Romney speech may quiet some critics, but not all

c. 2007 Religion News Service WASHINGTON _ Mitt Romney said Thursday (Dec. 6) that he’s running for president as an American, not a Mormon, and conceded that if his religious beliefs cost him the Oval Office, then “so be it.” Was it enough to tamp down evangelical skepticism about his faith? That may depend on […]

c. 2007 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ Mitt Romney said Thursday (Dec. 6) that he’s running for president as an American, not a Mormon, and conceded that if his religious beliefs cost him the Oval Office, then “so be it.”

Was it enough to tamp down evangelical skepticism about his faith? That may depend on which evangelicals, and where they stand on the broad spectrum of religious conservatism.


Michael Cromartie, an expert on evangelicals at Washington’s Ethics and Public Policy Center, said Romney may have succeeded with those who are not hard-core fundamentalists. “He was trying to assure them that he was not some sort of Mormon theocrat,” Cromartie said.

But Shaun Casey, an assistant professor of Christian ethics at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, said Romney may have lost some evangelicals when he admitted his church has distinct beliefs about Jesus.

“I really don’t think it does get at kind of the more red-meat specific doctrinal issues that some of those folks in Iowa _ and frankly, the Republican Party _ are looking for,” said Casey, who’s working on a book about similar religion dynamics in John F. Kennedy’s 1960 campaign.

In his speech in College Station, Texas, Romney steered clear of defending or defining the unique teachings of Mormonism. Instead, he invoked the familiar evangelical refrain that America should follow the actions of the founding fathers by acknowledging God as Creator.

“I will take care to separate the affairs of government from any religion,” Romney said, “but I will not separate us from `the God who gave us liberty.”’

Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptists’ Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, thought Romney set just the right tone by focusing on religious freedom and religious diversity.

“I think that evangelicals, many of them, will heed his challenge to judge him on his character, his life, his record, his policy positions and his vision for the country, not his religious faith,” said Land, who was invited by the campaign to attend the speech at the George Bush Presidential Library.


But he said the subtle language Romney used to address how he views Jesus Christ was particularly important: “I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God and the Savior of mankind,” Romney said. “My church’s beliefs about Christ may not all be the same as those of other faiths.”

Land pointed out that Romney said “faiths,” not “denominations.”

“He’s espousing Jesus Christ as a savior of mankind but he’s not asserting that he believes in Jesus the way orthodox Christians do,” said Land. “I noticed immediately that he gave this one degree of separation.”

Land’s denomination lists Romney’s Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a cult on its Web site. Other denominations have also questioned whether the religious body can be considered Christian.

The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press has found that half of Americans demonstrate a lack of knowledge about the Mormon faith, and about a quarter admit some reticence about voting for Mormon candidates.

Polls also indicate that white Republican evangelicals are the ones most uncomfortable with Romney’s faith. While a quarter of all GOP-leaning voters say they are less likely to vote for a Mormon candidate, that figure rises to 36 percent among white evangelical Protestants. It rises again, to 41 percent, among evangelicals who attend church weekly.

The Rev. Joel Hunter, senior pastor of Northland Church in Longwood, Fla., said before he heard the speech, he was doubtful Romney could say anything that would resonate with evangelicals. But he was left impressed by Romney’s balanced approach when talking about his personal faith and the history of religious freedom in America.


“With that, I think he would blunt any overexamination of his religion, for those who were still open,” said Hunter, who’s leaning toward former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. “The people that weren’t open probably didn’t even listen to that talk.”

Others, like GOP strategist and former Christian Coalition head Ralph Reed, wonder how much a candidate’s faith really matters at the end of the day. Voters are more interested in shared values than shared theology, he said.

“I have, probably over the last 25 years, organized and mobilized more evangelical voters than anyone in either party,” he said. “I have never found that conservative people of faith were primarily interested in whether or not a candidate attended the same church they did, were baptized in the same tradition or read the Bible exactly the same way they did.”

Eds: See sidebar (RNS-ROMNEY-SIDEBAR) for excerpts from Romney’s speech.

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