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"The Book of Mormon" has hit Broadway. Not the Book of Mormon published by Joseph Smith in 1830, launching an American-grown religious movement, but a musical comedy about two Mormon naifs in Africa, written by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the brilliant satirists who created "South Park."

The new musical is a hit: an "extraordinarily well-crafted musical assault on all things holy," according to The Washington Post.

Some wonder if this musical assault is a political one, as well. According to columnist George Will, the GOP has only five "plausible" candidates for president; two are Mormons. Will Parker and Stone's comedy create drama for Mitt Romney's and Jon Huntsman's presidential aspirations?

In the reviews, there is a signal of contrary possibilities. USA Today notes the musical's "inherent sweetness"; The New York Times exhorts the public to "feast upon its sweetness." It's been a long time since anything about Mormonism has been deemed sweet by the press. That may indicate something positive for voters, not just theatergoers, since we the people and we the Latter-day Saints are again being invited by presidential politics to dither about Mormonism. Is it Christian? Is it American? Is it safe?

In 2007, when Romney made a presidential run, many people seemed to answer no to those questions. Polls showed that a majority of Americans had an unfavorable opinion of Romney's church. According to a 2007 Gallup survey, the only people less likely than Mormons to be put into the Oval Office were homosexuals and atheists. Also unwelcome, by only 5 fewer percentage points than Mormons, were thrice-married candidates. That equation fits Gallup's other 2007 finding: The word most often associated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is "polygamy," a practice it abandoned more than a century ago.

While no poll has measured all of what Americans don't like about Mormon doctrine, there are some safe guesses, not least their belief that God still speaks to them through prophets. For many contemporary Americans, claims to revelation are a definitive marker of irrationality. Americans may be more religious than people in other wealthy nations, but religion here is nevertheless fundamentally modern, even among most fundamentalists. It is also about as rational as religion can get and still be religion.

Mormonism is a pre-modern religion full of miracles and grand providential acts of God. It builds temples and demands sacrifice of time and tithes. It proselytizes a postmodern world convinced of a plurality, if not relativity, of truth. Hence, the conundrums posed to and by the Mormon missionaries portrayed in Parker and Stone's sendup.

Nevertheless, church membership now stands at 14 million people in 160 countries and includes such diverse voices as singer Gladys Knight and broadcaster Glenn Beck. More significantly, only half of the church speaks English, church leadership positions are held by non-Americans, and the Book of Mormon has been translated into more than 100 languages. Yet popular understanding of it has changed remarkably little.

Mormonism holds the religious record for length of contest with the United States. From their first years in 1830s New York, the Latter-day Saints were pushed westward to the far side of the Rockies by religiously inspired and state-sponsored violence. What the Saints called "plural marriage" the nation called illegal, and the government sent an occupying army and carpetbagging officials to control them in the closely monitored Utah Territory.

When the army failed to reform the Mormons, Congress began to criminalize them: denying civil rights, jailing unrepentant polygamists, confiscating property and stripping the church of legal status. Not until 1890, when the church pledged to cease performing plural marriages, did things begin to simmer down.

Mormonism's political emergence was marked by the 1902 election of its apostle Reed Smoot as Utah's junior senator.

He served for 30 years and had extraordinary influence, though today he is chiefly known for the protectionist Smoot-Hawley Act, often credited with worsening the Depression. His career began with a four-year hearing whose fame was on a level with Watergate's; ultimately, the Senate decided that law-abiding citizens should not be politically accountable for church creeds.

Latter-day Saints have become staples in local and national elective offices, making up 5 percent of the Senate and 2 percent of the House. But for modern religious and secular Americans, Mormonism might still be too religious, and especially too old-time religious.

So what's a Mormon presidential candidate to do? I say embrace "The Book of Mormon" — Stone and Parker's version, not just Smith's. The "South Park" characters have been making a compelling case for religious tolerance for almost 15 years.

In 2003, its take on Mormonism was voiced by Stan's spurned friend Gary. After a half-hour of hilarity about what Mormons believe, and after Gary realizes that his religion is just too much for Stan, the otherwise mild-mannered boy yells: "Maybe us Mormons do believe in crazy stories that make absolutely no sense, and maybe Joseph Smith did make it all up. But I have a great life and a great family, and I have the Book of Mormon to thank for that. The truth is, I don't care if Joseph Smith made it all up, because what the church teaches now is loving your family, being nice and helping people."

This appears to be the point of the Broadway musical as well. But the point most relevant to politics comes in Gary's last words to Stan: "And even though people in this town might think that's stupid, I still choose to believe in it. All I ever did was try to be your friend, Stan, but you're so high and mighty, you couldn't look past my religion and just be my friend back. You've got a lot of growing up to do, buddy."

Latter-day Saints have proven good neighbors, citizens and politicians. It's time to admit them to that well-populated club of people whose religion is not our own and even seems fantastical (virgin birth, predestination or infant damnation anyone?), but who are deemed perfectly acceptable presidential candidates.

Or, as Parker and Stone are saying, it's time to grow up.

Kathleen Flake, a professor of American religious history at Vanderbilt University, is the author of "The Politics of American Religious Identity: The Seating of Senator Reed Smoot, Mormon Apostle."