{"id":1523,"date":"2007-12-06T07:02:29","date_gmt":"2007-12-06T07:02:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/2007\/12\/tonights-romney-speech-mustsee.html"},"modified":"2007-12-06T07:02:29","modified_gmt":"2007-12-06T07:02:29","slug":"tonights-romney-speech-mustsee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/12\/tonights-romney-speech-mustsee.html","title":{"rendered":"Today&#8217;s Romney Speech: Must-See TV?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"romney2.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/import\/romney2.jpg\" width=\"238\" height=\"320\" style=\"float:left;margin:5px\">Mitt Romney has a big televised speech today. Because there\u2019s anticipation, intrigue and drama surrounding one of the more interesting TV speech events since Bill Clinton\u2019s \u201capology,\u201d this makes for great TV.<br \/>\nMany politicos, evangelical leaders and media members have made quite an issue of Mitt Romney\u2019s religion. It\u2019s been 46 years since such a vibrant candidate has captured the public\u2019s imagination with a combination of professional track record, family wealth, good looks for TV and a significant issue regarding a monarchical religion of his choosing. John F. Kennedy, you might remember, got elected. The Pope didn\u2019t run America, at least that we know so far.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><br \/>\nTonight is Romney\u2019s opportunity to explain that he\u2019s not running for Pastor, or Priest, or Parish Leader of any kind. He\u2019s running for President. Evangelical leaders have wanted him to be more open about the differences between Mormonism and Evangelical Christianity. <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/castingstones\/2007\/12\/has-romney-blurred-the-lines-b.html?bt=polmashup\" target=\"_new\">Read the latest Beliefnet story here<\/a>.)<br \/>\nI\u2019m curious to see what Romney will do because he\u2019s got a big problem: the blurring of the lines between Mormonism and Christianity is not a Mitt Romney invention. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints have been employing this strategy since the late-70\u2019s, in response to Christian claims that it is a sect or even a cult. The Mormons have tried to posture themselves as something like another denomination of Christianity (sort of like a Methodist or Presbyterian or other Christian denomination).<br \/>\nRomney didn\u2019t invent the blur, and his church isn\u2019t likely to retract it. It puts him in a precarious position, and up until now, he\u2019s proven himself an outstanding speech-giver and debater. So this will make for must-see TV, which is a good thing because it\u2019s been a while!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mitt Romney has a big televised speech today. Because there\u2019s anticipation, intrigue and drama surrounding one of the more interesting TV speech events since Bill Clinton\u2019s \u201capology,\u201d this makes for great TV. Many politicos, evangelical leaders and media members have made quite an issue of Mitt Romney\u2019s religion. It\u2019s been 46 years since such a&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Today&#039;s Romney Speech: Must-See TV?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/12\/tonights-romney-speech-mustsee.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Today&#039;s Romney Speech: Must-See TV?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Mitt Romney has a big televised speech today. Because there\u2019s anticipation, intrigue and drama surrounding one of the more interesting TV speech events since Bill Clinton\u2019s \u201capology,\u201d this makes for great TV. Many politicos, evangelical leaders and media members have made quite an issue of Mitt Romney\u2019s religion. It\u2019s been 46 years since such a&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/12\/tonights-romney-speech-mustsee.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Idol Chatter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-12-06T07:02:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/files\/import\/romney2.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Douglas Howe\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Today's Romney Speech: Must-See TV?","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/12\/tonights-romney-speech-mustsee.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Today's Romney Speech: Must-See TV?","og_description":"Mitt Romney has a big televised speech today. Because there\u2019s anticipation, intrigue and drama surrounding one of the more interesting TV speech events since Bill Clinton\u2019s \u201capology,\u201d this makes for great TV. Many politicos, evangelical leaders and media members have made quite an issue of Mitt Romney\u2019s religion. 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