Posted on 12/31/2011 9:31:32 PM PST by delacoert
Sacred underwear, baptizing holocaust victims, gods of their own planets.
When some of Americas most celebrated pundits and public intellectuals talk about Mormons, these are the images that are summoned. Ironically in this Mormon Momentsignaled by a hit Broadway musical, polygamous housewives on TLC, and of course two Mormon presidential candidatesMormons, long considered quintessential outsiders to mainstream American culture, today find themselves at the center of the American zeitgeist. Yet it is the Mormons supposed theological weirdness that is the centripetal attraction.
As Joanna Brooks has noted in these pages, the New York Times recently featured Harold Blooms musings on how a President Romney would govern a country, and a planet, from which he would in the afterlife depart, becoming the god of his celestial body. More planet talk happened just last week on the Chronicle of Higher Educations Brainstorm Blog. Michael Ruse, philosopher of biology, asserted that it is legitimate not to vote for a presidential candidate whose theology is totally barmy. We can become gods with our own planets! No coffee and tea is bad enough. But the underwear! In October, in a column called Anne Frank, a Mormon? Maureen Dowd offered (via Bill Maher and Christopher Hitchens) the full rundown of Mormon weirdness, from Joseph Smiths uneasy reputation to the Jewish dust-up: the posthumous baptism of Jews.
Casual assertions of knowledge about Mormon theology have dismayed longtime scholars of Mormonism. UNCs Laurie Maffly-Kipp recently told me that while seeming to archly critique the evangelical and atheist attacks on Mormonism, Dowds column in particular represented one pithy stroke of ignorance masquerading as informed opinion.
A Desert of Belief
Critics like Dowd, Bloom, and Ruse would not reduce Catholicism to Popery, Hinduism to the worship of cows, or Islam to the promise of seventy virgins for jihadi martyrs. Why is Mormonism different?
There are two answers to this question.
The first is religious. It is the Mormons belief system, a system at odds with a secular age when actual, as opposed to metaphorical, belief is no longer accepted as reasonable. At a talk last winter at the Harvard Law School, the don of Mormon letters, Richard Bushman, asserted that most Americans live in a desert of belief. The demands of secular rationalism have deforested the transcendent and supernatural even in the spiritual worlds of most religious Americans. Mormons on the other hand occupy a jungle of belief.
The audacity of the truth claims that Mormonism makes (angels delivering golden plates to a boy in early 19th-century upstate New York, modern-day prophets and everyday saints receiving revelations from Heavenly Father) requires that Mormon believers occupy a rich and imaginatively demanding spiritual world.
But even in this jungle of belief, Mormons dont think on a daily basis about the theology behind their sacred underwear. They dont pine for their own planets. Such obsession with what Mormons believe, even among Americas literati, belies the fact that Mormonism is foremost a belief system in action. Perhaps a concise summary of Mormon practical divinity comes from the late Church President, Spencer W. Kimball: As Gods offspring, we have His attributes in us. We are gods in embryo, and thus have an unlimited potential for progress and attainment. Still, at least according to the dictates of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) current leadership, tapping into this unlimited potential takes a fairly workaday form: participating in time-consuming church service, forming heterosexual couples with the purpose of raising faithful Mormon children, and succeeding in the corporate world.
The second reason for the ongoing discussion of Mormons weird beliefs is political. Mormons are the last (or at least the latest) religious other to confront the heart of American politics, to deem themselves American enough to ascend to the presidency. Mormon scholar Newell Bringhurst told me recently that that the current public debates over Mormonism reminds him very much of the debate over Kennedys Catholicism in 1960. Would Kennedy take orders from the Vatican? many leaders from the American mainline churches anxiously asked. No!, assured Kennedy in his famous speech to a gathering of leading Protestant ministers in Dallas two months before the election. I am not the Catholic candidate for president. I am the Democratic Partys candidate for president, who happens also to be a Catholic. I do not speak for my church on public matters, and the church does not speak for me.
Sticks and Stones
Romney has tried to answer skeptics of his church, but without Kennedys success. Mormons are still on the outs with key segments of the electorate he will need to win both the nomination and the general election. But as Bringhursts new book, The Mormon Quest for the Presidency points out, Romney and Huntsman are not the first Mormons to run for president, and thus not the first Mormons forced to defend the LDS Church as acceptably American. In fact the founder of Mormonism, Joseph Smith, launched a presidential bid in 1844: a campaign that ended when the Prophet was killed by an anti-Mormon mob.
Romney and Huntsman have not had to face down mobs. The violence against their Church has been rhetorical. But whether anti-Mormonism takes the form of villagers armed with muskets or the repeated chanting of underwear, planets, tablets, a glance at recent poll numbers about Mormon electability suggests that rhetoric does in fact hurt.
