by Sandy » Tue Oct 11, 2011 1:54 pm
The Religion Dispatches post by Sarah Posner is right on target. If conviction, values and doctrine are so important in fine tuning who can serve as leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention, to the point where the implication is made expressing doubts about the salvation of "liberal" Christians, then it would stand to reason that someone who belonged to one of those churches would also be on the outs with conservative evangelicals with regard to their politics.
It is worth pointing out that Richard Land went to the mat for Mit Romney during the 2008 go-round, when fellow Southern Baptist Mike Huckabee was still in the field.
Perry holds membership in the United Methodist Church, which most Baptists consider to be several spots past the left of center theologically, and further off to the left than that on social issues. And it seems that his involvement with the UMC, and participation in church, has been somewhat of a hit or miss pattern, mostly miss. It is ironic that the pastor of the First Baptist Church of Dallas is trumpeting support for "a born again Christian candidate for President" who, as it turns out, is a lapsed Methodist who he would probably require to be re-baptized in order to become a member of his church.
Jeffress' other point, however, that Romney's faith should be taken into consideration by those who support him, is a good one. There is probably no other single factor that will tell you about the identity of a person, and how they would handle public office than their personal choice of expression of their faith. Few people know enough about the nuances of Mormonism, and what it teaches as fundamental doctrine related to the holding of public office, to see this as a problem. All they know is the good family image that they gather from the advertisements they see on television, all those regular, normal, but somehow accomplished people who tell you their name and then follow up with, "...and I'm a Mormon." The fact that these people believe they are racially, morally and intellectually superior to non-Mormons (whom they refer to as "Gentiles") and are destined to rule the world by taking over the US Government is never part of the equation, though any Mormon who has been through "primary" knows this.
If examining the practice of a candidate's faith is "religious bigotry," then examining everything else they do constitutes some other kind of bigotry.
In his heart of hearts, I wonder if Jeffress believes Catholics are Christians. No one has yet made an issue of Ron Paul's religious faith.