Obama and Romney fight for religious groups’ votes. Then there’s Romney’s Mormon faith

Separation of church and state may be a constitutional requirement in US government. But in Election 2012 politics, religion has become an increasingly important factor.

Both President Obama and Mitt Romney are focusing on particular religious groups – Roman Catholic, Jewish, and evangelical Christians. Mr. Romney’s religion – Mormonism – is being covered by the media like never before in US political history. (At least since the sect moved to Utah in the 19^th century in order to practice its own beliefs – including, at that time, polygamy.)

Off to the side, meanwhile, is an apparent spat between the two most prominent Mormon politicians – Romney and Senate majority leader Harry Reid – that seems to bear on their religion’s theology.

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The cover story in the current issue of Time magazine is headlined "The Mormon Identity: What Mitt Romney's faith tells us about his vision and values." It’s written by Jon Meacham, who’s a member of the Leadership Council of the Harvard Divinity School and whose books include “American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation.”

"[T]he question is whether Romney has the capacity to draw once more on the pragmatic tradition of his religious forebears,” Mr. Meacham writes. “Will he stick with a strategy that seems not to be working against President Obama, or will he respond to changing events … with bold policy proposals or a more overtly negative campaign or whatever might move the election in his favor?”

“One thing is clear: as a devout Mormon leader, Romney knows his church history, and he knows that difficulty and doubt are inherent elements of life,” Meacham writes. “The key thing is to remain faithful, to serve, to press ahead – to the next territory that might welcome you, to the next voter who might decide to give you a chance. From the outside, Romney's life looks to have been easy and affluent. There is, however, another angle of vision, one that reveals a deep-seated Romney instinct to survive and thrive in even the worst of storms.”

In The New York Times a few days earlier, Simon Critchley, professor of philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York, had a long column titled “Why I Love Mormonism.”

There, Professor Critchley (who is not a Mormon) sought to explain to nonbelievers – especially urban skeptics whose knowledge is limited to snarky superficialities – that the Mormons he met as part of his academic work “were some of the kindest, most self-effacing and honest people I have ever met.”

“They were also funny, warm, genuine, completely open-minded, smart and terribly well read,” he added.

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