Muslims and Mormons
“U.S. Muslims and Mormons share deepening ties” states a headline from an April 2, 2008 article in the L.A. Times. The article discusses a bond between Mormons and Muslims that springs from their corresponding history of alienation and shared values. The article focuses on the similarities between the two religious groups and the ways in which Mormons and Muslims support each other.
BYU history professor Arnold Green recounts the unwelcome comparison of Mormonism to Islam in the 19th century, but notes that things have changed over time:
“As the church grew into a global faith,” Green wrote in a 2001 essay, “its posture toward Islam became . . . more positive” until, today, “the two faiths have become associated in several ways, including Mormonism’s being called the Islam of America.”
A comment by a Mormon identified in the article as Steve Young caught my attention. He said,
“A Mormon living in an Islamic society would be very comfortable.”
This is a surprising statement. Last month CBNnews.com ran an article about Mohammed Hijazi and his family. Raised as a Muslim in Egypt, Mr. Hijazi converted to Christianity three years ago. Now he is running for his life. His father told a local newspaper,
“I am going to try to talk to my son and convince him to return to Islam. If he refuses, I am going to kill him with my own hands.”
Furthermore, according to CBN,
An Islamic council issued a Muslim edict called a “fatwa” back in 1978 that still stands today.
It condemns Mohammed and [his wife] Christina to death for becoming believers.
Where does that leave their little daughter Miriam?
“I don’t think that God is asking you to make your granddaughter an orphan by killing her dad,” said Mohammed [in a written response to his parents].
But under the same fatwa, Miriam will be killed anyway at the age of 10 if she does not choose Islam.
Mormons would be “very comfortable living in an Islamic society”? BYU professor Noel Reynolds apparently agrees as evidenced by this comment:
“…there are many important elements of Mormon thought in which we feel closer to the followers of Muhammad than to the contemporary Christian culture in which we have been located since our beginning” (Reynolds quoted by Spencer Palmer, Mormons and Muslims, 8).
To me this is quite puzzling. It’s hard to understand how members of a religion claiming to be focused first and foremost on Jesus Christ feel such a strong bond with members of a religion that denies a cardinal truth about Jesus: that He is the very Son of God.
I found another statement in the LA Times article just as puzzling as those above:
“When I go to a Mormon church I feel at ease,” said Haitham Bundakji, former chairman of the Islamic Society of Orange County. “When I heard the president [of LDS] speak a few years ago, if I’d closed my eyes I’d have thought he was an imam.”
It was likely unintentional, but behind the scenes the LA Times created a fitting appellation for this Mormon/Muslim phenomenon. It ’s found in the article’s URL: Morlims.
Cultural Sins Among Mormons
Latter-day Saints are having a lot of fun over at the Mormon Matters blog. On Tuesday (4 March 2008) blogger John Nilsson posted My Top Ten Cultural Sins, or Why I Don’t Mark My Scriptures and freely confessed his shortcomings as a Latter-day Saint. Others have followed suit and what has resulted is a pretty funny read. I’ve provided a few LDS cultural confessions from the blog below, but if you have the time and would like to read some light-hearted Mormon banter, visit Mormon Matters.
- “I eat meat in the summer and in times of plenty.”
- “I am not a republican and do not consider Ronald Reagan an honorary member of the Godhead.”
- “I regularly fantasize about my wife wearing an outfit without garments.”
- “The Book of Mormon is not my favorite book, in fact it doesn’t make the top 100 list.”
- “Whenever anyone quotes 1 Ne 3:7 I open up to D&C 124:49.”
- “I use alcohol-based mouth wash.”
- “I plan to vote for a descendant of Cain in November.”
- “I put LDS book dust covers on murder mysteries to read during dull talks & testimonies.”
- “I enter into spastic, dry-heave-like convulsions at the mere mention of the word pageant.”
- “Sometimes when I’m at the grocery store I intentionally walk down the coffee aisle just because I love the smell.”
- “I often purposefully take the sacrament and sustain people with my left hand.”
Any Occasion Greeting Card?
I was in an LDS bookstore browsing through the greeting cards. Nestled amidst the birthday, baptism, missionary, and priesthood cards I came across a card (blank-inside) depicting Joseph Smith cradling his brother, Hyrum, who had just been shot. The art on the card is a reproduction of a painting by LDS artist Liz Lemon Swindle called “Oh, my dear brother Hyrum!” The setting is Carthage Jail.
