the main premise of the article -- that Mormons are not considered to be "Christians" by most protestant Pastors.  The article went on:

                After the weekend's controversial statements on Romney's religion, prominent pastors are also coming to his defense. On Saturday, Rev. Myke Crowder, senior pastor of the Christian Life Center in Layton, Utah, and spokesman for the National Clergy Council, released a statement condemning Jeffress, who is a Southern Baptist. "As an evangelical, born-again, Bible-believing Christian, and a pastor with more than 25 years' experience living with and ministering among a majority Mormon population, I find the comments by Pastor Jeffress unhelpful, impolite and out of place," he said. "I've been around long enough to remember when independent Baptists wouldn't pray with Southern Baptists, when fundamentalists called Southern Baptists compromisers and liberals, when Southern Baptists wouldn't keep company with Pentecostals and when Pentecostals wouldn't keep company with Catholics. That wasn't helpful to anyone. Insulting Mitt Romney adds nothing to the conversation about who should be president. We're picking the country's chief executive, not its senior pastor."

                Rev. Crowder asserts that Rev. Jeffress' "comments [were] unhelpful, impolite, and out of place."  Keep in mind that the only "comment" attributed to Jeffress in the article was that Mormonism is a "cult".  Now, I'll readily agree that referring to Mormonism as a "cult" may be impolite and insulting.  But, by far the bulk of the relevant information about the subject -- are "Mormons" also "Christians" -- was contained in comments by Ed Stetzer, President of Lifeway Research, the organization that polled 1,000 protestant pastors representing dozens of denominations about the subject.  And in those comments Mr. Stetzer specifically stated:  "[The fact that these pastors do not believe that Mormons are Christians] does not mean they do not respect Mormons as persons, share their values on family and have much in common." (emphasis mine).

               Now, I'm guessing that Rev. Crowder is a supporter of Mr. Romney.  And, anybody that knows anything about politics knows that the fact that Mr. Romney is a Mormon will be a huge hurdle for him to clear in his presidential campaign.  So, what does Rev. Crowder do?  He illogically conflates the principal point of the article -- that most Protestant pastors do not consider "Mormons" to be "Christians" -- with a flurry of irrelevant uncomplimentary observations about the past behavior of some Southern Baptists, and concludes his own remarks by saying, " Insulting Mitt Romney adds nothing to the conversation about who should be president. We're picking the country's chief executive, not its senior pastor."  (emphasis mine).  The clear inference is that it is insulting to Mitt Romney for Mr. Stetzer to report the results of a poll that shows that the majority of Protestant pastors do not consider "Mormons" to be "Christians".  Nobody wants to be "insulting", and Rev. Crowder obviously doesn't want voters to be focused on the fact that "Mormons" are not "Christians", so Rev. Crowder tries to fuse the "cult" comment with the report on the polling data, so as to make readers feel that it would be "insulting" to Mormons to point out that their theological views are vastly different from the theological views of the vast majority of Protestant Christian denominations in this country.

               MY POINT is this:  It is not insulting to anyone to point out facts about a political candidate.  It is a fact that Mormonism is "a distinct religion outside of basic teachings of Christianity."  Neither Mr. Stetzer nor anyone else should be chastized for bringing that fact to light.  Those of us to whom this fact matters should, in my view, refrain from referring to Mormonism as a "cult."  But, but we have every right to, and we have a civic duty to, make sure that all voters are well informed about the facts.  Mormons are not Christians.  That is a simple fact.  And the fact that many Southern Baptists have behaved badly in the past in their relationships with their fellow Christians does that change that fact.

               DON'T BE FOOLED, my friends, when some slick-talking preacher tries to conflate the issues on you !

               Now that the political season is heating up, I'll probably be back to visit with y'all a little more often.

Lucian