i'm your host valerie to rico and this is our series christianity in the public square today we're going to be looking at romney's religion how would a romney presidency be affected by his mormon faith how might mormonism affect his policy priorities here with us today is garrett amany a seattle software engineer and a former mormon thank you for joining us today thank you  until college and then and then you ended up leaving the faith is that right i left in the midst of college after my first year of the way you know it was about two thousand and six can you give us a little bit of an overview of what what the mormon religion is so mormonism began in the early eighty's hundreds with a famous name now joseph smith who was he was highly religiously active and involved and interested in these sort of matters but he didn't know which church to join so the story goes that he went into the woods to pray to ask which church was right and god and his son came down and told him that none of the churches were correct and that he needed to start his own an uncovered an ancient record of the people in the united states called the book of warm and translated that into english with the help of god and began the mormon church in eight hundred thirty or so around eight hundred thirty mother says th led his little church from new york to kirtland ohio and then from cruel in ohio to misery and for he moved from various places to places generally because of persecution in response to try to escape that and then after about the church under the leadership of the next prophet brigham young moved west and crossed over the midwest and settled in the utah valley so this is an american religion started in the nineteenth century  with what was kind of perceived to be a modification or a latter day revelation that built on top of christianity right so according according to mormon belie after christ came to this earth and established his church it lasted for a little while before it fell into apostasy and the unspoken bad guy being the catholic church taking taking crisis stablish church and corrupting it and changing it into something that was no longer recognizable as god's church so what so would would mormons look at newt gingrich's religion for example or rick santorum is religion as as an a distortion of the truth and as as not the full truth they would regard all christians and most religions that have elements of the truth but only mormonism has that for one hundred percent established and restore having grown to be evangelical i have to say that sounds familiar right i would imagine there are a lot of parallels it's that absolute just really just few that they they have the correct answer and in so far as other people agree with them they're close to that correct answer and yet it's that sense that it's about their getting their beliefs right that has led to what i understand are thirty thousand denominations of christianity right the protestant jumping off because everybody wants to have what they believe to be that absolute truth do mormons consider themselves christians they do they do absolutely they will point to the fact that jesus christ is even in the name of the church in the church of jesus christ of latter day saints  they will establish christ as their savior and speak to that in increasing amounts in the past thirty four years you say increasing amounts in the last thirty forty years so there's been some evolution or change in mormon doctrine yeah so the mormon doctrine can really be described in in three or four distinct phases the first being the early church that joseph smith the stablished and that doctrine evolved as the church grew as the book of mormon came out was translated and as joseph smith received revelation and those early church doctrines have pretty much been held onto to this day but then v the  brigham period in utah where the mormons were living in isolation in the salt lake valley there were a lot of stranger and more distinct mormon doctrines that came about when you say strange or more distinct what are you talking about well that was that was the era which was the height of polygamy the mormon practice of having multiple wives there were other distinct doctrines that were part of the time such as the adam god now called the adam god theory or the adam god doctrine depending on whether that be the belief that adam is god and that god himself came down to begin the human race as adam and that was that was kind of a that was a doctrine that was around in that brigham period but as has since fallen out of favor so adam was a person from another world or something who came to this world right so the that ties into the greater mormon idea of what has happened before and during and after this life so mormons believe that we existed before this life called the preexistence that we were spirits and intelligences that existed in the nether somewhere and then we were organized by a god in our case we we call him god or mormons will call him elohim and that god organized our spirits and created world and put us down here to be tested and to receive a body and then some day we will die and return to that divine space where we will be judged and sorted more or less and ultimately it's possible that our divine destiny means that we can become gods ourselves so that notion that we ourselves can become god's that's kind of standard mormon beliefs or that's beliefs from this period you described as more and more peculiar so that that belief that we can become established right at the tail end of that joseph smith period in mormon doctrine and it was emphasized and expounded upon by brigham young in that utah era and in the past hundred years or so as the as in the in the next period of  doctrine as the mormon church has drifted away from more of those unique doctrines and toward a standard protestant view of significantly deemphasized those teachings it was i have to say you know from the outside of course they all sound a little strange they do they do you know when you in my opinion when you when you take a look at any faith under a microscope any any particular doctrine is going to stand out as a little bit strange in isolation so you're saying the reason this sounds more strange is just because it's less familiar because we're not used to it it's it's not the standard protestant belief system that most americans have grown up with these beliefs that k as a catholic approached his presidency in a very different way than rick santorum g o p contender has stated that he would approach is well and in fact recruit santorum recently said that that kennedy's famous speech about separation of church and state made him not not just was that the way you said he said it makes me want to throw up it makes me want to throw up that's right pretty out there and that that's one catholic taking one approach and another catholic taking another and perhaps perhaps mormons would be a little more uniform because the nature of the church is much more uniform in their in their beliefs and their practices how so mormonism is one of the one of the key distinctions between mormonism and other protestant faiths is that mormonism is very centralized that there is there is one key mormon institution in salt lake city that administers and makes the decisions for everyone there's a standardized gospel doctrine manual every child in united states receive the same lessons on them in sunday school they they have a distinct history and set of sort of books and sort of doctrines that they teach so bit like the papacy but maybe now i think is run closer