January 2, 2007
The Romneys of Michigan III Posted by Joshua Zeitz at 02:00 PM EST As luck would have it, just hours after I submitted my post on Mitt Romney, in which I argued that “there has been rampant speculation that his religion might turn off a sufficient number of voters—especially evangelical Protestants, whose support is crucial for GOP primary candidates—to cost him the election,” I received my copy of this week’s New Republic. Its cover story is entitled, “A Mormon in the White House? Why Religion Matters.” Maybe John Steele Gordon is right to “wonder . . . exactly who is continually bringing up the subject of Mitt Romney’s religion today? Is it the religious right or commentators on the right? Or is it liberal commentators (atheists or at least agnostics to a man and many of them profoundly theologically ignorant) assuming, as usual, that the ‘religious right’ is a monolithic group of intolerant bigots, who will reject anyone who is not one of them?”
A quick Nexis search revealed a good deal more speculation in conservative journals (e.g., National Review, The Weekly Standard) about Romney’s fitness for office than in liberal journals (e.g., The New Republic, The Nation). Moreover, when they ponder the topic, conservative and liberal journals alike have focused almost singularly on, as National Review put it, “Evangelicals for Romney?—A major question of the coming period.” The prevailing assumption is that liberals will probably not vote for Romney because many of his positions—on abortion, on gay rights, on religion in the public sphere—are conservative. The wild card is evangelical Christians. As Mr. Gordon points out, they share many policy goals with Mormons. But will they shelve their sectarian misgivings and support Romney?
I’m dismayed but not surprised by Mr. Gordon’s characterization of “liberal commentators” as “atheists or at least agnostics to a man and many of them profoundly theologically ignorant.” I’d venture a guess that the editorial staff at The New Republic, a magazine that runs probing articles on the current and historical interplay between religion and politics, knows a lot more about theology than the average American and includes not a few religiously devout persons. Ditto the staff of other leading left-wing journals of opinion like Dissent, The Nation, and Commonweal. Indeed, Mr. Gordon sounds especially preposterous when he writes of “liberal commentators” as “atheists or at least agnostics to a man,” and ignorant of matters pertaining to religion and theology. One has nothing to do with the other (a person can be agnostic and know more than his fair share about theology), and both are incorrect in any event. As a historian, Mr. Gordon surely knows that Christian theologians have been critical players in the development of postwar liberalism, from Reinhold Niebuhr (neo-fundamentalist) and Martin Luther King, Jr. (black evangelical), to William Sloane Coffin (mainline Protestant) and Charles Curran (Catholic).
But back to The New Republic. Though I stand by my lament that Mitt Romney faces a problem his father didn’t have to confront in 1968—namely, his religion—I think TNR’s article raises a fair point. Damon Linker, the author of the cover story, provides an impressive historical overview of Mormon theology and suggests that two tenets of the faith—the central role it assigns to living prophesy, and its view of America as a key staging ground in millennial eschatology—pose theoretical conflicts with secular democracy. Linker’s point is not that Mormons or any other religious group are unqualified to serve as President, but rather that any candidate who makes his religious convictions a focal point of his candidacy, as Romney has done, should be prepared to discuss those convictions in full and address potential conflicts with public office-holding.
Linker writes, “In the case of Mitt Romney, citizens have every reason to seek clarification about the character of his Mormonism. Does he believe, for example, that we are living through the ‘latter days’ of human history, just prior to the second coming of Christ? And does he think that, when the Lord returns, he will rule over the world from the territory of the United States? Does Romney believe that the president of the Mormon Church is a genuine prophet of God? If so, how would he respond to a command from this prophet on matters of public policy? And, if his faith would require him to follow this hypothetical command, would it not be accurate to say that, under a President Romney, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would truly be in charge of the country—with its leadership having final say on matters of right and wrong?”
Are these questions fair game? Or do they violate the spirit of the Constitutional prohibition against religions means tests for office holders? A question for my fellow AmericanHeritage.com contributors.
|
