Religion and the North Dakota Caucus

Tuesday was a fairly big day in American politics.  It was that wonderful day during the primary season known as Super Tuesday.  Ten states held presidential primaries or caucuses to award delegates for the upcoming Republican convention.  Throughout my life, I've lived in a state that had a primary.  I've voted in primaries for both parties because I've lived in two counties that had different majority parties.  Those who did not register with the majority party basically had no one to vote for in the primary election, so I based my affiliation accordingly.

North Dakota handles things a bit differently than my home state of West Virginia, however.  They hold presidential caucuses, rather than presidential primaries.  Since Barack Obama is running unopposed, the Republicans were the only party holding a caucus this time.  I decided to go, so that I could appease my curiosity as to how these things really work.  I'd heard rumors about how the Iowa caucuses had people forming groups and then trying to get other people in the room to join their group to support a given candidate (after reading a bit--it didn't work that way this year in Iowa).  To my dismay, it was not quite so exciting. 

One major difference between primaries and caucuses is the party presence.  Primary elections are partisan, but are generally controlled by the state government and its election laws.  The caucus was put on by the party.  That being said, however, no official party registration was necessary to enter the caucus--just a proof of North Dakota residency with an actual street address.  After checking in, voters were given a registration form.  This form was filled out in a room with a podium and several tables with food and several tables with chairs for filling out the forms.  The tables with chairs had all manner of party paraphernalia supporting either Ron Paul or Rick Santorum (sorry, Mitt and Newt).  This type of advertising is generally illegal within a certain distance primary elections.

This is where the religious element came into play.  The meeting opened with the pledge of allegiance, and then a (historically debatable) prayer.  I personally found this very interesting.  I like talking politics, but I've never actually attended a political rally, partially because of my personal lack of affinity for any major party currently operating in American life.  To actually see a party have a prayer in a country that claims separation of church and state was interesting.  Of course, there is always a prayer at the presidential inauguration and other official events.  I would've liked to have gone to a Democratic caucus to see if a similar prayer (similarly debatable historically) would've been offered.  I would've liked to have gone to a Republican caucus in a not-so-midwestern or Bible Belt state to see if something similar would have happened.  After the prayer was a stump speech by a local radio (I think) personality pushing for Rick Santorum.  Apparently these guys for Santorum were successful--he won the North Dakota caucuses.

Many people have questioned the invocation of God in the public square.  Apparently it doesn't matter when the party is in charge of an event, even if they get their history slightly wrong in their prayer.  I do have to question tying God to a particular political party.  Regardless, American church history and American political history have frequently intersected, in spite of arguments to the contrary.

PS--the historically debatable portion of the prayer had to do with talking about a nation founded on liberty, equality, and justice.  This is both a true and false statement.  For land-owning white men (i.e., the people who mattered in the eighteenth century), America was founded on liberty, equality, and justice.  These qualities just did not extend beyond that demographic.  For poor white men who were serving indentures, Africans who were enslaved, and Indians who were run off of their land, this statement is definitely debatable (i.e., erroneous).  While Americans have definitely been blessed and fortunate throughout the decades, I have trouble believing God was impressed with that part of American history.

Evangelical Voters and the South Carolina Primary

Evangelical voters make up a very sizable portion of the electorate in several Southern and Midwestern states.  In my last post, I pointed out that the endorsement of Rick Santorum by several evangelical leaders signaled a shift in attitudes.  Apparently, that endorsement changed few minds. 

The polls have closed, and the people of South Carolina have spoken.  South Carolina is a state with many evangelicals, and exit polls indicated that 65% of the people that voted today claimed to be evangelical Christians.  Apparently, that whole Santorum endorsement thingie didn't really work out too terribly well for the former Senator from Pennsylvania. 

One thing is for sure according to the exit polls from both South Carolina and Iowa, evangelicals are still not overly enthused about voting for a Mormon for president, as a pastor's endorsement of Rick Perry in October predicted.  Romney got 14% of the evangelical vote in Iowa, and his support rose to only 22% in SC, in spite of the dropping out of self-proclaimed evangelicals Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann, who combined for 20% of the evangelical vote in Iowa.  Only 21% of evangelicals voted for Santorum in SC, in spite of the endorsement by some of their prominent leaders.  This is not the biggest surprise, however.

The biggest surprise, in my opinion, coming out of the South Carolina primary was the number of evangelicals who supported Newt Gingrich.  44% of evangelicals supported the former Speaker of the House, while only the 22% mentioned above supported Romney.  For non-evangelicals, Romney got 38% of the vote, while Gingrich only got 33%. 

Christianity emphasizes personal righteousness.  Evangelicals tend to pay serious lip service to this idea.  Only 18% of the voters in SC claimed that strong moral character was the main trait that they were looking for in a candidate.  If all of the these people were evangelicals, 47% find moral character as a secondary consideration to beating Barack Obama or someone having the right experience (Harry Truman did not have the right experience, but most historians and laymen consider him well above average when it comes to leadership).  While I understand that people can change and that there is redemption, I personally have to question the judgment of a serial adulterer who was kicked out of a Congress controlled by his own party for ethics charges.  The average person on the street considers Congressman/woman and ethics as an oxymoron, and this very body, Congress, kicked the Speaker out for ethics, all while his party had a solid majority.  His dealings with Fannie and Freddie have also come under fire.  That's not even mentioning the allegations his wife brought up this week.

But, hey, that's apparently better than having a Mormon as presidential candidate.

