The Nauvoo Expositor

Here are a couple of very interesting facts about the whole Nauvoo Expositor fiasco.

1. The 15 resolutions the Expositor made against Joseph Smith were true. In fact, it's very difficult to find the "vicious lies" Joseph accused it of spreading.

2. Joseph Smith's order to destroy the Expositor printing press was a clear violation of the First Amendment of the Constitution - you know, the one guaranteeing the freedom of speech and of the press? That one. In other words, what Joseph and his followers did was strictly criminal (as was their practice of polygamy, by the way).

How are members supposed to justify Joseph's behavior? Where is God in all of this? What if I seriously doubt God had anything to do with any of this whole affair?

Escorting Satan

Mormon lore is a funny thing. Of all the stories you hear growing up in the LDS Church, a favorite is the story of the son of a friend of a friend who despite having Down syndrome wanted to get a patriarchal blessing. The jaw-dropping part of the story is that in this special blessing it is revealed that the reason the young man even has Down syndrome is because he had personally escorted Lucifer out of Heaven at the end of the War in Heaven and the chromosomal condition he now has somehow protects him from the temptations of the Devil!

It always sounded very fishy to me, but I doubted those doubts. I'm sure someone somewhere on Earth has been protected by a mental disability to keep him or her safe from Satan. That's totally the kind of thing a generous father would do to his extremely strong and valiant (so strong and valiant they were given the task of bouncing the Devil!) spirit child. God obviously has trust issues and is a bit of a control freak. And never mind the fact that taking away someone's accountability for his or her choices goes completely contrary to the very purpose of coming to Earth in the first place.

Freedom of speech

Anti-Christs are so awful!

Utah Mormons these days have rekindled their love for the U.S. Constitution. Their favorite part is the freedom to impose religion on everyone within a given geographic area. Their least favorite part is the freedom of others to speak their mind. Maybe that's because The Book of Mormon has a wonderfully un-patriotic story about a man, Korihor, being arrested for teaching against religious prophecies. Basically the believers were getting upset that this Korihor guy was actually convincing people to stop believing so they had him arrested and his case ended up in the Nephite Supreme Court, where it was discovered that Korihor was "possessed of a lying spirit." In the end God was his judge and God struck Korihor dumb for the rest of his few remaining days, which he lived out as a beggar. So be careful what you say, people of the Free World! Just because you can and want to say something doesn't mean you should.

"Give me a sign, yo!"

This story might sound a bit harsh (or just plain stupid) to anyone who didn't grow up with it, but bear in mind that Jehovah-Jesus was very harsh about these sorts of things. He instituted thought crime in no unclear terms. If you've thought it and wanted it, you've committed the sin. Mysterious as it is, that's God's way.

Today the Church doesn't worry as much about what you think so much as what you say. For some it's better to sit and learn in silence rather than open your mouth and share.

You don't determine what Mormonism is, the Church does. The Church sets the terms for everyone. Deal with it.

Heavenly fatherliness #39 - Protection

According to popular wisdom, a good father protects his family at all costs.

As the story goes, God cursed us with pain and disease and death. That's the opposite of protection. But that's because Heavenly Father's concerned mostly about protecting our ability to make choices and less concerned about protecting us physically. That's why he was willing to permanently exile a third of his spirit children - because they were anti-choice. That's why God placed us in a crazy, mixed up world, so we can try to navigate it by making righteous choices. Righteousness will then protect us from sin and pain.

OK, that's not really true. No mortal man can be righteous enough to avoid sin, and even the most righteous are still vulnerable to the all sorts of painful experiences, like accidents, sicknesses, natural disasters, deaths of loved ones, ugly breakups, disappointment, and all the rest. All righteous choices can do is make you a prime candidate for the Celestial Kingdom. It's the kind of protection you might expect from a shady insurance company, but with even foggier details.

When it comes to the cost of all of this, apparently it was enormous: the blood sacrifice of one perfectly righteous demi-god. Never mind that that God got a full return on his investment within a few hours. Which one of your children would you give up to die horribly if you knew you could get him or her right back?

