If Thomas Jefferson is turning over in his grave today it is because he is doing cartwheels of delight. Mitt Romney's speech hit all the right notes to mollify the concerns of believers, especially evangelical Protestants, about his Mormon faith. Non-believers may be less impressed than the so-called values voters. But all of those evaluating Romney's remarks are debtors to Jefferson's advice on how to live with someone who doesn't share your views about things divine: "But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."
The Jeffersonian moment in Romney's speech came not when he said, along with John F. Kennedy, that his duty as president would be to uphold the Constitution, not the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Whether they know it or not, American Protestants do owe a great debt to Jefferson's understanding of the separation of church and state, and at one time evangelical denominations like the Baptists and Methodists knew this and gave their political support to politicians like the third president of the United States. In contrast, Mormons like Romney and Roman Catholics knew first hand that Protestants did not always play by the rules of separation to which they gave lip service. While Protestants could (and did) appeal to Jefferson's ideal to prevent Roman Catholics from receiving public aid for parochial schools, those same Protestants required the residents of the Utah territory to prohibit polygamy as a condition for being admitted to the Union. American Protestants also had little trouble spotting the potential for conflict between vows to uphold the U.S. Constitution and, say, Alfred Smith's or JFK's beliefs as Roman Catholics or Senator Reed Smoot's duties as an elder in the Mormon Church. They had greater difficulty detecting the possible opposition between their own reverence for God's holy word as revealed in the Bible and their loyalty to the Constitution, which did not mention their God. American believers have generally played fast and loose with the separation of church and state, and yesterday Romney competed with the best of them.
The actual Jeffersonian moment came just before his appeal to the separation of church and state. Romney ran through the religious virtues of fellow believers, from the profundity of the Roman Catholic Mass to the prayer life of Muslims. He then said, "It is important to recognize that while differences in theology exist between the churches in America, we share a common creed of moral convictions." The "great moral principles," he explained, "urge us on a common course." Romney could have said it as bluntly as Jefferson did, but he affirmed Jefferson's view that theology doesn't matter compared to ethics. An American may believe that Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary, that there are three persons in one God, or that men and women have the potential to become gods. But as long as he or she believes in the nation's great moral principles they make darned good neighbors.
In case they missed it, evangelical Protestants painted Romney into a corner, and he used their own brand of faith-based politics to escape. For over a quarter of a century the religious right has insisted that faith should be a crucial factor in national life. The logic varies, but the premises seemed to run something like this: public officials should be people of character; religious faith produces character; ergo public officials need faith. As long as the officials comfortable with this logic were Christian, whether Protestant or Roman Catholic (not to mention Republican), the argument retained its apodictic quality. But once a Mormon appealed to the argument, problems ensued. Some Christians began to think that generic faith is not sufficient but that the actual contents of one's faith, namely, doctrine, is important. For some reason, that concern did not apply to Pentecostal politicians who believe in speaking in tongues or Roman Catholics who believe in purgatory. This is because most of the arguments for faith-based politics were conveniently silent about the dots connecting faith, theology, and ethics. Advocates for religion in public life sided with Jefferson by valuing ethics more than doctrine.
Of course, Jefferson was not the first president to take a pragmatic view of the intricacies of the divine mysteries. During the decade when Congress added "In God We Trust" to the nation's coins and "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance, Dwight Eisenhower guaranteed that the deity being affirmed would remain vague and abstract: "Our form of government has no sense unless it is founded in a deeply felt religious faith, and I don't care what it is." Romney echoed that sentiment yesterday when he affirmed all of America's major faiths.
Rather than being faulted for squishy ecumenism, Romney should be credited for cleverness to figure out that the advocates of religion in public life have never been overly concerned about theological orthodoxy. In a subtle way, he was saying to American believers that if you're going to make an issue of my Mormon faith, then you should likely reconsider your great admiration for the likes of Ronald Reagan, Abraham Lincoln, and George Washington. And although secularists may have felt that Romney excluded them from his considerations yesterday, his warning has as much salience for those who take inspiration from Martin Luther King, Jr. as those who listen to James Dobson. Practically everyone in America these days is willing to live with Jefferson's solution. As long as religion comes out on the right side of political debate, by all means, let's affirm it.
-- D. G. Hart is the author most recently of A SECULAR FAITH: WHY CHRISTIANITY FAVORS THE SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE (Ivan R. Dee, 2006).
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