Faith Matters. Among Many Other Things.
By Mitch Berg
In North Dakota, the Missouri River is sort of the eastern edge of the zone of heavy Mormon settlement. As you go west from Bismark, you start to meet Mormons, and then see tabernacles, and then as you get into southern Idaho and southwestern Montana you start to see big tabernacles…at any rate, I grew up around more than a few Mormons.
One of my best friends in college was, as it happens, a pretty devout Mormon, the oldest of 12 children, plus four adoptees. And they found room to take in an exchange student and the occasional foster kid. They were great people, who lived by a code that, in some ways, I find admirable; their goal of self-sufficiency, especially in emergencies, I find in particular laudable and worthy of emulating. But while my friendship (with my pal from college among others) and my admiration for certain aspects of Mormon secular practice are very genuine, so were my doubts (to put it mildly) about the Mormon faith.
That being said, I never said anything. Tact is a good thing. My pal was a great person (still is), and he never tried to convert me (fat chance!), and the overriding fact was that he was a good guy and a good friend.
On Tuesday, Chad the Elder quoted Richard John Neuhaus on the subject of the faith-based reasons to look closely at Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith.
For millions of other Americans, the [question of Romney’s Mormonism does] not matter. And for those for whom they do matter, they are not the only questions that matter. Mr. Romney is a very attractive candidate in both substance and style. As in most decisions, and not least of all in voting, the question comes down to what or who is the alternative. We will not have an answer to that question for some months. But I can now register a respectful disagreement with John Fund when he writes, “We will be a better country if even people who don’t support Mr. Romney for president come to recognize that our country is better off if his candidacy rises or falls on factors that have nothing to do with his faith.” On the contrary, we are a better country because many Americans do take their faith, and the faith of others, very seriously indeed. Also when it comes to voting.
Neuhaus swerves into, through and past a good point; we are a stronger country because of the pervasiveness of faith and its presence in the national dialogue. Faith counts in this country, thank goodness.
But Fr. Neuhaus then tries to have his communion wafer and eat it too:
Does this line of argument mean that anti-Catholicism should have prevented the election of JFK? No. Anti-Catholicism is, in my judgment, an unreasonable prejudice.
Well, I tend to agree. However, that agreement would get tossed out the window (or smothered) if we were to elect a Catholic president who used his office as a bully pulpit to proselytize Roman Catholic doctrine worldwide and expand Vatican power. Wouldn’t it?
An absurd example, right?
Sure. Because although that was what the anti-Catholic meme of the day purported to fear (and it was a meme that helped scupper Al Smith’s presidential bid in 1928), JFK governed not as a Catholic President, but as a President who happened to be Catholic. Just as Ronald Reagan, Dwight Eisenhower and Woodrow Wilson governed as Presidents who were Presbyterian, and didn’t spend their terms spreading Knoxian doctine via their office (as much as this country could use it).
Which is how a President, whatever his/her faith, is supposed to act in office. One wouldn’t think twice about a mainstream Christian candidate’s faith (lefty paranoia about conservative Christianity aside) because of worries about their intentions to use their position to benefit the faith, whether they were Baptist, Episcopalian, Catholic, or Presbyterian. Beyond that, I recall no worries about Joe Lierberman’s hidden effort to Judaify America.
So Romney is different how?
Others, of course, will disagree, but not enough others to prevent the election of a Catholic president. Anxiety about the strengthening of Mormonism by virtue of there being a Mormon president is not unreasonable. One may or may not share that anxiety, but it is not unreasonable.
But how – Neuhaus’ statement aside – is it any less reasonable than that same fear, held by many Americans before we took the great leap into the theological unknown in 1960?
What evidence is there that a Romney presidency would benefit Mormonism any more than Kennedy’s benefitted Catholicism – or that either of those were a bad thing?
For the millions of citizens who do take religion so very seriously, the fact that Mr. Romney is a Mormon may not be the determinative factor, but it will be a factor, and, for many, an important factor.Well, he’s got that part right.
Will it be an important factor for the right reasons?
