In his speech last night to the RNC, Mitt Romney said: “We were Mormons and growing up in Michigan; that might have seemed unusual or out of place but I really don’t remember it that way. My friends cared more about what sports teams we followed than what church we went to.”
I grew up a Seventh-Day Adventist. I did not have non-Adventist friends until after we left the church in the summer of 1980 (when I was 14).
As an Orthodox Jew, I would think it the norm for my fellow Orthodox Jews to primarily have friends who were Orthodox Jews. This would be 100 times more important than what sports team you followed.
I get what Romney is saying. America is about as tolerant society as has ever existed. Americans don’t tend to judge people by their religion but rather by their fruits. If you’re a good person, that’s what we care about.
But if you’re a member of a sect, such as Adventism or JW or Orthodox Judaism, that membership is going to be far more important than dividing people up by race or sports team affiliation. Some sociologist said that religions could be divided into sects and the big-tent approach. I’m used to religion as a high-commitment that divides the world primarily into “us” and “them.” I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that so long as there is no teaching about hurting innocent members of other groups.
