As Romney gets ready to run for President, Christians need to avoid making arguments that can easily be turned against their own views. I have argued that Romney’s Mormonism should not disqualify him from office. I stand by that argument, though I have not yet decided who is best qualified to be President this early in the cycle.
I have also warned that secularists would use the Romney run to demonize religious believers. This has started already. As one case, let me present the following with my responses included in the article:
On private belief and public office
By Jacob Weisberg
Published: December 20 2006 21:01 | Last updated: December 20 2006 21:01
Someone who refuses to consider voting for a woman as president is rightly deemed a sexist. Someone who would never vote for a black person is a racist. But are you a religious bigot if you would not cast a ballot for a believing Mormon?
I reply:
Yes, if you do not have good reasons for your case. If you simply wave your hands and claim that Mormonism is “silly” and that anyone who accepts it is “irrational” then you have left off reasoning and taken to the argument style of the bigot.
Religious bigotry is real and is dangerous. This is particularly true of triumphalist secularism that treats religion with disdain.
Extreme forms of such secularism harmed millions of people in the past . . . leading to the murder of millions in the last century by atheists in places like the Soviet Union. As a result of this record, more moderate secularists should use extreme care and sensitivity in dealing with religion.
In the same manner, Christians have a special duty to avoid religious bigotry because of our mixed record, and in extreme cases our deplorable conduct, in the last hundred years towards Jewish persons and non-monotheistic religions.
Back to Weisberg:
The issue arises with the bid by Mitt Romney, governor of Massachusetts, for the Republican nomination in 2008. Mr Romney would not be the first member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints to run for the highest office in the US. He follows Utah Senator Orrin Hatch (2000), Utah Senator Mo Udall (1976), his father George Romney (1968) and, not least of all, Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, who ran in 1844 on a platform of “theodemocracy”, abolition of slavery and cutting congressional pay. Smith did not do much better than Mr Hatch and had to settle for the Mormon-elected post of King of the Kingdom of Heaven.
I say:
Lately, secularists have taken to sneering rather than arguing. They simply assume all thoughtful people agree . . . and move on.
When is a “silly” belief disqualifying? Very great men have believed very odd things . . . I would love to be tutored by Socrates (!) whatever his views on government.
But the new secularism has no time for nuance or self-doubt. If a man is religious, then secularists know him to be a fool, an idiot, or a cad. If a secular writer is bright enough, then he might get away with calling a believer all three!
To such folk there are good religious, folk like Cornel West, whose religious views are secularism with God-talk added.
Secularists who are fools, idiots, or cads (the dear leader of North Korea, the Hollywood secularist of the moment, and Stalin in no particular order) are merely misguided . . . or not true secularists to the modern writer of such rot.
Christianity may have helped invent modern science, the University, and produced much of the world’s great cultural treasures, but living Christianity is only to be despised, though to be fair any other religious group is hated just as heartily by these thoughtless secularists.
Historic context be damned, we are going to name call when it comes to Joseph Smith . . . though running as an abolitionist in 1844 is at least attractive.
Weisberg writes:
According to a recent poll, only 38 per cent of Americans say they would definitely consider voting for a Mormon for president. But many analysts seem to think LDS church membership is no longer an insuperable obstacle.
A number of conservative evangelicals continue to view Mormonism as heretical, non-Christian or even Satanic. But because of their shared faith in social conservatism, many evangelical leaders seem open to supporting Mr Romney. As far apart as they are, Mormons and evangelical Christians may have more in common with each other than they do with secular America.
I say:
This is exactly right and traditional Christians need to remember it.
Romney is our friend on social issues. . . not because he took a poll, but because he is a loyal man. Anybody who is willing to stick up for his faith community despite great personal and political cost (think how convenient it would be for Romney to “convert” to the Roman church) will not let us down if he tells us he will be with us on the moral issues.
Weisberg writes:
The remaining scepticism of evangelical leaders seems to have more to do with Mr Romney’s previously expressed moderate views on abortion and gay rights than with his creed.
I write:
Evangelical leaders can read the record. We can understand pushing for the “possible” in a New England state. Romney did not allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good . . . a decent description of the virtue of prudence.
