Religiously speaking, this presidential election is a fascinating moment in our national life, and for multiple reasons. First, one party nominated a Mormon and a Roman Catholic as president and vice president respectively, the first time in American history that a major party ticket has excluded a Protestant! This is not the first time a Mormon has sought the presidency. The father of the present Republican nominee unsuccessfully pursued that party’s nomination in 1968. Mormon patriarch Joseph Smith ran for president in 1844, the same year he was assassinated by a “gentile” mob in Nauvoo, Ill.
