An aide to Senator Sam Brownback sent an email with the following statement with has led to a bunch of backpedaling and apologies:
Among the statements: "Theologically, the only thing Christianity and the LDS church has in common is the name of Jesus Christ, and the LDS Jesus is not the same Jesus of the Christian faith" and "The LDS church has never been accepted by the Christian Council of Churches."
So what is egregiously wrong about that statement?
Well, nothing. Nothing except that it is the truth, minus any political spin. In fact most early mormon leaders would probably agree with such a statement, from a different angle. But of course this has led to hand-wringing, sad statements rueing the "bigotry" of telling the truth about mormons, etc. Of course the real problem is that for a Republican candidate, the fact is that mormons are about as sure a thing as there is in the electorate and you don't want to offend a huge block of in-the-bag voters. Even if those votes come at the expense of truth...
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UPDATE:
Senator Brownback phones Mitt Romney to apologize. I wonder if he took the time to ask him what his church teaches about Christ? Again, being a mormon probably shouldn't be a campaign issue, but what the staffer asked is a perfectly legitimate point, the Jesus of mormonism is NOT the Christ of the Bible.
