Blood Brothers: Mormons, Genocide, and the Nixon administration

Charles Radford, a Navy yeoman, present some fascinating questions about Latter-day Saints’ relationship with the government, the law, and politicians. Charles Radford was serving as a navyman aboard a ship in India. He was an active, married Latter-day Saint. In various venues, Radford was a trained stenographer who took down highly-secretive government documents about war actions in various sections of the globe. And he was a spy for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

A colorful case in point: in March 1971, East Pakistan won the majority of the seats in the National Assembly. This would center power in the ethnically distinct Bengali East Pakistan region. However, the Western military dictator, Yahya Khan would have none of it. He sent his forces to repress the Eastern Bengalis en masse, killing hundreds of thousands of East Bengalis. This would culminate in a flood of refugees to Eastern India—somewhere to the tune of 10 million. This obviously caused strains for the Indo-Pak relations. War broke out quickly—a war which the East Pakistanis won. They eventually broke off and declared themselves to be an independent Bangladesh. Around this same time, a low-level bureaucrat in Dakka, Bangladesh named Archer Blood sent a barely classified (marked with only “secret” instead of “top secret”) memo declaring the U.S. government to be “morally bankrupt” for its complacency on the issue.

Radford had access to key U.S. documents regarding U.S. policy during this war. During the famed India-Pakistan War in 1971, Nixon notably declared the United States to be neutral. However, Nixon was privately “tilting” in their direction, a reality that Radford leaked to fellow Latter-day Saint Jack Anderson, a prominent newsman for the Washington Post through stolen documents . This was no mere geopolitical move, however; Jack Anderson would win a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the incident. Anderson would later find himself on Nixon’s enemies list and even a possible target of assassination. G. Gordon Liddy even talked to a doctor about putting LSD in his soup. Nixon’s men were also considered trying to tie Anderson and Radford together through a possible homosexual relationship. I do not take that claim at all seriously—this is Nixon after all (and my M.A. thesis is on Nixon—this is a man I know something about).

Faithful Latter-day Saints—what are we to do? Anderson was as active as they come. Radford as well. Was Radford’s actions justified given the horrific situation of genocide taking place? Anderson revealed secret documents about the powers-that-be to the world. Was he standing up for the right or failing to follow Christ’s counsel to “render unto Caesar” and Paul’s counsel to let the powers that be reign supreme until Christ comes again?

Stephanie Meyer and the New Mormon Anti-Feminism

Ah...the title of that already sounds like the rant of a leftist in the New Yorker doesn't it? Fret not, my friends...this is very good news.

So who knew that a Mormon housewife would be able to tap into the collective psyche of teenie-boppers girls world-wide? One might ask what makes them so gullible, so predictable, so prone to manipulation? But this, my friends, misses the point entirely.

The first common understanding we must reach is that the Twilight series is not only fundamentally anti-feminist but that it spits in the face of the feminist critique at every turn. The heroine is vulnerable and wildly susceptible to Edward's innate goodness. She's a tad erratic, always pushing Edward to go further than he wants to...upon which he, the level-headed priesthood holder that he is, always steadies the rudder and returns their impassioned love back to the boiling cauldron of teenage hormones.

So what would make girls scream over repressiveness? It seems downright puritanical when compared with even other relatively mild romances like Titanic or even your B+ grade chick flick. Never mind the relatively graphic battle scenes, scenes that should send your average girls back to watch Grey's Anatomy with her roommates, shuddering at how "scary" it all was. Instead, they scream with delight as Edward battles back evil. And no, you are not in the Twilight Zone...you're in the zone of piles of money based on seemingly ham-handed cinema that hardly rises above Dudley Do-right and his sniveling counterpart of a villain.

So what has happened to the fair daughters of Hannah-Montana America? Welcome to the next phase of American feminism, a backlash against a feminism that has been sucked dry of its femininity through the vampire of nihlism. The young women are simply exhausted with the feminist mantras. American feminism feels it will succeed when women can be as great of CEOs, presidents, doctors, and lawyers as men are. The success of Twilight shows a younger feminism bucking against women who have forgotten that being erratic can be charming, that being a clutz can be loveable, and that men can be something more than a super-tight "life partner."

