Monday, December 03, 2007

Romney Takes the NPR Religious Test   [Byron York]

Mitt Romney was interviewed on NPR today, where host Robert Siegel was quite interested in Romney's views on the Bible.  The exchange gives us an idea of Romney's frame of mind as he approaches his speech in Texas Thursday:

SIEGEL: One last point: In the CNN-You Tube debate, there was a moment when one of the people who submitted a question asked all the candidates whether they believed in every word of the Bible, and two of your rivals – Mayor [Rudolph] Giuliani and Gov. [Mike] Huckabee – both made a point of saying, "Well, in some parts it's allegorical, in some parts it should be interpreted, but yet, I believe in the Bible." And you seemed – if I read you right – to make a point of saying it's the word of God, and even when considering some modification, you backed up, said, "No, I'll just stick with that. It's the word of God." [That] left the impression – and I want to ask you – do you hold a literal belief, say, in the Genesis version of creation?

ROMNEY: You know, I find it hard to believe that NPR is going to inquire on people's beliefs about various parts of the Bible in evaluating presidential candidates, and actually, I don't know that that's where America has come to — that you want to have us describing our particular beliefs with regards to Genesis and the Book of Revelations, so —

SIEGEL: I raise Genesis only because creationism is a national issue in a variety of ways, and –

ROMNEY: Well, but then you could ask me a question and say, "Do you believe that we should teach creationism in our schools, in our science classes and so forth?" and I'm happy to give you an answer to that. But I don't know that going through books of the Bible and asking, "Well, do you believe this book? And do you believe these words?", that that's terribly productive. Particularly when we face global jihad, when we have 47 million people without health insurance, when we have runaway costs in our entitlements, to be asking presidential candidates about their specific beliefs of books of the Bible is, in my view, something which really isn't part of the process which we should be using to select presidents. My point is the Bible is the word of God, and I try and live by it.

12/03 08:44 PMShare