Liberty University announced last week that Mitt Romney would be the speaker for this year’s commencement ceremony, but many of the school’s students are very angry about that. They point out that the school taught them that Mormonism is a cult.
By Friday morning, more than 700 comments had been posted on the school’s Facebook page about the Thursday announcement – a majority of them decidedly against the Chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr.’s invitation, citing that the school had taught them Mormonism isn’t part of the Christian faith.
“I can’t support Romney and I am happy I decided not to walk (in the commencement) this year,” wrote student Josh Bergmann. “Liberty University should have gotten a Christian to speak not someone who practices a cult. Shame on you Liberty University.”
Janet Loeffler, a 53-year-old freshman at Liberty, expressed her anger at the decision when contacted by CNN. She also sent a copy of the page of the freshman textbook “The Popular Encyclopedia of Apologetics” which includes the passage, “Mormon doctrine stands in stark contrast to Jewish and Christian monotheism, which teaches that there is only one true God and that every other ‘God’ is a false god.”
Fun stuff.
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d cwilson
April 24, 2012 at 2:43 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
And this is why, no matter how many times his campaign staff will pick him up and shake him, Romney cannot afford to move back to the center. If does, a good percentage of Evangelicals will either stay home or vote for a protest candidate. Of course, if he tries to stay “severely conservative”, he’ll lose the Hispanic and female votes.
fifthdentist
April 24, 2012 at 2:53 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Oh d cwilson, they’ll vote for anyone to get the Nigerian Islamic God-hating Gun-confiscating Ebony Racist out of the White House.
slc1
April 24, 2012 at 3:04 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Re fifthdentist @ #3
Hey, Obama was born in Kenya, not Nigeria don’t ya know.
d cwilson
April 24, 2012 at 3:06 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Fifthdentist:
Many of them can’t even sit through a commencement ceremony with him. If 10% of the Evangelicals don’t support him, it could cost him a couple of key swing states and thus, the election.
coragyps
April 24, 2012 at 3:07 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Hey, slc1 – you know all of Africa is just one country, doncha? Sarah Palin said so!
But you can’t see it from Wasilla.
Gregory in Seattle
April 24, 2012 at 3:08 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@fifthdentist – You forgot atheist.
steve oberski
April 24, 2012 at 3:08 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Janet, you’re changing your major too often.
Time to decide what type of bigotry you want to specialize in.
busterggi
April 24, 2012 at 3:20 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Dueling cultists!
Quick someone, summon Cthulhu!
slc1
April 24, 2012 at 3:30 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Re steve oberski @ #7
Let’s be fair here. Ms. Loeffler may be returning to finish her college education after taking time out to raise a family. Lot’s of women do that.
cjtotalbro
April 24, 2012 at 3:46 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
She decided at 53 that she would like to finish her education, then she applied to Liberty University.
1 outta 2 ain’t bad.
raven
April 24, 2012 at 3:50 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The Southern Baptist church has an official position on the Mormon church. They are a false church and all the Mormons are going to hell.
They have been warning their cultists for years about that other cult. Moehler is President of the largest SBC seminary and one of the more malevolent people in the USA.
Doug Little
April 24, 2012 at 3:56 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
How so? Since the founder of Mormonism basically plagiarized most of his shit from the bible.
anandine
April 24, 2012 at 3:58 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
slc1: She decided at 53 that she would like to finish her education, then she applied to Liberty University. 1 outta 2 ain’t bad.
No, it’s 2 out of 2. Enrolling at Liberty definitely means you will not be further educated.
Woof
April 24, 2012 at 4:16 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
[breaking out the popcorn]
cottonnero
April 24, 2012 at 4:19 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Doug Little #12: It’s not plagiarism so much as fanfic.
tubi
April 24, 2012 at 4:23 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Surely we can expect evangelicals to make their choice for president based on which candidate they feel has the best plan to move the country forward, specifically with respect to jobs and the economy, and foreign policy? It doesn’t really matter what church someone goes to as long as he is honest, sincere, and smart.
