Correction:
An earlier version of this article misquoted journalist Jon Meacham as referring to “the leaders of the church,” rather than “the founders of the church.” This version has been corrected.
America quietly observed a major milestone in its history Tuesday when Mitt Romney became the first Mormon presidential nominee of a major political party.
The achievement comes four years after a spate of firsts, culminating with the election of the first African American president. This one has been greeted with little fanfare. And that is just how Romney and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints want it.
If he wins in November, Mitt Romney would be the first Mormon president. A breakdown of the religious affiliations of the nation's presidents.
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But whether they want to call attention to it or not, Romney’s achievement is historic. Nearly 200 years after the founding of Mormonism by Joseph Smith, who himself ran for president to call attention to his flock’s persecution, Romney’s nomination signals how far his faith, and the country’s acceptance of it, has come.
“If you look at it in a historical perspective, it’s absolutely incredible,” said Richard Lyman Bushman, a leading Mormon scholar and longtime acquaintance of Romney’s. “A century-and-a-half ago, Mormons were detested as a people as well as a religion. They were thought to be primitive and crude. And now to have someone overcome all the lingering prejudice, that’s a milestone.”
On Tuesday, Romney kept his focus on the economy and his criticism of President Obama as he campaigned in Colorado, California and Las Vegas. His campaign, which has been reluctant to address his faith, did not respond to e-mails Tuesday asking for comment about his trailblazing achievement.
The church, which has taken pains this year to stay out of the presidential fray, offered a muted response.
“The church’s neutrality in political campaigning is well established, and we won’t be making any statement today,” said church spokesman Michael Otterson.
If the silence serves a political purpose for Romney, it serves a pastoral one for the church. Mormonism is one of the world’s fastest-growing religions, with as many adherents in the United States as Judaism. Still, about one in three Americans say they have an unfavorable view of the Mormon church, according to a March Bloomberg News poll.
There may be no better face for a church on the rise than a president, but for a faith trying to expand its reach and demonstrate diversity, getting wrapped up in partisan politics carries some risk.
Romney has only occasionally addressed his religion over the past year, touching on it primarily to portray himself generically as a man of faith and to draw similarities between his beliefs and those of other Christians, some of whom view Mormonism as outside traditional Christianity and akin to a cult.
Romney’s emphasis on the common threads were at the heart of a speech he made this month at Liberty University, an evangelical Christian college.
“Central to America’s rise to global leadership is our Judeo-Christian tradition, with its vision of the goodness and possibilities of every life,” Romney said in his May 12 commencement address. “From the beginning, this nation has trusted in God, not man. . . . There is no greater force for good in the nation than Christian conscience in action.”
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