What do Mormon’s think of other Christians? Well, we say “You love Jesus Christ? Great! So do we. You have truths that have helped you live good lives? Great! Come get more! You want a renewal? It’s here! The heaven’s are open, and God speaks through a Prophet again!”

Do we discard all the work and wisdom of faithful Christians during the last 2,000 years? No. We will, however, contend that there was no Prophet presiding over the matters of God here on Earth. There have always been faithful followers of Christ, but throughout history, there are times when these followers are led through a Prophet, and times when they are not. It’s a bold claim, and we make no apologies about it.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ holds the answers to todays problems, not only through application of previous revelations, but through current revelation, from God, about the specific and unique issues we face today. These instructions are not what most would call specifically political. They are direction on how to live a good life. These influence political decisions to the extent that politics are involved in what people do (or don’t do) in their daily personal lives, and should act as a global anchor and reference point for all decisions.

I have been pondering why Romney has won as much support among activists as he has, and I think it does go a long way towards the same trend that I noticed in another post on the role of religion in the conservative movement. Back then I wrote:

“When Cal Thomas started singing the praises of secular modernity after 9/11 (as if to show you that he was no religious fanatic like those people), you could take it as a given that religion, and specifically the great significance attached to Christianity even by some old Moral Majority hands like Thomas, was potentially expendable for a lot of conservatives when supposedly more important things (such as the fight against “medievalism” and for “women’s rights” and “tolerance”) were at stake. In the end, I don’t see that much modern conservative reliance on religion. The “movement” certainly relies on religious people to keep it running with their support, financial and otherwise, and to that end they have to say nice things about the value of religion now and again (and I assume most honestly believe these things when they say them), but do they “lean heavily” on religion “to the exclusion” of nonbelievers? Quite simply, no, they don’t.”

As far as the activists who are backing Romney today go, I take it as more or less a given that their support for him vindicates this interpretation of the importance of religion, specifically Christianity, for a lot of the movement’s “movers and shakers.” That is, it is useful in certain cases, but it will not serve as an obstacle to other goals. What remains to be seen, and what I think will end up surprising a lot of these activists, is just how different the mass of Christian conservatives is from the activists in the movement and the party. I assume that the difference is still rather large.

The activist approach to ‘08 is something like, “Just win, baby.” Thus you see people willing to tie themselves into knots to find some way to explain Giuliani as a plausible candidate and pretend that people will rally around Romney because he has “good values.” The Christian conservative voters, on the other hand, work on the assumption that they back the movement and party because it advances their worldview–it is not supposed to be an alliance into which they entered to make such fundamental compromises, but it is supposed to be a vehicle for bringing their convictions into the political arena. To ask them to look past things in these candidates that are at odds with the basic reasons why they are involved in politics in the first place just seems bound to fail. Religious conservatives have been had too many times to keep falling for the old spiel that says, “He shares your values.” I’m not sure what it says about a movement that is willing to so thoroughly compromise on key elements of its identity, but it can’t be an encouraging sign for that movement’s future health.