Romney and the Faith Factor

Looking back at year’s end on Mitt Romney’s “Faith in America” speech, I see it as a touchstone for the new role of religion in contemporary American politics. The speech contained three major messages that indicate how much more complex faith-based politics have become since John F. Kennedy’s speech to the Houston Ministerial Association in […]

Looking back at year’s end on Mitt Romney’s “Faith in America” speech, I see it as a touchstone for the new role of religion in contemporary American politics. The speech contained three major messages that indicate how much more complex faith-based politics have become since John F. Kennedy’s speech to the Houston Ministerial Association in 1960.
Romney’s first message concerned public skepticism toward Mormons. He argued that neither his nor any other candidate’s religious affiliation should be the basis for rejection—or election—to public office. This claim is based on a demand for religious liberty. Such liberty is imperiled by those who are critical of the special doctrines and practices of particular religious communities. Recounting well-known examples of bias against religious groups in American history, he admitted that his Mormon faith may “sink my campaign.” In response to this threat, Romney refused to discuss his Mormon faith in any detail, noting that “no candidate should become the spokesman for his faith” and he also pledged his church would not dictate his actions in the White House. This position closely parallels John F. Kennedy’s argument about separating his own Catholicism from politics in 1960.


Romney’s second message claimed that this separation applies to religious affiliation but not to religious beliefs. For example, he said “I will take care to separate the affairs of government from any religion, but I will not separate us from ‘the God who gave us liberty’” and “the founders proscribed the establishment of a state religion, but they did not countenance the elimination of religion from the public square.” Here, too, this claim is advanced on the basis of religious liberty. And such liberty is also imperiled by those who would “remove from the public domain any acknowledgment of God” and “establish a new religion in America—the religion of secularism.” In this argument, Romney allies himself with traditional religious beliefs rather than with the traditional ones (including none at all), noting that “any person who has knelt in prayer to the Almighty has a friend and ally in me.” This position is quite different from Kennedy’s in 1960, arguing not for the separation but rather the inclusion of religious beliefs in politics.
The first two messages came together in Romney’s third message: religious beliefs are the source of a “common creed of moral convictions” necessary for a good politics. These “American values” include “the equality of human kind, the obligation to serve one another, and a steadfast commitment to liberty ” and are “not unique to any one denomination” but “belong to the great moral inheritance…on which Americans of different faiths meet and stand as a nation, united.” Recalling famous examples of the positive impact of faith-based values in American history, he strongly implies that a similar situation is at work today. Although Romney passed over the substance of contemporary faith-based disputes (like abortion or poverty), the connection is clear: shared values are the central mechanism by religious beliefs should have an impact on politics. Where Kennedy stressed values without a basis in any faith, Romney identified the source of such values in religious beliefs.
This mix of messages reveals the complex operation of the faith factor in 2008. Conflicts among American’s diverse religious affiliations can matter at the ballot box—with skepticism about voting for a Mormon today’s prime example. However, such conflicts may be superseded by conflicts rooted in religious beliefs—resulting in trans-denominational coalitions based on shared values. Clearly, Romney has staked his hopes on achieving such an end. In a word, the faith factor is more complex in 2008 than in 1960, when religious affiliation was the prime source of faith-based conflict.

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