Oh, irony of ironies!
Astute readers of this blog already know what I’ve written on Mormonism and Mitt Romney in the past (Mitt Romney won’t get my vote) (The loaded term that is “bigotry”). However, I don’t believe I’ve ever mentioned Al Sharpton here. The stars have aligned, and I now feel the time has arrived for me to meddle.
Al Sharpton is yet another wanna-be black preacher (aren’t all non-rapper black men past a certain age referred to as “reverend”?) with a penchant for pulling the race card. The man should take lessons from the Word of God where it pertains to living peaceably with others and for living what he’s supposed to be preaching. He’s already shown his disdain for white people, Jews, and nasty radio personalities…but now he’s after Mormons!
In case you haven’t heard, this is what he had to say with regards to Mitt Romney’s presidential candidacy: “As for the one Mormon running for office, those who really believe in God will defeat him anyways, so don’t worry about that; that’s a temporary situation.” Scathing! However, it’s unfounded…don’t think that everyone votes on the basis of religion anymore, if they ever substantially did. In fact, the only folks I know of who routinely take political marching orders in church are…black people (at least where I live)! But the subject of his comment had the following to say about it: ““It’s an extraordinarily bigoted kind of statement.”
So, as you might have already guessed, Mr. Sharpton (note my disrespectful lack of the “The Reverend” qualifier) is not backing down from his comments, instead claiming he didn’t mean what he clearly did. Give me a break…at least have the moral temerity to stand by what you say! It’s just like when he denied to Sean Hannity in the middle of a debate a few weeks back that he didn’t say certain things when he most certainly did (and Hannity proved by playing them on his radio show).
Now, Mr. Sharpton, theological matters are your supposed field of expertise. You should be able to explain why you feel this way. So what’s the explanation? “Black people weren’t allowed entrance into the Mormon church during the majority of its existance”. Well, he’s right…to an extent. First, though, note that he does not reach into the theological reasons for his comments (like I have, as cited in the first sentence of this posting)…he jumps back into his true field of interest: racism and the perception thereof.
So what’s the irony of ironies? That he’s getting thwacked for something he’s actually half right about! Black people *weren’t* considered elibigle for inclusion in the Mormon priesthood until the late 1970s. Why? Because the Mormon church originated as a means of explaining the origins of native Americans…who it determined were essentially fallen Jews. And as a natural progression, it concluded that people of African descent are of lower estate, as well, bearing the fabled “curse of Ham”. So Sharpton is right, there. The fact they’ve repudiated this (like most other systems that thought like this) apparently hasn’t sunk in, and that’s not what makes them wrong.
He could have gone into how it’s a demonstrably pseudo-Christian cult that precludes people from finding the true God of the Bible, as I have…and I don’t care what political commentator is sick of hearing the truth about it. But, no, it’s all about race for him. So I’ll just continue to laugh about this as it plays out in the media.
