Full Disclosure of Romney's Faith and Finances Is a Must (ContributorNetwork)

COMMENTARY | At Thursday's Republican debate in South Carolina, the pressure got turned up a notch on Mitt Romney to release his tax returns. Given how removed his financial situation is from that of most Americans, this seems a reasonable request.

In any case, and despite the candidate's obvious reluctance, it is one that is likely to be fulfilled. There is another matter Romney is even more unwilling to discuss but which is guaranteed to cause an even bigger problem for Republicans if not brought out into the open at the earliest possible date: his faith. Just as Romney's finances are foreign to most Americans, so is his Mormon religion. Full disclosure is required in each case.

I take it that unless we want to be accused of ascribing to a massive double standard we can put aside the question of whether a candidate's faith is a legitimate subject of inquiry. The obsessive coverage in 2008 of President Barack Obama's relation with Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago has demonstrated that a potential president's religious affiliation is a justified focus of press coverage.

Indeed, the controversy surrounding the teachings of Rev. Jeremiah Wright provides a single standard that could be reasonably applied to any candidate's religious affiliation: When a candidate's faith, creed, or teaching veers wildly from mainstream religious thought, it deserves an added level of scrutiny.

If there is one defining trait of the three great world Abrahamic religions -- Judaism, Christianity, and Islam--it is that they all are monotheistic. That is, they all believe there exists a single, all-powerful God. This contrasts with polytheism found in many ancient religions as well as with the conception of divinity in Hinduism or Buddhism. By comparison, Mormonism teaches that there are many Gods and that humans can become gods and goddesses in the celestial kingdom. As it was famously put by Lorenzo Snow, fifth president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, "As man is, God once was; as God is, man may be." So when Bob Jones III declares, as he recently did on CNN, that "Mormonism is not Christianity," he is not uttering hateful or even untrue words but stating what is theologically uncontroversial.

Given that a large majority of Americans identify themselves as Christian, this puts Romney's church outside of mainstream American religious thought. Of course in a country that is founded on religious freedom, this does not disqualify Romney from the presidency. But it does make it more than likely that a full accounting of Romney's faith will be even more essential than a full accounting of his finances if America is ever to become comfortable enough with the man to elect him president.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/oped/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20120121/cm_ac/10861349_full_disclosure_of_romneys_faith_and_finances_is_a_must

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