I was listening to Glenn Beck on the radio today, and he had a long segment where he discussed his reaction, as a Mormon, to Mitt Romney’s nomination. Beck had to pause several times because he was choked up. He said he was talking to his son and his son asked about Romney, and Beck said: “he’s the same religion we are. He’s a Mormon.”

Beck said it was an incredible thing and the sign of yet another barrier broken to have a Mormon nominated for a major party’s nomination for president. Just as Obama’s election is a sign that the United States is putting behind its racist past, the fact that people are willing to vote for a Mormon is a sign that we are finally being accepted as a people and is a sign of new religious tolerance, Beck said.

Now it is worth pointing out that Beck supported Rick Santorum during the primaries and has been extremely critical of Romney over the years. So Beck may have his faults, but he is not a long-time shill for Romney. Personally, I thought he was speaking from the heart. He repeated several times how touching it was to hear Romney talk about his family and kids during his acceptance speech.

Here’s the thing: I didn’t have any feelings of “Mormon pride” during Romney’s speech. My wife and I watched it last night after the kids went to bed, and we both said, “well, I hope he can fix some of the mess created in the last 10 years,” but we both also have our doubts that Romney will make any big changes. Both of us like Romney as a common-sense problem-solver. We feel comfortable with him as a person because he has an aura of competence. But we also worry that, like President Bush during the TARP debate, Romney will abandon principle at crucial times.

I should point out that the Republican candidate is my third cousin once removed. My grandmother’s maiden name is Romney, and she grew up in Mexico with the Romney clan. So, if anybody should be feeling some nostalgia for this Mormon moment, I should, right?

But somehow I don’t feel that way. Should I? Do you feel Mormon pride?

Please note: I would ask that this thread not become an insult-fest regarding Glenn Beck or Romney for that matter. Most people are aware of their faults. Concentrate instead on the question: should we Mormons be feeling that an important barrier has been breached? Should be be feeling proud that a fellow Mormon has been nominated as president?

Most of us at M* (including me) will be voting for Mitt Romney in November. Obama has been a disaster, as many of us predicted he would. But this does not mean we must turn a blind eye to questionable if not evil behavior taking place, apparently with Romney’s consent, at the Republican convention.

Please watch this video, which summarizes the Romney team’s shenanigans.

The Romney team, which had his nomination in the bag, changed rules to ensure conformity and lack of dissent within the Republican party. The goal is to make sure that “establishment” candidates only get elected from now on. In just a few days, the Republican party has destroyed years of work carried out by Ron Paul and tea party activists to broaden the appeal of the party. There is broad consensus within the party on dealing with pressing fiscal issues and over-spending. Instead of using this consensus to improve the Republican brand and create a “big tent” party, the party hacks are instead deliberately trying to expel true fiscal conservatives from the party.

Such tactics would have kept “Rockefeller Republicans” in charge of the Republican party in the 1970s and prevented the rise of Ronald Reagan, who was the key dissident of his day.

The tactics employed, which included keeping party dissidents on a bus and preventing them from attending the convention, are those of secret combinations. Even if we support Mitt Romney as better than Obama, we should raise our voices to oppose such chicanery.

According to the Chronicle of Philanthropy, the most generous cities in terms of giving to charity are:

The least generous cities are:

Anything stand out?

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There is an amazing new find discussed in the Juvenile Instructor: a letter written in 1829 by Oliver Cowdery giving his testimony of seeing the original plates of the Book of Mormon.

The letter is complex, including responses to past letters, but here is the highlight in my opinion:

“You also wished Mr. Harris to inform you respecting his seeing this book, whether there could not possibly have been some juggling at the bottom of it. A few words on that point may suffice.—

“It was a clear, open beautiful day, far from any inhabitants, in a remote field, at the time we saw the record, of which it has been spoken, brought and laid before us, by an angel, arrayed in glorious light, [who] ascend [descended I suppose] out of the midst of heaven.”[11]

“Now if this is human juggling—judge ye.”

Juggling is an early 19th century term that referred to people trying to fool each other.

So, in the clearest terms possible, Oliver Cowdery in this new letter is reaffirming his testimony that he did indeed see the plates, that he saw an angel and that Joseph Smith could not have fooled him in any way. Take that, Fawn Brodie!

Readers may want to keep in mind that Oliver Cowdery, Martin Harris and David Whitmer all left the Church at one point or another, but none of them ever recanted his testimony that they were shown the plates by an angel. Oliver Cowdery later rejoined the Church.

Before he died, Oliver Cowdery reaffirmed his witness of the truth of the Book of Mormon. From the Wikipedia account of Cowdery’s life:

Shortly before Cowdery died of a respiratory illness, he was visited by Jacob Gates, an early Mormon leader in the church, who inquired about his witness concerning the Book of Mormon. Cowdery reaffirmed his witness saying,

“Jacob, I want you to remember what I say to you. I am a dying man, and what would it profit me to tell you a lie? I know,’ said he, ‘that this Book of Mormon was translated by the gift and power of God. My eyes saw, my ears heard, and my understanding was touched, and I know that whereof I testified is true. It was no dream, no vain imagination of the mind—it was real”.

This new letter shows that Cowdery’s testimony remained firm from 1829 until his death.

The Washington Post investigates Mitt Romney’s time as bishop and stake president and fails to find anything truly shocking or controversial. You can read the entire article here. Mitt comes across as a pretty typical bishop and stake president.

The one potential controversy, which leads the story, is the discovery that Mitt had a seemingly different policy toward undocumented workers as a stake president than he does as a presidential candidate:

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.

For anybody who knows stake presidents and bishops, this is a pretty pedestrian discovery, but some may find it of interest.