Cyberherbalist's Blog

In the wake of those odd sessions of testimony where certain members of Congress gave Ms. Sandra Fluke the opportunity to complain about the lack of health insurance coverage at Georgetown University for contraceptives, famous talkshow host Rush Limbaugh apparently decided his foot would be quite tasty and stuck it firmly in his mouth.  I hope he seasoned it well beforehand.

I don’t know what possessed him to cause him to refer to Ms. Fluke as a “slut” and a “prostitute”, but whatever it was he should have manfully resisted the impulse.  I am sure he is aware of this, especially now.  He has apologized, but that won’t matter, even if he is sincere.  The Left is unforgiving — especially when one of their prime enemies trips his own self so thoroughly.  They will milk this for all it’s worth.

For one thing, I don’t think I could refer to any woman as a “slut”, even in private.  Maybe I am goody-two-shoes (whatever does that mean anyway?), but it isn’t proper under any circumstance I don’t think.  And “prostitute”?  Oh, wow.  That’s unconscionable.  I guess I could call someone a prostitute if they actually were one.  But as a personal insult?  Yikes.

It’s bad enough for Rush to talk like that in public, but what is worse is that it has taken discussion of the original issue out of discourse in preference to beating on Limbaugh.  Because the whole root of this issue, namely that the Government should force the Catholic Church to provide medical care (contraceptives) in violation of its own religious principles.  This is what Obama wants to do, and Sandra Fluke complaining about it notwithstanding, there is a First Amendment issue here.

I happen to disagree with Catholic doctrine and practice on part of this issue, since my religious beliefs are that contraception in marriage is a private matter between husband and wife.  However, I agree with the Catholic Church when it comes to paying for contraception for a woman or man who is not married, since they shouldn’t be having sex anyway!  But however that goes, it is an egregious violation of the principle of religious liberty to force a church to support that which is against its beliefs.

So Limbaugh has provided a slick way for the real issue here to be bypassed, and has done us all a great disservice.

Well, I was going to go into a grand disquisition as to the ridiculous notion that Mitt Romney is not a Christian, and while I could say a lot about it — and maybe I will later — I should probably let it go.  The thing is, if Mitt Romney were an atheist, yet held adequate conservative principles, I should think that it would be a cakewalk deciding whether to vote for him vs Obama.

The thing to ask is, how much authority does Rev. Jeffress have in respect of telling God who and who is not a Christian?  I’m reasonably certain that God doesn’t need the good Reverend’s advice.  I found some good commentary on this subject on a blog written by David French:

Robert Jeffress’s Bizarre and Unbiblical Beliefs

I have nothing further to add at this time.

Mitt Romney for President 2011

I suppose this had to come up again in this campaign. Sigh.  Politics AND religion all at one go.  Could it get any more contentious?

I will start out stating that I am not a shill for Mitt Romney. Given his chequered history as a conservative, I had and still have some reservations about his Republican party candidacy for US President. Granted, it would have been impossible for him to have been elected Governor in Massachusetts, of all places, as an in-your-face, foot-through-the-firewall conservative in the very lair of Ted Kennedy, but still…

I also do not self-identify as a Republican. I trend strongly Libertarian, in fact. But given that there’s no way either a small- or large “L” libertarian is going to be elected to the Presidency any time soon, if ever, I would vote for a Republican OR a Democrat who came closest to my ideal presidential candidate. But please, not Ron Paul. The guy is seriously out of touch with reality. If his son, Rand (currently US Senator for Kentucky), ran for President, I could sign on to that campaign, but not his father’s. The candidate I am most encouraged about at the moment is Herman Cain. More about him in a later post.

Reverend Robert Jeffress

Anyway, back to the subject of this post.

The matter of Mitt Romney’s credentials as a Christian comes up because a Rick Perry-supporting Southern Baptist preacher by the name of Robert Jeffress, of The First Baptist Church of Dallas, introduced Perry at the recent Values Voter Summit, using words which held the implication that Romney was not a Christian and belonged to a cult, a view which he expanded upon to the press after the event:

“Mitt Romney’s a good moral person but he’s not a Christian. Mormonism is not Christianity. It has always been considered a cult by the mainstream of Christianity. So it’s the difference between a Christian and a non-Christian.”

A Cult?

Let’s start with the pejorative term “cult”.  What does it mean?  You can pick your dictionary definition of the term, too, but an easily available one, Dictionary.com, offers this:

cult(noun)

1. a particular system of religious worship, especially with reference to its rites and ceremonies.
2. an instance of great veneration of a person, ideal, or thing, especially as manifested by a body of admirers: the physical fitness cult.
3. the object of such devotion
4. a group or sect bound together by veneration of the same thing, person, ideal, etc
5. Sociology . a group having a sacred ideology and a set of rites centering around their sacred symbols
6. a religion or sect considered to be false, unorthodox, or extremist, with members often living outside of conventional society under the direction of a charismatic leader
7. the members of such a religion or sect
8. any system for treating human sickness that originated by a person usually claiming to have sole insight into the nature of disease, and that employs methods regarded as unorthodox or unscientific

Upon due consideration of this dictionary definition, I must conclude that “Mormonism” is definitely a cult. After all:

1. “Mormonism” has a particular system of religious worship, especially with reference to its rites and ceremonies.
2. “Mormonism” greatly venerates a person, namely Jesus Christ,
3. “Mormonism” holds that person, Jesus Christ, as the object of its devotion
4. “Mormonism” is a group or sect bound together by veneration of the same thing, person, or ideal, namely Jesus Christ
5. “Mormonism” is sociologically a group having a sacred ideology and a set of rites centering around their sacred symbols, namely those symbols associated with Jesus Christ

But let’s not stop there!  Going further, it can also be clearly seen that Reverend Jeffress’ own Southern Baptists qualify as a cult. As do the Methodists, the Presbyterians, the Episcopalians, the Catholics, and the Eastern Orthodox church, among others. I’m sure that this was not his intent, but he has been tripped up here by the clear meaning of the word he used.

But, obviously, Pastor Jeffress has in mind this particular corner of the cult definition:

a religion or sect considered to be false, unorthodox, or extremist, with members often living outside of conventional society under the direction of a charismatic leader

In other words, he doesn’t believe the tenets of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to be correct.  There’s a news flash.  I guess if he did consider them to be correct, he’d be a Mormon.  So his use of the word “cult” is merely a spot of name-calling.  “Your mother wears Army boots.”  Or something like that.

As to the notion that the Mormons live “outside of conventional society under the direction of a charismatic leader,” do the Mormons have a Jonestown in Guyana, or a compound like the Branch Davidians had at Waco, Texas?  Obviously not.  They live everywhere, and here’s another news flash, there are lots of Mormons who aren’t observant, and some of them may get drunk and act like, say, Baptists, and yet the Church has somehow overlooked sending out the enforcement squads to force them back into line.

Cult?  Yeah, right.

This addresses the cult thing (unless some chimers-in want to try to argue their way out of a wet paper bag), but what about the not being a Christian thing?  I can’t get to it tonight, but I promise to do so in an upcoming post (yeah, I know, promises, promises — I owe Duane a post or two, too).  The short answer is, I hereby call BS on the Reverend Jeffress’ not a Christian church assertion.