The most striking moment in this striking speech came when Romney offered a far more sanguine narrative of the history of American religious freedom than we are used to hearing, particularly from conservative Republicans. In fact, in Romney's hands this history is a story of religious bigotry. The Puritans came here seeking religious liberty, he said. “But upon finding it for themselves,” they “denied it to others.” This intolerance exiled Ann Hutchison from Massachusetts Bay, and sent Brigham Young and other pioneering Mormons on their westward trek to Utah. The moral of this history lesson is clear: Americans today should rise above religious bigotry, not least by evaluating presidential candidates on the basis of their credentials instead of their religious tradition. After all, Romney said, “Religious tolerance would be a shallow principle indeed if it were reserved only for faiths with which we agree.”

This mention of the “American Moses” Brigham Young was the only direct reference to Mormon beliefs or history. So those who were expecting Romney to defend such Mormon doctrines as the embodiment of God or such Mormon rituals as baptism for eternity will have gone away from this speech disappointed. But Romney has nothing to gain from becoming an armchair theologian. Instead of saying precisely what a Mormon is, he said he was a Mormon and he challenged us to live up to the better angels of our nature by refusing to persecute him for it.

“I believe in my Mormon faith and I endeavor to live by it,” Romney said. “Some believe that such a confession of faith will sink my candidacy. If they are right, so be it.” So there.

Echoing John F. Kennedy, whose classic 1960 speech on the separation of church and state he evoked at the start, Romney said that just as Kennedy said he was not a Catholic running for President, he was running not as a Mormon but as an American.

Elsewhere in the speech, Romney alternated, effectively in my view, between the right-wing view that the First Amendment by no means necessitates the separation of religion and politics and the left-wing view that the United States is a religiously plural nation.

Going farther than most other conservative Republicans, Romney thoroughly entangled religion and freedom, which, he argued, “endure together, or perish alone.” But he sounded more like a 1960s liberal than a 21st Century conservative when it came to his vision of the religious character of America. Instead of simply saying that he respects other religions, Romney said he envied and even loved features of all the faiths he has encountered, Judaism and Islam included. Refusing to serve as a spokesperson for his own faith, Romney said that if he becomes President he will “need the prayers of the people of all faiths.”

A few days ago I was in Key West addressing a group of journalists at a workshop sponsored by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. This Romney speech was looming on the horizon, so the participants kept asking me WSMD? What should Mitt do? I told them he needed to talk about three things: himself, Mormonism, and America. I said I thought he needed to define himself clearly and unambiguously both as a Mormon and as a person of faith, and not only as a believer but also as a believer in Jesus. I said he needed to say something about Mormonism—just enough to allay Americans’ fears of the tradition but not enough to stir up those fears. And I said he needed to say something about American values of tolerance and religious liberty. But most of all I said he had a very, very difficult task ahead of him.

I think he executed this difficult task brilliantly. He said less about Mormonism itself than I thought he would. But what he said about religious tolerance was so forceful that anyone who has follow-up questions about what he thinks about our eternal progression to divinity or whether he is wearing Mormon underwear is going to feel not only foolish but also a trifle un-American.