http://journals.democraticunderground.com/CrisisPapers/143
About This "Mormonism" Thing
Posted by CrisisPapers in Editorials & Other Articles
Tue Dec 18th 2007, 09:46 AM
Ernest Partridge
When Willard "Mitt" Romney announced his intention to run for the
Presidency of the United States, one might suppose that there was joy in
Salt Lake City among the leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-Day Saints.
I suspect that by now those leaders may be having some second thoughts.
For while it was a good thing for the American public to learn about the
Mormon faith, Church leaders are now discovering that it is possible to
have too much of a good thing.
The thirteen Articles of Faith of the Mormon religion enumerate a set of
beliefs, some of which are quite consistent with traditional Christianity,
and others which, while unique to Mormonism (e.g., the Book of Mormon), are
not outlandish or immediately offensive to most ordinary Christians. (The
Articles of Faith were written by the Mormon founder, Joseph Smith, to a
Chicago publisher, John Wentworth, in 1842). The Articles say nothing about
God once being a mortal human and being one among many Gods, about the
brotherhood of Jesus and Satan, about God inhabiting a planet called
"Kolob," or about the "magic underwear" that devout Mormons are required to
wear, etc. Nor are you likely to hear about such things from the Mormon
missionaries that might appear at your front door.
However, it now seems naive to have supposed that these and other bizarre
Mormon doctrines would not be brought to light by Mitt Romney's political
rivals.
Many faithful Mormons are surprised at the astonishment and derision that
some LDS beliefs provoke among the general public. This surprise is likely
due to the simple and universal fact that beliefs that are taught in
childhood and shared in a community of believers are regarded by the
faithful as "obvious" and "ordinary," while at the same time those same
beliefs are considered, "from the outside," to be weird and outlandish.
I can testify to this fact, for I have experienced Mormon doctrine from
both the inside and the outside. From childhood, through high school, I
shared Mitt Romney's faith in the Mormon religion. Then that faith totally
vanished during my freshman year in college - at Brigham Young University,
of all places!
MORMONISM AND ME
If I might be permitted a few autobiographical remarks, this is how it
happened.
My high school education was outstanding. I was among a few students
selected to attend a "demonstration" school attached to a state teachers'
college, where we were taught by college professors. There I acquired a
precociously secular, scientific, and scholarly perspective on human
history and institutions. At the same time, my parents (both graduates of
BYU and both post-graduates of Columbia University) saw to it that my two
brothers and I regularly attended LDS Sunday services. They accepted the
conventional view that "Sunday School" was essential to a child's moral
development - a view that I have since come to seriously doubt.
Accordingly, during my adolescence, I carried about in my head, a
bifurcated mind. There was "the weekday mind" of ancient dinosaurs, of
evolution, of American Indians as migrants from Asia, and above all, of
skepticism, scientific discipline and critical thought. Then there was "the
Sunday mind" of the Creation in 4004 BC, of the Garden of Eden and Noah's
flood, of the Indians as migrant Israelites (the "Lamanites"), and of faith
trumping "man's reason" - faith: "the substance of things hoped-for, the
evidence of things not seen." (Hebrews, 11:1). I somehow managed the
alternation of mind-sets from weekdays to weekends to weekdays again,
without undue strain.
But at BYU the shifting of mind-sets from classroom to classroom to library
to study hall proved to be untenable. At the end of my sophomore year, I
transferred to the University of Utah and majored in Philosophy. Courses in
geology, anthropology, new-world archeology, etc., pounded the final nails
into the coffin of my childhood faith. In the words of the apostle, Paul:
"when I was a child, ... I thought as a child. But when I became a man, I
put away childish things." (I Corinthians, 13:11) In my mind, the
Latter-Day Saints, formerly "us," became "them," and since then I have
never looked back. (Accounts of this "de-conversion" may be found in my
unpublished "A Peculiar People" and "Religion and the Schools: A Dialog").
