Mormon Coffee

On April 6th (2009) LDS-owned Brigham Young University’s student newspaper, The Daily Universe, ran a photo with an unfortunate caption. Pictured were some members of the Church’s Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. They were identified in the newspaper as “The Quorum of the Twelve Apostates.” The Associated Press reported,

“The typo was an honest mistake, said Carri Jenkins, spokeswoman for church-owned BYU. She said most of the 18,000 copies of the student paper were retrieved Monday morning and replaced with 10,000 corrected copies later in the day.”

Non-Mormons have found humor in the error and have enjoyed a laugh at the student-run newspaper’s expense. If you stop to listen you can almost hear Homer Simpson’s infamous “D’oh!” echoing across the campus. But Mormons don’t think it’s funny.

Rich Evans, editorial manager of The Daily Universe, called the caption “the worst possible mistake.” Brad Rawlins, chair of BYU’s Department of Communications said, “We don’t think this error is glib or cute or humorous. We understand people will take offense to the error. We ourselves are offended as a department for this error. We have a deep regret that it appeared in today’s paper.” And an LDS student at BYU said of the mistake, “It would be sad if someone was trying to do harm to our church.”

I’m not sure why this “honest mistake” has caused so much consternation among Latter-day Saints, but maybe it has something to do with the historic Mormon stance on apostates. LDS Prophet Brigham Young told the Saints,

“I say, rather than that apostates should flourish here, I will unsheath my bowie knife, and conquer or die. [Great commotion in the congregation, and a simultaneous burst of feeling, assenting to the declaration.] Now, you nasty apostates, clear out, or judgment will be put on the line, and righteousness to the plummet. [Voices, generally, ‘go it, go it.’] If you say it is right, raise your hands. [All hands up.] Let us call upon the Lord to assist us in this, and every good work” (Brigham Young, March 27th, 1853, Journal of Discourses 1:83. Brackets in original).

Apostasy is serious spiritual business in any religion. In early Mormonism (or perhaps even today if anyone regards Brigham Young’s teaching as true) it could also be life threatening. Certainly this aspect of early Mormonism increases the gravity of the typographical error in The Daily Universe.

Most people, of course, will recognize the fact that The Quorum of the Twelve Apostles are not modern Mormon apostates (though self-described Mormons belonging to Mormon splinter groups would certainly disagree). The Twelve embody today’s Mormonism and carry the authority to govern and manage the LDS Church, and drive it into the future. Yet, with the accusation of apostasy hanging over The Twelve, they might consider taking steps to further demonstrate their faithfulness to the Church. Brigham Young also taught,

“Brethren who have been on missions, can you see any difference in this people from the time you went away until your return? [Voices: ‘Yes.’] You can see men and women who are sixty or seventy years of age looking young and handsome; but let them apostatize, and they will become gray-haired, wrinkled, and black, just like the Devil” (Brigham Young, October 7, 1857, Journal of Discourses 5:332. Brackets in original).

Perhaps The Twelve will consider the benefits of using A Touch of Gray for a while to squelch any lingering doubts.

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Have you heard about the next episode of HBO’s Big Love, set to air on Sunday (March 15, 2009)? It’s being widely reported that the television show will be depicting the LDS temple endowment ceremony as one of the main characters faces losing her LDS Church membership. Read more about it from The Associated Press.

As would be expected by anyone familiar with Mormon culture, the LDS community is up in arms over the proposition of a public viewing of the restricted temple ceremony. The Mormon Church has issued a formal statement encouraging members not to worry and to “conduct themselves with dignity and thoughtfulness” in the face of this new affront. Yet LDS members are quite upset, calling for boycotts and subscription cancellations of services associated with HBO and Time Warner. Joel Campbell at Mormon Times wrote some characteristically strong words about the issue:

“For members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Time Warner’s Home Box Office network will cross a very bright ethical line when it airs an episode of ‘Big Love’ Sunday…

“What [Big Love producers] Olsen and Scheffer have created amounts to religious pornography. It takes something that is sacred and meant for personal reflection and commitment and throws it before the masses…

“Don’t get me wrong. I don’t believe there should be any effort by government to censor HBO, but I do believe those who care about respect for religious ideals should enter the marketplace of ideas and make calm and reasoned arguments about why this show is offensive. The public should demand HBO observe higher ethical standards. HBO ought to make the ethical decision to pull the show based on its offense to members of the nation’s fourth largest religious denomination.”

