Enough of the Mormon Question

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Especially if you came from Mormon Archipelago as it only includes my major article posts.
Thanks for visiting!

A NY Times Op-Ed suggests that Mitt Romney should use his Regent University commencement address as the time to discuss his Mormon faith before an evangelical audience.  Kenneth Woodward follows the reasoning of many others in believing that Romney needs to be a “teacher” and explain his Mormon beliefs to the American public, similar to what JFK had to in 1960 with regards to his Catholicism.

Woodward purportedly describes many of the public perceptions of Mormons but grossly overstates and misrepresents many qualities to make us out as a secretive group known for our “clannishness” (interesting choice of words).  Supposedly, “[to] many Americans, Mormonism is a church with the soul of a corporation.” And “any journalist who has covered the church knows that Mormons speak one way among themselves, another among outsiders.”

Mitt Romney has had to confront his Mormon beliefs in nearly every interview and I believe he has deftly handled the question by responding that he is running as commander-in-chief not as theologian-in-chief, and he cannot speak for his church on religious matters.  The closest he comes to addressing his beliefs is explaining that they have made him and his family better people and the public is free to judge that for themselves. 

By addressing his religious beliefs Romney only opens up himself to even more religious questioning and he would be validating a line of questioning that shouldn’t be part of a presidential candidate.  I am wary of my fellow Mormons developing a victim’s mentality, but Hugh Hewitt is correct to ask if the same statements were made about  another religion would be seen as plain bigotry.

UPDATE:  Jonathan Green at Times & Seasons does an excellent take down on specific points of the article from an LDS perspective while Ed Morrissey has excellent (non-LDS) comments too.