Today, the polygamous man-God of Kolob, the magic underwear, the
Hebrew-Indians, the translating peep-stones and the golden plates, the farm
boy and the angel, "the curse of Cain" upon all people with any African
ancestors, baptism for the dead (the Creator of the earth and all human
souls being incapable of saving those souls all by himself), etc. - all
this and more seem as bizarre to me as they do to most non-Mormons. (The
essential tenets of Mormon theology are presented in this remarkable
cartoon narrative of unknown origin. It is generally accurate, although
there are a few identifiable minor errors. For example, Mormons do not
believe that God and Mrs. God came to earth as Adam and Eve).
But equally bizarre to me is the Catholic dogma of transubstantiation (the
ritual cannibalism of God's body), the argument that birth control is
contrary to "natural law," the protestant fundamentalist beliefs in
biblical literalism, young-earth creationism, and the doctrine of "the
rapture," the orthodox Jewish ban against eating shellfish or wearing mixed
fabrics, and the Islamic belief that the Angel Gabriel handed the Koran to
Mohammed. Much worse is the plain immorality of many traditional religious
beliefs. These include the belief that the genocide, murder and mayhem
chronicled in the Old Testament were condoned and even commanded by the
Lord God, that God had ordered that disobedient children, blasphemers,
unchaste young women (but not men), and those who toil on the Sabbath be
put to death, and that a loving God created billions of souls, all but a
few thousand of whom He has condemned and will condemn to eternal damnation
and torment. Among those condemned are authentic "secular" saints and
martyrs such as Socrates, Marcus Aurelius, Galileo, Voltaire, Gandhi,
Jefferson, Sakharov, who somehow failed in their lifetimes to agree with
Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell and to accept Jesus as their personal Lord
and Savior.
A "RELIGIOUS TEST" FOR PUBLIC OFFICE?
We Americans are traditionally a tolerant people, who believe that one's
personal religious faith should not disqualify one from public office. It
is so stated in Article Six of our Constitution: "no religious test shall
ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the
United States."
Until recently, I endorsed this pronouncement without qualification. Now,
after seven years of George Bush's "faith-based" administration, I have
reservations. Thus, I find the prospect of a Mitt Romney or a Mike Huckabee
administration to be unsettling. At the very least, the question of a
"religious test" for public office deserves some careful scrutiny.
The issue articulates around the meaning of "religious test." The term can
be interpreted negatively: "no Catholics, Jews, Moslems, or atheists need
apply." Or it can be interpreted positively: "these offices are open
exclusively to born-again evangelical Christians" (or other religious
persuasion). Article Six of the Constitution notwithstanding, there is,
practically speaking, a religious test for the Presidency and for
membership in Congress; no self-professed atheist has ever occupied the
White House, and only one admitted non-believer is now in Congress (Pete
Stark of California), although there may be a few more who associate
themselves with a religious denomination out of political necessity.
Does "religious test" refer to an individual's religious affiliation, or to
his or her religious beliefs? Despite the close correlation between
affiliation and belief, the distinction is crucial. Exclusion from public
office on grounds of religious affiliation is a giant step toward theocracy
and the establishment of a state religion. The framers of the Constitution
were wise to forbid it.
But once you have identified a person's religious affiliation, what do you
have? Perhaps, not much. Consider, for example, "Mormonism." There are
reportedly over twelve million Mormons. Among them are faithful Mormons
like Mitt Romney, with uncompromising "testimonies" of the truth of their
beliefs in "the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ," of the Book of Mormon, of
the divine mission of Joseph Smith, and of the divine authority of the
"prophet, seer and revelator" in Salt Lake City, who leads the LDS Church.
There are, I would guess, at least as many "social Mormons," who have an
abiding respect for the history and traditions of the Church and who enjoy
the weekend company of other Mormons, while at the same time rejecting the
LDS theology. "Social Mormons" admire, as do I, the strong family values,
the integrity, and the in-group solidarity and compassion that is
conspicuous among the Mormons. But they may be much less impressed with the
indifference of the Church and its members to social and economic
injustice. Many of my much-admired professors at the University of Utah
were non-believing "social Mormons." So too, as I was eventually to
discover, were my parents.
