I don’t have anything interesting to say about Mitt Romney’s religion speech, but, as it happens, yesterday I was hanging out with an out-of-town Mormon friend. I asked him what he thought of Romney’s speech. He didn’t like it because he doesn’t think Mormonism should strive to be mainstream. He said he has never thought of himself as a Christian and doesn’t like the idea of Mormonism being subsumed under a generic quasi-evangelical Christianity. He prefers, he said, that Mormonism remain on the margins. Also, he’s a liberal Democrat who is torn between supporting Clinton and Obama and complained that Romney is betraying Mormon values with his support of “enhanced interrogation,” Gitmo, etc. Though he readily concedes that his aren’t typical views among his co-religionists.
"Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed" – Blaise Pascal
One response to “Another view”
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When I was in seminary, I took a class from Os Guinness. He had a lot of criticisms of the religious right as it existed in the late 1980’s. One thing I particularly remember was his criticism of Pat Robertson. Robertson was whining that people were holding his faith against him, in a way they had not done against John F. Kennedy. Guinness got very heated and said that Kennedy went out of his way to assure the American people that his faith would not be an obstacle to him being the best president he could be, and that no church authority would stand over any of his decisions. This was what he needed to do and did. This is what Robertson had failed to do.
Romney did exactly what he needed to do. I think his talking of how he should not be seen as a spokesman for Mormonism should be taken seriously. He should not be the one with a responsibility to teach his religious distinctives.
I would not vote for Romney for other reasons. But in this area, I find him exemplary.
A Thinking Reed 
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