Yale professor Harold Bloom warns of Romney and Mormon theocracy

Mormons are somewhat fond of quoting Yale professor Harold Bloom when he refers to the founding prophet of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as an "authentic religious genius."

He even repeated this in a recent interview with the Deseret News where he not only said Joseph Smith was a religious genius, but that "Had I been a nineteenth-century American and not Jewish I would probably have become a Mormon . . . "

But Mormons are not as likely to quote Bloom's opinion piece in the New York Times on Saturday titled, "Will This Election Be the Mormon Breakthrough?" where he calls the LDS Church a "knowledge-hungry religious zealotry" and its leaders "plutocratic oligarchs."

In the article, Bloom treads a familiar path this election cycle as he examines the possible impact of the LDS Church on the presidential candidacies of Jon Huntsman Jr. and Mitt Romney. Except, being one of the world's most respected literary critics, his language is bit more elevated.

He begins by saying the church's "highly original revelation" was a departure from historical Christianity, but lays the same charge against "Southern Baptist Convention, the Assemblies of God Pentecostalists and even our mainline Protestant denominations." In fact, he says he has "a considerable respect for such original spiritual revelations as 19th-century Mormonism and early 20th-century Southern Baptism."

Bloom points out the danger of concentrating on unfamiliar LDS doctrines in political commentary: "Our political satirists, with Mr. Romney evidently imminent, delight in describing the apparent weirdness of Mormon cosmology and allied speculations, but they forget the equal strangeness of Christian mythology, now worn familiar by repetition." But the heart of his argument deals with his interpretations of what Mormons — and Romney — believe.

Bloom seems to admire what he calls Huntsman's "secular seeming" leanings. But Romney is, in his view, "deep within the labyrinthine Mormon hierarchy." Although this is a weak misreading of Mormon governance (the church is governed by what it calls General Authorities, of which Romney never was one), Bloom is connecting Romney with what he considers the sins of LDS Church leadership. "The current head of the Mormon Church, Thomas S. Monson, known to his followers as 'prophet, seer and revelator,' is indistinguishable from the secular plutocratic oligarchs who exercise power in our supposed democracy," Bloom wrote. "The oligarchs of Salt Lake City, who sponsor Mr. Romney, betray what ought to have been their own religious heritage."