to the way that our public education systems are run in this country than to catholicism complete with keeping record of attendance and and other major life events that a person would go through as well as having a standardized curriculum that if you get some kind of a degree at the other end kind of is sort of mormons typically if you are a good righteous mormon you'll probably be funneled into this particular path where you will attend what is called seminary in high school for four years and at the end of seminary you graduate seminary with with a seminary degree which is required to get into b y u and some other church schools it's highly encouraged among among the youth so it really is modeled on a public education system you are getting your very much is in the public education education system meets a multinational corporation in having their central bureaucracy not only determines the curriculum and what everybody will be reading and learning as well as discouraging learning from other sources especially sources that contradict what they teach but in addition to that they they also keep track of all the finances of the members of the church and the do they say that my house referring to god speaking saying my house is a house of order and everything is kept track of everything the those splinter factions are no longer members of that of the standard church of the standard church of jesus christ of latter day saints those have been oftentimes they were they were people that grew standard mormon church they would discover doctrines that that were prevalent around the time of joseph smith or in that brigham young era and find that the church is no longer practicing those doctrines and that would be dismaying to somebody that that was studying the history and they would leave that standard mormon church and jump into one of these fundamentalist factions that has splintered off and the church makes a very strong effort to distinguish themselves from those splinter groups that that their image with the public is something that is very very tightly controlled so they don't want anything to do with that image of you know kind of you know have multiple wives being girls underage girls  forcibly married off kind of people wearing clothes that were characteristic of the nineteenth century that kind of thing right right that the funny thing is that those splinter groups are often more aligned with the early doctrine of the church in the modern standard church could i think that is what fundamentalisms about rights refusal to evolve the sense that there is a kind of righteousness that comes from comes from that refusal to evolve right when i think about you know the calvinist churches here and in in seattle for example mars hill i kind of a lot of it's about this kind of city sense of superiority that comes from we're the ones who are pure because we're doing it the old way god is unchanging and that our ancestors got god right well with mormonism they have the they have the benefit of having a very recent history so you know there will be a disadvantage actually i mean it's you know the history of christianity is kind of lost in time you know old manuscripts have disappeared there's no way to kind of to get a cup of really accurate read on some of the cultural things that were going on but nineteenth century united states you think you could check it out you can and a lot of people do which is why the mormon church has been hemorrhaging members in in the past particularly since the internet has become more popular and prevalent that information is now more easily accessible to anybody with with a browser and an internet connection what some of the information that ends up startling people sometimes to the extent that they leave one of the first that i've heard people refer to so mormons know that there is a period in which polygamy was practiced and that is known and that's taught but it's the details of that are not taught and the details of that are for lack of a better word whitewashed through the history and most mormons know that brigham young had multiple wives but they don't know that joseph smith did as well because the church likes to hold up joseph smith as a character beyond reproach and that would kind of color the image of him like like i said earlier the church is very image conscious in everything that they do and they teach and every press release that they put out everything they do is tailored through a committee to make sure that it's on message so how do they react to you know kind of secular assaults on line that would say joseph smith was a shyster he was a treasure hunter he had a history of criminal behavior before before the golden tablets he never let anybody see them etc etc the the church is very strongly against what they define as anti mormon materials  they will teach the materials that cause you to doubt that cause you to question your faith and draw you away from god in their particular conception of god from say it's from the devil and they call it spiritual pornography and advise all members to do whatever they can to stay away from from those materials so if somebody were to come up to a mormon and say did you know that joseph smith had thirty three wives they would probably hear that and think that it's a slanderous to say tanach lie that stems out of anti mormon materials and they would they would shut it down and stay away wow so kind of an institutional immune system if you will a way of kind of built right into the belief system is something that that helps to protect the belief system from outside information absolutely they believe that what comes from the church is of god and that's that's right yes and that's good so therefore anything that would that would jeopardize that is not of god and is bad and is evil and should be avoided so let's come back to to romney because there's things i think that sound like they would be contrary to the church but that might actually be good for the american people like gay law his father george romney who was also governor of massachusetts was strongly in favor of civil rights and he he stated as such publicly as governor of massachusetts but then he was written a letter by delbert stapling who was a member of the quorum of twelve apostles of the leaders of the mormon church at the time requesting that he withdraw his support from the civil rights movement in line with the church's practices at the time and this is  when i was a kid black people couldn't become mormons or were they so the they could become mormons but they couldn't become black men couldn't hold the priesthood which is given to every worthy male member in the church today so they couldn't they couldn't hold the priesthood black women were not allowed to attend the temple at all black people were not allowed to pray in church they were to allowed to read the so if you're black down here if you're black and female then you're down here right right where women weren't allowed to pray at all until or believe it was the sixty's and seventy's they were allowed to pray in intruder leave the prayer but you said even in that context romney's father came out in support of a civil rights he did he actually supported civil rights in spite of that letter from the presidency from from the heads of his own face who wrote him a letter saying you need to disavow your support of civil rights movement because it is against mormon doctrine and he he famously published that letter in the boston globe which you can still access that letter on the boston globe's website  but i'm not so sure that