Reckless Mormonism

Spiritually, I have a lot in common with Frank Schaeffer. So I offer this link less to make a pretty much unavoidably partisan statement and more to encourage some thoughts on the role of religion in politics and even more importantly on the relationship of our Episcopal version of Christian faith -- carefully practiced -- as it hopes to provide some of the benefits to a civil society our first amendment intended. I know what I mean by the euphemism "carefully practiced." The shortest way to explain my use of the phrase in this context is to say that Mormonism is mostly a reckless (read "not carefully practiced") and outlandish "midrash" imagined by Joseph Smith in upstate New York whose thinking was accelerated by the same kind of "Great Awakening" ego that empowered Mary Baker Eddy, William Miller, and more lately L. Ron Hubbard. Read Harold Bloom's The American Religion for more on where this opinion gets it's start. Regardless, I think Schaeffer is onto something important about how religion ought to inform citizenship and ultimately the Presidency.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/frankschaeffer/2012/10/warning-romneys-mormon-neoconservative-jingoism-may-kill-your-child/