This is not Romney's Kennedy moment

Romney needs to appease a constituency that conspicuously does not believe in the absolute separation of church and state, that favors public funding of religious education (or at least certain varieties of it) and has frequently sought to impose theological ideas or religious structures in the public sphere. He's not trying to convince right-wing evangelical Christians that he would govern as a secular president; he's trying to convince them that his ideas about religion are close enough to theirs, in some general way, that they should overlook the differences.

In aiming his candidacy at a born-again audience, Romney has made his faith into a campaign issue, much as George W. Bush did in 2000. But while Bush's version of repentant-sinner spirituality made him appealing to a wide swath of Americans, both devout and less so, Romney is now facing the fact that his religion makes many of the same people uncomfortable. After 187 years, Mormonism has become a recognizable skein of the American religious tapestry, but that doesn't change the fact that it was founded on a rejection of mainstream Christianity and embodies many beliefs that no other Christians are likely to accept.

During his speech, Romney certainly won't be bringing up the more peculiar aspects of Mormon theology, the ones drawn from Smith's later prophetic career that sound pretty close to polytheism. Smith moved from a "restorationist" version of Christianity toward an intriguing mishmash of post-Christian theology drawn in part from Swedenborgian mysticism, Masonic ritual and Hinduism. Smith's pronouncement that God, angels and human beings are all members of the same eternal, coexistent species is entirely incompatible with any normative Christian doctrine. God did not create man, Smith proclaimed, or at least not in the usual biblical meaning of that phrase. In fact, the God of the Abrahamic faiths used to be a man, in the distant past, and far in the future the most diligent and virtuous men may become gods.

In fairness, the Mormon church has tried to have it both ways on the question of whether it is or isn't Christian for a long time, and Romney is simply inheriting many generations of waffling. Since at least the late 19th century, Mormons have proclaimed that they belong to a larger Christian fellowship whenever it was socially or politically expedient to do so, all while hewing to a set of prophetic teachings most Christians find outrageous and following a visionary founder who insisted they were the only true Christians.

The Mormon church is trying to rehearse the history of other successful American religions by assimilating. In every new sect, as in an immigrant family, each generation becomes progressively more integrated into the majority culture. It's hard to remember that a mainline Protestant denomination like Methodism, now settled and bourgeois, was considered a fanatic faith when it began in the 18th century.

Mormon assimilation began early, and under duress. After a rising tide of anti-Mormon persecution led to Joseph Smith's murder, the more pragmatic Brigham Young stemmed the tide of constant revelation and circled the wagons, both literally and figuratively. He sought to ensure Mormon survival by creating a separatist but recognizably Christian state on the shores of the Great Salt Lake. After Young died in 1877, the end of polygamy soon followed, and the end of polygamy meant statehood for Utah. By the beginning of the 20th century, Mormons -- like any number of denominations and ethnic groups before them -- had set a course toward the American mainstream.

There is no question that the cultural differences between Mormons and evangelical Protestants have narrowed in recent decades, and this fact may have presented a pitfall the Romney campaign could not avoid. Mormons and white evangelicals, who once engaged in open warfare, have cohabited peaceably in the exurban West and Southwest for many years. They vote similarly (i.e., for conservative Republicans, from the local school board to the presidency) and are likely to hold similar views on a wide array of issues, from abortion to gay rights to the corrupting influence of popular culture to the war in Iraq.

One could argue that their religious doctrines have grown closer as well. Many more Protestants these days (and even some Catholics) talk about having a personal, dialogic relationship with the deity -- you talk, and God answers -- than in years gone by. Some Mormons believe that's because the gospel of Joseph Smith, with its promise of direct revelation for all, is doing its work. On the other hand, while nothing in official Mormon doctrine requires a rejection of evolutionary theory, and Smith was in no sense a biblical fundamentalist, there is ample evidence that creationist belief has become widespread among Mormons.

But what Mitt Romney and his campaign handlers failed to grasp is that assimilation only goes so far when you're talking about a prophetic and eccentric religion that's still less than 200 years old -- and about the intolerant, borderline-paranoid atmosphere of contemporary Republican politics. Even an obviously secular Republican candidate like the thrice-married Rudy Giuliani is obliged to profess, these days, that he often reads the Bible. While some evangelicals may remain uncomfortable with Giuliani's Catholicism, at least his church wasn't founded by a kid from upstate New York who pronounced himself the one true heir to the traditions of Abraham, Moses and Jesus.

There's no reason to doubt the sincerity of Romney's faith, or to doubt that he accepts his church's current self-definition as an exotic blossom on the golden bush of Christian America. But like all other Mormons he's stuck with the religion's history and contradictions; he doesn't get to pick and choose among Joseph Smith's free-associating pronouncements any more than a Muslim gets to ignore the edicts of Mohammed. Either Smith was a prophet of God or he wasn't. If he was, then all other forms of Christianity are corrupt and a tiny handful of us may grow up to be gods in other universes. In the meantime, Mitt Romney will probably spend Thursday morning trying to spin all that for the Republican base. If, instead, he says, "I have no idea whether I'm a Christian or not. It depends what the question means," then I'm voting for him, no matter what.

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