Oh don't you worry...the old school 60s feminists rail against Twilight...Bella won't even get an abortion to save her life, after all!. But no matter to the adoring fans...Bella is loved. That's what matters.

Just as Harry Potter has defined a childhood, so too can Twilight define womanhood for the coming decade. Don't be surprised if in about 10 years, you see the now-young women expecting a little more from their male acquaintances if they want the time of day. When men get assertive, they might wonder why he's not like a better gentleman (as the name, "Edward" subconsciously rings through their mind). Meyer's popularity might just be enough to cause a slight tectonic shift in the gender dynamics in America.

Censorship by Candlelight

You remember those cheesy re-enactments your priesthood/young women’s leaders made you do as teenagers? (ok, so some think they’re cheesy, others get a buzz out of them, and others just want to prove to the ladies that they’re “pioneer material” *manly grunt*)? These events are rituals intended to reinforce our identity as a people...our indulgence in the sociocultural phenomenon the Maurice Halbwachs called “collective memory.” “Collective memory” is seen by scholars as something to be analyzed, pieced together, ripped apart, and even enjoyed. One thing you don’t do...above all else...is take it personally.

Yet as I was listening that brilliant musical by Stephen Sondheim, Company, I heard an interesting tune about a man who was ruminating on what married life was like. The song bespoke a confusion: “Sorry, grateful/ Regretful, happy.” Everything and nothing in his life is because of her. Why, he says, look for answers about what marriage does when none seem to materialize? He always wonders “what might have been” if he had not met his wife. Essentially, the singer tells us, he and his wife had no established narrative of how they got together. Sure, he could tell us the precise events...but there was no sense of inevitability. No sense of “one and only-ness.” It’s a common aphroism in LDS (and really, general lore) that you know you should marry someone not when you can imagine living with that person but when you can’t imagine living without them. Not exactly President Kimball’s “any two righteous people can marry if they’re willing to pay the price” line...

Therefore, my statement is less about the actuality of “one and only”-ness and more about how the Holy Ghost conveys revelation. I have come to truly believe that since the gospel will never be truly demonstrated through empirical methods, we have to access the knowledge through other means. Yet we are talking about historical claims here...events that happened at a place and time. We can’t exactly “faith” our way through these things...at least using the pop culture’s definition of faith. There must be another way of establishing knowledge about divine truths...not the least of which is eternal marriage.

Full disclosure: this argument is blatantly teleological. It’s an argument based on what is and not on what might have been. For a historian, being so focused on the present might get one accused of “presentism,” one of the nastiest insults a historian can level at you. The founding premise of history is that we might understand why things happened the way they happen; this often requires that we understand what did not happen.

But there’s a reason that historians aren’t marriage/family therapists. Imagine me telling my wife: “I could have married so-and-so, but because of timing issues, global warming, the economy, and the shift in cultural norms because of event X, I’m with you instead.” Ah, I can feel the glow of the candlelight dinner. So I suggest to you that healthy marriages are fundamentally a-historical. It creates a contrived history out of a chaos of knowledge. After all, from a strictly historical stand-point, a couple has no business saying that they were “meant to be together” out of the thousands of individuals they would probably never meet. A good marriage requires the massaging of one’s history towards the current relationship, self-censorship if you will. You don’t talk about the ex, certainly not with any adoration. If one does indulge in memories, those memories are funneled into the present circumstances, even if by all other accounts they should not be. Those that cannot fit into the present are sloughed off as irrelevant or becomes points of contention.

So I say unto my married friends...revel in censorship. It might make your candlelight dinners a little more pleasant.

Why I'm Proud of America

I didn't vote for Obama. I have many concerns about his policies and associations.

But I was proud of America last night. America is now the first Western nation to elect a minority as its President. Only 50 years ago, now-President Obama would have been staring attack dogs in the street of Montgomery. One hundred years ago, he could have been lynched as the white community looked on, considering his death to be a form of family entertainment. Now we've finally decided to get serious about breaking down the race barrier.

So here's to you, MLK Jr...

