During a recent presentation on Mormonism at Temple Isaiah in Los Angeles, I was asked twice why Evangelicals don’t consider Mormons to be Christians and why some of them go so far as to classify the LDS Church as a cult. After suggesting that they must have a different definition of Christianity, I recommended that they ask Evangelicals why they hold those views instead of relying on me to explain them. In hindsight, I realized that I was extending to Evangelicals a courtesy that is rarely reciprocated.
Much has been made of the willingness of Evangelicals, Baptists, and other conservative Christians to set aside their misgivings about LDS Christianity and pull the lever for Mitt Romney this week. Four years ago they championed Mike Huckabee, and this time they’re holding their noses and voting for the Mormon anti-Obama candidate. The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association has even removed Mormonism from its list of “cults” just in time for the election. Well, bully for them! While one can certainly hope that decades of Evangelical anti-Mormon bigotry will soon go the way of Evangelical anti-Catholic bigotry and Evangelical anti-Semitism, I have a feeling that things will revert to the status quo ante after the election.
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