Whatever one thinks of his politics, one has to admit that Governor Romney's Texas speech on "Faith in America," like Senator Kennedy's remarks to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association in September 1960, was expertly written and beautifully delivered. Both men rose to the occasion by reminding us of the hard-won American commitment to religious liberty. Both of them pulled off the delicate feat of downplaying their specific religious beliefs while declaring their loyalty to their church. Both said they would rather lose than give up their faith. (Kennedy brilliantly added that if he got beat because of being Catholic, the real loser would be the nation; Romney should have made the same point with the same understated passion.)
Speaking as committed men of faith, they could then claim, if they should become president, to represent all citizens of faith. Neither man worried about alienating the minority of non-religious voters. Kennedy, like Martin Luther King three years later in the "I Have a Dream" speech, spoke of America as a nation of Protestants, Catholics, and Jews; Romney bravely brought Muslims into the fold, explaining that as a Mormon he had something to learn from people of other religious traditions. He appreciated the "frequent prayer" practiced by Muslims, just as he liked the evangelical Christians' sense of the "approachability" of God, the Lutherans' "confident independence," the Pentecostals' "tenderness of spirit," the "ceremony" of the Catholic Mass, and the "ancient traditions" of the Jews.
In that litany he very noticeably said nothing about what the rest of America could learn from his own Latter-day Saints. He came close to claiming devotion to family as a distinctive LDS virtue, but backed off, stressing that even his own family fell short of the "perfection" to which they aspired. But throughout the speech he argued implicitly that the Mormons' commitment to religious freedom stood as a model for all. Has any presidential candidate ever before stated that as a man of faith he wished his church would learn from the traditions of others? (Non-candidate Mario Cuomo has said so many times, adding that encountering other religions permits one to rediscover forgotten features of one's own tradition, as encountering Judaism led him to new appreciation of his Catholic faith.)
If anything, Romney surpassed Kennedy in the passion he conveyed while tracing the history of the battle for religious liberty, likening Brigham Young's trek West in the 19th century to Anne Hutchinson's and Roger Williams's struggles in the 17th. Romney said nothing about his specifically Mormon beliefs, but everything he said about faith in America -- his own and everyone else's -- was subtly and potently informed by his memory of the persecution experienced by his Mormon ancestors. The power of the speech reminds me of the power of Barack Obama's at the Democratic convention in 2004: Obama's vision of a multicultural America was rooted in his own biracial, binational past. I sense Romney's speech will go down as a memorable American political oration regardless of his success as a candidate. He spoke eloquently of what it means to be an American whose ancestors fought for the freedom of religion guaranteed to them by the Bill of Rights, and to practice one's faith in a religiously pluralistic society where everyone can gain by opening up to the spiritual insights of others.
Romney's speech was twice as long as Kennedy's (20 minutes to 10 minutes), but Kennedy stayed at the podium for 30 more minutes of questions from seven Protestant ministers, who were permitted to grill him with unlimited follow-ups. Kennedy shined in that format of quick-witted repartee, treating his questioners respectfully, almost deferentially, while still expressing himself forcefully. Romney took no questions. In the weeks and months to come, he will face some of the grilling to which Kennedy submitted right after his speech. Kennedy, by gaining the support of prominent Protestants in 1960 (Reinhold Niebuhr and John Bennett among them) probably saved Romney the trouble of having to reconcile the hierarchical structure of the LDS Church with American democratic values. And it should be easy enough for Romney to handle the narrow "Jesus" issue. He can keep repeating what he said in the speech: "I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of mankind," then claim that he would rather leave the fine points to the theologians. It may be harder for him to explain what Latter-day Saints mean when they say that the 19th-century Book of Mormon counts as a revelation like the Old and New Testaments, or that all believers can aspire to being "gods."
Finally, Romney's speech shrewdly combined reaching out to Protestant evangelicals with an overture to the general religious population, liberals included, whom he will want to win over if he gets the Republican nomination. He went out of his way to distance himself from many Protestant Republicans by stating that "reason and religion are friends and allies." In a general election campaign he would try to position himself right on that boundary line: welcoming religion into public life (as many Democrats nowadays, unlike Kennedy, are also eager to do) while asserting that rational judgment and scientific expertise are fully compatible with faith. But some questioner may complicate matters for him by asking, for example, how, given his dual embrace of reason and religion, he interprets his prophet Joseph Smith's claim to have himself translated, from the hieroglyphics on gold plates he discovered on September 22, 1827, the Book of Mormon. -- Richard Wightman Fox is the author of JESUS IN AMERICA: PERSONAL SAVIOR, CULTURAL HERO, NATIONAL OBSESSION (HarperCollins, 2004).
