Are Jesus and Lucifer Brothers?

Mike Huckabee, ordained Baptist minister, asks a question about Mormon beliefs in next weeks Sunday NYT Magazine.

"Don't Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?" Huckabee asks, according to a preview of the article posted on the Times website. He made the comment after being asked whether he believes Mormonism is a cult, as some evangelical Christians do.

Mitt Romney replies:

"I think attacking someone's religion is really going too far," Romney said on the "Today" show. It's just not the American way, and I think people will reject that."

I assume Mitt means attacking Christian religion is un-American. I'm pretty sure attacking any other religion is OK.

But does the LDS preach that Jesus and Satan are brothers. Mitt suggests no. What does the LDS have to say about it? Well, the "Bible Belt Blogger" gives us a link right to the an LDS website. You can click here to see what the LDS has to say about the matter (scroll down a bit to the second article).

On first hearing, the doctrine that Lucifer and our Lord, Jesus Christ, are brothers may seem surprising to some—especially to those unacquainted with latter-day revelations. But both the scriptures and the prophets affirm that Jesus Christ and Lucifer are indeed offspring of our Heavenly Father and, therefore, spirit brothers. Jesus Christ was with the Father from the beginning. Lucifer, too, was an angel “who was in authority in the presence of God,” a “son of the morning.” (See Isa. 14:12; D&C 76:25–27.) Both Jesus and Lucifer were strong leaders with great knowledge and influence. But as the Firstborn of the Father, Jesus was Lucifer’s older brother. (See Col. 1:15; D&C 93:21.)

Now maybe that paragraph can be parsed somehow, but it's pretty clear that Jesus and Satan (Lucifer) were at least "spirit brothers".

W. John Walsh disagrees.

Here is what Spencer Woolley Kimball, a distant relative of mine and once President of the LDS, has to say:

Spencer W. Kimball, Faith Precedes the Miracle, Pg.87

"There is another power in this world, forceful and vicious. In the wilderness of Judea, on the temple's pinnacle and on the high mountain, a momentous contest took place between two brothers, Jehovah and Lucifer, sons of Elohim. When physically weak from fasting, Christ was tempted by Lucifer: "If thou be the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread." (Luke 4:3.)

It is so much fun that the GOP Presidential candidates have to satisfy a religious fundamentalist base.