As I contemplated the greeting cards on display, I tried to imagine an occasion for which the card bearing the bloody picture of Hyrum’s death would be appropriate. Or desirable.
The back of the card quotes Liz Lemon Swindle’s words, “What a price was paid for each of us. May we never forget.”
- Would a Mormon send this card, then, to a new convert, welcoming him into the Church?
- Would it be sent as a sympathy card to someone who has lost a loved one?
- Would a parent send it as an encouragement card to a missionary son or daughter?
- Would a Latter-day Saint send it to a doubting Mormon in an effort to strengthen a waning testimony?
I honestly can’t come up with any occasion for sending this greeting card that makes sense to me. But I’m not LDS. What am I missing?
(Please be thoughtful and sensitive in your discussion.)
Proving Mormonism is Christian
Mormons seeking to prove that Latter-day Saints (and the LDS Church) are Christian often resort to a certain apologetic argument that is woefully lacking in substance; nevertheless it continues to be bandied about with reckless abandon. LDS Prophet Gordon B. Hinckley uses this argument, and it is unendingly repeated by Mormons in manifold venues. Here it is, from a recent letter-to-the-editor in a Long Beach, California paper:
“It is ironic that many state that ‘Mormons are not Christian,’ when the name of the church is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”
Surely there are better ways to defend the nature of the LDS Church.
William Shakespeare put these words into the mouth of Juliet: “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Juliet told Romeo that what something is called does not necessarily correspond to what something actually is.
Some real-life examples for the sake of illustration:
• Mormon Coffee is neither Mormon nor a beverage.
• Mitt Romney is not, in reality, something to be worn on the hand.
• A Ford Taurus is not a constellation comprised of star clusters including the Hyades and the Pleiades.
• Long Island Iced Tea contains vodka, tequila, rum, gin and triple sec; but, in fact, it is not, nor does it contain, tea.
• Los Angeles, often called the City of Angels, has a population of approximately 4 million people; it is not truly populated by celestial beings.
• The World Church of Jesus is Satan, founded in Detroit, Michigan in 1993 by Thayalan Reddy, is not a Christian church despite the name of Jesus in its title.
Mormon Fundamentalist groups offend the LDS Church by calling themselves “Mormons.” The LDS Church clarified in a commentary on its web site:
“Polygamist groups in Utah, Arizona or Texas have nothing whatsoever to do with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. To refer to them as ‘Mormon’ is inaccurate.
“Mormon is a common name for a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints…
“When referring to people or organizations that practice polygamy, terms such as those given in the first paragraph above are incorrect. The Associated Press Stylebook notes: ‘The term Mormon is not properly applied to the other … churches that resulted from the split after (Joseph) Smith’s death.’”
The LDS Church recognizes that Mormon Fundamentalists are not actually Mormons even though they are called by that name.
So let’s put this silly “We’re Christians because our Church is called The Church of JESUS CHRIST of Latter-day Saints” argument to rest. Instead, let’s talk about who Jesus Christ is and what He has done for us.
Delivered From Postum
As Aaron wrote, the Deseret News reported the need for Postum fans to say farewell to their caffeine-free hot drink. The Salt Lake Tribune also reported on the story. The Tribune added a bit of information that the Deseret News didn’t have:
“Not long after its introduction, Postum became the elixir for faithful member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who eschew coffee and tea. It became such a part of Mormon culture that instead of having a ‘coffee table’ in the living room, some families called it the ‘Postum table.’
“Recent government health studies have listed Postum as having high levels of acrylamide, a substance that can cause cancer and reproductive problems in animals and act as a neurotoxin in humans. But even such findings have not deterred fans.”
The Word of Wisdom, which prohibits Mormons from drinking coffee (among other things) is defined by the LDS Church as,
“A law of health revealed by the Lord for our physical and spiritual benefit. In this revelation the Lord commands us not to use alcohol, tea, coffee, tobacco, and harmful or habit-forming substances, and promises blessings for obeying this commandment.”
I’ve asked a question similar to this one before, but I’ll ask again. If the Word of Wisdom is “a law of health” with “physical benefits,” why have Mormons been drinking a cancer-causing substance for over 100 years as a substitute for a different substance (coffee) that research has shown to be “far more healthful than it is harmful”?
In this instance, rather than the prophet the American economy has driven a healthy dietary change for faithful Mormons. Goodbye, noxious Postum. And good riddance.
