Though born-again evangelicals glory in personal life-changing experiences, such openness to change withers when latter-day newcomers defy Protestant sects with truly “born-again,” collective do-overs. What’s wonderful for individual sinners pales when core Reformation advances are confronted with what the right in other arenas happily elevate to “big ideas.” 

And since the entire Mormon Trail challenges all that’s come before as betrayal of Jesus’ original message, no wonder millions of garden-variety fundamentalists dismiss LDS as a cult. How odd since Mormons “out-rightwing” many fundamentalist faithful on gender and gay rights, money and materialistic success, family and church-going, defense spending and America confirmed as God’s country. Though Mormons reject the trinity of Christ, downright unchristian to the less tolerant, they’re still more conservative and more Republican than any other faith.  What was once a passion-driven radical sect now brashly aligns itself to status quo authority and deference to the unfeeling mandates of billionaire capitalists.  

Ironies abound, hardly unusual for LDS.  Mormons embrace the King James Bible (written, after all, in God’s tongue), yet severely recast theology and practices, declaring themselves (big surprise) the purest Christians. Actually, LDS from the get-go went rogue, consecrating polygamy and paternalism, explicitly declaring the superiority of white skin, and that universal baptism anywhere for anyone was A-okay. When or where the historic Jesus, rumored with darkish skin, promoted these notions I leave to partisans to explain. 

Yet, say what you will about Mormons, you can’t call them un-American: they are the most successful (or conspicuous) ...

If one can magically "resign" from any morass after the fact (truly, long after), Mitt Romney shouldn’t only run for president but extraterrestrial, time-shifting Miracle Man. This notorious policy shape-shifter graduates now to time-shifter, as Mitt’s expanding Etch-a-Sketch, with demonic force, dares distort history. Who but a flimflamming devil plays on simultaneous, dual personalities – one, the hard-driving taskmaster who approved Bain’s outsourcing factory (all election documents to the contrary); second, the latter-day, heroic invention: the public-spirited, Olympic overseer who'd never outsource a fly – and who, per one Romney shill, “retroactively resigned” before the mitt hit the fan.    

Romney’s transparent evasion “resigns” from something, though not early enough from Bain. How about “reality for the rest of us” and that’s what now slapping this stonewaller upside the head. So, let’s hear the thundering call, “where’s that retroactive resignation,” far more appropriate than yahoos demanding infinite proof of Obama’s Hawaiian birth. 

Think of the possibilities, if not imponderables. Wouldn’t everyone love instant free passes from mortifying blunders we need no longer shoulder, especially because most consequences are unknowable in advance? The Romney “resignation” farce is a classic logical fallacy, formally post hoc ergo propter hoc for "after this, therefore because of this." I prefer apt religious jargon, served up as a blameless, self-righteous “immaculate resignation.” 

Let the world behold: a new teaching ...