Villains in the Mormon Mind

Everyone loves a good villain…the bellowing laugh with hands thrown up in the air utter triumph. As a child, I found Dr. Claw of Inspector Gadget fame to be wildly amusing. The Joker has quickly reached pop-culture stardom as people would practice their Joker impressions of “Why So Serious?” Good cartoonish villainy makes for good parties.

Hadyn White maintains that every history, in spite of its claims to objectivity, is constructed in literary fashion with traditional literary tropes such as villains, comic reliefs, and heroes. Indeed, White would conclude, we see our very world as a story…and therefore, the job of a historian is to point out our way of making history more than the history itself. Hence, the title of his magnum opus, Metahistory.

So who gets under our collective skin? You know…the folks who have been able to get inside our heads and poke us where it hurts? As we will find (surprise, surprise), there is no one archetype for the Mormon villain. Each of these villains represents a strand of our thought our culture that has been particularly vulnerable. We will see the Benedict Arnolds, the political activists, the heretics, and the downright scoundrels. Some have even worn a denim jumper or two in their lifetime…

Some observations are in order:

A) Some of these individuals, I guarantee, will be seen as heroes by Mormon Matters readers. However, as I’m sure these readers recognize, these heroic efforts are generally those of a dissenter…and in order for a dissenter to become famous, s/he has to tick off the powers that be in large numbers. So alas…they make the list.

B) Most of these villains have varying degrees of admirable traits. We’re talking about perception and not reality. I, for one, would gladly eat lunch with most “villains” on this list.

So behold…

10. Emma Smith

Poor sister Emma…while she is beloved as a heroine in much of the contemporary Church (of course, we all have the resident Emma-hater), Emma was not always perceived as one. In the aftermath of the Exodus from Nauvoo, Emma not only stayed behind but also kept several of Joseph’s personal belongings that Brigham believed belonged to the Church. In addition, she offered some support to Joseph III in establishing the RLDS church. Her son, David, eventually went to a mental institution in the aftermath of learning of his father’s polygamy while he served an RLDS mission to Utah–thus blackening her name even further with the Utah leadership. Brigham Young even accused her of trying poison Joseph and called her a “child of hell.” Thankfully, we can appreciate Emma for her tremendous accomplishments now.

9. Sidney Rigdon

Sidney has, quite sadly, been classified among the “crazy uncles” category of Mormon history. Yet he served for nearly ten years as the Joseph Smith’s proverbial Aaron. Despite his impressive service and considerable contribution to the Church with his Campbellite congregation, he has something on record to annoy just about every faction of the Church–from “when the prophet has spoken the thinking is done” orthodoxy to the postmodern, “scripture is inspired fiction” free-wheelers. In the months leading up to the Missouri War, he proved his capacity to inflame when giving the famous Salt Sermon–which implied that the expulsion of prominent apostates such as W.W. Phelps and Oliver Cowdery would be forthcoming. He became the bete noire of the succession crisis as he attempted to convince the Latter-day Saints that Joseph Smith had appointed him to be the leader. In historical memory, Rigdon has not been painted in the darkest hues; his villainy is often viewed as delusions and nothing more–delusions that could easily be brushed off into the ash-bin of history

8. Albert Sydney Johnson

A significant figure in 19th-century American military history in his own right, it’s ironic indeed that his greatest legacy is outside scholarly circles is as a part of an anticlimactic military operation that saw no bonafide engagement of enemies: the Utah War. He led, in all, over 5,000 troops to put down a supposed rebellion of Utah against the federal government. Congress widely opposed the expedition (most notably Sam Houston), and eventually would deem it “Buchanan’s blunder.” However, Utah remained under military occupation (albeit limited) For modern Latter-day Saints, Johnson serves more as a symbol of the animosity between the pioneers and the federal government than as an actual executor

7. John D. Lee A looming figure in not only Mormon history, but in the history of the West, John D. Lee has been kicked around as the football in the hands of Mountain Meadows historians. Aside from the elephant in the room that is the MMM, John D. Lee was otherwise a hard-working LDS who contriubted significantly to his community.

