Mitt Romney, Evangelicals, and the Mormon Church

Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney seems to be interested in running for president. He runs a liberal state, but has been moving to the right on some issues in an apparent attempt to solidify right-wing support. The fact that he is a Mormon, though, may mean that his chances are dead before he even tries.

Amy Sullivan explains:

His obstacle is the evangelical base—a voting bloc that now makes up 30 percent of the Republican electorate and that wields particular influence in primary states like South Carolina and Virginia. Just as it is hard to overestimate the importance of evangelicalism in the modern Republican Party, it is nearly impossible to overemphasize the problem evangelicals have with Mormonism. Evangelicals don’t have the same vague anti-LDS prejudice that some Americans do. For them it’s a doctrinal thing, based on very specific theological disputes that can’t be overcome by personality or charm or even shared positions on social issues. Romney’s journalistic boosters either don’t understand these doctrinal issues or try to sidestep them. But ignoring them won’t make them go away. To evangelicals, Mormonism isn’t just another religion. It’s a cult. [...]

Evangelical Christians consider Mormonism a threat in a way that Catholicism and even Judaism are not. The LDS Church, they charge, has perverted Christian teachings to create a false religion. As John L. Smith, a Southern Baptist who runs Utah Mission—an organization that tries to convert Mormons—told Christianity Today: “Mormonism is either totally true or totally false. If it’s true, every other religion in America is false.” To be tolerant of Mormonism is to put evangelical Christianity at risk. And to put a Mormon in the White House would be to place a stamp of approval on that faith.

In theory, a person’s religion shouldn’t matter very much — but it’s ironic that Romney’s own party has made religion a central issue in political campaigns, and that’s what would most likely stand in the way of his political future:

All of this leaves Romney in a real pickle. Thus far, he’s tried to follow in the tradition of other Massachusetts politicians and “pull a John Kennedy,” declaring personal faith irrelevant to his qualifications for office. This is a nonstarter. We live in a political era in which, thanks largely to Republicans, candidates are virtually required to talk openly about their religious views. There is no way a Republican, especially in a GOP primary, can avoid the issue—if for no other reason than the press won’t let them.

It’s only because he lives in a generally liberal state, I suspect, that has allowed him to progress as far as he has. Romney is the sort of conservative candidate who can appeal to a broad range of voters — he says things that appeal to traditional conservatives but he doesn’t say thing that make moderates imagine that he is an extremist (even if they disagree with him). The evangelical choke-hold on the Republican Party, though, ensures that no one outside their religious circles stands much of a chance getting the GOP nomination for President.

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