Article VI Blog

Romney was interviewed by a seriously evangelical radio station in Dallas on Friday. I have worked in Dallas a great deal - these people bleed evangelicalism. The very fact of the interview is great, it shows increasing acceptance amongst Evangelicals. A partial transcript was published in a press release to promote the interview. Most telling excerpt:

When asked about how his Mormon faith could impact his campaign:

ROMNEY: "I get a lot of questions from folks, particularly in the media, on what impact they think my faith will have. But what I find when I talk to people, evangelical Christians and others, is that they very badly want a person of faith to lead the country. They don't care so much about the brand of faith as they do the values of the person." [emphasis added]

It is becoming increasingly apparent that The Question is far more a media creation than it is a question with voters. Increasingly, the wisdom of Hugh Hewitt's comment when we interviewed him is becoming apparent:

I think eventually he is going to say, "asked and answered."

Bigotry gets it upside the head in South Carolina. Poor Ms. Mosteller, so much venom, so little effect.

Lowell: This means one or both of the following: (1) Romney's organization is excellent, and overcame both Mosteller's attempt (not yet disavowed by McCain) to play the religion card; and (2) her attempt was simply rejected by the good people of Charleston County, South Carolina.

Speaking of religious attacks, Frank Pastore wrote on The Question at Townhall. He seems to want to make the attack without causing damage. (Yes, that is oxymoronic.) He has it correct when he says:

Though I could vote for Romney, my ballot should not be seen as an endorsement of Mormonism. Conservative Mormons are among the finest people I've ever met, and they are critical allies in the culture war.

Frankly, I have theological problems with Methodists, so I should say the same thing about W….

I think Frank suffers from a bit of Mormon-paranoia, and therefore lapses into what, when viewed from the perspective of a presidential election, are theological irrelevancies and as I understand Mormon belief, inaccuracies. But at least he gets to where he needs to be.

He speaks more as a pastor than a political commentator, and is very much of the Al Mohler school of approach to this issue, though unlike Mohler taking the plunge to admit he could vote for a Mormon. While arriving in the right place, particularly as compared to Mohler, he goes to pains to describe how Mormons are still "weird," "wrong," and "dangerous." He even dips into the "cult" word. I am reminded of some of my older Mississippi relatives when they were confronted with their first black elected official. They learned how to live with it, but they never could break themselves of the "N-word" habit. It was a difficult time in the history of the area. The whites had to exercise patience with regards to their prejudices and the blacks had to allow the epithets to slide off their back for the sake of progress.

Pastore is a step ahead of many of his brethren, he is trying to figure out how to get the job done while holding onto his prejudices. Prejudices which, like all prejudices, are based on undeniable differences blended with falsehoods and misrepresentations, and are irrelevant to the task at hand. But at least he is working to get the job done.

Lowell adds: I find Frank Pastore's very tepid endorsement of a vote for a Mormon much less encouraging than John does. Consider: Hugh Hewitt wrote in his book that Romney should have a stable of “high profile Christians of the most orthodox sort” who can step forward at key moments and urge Evangelicals to vote for him. That makes sense to me.

What we have in Pastore's piece is not that; instead, we have an Evangelical talk show host saying, in essence, Romney belongs to a cult that is not Christian, is polytheist, and holds to several other shocking doctrines, but "I'll vote for [him] if he wins the Republican nomination." He comes right up to the edge of saying, "I think it's all right for Evangelicals to hold their noses and vote for Romney, if they have to." Along the way he makes statements about Romney's religion that are misleading or highly debatable at best, and simply wrong at worst.

I don't think that's what is needed. If many more high-profile orthodox Christian voices say the same things, Romney and Evangelicals alike will suffer– Romney in his efforts to get nominated, and those Christian voice in their desire to avoid being marginalized.

A fascinating take on The Question from a Jewish perspective. Somehow this guy manages to come out for a Mormon candidate and take a side-swipe at Evangelicals in the same piece. I'm not sure he gets it. He says:

The reason is simple. In common with Judaism, Mormonism is a tolerant religion…

So, largely is Evangelicalism, which does not simply share this with Judaism, but like Mormonism claims Judaism as a common root. Every faith brand has its intolerant sub-group, that's why we should not cast out Mormons, Evangelicals, or anyone else. In the immortal words of Donny Osmond, "One bad apple don't spoil the whole bunch, girl."

An emailer sent us some interesting statistics:

Google News:

A. "Mitt Romney": 8,785 hits

B. "Mitt Romney" Mormon: 7,684 hits.

C. About 87% (B/A) of current news articles about Mitt Romney "just happen" to mention that he is a Mormon.

Doing the same comparison for "Rudy Giuliani" and "Catholic" we find that only 2 percent of news stories happen to mention his faith. If we look at "John McCain" and "Episcopalian" we find that only 0.01% of news stories mention his faith. The evidence of media bias is overwhelming.

I could see this kind of disparity if Romney were making his faith an issue, but he is not. I have never heard him bring it up save in response to a question. The numbers are different if one looks at web hits instead of news stories, but the trend is very much the same. Increasingly it becomes obvious that the MSM is Romney's biggest obstacle, not his faith.

Speaking of which, a Utah politics site has one of those brief posts which seems to want to have it both ways by insulting everbody, but contains one quote that is remarkably dead nuts on.

Candidates for both parties have been neglecting Utah for ages, with Repubs counting us as “in the bag” and Demos treating us like box office poison.

That is very insightful when it comes to remembering where the most vociferous religious attacks comes from.

Lowell adds: A late link: On CommonConservative, a Catholic husband and wife blogging team make the case that Romney's religion should not be a factor. Their conclusion:

In our eyes, his religion is off limits. The MSM and their Left-leaning minions will try to make as much out of his religion as they can, hoping to drive a wedge between him and the electorate. It is up to us to ignore that line of attack, and focus on his merits as a former chief executive. Thomas is correct: If we give into this sort of rhetoric, we are no different than the Left, or the anti-Mormon crowd. It would definitely be a shame to hold his faith above him, and judge him by that rather than his accomplishments. Above all, we will be giving the Left the perfect weapon to attack all others with in the future, and that is something we cannot condone or support.

Amen!

Apparently Gov. Romney has more talent than I thought.