Article VI Blog

Wisdom from Richard John Neuhaus - second item. (In case you are new here, we interviewed him a while back.) Lowell adds: As John knows, I find Fr. Neuhaus's view of Mormonism disappointing. Everything he writes on the subject carries a whiff of snooty condescension. But Neuhaus is right about the big issue here. He calls his comments

a response to Jacob Weisberg and others who would use religion to oppose a candidate for the presidency in a manner not substantively different from their use of religion in opposing the present incumbent of the White House. One need only recall the innumerable rants against a president who is born again, prays daily, thinks he has a hotline to God, and is bent upon replacing our constitutional order with a theocracy. In the game book of unbridled partisanship, any stick will do for beating up on the opposition.

The AP declares Romney "top tier." What took 'em so long?

Does any of this matter?

Is the Boston Globe trying to make the religious alliances Romney has built look bad? Given the Globe's coverage to date, one is forced to reply - OF COURSE! And the next day the Globe continues to try and drive the wedge. Mostly by splitting hairs most people will never see and dredging up history long dead and past.

Lowell adds: The article is largely accurate, in my view, but its premise is rather silly: The Mormon Church is less fixed in its position on many issues than most politically conservative Evangelicals are; Romney is a Mormon; therefore, he's not really in step with those voters. If both Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush can be Evangelicals, and both Harry Reid and Mitt Romney can be Mormons, doesn't that suggest we ought to be looking at a candidate's positions on the issues and not those of the candidate's church?

Space here does not allow a thorough "fisking" of the Globe piece, but I offer a couple of examples of misleading or half-baked statements:

Mormons today are among the nation's most patriotic groups, but many retain a sharp sense of their minority status.

Really? I'm a sixth-generation, life-long Mormon and I have rarely heard my church described this way by other Mormons. I do see such descriptions in the MSM, however.

Romney's stances on key issues dear to the religious right may actually make him more conservative than his own church.

This is a strange statement to read in an article that later reports (accurately) that the LDS Church is politically neutral. How can a church that is adamantly neutral on politics be described as "conservative?"

The Globe reports a little better on Romney and bloggers. Comments on same from Powerline and Hugh Hewitt. Now here is what I want to know - as far as I can tell, Lowell and I were the first bloggers on Romney to report face-to-faces with him. Uber-blogger Hewitt said of us on the air back in October when I was on the show that our blog formation was archetypal. We are also one of the few doing any original journalism. So why aren't we getting the press?

Pretty much the same interview with Human Events as Hugh Hewitt last week. There is a religion question though.

Mormons and Conspiracy

Rumors and rumors of rumors. While this stuff is mostly political, I think we are starting to see some cross-over in the issues. Here's my thinking. Much of creedal Christian, and especially evangelical, thought about Mormons is conspiratorial in nature. That is to say the Mormons look to them as some sort of large conspiracy to do…whatever. This means Mormons are viewed as inherently deceptive, creating misdirection, all the while plotting.

This is why Romney's apparent "evolution," and stories of related campaign team disputes, are having a lot of negative traction - a lot more traction than it has with other candidates in the past. There is simply a "built-in" prejudice on which the contention can play. I don't know of any campaign in presidential history where there has not been in-fighting.

And now real frankness, the nature of Mormon community and regionality in my experience, with some notable exceptions like my partner here Lowell, is insular. I believe this feeds this conspiratorial suspicion. What's funny is with Evangelicals home-schooling, setting up church campuses with everything from McDonald's to gyms to housing, they never see they are doing the same sorts of insular things. Here again, in different form, is the most important argument regarding having Romney's faith factor into a decision on who to vote for. If we, as creedal Christians, discriminate on the basis of Romney's faith, we open the door for others to do so on the basis of ours.

Regardless, the nature and effects of prejudice are hard to pin down, and very difficult to overcome. I think this presents a very unique political challenge, one perhaps more difficult than many, myself included, had anticipated. As blacks entered the mainstream of American life, it was said they had to do everything better by a factor of at least two to appear to be doing it the same. Will that standard apply to a Mormon presidential candidate? I didn't think so, but I am beginning to wonder?

Lowell adds: It is difficult to speak of a large, growing, and increasingly diverse group (and that's what Mormons are, by virtually all accounts) without generalizing. So I'll make some broad statements and then qualify them.

The less is known about a discrete and insular minority, the more that group is feared. I suspect that one result of Mitt Romney's candidacy is that Mormons will be less-feared than ever, simply due to the reduction in ignorance about them. (Those who share Al Mohler's worry about the "mainstreaming" of Mormonism will not see this as a positive development. We've addressed that here.) As ignorance is reduced, Mormon conspiracy theories should also decrease.

Even so, we Mormons do tend to be an insular bunch. Anyone's view of that phenomenon — a common one among religious groups– is inherently subjective. I believe that the greater the concentration of Mormons, the more insular they tend to be. Utah Mormons, for example, will be more insular than Massachusetts Mormons. That is a broad generalization, and it must be understood as such; there are many exceptions. Members of any faith group that sees itself as "called out from the world," or with a special mission to perform, as Mormons, Evangelicals, or Orthodox Jews see themselves, will tend to band together against the world, at least in religious terms. But, as John correctly notes, because Mormons are less well-known, their banding together is more likely to be seen as conspiratorial.

Much of the older news media has not been very helpful with this problem; many writers seem inclined to focus on anecdotal evidence of Mormon provinciality. For example, I was once visiting Provo, Utah, where BYU is located, interviewing BYU law students. It happened to be a day or two before the University of Washington played at BYU in football. A reporter from a Seattle paper interviewed Provo residents about BYU and the campus's wholesome atmosphere. A local woman who clearly was just trying to be friendly to the reporter was quoted in such a way as to make her look like a naif about the world, and something of a quaint oddball. Knowing the town and the culture, I could see what was happening; but few Seattle readers of the newspaper story would see that.

Anyway, the campaign will inevitably bring lots of MSM and blogospheric attention to the Church. Although both John and I think that's potentially dangerous to the extent a candidate's association with a religious group becomes a basis for voting decisions, I don't think ignorance about Mormons (or Mormon ignorance about Evangelicals) serves anyone's interests.

It's been said that John F. Kennedy was able to succeed in 1960 because of Al Smith's unsuccessful effort in 1928. Will Mitt Romney succeed in 2008 because of his father George Romney's unsuccessful effort in 1968? Or do Mormon politicians have a ways to go before their faith is not an obstacle to election as president? Putting it another way, is Mitt Romney the Mormon Al Smith or the Mormon John Kennedy?

John adds: In the joint and spur-of-the-moment appearance on Hugh Hewitt's radio program by Lowell and I from which this blog sprang, I commented off-handedly that Kennedy was the best analogy and Hugh responded that it was Al Smith. After all we have heard and seen in the ensuing months, it would be interesting to revisit that discussion with Hugh.

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