On Mormonism

One of the casualties of recent political opera has been the candidacy of Mitt Romney (what the hell is Mitt short for? Mitsislav?) Anyway, I am a Ron Paul man, just like it says on my straitjacket, but the roller coaster ride of the Romney Band Wagon made me quite nauseous. At first the Conservatives were afraid to get behind him because he was a Latter Day Saint, and Evangelicals (a critical Conservative constituency) consider Mormonism a dangerous perversion of their own puritanical version of Christianity. Then, when it was too late, they got behind him with all the weight of the talk radio airwaves, which it turns out don't weigh anything. Romney had even had to make a public declaration, in the manner of John Kennedy, that his presidency would not be defined by polygamy or the criminalization of Starbucks.

So the candidate's Mormon religion was an issue.

Now you've got to admit that Mormonism mobilizes feelings in people. For one thing, they go out doing Missions, where young men dressed kind of like Jake and Elwood Blues ride around on bicycles and knock on doors and talk to you about their faith. For Orthodox Christians like me it is a very unorthodox approach; having had our asses repeatedly kicked by just about every other religion, we have learned to keep a low profile. Mormons need to accept the fact (and I believe they have accepted it) that most people are not going to be glad to see them on the front porch, because most Americans implicitly believe that the harder the sell, the worse the product. Anything sold door-to-door is going to be viewed with suspicion here in the Fruited Plain.

The other thing is that they seem so well adjusted and they have these giant smiles. The serene disposition of the Mormon, perhaps a product of the emphasis they have put on family life, seems artificial to the rest of us (although to be absolutely fair a lot of Pentecostals and Evangelicals strike kind of the same chord in me). Many of us secretly fear that they are so well adjusted because they don't smoke or drink alcohol or coffee. Perhaps also because they do not have extramarital sex (at least that's what they're telling us). The Mormon's implacably benign outlook sometimes impresses us as incredibly naive; to put the shoe on the other foot, when I was in Russia I was instructed not to smile as much as came naturally to me because if I did the Russians would think I was Berdykov the Village Idiot.

Latter Day Saints have an almost unparalleled operation in the dissemination of their creed. Some say it's one of the fastest growing religions in the world; at the current rate there will be more Mormons than Catholics in only seventy thousand years! The problem is, whenever you are with a Mormon, you know he is putting the make on you, and even when he is not, it is only because he is being subtle. You never know if they like you because of who you are or because of what you could be if only you would open your heart and mind in prayer. Again to be fair, many of us feel the same way when we get around certain Evangelicals or Pentecostals.

One of the most serious problems for LDS folks is that their theology is viewed with great disfavor among the more orthodox (small "o" on purpose) Christian believers. After all, they have this other book, the Book of Mormon, that has revelations after those in the New Testament. The problem for Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox Christians, though is that we are in the same position with Jews. The Jews reject the New Testament on the grounds that their revelation was sufficient and needed no further revision. On what grounds do we say the Jews are wrong, and we are right? Kind of puts us on a vulnerable footing with the Mormons, if you ask me.

The easy part of dismissing Mormonism is that it is such a preposterous faith. I mean, this guy is told by this angel to dig up these plates that he translates with the help of the angel and then the angel conveniently takes them back to heaven. Why couldn't the angel just dictate the Book of Mormon, like he did the Qu'ran to Mohamed? The Native Americans are really Jews, which is so obvious by looking at them why didn't we figure that out, and after we die we get our own planet with tiny little beings on it. Thank goodness my religion is more logical, where God impregnates a virgin with his son and the guy is half-man, half-god and he died so I could live forever. My ironic point is, for those who missed it, that every religion is preposterous at its core and if it wasn't it wouldn't be worth believing. Still, the Leap of Faith required by Mormonism is kind of in a separate class, on the same scale as say, Scientology.

The Biggest Problem for Mormonism, however, is that their existence is an uncomfortable mirror into our own hypocrisy. Liberals, who share the pinnacle of self-righteousness with only a few others, must experience a kind of painful itch when they confront the reality that Mormons care about others more than they do. While Agnostic Academic Lefties preach from their ivory lecterns about how to help the poor with other peoples' money, the Mormon gives generously of his time and money to people less fortunate than himself. The Conservative Christian boasts about Abstinence and Family Values while he is surreptitiously knocking wingtips with other men in the bathroom; how can he not feel ashamed when he fails to be as transformed by his faith as Mormons are by their heretical beliefs?

Perhaps Mormons are better than we are because they have to be. For example, when a Catholic priest has sex with an Altar Boy, Evangelical Christians say that the abuse is a direct consequence of the flaws in the papist religion. So if Mormons attract the wrong kind of attention, people will conclude that it is because their religion is so bizarre. Perhaps like the Protestants of France, the Mormons must carefully cultivate an image of industriousness and virtue in order to enhance their chances of not being further oppressed.

There is no better metaphor for the Mormon than Christ's parable of the Good Samaritan. For some reason, the meaning of that story is lost on just about every Christian. Samaritans were (and are) a people related to Jews in blood and religion, but their existence posed a problem for the Jews just as the existence of the Mormon poses a problem for the orthodox (small "o" on purpose) Christian. For the Samaritan adhered to a creed that was repugnant to the Jews both because of its similarity and its difference to the more conventional Jewish faith. And yet, in the biblical parable, the Samaritan, the heretic if you will, is a better man than those who walk by the injured robbery victim. He is a better Jew than the Jew, even though his beliefs are askew. In the story, we are supposed to identify with those who do not offer aid to the injured man, not with the Samaritan; and so we completely miss the point of the story.

Now Jesus was not telling us in the parable that the conventional Jewish belief was incorrect. He could have said so just then, after all. Instead he was saying what good are your "correct" beliefs if you are untransformed by them? How can we, then, be critical of Mormons when they are better Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox Christians, and Secular Humanists (is that what they call themselves or is that what Conservatives call them) than we are? It seems to me that we should be thinking more about how to emulate them rather than how to criticize them, more about how we are wrong rather than how they are wrong. Certainly Mormonism would not be growing as fast as it is if Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox Christians were as kind and generous and virtuous as Mormons.

As for me, I am not too concerned about one day being surrounded by Mormons, even though they can give as good as they have gotten. In Riders of the Purple Sage, the classic Western Novel by Zane Grey, the Mormons are depicted as scheming and cruel, and the novel is supposed to have its basis in the historical fact of the range wars of the epoch. If I am to have my ass kicked for drinking wine or not accepting a newer version of my religion, it does not matter to me if the boot is a Mormon one or a Muslim one.

Copyright (C) 2008 Robert Albanese Presentations