The Mormon Moment died at approximately 11:00pm on Tuesday night. Mormonism, however, will be just fine. In fact, it may even come out of this week in a better situation than had its most famous son won the presidency.
Romney’s candidacy brought out the worst in many Mormons. To be sure, the vast majority of Mormons (and others) were simply conscientious citizens choosing the person who they thought was best qualified to lead the country, and they engaged in civil and respectful discourse, even disagreement, with people on the other side of the political spectrum. But far too many Mormons got wrapped up in the politics of parochialism, the hubris of hype, and the narcissism of the news cycle. Republican-voting Mormons questioned the faithfulness and integrity of their fellow church members who committed the cardinal sin of voicing support for the socialist anti-Christ Muslim intent on eradicating all their freedoms and leaving the Constitution hanging by a thread. Not to be outdone, Democratic-voting Mormons smugly disdained the unenlightened rubes they deigned to go to church with every week. Just showing up on Sunday to worship alongside the insufferable conservative masses was an act of heroic, self-congratulatory charity. If Ohio was a battleground, Facebook became Armageddon, and church hallways became sites of snipers’ nests and low-level skirmishes. Thankfully, mercifully, it is over. Perhaps now we can all go back to simply being members of the same church, brothers and sisters in Christ.
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