Christian Right ministers find ecumenical solidarity with Mormon heathen Mitt Romney

One of the recurring features of mainstream commentary in Presidential election years is speculation about whether there will be split between the Christian Right and business Republicans. The conflict is also described as cultural conservatives vs. economic conservatives, or Main Street Republicans vs. Wall Street Republicans, though I haven't heard the latter in a while.

It never happens. Because the Christian Right are more ecumenical than the commentators keep assuming when it comes to politics. Former Arkansas

Governor Mike Huckabee explained at the Republican National Convention 08/29/2012:

Here's Brother Al Mohler, a leading Southern Baptist theologian and head of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville KY, writes in The Great American Worldview Test — The 2012 Election
09/06/2012:

One party claims that no abortions should be legal and the other claims that all abortions should be legal. Each party is driven by their own moral logic. The Republicans are driven by the belief that, at every point of development, every individual human being is sacred and has a fundamental right to life. The Democrats are driven by the belief that the woman's unfettered right to choose an abortion is paramount, and that a woman can demand an abortion at any time for any reason — or for no reason. As their language states, "We oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right." The most revealing words there are "any" and "all." [my emphasis]

Of course, it's a bald-faced, butt-ugly lie to say that the Democrats want "all" abortions to be legal. The Democrats have been reasonably consistent in adhering to the Roe v. Wade standard that abortion is legal in the first two trimesters, based on the medical fact, unchanged since 1973 except in the fertile imaginations of anti-abortion fanatics, that the fetus cannot survive outside the mother's womb until after that point and therefore medically has to be considered part of the woman's body.

Democrats do advocate that abortions after the second trimester that are necessary to save the life of the mother when the fetus cannot be delivered early.

Shamefully for the Republicans, Brother Al is not lying about their position, based on the official Party platform. I'm sure there are a number of Republicans who would prefer not to go so far as the platform says. But they aren't driving the Party's position, the hardline antiabortion fanatics are.

The major factions in the Republican Party today - Mormon fundamentalists, Catholic fundamentalists, evangelical Protestant fundamentalists and demon-chasing Pentecostal fundamentalists - may each believe the other groups are going to Hell, probably along with numerous members of their very own faction. For instance, check out the dean of Brother Al's school writing about Mormons and how to evangelize them in on the school's website, insisting that Protestant fundamentalists "we must not back away from the sad reality that Mormonism is not even remotely Christian." Mormons plausibly consider themselves to be a Christian faith; Protestants fundamentalists regard them as a cult.

But they are happy to unite in ecumenical unity against the Democratic nominee for President, whether it's Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry or Barack Obama.

Maybe in another 20 years or so, even our star pundits will begin to get a clue about this.

Tags: al mohler, christian fundamentalism, christian right, republican party