Romney to walk fine line in Mormon speech

By Jason Szep - Analysis

BOSTON (Reuters) - From baptism of the dead to a ban on coffee, Mormonism's doctrines are alien to many Americans and that is unlikely to change when Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney gives a long-awaited speech on his faith this week, religious scholars say.

Thursday's address by the former Massachusetts governor, who would be the first Mormon president of the United States, could fuel more questions than answers about a faith many powerful evangelical Christian voters dismiss as a cult.

"I can't see him really making a kind of passionate defense of Mormonism. That's not going to win votes. On the other hand, to pretend he is an evangelical is not going to win. He is in a very awkward position," said Alan Wolfe, director of Boston College's Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life.

Romney is unlikely to say religion will have no bearing on his decisions if he wins the November 2008 election or to stress the separation of church and state as John F. Kennedy did in 1960 to Texas Baptists while campaigning to become the country's first Roman Catholic president.

"Many of its evangelical voters who are crucial in the Republican Party's nominating process don't just want to know that you are religious but that you put religion at front and center," said Boyd Petersen, interim chairman of the Mormon studies program at Utah Valley State College.

"The one thing JFK did that was really important is he emphasized that religion should not be the litmus test for candidates. That's going to be harder for Romney."

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as the sect based in Salt Lake City, Utah, is formally known, is the fourth-largest U.S. religion and one of the richest, with 12.9 million members globally and an estimated $5 billion in annual revenue. More than half live outside the United States.

It bans alcohol, tobacco, tea and coffee. It maintains there is no eternal hell, the dead can be baptized and that God speaks through living apostles and prophets such as the church's current president, Gordon Hinckley.

Although Mormons revere Christ as their savior and consider themselves devout Christians, they reject the unified Trinity and teach that God has a body of flesh.

They believe the religion's founder, Joseph Smith, was a prophet instructed by God to restore the true church and that the Bible contains errors.

AVOIDING SPECIFICS

"With Mormonism, I think one of the problems he is going to face is that the more he talks about specifics, the more the differences are going to come into focus," said Petersen.

While healthcare, the Iraq war, immigration and the economy are dominant election themes, candidates from both parties make a point of highlighting their faith in a country where a recent Harris poll showed 82 percent of people believe in God.

But many voters know little about Mormons and are often skeptical of that faith's beliefs.

In a survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life in February, 30 percent of respondents said they would be less likely to back a Mormon for president, while 46 percent in a Gallup poll said they had an unfavorable opinion of Mormons.