I mean, there’s no religious test for public office, right?
Gregory in Seattle
April 24, 2012 at 4:30 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I find myself wondering: given a choice between a Mormon and an atheist, who would the Talibangelicals vote for?
Chiroptera
April 24, 2012 at 4:32 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
tubi, #16: Surely we can expect evangelicals to make their choice for president based on which candidate they feel has the best plan to move the country forward, specifically with respect to jobs and the economy, and foreign policy?
These clowns (even the college “educated” ones) understand that they haven’t even the faintest idea about anything about either domestic or foreign public policy, so they hope that someone in the “correct” religion will be guided by the Holy Spirit. Or something.
Marcus Ranum
April 24, 2012 at 4:40 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“Liberty University should have gotten a Christian to speak not someone who practices a cult.”
*snicker*
One zombie jew worshipper calling another “cultist” is always good for a laugh from the crowd.
harold
April 24, 2012 at 4:46 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
This actually improves my opinion of Liberty University, from “hyper-extreme contempt” to mere “mega-extreme contempt”.
The students actually have principles, however bigoted and twisted, that they won’t compromise to grovel to the Republican Party in every possible way, after Falwell Jr himself gave everyone the order to get with the program and start shilling for Romney?
That’s the Liberty University equivalent of protesting because impoverished neighborhood residents wont be allowed to use the new college gym http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_University_protests_of_1968 (Frank Zappa said that LSD was the most dangerous drug because it turned people into yuppies, but he was wrong – it was cocaine that turned those kids into Reaganite yuppies).
I’ll take a sincere bigot who sticks to his bigoted principles over a slimier bigot whose bigotry is just an act to support the local fascists, any day of the week.
Here’s a salute to you, sincere bigot LU students. Tell that hell-bound compromising Fallwell Jr. to shove it for me.
eric
April 24, 2012 at 4:51 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Silly fundy students, graduation is well past the time when you should’ve learned that you gotta leave the dance with the woman you brought. You pick your bed, you lie on it. You lay down with dogs, you get fleas. Time to pay the piper. Be careful who you hook your applecart to.
You’ve been getting your religious backs scratched by the GOP for decades now. They expect a little scratching in return. You’re upset by that? Then get out of bet with them.
jba55
April 24, 2012 at 5:08 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Oh man, I can’t wait to hear Romney’s response to this! I’m guessing he’ll either ignore it or collapse in on himself creating a very small, well groomed black hole in an attempt to etch-a-sketch a suitable reply.
TX_secular
April 24, 2012 at 5:19 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
This post made my day happier. I love the drama, this could be a new TV series on one of the pay networks. I’m not sure what they’d call it though…
snebo154
April 24, 2012 at 5:26 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
As an ex-mo I am sick of hearing the Mormons referred to as a cult. A quick check of any dictionary easily shows that the difference between a cult and a religion is that when a cult achieves a large enough following to affect political outcomes they must be referred to as a church. With at least 3 million attending members (about one-fifth of their claimed membership) they have earned the right to be called a church. As such they should be stomped out of existence along with the other churches. Not obliterated like the other cults.
abb3w
April 24, 2012 at 5:43 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Very, very odd… if you stop to consider that two years ago, the commencement address was also given by a Mormon — Glenn Beck — with minimal fuss. This suggests that despite the semantic content of the complaints, the underlying problem is that they consider Romney’s politics too liberal, and thus seek to deride him as an outsider. The complaints about Mormonism being a cult are merely an excuse.
Which probably has some implications about Christian conservatives’ accusations about Obama being a Muslim.
Chiroptera
April 24, 2012 at 5:44 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
snebo154: A quick check of any dictionary easily shows that the difference between a cult and a religion is that when a cult achieves a large enough following to affect political outcomes they must be referred to as a church.
