Mitt Romney Blows It With Speech On Faith

Today, Presidential candidate and devout Mormon Mitt Romney gave a speech on his faith and how it would influence his presidency.  There has been talk for some time about whether or not he would address the issue.  John F. Kennedy had to do a similar thing in 1959-1960 when he was attempting to become the first Catholic President, since there were concerns about how much the Vatican would run the White House.  Likewise with Romney, there are concerns about how his Mormon faith, which many people (including me) consider a cult would affect his administration.  Make no mistake, Romney would prefer to avoid the “Mormon issue” but his recent slide in the polls is forcing him to address this religous “elephant in the room.”  After listening to Romney’s speech I would have to say I was less than impressed and in many ways disappointed.  Here’s why…           

I would have preferred to hear Romney basically say:  “Look.  I know a lot of you think my religion is pretty kooky…and that’s OK.  But even though we may disagree, I’m still a good leader and a good manager.  I have high moral standards and I’ll make a good President, etc., etc., etc.”  If he would have said that (albeit in a little more polished way than I just did) I would have at least come away respecting a politician whom I agree with on many issues, yet disagree with totally on religion.  Instead, Romney threw down the universalist card.  He essentially said that all religions are the same and that “all religions help their adherents to be drawn closer to God.”  Really?  That’s news to me.  In fact that would be news to most Mormons as well.  And a Biblical Christian certainly couldn’t agree with it.  Jesus, who said, “No one comes to the Father apart from me” (John 14:6) would most certainly disagree with Romney’s statement as well.  This statement was a spineless and abhorrent remark that was meant to give him goodwill in the eyes of people from all “faiths”—-but I think it might have sunk him when it’s all said and done.  Evangelical Christians, who have had such an impact on recent elections will no doubt bristle at such universalist proclamations coming from a Mormon cultist.  In the end, this could cost Romney votes, and possibly the nomination.  But then again, most Americans won’t hear the speech….only the sound bites and comments from the pundits.  And most leaders, even conservative Christian ones, have spoke highly of the speech.  Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention, Ralph Reed, formerly of the Christian Coalition, and Pat Buchannon all praised Romney’s remarks.  It makes me wonder if they were listening to the same speech I was.  To be honest, they all sounded more like Politicians than they did Prophets….but that’s a blog for another day.           

Secondly, I was annoyed to hear Romney bring up the “no religious test in America” argument.  Frankly, I’m sick of secularists (or cultists or whoever) telling me we have “no religious test” to hold office in this country.  Let’s be very clear about what the Constitution says.  We are prohibited, as a nation, from forcing anyone to pass a “religious test” in order to RUN FOR OR HOLD OFFICE.  (Article 6, Section 3)  But we are not forbidden from taking a person’s faith into account when deciding whether or not we, as individuals WOULD VOTE  for the person.  Do you see the difference?  Romney’s statement would perhaps hold water if anyone were trying to keep him from running for office since he’s a Mormon.  But no one is trying to do that.  Some are just simply saying that they are so uncomfortable with his beliefs that they might consider voting for someone else whom they are more comfortable with.  That is NOT an unconstitutional religious test….that is simply free Americans exercising their right to vote for whomever they wish.

            One more thought on this speech.  It makes me a little uneasy to hear any candidate imply that he keeps his “faith” in a separate category from his political decisions and would therefore be uninfluenced by what he believes.  In reality, your faith (what you believe about God) SHOULD influence decisions in every aspect of one’s life.  And if your faith isn’t important enough to you to do that…..then you need to chuck that faith and get a real one…..a different one….a true one…..in short….a Christian one.           

Mormonism is NOT Christianity.  In fact the founders of Mormonism DIDN’T WANT to be associated with Christianity.  Today, many Mormons DO want to be associated with Christianity….yet the basic tenets of the religion are WAY outside Scriptural teaching.  I won’t address that here since I’ve already done it in a previous article, (which you can read by clicking here).  But I will say that we have every right to take a candidate’s “faith” into account when considering whether or not to vote for them.  And Romney did more to sour me on his candidacy than he did endear me to it.  In fact Romney’s statements might have even lost him some votes with Mormons, which would be highly ironic.           

I’ll close with this statement….. If Romney ends up winning the nomination and goes against Hillary, Obama, Edwards, or anyone else in the general election, I will support Romney 100%.  All elections come down to picking a lesser of two evils….and I’ll pick the Conservative Cultist over the Liberal Atheist/Secularist any day.  But my hope would be a “door number 3” and I have a pretty good idea who I would like to see standing behind it (click here to find out).  We’ll see how it shakes out in the end. 

This entry was posted on December 6, 2007 at 7:16 pm and is filed under Politicians. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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