*These attributes represent the popular thoughts of Ask Men’s Jullian Marcus, examiner.com’s Tanya Tringali, and Open Talk Magazine’s Glenn Silvestre as per their respective articles on what makes a good father.

What it's all about

If The Book of Mormon was written for these latter days, why does its content seem so tightly focused on Joseph Smith's day? The whole thing is essentially a series of Second Great Awakening style sermons strung together in a narrative based on the answer to the question "who are the indigenous Americans?" In addition to the religious concerns of the early 19th century and the curiosities surrounding the First Nations people, we have a number of other very culturally specific topics of concern such as the preoccupation with avoiding a king as a ruler and opting instead for self-governance, declaring independence, war as a means of obtaining freedom, frontier justice, colonization, suspicion of secret societies like the Freemasons, and treasure seeking.

What does The Book of Mormon contain that addresses our current concerns about racism, LGBTQ rights, gender equality, abortion, proper taxation, etc. with the same perspective and precision? One might be prone to say that The Book of Mormon was written in Joseph's day for himself, and not thousands of years ago for us and our posterity. Unless you're one of these folks and have an awesome ability to make shit up.

Political "neutrality"

The LDS Church uses a special definition of political neutrality (i.e. not officially endorsing any political party or candidate) and claims to moral duty as a smoke screen to get involved in politics on an institutional level without ever gaining consensus from its general membership.

The LDS Church has, since its earliest of days, engaged directly in political issues. By the Church's own preferred version of the story, the establishment of the Church was a reaction to the politically contentious religious atmosphere of the early 1800s New England. Many of the early Church's problems with neighbors were a direct result of the tendency for Mormons to vote as a solid block. Joseph and Hyrum Smith's death was cause to introduce an oath of vengeance against the United State into the endowment ceremony. Brigham Young ran the state of Utah largely as a theocracy and today in Utah the state government continues to bend to the religious directive of the Church rather than to civic responsibility. The Church openly opposed desegregation. The Church organized its Relief Society against the Equal Rights Movement. The Church invested millions of dollars to oppose Proposition 8, tried to fight marriage equality in Hawaii, and continues to support opposition to marriage equality in Utah. How can the LDS Church claim political neutrality when it has been involved in these issues and thousands upon thousands of other actions taking place on all levels of politics, from neighborhood to city to county to state to federal to international?

Doesn't political neutrality mean you refrain from taking sides on a given issue? The LDS Church is obviously unable to simply let its members determine their political convictions on their own, opting instead to lead them out on the conservative war path. The Church's claim of neutrality is deceptive and wrong, but I can think of a way the Church could justifiably get involved in politics: hold a Church-wide vote involving all members wherever they may be in the world and gain unanimous support before taking action.

However, if the LDS Church took action only after a unanimous vote in favor, as is required for the establishment of official Church doctrine and proclamations, there would be no chance in hell that the Church would reach the consensus to mobilize in a single direction on a given issue. No wonder our leaders don't ask our opinion on political matters.

The days of being wild

I think every member has had a conversation or two about the transformation of the Church's image from the early days of unique facial hair styles to the unimaginative, clone-ish, clean cut look of today. We could talk about the history of how this came to be and discuss how silly it all is, but there's something else about this transition that eventually stood out to me.

The more I compared and contrasted the early Church with our current LDS Church, the more I noticed significant differences. Generally speaking, the early Mormons seemed to have a far greater range of expressing individualism and variety of thought compared to today, when so much of what we must think, believe, and do is dictated with precision. What happened to the freedom of belief and expression that once was found in Mormonism?

Then one day a friend of mine pointed out in a brief aside that the early Mormons were incredibly liberal for their times and today Mormons are known for taking a very conservative stance on most issues. How did Utah become one of the reddest states of the U.S.A.? Why does the Tea Party do so well where the Church is strongest? What happened to the spirit of early Mormonism? Why would God find a bunch of liberal, democratically-minded people to start his church only to hand it over to close-minded theocratic reactionaries?

Something didn't seem consistent about the trajectory of this "perfect" Church. Reading about what brought about the changes only clarifies who's really at the helm of mainstream Mormonism.