When Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney traveled through Mississippi earlier this year, he used grits, football and “y’all” to connect with voters, but in the heart of the Bible Belt, many Southerners were more interested in the religious beliefs of the first Mormon candidate for the nation’s highest office.
Local missionaries Brandon Urry and Riley Harris, both 20, spend as much as 12 hours a day pounding the pavement, sharing their faith with people who often know little about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS).
Urry said lately, the first question people ask is, “What does Mitt Romney believe?”
It’s a difficult question, because the Mormon Church stays out of the political realm as much as possible, taking a neutral stance. But for the general populace, Romney has become the poster child for his faith.
“A lot of times, people come up and go, ‘Oh, you’re Romney’s boys, but of course, that’s a stereotype,” Urry said. “We’re politically neutral as a church, but we see more people willing to talk to us to learn more about Romney.”
Urry, a native of Atlanta, and fellow missionary Riley Harris, of Centerville, Utah, arrived in Columbus six months ago. They cover an average of five to 20 miles per day by foot, bicycle and car. They manage to connect with five to eight people a day.
“One thing I’ve noticed is the surprise people have at the shared beliefs we have (with them),” Urry said. “We’re more similar than people think. We’re not that different at all.”
Ridge Road Mormons
Ty Reed, of Caledonia, presides as bishop over the local congregation, which has a church on Ridge Road boasting 450 members on the rolls, with around 140 to 150 active members.
Adherents in Starkville and West Point have been worshipping together, but with Starkville’s membership rapidly approaching that of Columbus, they’ve decided to build another church in west Starkville, off Stark Road. There are around 50 members in West Point.
Reed’s parents, Jack and Carolyn Reed of Starkville, raised him and his five siblings in the church. It’s not always easy being Mormon in Mississippi, he said.
For one thing, there’s the sweet tea issue — they don’t drink tea. They also don’t drink coffee or alcohol. People don’t understand sometimes.
But the Romney campaign has been good, he said, because it opens the door to discuss some of these things. Recently, a neighbor asked his wife to explain more about what they believe.
Many Mormons, like Palm Desert, Calif., businessman James Parkinson, say being thrust upon the national stage has been a mostly positive experience.
Parkinson, who works with Columbus attorney Wilbur Colom on a number of international humanitarian projects, said though he doesn’t see himself as a proselytizer, he’s always willing to talk with people about the church.
He is hoping the 2012 presidential election will do the same thing for Mormonism that the 1960 election of John F. Kennedy did for Catholicism — bring it out of the shadows and into the light, providing an opportunity to erase what Mormons say are myths and preconceived notions.
Religion shouldn’t play a factor in politics, Parkinson believes. Instead, he would rather people judge candidates by their hearts and their actions.
“We all have the common thread of being Americans,” he said. “I think the way you ought to look at it is, does the religion inform the behavior of the adherents? If you look at the way Mitt Romney has lived (his life), you think, ‘Wow, I’d like to have a neighbor like that.'”
Worldwide ministry
More than 14.4 million people in the world are Mormons, according the Church’s 2011 statistical report. It is ranked by the National Council of Churches as the fourth largest Christian denomination in the United States.
Nationwide, more than 3 million people belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, with around 21,000 living in Mississippi. In northeast Mississippi and northwest Alabama — territory known as the Tupelo stake — there are around 3,300 members.
But though Romney’s campaign has generated increased interest and a flurry of questions, that hasn’t necessarily translated to a swell of new members, Tupelo stake president Gary Pettus said.
In addition to Tupelo, Pettus oversees wards in Columbus, West Point, Booneville, New Albany and Corinth, as well as Florence, Haleyville, Hamilton and Russellville in Alabama.
Romney’s willingness to talk about his faith has brought the Mormon church out of obscurity, Pettus said. At the local level, they’re trying to cope with the spike in public curiosity by taking a proactive, rather than reactive, stance.
“There are times people ask you embarrassing questions, for sure,” he said. “We’re trying to be prepared to answer questions and let people know what we believe.”
That same seeker spirit was the catalyst, Pettus said, for his conversion from another faith. Though he declined to name the religious tradition in which he was raised, he said as he grew older, he began wanting to know more about where he came from, why he was here and what was the purpose of life.
Mormon missionaries were able to answer those questions, he said.
But still, for many people, the question remains: What do Mormons believe? Are they Christians?
‘We’re not a cult’
Pettus and Reed are adamant that they are Christians, and they hope Romney’s campaign will clarify that.
