Baptists encourage Mormon candidate to be more like a Catholic

Or something along those lines. From Reuters:

Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney needs to assure evangelicals that his Mormon faith would not be his ultimate guide if he wants their support, an influential Southern Baptist official said on Tuesday.

"If Romney wants to get significant Southern Baptist and evangelical support he's going to have to give a Kennedy-style speech," said Richard Land, the president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.

Land was referring to a speech by then-presidential candidate John F. Kennedy in Houston in 1960 in which he assured southern evangelicals he would not let his Catholic faith dictate his policies but defended the right of a Catholic to run for office.

White evangelical Protestants like Southern Baptists are a an important part of the Republican Party's base but they have yet to unite around a single candidate before the presidential election in November 2008.

In their eyes much of the Republican field is flawed, but Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, has a huge problem: many evangelicals, who take matters of faith very seriously, regard his Mormon religion as a cult.

Ah, now I think I understand: the Baptists in question want assurances from Romney that he won't take Mormonism seriously in making decisions, just as Kennedy assured anti-Catholic Protestants in the late 1950s that he wouldn't take Catholicism seriously as a guide if he were to be elected president. As Colleen Carroll Campbell notes in her Catholic World Report article, "The Enduring Costs of John F. Kennedy's Compromise":

Kennedy's candidacy was denounced by the nine-million-member Southern Baptist Convention and a host of other Protestant churches and associations. Clergy affiliated with the National Association of Evangelicals and other Protestant groups launched a nationwide campaign of anti-Kennedy sermons to coincide with "Reformation Sunday" on October 30, 1960. Protestants opposing Kennedy were urged to wear buttons throughout the campaign season that said, "Stand Up and Be Counted" over the numbers "1517" – a reminder to follow in the footsteps of Martin Luther, who launched the Protestant Reformation that year by nailing his 95 theses to the door of the Wittenberg Castle Church.

Kennedy knew that he had no chance of ascending to the Presidency if he did not address the religious issue directly. Militant anti-Catholics would not be open to persuasion, but he hoped to answer their attacks in a way that reassured other Americans. His first widely publicized attempt to do so came in March 1959, when Look magazine published an interview in which he gave this quote: "Whatever one's religion in private life may be, for the office-holder, nothing takes precedence over his oath to uphold the Constitution and all its parts – including the First Amendment and the strict separation of church and state." Kennedy then highlighted his opposition to federal aid for parochial schools and to an appointment of an ambassador to the Vatican – positions that he had reversed since his earlier days in Congress, when he had supported such measures.

Meanwhile, back to the Reuters article:

Land, who is not endorsing any candidates himself, said Romney needed to follow Kennedy's lead if he wanted to sell himself to this tough crowd. Romney has tended to skirt the issue of his Mormon background or touch on it in passing.

"What Kennedy did in that speech, he defends the right of a Catholic to run for president ... He was (also) saying the Catholic church is not going to dictate to me," Land said.

"If I was Romney I would say that I am not the Mormon candidate for president. I am the Republican Party's candidate or I want to be ... The Mormon Church does not speak for me on matters of public policy or faith and I don't speak for them on matters of public policy and faith," he said.

It's very clear, isn't it? Romney, like Kennedy nearly fifty years ago, should not only insist that his religion is not going to "dictate" to him, he must go the extra mile and agree to let folks from another religion—certain Baptists—dictate to him. And you wonder why some people think Southern Baptists sometimes tend to be a bit fearful, paranoid, and close minded.

Speaking of Catholicism and Mormonism, I once had a Fundamentalist pastor's wife say to me, not long after I'd become Catholic: "I notice that the Catholic Church has copied a lot of things from the Mormon Church." What exactly did she mean by that remark? "Well," she said, "I've sometimes wondered why the Catholic Church has to have bishops, just like the Mormons have bishops." True story. God bless America, land that I love...

Comments

[LJ]

I don't recall Jimmy carter having to separate his faith from his presidential decision making.

"Whatever one's religion in private life may be, for the office-holder, nothing takes precedence over his oath to uphold the Constitution and all its parts – including the First Amendment and the strict separation of church and state."-JFK

One wonders what exactly one's religion is for if it doesn't inform one's decisions, presidential or otherwise. Moreover, in declaring that any oath takes precedence over faith in Jesus Christ suggests strongly a faith that is only a matter of culture and convenience, another accusation often made against Catholics by Fundamentalists and Evangelicals, and seems to bear out the accusation of Reconstructionists against all of Christianity that the State has become God in violation of the first of the Ten Commandments.

I think that it is unreasonable to demand that JFK be anything other than a Catholic president, Carter anything but a Baptist president and Romney anything but a Mormon president. We only have to determine what that means in practical terms.

[Julie]

Interesting how this is playing out. Because I have no doubt that if Romney were a Baptist, those same critics would be seeking assurances that his faith WOULD play a large role in his presidency. For many of those folks, it just matters what religion you are as to whether it has to go on the back burner. Well ... I assume the fundamentalist pastor's wife has not read anything about the early Christian Church!

[Sky]

St. Thomas More pray for us:

Cardinal Wolsey: Explain how you as a counselor of England can obstruct these measures, for the sake of your own private conscience.

St. Thomas More: Well, I think that when statesmen forsake their own private conscience for the sake of their public duties, they lead their country by a short route to chaos.
(pause)
And...we shall have my prayers to fall back on.

Cardinal Wolsey: Hhmmm, you'd like that wouldn't you, to govern a country with prayers.

St. Thomas More: Yes, I should.

(A Man From All Seasons)

[A Mauldin]

Let's see: being president or being faithful to God. JFK chose the former and next week, we will remember he lost his life to that job and may have lost his soul in the bargain.