romney would be similarly rebellious against the church he's already expressed his opposition toward gay marriage which isn't surprising considering that he's a republican candidate although it did pass in massachusetts under his watch did it not for my understanding it was a court ruling rather than a law that allowed for gay marriage and in massachusetts had to have become a law that he would have been had to sign it may not have happened racist but those are bundled up with those brigham era doctrines from from that insular period in late one thousand nine hundred what's an example of one of those there was the common belief that of course in black people not being allowed  the priesthood was one but also in that preexistence mormons believed that there was a great war in heaven and that lucifer a father with his angels against the righteous and jesus and his angels and  was a common belief at the time that black people sort of sat on the fence and were less valiant in that preexistence and so thus they came down to earth cursed with a black skin and are native americans also according to those of mormon was that jews came over from israel and sailed over the pacific ocean and came to the americas where they stablish civilizations and there was a very good civilization and a very bad civilization and god curse the bad civilization with dark skin and as they became if they became righteous that curse of blackness would be lifted from them that sounds pretty racist to me it is rather racist but you know over the last hundred years in that more modern correlated area of the church where they are trying to get away from those more controversial practices none of these things are emphasized none of these things are talked about and so they don't these things would strike a faithful mormon as on to hear that these were mor on doctrine well in the one nine hundred seventy s there was an explicit course reversal rate i mean in terms of giving permission for blacks to be fully members of the church one nine hundred seventy nine was was the year the that that was lifted  which it was rather late on i honestly looking back i'm surprised it was that early as red have penson who later became prophet of the church in the ninety's said over the pulpit that the civil rights movement was a communist plot and yet somehow while he was in the presidency the disallowable of blacks told the priest it was lifted i'm pretty sure my evangelical mother said that the equal rights amendment was a communist plot so well the church opposed that as well so what would you say is important for americans to understand about this intersection romney being a religious minority president being about mormon president specifically how might they expect that to affect policy priorities so from what i've heard the reaction has been a great deal of fear that there is this unknown mormon organization operating out of a shadowy complex in salt lake city well i think when you talk about a religious minority right there's always this fear that the person is going to somehow be more loyal to their creed or to their religious institution than they are to the american constitution and the american people ironically if it's a majority religion or a kind of prominent religion like a fellas is and that doesn't seem to get trigger that fear as much as any any more it certainly was when j f k was running true but the the funny thing is that while while there might be that fear that mormonism would override that constitution and that the mormon church would influence romney i think actually in both cases it would be the reverse of the mormon church itself is so image conscious that if romney were to come out and say for example if he were to say that we definitely don't believe that people become gods that being a controversial doctrine that the church has shied away from in the past twenty years if if he were to say that i think the church would follow his lead on that more so than the romney would follow the churches and also mormons very much believe that america is a blessed of the land and that the constitution is the divinely inspired document and that the early founders of america were all led by god to do what they needed to do mormonism has a very strong thread of american exceptionalism yet and like patriotism on steroids it absolutely is it absolutely is part of that part of the mormon narrative is that not only is this country the most blessed on earth but some mormons we even go so far to say is america was a stablished with the sole purpose of allowing the mormon church to be created and that the they also they believe that the garden of eden is here in the united states in jackson county missouri as well as a zion where god will return of christ will return on his second coming is here in the united states so that kind of patriotic pride i mean it sounds like it could be good for america well in many ways i would i think that mitt romney would be more loyal to the constitution as a result of his mormon beliefs than otherwise of course how he interprets that is the question well and how do you see the international the diplomatic consequences of that i guess would be perhaps the other side of the coin that that i think would be the scary part because of that strong thread of american exceptionalism that not only run strong throughout mormonism but also run strong throughout modern conservatism that america can do what we want with impunity and the rest of the world has a different set of rules that they need to follow us doesn't have to follow the geneva conventions which we helped draft it's ok for us to torture people but it's not ok for other people to torture people and that strong thread of american exceptionalism would be reinforced by mitt romney's mormonism reproductive rights they've been at the forefront of the conversation recently so mormonism is actually slightly more liberal on reproductive rights than other christian organizations they have not taken an active stance on contraception and in fact that is something that is discreetly allowed and permitted and not not reprimanded among the members of the church but people associate mormons with big families can catholics orthodox jews mormons right right will part of that the the impetus to have a big family is complex in its motivations some of those being talked doctrinal and some of those being social and cultural doctrinal coming from the idea that we existed before this life and so therefore your children have exist are already up in heaven and are simply waiting to come down will mormon institutions pay for insurance that includes contraception yeah i would think so just because there is no there is no mormon ban is long as it is is not post conception which they do distinctly oppose so is there anything else that you would like our audience to know about you know romney's religion about kind of what we might look for in the coming months as as this conversation about who will be our next president plays out i think probably the key message that i would convey is that i would be i be much more keen to see i believe that the church will shift itself around romney significantly more than romney would ever shift him self around the church and that romney being driven by the modern state of conservative politics is going to be the i don't think that the fear that the mormon church will suddenly come out holding the strings and changing this country to be something that we wouldn't recognize it to be i think that that would be an irrational fear thank you for joining us today absolutely my pleasure