Following on Robert Jeffress diatribe at the Values Voters Summit, the recent Pew Forum survey found that the number one word Americans associate with Mormonism is cult.
The caricaturing of Mormon weirdness, even by public thinkers who should know better, does have consequences. Yet Mormon scholars like Bringhurst believe that this is a natural, and even welcome, vetting process of both Mormons as American and a Mormon as the chief American. (In this vetting process, one belief that America will soon discoverand a belief that the Mormon candidates could make more ofis that the LDS Church counts the Constitution as divinely inspired. Thus the Mormon canon of sacred scriptures includes the central document of Americas political and moral self-construction.) Many Mormon scholars believe that, as is the case today with Kennedys (and now Newt Gingrichs) Catholicism, in fifty years the idea of a Mormon in the White House wont raise many eyebrows at all.
Yet what about the short term?
One solution is to stop talking about religion as part of a presidential candidates resumé altogether. In an op-ed on the Rachel Maddow Show, political scientist Melissa Harris-Perry insinuated this solution. She argued that there are many reasons for Republican primary voters not to vote for Mitt Romneymany secular reasons. But his Mormonism is not one of them. Harris-Perry wants to draw a clear line between evaluating a candidate and analyzing a candidates faith.
In a lecture at the Danforth Center this fall, E.J. Dionne proposed a different solution: limit discussions of candidates faith to how this faith might influence his or her political perspective and policies. This would not include sacred underwear, seventy virgins, or transubstantiation. It does however include (as Michael Ruse allowed in his CHE post) discussions of how a candidates theological views of the Holy Lands, for example, might affect American policies regarding the Middle East.
As a scholar of Mormonism, and not (as I hope is obvious) as a spokesperson for the LDS Church, I must stay continuously alert to the unique context my work inhabits.
I recently wrote for The New Republic about the LDS Churchs complicated, and often troubling, history with questions of race. Ive studied this issue for years, and for the story reached out to many different LDS constituencies for commentincluding the Church itself. Yet by discussing the Churchs historical sins, I ran the risk of contributing to the othering of Mormons. Though my intention was to tell a different story about the LDS Churchs racialized history than Laurence ODonnells rant on the subject in 2007, in this politically-charged environment it is hard to separate nuance from vilification.
As one Church spokesman told me on background, with two Mormons running for president, no matter how fair Mormon scholars try to be, any discussion of Mormon peculiarities can and will be used to make the Mormons seem weird, un-American, and unelectable.
I take this fair bit of caution to heart. Even criticizing caricatures of Mormon theology in the media reactivates these caricatures.
So yes, religion does intersect with politics in this country, and we do need to find ways to talk about it. Id like to suggest, though, that unless a set of Mormon underwear declares its candidacy for the presidency we would do well to leave it out of the conversation.
Team Romney EVEN went after the children
as he HIDES behind his religion.
"Peeking Out From the McCain Wreckage: Mitt Romney"
"Someone's got to say it: IS MITT ROMNEY RESPONSIBLE FOR OBAMA'S VICTORY?"
"Vanity: Team Romney Sabotaged Palin and Continuing to Do So?"
"Romney Supporters Trashing Palin"
"Romney advisors sniping at Palin?"
Poor sport spoiler Romney doing what he does best:
Novak: "Fred Thompson drop-out rumors traced to Romney campaign"
Romney statement to ease Mormonism fears.
“If I am the Republican Partys candidate for president, who happens also to be a Mormon. I do not speak for my church on public matters, and my underpants do not speak for me.
Violet rhetoric might fit several of these definitions, but not all of them.
But not a violent violet. Typo.
It was written by a Smith disciple. The author is a member of the LDS.
The rhetoric provides caricatures of weirdness - not restricted to theology alone, but weirdness encompassing the behavior and aspirations of the Mormon priesthoods afforded ALL Mormon men.
Phrases such as sacred underwear, baptizing holocaust victims, and gods of their own planets lampoon Mormons and it embarrasses them.
If it is violence (which it is not), then every politician lampooned by David Letterman, Jay Leno, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Bill Maher, Conan O'Brien is a victim of violence and the comics deserve the death penalty.
Growing up in public isn't easy on anyone.
Martyrs don't die in shootouts! Sacrificial lambs aren't armed! J. Smith fired 2 weapons as he diedPlease cite your source because that is not mentioned in D&C 135. In History of the Church, it is stated that Joseph discharged his six-shooter (single weapon) into the hallway, some barrels of which misfired. As he was not alone, his older brother Hyrum already killed by two balls, Elder Taylor hit by four balls, but alive, and Dr. Richards escaped unharmed. Obviously the Prophet was fighting to protect himself AND others in the room, two of whom were visitors and not under arrest. BTW, legally, mobs don't go around storming jails and executing innocent prisoners. That happens in Islamic countries.
