Election Primer 2012: Religion and Government   Steve Hochstadt
is a professor of history at Illinois College in Jacksonville,
Illinois. His books include "Sources of the Holocaust" (2004)
and "Exodus to Shanghai: Stories of Escape from the Third Reich"
(2012).  Engraving of Roger Williams meeting with Narragansetts
Indians, 1856.  The religious beliefs of Mitt Romney and Barack
Obama have persistently been a major talking point in this
presidential campaign. Some Christians do not consider Romney’s
Mormon faith to be truly Christian. Although Obama’s beliefs
should be popular among American Protestants, a surprising
number of them believe that he is secretly a Muslim, as they
also believe he was really not born in the United States.  As
usual the media obsessively focuses on personal details rather
than substantive issues. More important to this election are the
parties’ views about the ideal relationship between religion and
government.  Since the European settlement of New England in the
seventeenth centur