America's War of Religion

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America's War of Religion

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The old saying is there are two things you don't talk about-politics and religion. Both can bring out a heated discussion. But combine the two and you have a volatile mix of passion and emotion. When this happens the truth is not often well served.

Last week Mitt Romney gave an impassioned speech on religion in politics and his faith in particular. He is a Mormon, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He has been a governor of Massachusetts and now seeks the Republican nomination for president of the United States. His speech was an effort to frame his unique religious belief within the swirl of American religious and political experience. Mormonism is considered a cult by many in the evangelical community.

Mike Huckabee, Romney's current challenger in the crucial early presidential primaries, is an ordained Baptist minister from Arkansas. Huckabee has played the religion card in this race and it promises to get very interesting. Reports say that Huckabee asks in an upcoming article, ''Don't Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?'' The article is to be published in the New York Times Magazine.

Earlier this month Huckabee would not say whether he thought Mormonism was a cult. ''I'm just not going to go off into evaluating other people's doctrines and faiths. I think that is absolutely not a role for a president,'' the former Arkansas governor said. Huckabee has not directly engaged on this issue but left it open for others to either explain or interpret.

The Huckabee factor has changed the Republican primary, at least for now. Instead of talking about the weighteier issues of foreign policy, national security and the economy tge present focus is on religion. Whether he can endure the grind of a long political campaign is another matter. Money and staff, two key elements of a political campaign, are in short supply. I suspect that in time Huckabee will fade.

But the focus on religion is instructive. History shows that when the two combine you have a volatile mixture. Part of America's success is that it has managed to balance religion and politics in a careful dance for more than two hundred years. Religion is not a tool of the state and the state allows religion, of all varieties, to flourish. And everyone has the right to believe or not to believe according to their conscience.

The wars that plagued Europe for centuries were often based on religion. For centuries the Holy Roman Empire managed an uneasy relationship between the emperor and the Pope.  Centuries of conflict on the continent led America's founding fathers to create a government free of religious control while at the same time guaranteeing religious freedom.

Today's focus on religion in the American presidential race is just one more skirmish in the ongoing wars of religion around the globe. It is very interesting to watch how it plays out. But don't look for it to have much influence in the long term. This years presidential contest will be run on far different themes. But religion will always be in the background. And for now that's ok.