Chad the Elder picks up the narrative
Neuhaus articulates (much better than I ever could) a view that I share on this matter. The notion that voters should never take a candidate’s religious faith into account when deciding how they’re going to pull the lever is unrealistic and smacks of the sort of relativism that has tried to convince us that all cultures are equally valid and that it’s not possible to judge them on their individual merits.
Except that that’s an unrealistically (to me) absolutist view of the question. Of course a candidate’s religious faith is an important factor in my vote. Most important, to me, is that they are a person of faith – which one is secondary – whose faith forms and informs them as people, and helps guide their actions.
If you can’t take Romney’s Mormonism into consideration, then what happens when a Scientologist runs for office? How about a Wiccan? I’m not trying to make a direct comparison between the LDS and either of them, but the idea that we can’t use a candidate’s religion–no matter what it is–as a basis for evaluating whether they are the best choice for office will lead you right down that path to religious relativism.
So here’s a question: what if, in 2008, the race ends up being one between the Mormon Romney and, say, Hillary Clinton, who’d seem to be as dilatory a Methodist/Southern Baptist has we’ve seen? What would Neuhaus suggest; vote for the good of the nation at the expense (whatever that means to you) of hypothetically building a stronger Mormon church? Or dooming this nation but keeping Rome Salt Lake City at bay?
Further out: Let’s say in 2012 the race is between a Wiccan, moderate Moslem or even an atheist with impeccable conservative credentials and a strong record of personal integrity, and a pro-death, pro-surrender, pro-tax, pro-Castro, pro-weasel Catholic (who doesn’t happen to be John Kerry, althought he’d fit the bill)? What then?
Faith? Or politics?
July 4th, 2007 at 7:26 am
Mitch-
Neuhaus addresses your point about choices:
“Mr. Romney is a very attractive candidate in both substance and style. As in most decisions, and not least of all in voting, the question comes down to what or who is the alternative. We will not have an answer to that question for some months.”
He’s not saying that one shouldn’t vote for Romney because of his religion. He’s saying that it’s not unreasonable for people to take his religion into account as PART of their decision on how to vote. Specifically he’s addressing John Fund’s call for a candidate’s religion to have NOTHING to do with judging their merits for office.
You call my position absolutist, but in reality that position is occupied by people like Fund and Hugh Hewitt who want to stigmatize any discussion of a candidate’s faith as illegitimate.
You also present an absolute choice between faith and politics when the answer of course is BOTH.
July 4th, 2007 at 7:43 am
Out of your three choices in the last paragraph I (an extremely conservative Baptist) would choose:
“…..atheist with impeccable conservative credentials and a strong record of personal integrity….”
I think of any Wiccan as a flake (they’re more examples of people with asinine leftist bumper stickers plastered all over their crappy little cars!) and sorry, you can forget Muslim, moderate or not. No. Bigoted, prejudice? I don’t care. Ellison comes to mind…JUST NO.
The funny thing is that Ayaan Hirsi Ali would fit the atheist description-she’s no longer a Muslim-so too bad she’s not US born! I’d vote for her…she’s got brains and courage.
Concerning Romney, I don’t care about his religion…I think the Mormons are fine examples of human beings-their religion seems a little silly in spots, but that’s for them to sort out.
July 4th, 2007 at 9:02 pm
Politics.
I grew up with a ton of Mormons and evangelicals. Mainstream denominations were actually part of the minority, but admirable human traits seemed pretty evenly distributed among all. Jerks and slackers, too.
The trouble with Romney, as with most of the Republican candidates, is not religious belief. It’s how religious belief has come front and center as a qualification for higher office. Edwards, Clinton and others strain in the same direction.
Although I regard religion as superstition, I don’t have a problem with people of faith in public office — as long as they don’t use faith to steer the ship of state.
July 4th, 2007 at 10:36 pm
The trouble with Romney, as with most of the Republican candidates, is not religious belief. It’s how religious belief has come front and center as a qualification for higher office. Edwards, Clinton and others strain in the same direction.