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Columnist Joel Campbell at Mormon Times encourages Mormons to turn the other cheek when they are offended. Citing Tom Hanks’ statement that the LDS support of Prop 8 was “un-American” and Focus on the Family’s decision to pull an online interview with LDS conservative Glenn Beck, Mr. Campbell suggests Mormons meet such challenges with courage and civility. He says it’s time to forgive Mike Huckabee for asking, late in 2007, “Don’t Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?”

However, Mr. Campbell notes,

“At the same time, I do think Mormons should remind Huckabee and Focus on the Family’s James Dobson about how some evangelicals misrepresent and denigrate Mormons in un-Christlike ways, including taking beliefs out of context (like Huckabee parroted to the Times). It also includes protests at our temple open houses, distributing defamatory videos and literature, ‘witnessing’ at religious pageants and using blow-horn mockery outside our general conferences. Mormons need to ask for these leaders’ assistance in increasing the level of respect, civility and tolerance toward Latter-day Saints among evangelicals.”

I’m all for respect and civility. And I agree whole-heartedly with Mr. Campbell when he writes,

“I like what First Amendment expert Charles Haynes wrote in his column: ‘With differences this deep, we are in for a protracted fight. Fortunately, the First Amendment makes it possible to wage the war with words, giving all sides freedom to make their case openly and robustly without government interference. Of course, there will be winners and losers — we live in a democracy. But how we debate — not only what we debate — matters. It isn’t mandated by the First Amendment, but treating our opponents with civility and respect might enable us to live with one another when the battle is finally over.’”

I’m having trouble fitting these two paragraphs together. If it’s good that everybody has the opportunity to “wage the war with words, giving all sides the freedom to make their case openly and robustly,” why does Mr. Campbell suggest that evangelicals engaged in such pursuits are lacking respect, civility and tolerance?

It would be foolish to say people never cross the line when debating Mormonism vs. Christianity, but in my experience such conversations are nearly always civil and respectful. I’ve been to many Christian outreaches at Mormon temples and LDS pageants. I’ve both observed and participated in discussion and debate. I’ve distributed videos and literature. Of course, some Mormons disagree with the content of these things—that’s why we need to talk about them.

Which brings me to another point of agreement I share with Mr. Campbell. While his encouragement is directed specifically at supporters of Prop 8, I think it has broader application. For all of us at Mormon Coffee, regardless of the degree to which Mormons might influence Mike Huckabee and James Dobson, we

“should continue to enter the public square and thoughtfully express our point of view.”

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The tempest in a teapot seems to have settled down. But for a week or so at the end of December (2008) the media went a bit wild with the Focus on the Family/Glenn Beck story. If you were distracted by Christmas and missed it, here’s what happened.

On December 19th the evangelical Christian ministry Focus on the Family posted an interview with LDS conservative cultural commentator Glenn Beck on Focus’ web site CitizenLink.org. The interview centered on Mr. Beck’s new book, The Christmas Sweater. According to the author, the book is a metaphor of the atonement of Christ.

A few days later the Christian apologetics ministry, Underground Apologetics, issued a press release through Christian Newswire (which you can read at Christian Research Network)
explaining why it was a disappointment to find an evangelical Christian ministry promoting—without qualification—the faith of a Latter-day Saint. The release noted Mr. Beck’s Christian-compatible social views and praised the work of Focus on the Family, then said,

“However, to promote a Mormon as a Christian is not helpful to the cause of Jesus Christ. For Christians to influence society, Christians should be promoting the central issues of the faith properly without opening the door to false religions…Christians are to stand up against the social ills of society, however, we are to put Christ first and His essential biblical truths.”

