Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney has often said he thinks he should give the JFK speech — explaining why people should not vote against him because of his Mormon religion — but his aides advised against it.
Now, the former Massachusetts governor is smart to follow his own instincts in deciding it’s time to deliver the speech, Thursday, Dec. 6, at the George Bush Presidential Library in College Station, Texas. He’s wise to give the speech but doing it before an audience of anything but born-again evangelicals in the South is not.
Romney cannot win the GOP presidential nomination, much less the general election next November, without strong support among the one-third of American voters who call themselves born-again evangelicals. Without the speech, he’s vulnerable to a damaging charge of Clintonesque evasion on Christianity’s most basic question — Who is Jesus? Explaining his answer to that critical question should be the primary focus of the Bush Library address.
Orthodox Christians, including Catholics, most mainline protestants, evangelicals and fundamentalists believe Jesus is God, the pre-existent ex nihilo creator of the universe who became a mortal man through the virgin birth, lived a perfect life, was crucified because he claimed to be God and was resurrected three days later. Salvation comes only by believing that Christ is the God whose sacrificial death on the Cross atoned for the individual believer’s sins.
In response to questions about his faith, Romney routinely says that as a Mormon he shares the same social and political values as other branches of the Judaeo-Christian tradition. And, like millions of orthodox Christians, he says Jesus is his “Lord and Savior.”
Romney’s problem is that many evangelicals believe the Mormon Jesus is different from the Christ of orthodox Christianity. They point to Mormon scripture and multiple statements by many Mormon church leaders describing Jesus as the “brother” of Lucifer.
Mormon officials and missionaries for a generation have successfully sought converts among evangelicals by claiming they worship “the same Jesus.” Romney makes the argument for himself on the campaign trail. But as a former Mormon bishop, he must know the “same Jesus” claim is more public relations spin than doctrinal truth.
The spin works against Romney’s presidential aspirations. A Pew Research Center survey in September found that a quarter of GOP voters and 36 percent of evangelicals interviewed say they are less likely to vote for a Mormon. Those numbers show Romney has a serious but as-yet unaddressed “Jesus problem.”
But simply using the Bush Library speech to restate Romney’s standard lines about his faith and promise to follow the Constitution won’t cut it. Romney can only get past this obstacle on his road to the White House by candidly acknowledging that Mormons and orthodox Christians do indeed have radically different views about Jesus.
By doing so, Romney would simultaneously demonstrate undeniable independence from the tactical rhetoric of Mormon proselytizing and thereby lend new credence to his claim to share basic values with orthodox Christians.
More important, it would surface a subterranean issue in a positive manner, giving comfort to GOP evangelicals inclined to support Romney but who have held back to date for fear of “supporting a cult.” There would likely be minor defections among his Mormon base, but that loss would be more than over-shadowed by the potential surge of support elsewhere.
Considering the recent spurt of support for former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee in Iowa, a surge of evangelical enthusiasm for Romney couldn’t come at a better time for his campaign.
Kennedy went to Houston in 1960 and spoke to a group of Baptists preachers because it conveyed a message of firm but open-minded courage. It also put the Baptists on the spot to “prove” their tolerance by supporting Kennedy.
Doing the JFK speech as here suggested would project Romney as a genuine leader of people of faith. Unfortunately, the people Romney most needs to persuade won’t be at the Bush Library.
Mark Tapscott is editorial page editor of The Washington Examiner.
