A No-Vote For Rick Santorum?
January 2, 2012
Christian writer and mother Nancy French with family
Nancy French, writer for National Review Online and a respected Christian writer, explains why faithful Iowans shouldn’t vote for Rick Santorum in the Caucuses. Tomorrow’s vote is going to be a barnburner! Thoughtfully written and interesting! From her site: www.patheos.com/blogs/frenchrevolution/2011/12/30/a-letter-to-iowa-evangelicals/
To my Iowa Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
I get it. You have people like Bob Vander Plaats who are trying to get you to vote for Rick Santorum, even though you know he has no chance to beat Obama. (Though he’s a great Catholic guy, he was so intimidated by the Virginia ballot process that he simply slunk away without even trying to give Virginians the option of voting for him.) You love Michele Bachmann’s personal story, her faith, and her great conservative ideas. Yet, she too doesn’t seem up for the job. You briefly flirted with Newt — that’s okay. Who hasn’t?But after the news of all of his affairs, his ethical violations, and his incompetence, you can’t bring yourself to voting for the guy either.
The most competent candidate, by far, is Mitt Romney. He’s more conservative than George W. Bush, he is a champion of traditional marriage, pro-life issues, and — oh yeah — he can turn an economy around.
There’s that one nagging little thing…
I’ll never forget the day when my husband David told me about the exciting Presidental candidate named Mitt. “He’s a Mormon.”
“Oh,” I said. “Too bad we can’t vote for him.”
“Why?” David asked innocently, though I was incredulous. Wasn’t the answer obvious?
“I’ll never vote for a Mormon,” I said, flabbergasted he’d even consider it. After all, I was raised in the Church of Christ, had attended the charismatic
Ann & Mitt Romney May Break Down Barriers of Religious Prejudice
Times Square Church in New York City, and – at the time – went to the conservative Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia. I tithed, had been baptized in a summer camp swimming pool when I was twelve, knew all the verses of How Great Thou Art, and had Pyrex dishes with my name written on the bottom in Sharpie specifically for benevolence casseroles.
Though I didn’t know many Mormons well, I was sure I wouldn’t like them. After all, their commercials on television were ridiculously earnest. Who runs in the back yard with their family while blowing bubbles in slow motion? Please.
However, in a matter of days, I went from objecting to his candidacy to unabashedly supporting it, so I thought I would share how I went from being completely opposed to unabashedly supportive of this particular Presidential candidate. Here’s what helped me:
1. In spite of our theological differences, evangelicals and Mormons are already political allies. In fact, if Mormons weren’t consistently more conservative than their evangelical neighbors, Al Gore would be America’s president now and California Proposition 8, which overturned a state Supreme Court ruling that permitted gay marriage, would’ve failed. In fact, we owe them a great deal for their steadfast consistency on moral issues The sometimes squishy evangelical church, tossed by every trend, is responsible for electing Barack Obama.
2. Romney’s faith doesn’t indicate that he’s gullible. Let’s face it. All religions require a leap of faith that appears silly to outsiders. If a reporter questioned me about my religion, he’d raise an eyebrow over my belief that Noah was a floating zookeeper, that Jesus was the best sommelier in Galilee, and that he paid taxes with coins from a fish’s mouth. No one belongs to the Church of the Scientific Method, so religion falls outside normal reasoning. Gov. Romney’s beliefs certainly require faith – including his quite miraculous notion that Jesus is his personal Savior. In my experience, evangelicals
In These Most Dire Times...Having A Commander In Chief Who Knows His Way To A Prayer Is What Matters Most. All Five Candidates...DO.
loathe religious litmus tests. That’s what Democrats do, when they try to disqualify Christian and Catholic judges because of their beliefs. The same people who would disqualify a Mormon would disqualify me, citing the same list of “this person can’t be a serious thinker if she believes this miraculous stuff.” And as far as gullible goes, don’t forget that Mitt Romney has two Harvard degrees.
3. Baptists don’t have the best track record, either. John Mark Reynolds once wrote that “my faith in the holiness standards of Baptists survived Clinton and my belief in their sanity survived Carter, though that was a closer call.” In fact, should we taint all Baptist Presidential candidates with the legacy of recent Baptist leaders – i.e. Clinton’s moral failure, Carter’s weak foreign policy, Johnson’s social programs, and Gore’s use of the word “lock box.” Of course not. Evangelicals should evaluate candidates on their own political merits.
This article just gets better and better. Read more here:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/frenchrevolution/2011/12/30/a-letter-to-iowa-evangelicals/
About Nancy French
Nancy French is a New York Times Best Selling Author. She’s writtenHome and Away: A Story of Family in a Time of War, Red State of Mind: How a Catfish Queen Reject Became a Liberty Belle, and has co-written Bristol Palin’s memoir, Not Afraid of Life.
Follow @TKC_US
Recent Comments