You know as part of the non–religious right I have to say that I agree with that statement to a large extent. It has gotten to the point where I’ve avoided most political blogs and my involvement in GOP politics has dwindled to practically nothing not because of any intolerance directed me for my lack of faith but because social issues (usually but not always or exclusively driven by a person’s religious beliefs) dominate the discussion even though who we elect as President has very little to do with it. And yes that includes who they appoint the judiciary (even if you believe that judicial appointments are better than a crap shoot).
I don’t blame religious people for that because I don’t see it as something caused by them or even that the problem is religion in politics but rather I see it as part of a larger problem. Namely that people focus too much on what makes them FEEL a certain way rather than on the things that government actually can does do.
It isn’t just social issues but it’s a general dumbing down of our entire political discourse. Look at how much time the MSM, talk radio, and the blogosphere spend on all sorts of trivial garbage about the candidates or who said/wrote/did what to whom (e.g. Dean Barkley’s match.com profile, Edwards versus Ann Coulter, Clinton’s contest to pick a campaign song, etc.). Insignificant things get blown up as if they provide some unique insight into what kind of a legislator or leader they’d be when in reality all they do is distract the electorate by letting them feel special that they can sit in judgment over someone they don’t know because of some perceived shortcoming because it’s easier than trying to understand the actual issues.
July 4th, 2007 at 11:18 pm
He’s not saying that one shouldn’t vote for Romney because of his religion. He’s saying that it’s not unreasonable for people to take his religion into account as PART of their decision on how to vote. Specifically he’s addressing John Fund’s call for a candidate’s religion to have NOTHING to do with judging their merits for office.
While I’m not sure that’s a fair representation of what John Fund wrote in his article (I think he was actually more concerned about a candidate’s religion becoming THE deciding factor rather than PART of a voter’s decision) at the end of the day it really does have very little to do with a candidate’s merits for office. Does anyone on the right doubt that Ronald Reagan who wasn’t a regular churchgoer was a better president than the born-again Jimmy Carter? Or that Bob Dole who preferred to stay home Sundays to watch political shows would have been a better choice than Bill Clinton who was a regular churchgoer?
AFAICT President Bush 43 is the only major example of an elected Republican president who made their faith a centerpiece of his campaign and his administration. If I had to judge how Bush’s faith has affected him as a leader, I would say that it was probably a negative with regards to domestic issues because it seems to have driven him to put a “compassionate conservative” face on the Nanny State.
Remember when we were the party that wanted to get rid of the Department of Education? Now we’re the party of No Child Left Behind so long as we were promised a pittance in vouchers so that some parents could get federal funds to send their kids to a private/religious school. Remember when we called for ending welfare – now we’re supplementing it with ADDITIONAL money so long as “faith-based” groups can get in on the act as well. It won’t be long before these “faith-based” groups go the way of Catholic Charities and the old civil rights establishment and begin lobbying for more federal funding and new programs while appealing to their flocks to oppose any “cuts” in federal programs.
Even though Fund didn’t say it, I’ll say it – we would be better off if candidates refrained from discussing their religious beliefs in any but the most general of terms, if it was considered as socially unacceptable to ask them about their private religious views as it is to ask them about their sex lives, and if people focused on the actual issues because we all know damn well that anyone who makes a candidates “religion PART of their decision on how to vote” is more likely than not someone who is making it THE deciding factor.
July 5th, 2007 at 1:47 am
thorleywinston-
I believe that we’ve fallen into a trap by describing conservative, religious voters as ‘social issue’ voters. In fact it’s all social issues, from how much people should be taxed to how to bring non-english speakers into the political life of the Republic.
In other words, at some point people who have a laisez-faire attitude towards marriage and family have to decide whose money is going to pay to house & feed all those fatherless children.
July 5th, 2007 at 6:58 am
I don’t agree that a candidate’s faith is irrelevent, so long as he has one and uses it to guide his actions. Wellstone had the same faith as Boschwitz but their faith guided them to opposite conclusions. I have no idea what faith Mark Dayton or Michelle Bachmann hold and I can’t be bothered to look them up. Their firmly-held convictions about the proper role of government are more important to me than how they arrived at those convictions.
If you claim to be a devout Catholic but also claim to be personally pro-choice, then you’re a lying sack. If you’re willing to lie about a fundamental issue of your faith to get votes, I suspect that once you have the votes, you’ll also be willing to lie about tax cuts, school funding, gay marriage . . . hence; I won’t vote for you.
