Video
Twitter
Facebook
RSS Feed
The Politics of Piety
Without quite naming names, Mitt Romney stood before the press and public in Texas yesterday and harked back “almost 50 years ago” to a time when “another candidate from Massachusetts explained that he was an American running for president, not a Catholic running for president. Like him, I am an American running for president. I do not define my candidacy by my religion.”
Romney was talking about John F. Kennedy, of course. But let me say, having just read that speech given almost half a century ago, Mitt Romney you are no Jack Kennedy.
What’s so striking today about the remarks from the 1960 campaign is the essentially secular convictions that lay behind them. Kennedy didn’t deny his faith, but said bluntly it just wasn’t that important. “We have far more critical issues to face in the 1960 election,” he declared right at the outset. “War and hunger and ignorance and despair know no religious barriers.” In those days the bigots attacking Kennedy for being Catholic could be portrayed as uneducated, retrograde – indeed, primitive – demagogues. It was they who would impose dogma on democracy, not Kennedy. The debate could be framed as one between rational leadership and irrational religiosity.
Unfettered by a need to appear pious, Kennedy struck a tone more of sorrow than anger: “So it is apparently necessary for me to state once again--not what kind of church I believe in, for that should be important only to me--but what kind of America I believe in.” The issues he addressed then had more to do with ethnic and social prejudice than theological distinctions: “If this election is decided on the basis that 40 million [Catholic] Americans lost their chance of being President on the day they were baptized, then it is the whole nation that will be the loser,” said Kennedy. He leaves no question of divided allegiance, precisely, because in his view “the separation of church and state is absolute.”
I’d like to hear all the presidential candidates use that word "absolute." I’d like to hear one say, as Kennedy did, that what kind of church he or she believes in is important only to him or her. I’d like to hear them declare in the late president’s exact words, “I want a Chief Executive whose public acts are responsible to all groups and obligated to none--who can attend any ceremony, service or dinner his office may appropriately require of him--and whose fulfillment of his Presidential oath is not limited or conditioned by any religious oath, ritual or obligation.”
But Romney would never suggest for a second that there are more critical issues than his religion. That’s not the tenor of these Bible-toting times. So the attitude that Romney struck was, if not holier, then as-holy-as-thou in a field where his key rival coming up in Iowa is a former Baptist preacher.
The result in Romney’s speech is an uncomfortable relativism, ranking oaths in order of importance while invoking Founding Fathers as if they were church elders. “As a young man, Lincoln described what he called America's 'political religion' - the commitment to defend the rule of law and the Constitution,” said Romney. “When I place my hand on the Bible and take the oath of office, that oath becomes my highest promise to God.” So, he’ll have two religions, the Mormon one and the political one? But only if he gets elected? Such are the contortions imposed by today’s politics of piety.
By
Christopher Dickey
|
December 10, 2007; 6:58 AM ET
Save & Share:
Previous: Mitt Romney's American Religion |
Next: Important, but Too Political
Posted by: Paganplace | December 11, 2007 5:47 AM
Report Offensive Comment
Don't suppose while the Republicans are saying we should all be so tolerant of Mormons, that there might be a little room in our society for lil' ol' me?
This is usually-presented as a negative, I know, 'If we let those *other* protestants use our kids for a captive audience, what hapens if a *Wiccan* shows up and says Pagan people didn't actually write Harry Potter?! It'll be chaos!
I would say that, while Romney's trying to get his corporate sponsored bit of theocracy, maybe when people who want further irresponsible tax cuts and cry 'Tolerance!' could leave a little something for about a quarter of Americans who *don't* kneel before the God he publicly proclaims as Lord of America?
That phrase just don't sound right to some of us.
Go figure.
Posted by: Paganplace | December 11, 2007 5:37 AM
Report Offensive Comment
Franco: In this case I don't need to know his heart because the contradictory statements are in the speech. Just one example - he quotes the constitution's "no religious test" clause as the reason he shouldn't be asked about his faith's dogma, then turns right around and says Jesus is his Lord and Saviour (because that much of his faith will help him with evangelicals). That's hypocrisy right out of his mouth. Unless you are confining hypocrisy to saying one thing and doing another. Only a politician can accomplish saying one thing and then saying another.
Posted by: JoeT | December 10, 2007 8:00 PM
Report Offensive Comment
Not only is Mitt Romney no Jack Kennedy (is that good or bad?), he's not even the same Mitt Romney who was governor of Massachusetts.
Posted by: Alex Benes | December 9, 2007 3:44 PM
Report Offensive Comment
joet: Why do you call Romney a hypocrit? Do you know his heart?
Posted by: franco | December 7, 2007 3:28 PM
Report Offensive Comment
Mr. Dickey, what you meant to say is that Jack Kennedy is no Mitt Romney!! You are right in that religion did not play a significant part in
JFK's life. He was bedding down every lady in the WH!! While Mitt has been a faithful husband. Romney's speech was eloquent, sincere, and powerful. JFK was only mouthing words he did not mean.
Posted by: Franco | December 7, 2007 3:25 PM
Report Offensive Comment
The speech was total hypocrisy. First, it was not about the general public fearing Mormons (they don't - George Romney and Mo Udall ran without the subject ever coming up). It was (as Charles Krauthamer writes today) about Huckabee in Iowa claiming to be the Christian, and polls showing evangelicals in Iowa squirming at a Mormon. Second, he invokes the "no religious test for office" clause as a convenient way of not describing his religion, then turns around and proclaims Jesus his lord and saviour (so he can fool evangelicals into not paying attention to the fact that no evangelical theologian thinks Mormons are christians), and then proclaims that you have to have some religion to be an American at all (atheists are not welcome). despicable.
Posted by: JoeT | December 7, 2007 2:24 PM
Report Offensive Comment
The comments to this entry are closed.
"franco:
"joet: Why do you call Romney a hypocrit? Do you know his heart?"
How bout what he said? This so shouldn't even be about him being a Mormon. Even if you don't like that, it should have to *get in line.*