Introducing Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry at the Values Voter Summit last weekend, Dr. Robert Jeffress, pastor of the 10,000-member First Baptist Church of Dallas, started a media frenzy by urging fellow evangelicals not to vote for Mitt Romney because of his Mormon faith, which he later characterized as a cult.
His comments were bad for Rick Perry, the Republican Party and, most importantly, American political discourse at large.
Of course, Jeffress is entitled to his opinion and is free to express it, and the idea that Mormonism is a cult is not exactly new within mainstream Christianity.
It might be an interesting topic in a theological debate, but it has no place in a presidential campaign.
Rather than citing Romney’s religion alone as a disqualifier for public office, Jeffress could have exercised his influence more responsibly by identifying specific Romney policy positions that he opposes and explaining why he believes them to be in conflict with Biblical principles.
Democrats would love for the Republican primary to descend into holy warfare and religious tribalism, and to that end some in the media have done their best to stoke theological infighting among the candidates. Fortunately they have failed.
The GOP candidates have all risen to the occasion and, appropriately, rejected questions of theology as irrelevant to the campaign. (With the exception of Perry, whose statements thus far have been less than resolute).
A political candidate should be assessed like any other job applicant — based on the traits that will impact his performance in the position he seeks.
The best predictors of a president’s performance are things like experience, leadership, vision and values — not Biblical exegesis.
Ironically, Jeffress himself partially embraced this notion last week on CNN’s John King USA.
“Given the choice between Mitt Romney and Barrack Obama,” Jeffress said, “I would vote for Mitt Romney. I think it is much better for those of us who are evangelical Christians to have a non-Christian who embraces biblical values in the White House than to have a professing Christian like Barrack Obama who addresses and embraces unbiblical positions,” he said.
So, nominal religious affiliation does not trump ideological leaning.
Amen.
The political right values the individual and is concerned with character rather than group identification.
It should resist adopting the habit of affixing simplistic labels to people and looking no further.
As conservative commentator Bill Bennett put it in his speech at the Values Voters Summit the day after Jeffress’ spoke, “Do not do what the left does regularly… do not give voice to bigotry.”
Recent attempts to smear Michelle Bachmann and Rick Perry as “Dominionists” (radical Christians supposedly bent on world domination) demonstrated the left’s tendency to use religion as a weapon against political enemies.
There’s no need for conservatives to engage in group stereotyping; the left is managing that well enough on its own.
Reach the columnist at at dcolthar@asu.edu Click here to subscribe to the daily State Press newsletter.