Romney’s belief about how things will be run in the afterlife is less important to me than his belief about how things should be run in this life.
.
July 5th, 2007 at 7:33 am
One of the problems is that a lot of people (Neuhaus included) don’t think that Mormonism is even a Christian religion.
Cult started by some crazy dude out in the woods in New York? Sure.
This is one of the inherent problems (for lack of a better term) with Protestantism: some guy invents a religion and it’s given as much respect and creedence as something that is 2,000 years old and has direct ties back to the Apostles.
July 5th, 2007 at 8:19 am
I believe that we’ve fallen into a trap by describing conservative, religious voters as ’social issue’ voters. In fact it’s all social issues, from how much people should be taxed to how to bring non-english speakers into the political life of the Republic.
That reminds me of the way that some of my CSOM professors would try to define their area of study – marketing, logistics, management, etc. – in way that was so broad as to encompass anything and everything. Defining EVERYTHING as a “social issue” is a neat way of rendering the term meaningless.
Also immigration and taxes – unlike the stability of marriages, abortion, sexual mores, religion – is an issue in which the government has a central role. The rest of it is pretty much left up to the individual no matter what laws people think they would like to have placed on the books.
July 5th, 2007 at 8:24 am
One of the problems is that a lot of people (Neuhaus included) don’t think that Mormonism is even a Christian religion. Cult started by some crazy dude out in the woods in New York? Sure.
Sounds a little bit like Arlon Lidner’s infamous “traditionally Buddhism has been regarded as a cult” letter that (rightfully) marked the beginning of the end of his political career. I don’t really see that happening with Mormonism as there seems to be more gleeful anticipation on the left of bigoted evangelicals attacking Mormonism than there are actual bigoted evangelicals attacking Mormonism.
July 5th, 2007 at 9:12 am
One of the problems is that a lot of people (Neuhaus included) don’t think that Mormonism is even a Christian religion.
Cult started by some crazy dude out in the woods in New York? Sure.
I know. I – along, I suspect, with most Christians, no matter what their denomination – have plenty of issus with Mormonism, ranging from questions to outright ridicule (the South Park history of the Morman church was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen on TV – and still captured some of the things I DO respect about Mormons in their daily lives).
This is one of the inherent problems (for lack of a better term) with Protestantism: some guy invents a religion and it’s given as much respect and creedence as something that is 2,000 years old and has direct ties back to the Apostles.
I think the Greek Orthodox Church would say the same thing about the Catholics.
At any rate, I’m not sure how that’s a “problem with Protestantism”; I don’t know of any mainstream Protestant denomination that gives any kind of theological credence to the LDS. While I’m sure you can find some far-left ELCA or Episcopal congregation (“Like Unitarians, with Christmas!”) or two that do, that’s neither a widespread acceptance nor a barometer of Protestantism.
July 5th, 2007 at 9:56 am
(the South Park history of the Morman church was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen on TV – and still captured some of the things I DO respect about Mormons in their daily lives).
I whole-heartedly agree for an episode that spent most of its time referring to the tenets of the Mormon faith as “dum-dum-dum-dum-dum” at the very end it got the most important point right: it’s more important how they act then whether what they believe is true.
Which is pretty much the case for any religion/philosophy/ideology.
July 5th, 2007 at 10:44 am
Irony is that Mitt has had only one wife, while Bill Clinton is a closet polygamist.
July 5th, 2007 at 11:13 am
No, Upchuck, the irony is that the Mormon is the only leading Republican candidate with only one wife.
July 5th, 2007 at 1:22 pm
He’s not saying that one shouldn’t vote for Romney because of his religion. He’s saying that it’s not unreasonable for people to take his religion into account as PART of their decision on how to vote. Specifically he’s addressing John Fund’s call for a candidate’s religion to have NOTHING to do with judging their merits for office.
No, I caught that. I’m saying that I put less stock in queasiness over Mormonism than Neuhaus seems to.
You call my position absolutist,
No – I was referring to Neuhaus (although that may not have been utterly clear).