Weisberg writes:
But if he gets anywhere in the primaries, Mr Romney’s religion will become an issue with non-religious voters – and rightly so. Objecting to someone because of what they believe is not the same thing as prejudice based on religious heritage, let alone race or gender. Not applying a religious test for public office means that people of all faiths are allowed to run – not that their views about God, creation and the moral order cannot be considered.
I say:
This is a very good point. Religion is a knowledge tradition. . . and the religion a man chooses says a good deal about him. However, the question relevant to political office is why he chose his religion. . . what his reasons for doing so were. . . and what impact it will have on making decisions.
In the case of Romney, it is obvious that Mormonism is part of his heritage, motivated by a strong love of traditional values, and a love of God. I don’t agree with Romney’s religious point of view. . . I do not think Mormons are Christians (in the traditional sense), but there is nothing about Romney’s Mormonism (as he has lived it) that suggests to me that it is irrational or dangerous to the Republic that he is a Mormon.
Weisberg says:
In President George W. Bush’s case, the public clearly paid to little attention to religion. In 2000 and 2004, the country failed to appreciate that while Mr Bush’s religious beliefs may be moderate, he relies on them immoderately, as an alternative to rational understanding of complex issues.
I write:
There is no evidence for this at all. This is a mere slander.
Weisberg writes:
Nor is it chauvinist to declare that certain religious views are disqualifying in and of themselves. There are millions of religious Americans who would never vote for an atheist for president because they believe that faith is necessary to lead the country.
I write:
Such believers are wrong. The problems related to atheism need not lead to disqualifying political views.
Best reason and experience tell me atheism is wrong. . . even dangerously wrong, but certain kinds of atheism pose less threat to the Republic than some forms of religion.
John Derbyshire worries me less than Cornel West.
While I think atheism wrong, I would rather have an atheist with the governing abilities of a Reagan or Teddy Roosevelt than a Christian like Jimmy Carter in office.
Weisberg writes:
Others would, quite reasonably, not vote for a religious fanatic or fundamentalist – a Christian who thinks that the earth is less than 6,000 years old or a Scientologist who thinks it is haunted by the souls of space aliens sent by the evil lord, Xenu.
I write:
I am a young earth creationist. Evidently that makes me (and Luther and John Chrysostom and almost half of America) unfit for a vote.
Despite the fact that we work in fully accredited schools with grad degrees and try to defend our position using logic and evidence. . . Weisberg thinks we are “nuts” and compares our faith to people who do none of those things.
Of course, Weisberg can name no policy implications that are necessary features of my young earth creationism. . . and has given no argument for his point of view . . . so he is left sounding like . . .well, a bigot.
Weisberg writes:
Such views are disqualifying because they are dogmatic, irrational and absurd. By holding them, someone indicates a basic failure to think for himself and see the world as it is.
I say:
I hold my traditional Christian beliefs (including creationism) is a Socratic manner, try to use reason in living a good life . . . though my love for the Packers may border on the absurd I don’t my religious views (or Romney’s) are.
The problem with Weisberg’s statement is not qualified in any way. Weisberg thinks some of my views absurd, dogmatic, and irrational and I assume that I could return the favor, but this is a very dangerous line of argument.
Where would this end? Does belief in the virgin birth qualify? What about the existence of Moses? Adam and Eve? Original Sin?
Nor is this view unique. Having written a first-year philosophy students defense of atheism, sort-of-conservative Heather McDonald recently responded to critics by saying:
As for the conservative intelligentsia, I was surprised-but that is my fault. I was ignorant and naive enough that somewhere in the back of my mind, I think, I might actually have assumed that presenting what strike me as pretty strong empirical arguments against the claim that God is just and loving, say, would end the matter. And I was unaware of the depth of commitment to the idea that religion is the source of values and that conservatism and religion are inseparably linked. For me, conservatism was about realism and reason.
I am indeed a traditional conservative because of realism and reason. Realism is why I believe in the divine since monism of any kind seems too simple to explain the world as it is . . . and reasons such as those given by Plato in his Laws (Book X) lead me to God.