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During Christmas week I was listening to a discussion on the radio regarding the place of Santa Claus in Christmas. Was it good or bad, the talk show’s host wanted to know? As you can imagine, there were all sorts of opinions expressed by callers who thought the inclusion of Santa in Christmas was good, bad, and everywhere in between.

One man said he thought the problem with Santa Claus was that he grabbed too much attention. The focus of the holiday should be Christ; His birth, after all, is what the season celebrates. But so many people forget Christ and center their festivities on Santa Claus instead. Santa, the caller said, usurps the honor and attention that is due to Jesus.

With these comments fresh in my mind, I came across a timely article at MormonTimes.com: ‘Praise to the Man’ honors Joseph Smith. The article was about a new Mormon Tabernacle Choir CD scheduled to be released on Joseph Smith’s 203rd birthday (December 23, 2008). Titled “Praise to the Man,” the recording is a “special Joseph Smith tribute album.” MormonTimes.com explained that an advance copy of the CD had been presented to LDS President Thomas Monson. According to the article,

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New West Politics ran a story this week about the political race for Wyoming’s U.S. House seat. Two candidates are running neck-in-neck, but the Republican congressional candidate, Cynthia Lummis, hopes to add the Mormon vote to her support base. Mormons make up 10% of the voting Wyoming public.

Ms. Lummis is a conservative life-long Missouri Synod Lutheran, but she investigated Mormonism — up to the point of baptism — two times while in college. She had many LDS friends then, and, according to the New West Politics article, she hopes that history, coupled with her conservative politics, will win the day.

But, as the article mentioned, the LDS vote is not “monolithic.” Church leaders in Wyoming say there is a strong minority of Mormon Democrats in the state, and the Church allows people to vote their consciences.

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Eight years ago, 61 percent of California voters passed Proposition 22, the “California Defense of Marriage Act.” The proposition read very simply: “Only marriage between a man and woman is valid or recognized in California.” No doubt many Californians thought that because the people had spoken, the issue was over. But this was not to be the case. On May 15, 2008 four members (George, Werdegar, Moreno, and Kennard) of the seven-member California Supreme Court voted to overturn Proposition 22, thus reversing an earlier decision in 2004 that put a stop to San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom’s defiant order to issue marriage certificates to nearly 4,000 same-sex couples.

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Last week Jeff Spector over at Mormon Matters wrote about an interesting phenomenon. In “Hedging Your Bets: Refusing to Leave the Church” Mr. Spector talked about inactive Mormons and the negative reactions from some of them when they are visited by their Home Teachers. Mr. Spector wrote:

“I have been yelled at, cursed at, threatened with the police, etc. just for showing up at a member’s door and asking about them. And yet, most do not want their name removed from the Church rolls.

“Either, they have family concerns, are just too lazy to write the letter, or don’t care enough to do anything about their Church membership other than request no contact from the Church….

“So, it has always intrigued me as to why these folks seem unable to completely divorce themselves from the Church. Even though they want no contact.”

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After reading some of the Google news alerts that came across my desk in the past couple of weeks I was left pondering several questions. For instance…

On August 27th this headline appeared: “Huckabee Denies Mormon Slur.” The story was actually a transcript from a Rush Limbaugh radio interview with former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. At issue was the comment Mr. Huckabee made during his campaign when, responding to a reporter’s question, he asked, “Don’t Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?” Mr. Huckabee explained to Mr. Limbaugh,

“It was a question that I actually asked of the New York Times Magazine writer, because he knew a lot more about Mormonism than I did. It appeared as 11 words in about a 10,000-word story, and that got all the play.”

