The Comma

Republican presidential primary candidate Mitt Romney gave a speech last week that he called, “Faith in America.”  An interesting double entendre.  He was speaking as a Mormon, trying to connect I think with the Christian conservatives who have been such a strong base for the Republican Party in the last eight years.  I know why he had to make the speech.  He was speaking to the folks who shaped my first beliefs when I became a Christian forty years ago, at the age of sixteen.  And these are the folks who taught that Mormons weren’t really Christians.  I understand his problem. 

On the other hand, he was also reaching out to others in the country as well, who don’t know much about who Mormons are either.  Like the Catholics in the late fifties when Kennedy gave his own “don’t be scared of me” speech, there are a lot of stereotypes about Mormonism that might not serve a mainstream politician very well.  As a matter of fact, in the very conservative church of my youth, Catholics were also suspect.  One religious leader in my former denomination labeled the pope the antichrist.

So since he brought it up, I also want to comment on “America and faith.”  There was much about his speech that I appreciated.  But let me be clear.  My faith is in God.  And the fact that anyone has to make a “don’t be scared of me because of my religion” speech in this country highlights the problem that Romney faces, and that is what I wish he had tackled more directly. 

Let me give you an example.  At the beginning of his speech Romney listed some of the challenges facing our nation today, and the first was that “radical, violent Islam seeks to destroy us.”  Well, for someone who is trying to diffuse fear of religious differences and invite us to resist stereotypes, that was an interesting choice of words.  I would suggest that it is any unhealthy wedding of religious literalistic fundamentalism with nationalism that seeks to destroy other nations, and that the temptation of such a dangerous wedding is not unique to any particular faith, or any particular country.  When Romney names Islam as the enemy, even qualifying it as he does, he has misdiagnosed the religious issue.  And in a speech about religion and fear, it is a very unfortunate misdiagnosis.

I think Romney missed that point later on in the speech as well, when he assured us that “no authorities of my church, or of any other church for that matter, will ever exert influence on political decisions.  Their authority is theirs,” he says, “within the province of church affairs, and it ends where the affairs of the nation begin.”  What?  My faith doesn’t call me to political action?  That’s not the Jesus I know. 

Of course I am definitely not suggesting that we try to establish a theocracy.  I certainly agree with Romney on that point.  But I would maintain that my faith does affect my political decisions, and rightly so.  In the same way I am suspicious of the wedding of fundamentalism and nationalism, I am uncomfortable with the divorce of faith and politics.  When a person of faith tells me he or she is able to do that I am suspicious of their honesty or their self-awareness, and I desperately want an honest, self-aware president. 

 What I did appreciate hearing from Romney was that he considered the oath of office he might take as president a religious commitment as well:  “When I place my hand on the Bible and take the oath of office, that oath becomes my highest promise to God.”  Here he is agreeing with former president, man of faith, and democrat Jimmy Carter.  And here he is saying that his faith will affect his political decisions.  I can live with that. But what I really want to hear any person running for president in our “separation of church and state” country say about their faith is something Romney did not say.  My faith (and I think at their heart all the great religions) teaches me that love of God and love of neighbor are at the center of life.  In all that I do, in my work, in my relationships, in my decisions, I endeavor, by the grace of God, to be faithful to that teaching. But instead of that reassurance, as if to worry me even more, Romney ended his speech with the now apparently obligatory closing words “God bless America.”  I am hungry for a leader for this country who will stop asking for God’s attention for our already abundantly blessed nation and instead start to listen to God’s heart for an aching world. 

Peace.

Catherine Foote