WASHINGTON (ABP) – A Baptist minister who heads a national interfaith group criticized a Fox broadcasting affiliate in Memphis, Tenn., for airing a news story ridiculing presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith.
Earlier this month WHBQ Fox13 aired a segment where conservative radio host Ben Ferguson conducted person-on-the-street interviews purportedly about views on religion and the White House.
To gauge how much the public knows about teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ, Latter-day Saints, Ferguson asked subjects “Can you name the candidate, who is running for president, who believes that if he is a good person, he will get his own planet?” and “What country do you think hosts the Garden of Eden?”
Back in the studio, Ferguson explained that he asked the questions in a “somewhat joking” manner in an effort “to be a little light-hearted.”
“Everyone I talked to did not realize what Mormons believe in, which is one of the aspects we talked about tonight,” he said. “So I think for a guy like Mitt Romney, you hope that people don’t really look at your religion, because there are aspects of it that are non-traditional.”
“I mean having your own planet or saying the Garden of Eden is in Missouri, I certainly think doesn’t bode well for him with the overall American voter,” Ferguson continued. “I think he’s hoping ‘Hey, we’ll talk issues and not religion,’ and that’s the best-case scenario for his candidacy.”
Welton Gaddy
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Welton Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance, wrote the station July 12 expressing “great concern” about the segment.
“As a Baptist minister and as a patriotic American, I have been deeply disturbed by the disproportionate role religion has played during recent election cycles,” said Gaddy, minister for preaching and worship at Northminster (Baptist) Church in Monroe, La. “Indeed, at times, the entanglement between religion and politics has seemed to threaten both the integrity of religion and the vitality of politics.”
Gaddy said Romney and fellow GOP candidate Jon Huntsman, who is also a Mormon “are not running as Mormons, they are running as Americans,” Gaddy said.
“They have no more responsibility to explain or defend their faith than Michele Bachman or Tim Pawlenty,” he said. “Whoever is elected president, regardless of that person’s faith, needs to respect the religious freedom of all to practice their faith, despite how ‘strange’ it might appear to outsiders.”
Gaddy speculated that beliefs and practice of any religion might seem “unconventional” to people not familiar with them.
“Does this mean you will ask ‘people on the street’ similar questions about the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, the doctrine of sheol among some Jews, the doctrine of ‘a new birth’ among evangelicals, the doctrine of ‘glossolalia’ among Charismatics or the doctrine of ‘preaching to people in hell’ among some Christians?” he asked.
“Every religion, every belief system has aspects that could seem unconventional to non-adherents, and even to some adherents,” Gaddy said. “But what makes the United States the country it is, is the First Amendment’s protection of religious freedom that has enabled diverse beliefs to flourish equally side-by-side, with none favored over another, and no religious test required of our elected officials or candidates for office.”
Mormon writer Joanna Brooks said beliefs attributed to Romney in the interview are not representative of the LDS.
“It’s a distorting and sensationalistic caricature of Mormon beliefs to say that all of us believe we’re going to get our own planets,” she wrote in Religion Dispatches. “You could sit in your local Mormon Church for a month of Sundays and hear no mention of it.”
She said that “even among orthodox Mormons” talk of planets and the American location for the Garden of Eden is “the subject of gentle insider humor, a nod to the older strains of Mormon belief and folklore.”
Due to “the complexities” of the issue, Gaddy said the Interfaith Alliance developed a series of resources for candidates, houses of worship and constituents offering “insight on the proper role of religion during an electoral season.”
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Bob Allen is managing editor of Associated Baptist Press.