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A Gentile Laments
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My observations
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As a Catholic Christian I am ashamed to see the very un-Christian like behavior of those highly vocal protestors at the recent LDS General Conference. I’m sure they failed to win many converts by their mean-spirited delivery. On the other hand, I can appreciate their frustration. As a non-LDS resident of Utah for over a decade, there builds up a certain level of frustration that causes one to want to stand on a street corner and yell too. I know that I am not alone. After seeing so many of one’s peers manipulated by a system that seems to use their own intellects against them, one grows weary of living in a culture so willing to be deceived. The greatest frustration is that no one, Mormon or not, can dare say what’s really is on their mind concerning the religious system in this state, for fear of being alienated from neighbors, co-workers and business associates. To bring up valid inconsistencies in LDS teaching is to invite accusations of ‘bashing’, as if any challenge to the church’s claims is somehow unwarranted.
Even visitors to the state have commented on a sense of the surreal upon entering Utah, as if everyone has suspended their normal powers of discernment to embrace the wild claims of a 19th Century opportunist and is being judged on how well they buy into it. When you have intelligent and highly educated people claiming to believe that large Jewish populations were roaming about the New World in chariots, speaking Elizabethan English you begin to wonder where’s the sanity? Other issues such as; worshipping a finite ‘god’, an incompetent Jesus, polygamy, non-existent civilizations, spurious languages, phony manuscripts, and abortion, reveal the dilemma for the devout Mormon who cannot honestly investigate theses subjects without damaging their ‘testimony’. After years of observing LDS leaders, it becomes apparent that truth is not important as is the appearance of truth.
Everything is image. This is why nice suits, new temples and the Main St. Plaza are so important to the LDS Church. To project to the world an image of a stable, orderly and virtuous culture is paramount to the Church’s constant quest for legitimacy. Yet behind the solid looking facade, are an unstable theology and an insecurity that LDS leaders feel knowing that one more ‘Salamander Letter’ or probing history student could bring the whole thing crashing down. This is why a ‘testimony ‘ is the most effective tool in the LDS arsenal for keeping control. If there is an intellectual problem in a Church claim, it is the believer’s lack of faith that is the problem, not the veracity of the teaching. What Mormons miss is that God is not glorified by a ‘blind’ faith nor a parked intellect.
This brings up the last point and that is the incredible pressure to be ‘worthy’ in LDS society. Again, virtue is not as important as is the appearance of virtue. While Christians are aware that Jesus started a Church of sinners, for sinners, Mormonism more closely resembles the spirit of the Pharisee who said “Thank you God for not making me like the rest of men”. Devout Mormons can’t be seen to be flawed and this breeds a host of psychological problems. What they don’t realize is how liberating genuine Christianity is in allowing sinners to admit their sinfulness and seek forgiveness through Christ’s absolution in the sacrament of Reconciliation. I see many of my LDS neighbors caught up in a breakneck series of ‘callings’ and duties that is designed to prevent them from reflecting on the questionable path they are currently embarked. I feel for them.
The relative communal stability we enjoy in Utah comes at a price. Of all the animals God made, only to Man did He give an intellect. It seems we have to deny this in Zion.
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