A half century ago, Senator Everett Dirksen of Illinois said "the first task of every politician is to get right with Lincoln." If he were speaking today, he might say the first task of every politician is to get right with religion.
Governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts understood that he had a special burden to get right with religion today (December 6). Many commentators have likened Romney's challenge to the address by candidate John F. Kennedy 47 years ago to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, but the challenge was quite different. Despite the presence of an anti-Catholic spirit coming forward from the 1950s, Kennedy was a member of an ancient, large church whose membership comprised 33 percent of the population, whereas Romney is a member of a newer religious tradition whose membership comprises 3 percent of the American population.
The way each candidate framed his speech is revealing. Kennedy, a master speaker, built his tightly focused, briefer speech around a steady litany of "I believe in an America where...," with few specifics about the American religious landscape. He even said at the outset, "we have far more critical issues to face in the 1960 election," a comment that reflected accurately the very different America to which he spoke. Romney, by contrast, acknowledged that religion was a critical issue, and the architecture of his address contained far more building blocks, because his burden was both to reach out to an American public expecting to hear candidates speak their faith, but at the same time not turn away other Americans concerned that there is a recent conspiracy to construct a certain kind of religion in American society.
Romney chose not to place the focus on his personal faith but to make a plea for the role of faith in the public square. For me, his thesis sentence was: "It is important to recognize that while differences in theology exist between the churches in America, we share a common creed of moral convictions." He illustrated this conviction by listing as examples "abolition, or civil rights, or the right to life itself," thereby including causes from the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries embraced by religious people from left to right on the religious spectrum. Romney was making a plea for a common ethic or morality as the ultimate basis for the role of religion in America.
This was a speech in which Governor Romney sought to earn the right to be heard. He did so by affirming his faith in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, but admitting that others may have differing beliefs about Christ. He affirmed the separation of church and state, but stated that the intention of the founders was not the elimination of religion from the public square. He recalled that the first Americans came to find religious liberty, but acknowledged that once here ended up denying religious liberty to those with whom they disagreed, citing Anne Hutchinson, Roger Williams, and Brigham Young as examples. Romney celebrated the religious vitality in America by contrasting it with the empty cathedrals of a Europe "too 'enlightened' to venture inside and kneel in prayer." A strength of Romney's speech, and a contrast with Kennedy's speech, were his affirmations of the specific beliefs, ceremonies, prayers, and traditions of Catholics, Evangelicals, Pentecostals, Lutherans, and Jews.
Romney's speech also contained a warning about "the creed of conversion by conquest." Although Romney mentioned the murder of Christians, Jews, and Muslims, his focus was on the danger of "theocratic tyranny" by "radical Islamists."
In the end, Romney offered an assurance that sounded very much like Kennedy in 1960: "Let me assure you that no authorities of my church, or of any other church, for that matter, will ever exert influence on presidential decisions."
Did Romney get right with religion in 2007/8? He is in a box, and he knows it. On the one hand, he will never be able to get right with the religion of those who will never vote for a Mormon. On the other hand, in a brief address, Romney made a thoughtful argument for the role of religion in the public square that he hopes can reach across denominational divisions.
The question Governor Romney did not address was what was the content of that religion? He had to say, even as Kennedy had to say, that he would not be influenced by his church in forming the moral guidelines for his political leadership. But why not? What are the foundations of morality? In a religiously diverse society some have argued that we can simply separate ethics from theology. George Washington declared long ago that morality severed from religion will not long remain moral. Abraham Lincoln, in his Second Inaugural Address, combined an indicative, what God has done -- "The Almighty has his own purposes" -- with an imperative, what we are to do -- "With malice toward none; with charity for all." Governor Romney affirmed today that religion needs to be part of the public square. He, and other candidates, have yet to tell us in any specificity what the indicatives are that will allow us to act on what imperatives to make this a more loving and just society.