A quick check of Merriam-Webster online shows no such thing. In fact, the first two definitions both seem to fit the Mormons.
Which dictionary do you use?
-
With at least 3 million attending members (about one-fifth of their claimed membership) they have earned the right to be called a church.
Personally, I think that an organization as toxi, offensive, and based on bat-shit insane beliefs like the Southern Baptists, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Church of Latter Day Saints deserve to be called “cults” with all the unpleasant connotations the colloquial use of the word infers.
harold
April 24, 2012 at 6:00 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I should have known.
The rule is there is almost no such thing as a principled bigot.
People don’t gravitate toward sadistic, authoritarian hypocrisy because they are prone to having principles.
Shove it yourselves, insincere bigot LU students. I retract my previous comment and move back from mega-extreme contempt to full hyper-extreme contempt.
coragyps
April 24, 2012 at 6:39 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“Mormon doctrine stands in stark contrast to Jewish and Christian monotheism,”
Which two flavors of “monotheism” are hardly the same themselves, one having a single god and the other having three that just happen to also be one.
Theology always has given me a headache, even when I subscribed to parts of it. It’s beer time now.
Ichthyic
April 24, 2012 at 7:19 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I find myself wondering: given a choice between a Mormon and an atheist, who would the Talibangelicals vote for?
OK, quick education on Western religion for the last couple centuries:
it’s anti-materialistic.
“It doesn’t matter what you believe so long AS you believe”
trust me, they would easily vote for someone who believes in “a” god, over someone who believes in no god. Even the largest tent possible STILL excludes atheists.
Hell, I’d bet they’d vote for a Satan worshipper over an atheist.
Matrim
April 24, 2012 at 7:34 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Is it possible they didn’t realize he WAS a Mormon? Granted, I try to avoid Glenn Beck as much as reasonably possible, but I was completely unaware of his Mormonism until a few months ago where I heard it on FTB. I’ve never heard him mention Mormonism (although I’ve heard him talk about faith and god and such very often), and I’ve never seen another right-winger bring it up. Maybe I was just woefully ignorant, but it seems like Beck’s LDS ties are a bit more low-key (which is weird considering that “low-key” is far from the epithet I’d apply to Beck).
Modusoperandi
April 24, 2012 at 7:37 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
coragyps “…one having a single god and the other having three that just happen to also be one.”
“Lies!” ~ Christadelphians, Christian Scientists, Dawn Bible Students, Friends General Conference, Iglesia ni Cristo, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Living Church of God, Oneness Pentecostals, Unitarian Universalist Christians and the United Church of God
Ichthyic “Hell, I’d bet they’d vote for a Satan worshipper over an atheist.”
That depends. How much will he cut Job Creator’s and Corporate Citizen’s taxes? How much will he make Iran explode? Does he plan to zero-out government programs that let whores be sluts, or that let the “young bucks with their steaks” and “Cadillac queens” buy their fried chicken and watermelon with the tax dollars that I pay?*
* Or would, if I paid any income tax, which I insist I do, even though I make about the same as they do, which means that I don’t.
coreyrobey
April 24, 2012 at 7:48 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The Christian Right has been peddling the “freemasons, devil worshippers, and communists are infiltrating our country and running things secretly from behind the scenes” propaganda for the last several decades in an effort to undermine support for progressive causes. Mormonism is draped in freemason symbolism and fits the “anti-christ” template they began aiming at anything from hollywood to democrats to bohemian grove to washington dc and on and on and on and on and on (watch Alex Jones’ for more on this topic). So now Pat Robertson and company want to backpedal and say “Romney’s okay, Mormons are Christians too!” Well, for the last 40 years they’ve been part of the devil worshipping freemasons that run the world from a forest in northern california according to evangelicals… I guess opposing satan isn’t as important as beating the democrats. lol.
Markita Lynda—damn climate change!
April 24, 2012 at 7:50 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I guess no one taught them about “No religious test” for holding office.
