Adventures in missing the point: Romney's religion

I am an evangelical Christian. I have been a Mike Huckabee supporter for a long time.

I tend to the conservative side of politics.

It has been a great source of frustration for me over the last week or two to note the media coverage of the Romney/Huckabee race in Iowa. Mitt is certainly a skilled manager, and seems to live the life of an honest, hard-working family man. For that, I do not begrudge him.

I make no secret of the fact that I am a Mike Huckabee supporter. I think he has a natural charm, wit, and authenticity that will appeal very broadly in the next election. I think this is the antithesis of Mitt Romney. Everything about him, from day one, has seemed to me to be focus-group tested, calculated to please the discriminating moderate-to-conservative American voter. His answers on the social issues for me are less than convincing. How is it, that growing up in the Mormon church, which overwhelmingly supports conservative positions on social issues, he did not come to be pro-life?

The earliest reports were that he was pro-life. Then, when he ran for Massachusetts's Senate seat, he became a champion of abortion rights and gay rights. Ok, fine. Now, that it's convenient for him, he's an ardent pro-lifer again. It just wreaks of phoniness.

Some might argue that his pro-choice position indicates a willingness to think independently from his church. They may be right. As to who this argument benefits, I don't know. Few of the conservative evangelicals I have known are half as concerned about Romney's Mormon beliefs as they are about his apparent willingness to jettison them for political convenience. Few conservatives will be impressed with a free thinker on this specific issue, because they don't see any logical or factual way to justify the current abortion laws we have.

Is the growing baby in the womb, who (unlike its parent cells) has her own, full, unique DNA structure, her own heartbeat, and the beginnings of her own unique body, not a human?

And if it is, is there any more basic duty of a government than to protect the human life of its citizens?

And if there is, then "what kind of conservative are you anyway?", they might ask. The answer: not the kind we're looking for.

No, the fact is, a Mormon in the white house is no great deal to evangelicals, who have learned to get over their collective differences with Catholics, Jews, and even atheists to achieve the ends they seek. The great deal is someone who is pretending to be what he is not, or worse, is squishy on their pet causes. This is one of the main reasons, I believe, why evangelicals back Huckabee: he is authentically Mike, take him or leave him.

Another is his ideas: The FairTax, health care reform, appointing judicial conservatives to our nation's courts, securing the border, winning the war on terror- all these things animate Christian conservatives.

Still another is his "retail-politics" skills, as mentioned above. I believe everything happens in accordance with Providence, and there is a reason Governor Huckabee spent all that time as a pastor, above and beyond the main (and important) task of pastoring his flock: to prepare him for the next calls he would be fulfilling. (Is Huckabee God's chosen candidate? Maybe, maybe not. I think God has prepared several possible candidates who could each be president, and we need to choose the best one. I am not claiming to know to what extent the Hand of God will make itself known this election cycle.)

Another, often overlooked reason for Mike's support, is what it does for their (conservative/evangelical) cause. There are stereotypes of the conservative Christian perpetuated over and over again in our news media, repeated by those who probably have known very few conservative Christians. The "Christians" these media types have met are influential, power-brokering lobbying leaders and televangelists, neither of whom really represent the majority of American evangelicals on theology, temperament, or status in life. Evangelicals seem to like Mike Huckabee because he gives lie to the stereotype of evangelicals as weird, unconcerned with the world in which we presently live, or heartless bigots. He is none of these things, and in this way, he mirrors the leaders most of us know inside our churches, trying desperately despite our (and their) own sinfulness to communicate and embody the love of our Savior. Every time he speaks, an atheist, agnostic, or person of other religious speech thinks, "Well, I'm not a Christian, but if they are like this guy, I think I'd be more open to hearing about it." Not that he will be giving alter calls, but he is great PR, a sure method to bypass the typical calumnies in our media. Mike Huckabee is equal time. Is this a great reason to support someone for president? Probably not, but many see this as icing on the cake.

To be blunt, Romney is not great for our cause. The mere fact that evangelicals support Huckabee over Romney has lead many in the media to presume that it's because Huckabee's a Baptist and Romney's a Mormon, therefore anyone choosing Huckabee is bigoted against Mormons. (They certainly don't teach logic in journalism school, do they?) As I stated before, my chief concern is that Romney is squishy on social issues and has positions that vary with his political ambitions. Having been burned by too many Justice Souters, O'Connors, and Kennedys, social conservatives need to know that their president will be willing to expend their political capital confirming judges to the bench who don't believe in inventing new rights, like what happened in Roe v. Wade. (Is there a right to privacy? Maybe, but I know few who would argue that allows you to kill someone without government interference, yet that is what supporters of Roe are arguing when they say a blanket "right to privacy" allows for abortions.)

