Back in 2012, I faced a firestorm in Florida over my refusal to support the presidential candidacy of Mitt Romney. It came from every direction, from fellow Christians, fellow pastors, sister churches, and even denominational leaders. Several people left the church I was pastoring at the time, over my refusal to endorse Romney’s run for the White House. One couple stands out in my mind in particular, since they saw fit to dress me down on their way out the door for my diabolical hand in defeating Romney and destroying America. Yet, I can’t help but think today, what those who once lauded Romney and lambasted me are now thinking.

If you looked up “RINO” in the dictionary, Mitt Romney’s picture should be beside the definition. He is the quintessential example of a double-dealing political hypocrite. His own senior political adviser, Eric Fehrnstrom, described him back in 2012 as an “Etch A Sketch.” According to Fehrnstrom, Romney drew himself up as a conservative to win over conservative voters during the Republican presidential primaries, but afterward shook it up to redraw himself as a moderate to win over moderate voters and independents during the general election, which, by the way, he lost to Barack Obama in an electoral landslide.

Now, in all fairness to Romney, Etch A Sketch Republican candidates did not originate with him. The Grand Old Party has been turning the knobs and etching out picture perfect candidates for years, only to shake them up and redraw them once voted into office by gullible GOP voters. Thus, straddling both sides of political issues and speaking out of both corners of one’s mouth did not originate with Romney, but preceded him and has proven to be the ongoing philosophy of RINOs ever since. Yet, there was a far more substantial problem with Romney’s presidential candidacy that proved to be even more insurmountable to my conscience and Christian convictions.

Mitt Romney is a cultist, a Mormon, who preaches a false gospel. According to the Bible, if a cultist preaching a false gospel comes to a Christian’s home, the Christian is not to invite them in, lest the Christian become a partaker of their evil deed; namely, the spreading of a false gospel that will lead everyone deceived by it into a Christless  eternity at the forfeiture of their immortal soul (2 John 1:10-11). By inviting a cultist into our homes, we encourage them in their spreading of a false gospel, as well as appear to give credence to it. Now, if this is so, as Scripture teaches, how much more would a cult, like Mormonism, be encouraged to preach its false gospel, and how much more credence would we appear to give to it, if we went so far as to vote a cultist, like a Mormon, into the White House? 

Looking back over our shoulder with 20/20 hindsight, we now can clearly see what Christians accomplished by voting for Romney for their president. First, it did absolutely nothing to help our country. Second, it gave credence to Mormonism and to the false gospel Mormons preach. For instance, after Romney’s failed 2012 presidential campaign, Mormonism not only polled more favorably in America than at any other time in our nation’s history, but the vast majority of Americans came to see it as synonymous with Christianity, because so many Christians went to the polls to vote for a Mormon for president. Finally, Mitt Romney is now a sitting United States Senator, who is using his Senate perch to preach that the unconstitutional impeachment of Donald Trump is America’s path to unity, justice and truth. I hate to say it, but I can’t help myself: I TOLD YOU SO!