Posted on 01/15/2012 10:25:18 AM PST by SeekAndFind
With the New Hampshire primaries behind the GOP and South Carolina on the horizon, Mitt Romney seems the likely presidential candidate. Perhaps surprisingly, Romney’s Mormonism has yet to be a major stumbling block, and as time passes it doesn’t appear that it will become a hindrance.
But let’s consider another question. Could America vote for a Muslim?
Say a Muslim arrived on the scene with powerful and equitable ideas and challenged the status quo. Perhaps doubts are cast that a Muslim could actually become president, but the same was once said about Catholics and people of color.
One stumbling block to the potential Muslim candidate would be that many people think America is a “Christian nation.” At one time even this would have been questioned. If you had said to the predecessors to what would become the United States that “America is a Puritan nation” they likely would have agreed.
Simply put, there very well could come a day when a president who prays to Allah sits in the Oval Office. As Christian privilege slowly erodes due to tidal waves of globalization and pluralism, America’s hope is that religious differences will not erode but become respected. This is thanks in large part to the Constitution.
Just this week the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously upheld a lower court order striking down an Oklahoma constitutional amendment that would prevent state courts from considering Sharia law. The decision is based not on respect for Muslim tradition, but rather for the First Amendment -- the same First Amendment that protected Baptists early in the American experience.
If anyone should be the greatest allies with Muslims in America, it is Baptists. Yet time after time many Baptists lead the charge against religious differences, even at the risk of harming their own self-interest. Many Baptists have kowtowed to political power in order to protect their power and privilege, in the process sacrificing their prophetic voice.
As Roger Williams stated in The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience, “the blood of so many hundred thousand souls of Protestants and papists, spilled in the wars of present and former ages for their respective consciences, is not required nor accepted by Jesus Christ the Prince of Peace.”
A truly Christian nation not only imposes no formal religion on its citizens but also fosters freedom to express one’s own conscience – Muslim, Mormon or whatever.
-- Zachary Bailes is an M.Div. student at Wake Forest University Divinity School. He is editor of Those Crazy Liberals … and Conservatives and a contributor for Progressive Christian Alliance .
(Would you vote for one?)
A snowball stands a better chance in the flames of hell.
I thought we already got the 0ne we were waiting for.
Dittto
RE: I thought we already got the 0ne we were waiting for.
OK< let’s ask ourselves a different and more specific question — Could a person who HONESTLY and OPENLY calls himself a Muslim be President of the USA?
It’s name is Hussein, and no, I would not vote for it.
There already is one. He may not be seen walking into the Mosque but he is a Muslim.
What part of “Hussein” don’t you understand?
I thought we already got the 0ne we were waiting for. I was going to say but don’t we already have one?
Strange question; would I vote for a muslim to be president? The answer is no, not under any circumstances given the structure and history of their beliefs and systems which are contrary to those of the highest forms of Western Civilization, i.e., democracy, capitalism and Judeo-Christianity. In fact, their beliefs are to destroy those bases of our systems and replace them with their own. I wouldn’t vote for a nazi or communist either, given their beliefs/systems are enemies of Western Civilization as well, which is why we fought to destroy them, and which is why we are at war with islam too, like it,or believe it, or not.
I will NEVER vote for any Muslim for president. That’s like the sheep debating the wolves what’s for dinner.
When they have the numbers, they WILL try to establish a caliphate here. All the ethnic and religious cleansing that is happening against Christians in the ME and Africa will happen here.
Because of the radicals in their ranks (you know, the ones that aren’t afraid to say what’s on their minds and act on it) we have had our freedoms curtailed and lives disrupted. To hades with them, I say.
Not unless you can find one who is a strict constitutionalist first but that’s a pretty tall order. I think the only muslim I would turn my back on at this point is Zhudi Jasser and he’s a muslim muslim basher.
Five years ago I probably would have said yes. Now, no way.
53% of the votes were cast for one a few years back.
How many of those votes were legitimate is an exercise for another thread...
Romney is a minion of SATAN.
Islam is sedition.
We already have one. Why would anyone want to vote for another one?
No muslim, no mormon.
No, we are a Christian nation.
Let the mooselimbs run one of the country's that islam has already destroyed.
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