Catholics, Evangelical Protestants, and a Shift in Presidential Politics

Yesterday, as I read some of the news headlines on the interweb, I came across one that dealt with the endorsement that some evangelical voters gave to Rick Santorum.  It's not terribly surprising that evangelicals rejected Mitt Romney because of his Mormonism and his supposed liberal tendencies.  Of course, Romney may not know whether he's a conservative, liberal, or something totally different.  The evangelical voters considered Santorum, Newt Gingrich, and Rick Perry.  The very fact that they chose Santorum shows a significant shift in American Protestant politics over the past few decades. 

A major party has nominated a Roman Catholic for president three times.  Each time, it's been the Democrats that have done so.  The first Catholic to run for president was Al Smith of New York in 1928.  He lost to Herbert Hoover, and those who lived through the Depression blame Hoover for that debacle to this day, but that's another story.  Hoover won a landslide largely because a Republican was in office and the economy seemed to be booming.  However, there was also the frequent assertion that the Democrats were the party of "Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion."  The 1920s was a period that saw the growth of the second Ku Klux Klan, and Catholics were one of the major groups that these nativists saw as damaging Americanism with their taking orders from Rome.  There was concern that a Smith presidency would subordinate itself to the pope, not the Constitution.

Fast-forward just over thirty years.  In 1960, another Catholic ran for president.  The concern over a president having more allegiance to the Vatican than the US was a big concern for many Protestants.  The candidate for president this time was John F. Kennedy.  A 2007 article in Baptist History & Heritage by Ricky Floyd Dobbs examined the concern that conservative Baptists had regarding a Catholic running for president, using the Texas Baptist Standard as a case study.  Kennedy won, and he is to date the only Catholic to become president.  While some Americans would view him as a liberal, and his presidency was shortened by an assassins' bullet, most people would not argue that Kennedy put the concerns of the Vatican above those of America.

In 2004, John Kerry ran for president against the incumbent George W. Bush.  His Catholicism was not the major issue, as the fear of terrorism seemed to be the overarching topic in this election.  That was a general election, however, and evangelicals have tended to web themselves to the Republican Party in the last few decades.  Most of the Republican candidates over time have been WASPs, with few women, minorities, and non-Protestants attempting a run.  This year, evangelicals chose between Santorum, Gingrich, and Perry.  Of the three, Perry would be the closest candidate to an evangelical.  However, he's come across as less-than-presidential in debates and other public appearances. That leaves Santorum and Gingrich, both Catholics, as the best hope for pro-life, anti-Mormon evangelicals.  While Romney's stand on abortion can be questioned, John Huntsman, another Mormon, seems to be solidly pro-life. 

All of this goes to show the major change in Protestant attitudes toward Catholicism.  Catholics are now considered more mainstream to evangelical voters.  Mormons are not.  Could this shift signal the election of a President Santorum?  Not likely, but the change over time is nonetheless interesting.

In Light of the Recent Hubbub about Romney and Mormonism

I recently published a post that dealt with one of Rick Perry's supporters (an evangelical pastor) who discounted Mitt Romney's presidential bid based upon his adherence to the Mormon faith.  While not holding Mormons as orthodox in their beliefs, I questioned the wisdom of giving a religious test to a candidate for elective office, basing my argument on the US Constitution.  I found this article by Thomas Kidd of Baylor University of interest in relation to the issue of Mormons in office, religious tests, etc.  I also found the dichotomy of evangelical attitudes toward Romney and Glenn Beck, another Mormon, quite interesting.  I must admit I've questioned why this is the case myself, and at least one commenter on my Facebook link to my previous post on the topic has also questioned this issue.

Perry, Romney, and Mormonism

One of the more controversial recent issues in relation to American religion involves the 2012 presidential race.  All of the candidates claim Christianity (defined very broadly).  The specific group to which each particular candidate belongs differs.  The controversy came about when Robert Jeffress, a mega-church pastor and a supporter of Texas Governor Rick Perry called Mormonism, the religion of former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, a cult.  Incidentally, one of my most-read posts on this blog dealt with Mormonism and its unpopularity in the nineteenth century.

Now, most people in America today don't think of Mormonism as a cult in the Branch Davidian/David Koresh kind of way.  However, it would be interesting to consider how people around its founding viewed the religion in the mid-1800s.  As mentioned in some comments on the post above, it took a while for Utah to achieve statehood because of some of their unorthodox beliefs, especially that of polygamy.  The Mountain Meadows Massacre was not exactly a warm, fuzzy affair. 

While I've read about Mormon beliefs previously, I went to their website, just to see what they say today.  It seems that some of what they say actually conforms to historical Christianity.  However, the same could also have been said of the Branch Davidians.  I am not in any way equating the Mormons with the Davidians, just pointing out that agreeing with some Christian doctrines does not necessarily make a group orthodox. 

Here is an interesting anecdote on some of the more interesting points of Mormon doctrine.  The author of this post, Bruce Gourley, actually holds a Ph.D. in history.  Many outside the Christian faith fail to see the importance of the differences between historical Christianity and Mormonism, but the differences are on some points quite significant.  Among others, one example pointed out by a 2007 post on the Washington Times website quoting Mormon sites shows that the Mormons teach that Jesus and Lucifer were spirit brothers in "pre-history."  Getting the identity of Jesus right is pretty much a prerequisite for claiming to be Christian.

However, this brings up another question.  Is there any reason that Mormonism should disqualify Romney from being president?  I would argue no.  The Constitution clearly prohibits religious tests from being a requirement of office.  It also permits freedom of religion.  Christians who would like to prohibit those of other faiths from being a public official fail to see that the argument could be turned on them in the future if Christianity become a minority religion in America.  Whether Romney (or John Huntsman, another Mormon running for president) is the best man for the job remains to be seen.  However, his Mormonism alone should not disqualify him.