You also present an absolute choice between faith and politics when the answer of course is BOTH.
I didn’t mean to present that as a choice, actually…although it does read that way.
Blah.
July 5th, 2007 at 1:25 pm
No, Upchuck, the irony is that the Mormon is the only leading Republican candidate with only one wife.
Well, to be perfectly accurate, that’d be the “cheap, meaningless, misleading” irony.
The real irony is that Democrats, who after decades of sapping the power and worth of the American family and eight years of affirming that personal morality really doesn’t bear on a President’s public policy abilities, are suddenly all minty about the sanctity of marriage!
And on behalf of a woman whose behavior in her own marriage would mortify any real feminist!
July 5th, 2007 at 2:02 pm
The real irony is that Democrats, who after decades of sapping the power and worth of the American family and eight years of affirming that personal morality really doesn’t bear on a President’s public policy abilities, are suddenly all minty about the sanctity of marriage!
I’m not sure that’s an accurate reflection of what the people on the other side were saying. I think the point they were making was that a person’s sex life – including whether they’re an adulterer or living in an open marriage – doesn’t really have much to do with their public policy abilities. Then Speaker Newt Gingrich also had a mistress (which has nothing to do with President Clinton’s impeachment for perjury and witness tampering) but I don’t doubt that most Republicans would rather he had been the Speaker for the last six years then Dennis Hastert who was probably faithful to his one and only wife.
July 5th, 2007 at 2:28 pm
I’m not sure that’s an accurate reflection of what the people on the other side were saying.
Very possibly not, although to be fair (to me) when replying to Angryclown accuracy takes a back seat (in one of those little clown cars) to pithiness.
July 5th, 2007 at 10:27 pm
No Mitch, real irony is IS pretty simple and straightforward (look it up, you journalist you). Real irony IS that the most suspect Republican from an oh-so-important religous background standpoint (after all – you atarted this 10,000 word discussion) is that Romney is the only Republican candisate in his original marriage.
Being “all minty about the sanctity of marriage” sounds like Gore Vidal trying to get an aneurism out of out Bill Buckley.
“all minty about the sanctity of marriage” – wow – ya gotta send that to those moral stalwarts Gingrich, Delay. Limbaugh (mint oxycontin?) Oreilly, etc etc so they can have a real men insult at those fact checkers.
July 6th, 2007 at 8:30 am
Mitch,
Eastern Orthos have a direct link?
Please expound.
July 6th, 2007 at 9:15 am
JB,
Until the 11th century, there really WAS only one “Church” (leaving aside the Assyrian church, which split off after the Council of Ephesus in 431, and the Oriental church (Armenian, Coptic), which split after the Council of Chalcedon in 451).
For the next 600-odd years, as the Roman Empire split into Western (Latin-speaking Roman) and Eastern (Greek-speaking Byzantine) empires, and started to decline (and eventual literal split), the churches in the two halves of the empire gradually started drifting apart. Eastern and Western doctrines gradually diverged over things like icons/iconoclasm, the wording of the Nicene Creed, and exactly HOW much more powerful the Bishop of Rome was than the Bishop Constantinople, and so on.
In 1054 (according to the New Catholic Encyclopedia), the Great Schism – where the Pope and the Patriarch of Constantinople, acting via their surrogates, started tossing excommunications at each other (yes, I’m oversimplifying) – split the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches apart for good (although they’ve been talking reconciliation off and on pretty much ever since).
Both the Eastern and Western churches “have a direct link to the apostles”, since they’ve only been two, official, separate churches for a little less than 1,000 years, unless you can produce a burning bush that explains that Rome got the “links” in the divorce.
There’s a pretty good timeline here.
And for all of you to whom it matters, God bless y’all, and in the great Protestant tradition shall bypass both bureaucracies and focus on the only link that matters; from each of us directly to Christ.
July 6th, 2007 at 10:59 am
“Coldeye”,
quick, look elsewhere. We’re going to talk about you, but you don’t need to read it.
Everyone else,
Is “Coldeye” yet another anonymous incarnation of PB/Mikey/JBauer/Molly? What do you all think?
I’ll await your opinions before adding mine.