Thought you might be interested in Dan Gilgoff’s just-posted Beliefnet story <http://blog.beliefnet.com/castingstones/2007/12/has-romney-blurred-the- lines-b.html?bt=polmashup> about evangelicals calling for Mitt Romney to stop blurring the lines between Mormonism and traditional Christianity in tomorrow’s “Faith in America” speech: http://blog.beliefnet.com/godometer/2007/12/has-romney-blurred-lines-on- mo.html.

“In the few times he’s addressed the [religion] issue, he talks about the importance of religious values and dips into evangelical language, and neither of those is very impressive to evangelicals,” says Richard Mouw, president of Fuller Theological Seminary. “Evangelicals aren’t very reassured when he’s saying something that makes him sound like us when he really isn’t like us…. it borders on deception.”

….Mormon scholar Richard Bushman says that, while Romney hasn’t lied about his Mormonism, he has given it a “different twist.”

“Romney was trying to be the same kind of Christian as [evangelicals]

were, and then came along someone who’s been a Baptist minister saying You want a Christian? Here I am,” says Bushman, author of the Joseph Smith biography Rough Stone Rolling. “Romney took it too far in that he was unwilling to admit there was even a tiny gap between the two, and that’s what got him into trouble.”

Also, read the Southern Baptist Convention Richard Land’s just-published essay on what he hopes Romney will say, exclusively at Beliefnet <http://blog.beliefnet.com/castingstones/2007/12/has-romney-blurred-the- lines-b.html?bt=polmashup> :

http://blog.beliefnet.com/castingstones/2007/12/richard-land-a-hope-list -for-r.html?bt=polmashup

And check out Beliefnet blogger David Kuo’s new post on why Mike Huckabee is doing a “massive disservice to God <http://blog.beliefnet.com/jwalking/2007/12/i-like-mike-huckabee-the.htm l> ” in suggesting GOD means more to the GOP than another voter constituency: http://blog.beliefnet.com/jwalking/2007/12/i-like-mike-huckabee-the.html

Best,

Caren Browning