And finally, because it is extremely difficult to remove one's name from
the membership rosters of the Church, those rolls include individuals who
are totally alienated from the Church. When the LDS Church proclaims that
there are more than twelve million Mormons, the Church no doubt counts me
among them, although I have entered a Mormon church just twice in the last
forty years, each time for the funeral services of my parents.
So when Jon Meacham of Newsweek writes that "the world's nearly 13 million
(Mormons) ... believe that God ... (revealed) the Book of Mormon," Meacham
and Newsweek are flatly wrong.
Because John Kennedy was apparently a "social Catholic" rather than an
uncompromising believer in the absolute authority of the Pope and the
Vatican, his affirmation of the separation of church and state was quite
credible and thus he was fully qualified to serve as President of the
United States.
Accordingly, an individual's religious affiliation, per se, should not
disqualify one from public office. But should a person's religious beliefs
enter into a public discussion of that person's qualification for office?
Here the issue becomes complicated and controversial, and the distinction
between religious affiliation and religious belief comes into play.
Suppose a candidate for public office identifies himself as a believer in
the ancient Aztec religion, and thus an advocate of ritual human sacrifice
to the Sun God. In such a case, clearly the vast majority of Americans
would say that he is unqualified for public office. I'd venture that those
who signed the Constitution would agree. However, I would argue that the
correct focus of this objection would not be to his religious affiliation
but rather to his public advocacy of human sacrifice.
The same argument would apply, I suggest, to those who would promote
policies of burning witches, of trial by combat, and of capital punishment
for disobedient children, homosexuals, and blasphemers. True, all such
policies issue from religious conviction, but it is the specific policies,
not the general religious orientation, that should be of most immediate
relevance.
What if a Roman Catholic proclaimed that if elected, he would do his utmost
to outlaw all birth control drugs and devices, "because the Pope tells me
to do so." If so, then that person should not hold public office in the
United States. Not because of a "religious test" against that candidate
because of his Catholic faith but rather because of his attempt to
"establish" Catholicism as the ultimate source and sanction of secular U.S.
law (contrary to the First Amendment to the Constitution) and to impose his
religious beliefs upon citizens that do not share these beliefs.
Similarly, if a candidate of any religious persuasion were to suggest that
persons of other faiths, or no faith, must be given a diminished
citizenship status in our republic, then that candidate likewise disregards
the establishment clause of the first amendment. Those who insist that
"this is a Christian nation" are of such a type, as is Mitt Romney when he
asserts that he would not appoint an Moslem to high office in his
administration.
Finally, suppose a believer in "the end times" proposes to do nothing about
global warming, to abolish the Environmental Protection Agency and all
environmental protection laws, and to invest nothing in alternative "green"
energy sources. He proposes all this because, like Ronald Reagan's Interior
Secretary, James Watt, he devoutly believes that Jesus will soon return to
renew the earth, thus making all such policies unnecessary. Again, such a
candidate should be judged as unsuited for public office because of his
policies, and not because of his religious affiliation. In fact, many
evangelical Christians, such as Jimmy Carter, believing as they do in
responsible "stewardship" of God's creation, have an opposite point of
view.
Having thus separated a candidate's religious affiliation from his pubic
policies, I do not wish to suggest that religious faith is irrelevant to
one's conduct in public office. Quite the contrary. If a candidate wishes
to tell the world that he intends to be guided in public office by his
religious convictions, then a voter is fully entitled to examine those
convictions and to speculate as to the behavior and policies that might
issue from those convictions. As we have seen, the professed religious
convictions of George Bush, of his appointees to high office, and of his
supporters in the religious right, have had profound effects upon public
policies and legislation regarding global warming, energy, scientific
research and development, public health, and foreign policy towards Islamic
nations.
With these considerations in mind:
What About Mike Huckabee? Like Jimmy Carter, Mike Huckabee is a Southern
Baptist. But Huckabee is no Jimmy Carter. Carter, a trained and certified
nuclear engineer, negotiated an amicable personal peace between his
religious faith and modern science, and thus his administration was
distinguished by Carter's support of scientific research and education.
Huckabee, unlike Carter, does not accept evolution or the scientific
account of the age of the earth, and he believes the Bible, from Genesis
through Revelation, to be the inerrant word of God.