Well, you caused me to review my sources. And I do need to correct one thing -- which I changed in the tagline. Smith indeed had two weapons; but only fired one of the two. (Apparently, the mob didn't give him time)
Here's the source: John Hay Atlantic Monthly article December 1869 671-678
Hay wrote:
Smith had TWO loaded six-barrelled revolvers in his room. How a man on trial for capital offences came to be supplied with such luxuries is a mystery that perhaps only one man could fully have solved; and as General Deming, the Jack-Mormon sheriff, died soon after, and left no explanation of the matter, investigation is effectually baffled. But the four shots which I have chronicled, and two which had no billet, exhausted one pistol, and the enemy gave Smith no time to use the other. Severely wounded as he was, he ran to the window, which was open to receive the fresh June air, and half leaped, half fell, into the jail yard below. With his last dying energies he gathered himself up, and leaned in a sitting posture against the rude stone well-curb. His stricken condition, his vague wandering glances, excited no pity in the mob thirsting for his life. They had not seen the handsome fight he had made in the jail; there was no appeal to the border chivalry (there is chivalry on the borders, as in all semi-barbarous regions). A squad of Missourians who were standing by the fence levelled their pieces at him, and, before they could see him again for the smoke they made, Joe Smith was dead.
In History of the Church, it is stated that Joseph discharged his six-shooter (single weapon) into the hallway, some barrels of which misfired. As he was not alone, his older brother Hyrum already killed by two balls, Elder Taylor hit by four balls, but alive, and Dr. Richards escaped unharmed. (Christopher Dion)
Well, note what one faithful Latter-Day Saint said:
"Of the three barrels discharged by Joseph, it is believed he hit three men: an Irishman named Wells-who was in the mob from his love of a brawl-in the arm; Voorhees-an oversized kid from Bear Creek known for his lack of good sense-in the shoulder; and a man named Gallagher-a Southerner from the Mississippi Bottom-in the face." "Two other men were known to get hit in the hall, one a man named Townsend from Fort Madison, Iowa Territory, who died nine months later from the arm wound that wouldn't heal, and another named Mills, who was shot in the arm." - Elder Reed Blake, 24 Hours to Martyrdom, p. 129
You said some "barrels" (plural) of Smith's gun "misfired." If at least two barrels misfired from a six-shooter, how did Smith shoot five people?
Some sources chronicle four of the six shots by Smith.
Please also note: While Hyrum Smith was indeed shot in the face from the front by one of the mob shooters...a lingering Q still isn't explained: Who shot Hyrum Smith in the back?
From a Mormon author: "...it was found that the wound that killed Hyrum was sustained in his face while he was apparently holding the door against the mobbers. This was verified by one of the survivors, Willard Richards. Also discovered, however, was a wound in his lower back. The mystery of that wound is hard to explain if he was shot in the face and, falling backward, never moved as the survivors later testified. One report state he was shot in the back by a rifleman outside the window, but this is not a credible report since the...room is on the second floor and the door is some distance from the window. Other wounds found on his body were in front, sustained as he lay on the floor. But that back wound, after 160 years, is still a mystery." (Lds author George W. Givens, 500 More Little-Known Facts in Mormon History, Bonneville Books, 2004, p. 46)
I surmise that one of those supposed "misfires" from Joseph Smith actually hit his brother in the back about the same time -- Hyrum was fired on front from the front.
I've seen Web links of pictures of the scene... Theres no way somebody could have shot Hyrum Smith in the back as he was near the door on the second floor. The only person who had a weapon within range was his brother, Joseph. And they were receiving shots from just outside the door, where Joseph Smith may have wanted to return a volley. Only perhaps he hit brother Hyrum instead.
John Taylor, who was in the room, later recounted: "I shall never forget the deep feeling of sympathy and regard manifested in the countenance of Brother Joseph as he drew nigh to Hyrum, and, leaning over him, exclaimed, 'Oh! my poor, dear brother Hyrum!' He, however, instantly arose, and with a firm, quick step, and a determined expression of countenance, approached the door
Taylor then says Smith discharged three barrels through a cracked door,, snapping the pistol six times. But what if he miscounted or simply assumed Smith was firing all that he had? And what if all he had was 5 shots/5 barrels left because he had already shot his brother?
Yes, you're right about that: the specific examples were not what I'd call violent. So I accept your point.
However I have seen stuff that the organized LGBT's, especially, have put against the Mormons, which was eye-blisteringly obscene, offensive, and thrteatening, up to and including the targeting of their businesses and homes, retaliation against their employers and their professional standing, and vicious organized harrassment. This was because of the Mormons' major financial and on-the-ground support for Proposition 8.
I am grateful to the Mormons for opposing the Gay Brown Shirts, and yes, I think there have been plenty of violent verbal attacks on Mormons. Sadly, when that happens they often can't depend on solidarity and defense from other religious and social conservatives.
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