Naylor: The blessings of being a Mormon

Heidi Naylor teaches literature and writing at Boise State University. This is from The Washington Post.

Mitt Romney's second campaign for the presidency has once again brought skepticism and fear of Mormonism into the spotlight.

Romney has been forced to respond to comments that his religion is a "cult" and has made a prudent case against religious tests for office. Nevertheless, critics have dismissed the idea of a Mormon president based on questions about "the founding whoppers of Mormonism."

The founding whoppers of Mormonism. As a fifth-generation Mormon, I suppose that I should muster up a grain of salt from the lake in Utah. Take another potshot for the Latter-day Saints team. Remind myself there are forms of knowledge that transcend the evidence at hand.

Those critics who believe they have my faith figured out may not recognize that the origins of Mormonism are reflective of their time, much of which has little in common, culturally, with the modern era. I freely acknowledge that Joseph Smith, who founded the Mormon church, was both charismatic and all too human. I recognize the history and practice of any religious heritage, including mine, are flawed. I'm not one of those Mormons who stand at the pulpit doubt-free, proclaiming mine is the only true church.

And yet . . . When I attend a Mormon sacrament meeting, as I've done weekly all my life, I'm brought to tears by its simplicity, beauty and spiritual sustenance. With my fellow and beloved Latter-day Saints, all of whom are small and struggling human beings, just as I am, I bow my head in prayer. I consider the teachings and atonement of Jesus Christ as recorded in the Bible and in the Book of Mormon. I take the bread and water as it is blessed and offered to me: the simplest food, traditional fare of convicts and thieves, but also ageless emblems of his overcoming of death, of his intercession on my behalf before God the Father.

Over time, I've come to recognize that this intercession, this reconciliation of what I am with all that I long to be, is the grace I depend on every day. As to problems in the history of Mormonism -- factual, persistent, ambiguous -- these can be overcome. As to people who think that I belong to a con man's cult, or who have the audacity to claim that my faith is not the faith and devotion of a Christian, they are mistaken.

Far more important is the hope of love and of this freely offered grace, this gift of the Christ. It is a gift I believe many Americans acknowledge and cherish. Such a gift may or may not have come to me through Mormonism. But it is discovered there anew, every week. It is at the center of Mormon faith.

Of course it's incongruous, this gift of grace. It seems to betray the facts of reason and justice. It is free only insofar as faith is my free-will offering. And I suppose the reality of grace does seem preposterous to those who withhold, misunderstand or reject faith. But faith is about transcendence.

In the same way, this country I love and honor has elements of origin that we as Americans must choose -- indeed, have chosen -- to question and transcend. In doing so, we don't dismiss the country itself. We don't excoriate the citizen who stands with her hand over her heart. Nor should anyone so quickly, so thoughtlessly reject a candidate who descends from generations devoted to a faith that is not unfamiliar, but has been restored and recast in a uniquely American setting.