--Ronald C. White, Jr. is the author of LINCOLN'S GREATEST SPEECH: THE SECOND INAUGURAL and THE ELOQUENT PRESIDENT: A PORTRAIT OF LINCOLN THROUGH HIS WORDS. He is writing a biography of Lincoln that will be published by Random House in January 2009.
Gov. Romney is attempting to do a jujitsu trick with this speech, which is actually an old political strategy. He is attempting to turn concerns about his faith, which seems very sincerely and intensely held, into recognition that the sincerity and intensity of faith is itself a good thing.
Consider two lines in the speech. First, Romney said that "[a]s governor...I did not confuse the particular teachings of my church with the obligations of the office and of the Constitution -- and of course, I would not do so as President. I will put no doctrine of any church above the plain duties of the office and the sovereign authority of the law."
Along with this, he also said "no authorities of my church, or of any other church for that matter, will ever exert influence on presidential decisions. Their authority is theirs, within the province of church affairs, and it ends where the affairs of the nation begin." He is trying to say that religion has a moral energy, but it cannot speak directly to issues of policy. This is a classic mid-century understanding of how religion can help moral and political life; it offers little unique in the way of direction to our moral endeavors, but it does offer something significant in the way of energizing our efforts.
It turns out that everyone was looking in the wrong place -- or rather, to the wrong president. The antecedent figure to look to here is not Kennedy but Eisenhower, who famously said that "our government has no sense unless it is founded in a deeply felt religious faith, and I don't care what it is."
The problem with this approach is precisely that it assumes a clear division between religion and politics, between "affairs of the nation" and "church affairs." Historically, no clear division was acknowledged between those two things. It is an achievement of modernity, over the past several centuries, to begin to insinuate that religious belief and civic commitment are two viably distinct dimensions of human life. This is not to say that they were totally conflated in all times and places; but the distinctions Romney drew today are very unusual, historically speaking. And it is still not at all clear that those distinctions are right -- that in fact we can imagine religion and politics as totally separate spheres of human life without tension between them.
In fact, contemporary political and cultural life is even more challenging than that. For many of our most fraught debates over the past several decades -- on culture war issues as well as geopolitical issues -- do seem to rest on judgments that are frankly moral, not a matter of neutral policy but grounded in assessments of reality that speak in necessarily normative vernacular. To what degree was the USSR an evil empire? What do we owe the poor in our own country? What do we owe those who suffer genocide, thousands of miles away? Is abortion the intrinsically evil killing of a human life, or the potentially tragic termination of a preliminary entity that would become a human life? These debates in the public realm are as much moral and metaphysical and theological debates as they are political ones.
Indeed, many of the Republican Party's legitimate complaints about the expulsion of religion from the public sphere in the last few decades were built on a critique of just the approach Romney was using -- which was, effectively, what much of the Democratic Party thought after the 1960s. Religion and politics are not supposed to relate to one another. They are wholly separate spheres of life, one "private," the other "public." It is ironic, then, that Romney's speech was so focused on resolving his political views that he may have ended up replicating that approach, and that may mean he didn't really address the issue at all. Evangelicals who are persuaded by critiques of such an approach to religion and politics will be no more satisfied that a Republican voices them than if a Democrat did.
Finally, one should bemoan Romney's tepid appreciation of Islam. Was it all he could do to say that he admires the "commitment to frequent prayer of the Muslims"? One imagines there is more to find admirable in Islam -- for example, the seriousness with which Muslims take their religious practice, well beyond the requirement to pray five times daily. One might point to the zakat, the alms that good Muslims are supposed to give; or perhaps the month of Ramadan, recently concluded, during which Muslims avoid all forms of sensual pleasure (most notably eating, drinking, and smoking) during the daylight hours. Especially in the month between Thanksgiving and Christmas, attention to how a religious tradition can work against gluttony would not be a bad thing to point out. In any event, if you're not willing to say something real, it seems unhelpful to say something so empty.
--Charles T. Mathewes is an associate professor of religious ethics and the history of Christian thought at the University of Virginia and the author of A THEOLOGY OF PUBLIC LIFE (Cambridge University Press, 2007).
Salam Al-Marayati, director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, says Muslims are increasingly becoming part of the American political process. But, he adds, many in his community are frustrated that candidates aren't more open about accepting Muslim support.
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