Politics

Mitt Romney has been regarded as weird for much of his political life, often derided for the things he holds closest to his heart. His big Latter-day Saint family was slammed as too big. His faith was panned as “odd” or “sinister.” His love for his country, as evidenced by an impromptu a capella rendition of “America the Beautiful” on the campaign stump, was deemed as, well, awkward.

Romney himself seems exasperated by this. “I was accused of being inauthentic,” Romney told his biographer, McKay Coppins, as quoted in Romney: A Reckoning. “But in reality, that’s just who I am. I’m the authentic person who seems inauthentic.”

Last week, as Romney delivered his final address on the U.S. Senate floor, he offered a final dose of authenticity, wrapped in both his faith and his love of country. “It is customary to end remarks like these with the words: ‘God Bless America,’” Romney said. That has never seemed “jarring” or “out of place,” he noted, “because Americans have always been fundamentally good.” But Romney fears that may not always be the case: “There are some today who would tear at our unity, who would replace love with hate, who deride our foundation of virtue, or who debase the values upon which the blessings of heaven depend.” That worries Romney, because a prosperous America must be a righteous America. “For it is only if the American people merit His benevolence that God will continue to bless America,” he declared,

Romney’s theologizing, as Religion News Service’s Jack Jenkins noted, is “simultaneously not that uncommon” yet “a bit unusual for an elected official to layer into a speech.” Even so, the premise at the heart of Romney’s assertion—that America must be good to merit God’s blessing—is a sharp deviation from the Christian nationalism percolating on the American political right. And yet, in keeping with Romney’s beliefs throughout his career, the idea is unapologetically, quirkily Mormon.

That the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would maintain a uniquely American theology is not surprising. Latter-day Saints leaders and scripture have emphasized the centrality of America in God’s plan since the church’s founding in the early 1800s. The Book of Mormon, the faith’s central scriptural tome, teaches that the American continent was kept hidden until God “wrought upon” explorers who led them there. Modern church leaders, recognized as prophets to the faithful, have declared that God helped the colonies win the American Revolution; that the U.S. Constitution was “divinely inspired”; and that the Constitution enabled a climate of religious freedom necessary for Christ’s restored church to be established in the 19th century.

The idea that America is blessed by God only if its people are righteous is repeated throughout the Book of Mormon.