Mitt Romney is about to deliver the most hyped speech about
religion by an American presidential candidate since John F.
Kennedy’s 1960 address to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association.
The stakes are similar, but the conditions somewhat different.
Kennedy was up against an organized effort by some of the country’s most
prominent Protestant leaders to keep a Catholic out of the White
House. By comparison, what Romney faces is closer to an anti-Mormon
whispering campaign. And it isn’t just Romney’s faith that has kept
him from sealing the deal with evangelical voters — he faces a
potentially larger “Massachusetts problem” from having to govern in
a political climate that demanded adherence to the dogmas of social
liberalism.
Whatever Romney says at the George Bush Presidential Library in
Texas, the stakes are just as high for the Christian right. Even if
the media somehow succeeds in drawing Romney into a discussion
about temple garments and the Book of Mormon, politically active
evangelicals and conservative Catholics should resist the
temptation to follow.
Ever since the Moral Majority era, the religious right has been
maligned as a purely sectarian movement aimed at using the
government to impose its version of Christianity on an unwilling
public. Conservative Christians have usually had two answers to
this line of argument. The first is that they entered the political
arena to defend their own religious freedom, not to diminish anyone
else’s. The second is that they were raising transcendent moral
issues that are legitimate objects of public concern, like
protecting innocent human life.
Religious right leaders haven’t always practiced what they have
preached in this regard, but there is substantial truth to both
defenses. So much so that debates over abortion and other social
issues did more to develop ecumenical political cooperation between
Catholics and evangelicals than Kennedys’ 1960 promises to
strengthen the wall of separation ever did. Statements like
Evangelicals and Catholics Together — and
indeed publications like First Things — were made
possible by “co-belligerency” in the culture wars.
Appearing to endorse a religious test for public office,
especially one that excludes Mormons, would constitute a giant step
backwards. It would bolster the arguments of those who decry “Christianists” against the idea the religious
conservatives practice defensive politics. Such a move would also
cast aside a set of reliable allies in the fights against abortion
and same-sex marriage, instead making common cause with secularists
who find Mormons reactionary and weird.
Note to conservative evangelicals and Catholics: Secularists
find your religion reactionary and weird too. Mock Mitt Romney on
temple garments and it is only a short step toward similar scrutiny
of Mike Huckabee’s belief in Genesis. Belief in the virgin birth
looks no less strange to secularist eyes than the Angel Moroni.
When Slate editor Jacob Weisberg disqualified
believers in Mormonism’s “founding whoppers” from the presidency,
he didn’t have kind things to say about people who take seriously
the supernatural aspects of Judaism or orthodox Christianity.
Moreover, a rejection of Romney on solely theological grounds
would provide a useful data point for the religious right’s
critics. Before conservative Christians enlarged
their role in American politics, they will argue, a Unitarian could
become president — and George Romney could launch a credible
campaign in 1968 without having to give a speech like his
son’s.
As Paul Chesser recently reported, many evangelicals with misgivings about
Mormonism are driven by less earthly concerns. They fear increased
conversions to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,
which they regard as a matter of eternal life and death rather than
a pew-filling competition. Yet my own denomination, the United
Methodist Church, doesn’t seem to be growing based on the influence
of my coreligionists George W. Bush and Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Nate Oman wonders if the antipathy toward Mormons might
even provide “an important theological marker that legitimizes the
other theological compromises that have made the
[Catholic-evangelical] coalition possible.” He continues, “In
effect, it allows Protestant and Catholic activists to tell
themselves, ‘I didn’t sell out my beliefs for control of Congress;
after all we both believe in Nicea and Chalcedon.’”
All this can easily be overstated: Mitt Romney has already been
endorsed by far more evangelicals than would have ever openly
supported John Kennedy 47 years ago. They often say they appreciate
the difference between choosing a president and a pastor. Perhaps
they also understand that the arguments used to disqualify Mormons
today may be applied to them tomorrow.
