Friday, December 07, 2007

Testing Religion

Joseph Smith Receiving the Gold Plates of the Book of Mormon from Moroni


One of my favorite thinkers and writers, Lee Harris, zeros in on the same problem with the Romney Mormonism issue that I had mentioned : just because the Constitution forbids the state from setting up a religious test does not forbid the people from factoring in religion in their choice of a President or other office-holder. As Harris says, he is quite tolerant of Satan-worshippers in America, but might not want to elect one as President. Does this make him a bigot?

It is one of the oddities of current culture that religion is both so sacred that it cannot be debated in public and so irrelevant that it need not be debated in public. If you ask about the particular tenets of faith, you are accused of descending into theological niceties. So most people ascend into generalized vacuities. All in all, it shows that for the cultural elite, religion is actually a private vice or mind-fetish which ought to be kept behind closed doors and not spoken about in polite company. I think that pretty well defines the meaning of secularism.

PS. I would certainly vote for a Romney over a Clinton; my beef is with the limits of the discussion, not with Mitt's Mormonism. He apparently managed to govern Massachusetts without turning it into Little Zion.

1 comment:

David Barry O'Connor said...

Unfortunately Massachusetts was left in a fugue state. I'll be surprised if he takes the Commonwealth in our primary.
He never honestly govnerned, but used the position to campaign for US1 as a governor.
Our highways a paved with the limbs and gore of Republicans he threw under the bus.
But, abiding by the advise that if one can't speak well of another, say nothing at all; I'll leave you with a cacophony of silence

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