Christians: 1 Romney: 0—Victory for the Christian Right

by Jill Martin Rische

The candidacy of Mitt Romney bit the proverbial dust last week in a crushing defeat by Arizona Senator John McCain, much to the bitter disappointment and chagrin of Conservative television and radio stars like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham.  And according to the Wall Street Journal, Christians played a major role in Romney’s defeat.  “The Mormon religion ‘was the silent factor in a lot of the decision making by evangelicals and others, says Democratic pollster Peter Hart . . . The Romney campaign ran into a religious bias head wind.’” [1]

Hannity and Limbaugh—champions of the right and poster boys for Conservative values—lost touch with their constituency during the heat of the primary battles, and they have yet to regain it.  Perhaps for the first time in Republican primary history, Conservative media personalities had their hands publicly slapped.  They blew it—big time—and the primary elections proved it.  Christians overwhelmingly dumped media favorite, Mitt Romney, for an unknown dark horse by the name of Mike Huckabee.  And what was the primary difference between Romney and Huckabee?  Religion.  Romney is a Mormon and Huckabee, a Christian.

Limbaugh, Hannity and all the rest just didn’t get it—they didn’t understand that Christians will not quietly stand by and allow the Mormon Church to redefine Christianity.  These political pundits live for politics, choosing to remain ignorant of even the basic facts of Christian theology—theology this country was founded upon.  Once steadfast allies of the Christian Right (who propelled them to national prominence) they chose politics over religion and publicly turned on Christians for refusing to support Mitt Romney.

They forgot that Christians are first and foremost committed to Jesus Christ—not politics.  They couldn’t see that a unified support of Romney was impossible as long as a Remnant of the Church survives.  The Jesus of the Bible is the one and only Son of God, he was not conceived by God the Father, an exalted flesh and blood man, through sexual intercourse with his daughter, Mary.  He was not the spirit brother of Satan, the devil (yes that is exactly what the Mormon Church teaches). [2]   He is the unique Son of God, and every Christian must defend this fact to the death.  You cannot redefine Jesus without destroying historical Christianity, and this is the battle we just fought and won by the Grace of God.

Many religions have tried to alter basic Christian terms and still claim the title Christian down through the centuries, but the Church has successfully defended its doctrine against all of them.  When Joseph Smith arrived in the 1820s and called all Christian faiths “abominations,” the true Church recognized another fraud and began its long, hard fight against Mormonism. [3]  If we are biased against the Mormon faith (and not its people), it is because Joseph Smith and Brigham Young chose to play fast and loose with Christian doctrine, and that is something we cannot allow.  There is only one Jesus as revealed in the Bible; one Father and one God.  You cannot redefine them any way you please and still claim the title, Christian. Jesus said, “I am the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).  Only one definition of Jesus . . . only one way to God, and the Mormons cannot be permitted to change it.

The mainstream press has categorized Christians as “biased”—a nice way of saying bigoted—while refusing to acknowledge our reasons for standing against Mormonism.  We love the Mormon people; it is their theology we hate—a theology that redefines Christianity.  Mitt Romney thought he could claim Jesus as his Savior and most people would slap him on the back (just like Hannity, Coulter and Ingraham did) and say, “Welcome to the fold!” And yet, they would never do the same for John McCain in the political realm.  He claimed the title Conservative and they are still arguing that he is anything but a Conservative.

Why?  Because words have meaning, and if they do not, we have anarchy.  McCain is not a Conservative Republican just like Romney is not a Christian, and we cannot allow people to redefine historical and ideological terms whenever they feel the urge.  If Mitt Romney had come out publicly and admitted the true facts about his faith (facts the Mormon Church doesn’t like to talk about until you’ve been in the fold a while) I would have respected him a great deal more. But he deliberately portrayed himself and his faith as “Christian” during a national campaign.  Romney is a Temple-Mormon; he knows exactly what his church believes and he tried to pass off a new version of Christianity as the real thing to win votes.  It is this fiction that true Christians across America refused to accept, and it is this fiction that contributed to his defeat.

Ironically, in the same way we fought Mitt Romney over the meaning of the word Christian, Hannity, Limbaugh and all the others now find themselves fighting John McCain in a battle to preserve the true meaning of the word Conservative—a term now in the process of being redefined.  The majority of Republicans are upset about it . . . exactly the way most Christians were upset by the attempt to redefine God, Jesus and Christianity.  It’s interesting how circumstances change.

The defeat of Mitt Romney was an amazing thing to behold, considering the 40+ million spent to ensure his victory, and Christians should be grateful for the moment—always remembering that one thing is likely inevitable: Governor Romney will be back in 2012.

For FREE information on the teachings of Mormonism, visit

Walter Martin Ministries at www.waltermartin.com

Top 10 Amazing Facts of Mormonism http://www.christianworldviewnetwork.com/article.php/1588/Jill_Martin_Rische

10 More Amazing Facts of Mormonism

http://www.christianworldviewnetwork.com/article.php/1656/Jill_Martin_Rische

[1] Wall Street Journal, “Mormons Dismayed by Harsh Spotlight,” http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB120243323721852411-lMyQjAxMDI4MDAyOTQwMzkzWj.html (accessed February 11, 2008).

[2] Pearl of Great Price, Abraham 3:2-4, 9; J of D, 26:214. Journal of Discourses 8: 116; J of D 8: 211; J of D 8: 115; Mormon Doctrine p.546-547.

By Jill Martin Rische Click here for bio and archived articles