Mitt Romney: The Cougars & The White Horse‏

Hello Friends!

With Republican Candidate Mitt Romney on the 2012 Presidential ballot, many EC readers have inquired of our insights and understand of this man's religious affiliations within the Mormon Church. As I mentioned last week, although Christian voters are not electing a religious leader when casting their choice for a Presidential candidate, we must each discern which candidate closest adheres to a Biblical worldview — we must vote the Bible and our conscience. However, it is also the right and privilege of the American voter to understand the spiritual beliefs of our elected officials — regardless of political affiliation.

Unlike Mr. Obama and his obvious Socialist worldview (in which we have exposed in prior editions of EC), Mr. Romney's worldview is a bit more complicated to discern. Therefore, it is with this article that we seek to provide many of the pertinent details based on the historical data that is available pertaining to Mr. Romney's and his associated beliefs within the framework of Mormon theology and its many complicated spiritual underpinnings...  

Mitt Romney: The Cougars & The White Horse

When Mitt Romney received his patriarchal blessing as a Michigan teenager, he was told that the Lord expected great things from him.  All young Mormon men — the “worthy males” of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as it is officially known — receive such a blessing as they embark on their requisite journeys as religious missionaries.  But at 19 years of age, the youngest son of the most prominent Mormon in American politics — a seventh-generation direct descendant of one of the faith’s founding 12 apostles — Mitt Romney had been singled out as a destined leader.
 
In 1970, the Cougar Club — the all male, all white social club at Brigham Young University in Salt Lake City (black men were excluded from full membership in the Mormon church until 1978) — was humming with talk that its club president, Mitt Romney, would become the first Mormon president of the United States. “If not Mitt, then who?” was the ubiquitous slogan within the elite organization. The pious world of BYU was expected to spawn the man who would lead the Mormons into the White House and fulfill the prophecies of the church’s founder, Joseph Smith Jr., which Romney has avidly sought to realize.

Romney avoids mentioning it, but Joseph Smith ran for president in 1844 as an independent commander in chief of an “army of God” advocating the overthrow of the U.S. government in favor of a Mormon-ruled theocracy. Challenging Democrat James Polk and Whig Henry Clay, Smith prophesied that if the U.S. Congress did not accede to his demands that “they shall be broken up as a government and God shall damn them.”  Smith viewed capturing the presidency as part of the mission of the Mormon church. 

In the Mormon book of Doctrine and Covenants - 85:7 (http://www.lds.org/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/85?lang=eng), Smith had predicted the emergence of  “the one Mighty and Strong” — a leader who would “set in order the house of God” — and became the first of many prominent Mormon men to claim the mantle:

And it shall come to pass that I, the Lord God, will send one mighty and strong, holding the scepter of power in his hand, clothed with light for a covering, whose mouth shall utter words, eternal words; while his bowels shall be a fountain of truth, to set in ^aorder the house of God, and to arrange by ^blot the ^cinheritances of the saints whose names are found, and the names of their fathers, and of their children, enrolled in the book of the law of God;

Out of Smith’s national political ambitions grew what would become known in Mormon circles as the “White Horse Prophecy” — a belief ingrained in Mormon culture and passed down through generations by church leaders that the day would come when the U.S. Constitution would “hang like a thread as fine as a silk fiber” and the Mormon priesthood would rise up and save it.

This popular prophecy of Smith's is explained in the Encyclopedia of Mormonism:

"LDS attachment to the Constitution has been further encouraged by an important oral tradition deriving from a statement attributed to Joseph Smith, according to which the Constitution would "hang by a thread" and be rescued, if at all, only with the help of the Saints. Church President John Taylor seemed to go further when he prophesied, "When the people shall have torn to shreds the Constitution of the United States the Elders of Israel will be found holding it up to the nations of the earth and proclaiming liberty and equal rights to all men" (JD 21:8). To defend the principles of the Constitution under circumstances where the "iniquity," or moral decay, of the people has torn it to shreds might well require wisdom at least equal to that of the men raised up to found it. In particular, it would require great insight into the relationship between freedom and virtue in a political embodiment of moral agency." (Encyclopedia of Mormonism, Vol. 1, 1992)

In 2008 Dana Milbank reported on Mormon Talk Show host Glenn Beck's reference to the prophecy:

In one of his first appearances on Fox News, Glenn Beck sent a coded message to the nation's six million Mormons — or at least those Mormons who believe in what the Latter-day Saints call "the White Horse Prophecy."

"We are at the place where the Constitution hangs in the balance," Beck told Bill O'Reilly on November 14, 2008, just after President Obama's election. "I feel the Constitution is hanging in the balance right now, hanging by a thread unless the good Americans wake up." (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dana-milbank/post_996_b_749750.html)

Romney is the product of this culture. At BYU, he was idolized by fellow students and referred to, only half jokingly, as the “One Mighty and Strong.”  He was the “alpha male” in the rarefied Cougar pack, according to Michael D. Moody, a BYU classmate and fellow member of the group.  Composed almost exclusively of returned Mormon missionaries, the club members were known for their preppy blue blazers and enthusiastic athletic boosterism. Romney, who had been the assistant to the president of the French Mission where he was personally in charge of more than 200 missionaries, easily assumed a leadership position in the club.

