“All religion depends on revelation. All revelation is supernatural. If you wish to be a rock hard empiricist, then you should not entertain any religious doctrine whatsoever.” – Harold Bloom, “The Mormons” documentary
These past few weeks have been open season on the LDS Church. First a bigoted Baptist pastor, then a lapsed Catholic columnist, and now a gnostic Jewish professor have felt the need to publicly unburden themselves of anti-Mormon prejudices. In last week’s New York Times Sunday Review, Yale professor Harold Bloom – of all people—wrote an illiterate denunciation of the modern LDS Church in an effort to call into question Mitt Romney’s fitness for the presidency. The Peter Principle – in a hierarchy, people tend to rise to their level of incompetence – is evident to anyone who has ever worked for a large organization. When it comes to analyzing Mormonism, writing to the level of one’s incompetence shall henceforth be called the Bloom Principle.Like many Mormons, I have been quoting for years Bloom’s positive statements about Joseph Smith and LDS scriptures. Since Bloom is Jewish, I even included them in a speech on LDS-Jewish relations that I have delivered in more than a dozen countries. Tonight I deleted them. Anyone who professes to understand our faith while asserting that “[n]o Mormon need fall into the fundamentalist denial of evolution, because the Mormon God is not a creator” is delusional.
Since this is primarily a religion blog, I’d like to focus on Bloom’s statement that the 21st-century LDS Church “has little resemblance to its 19th-century precursor.” Let’s leave aside the fact the church is still led by prophets, apostles, stake presidents and bishops, or that we’re still building temples and sending out missionaries. Instead, let’s consider how closely modern rabbinic Judaism resembles the Judaism of the Hebrew Bible.
To an outsider’s eye, they’re two different religions. Modern Jews worship without the benefit of prophets, priesthood, temples, revelation, sacrifices, and temples. To be sure, Bloom does mention
via www.ldsmag.com
Number one, these people's assessments of Mr. Romney has nothing to do with Romney's political qualifications. Number two, even if it did, it is incorrect. Three, even if it was correct, there are certainly much more substantial reasons to not support Mitt romney. Four, under any circumstances, he'll be better than any alternatives that I can see, as he is probably the only contender who can take on President Obama.
