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Below is the full speech by Mitt Romney on faith in America.

This speech by Mitt Romney has often been compared to that given by John F. Kennedy. Kennedy's speech can be read here. Romney is different than Kennedy- he used the words religion and faith many more times than Kennedy did in his own speech. While Kennedy sought to make clear he was not running as the Catholic candidate it is apparent that Romney is running as the faithful candidate.

Kennedy got it right and Romney got it wrong. This speech by Romney was not an endorsement of the separation of Church and State but quite the opposite- he argued that religion and freedom are inseparable.

While Kennedy strove to emphasize that his politics would not be governed by the Roman Catholic hierarchy Mitt Romney seems to argue that his White House will be governed by his notion of what he calls our shared religious tradition.

This is for me the point in which I find myself rejecting Mitts vision. This call by Romney for our "shared religious tradition" to trump freedom suggests that free citizens should only be free to the extent that their actions do not offend the moral beliefs of said "shared religious tradition".

Seen through the Adventist apocalyptic lens, the notion of a shared religious tradition is quite alarming. Ellen White counsels us that in the last days the anti-Christ will speak things closely resembling truth and that persecution will come not from the secular irreligious but rather from those seeking to impose their supposedly Christian faith upon us.

Romneys argument that we have a shared religious tradition is in opposition to the very liberty which allows us to practice our faith as we see fit.

In my humble opinion it is exactly this notion of a shared religious tradition which will welcome the oppressive state Adventist eschatology points to.

In the seventeenth century thousands of pastors were expelled from their positions. The people were forbidden, on pain of heavy fines, imprisonment, and banishment, to attend any religious meetings except such as were sanctioned by the church. ... Yet God was with His people, and persecution could not prevail to silence their testimony. Many were driven across the ocean to America and here laid the foundations of civil and religious liberty which have been the bulwark and glory of this country. The Great Controversy p. 252

We understand the blessings of religious freedom in this country to be based fully on the notion that religiously motivated behaviors should not be sanctioned or restricted by law. And that the state should not be enacting church doctrine as civil law.

We also understand that Babylon will be marked by the church seeking to impose its own false doctrines on the remnant. The America celebrated by Ellen White is the one which opposes the politics of Romney and the Christian right.

When the leading churches of the United States, uniting upon such points of doctrine as are held by them in common, shall influence the State to enforce their decrees and to sustain their institutions, then Protestant America will have formed an image of the Roman hierarchy, and the infliction of civil penalties upon dissenters will inevitably result. The Great Controversy p.445

I am suggesting that Adventists have good reason to reject Romneys notion of a shared religious tradition in America and that his candidacy points to the religiously-cloaked persecuting state prophesied by Ellen White.

When presidential candidates like Mitt Romney push the boundaries of the constitution in seeking to promote themselves as candidates of faith people of faith would do well to push back in defense of the very faith such candidates purport to advance.