I am a Mormon

I have seen some interesting commercials lately. I am sure you have also. They are everywhere. Television, radio and billboards. They follow an ordinary person, living an ordinary life through an ordinary day. They show us how this person lives a normal life just like you and me. Then at the end of the ad we hear the tag line.

I am a motorcycle lover ...and I am a Mormon.

I am a red head ...and I am a Mormon.

I am a third grade teacher...and I am a Mormon.

I am confident that the message of these ads is to inform us, the viewer, that Mormons are just your average run-of-the-mill people. That Mormons are no longer the stereotypical skirt-wearing, long-hair-rolled-in-a-bun, polygamist. That everything we think we know about this sect is no longer true anymore.

I am also confident that these ads have something to do with the fact that we have a presidential candidate this term who is a...wait for it...Mormon.

Now, don't get me wrong, Mormons have some wonderful family values. They practice tithing. They practice chastity before marriage and fidelity in marriage. They practice obeying the laws and submitting to authority. They even have the words “Jesus Christ” in the official name of their religion: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. (LDS)

But before we jump on that band wagon of thinking Mormons are same minded as Christians lets look at their belief system. Before we decide that our next president should be a “religious” man let's make sure his religion is a worthy one. Let's not believe every ad we see. Because we all know that the Big Mac we get in the drive through doesn't always look like the one on the screen of our TV.

I have found their basic principles online. (http://mormon.org/articles-of-faith/ )

In a future blog I will dissect these beliefs and compare them to what the Bible, the true Word of God, teaches us.