I was hoping the female students would riot out of there… nah, they’re still in the Young Conformist stage.
otrame
April 24, 2012 at 7:51 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
That is the best part. That is what I’ve been hoping for.
Of course, those of us who are not at all happy with Obama will still have to vote for him. No matter how disappointed we are (I never expected all that much, knowing he is a politician and knowing he would face considerable opposition for many of his campaign promises, still I am unhappy. To put my unhappiness in a single word: Guantanamo) we still need to get to the polls and vote for him and for other Democrats. We really have no choice. We must not allow the Republicans, as they are today, to choose SCOTUS members. It’s bad enough already.
Modusoperandi
April 24, 2012 at 7:52 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Matrim “Is it possible they didn’t realize he WAS a Mormon?”
Some, probably. But it doesn’t matter. Religion is a Tribal marker, but there are more. If Catholics and Protestants can get along, then Protestants and Mormons can. The link between them isn’t the religion, it’s that they hate the same people. Don’t think of, say, the current Republicans as Republicans; think of them as the Not-Democrats. Everything their “Other” likes, they hate.
They didn’t give a damn about Romneycare until it became Obamacare, then they hated it because Obama liked it, for example. Or “liberals are against torture, so we’re for it (and also it’s not torture when we do it)”
They say they’re “conservative Christians”, but they’ve just built that out of everything liberals (not actual liberals, mind you, but the terrifying ones that only exist in their heads) are not. It’s a philosophy built, not on Jesus or Austrian economics, but on fear and resentment of their “Other”; not on what they are but what they are not. The “conservative” and “Christian” are merely convenient terms, as a cover for the void underneath.
If liberals are India, they’re Pakistan (or, as it says on their flag, “Not-India”).
bahrfeldt
April 24, 2012 at 8:01 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Jerry Efin Falwell Jr. The spawn of Cthulu.
snebo154
April 24, 2012 at 8:31 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@26 Chiroptera says:
I’m sorry you didn’t see the humor there. The entire comment was tongue in cheek. They are all cults unless you believe that one of the religions out there and it’s accompanying Deity have got it right. However a check of Dictionary.com shows the following definition for “cult”
1.
a particular system of religious worship, especially with reference to its rites and ceremonies.
short version
cult = religion
The part about big enough to influence political outcomes was my attempt at humor.
Woof
April 24, 2012 at 8:44 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Religion (n): A tax-exempt cult.
Chiroptera
April 24, 2012 at 8:49 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
snebo154, #37: I’m sorry you didn’t see the humor there.
DOH!
hiro
April 24, 2012 at 8:49 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I remember back in the day when I read John Ankerberg’s pamphlets on why Mormonism is a cult. I also remember with great fondness the day I threw all that stuff in the trash.
But sir, don’t we have to vote for Romney to defeat the Satan Obama?
I just love it when the fundies get their panties all twisted up.
Dissension at Liberty Phew robot factory. Gotta love it.
snebo154
April 24, 2012 at 8:51 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@26 Chiroptera
I just reread the second part of your comment. It doesn’t appear that we have too many disagreements. I was part of the Morg for 30 years and I will never seriously defend them on any point. I take every opportunity to be a thorn in their side because their policies on mormon women with children (my ex-wife) divorcing apostate men (me) cost me the two most important things in my life and given the chance to do anything that weakens their control over the flock-count me in. I hold only two grudges in my life and one of them is against anything Mormon.
jasonspaceman
April 24, 2012 at 9:01 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
It’s funny that they are upset about cults. Considering that Liberty University would have gone bankrupt back in the 1990s if it wasn’t for the Rev. Sun Myung Moon giving Liberty a loan to keep it afloat.
Tony
April 24, 2012 at 9:02 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Gregory in Seattle @17:
Ross Perot?
Ron Paul?