“The biggest problem we have had in the past is that we, as a people, have let other people define us instead of defining ourselves,” Pettus said. “(We want) to let people know we truly do believe in Jesus Christ and a Heavenly Father. We’re not a cult.”
Though political pundits have expressed concerns that Romney will push “a Mormon agenda” if elected, Parkinson said that doesn’t worry him. The so-called “Mormon agenda,” he said, is the same as the Christian agenda: Trying to do good for other people.
Still, there is confusion. Snapshots of the faith in the mainstream media have been disheartening at times, adherents say.
Parkinson was shocked and offended when people began referring to Mormons’ sacred undergarment as “magic underwear.” The two-piece white garment is to be worn at all times, removed only for activities like bathing or swimming. Members must be blessed to wear it.
Parkinson compared its symbolism to that of the Jewish undergarment, the tallit katan.
“All it does is remind you about being honest with your fellow man, true to your wife and the covenants of marriage, and to keep prayer in mind,” Parkinson said. “To call it magic underwear is a distortion of what it’s all about.”
Reed said he was taken aback when a television special actually showed the undergarment, because it is considered to be sacred — not a public spectacle.
He knows there are other misconceptions as well. When asked about his wife, he half-jokingly said he only has one wife, using humor to deflect the Church’s painful past of polygamy.
Many people still believe Mormons practice plural marriage, but it was outlawed in 1890, and members who violate the law risk ex-communication. Some splinter sects, not affiliated with LDS, still practice polygamy.
The Mormon belief system, like that of any religion, is too complex to sum up in a few hundred words. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was established in 1830, a decade after 14-year-old Joseph Smith had a revelation that God wanted him to restore contemporary churches to fullness.
While Mormons accept the Bible, they supplement it with the Book of Mormon, which they believe was revealed to, and recorded by, prophets around the same time as the Bible was being written.
Mormons follow what is known as “13 Articles of Faith.”
The basic tenets include a belief in “God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost.” But Mormons say their concept of the three is a departure from the Trinitarian, “one God in three persons” theology followed by most Christians. Instead, they see the three as distinct “personages.”
They believe in baptism by immersion, and they believe the Bible to be the word of God “as far as it is translated correctly,” but they also believe the Book of Mormon is the word of God.
The 13th tenet states: “We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul: We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.”
Piqued interest
But how well has the church succeeded in convincing the American public — particularly in the South — that they share a similar belief system, especially since they, like many religions, believe they hold the one true faith?
A June Gallup poll indicated 18 percent of Americans would not vote for a Mormon presidential candidate, even if he was well-qualified. But in the same survey, four in 10 Americans didn’t realize Romney was Mormon.
In the late 1960s, when Romney’s father, Gov. George Romney, was running for the Republican presidential nomination, 17 percent of Americans said they wouldn’t vote for a Mormon for president. George Romney eventually dropped out of the race and Richard Nixon became the next president, even though Nixon was raised as a Quaker — another faith group considered to be outside the mainstream.
Cover stories in national magazines have broadened public knowledge of Romney’s religious beliefs.
Last November, more than 50 percent of the people surveyed by the Pew Research Center said they did not personally know any Mormons, and 49 percent knew “nothing at all” or “not very much” about the faith. Many didn’t realize Romney was Mormon. By the end of June, more than half the adults questioned were aware of his faith.
One thing that is certain is the presidential campaign has piqued interest, though it remains to be seen whether that will continue after the Nov. 6 election.
Google statistics indicate a sharp spike in weekly searches for the terms “Mormon” and “Romney” from 2004 to the present. Until 2007, the numbers were relatively flat, and they dropped in 2008 when he stepped out of the presidential race but began rising again in 2011. In June, the search terms skyrocketed in popularity, and in the last leg of the campaign, numbers are at an all-time high — five times more popular than the search term “Mormon” was in 2010.
Parkinson believes Romney has been “an excellent example” for the general public’s introduction to Mormonism, but that doesn’t mean he agrees with everything Romney says.
Though he plans to vote for him, he was disappointed with what he felt was disrespectful behavior by Romney during the second presidential debate.
“I think he’s a very good man, but he’s lived in some rarefied air, and when you’ve lived in rarefied air, sometimes you lose track of stuff,” Parkinson said.
But he remains an enthusiastic supporter, not because Romney is Mormon but because he approves of the way he has lived his life.
“I look at the man,” Parkinson said. “Tell me about his family, tell me about where he spends his time. America is a great melting pot. We want people from every walk of life. All I care about is that we are honest and keep our commitments. I don’t care what you do (as far as) worship, just be a good person.”
Carmen K. Sisson is the former news editor at The Dispatch.
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