Mormons

I guess it started for me with James Fallows looking at whether Mormonism was a disqualifying belief system for the Presidency.  He started from the basic liberal supposition that denying the rights of Mormons to be President was a "religious test" banned under the Constitution.

What amazed him was both the vitriolic responses and - perhaps as surprising - the calm, level-headed denunciations of Mormonism.  The responses seemed to come in three forms.  First, I would never vote for Romney because he has no core values, not because he's a Mormon.  Second, I think we can calmly look at someone's religious beliefs and use that to evaluate their judgment and their moral compass, and Mormonism does seem rather strange.  Third, Mormons are dangerous cultists who should be allowed nowhere near the levers of power.

Now, this is entirely anecdotal from a self-selected group of people who read The Atlantic online.  But it has been burbling up elsewhere on the Internet.  Yesterday a poll came out showing a solid plurality of GOP voters think that Newt is more trustworthy to have the nuclear codes.  "Newt" and "most trustworthy" usually don't appear together without a "not" in between them.  But if you look at the Krazy Kandidates (Bachmann, Santorum) or the Klueless Kandidates (Cain, Perry) it really comes down to Paul, Gingrich and Romney.  Paul is marginal to everyone who doesn't love him.  And Romney is a Mormon.  And I think that matters to GOP voters.

Romney's a phony.  He just oozes falseness.  I mean, he's running for office for Pete's sake.  But Cain and Gingrich are both carnival barkers, grifters and self-promoters and the GOP still prefers them by almost a 2-1 combined margin over Romney.  It can't be Romney's phoniness alone that is keeping him pegged in the 20-25% range.

I confess to not knowing a ton about Mormon beliefs.  I know they can't drink coffee, much less beer, and they make going to Utah a pain, because it's tough to have an entire state BYOB.

So let's take a travel with Wikipedia through the Mormon catechism and see what we find.

First, all religions are silly if taken literally.  Hindus have a god for everything.  They probably have gods for dirty laundry and finding a babysitter on a Saturday night.  Catholic veneration of the saints is not that far behind, a sort of closet polytheism.  Take a look at Mohammed's night journey and see if that makes any sense to you.  Revelation seems pretty clearly to be the product of a schizophrenic episode.  And take a few moments to REALLY read Genesis and tell me if you can believe every word of it.

Centuries of tradition have given these faiths a patina of respectability.  Mormonism is one of the few new post-Enlightenment religions and therefore struggles to justify its mythology empirically - something other faiths never had to do.

The early history of Mormonism, like Judaism, Christianity and Islam is one of persecution and ridicule.  It involved a charismatic leader preaching during a time of great spiritual ferment, with an underlying nationalist message.  In other words, just like Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Mormons believe that the Christian church went astray in the years after Jesus' death.  I don't think this is a reflection on gnosticism or the Arian heresies or the Nicene Movement, but who knows.  Anyway, they think their version of Christianity is the truest.

Mormons believe that everyone is effectively immortal and comes to earth in physical form to experience sin and death.  In the process, they must come to choose good over evil.  There are a bunch of sacraments and rules and laws ("ordinances") that Mormons are expected to follow, including baptism and some form of the Eucharist.  The doctrinal differences from other Christians doesn't seem all that more divergent than, say, those between Calvinism from Catholicism.  

Some of the more "cult-like" observances of Mormonism include banning non-LDS members from the Temple, even for the marriage of a child or sibling who is Mormon.  The secrecy of the Temple has created that blank space into which imagine may run freely. The "endowment" ceremony seems to have been lifted from Masons, and much of LDS theology is borrowed from elsewhere.  The Mormon church is pretty hard on people it considers apostates.  There are ideas within Mormonism related to sexuality, marriage and gender that are... odd.

So far, not seeing anything apocalyptic.  To this point, LDS just seems like a peculiar variant of Christianity.  No more peculiar to these Episcopalian eyes than anything Michelle Bachmann believes.

The Mormon cosmology is kind of weird though.  They believe in a planet or star called Kolob, which is kind of like God's home planet.  There are bunch of other inhabited worlds, which is not surprising from a religion that came after Galileo.  You also have a sort of undergarment, referred to as "Mormon magical underwear" by critics.  On the one hand, it's a physical manifestation of divine covenant like a yarmulke or the ritual washing before entering a mosque.  On the other, it's somehow supposed to protect you from sin.  Cotton: The Fabric of Your Afterlife.

Also, covenanted members of the Church have some sort of paradise allegedly waiting for them, which might make Mormons somewhat more willing to accept the apocalypse.  

Looking at Mormonism, it appears to me to be a mish-mash of Christian beliefs, Masonic rituals with some Old Testament stuff thrown in and a dash of weird 19th century science fiction.  In fact, Mormonism did inspire some elements of Battlestar Galactica (the Lord of Kobol).

So, for me... For me, Mormonism is just an odd variant of Christianity.  It doesn't seem cultlike, although it does have some odd secrecy issues.  It feels like a 19th century attempt to enliven some old Christian dogmas.  There's some Milton in there and some Galileo/Copernicus.  There's some Masonic hocus-pocus.

But it really isn't any more dire than some forms of fundamentalist Christianity.  Yes, Mormons tend to be anti-gay bigots and don't allow women equal footing with men.  How is that different from fundamentalist Christianity or even the Catholic church?

I think you can say that you would not vote for someone because their choice of religious belief freaks you out.  I think you can say that Mormonism freaks you out.  But I have a hard time with people who would then turn to someone like Michelle Bachmann for relative religious normality.  

I offer this quote from one of Fallow's readers:

On the accusation that Mormons believe such crazy things that we can't possibly be rational: have they been watching the Republican debates? The two most rational people in the room have clearly been the two Mormons.

Tough to argue with that.