And many in the media are doing just what we feared they would do - painting evangelicals as bigots because we do not accept that Mormonism falls under the umbrella of orthodox Christianity. Newsflash: some Christians aren't uninformed and easy to command! I don't know that it's a majority of us, in fact I suspect not, but there are those who know what they believe and aren't afraid to say so.

There are historical standards for what does and does not a Christian make. The council at Nicaea is just one example. Under this standard, Mormon beliefs about the deity of Jesus and the reality of the trinity do not qualify as Christian; the same holds for their ideas of Joseph Smith's revelation as equal to scripture.

Does this make their religion awful? No! It just means that if we believe words mean things, and we are using the word Christian, Mormons aren't included under the traditional definition. If we use the word "Christian" to include Mormons, the term is not an entirely inaccurate one, perhaps, but we have given it new meaning, a broader usage, which would likely also include many groups not seen as "Christians" before.

Christian doesn't just mean "nice person", or even "moral believer in God". By this definition, Jews would be Christians. I think there are people who claim Christianity who do not live ethically, and people who aren't Christians who generally do live ethically. I am not trying to be insulting here! Let me say that all the Mormons I have met, with one exception [a young guy whose issues likely had zilch to do with his beliefs] have been outstanding people. I do not wish them any ill. I merely do not see eye to eye with them on who is and is not a Christian.

"But what about the Christians who say they have no problem including Mormons under the umbrella of the term Christianity?" They are adhering to standards which are, by traditional standards, quite liberal. Either they are not aware of what Mormons believe or they are not aware of the specifics of the Gospel they claim. We can hardly fault them for wanting to be inclusive, but often this is because they are uninformed. Do I realize what I am saying here, that so many Christians don't know what they believe? Yes, and it is a scathing indictment of the church in America. Sad but true.

To me, the attempt by reporters and pundits, even on the right (try arguing that Mormons are good people but not Christians on the RedState.com blog; see if you get kicked off for being a bigot, like I was) to redefine Christianity wreaks of a typical liberal tactic of least common denominator arguments, that we need to accept definitions of things that make everyone happy and ruffle no feathers. I couldn't disagree more. Any attempt by people with negligible knowledge of or interest in Christian theology to tell me what I should and should not believe will be resented and, quite frankly, resisted quite vigorously. That many on the right are attempting this bodes ill for the chances of their movement's success, as I am hardly alone. Don't criticize an evangelical for being too steadfast in his beliefs, or for not accepting uninformed definitions of what he may and may not believe.

Is such thinking capable of surviving in a democracy? Yes. I can be a conservative Christian and agree to disagree on theology in order to achieve consensus on morality. What I cannot do is allow myself to become so changed by this process that I no longer believe what I believe.

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Now again, this theology discussion does not indicate why I think Mike Huckabee is the best presidential candidate.

What it does attempt is to explain why I, perhaps as so many Christians and conservatives will just have one more reason why we would love to vote for Mike, to stick our proverbial thumbs in the eyes of the"leaders" of our party who are saying we are bigoted for not supporting Romney. I are not bigoted, I have a belief system. This belief system does NOT require my presidential candidate to share in it. It requires that he be, unabashedly and unashamedly, an advocate for what I am all about POLITICALLY: protection of the life of every man, woman and child from conception until natural death. I see that Governor Romney is not. Therefore, I will not vote for him. No excellent speech about religion, such as Romney gave, will sway me on that. And to insinuate that I don't support him because he's a Mormon is false. If he were a Mormon who was sincere in his conviction about the need to protect the unborn, I would give him another look. At this point, I don't see that happening.

In writing off Huckabee voters as bigoted, conservative elites are
1) Insulting us for holding to the tenets of our faith and guarding them jealously, thus redefining not just "Christian" but "bigoted" as well
2) Missing the boat on Mike Huckabee, an excellent candidate who could win the general election
3) Revealing their ignorance of the God who animates the largest block of their coalition
4) Creating a double standard: Mitt's or Rudy Giuliani's deviance from conservatism is ok, Mike Huckabee's deviance is not, thus frankly opening them up to the charge that they really do only care about Wall Street and fiscal issues and not Main Street issues
5) Running the risk of tearing apart the only coalition that will enact the policies they seek

I personally do not want a realignment, as I value fiscal conservatism. But I, like many others, value it as a matter of practicality whereas moral issues are a matter of basic morality. And you can probably guess which one of these two I value more highly.