Mitt Romney Believes What?

Willard Mitt Romney is a Mormon who may very well be the Republican Party nominee for President of the United States in 2012. What does it mean to be a Mormon, and what does Mitt Romney believe?

Former President George W. Bush is but one example of how a political official’s religious beliefs influence how he or she acts to carry out reponsibilities. Can there be anything more revealing about a person than his or her religion? It is, perhaps, the most personal decision a person will make during this life.

A vast majority of Americans say they are religious, and the greatest number of that majority profess to be Christians, a religion based on what is commonly called The Holy Bible. There are several versions of that Bible, the most common being the Catholic version and the King James Version. The Mormons seem to make use of the King James Version (based on scripture quotations found on their website) in addition to their own Book of Mormon.

The Book of Mormon – Introduction

(Source: The Official Scriptures of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints © 2006 Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All rights reserved. http://scriptures.lds.org/en/bm/introduction)

The Book of Mormon is a volume of holy scripture comparable to the Bible. The book was written by many ancient prophets by the spirit of prophecy and revelation. Their words, written on gold plates, were quoted and abridged by a prophet-historian named Mormon. After Mormon completed his writings, he delivered the account to his son Moroni, who added a few words of his own and hid up the plates in the hill Cumorah around the year 421 A.D. About 1,400 years later, on September 21, 1823, the same Moroni, then a glorified, resurrected being, appeared to the Prophet Joseph Smith and instructed him relative to the ancient record and its destined translation into the English language. Concerning this record the Prophet Joseph Smith said: "I told the brethren that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book."

The Story of Jesus Christ Continued

Basically, the Book of Mormon continues the story of Jesus Christ, and it’s a story that was not known by the Apostles and Writers of the New Testament. Nor was it known by Writers of the Old Testament even though the major events occurred during that time. You may remember the Tower of Babel account in the Bible. According to the Book of Mormon, a group of people known as the Jaredites came to America at that time. Then, about six hundred years before Jesus was born another civilization came to America comprised of the Nephites and Lamanites. Only one group remained after thousands of years, the Lamanites, and they are among the ancestors of the American Indians.

According to the Third Book of Nephi, chapters 11 through 26, Jesus Christ visited the Nephites in America. He chose twelve of the Nephites and gave them authority. (And it came to pass that when Jesus had spoken these words unto Nephi, and to those who had been called, [now the number of them who had been called, and received power and authority to baptize, was twelve] and behold, he stretched forth his hand unto the multitude, and cried unto them, saying: Blessed are ye if ye shall give heed unto the words of these twelve whom I have chosen from among you to minister unto you, and to be your servants; and unto them I have given power that they may baptize you with water; and after that ye are baptized with water, behold, I will baptize you with fire and with the Holy Ghost; therefore blessed are ye if ye shall believe in me and be baptized, after that ye have seen me and know that I am. – Chapter 12, Verse 1).

The chosen twelve were Nephi, Timothy, Mathoni, Mathonihah, Kumen, Kumenonhi, Jeremiah, Shemnon, Jonas, Zedekiah, and Isaiah.

A New Priesthood

On May 15, 1829 John the Baptist visited Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery and said "that he acted under the direction of Peter, James and John, who held the keys of the Priesthood of Melchizedek, which Priesthood, he said, would in due time be conferred on us, and that I should be called the first Elder of the Church, and he (Oliver Cowdery) the second."

How the Book of Mormon was Interpreted

Emma Hale Smith, Joseph Smith’s wife told her son, Joseph Smith III, how his father translated the Book of Mormon, "In writing for your father I frequently wrote day after day, often sitting at the table close by him, he sitting with his face buried in his hat, with the stone in it, and dictating hour after hour with nothing between us."

David Whitmer was one of the Three Witnesses, and much of the translating happened in his home. He said, "I will now give you a description of the manner in which the Book of Mormon was translated. Joseph Smith would put the seer stone into a hat, and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light; and in the darkness the spiritual light would shine. A piece of something resembling parchment would appear, and on that appeared the writing. One character at a time would appear, and under it was the interpretation in English. Brother Joseph would read off the English to Oliver Cowdery, who was his principal scribe, and when it was written down and repeated to Brother Joseph to see if it was correct, then it would disappear, and another character with the interpretation would appear. Thus the Book of Mormon was translated by the gift and power of God, and not by any power of man."

Conclusions

It is not for me to claim whether or not there was a spiritual guide from heaven who came to America to establish a new church. I wasn’t there. I have no more firsthand knowledge of how the Book of Mormon came into existence as I do how the first five books of the Old Testament of the Bible were written. I’m talking about the first five books as approved by the Council of Laodicea in 364 A. D. There were many other scriptures but the Council approved five: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.

The question to be answered is this: Is Mitt Romney too far out of the mainstream in his religious belief? Does it matter?

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