Religious cults:: Mormon founder Joseph Smith wed 40 wives - by Daniel Burke

The founder of the Mormon church, Joseph Smith, wed as many as 40 wives, including some who were already married and one as young as 14 years old, the church acknowledged in a surprising new essay.

Smith's marital history had been the subject of frequent historical debate, but until recently Mormon leaders had taken pains to present its founding prophet as happily married to one woman. Now, the church says, "careful estimates put the number between 30 and 40."

The church, officially called the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, disavowed plural marriage in 1890 under pressure from the U.S. government, which had imprisoned polygamists and seized their assets.

According to the church's essay, Smith had not wanted to take multiple wives, but relented after an angel appeared to him three times between 1834 and 1842. On the angel's last visit, the church said, "the angel came with a drawn sword, threatening Joseph with destruction unless he went forward and obeyed the commandment fully."

Readd more: Church: Mormon founder Joseph Smith wed 40 wives - CNN.com

Religion: Why Europe supports President Obama, not Mitt Romney - by Robert Bennett

This is being written in Paris, where I have been attending an academic conference dedicated to an analysis of the 2012 presidential election. If they could vote, Europeans would solidly support President Obama, with France leading the way. Some polls show that Obama would draw more than 90 percent of the vote here; across the entire continent, he runs above 70 percent.

Those attending the conference told me that this is not because Europeans particularly dislike Mitt Romney. They simply don't know anything about him, with one exception — they know he is a Mormon.

But most don't know what that means. One European panelist, who spoke just after I did, spent his entire time talking about Mormons, portraying them as crazed zealots who comprise a truly sinister force in American life. In addition to the specifics of Mormonism that he considered ludicrous, he also made it clear that anyone who believed in Jesus as a divine being was laughably deluded. It was such a stunning diatribe that the moderator of the panel, an American, interrupted the pattern of the presentations to give me time to respond. I was pleased that my statement received a very respectful hearing from the audience, who thought the other speaker had gone too far. He later apologized to me, saying, "I didn't know you were a Mormon."

The reason the religion issue has not gone away in Europe is that all religions are now considered suspect here. The European conviction that Romney's beliefs must be an issue stems as much from the fact that he holds them as from their specifics. No European politician can afford to be seen as devout; the panelist's statements suggested that religious devotion in a candidate demonstrates that he is not a serious person. That is one of the reasons why Europeans were as dubious as they were about George W. Bush.

My own idea as to why there is such a different view of religion between America and Europe turns on the question of separation of church and state. Historically, European countries have had state Churches: the Roman Catholic Church in Italy, the Church of England in Great Britain, the Lutheran Church in Germany and so on. Supported both financially and structurally by their governments, these churches held dominant positions in their countries for centuries. As they lost their privileged positions after the Second World War, religion itself lost its hold on people's loyalties.

Europeans can't vote, so a discussion of their views on religion in politics is academic, but it helps us understand why they view American politics differently than we do. I suspect that American presidents will continue to embrace religion and Europeans will continue to be amazed by that.

 Read more: Robert Bennett: Why Europe supports President Obama, not Mitt Romney | Deseret News

US Presidential elections: 'With 'horses and bayonets,' Obama casts Romney as out of touch

President Barack Obama

If Mitt Romney’s foreign policy was an unknown to average voters, President Obama came to the table for the third presidential debate ready to sum it up in one word: dated.

In his final face-off against the former Massachusetts governor, Obama unleashed a series of zingers all casting Romney’s foreign policy ideas as old — sometimes really, really old.

Obama started by tearing into Romney’s description of Russia as a “No. 1 geopolitical foe.”

“And the 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because, you know, the Cold War's been over for 20 years,” Obama said, reviving a bit of snark he’s used on the campaign trail. “But, governor, when it comes to our foreign policy, you seem to want to import the foreign policies of the 1980s, just like the social policies of the 1950s and the economic policies of the 1920s.”

Obama reached quite a bit further back for his next, practiced attack. Answering Romney’s familiar critique about the Navy having fewer ships today than under past presidents, Obama said Romney “hasn't spent enough time looking at how our military works.”

“Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets because the nature of our military's changed. We have these things called aircraft carriers where planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines,” he said. “And so the question is not a game of Battleship where we're counting ships. It's — it's what are our capabilities.”

Note EU-Digest: Last week to the surprise of many Christians and non-Christians but obviously to the delight of the Republicans  Billy Graham’s Evangelistic Association removed the word Mormon from its website, where it used to be listed along with Jehovah’s Witnesses and Scientology as a cult. The move comes just a week after Romney visited Graham at his home in North Carolina.


Read more: With 'horses and bayonets,' Obama casts Romney as out of touch - latimes.com

US Presidential Elections: Romney, as Mormon church leader, became master of many keys - by Jason Horowitz

 In the back office of his Weston, Mass., headquarters a quarter century ago, Mitt Romney, the chief Mormon authority in the Boston area, told the leader of his Spanish-speaking congregation that he would not directly pay for lawyers to help the growing number of illegal immigrants in his church. Then he carefully instructed his subordinate on how to circumvent the Mormon church's new hard line against such assistance and subsidize their legal aide.

"In those issues I cannot help you financially to pay for lawyers," Romney said, according to Jose Francisco Anleu, a Guatemalan immigrant. "But what I can do is allow you to give them food assistance from the bishop's warehouse," a church welfare pantry. The money saved could be used to "pay lawyers." He reminded Anleu that he could use church funds to cover rent, utilities and health care for his needy members. The money came from Anleu's budget, but, as Anleu noted decades later, it was a budget sustained by Romney's office.

A close look at Romney's leadership in his church shows how his actions sometimes clashed with his political positions, which include advocating on the campaign trail for a policy of "self-deportation." Romney's decades as a lay church leader — first as bishop and later as stake president, which gave him dominion over all the churches in and around Boston — shaped a man as orthodox and committed to his faith as any presidential nominee in history. It is an experience that demonstrates Romney's mastery of the institution and confidence in his authority.

Read more: Romney, as Mormon church leader, became master of many keys | SouthCoastToday.com

Christianity: Bill Keller Decries Christian Leaders Placing Politics above the Soul

Bill Keller, the world`s leading Internet Evangelist and the founder of LivePrayer.com, with over 2.4 million subscribers worldwide reading the daily devotional he has written every morning for 13 years on the issues of the day from a Biblical worldview, says that most of today`s Christian leaders are no different than the religious leaders who put Jesus to death as they put politics, wealth, and power over the eternal souls of men. 


Keller said, "It is sickening to see these so-called `Christian leaders` like Tony Perkins, Mark DeMoss, those at Liberty University, Jay Sekulow, James Dobson, and an endless stream of other high profile men and women of God supporting a 5th generation High Priest of a Satanic cult that leads souls to hell with `another Gospel!` A first semester Bible college student knows that in spite of lying that they are Christians, what Mormon`s believe makes them no more a Christian than a Muslim is. The problems in this nation are not political, they are spiritual, and supporting a high priest in a satanic cult that leads souls to hell for is no different than supporting a Satan worshipper."

Keller went on, "Romney`s Mormon cult has been gearing up for him to fulfill Mormon prophecy for several years now, and if he is elected President, it will give his cult the mainstream acceptance they have always desired even though their theology is 100% inconsistent with Biblical Christianity. With the better percentage of two full generations who have never even been to church, conservative estimates are that the Mormon cult will add 1 million new converts without Romney ever having to say word. The critical importance of that for a Christian is that the Bible teaches those who believe `another Gospel` will die and their souls burn in hell for all eternity."

Read more: Bill Keller Decries Christian Leaders Placing Politics above the Soul