A new political test: presidency and religion

The strategic infusion of religion into modern American politics necessitated the speech Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney felt obligated to deliver last week. His calculated pitch fit the tenor of the times.

Romney, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said his Mormon faith would not dictate his performance in office. He should have stopped there. Indeed, this would have sufficed: "As governor, I tried to do the right as best I knew it, serving the law and answering to the Constitution. I did not confuse the particular teachings of my church with the obligations of the office and of the Constitution — and of course, I would not do so as president. I will put no doctrine of any church above the plain duties of the office and the sovereign authority of the law."

Thomas Jefferson would have been proud: an affirmation of intentions by a politician pledging to be informed and guided by moral values for the good of all.

But the former Massachusetts governor did not quit there. The speech was aimed at the evangelical base of the Republican Party, pure and simple. With a surging Mike Huckabee, a former Baptist minister, attracting more attention, Romney had to calm the waters about his faith. His success will be calibrated by how many in the base believe he is sufficiently Christian to fit their checklist.

To his credit, Romney did not engage in an unseemly dissection of his Mormon beliefs, but he fully sought to assure his audience that he was comfortable with a robust religious presence in public life. Do not go looking for comparisons to John F. Kennedy's 1960 articulation of the separation of church and state, and the belief a president's religious views are a private affair.

The GOP and the Bush administration refined religion in a potent campaign demographic with the capacity to raise money and turn out voters. The White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives has a presence in 11 federal agencies.

The United States thrives on and is envied for its embrace of all faiths and beliefs, and of those who profess none. America is strongest as it articulates religious freedom, not merely the religious tolerance Romney sought.