This is not the sort of leader that the United States requires at this
crucial moment in the nation's and the world's history. As Al Gore
correctly warned us in his Nobel Prize speech, we are facing a planetary
emergency. Evidence of rapid and radical climate change comes from data
samples that are thousands and millions of years old. Remedial action must
take long-term ecological consequences into account. Resources, information
and initiatives from the life sciences are urgently needed, and evolution
is the central coordinating concept of the biological sciences. The last
thing we need in the White House is a man who denies evolution, who
believes that the earth is less than ten thousand years old, and who
believes that inerrant wisdom resides in a collection of ancient texts by
unknown authors.
What About Mitt Romney? Mitt Romney is a man of uncompromising faith in his
"restored gospel" and in its living prophet, Gordon Hinkley, the President
of the LDS Church. Perhaps Romney believes that he can govern independently
of the doctrines of his church and the guidance of its leaders, but I am
not convinced. This is a church that proclaims, "when the prophet has
spoken, the thinking has been done." I'd prefer a president who continues
to think after an old man in Salt Lake City has had his say.
Romney's firm grasp on the "iron rod" of LDS doctrine (a Book of Mormon
allusion) is not replicated in his announced political and economic policy
positions. Far from it. His alternating, weather-vane endorsements and
rejections of positions on abortion, gay marriage, etc. have become
notorious. We know that Mitt Romney is a faithful and believing Mormon. But
what else is he? He gives us little guidance as to his position on public
issues, or as to how he would perform as President. In any case, if you
don't like his political position, just be patient. Like Seattle weather,
it's bound to change.
Romney's so-called "JFK speech" in Texas was alarming to say the least, and
had the opposite intention and effect than did Kennedy's. Bill Curry in The
Huffington Post summarized it well: "Kennedy reassured evangelicals that
though his faith was different from theirs he'd never impose it. Romney
told them his faith wasn't so different and that in any event he'd be happy
to help impose theirs." Romney, who has announced that Moslems have no
place in his administration, effectively demoted non-believers
(secularists) to second-class citizenship when he asserted that "freedom
requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom and religion
endure together, or perish together." By implication, the irreligious and
the non-religious are enemies of freedom.
In that same speech, Romney warned that "in recent years, the notion of the
separation of church and state has been taken by some well beyond its
original meaning." He did not spell out that "original meaning," nor did he
explain how he intends to undo this allegedly excessive separation - how,
that is, he would reunite church and state in a Romney administration.
I wonder if Romney has given much thought to the meaning and implications
of his reassurances regarding the role of religion in American political
life.
I can report that this "secularist" is not reassured.
Faith and dogma have got us into our global trap. Trained intelligence,
education, critical thinking and courageous political initiative must lead
us out.
These essential assets have been in short supply in this political season.
-- EP
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You are invited to check out the following:
The Rise of the Theocratic States of America
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocracy.htm
American Theocrats - Past and Present
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocrats.htm
The Constitutional Principle: Separation of Church and State
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
[and to join the discussion group for the above site and/or Separation of
Church and State in general, listed below]
HRSepCnS · Historical Reality SepChurch&State
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HRSepCnS/
***************************************************************
.. . . You can't understand a phrase such as "Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion" by syllogistic reasoning. Words
take their meaning from social as well as textual contexts, which is why "a
page of history is worth a volume of logic." New York Trust Co. v. Eisner,
256 U.S. 345, 349, 41 S.Ct. 506, 507, 65 L.Ed. 963 (1921) (Holmes, J.).
Sherman v. Community Consol. Dist. 21, 980 F.2d 437, 445 (7th Cir. 1992)
.. . .
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USAF LT. COL (Ret) Buffman (Glen P. Goffin) wrote
"You pilot always into an unknown future;
facts are your only clue. Get the facts!"
That philosophy 'snipit' helped to get me, and my crew, through a good
many combat missions and far too many scary, inflight, emergencies.
It has also played a significant role in helping me to expose the
plethora of radical Christian propaganda and lies that we find at
almost every media turn.
*****************************************************************
THE CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLE:
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
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