Baptists

Religion And The Presidency

Ronald 1 Comment

The right wing in America tries to tell us we are a Christian nation, rather than a nation of a majority of the Christian faith.

The fact that the Constitution does not have a religious test, that we have separation of church and state, is ignored, as the right wing promotes its propaganda.

So they tell us the Founding Fathers were “good Christians”, when in fact, in many ways, they were not!

And they fail to accept that many of our Presidents have doubted organized religion entirely, or have been Deist, Unitarian or Quaker , which are seen as a few steps away from atheism by many experts.

For the record:

The following Presidents had NO specific religious affiliation:

Thomas Jefferson
Franklin Pierce
Abraham Lincoln
Andrew Johnson
Ulysses S. Grant
Rutherford B. Hayes
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Barack Obama

Deist Beliefs

George Washington
Thomas Jefferson
James Madison
James Monroe
John Tyler

Unitarianism

John Adams
John Quincy Adams
Millard Fillmore
William Howard Taft

Quaker

Herbert Hoover
Richard Nixon

That makes 18 Presidents who do not fit the mold of a typical religious person.

At the same time, some Presidents have been very devout, including:

James A. Garfield
Benjamin Harrison
William McKinley
Woodrow Wilson
Jimmy Carter

The other half of our Presidents were irregular church goers, and in many cases, they were not very committed to their faiths, but would identify with a faith that was considered Christian, with John F. Kennedy the only Catholic President..

The largest number of Presidents (12) were Episcopalians; 8 were Presbyterians; 4 Methodists; 4 Baptists; 3 Disciples of Christ; 2 Congregationalists; and 2 Dutch Reformed Church.

The Problem Of Religion For Mitt Romney, And How He Deals With It: In A Demagogic Manner!

Ronald Leave a comment

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has many problems on the road to the Republican Presidential nomination, and despite his wins tonight in the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Wisconsin, his path to the Presidency is complicated, and it turns out, religion remains a major barrier.

Mitt Romney is a Mormon, a faith regarded by many Christian groups as a religious cult.

Mitt Romney was testy when asked a question yesterday about the tenets of his faith, regarding interracial sexual relations. He said he did not wish to discuss religion, but that is not going to make that issue go away.

When one looks at Gallup polls about how people feel about different religions, we discover that 7 percent say they would not vote for a Baptist; an equal 7 percent would not vote for a Catholic; 9 percent would not vote for a Jew; while 22 percent would not vote for a Mormon!

Only two groups rate higher in voter reluctance to vote for a candidate of that religion: 46 percent would not vote for a Muslim; and 49 percent would not vote for an atheist.

So what has Romney decided to do? Instead of arguing, as many demagogues of his party and in talk radio have done, that Barack Obama is a secret Muslim, Romney goes one better.

Romney is now claiming that Obama is promoting “secularism”, in other words, “atheism”, that Obama does not really believe in God!

How despicable and demagogic Romney has become, trying to label Obama as an atheist, due to the fact that the percentage who would not vote for an atheist is double and more that of those who would not vote for a Mormon!

Romney is exploiting religious prejudice and hatred, at a time when he has a religious problem of his own!

What could be more unprincipled? And it is clear that it will not work, and Romney, by bringing it up, deserves a walloping repudiation in November!

The “Bible Belt”, Religion, And The Republican Presidential Race

Ronald Leave a comment

After Mitt Romney won the Iowa Caucuses by EIGHT votes over Rick Santorum, some saw it as a victory.

But others pointed out that Romney actually received SIX fewer total votes than he did in 2008 in the Iowa Caucuses!

And Romney did not do well among evangelical Christians, which are a very large portion of the Republican vote in Iowa. Considering also that he received just 25 percent of the vote, the same percentage as in 2008, brought to mind that his Mormon faith MAY have an effect in the Southern primaries and other Midwest primaries where evangelical Christians still look at Mormonism as a religious cult, in areas considered the “Bible Belt”!

So Mitt Romney is not seen as overcoming the religion question as John F. Kennedy did in 1960.

But the problem is that Jon Huntsman is also a Mormon, and Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich are Catholic, the problem that existed for Kennedy. Only Rick Perry and Ron Paul are evangelical Christians or Baptists, which is predominant in the South.

The question is whether Rick Santorum, who shares the religious and family values of many Southerners, but is a Catholic, can win them over and have an impact in future primaries. He is already trying to appeal to blue collar whites who are often rural in environment and religious more than the rest of the country. Will Perry and Paul have a better shot, particularly in the South, and can Gingrich, who converted to Catholicism, overcome that fact?

The point is that religion COULD be a factor in the final decision as to who the GOP Presidential nominee will be!

Could Barack Obama Win The South Against A Mormon (Mitt Romney Or Jon Huntsman)? A Mind Boggling Possibility!

Ronald Leave a comment

With the growing feeling that either Mitt Romney or Jon Huntsman, both Mormons, could have the best chance to be the Republican nominee and compete with President Barack Obama in the 2012 Presidential Election, the question is arising: can a Mormon win the South, which is heavily Baptist, Evangelical Christian, and even with mainline Christian groups, highly religious as compared to the rest of America?

Imagine this: Our mixed race Black President, Barack Obama, winning the South! Winning because religion may become more of an issue over the controversy that the Mormon Church is not Christian and is a cult, according to the views of many devout Christians, than race!

Could this REALLY happen? It would be mind boggling to say the least, and makes trying to analyze the upcoming political contest all the more fascinating!