LDS Growth and Retention
The September 20th issue of Apologia Report included an interesting summary of a recent article by John Dart on LDS growth and retention. With the permission of Apologia Report’s author Rich Poll, the summary follows.
“Counting Mormons” by John Dart, news editor for Christian Century — a valuable independent update on official LDS membership tracking practices and their reliability. Dart begins by reporting that “many researchers say that the official figures of Mormon membership in the U.S. — as well as the church’s claims of having 13 million members worldwide — are greatly inflated or overstated. At fault, studies say, is the church’s policy of counting as members nearly all baptized Mormons, including those who are lapsed in membership or who cannot be located.
“If more customary church tallies and membership estimates were used, scholars say, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would have to cut its publicly announced [U.S.] figure nearly in half — to just a little over 3 million. …
“Officials of the LDS Church admit that there are plenty of non-practicing Mormons, but they do not want to give up on them. … But everyone who has been baptized Mormon — usually at age eight — is included in official membership totals, which undoubtedly include some who have died. …
“[A]ny unaffiliated Mormons who cannot be located are still counted as members until they would have reached the age of 110. Only then is their membership dropped because they are presumed dead.”
Dart reports on another segment. One study showed that “from 1999 to 2004 conversions roughly equaled ‘defections and apostasy.’ As a result, more than three quarters of Mormon growth in the U.S. was due to the high Mormon birthrate, which outpaces the rate of deaths.
Then there is “the question of whether the LDS Church uses social statistics to promote itself in public.” Sociologist Rodney Stark has “projected that exponential growth rates could give Mormonism 267 million members by 2080. ‘The church bought into that prediction hook, line and sinker, and made it central to its ‘juggernaut’ public relations,’ said Jan Shipps of Indianapolis, who in 1980 became the first non-Mormon president of the Mormon History Association.
“Mormon sociologist Rick Phillips concurs. Speeches by church leaders cite the expansion ‘as evidence of the validity and legitimacy of church doctrines and programs,’ wrote Phillips” who, according to Dart, was quoted in The Rise of Mormonism, by editor Reid L. Neilson.
And as for membership estimates from non-LDS sources, “‘Growth stagnated in the 1990s and has topped off at about 200,000 new members per year over the last decade or so,’ says Ryan Cragun, who is completing his doctoral studies at the University of Cincinnati. ‘Growth has fallen in many countries around the world to about the level of population growth generally, around 2 percent,’ said Cragun. ‘The implication is that most of the new members are actually children of members,’ said Cragun, an ex-Mormon who joined the University of Tampa faculty this year.
“One factor in lowered growth rates, LDS officials and social scientists agree, may have been the decision by the church in 2002 to ‘raise the bar’ for those who qualify as Mormon missionaries.”
A helpful source for statistical measurement which may indicate correlation popped up in the south. “The shift toward seeking higher-quality missionaries came as two national censuses in Latin America asked people to identify their specific religious affiliation. …
“The census reports in Mexico and Chile, after accounting for the different ages included, both listed Latter-day Saints in their nations at numbers only about 25 percent of what the church counted, according to Knowlton, a specialist in religion in Latin America.
“Another specialist, Henri Gooren, formerly of Utrecht University in the Netherlands, concluded last October on the basis of his field work in Costa Rica, Guatemala and Nicaragua that ‘anyone joining the LDS Church in Central America had a 50 percent chance of becoming inactive in the first year.’ In addition, ‘core members’ who meet all the expectations of LDS membership ‘made up no more than about one-quarter of all registered members.’”
Regardless of the inflation, LDS growth cannot be discounted. “Eventually, because of birth rates and a special Mormon focus on the region, ‘most Mormons will be Latin Americans by 2020,’ predicted Gooren, who now teaches at Oakland University in Michigan.” (Christian Century, Aug 21 ‘07, pp26-29)
About Apologia:
What tools do career apologists find most helpful in their research? One is Apologia Report. Its author, Rich Poll, first began writing semi-weekly apologetics news updates for the research staff of Christian Research Institute in 1985. He has been at it ever since, although now he does this for a larger audience through the ministry of Apologia which he began in 1995. Apologia Report surveys a wide range of print and online sources (from academic journals to popular secular media to publications from cultic organizations) in order to harvest information that will help Christian leaders keep up to date in defending the Christian faith.
Further Reading
- Population and Growth Rate (MormonWiki.org)