Zinc Avenger
April 24, 2012 at 9:28 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Uh-oh, looks like someone cranked up the “demonization of the Other” a bit too high. They need to lower the gain so they can vote for Romney, then gradually increase it as they gain more power, until they can finally kick Mormonism off the cliff like those other filthy non-Christians* when they have the power to do so.
*Methodists, you’re next!
Aliasalpha
April 24, 2012 at 10:10 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Why am I reminded of this exchange from Father Ted?
zxcier
April 24, 2012 at 11:08 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
As Ichthyic said, as long as you believe. Wandering around a town awhile back in Egypt I was befriended by a guy, presumably Muslim, and over tea he started discussing my beliefs as a xian. When I politely mentioned that I didn’t follow any religion, he was stunned – well you have to believe in something, even if it wasn’t his particular version of god!? To his credit he stuck around and we talked other topics, even though he remained baffled and would come back with questions about it.
It’s the same reaction I get when the Jehovah’s Witnesses come a-knocking in Colorado Springs, all ready to convert me from the lies about what I’ve been told about the babble – they don’t even know where to start when I agree that the whole thing is BS.. I really think a large part of the antipathy towards atheists is their whole mindset is very different, and they can’t fathom how one can live without that huge part of their life that is faith in a higher power. In the end it’s too “other”, so of course they’ll unenthusiastically vote for the Mormon – or we can hope they’ll stay at home.
timgueguen
April 25, 2012 at 2:09 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I see I was beaten in bringing up Reverend Moon. I’m sure the folks complaining about Romney either don’t know who Moon is at all, or assume that since he’s often refered to as Reverend Moon he must be a Christian of some sort. It probably doesn’t hurt Moon that next to the Phillipines South Korea has Asia’s largest percentage of Christians, at roughly 30 percent of the population.
kevinalexander
April 25, 2012 at 5:21 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I haven’t laughed so hard since the Pope issued that letter warning of the dangers of superstition.
michaelgaribaldi
April 25, 2012 at 7:40 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Praise Jesus for their intellectual integrity!!
Chiroptera
April 25, 2012 at 7:50 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
snebo154, #41: It doesn’t appear that we have too many disagreements.
It doesn’t. Hence the “doh.”
The funny thing is, I am usually the one complaining when other people take what I write too literally.
mucklededun
April 25, 2012 at 7:51 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
–Thomas Wolfe, American writer
But the best line so far is ‘Methodists: you’re next’.
MarkNS
April 25, 2012 at 7:57 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
#33
I don’t like seeing this trotted out anytime someone speaks out against or refuses to vote for a particular candidate on religious grounds. The “no religious test” clause only means that no one can legally be prohibited from running for office because of their religion (or lack thereof). It in no way impacts the right of any citizen to use a candidates’ religions as criteria when choosing who to vote for.
I certainly apply a religious test when I’m deciding where to park my vote. I consider people who espouse religious belief as being far less suitable as leaders as they may base decisions on myth and dogmatic, bronze-age morality.
sailor1031
April 25, 2012 at 11:04 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@21 Eric:
ooh, ooh! It’s a mixed metaphor right? Be careful- you’re skating on thin ice and might upset that applecart
sc_72717b0d8dc4053e632b6512091cef73
April 26, 2012 at 9:47 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Evangelicals will come out for Romney in the end. They believe Mormanism is a cult, but they will end up making the argument that Obama is also a pagan (the fringe will say he’s a Muslim, and the others will claim that he is a “liberal Christian”, which they do not recognize as Christianity at all). They will point to places in the Bible where God used pagan kings to help the people of Israel. They will say that even though Romney’s religion is false, he is friendly to Christians, and the lesser of two evils. When I was growing up, you never would have seen “Bible Believing Christians” supporting Roman Catholics for office, now they don’t even think twice about.
No Religious Test for Office? *falls off chair laughing* « Foster Disbelief
April 25, 2012 at 2:03 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
[...] Dispatches from the Culture Wars) By Friday morning, more than 700 comments had been posted on the school’s Facebook page about [...]