The question I ponder from this story is this: Since Mormonism teaches (and hence Mormons believe) that Jesus and the devil (Lucifer) are brothers, why was Mr. Huckabee’s comment labeled a “slur”? Would it have been a slur if Mr. Huckabee had said, “Mormons believe in baptism for the dead, don’t they?” Or, “Mormons believe God appeared to a farm boy in upstate New York, don’t they?” Or, “Mormons believe in Jesus Christ, don’t they?”

On September 3rd the Salt Lake Tribune ran a story titled, “Utah Democrats back off religion-based attack on Palin.” The article reported,

“The Utah Democratic Party charged this week that Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin is a ‘devout member of an anti-Mormon denomination’ and questioned whether LDS faithful should vote for her.”

As it turned out, the charge against Mrs. Palin by the Utah Democratic Party had no basis in fact:

“Palin is not a member of the church the Democrats are referencing, that church denies it is anti-Mormon and there’s no evidence of any anti-Mormon rhetoric from its pulpit.”

The Democratic Party has backed off and now says they have no plans to make Mrs. Palin’s religion an issue in the election. But one question I have been asking myself since reading this article is this: If it is bigotry to not vote for a Mormon because of his religion, isn’t it also bigotry to not vote for a non-Mormon because of her religion?

Someone who appears to be LDS (identified as ne1410s) left a comment about the Salt Lake Tribune story that included this:

The Utah Democrats have nothing to be ashamed of. Stan Lockhart’s phony righteous indignation doesn’t change the fact that the Assemblies of God [the denomination in question] are indeed anti-mormon. This is from their official web site:

http://www.ag.org/Pentecostal-Evangel/Articles2002/4579_spencer.cfm

The link provided by ne1410s does indeed go to the Assemblies of God web site, to an article which appeared in its denominational magazine Pentecostal Evangel in 2002. Written by former Mormon Jim Spencer, the article, titled “Is Mormonism Christian?” begins,

“Notice that the title of this article is not ‘Are Mormons Christians?’ That is a somewhat different question. No one can see into the human heart but God. No one but God is qualified to judge hearts. But, does Mormonism teach a consistent biblical doctrine — a Christian doctrine? That is an important question because we can judge the teachings of an organization. And we must do so if we are to faithfully discharge our responsibilities as Christ’s disciples.”

What follows in Mr. Spencer’s article is a look at several key doctrines (i.e., the nature of God, priesthood, grace, scripture, etc.) and how the LDS understanding of these doctrines differs from that of historic (biblical) Christianity.

My question: If it is “anti-Mormon” for a non-LDS organization to delineate some major differences between Mormonism and historic Christianity, is it also anti-Mormon when the LDS Church does the same? Or, if it has to do with the perspective of the author, should the LDS explanation of how Mormonism differs from other religions be deemed anti-evangelical? Or anti-non-Mormon? Based on the distinctions listed and explained on the LDS web site, is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints an anti-[fill-in-the-blank] denomination?

On September 4th the East Valley Tribune (Arizona) ran “Group uses billboards to reach out to ex-Mormons,” a story about PostMormon.org. The article described a recent billboard ad sponsored by the group:

“It features a generic smiling family of eight, a Post-It note that reads ‘You are not alone!’ and the Web site address: www.PostMormon.org.

The article went on to interview and record the stories of former Mormons and the feelings of loneliness they experienced after leaving the LDS Church. The article quoted an LDS spokesman in Arizona:

“I think it is another instance of people who have decided to leave the church. Generally, what we find is that oftentimes people who leave the church don’t leave quietly. [They sometimes] leave bitterly and want to make some sort of a statement.”

One Mormon (lmoll4) commented:

“Whether or not you believe what the church represents you should out of respect for other people who do believe, just leave it alone. Because you have left the church I am not going to attack you so I would hope that you would do the same. In this country we have freedo[m] of religion. Please be respectful of that.

