Volume 55, Number 1 · January 17, 2008
Romney and JFK: The Difference
By Garry Wills
The situations are superficially the same—presidential candidates trying to remove an obstacle to their election arising from their church membership. But the obstacles are quite different. The objections some have to Mitt Romney's religion are twofold, theological and cultural. Those against John F. Kennedy when he gave his 1960 speech in Houston about his Catholicism were more solidly political. The theological problems with Romney come from evangelicals, who know that his Jesus is not a member of the divine Trinity. Romney has assured them in his speech on religious liberty, also given in Texas, in early December, 'I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of mankind.' That may not be enough for those insisting on their own orthodoxy, since Brigham Young wrote that 'intelligent beings are organized to become Gods, even the Sons of God,' and that these divinized believers may be the saviors of the worlds they dispose of. But Romney is right in claiming that such points of theology are irrelevant to the practical morality involved in politics. 'Sons of God' is not a political slogan.
Feature, 1459 words
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