It’s the Mormon moment.
The Republican Mormons Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman may run for president, braving more questions about whether they wear the sacred undergarment and more resistance from evangelicals who consider Mormonism an affront to Christianity.
Is Ms. Dowd apologizing for Mormonism?
If you already find some aspects of Mormonism exotic and strange — including its start with crystal-gazing Joseph Smith, the buried gold tablets with hieroglyphics and an angel named Moroni — the musical won’t assuage your doubts.
Smith claimed Jesus appeared to him in upstate New York.
Sorry, but I find that more than just "exotic and strange." It's a little disturbing. Do Mormons really believe, for example, that the Garden of Eden was in Missouri? Really?
In the end, the message is not against Mormonism but literalism: that whatever our different myths, metaphors and rituals, the real purpose of religion is to give us a higher purpose and a sense of compassion in the universe.
“The moral,” the writer Andrew Sullivan observed on opening night, “is that religion is both insane and necessary at the same time.”
Again, sorry, but if something is insane it's not necessary. And, frankly, I do want to know if Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman believe in magic underwear. It's important to me that we have a rational president.
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