Both political and religious, the Cougar Club raised funds for the school and its members emulated the campus-wide honor and dress codes, passionately disavowing the counterculture symbolism of long hair, bell-bottom jeans and antiwar slogans that were sweeping college campuses throughout America.  They held monthly “Fireside testimonies” — Sacrament meetings at which each member testified to his belief that he lived in Heaven before as a god being born on Earth, that he became mortal in order to usher in the latter days, and that he recognized Joseph Smith as the prophet, the Book of Mormon as the word of God, and the Mormon church as the one true faith. Mitt Romney’s position as Presidential head of the Cougar club was widely seen as a calculated steppingstone for a career in national politics.

In an open letter to Mitt Romney, Michael D. Moody, a former BYU classmate of the 2012 presidential contender, discusses the hypocrisies of Mormonism and delivers an insider's look at politics and the Church. Moody reveals the challenge in determining where Mormon hyperbole ends and hypocrisy begins:
 

“The instructions in my [patriarchal] blessing, which I believed came directly from Jesus, motivated me to seek a career in government and politics,” he wrote in his 2008 book. Moody recently said that he ran for governor of Nevada in 1982 because he felt he had been divinely directed to “expand our kingdom” and help Romney “lead the world into the Millennium. Once a firm believer but now a church critic, Moody was indoctrinated with the White Horse Prophecy.  Like Romney, Moody is a seventh-generation Mormon, steeped in the same intellectual and theological milieu.

“We were taught that America is the Promised Land,” he said in an interview.”The Mormons are the Chosen People.  And the time is now for a Mormon leader to usher in the second coming of Christ and install the political Kingdom of God in Washington, D.C.”

In this scenario, Romney’s candidacy is part of the eternal plan and the candidate himself is fulfilling the destiny begun in what the church calls the “pre-existence.”

Several prominent Mormons, including conservative talk-show host Glenn Beck, have alluded to this apocalyptic prophecy.  The controversial myth is not an official church doctrine, but it has also arisen in the national dialogue with the presidential candidacies of Mormons George Romney, Senator Orrin Hatch, R-Utah - and now Mitt Romney.

Romney’s religion is not a sideline, but a crucial element in understanding the man, the mission and the candidacy.  He is the quintessential Mormon who embodies all of the basic elements of the homegrown American religion that is among the fastest growing religions in the world.  Like his father before him, Romney has charted a course from missionary to businessman, from church bishop to politician — and to presidential candidate.  The influence that Mormonism has had on Mitt throughout his entire life has dominated him every step of the way.

The seeds of Romney’s unique brand of conservatism, often regarded with intense suspicion by most non-Mormon conservatives, were sown in the secretive, acquisitive, patriarchal, authoritarian religious empire run by “quorums” of men under an umbrella consortium called the General Authorities.  A creed unlike any other in the United States, from its inception Mormonism encouraged material prosperity and abundance as a measure of holy worth, and its strict system of tithing 10 percent of individual wealth has made the church one of the world’s richest institutions.

Romney, like his father before him who voluntarily tithed an unparalleled 19 percent of his personal fortune, is among the church’s wealthiest members. And like his father, grandfather and great-grandfathers before him, Mitt Romney was groomed for a prominent position in the church, which he manifested first as a missionary, then as a bishop, and then as a stake president, becoming the highest-ranking Mormon leader in Boston — the equivalent of a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. 

Called a “militant millennial movement” by renowned Mormon historian David L. Bigler, Mormonism’s founding theology was based upon a literal takeover of the U.S. government. In light of the theology and divine prophecies of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, unamended by the LDS hierarchy, it would seem that the office of the American presidency is the ultimate ecclesiastical position to which a Mormon leader might aspire.  So it is not the LDS cosmology that is relevant to Romney’s candidacy, but whether devout 21st century Mormons like Romney believe that the American presidency is also a theological position.

Since his first campaign in 2008, Romney has attempted to keep debate about his religion out of the political discourse. Past all of the flip-flops on virtually every policy, he has an underlying religious conception of the presidency and the American government.  At the recent GOP presidential debate in Florida, Romney professed that the Declaration of Independence is a theological document, not specific to the rebellious 13 colonies, but establishing a covenant “between God and man.” This to me would suggest that Mitt Romney views the American presidency as a theological office – Period.

As a contemporary war rages between those who know the "New Mormon History" and those who live in a “programmed” state of denial, only the dynamic leadership of a highly qualified, educated, and savvy man like Mitt Romney can free Mormon members from the Great American Cult.

As Christians, we must understand what is taking place and discern the biblical, moral and spiritual consequences of the dangerous worldviews that are opposed to our Christian faith. Consider this excellent bipartisan voter's guide resource compiled by the Liberty Counsel: http://www.lc.org/media/9980/images/voter_guide_2012_lc_pres_clr_pic_100412.pdf

We are not guaranteed tomorrow - tomorrow may be too late!  If you haven't yet made that most important decision of your life, won't you make Jesus Christ your personal Lord and Savior today - before it's too late? Today is the day of Salvation!

Keep looking up and sharing the Gospel while there is still time… Hallelujah and Maranatha – come quickly Lord Jesus!

Blessings on your studies and involvement in understanding and sharing the Truth!

If you have been blessed by this message or have a specific question, prayer request or testimony, please send me a note to: encouragingconcepts@live.com

I love hearing from you.  Keep reading Encouraging Concepts!

Blessings!
Shane K. Morin <><

 

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