This story raises yet more questions in my mind. If it is true that those who leave Mormonism and talk about it, that those who make statements about it are bitter and disrespectful, is it true that people who talk about having left another religion for Mormonism are also bitter and disrespectful? Are people who talk about their spiritual journeys into Mormonism attacking those who have not made the same journey? Are they infringing on the Constitutional rights of others to freely practice their own religions?

Just wondering…

Friends, as you engage in discussion please be aware of the Mormon Coffee profanity filter that removes the Mormon N-word from comments.

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Last week Joel Campbell over at Mormon Times posted two columns (Wednesday and Saturday) dealing with the media and its treatment of Mormon issues. Wednesday’s column asked, “FLDS: Does the media get it yet?” Mr. Campbell took a look at how well the media is doing now, a month and a half after the LDS Church asked journalists to stop using the terms like “Mormon fundamentalists” and “Mormon polygamists” when reporting on the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. According to Mr. Campbell, the frequency of the use of those terms is generally much lower now than before the Church made its request. However, terms including “renegade Mormon sect” and “breakaway Mormon sect” are still causing some consternation for the Church. Mr. Campbell wrote of one example,

“The Salt Lake Tribune has allowed the term ‘Mormon fundamentalist’ to appear in some of its recent news stories, including the front-page story about a home for fundamentalist grandmothers. The story was picked up by the Contra Costa Times and San Jose Mercury News, which ran the inaccurate headline ‘Mormon sect finds a home for its grandmothers.’”

Actually, the term “Mormon sect” could hardly be more accurate when applied to the FLDS Church. The dictionary definition of “sect” is “a group that has separated from an established church; a non-conformist church.” While it has not always used the FLDS name, the beginning of that church can be traced back to a separation from the LDS Church. The term “Mormon sect” identifies the FLDS group as one that has separated from an established church, and it identifies from which church it separated. The term is informative and correct. Latter-day Saints don’t like it, but their dislike of the facts does not change the facts.

Mr. Campbell’s Saturday column at Mormon Times was about how his readers responded to a question he asked of them: “So are Mormons treated fairly when the media chooses to identify religious affiliation of a story subject?” The responses he included are fairly typical: journalists are biased and lazy and sensationalize stories to put the Church in a bad light. I’m not sure what these folks are reading or watching, but the stories that come across my desk most often include glowing reports about Mormons joining other faith groups in providing disaster relief, Mormons going on missions, or Mormons winning Mrs. America pageants (etc.). Sure, there are occasional stories of fraud or child abuse, but from my perspective it seems that the LDS Church’s Public Relations firm is earning its fee well.

One of Mr. Campbell’s readers commented:

“The media are all a bunch of Johnny-one-notes when it comes to our faith. There really does seem to be a herd mentality, because every reporter falls back on the same tired tropes when it comes to Mormonism, almost as if newsroom computer keyboards have a macro set up (control-M?) to spew out ‘Big Love, 1978 revelation, magical underwear, evangelicals hate Mormons’ whenever a member of the Church (or the Church itself) makes news.”

This man decried the media’s use of “the same done-to-death stereotypes” in describing Mormons; but he didn’t express any concern over the repetitious use of the more positive stereotypes provided to the media by the LDS Church. It’s only natural that Mormons would want their church portrayed before the public in the best possible light, yet wholly positive stereotypes paint a picture no more accurate than negative stereotypes do.

In Utah they say there’s a great divide between the Mormons and the non-Mormons. Mormonism is often like that – black or white, all or nothing. If media reporting is not always positive about the LDS Church, it is perceived as being always negative. If the media uses the word “Mormon” in reports on FLDS news stories, though journalists may make an effort to use the word accurately and clarify possible public misperceptions regarding the LDS Church and today’s polygamy, Mormons think the media just doesn’t get it; and worse, the newspapers are accused of confusing people with inaccurate and misleading information.

That’s how Mr. Campbell and his readers at Mormon Times see it. I wonder how the readers here at Mormon Coffee would answer Mr. Campbell’s questions?

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