In this week’s issue of TIME, Jon Meacham suggests an appropriate religious response to the recent attack on Mitt Romney’s Mormonism made by Robert Jeffress, a Dallas Evangelical megapastor and supporter of Republican presidential candidate and Romney rival Rick Perry. Jeffress likened Mormanism to a “cult,” and in doing so wrongly imposes a religious test on American politics:
The rhetoric Jeffress used suggests two things. First, those who profess the apostolic faith of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost must speak out forcefully in opposition to those who would invoke it in pursuit of theocracy of any kind or degree. There is a biblical and religious case for the separation of church and state that is worth discussing. (Jesus was such a separatist, telling Pilate that “my kingdom is not of this world.”)
Read the column here.