It does not seem to dawn on Ms. McDonald that her arguments were juvenile (the sort the religious are forced to think through in freshman year of college) . . . and that her own secular education may have kept her from interacting much with ideas beyond her own facile secularism.
Modern secularism is so insulated in its few bastions of power that it can make good arguments outside of it.
Back to Weisberg:
By the same token, many secular Americans would reject anyone who believes the founding whoppers of Mormonism. The LDS Church holds that Joseph Smith, directed by the angel Moroni, unearthed a book of golden plates buried in a hillside in western New York in 1827. The plates were inscribed in “reformed” Egyptian hieroglyphics – a non-existent version of a language that had yet to be decoded with the help of the Rosetta stone. Smith was able to dictate his translation of The Book of Mormon by looking through diamond-encrusted decoding glasses and burying his face in a hat.
I say:
I am no great friend of Mormonism, but surely this is just slander. Why couldn’t God work this way? I believe there is good reason to believe he did odder things!
Such ideas seem absurd to Weisberg only because of his secularist assumptions. . . and Christians tempted to join in the laugh should remember Balaam’s ass, Noah’s ark, and the water turned to wine.
Weisberg writes:
He was an obvious conman. Mr Romney has every right to believe in conmen but he should not be running the country if he does.
I write:
Again we get a slander without evidence or much knowledge. I think Joseph Smith wrong, his spiritual experience at best mistaken, but dare not dismiss him so easily.
The Book of Mormon is interesting . . . and worth more than such a trivial dismissal. I think it dangerously wrong, but the millions who believe it are not obviously stupid. The sort of charity I learned in grad school demands that I try to see what they see in it.
Weisberg continues:
One might object that all religious beliefs are irrational – what is the difference between Smith’s “seer stone” and the virgin birth or the parting of the Red Sea? But Mormonism is different because it is based on such a transparent and recent fraud. The world’s greater religions have had thousands of years to splinter, moderate and turn their myths into metaphor. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, on the other hand, remains monolithic, literalistic and cultish.
I write:
The only good religion is going to end up being Cornel West, liberal, Anglican, Vatican II was too conservative, mushy religion. If you mean it when you say the Creed, Weisberg thinks you are “monolithic, literalistic, and cultish.”
I assume Weisberg means what he is writing now . . . within the monolithic world of the East Coast intelligentsia . . . and means to be understood as meaning what he says. . . hence literally . . . and will give his vote to nobody who does not bow the knee to the Cult of Secularism’s definite belief in unbelief.
Weisberg writes:
It may be that Mr Romney does not take Mormon theology at face value. He has reversed his views on gay rights and abortion to suit the differing demands of a Massachusetts gubernatorial campaign and a Republican presidential primary. This suggests that he is a man of flexible principles, which is encouraging in this context.
I write:
The only good Mormon to Weisberg will be a bad Mormon. . . but then the only reason Jews, Muslims, and Christians escape his lash is that we have had time to produce millions of bad Jews, Muslims, and Christians.
Romney is not flexible about principles (such men were called cads in better times), but flexible about means to achieve his ends. He will take what he can get in order to get more later. . . but with the goal in mind.
Romney appears to be, secularists beware, an old fashioned statesman.
Weisberg writes:
But Mr Romney has never indicated that there is any distance between himself and Mormon doctrine. He is a church “elder” who performed missionary service in France as a young man and did not protest against his church’s overt racism and policy of discrimination, in which black men were denied admission to the priesthood before the policy was abolished in 1978. He usually tries to defuse the issue of his religion with the tired jokes about polygamy or cries foul and insists that his religious views are “private”.
They may be that, but if Mr Romney is running for president, they are the country’s concern as well.
I reply:
Let me remind the reader of my three-fold test regarding religion and getting a reasonable persons vote:
First, the religious beliefs of the candidate should be held by a significant number of people and by a group willing to defend them (even if unsuccessfully) in a rational manner.
Second, the group in question should not have religious claims that will naturally lead to horrific, or at least far out, public policy.
Third, the group should have a long track record of generally playing by republican rules in areas where it is dominant. No group is perfect, but the Presidency is too powerful a prize to trust to a new group that might have secret authoritarian leanings.
Any other test runs the risk of tearing our society apart.