Having Been depicted as everything from a loyal scapegoat and hack to a renegade, John D. Lee has borne much of the blame for the attacks. Juanita Brooks’ research demonstrated that Lee’s excommunication and execution was simply meant to relieve pressure from the federal authorities’ constant haranguing. Walker, et. al. has concluded that John D. Lee played a central role in the massacre in both planning and deed (the topic looms too large for extensive treatment in this, a rather superfluous article by comparison–see the book that needs no introduction, Massacre at Mountain Meadows, for more info). In either interpretation, Lee’s name is often one of the few names to be mentioned within popular discourse about the massacre, in spite of the dozens of Iron County militiamen participation. Lee has come to symbolize the violent streak–if there be one–within 19th-century Mormonism–the crazy uncle in the attic.

6. Fawn Brodie
Niece of President David O. McKay and husband of a famed of nuclear theorist, Bernard Brodie, who helped to craft Eisenhower-era nuclear deterrence strategy; Fawn Brodie made fame in both critical and liberal Mormon circles by publishing one of the first scholarly biographies of Joseph Smith to reach wide circulation, No Man Knows My History. Brodie was roundly denounced and excommunicated within a year of publication. Whether she deserved such denunciation or not (I’m intentionally avoiding that elephant in the room), Brodie’s name has come to symbolize the “pointy-headed intellectual” stock character for modern Mormons. One of my contacts has informed me that when Richard Bushman presented Rough Stone Rolling to Knopf, they initially hesitated. Bushman responded that they owed him one: “After all, you published Brodie.” The argument was persuasive.

From Independence to Darfur

The central question: Why aren't Mormons more radical??

A diaspora refers to the spreading of a people from their initial homeland to foreign regions. The population seeks to retain its characteristics even as they fend off the dominant culture in which they live. Latter-day Saints gathered in Utah from numerous nations; now the base of Utah Mormons have expanded back to the urban centers of New York, Boston, Washington, D.C. and elsewhere. We haven't had the Zionist mojo for some time (I don't exactly chant "Next Year in Jackson County" when I go to bed at night). What has that meant for the creation of culture?

Generally, in my cloistered academic world, diasporic and collective oppression carries a great deal of literary capital. If you can demonstrate how your identity has been unjustly persecuted by a dominant culture, you have "street cred." in talking about oppression. Yet we are woefully "square" in such areas; we're establishment men of the "Ask no questions and you'll be told no lies" brand. I don't suggest that we attempt to become a political action group or that we begin shouting about getting Missouri reparations. However, I do suggest that we, as a people, can and should identify more closely with oppressed peoples with whom we share a history in singular ways.

Similarities
1. Expelled en masseorders from the highest level of government
2. Lived under military occupation
3. Described using racialized terms (the famous anti-polygamy decision directly compared Mormons to Asiatic and African peoples)
4. Experienced directed assaults on our way life at the point of gun

Friends, while this is not precisely the same as racial oppression, in general, this is the stuff of which the "big ideas" about the oppressed masses is made. After all, there was a time when Mormons considered the term, "American" to be an insult. Yet now, Mormons will jump behind the Sean Hannitys and Toby Keiths of the world in justifying almost any military action.

While I hardly believe we're losing our identity (we do a very good job of being a "peculiar people" sometimes--and I really do mean that in a positive sense), I do wonder why we are where we are in American society when by all accounts, we should be a flaming radical like Franz Fanon. Granted, we did not experience the African slave trade, but we did experience systematic, institutionalized oppression from the highest levels of government.

But most importantly, why don't we give a hoot about populations who suffer worldwide? Perhaps our wealth and our ease have jammed our sensory nerves for "the fellow persecuted." Maybe we are comfortable in our consolidated position as only a frowned-upon church.

Maybe Darfur is a little closer to Independence than maps tell us...

Theological Realpolitik: The Church and What It Can't Do

The most recent argument concerning the church's involvement in Prop. 8 goes thusly:

1) The Church supports traditional gender relations

2) The Church does not speak out extensively (except for a few platitudes about how we proclaim peace) on major world issues (such as the Iraq War and Darfur)

3) Therefore, the Church is "on the wrong side of history."

I rank this is one of the most worst arguments--on either side--on the Prop. 8 issue.

So let's address the merit of each premise--in turn--and discuss its relationship to the conclusion (#3).

1) Traditional gender relations

Somehow, the Church supporting the legitimization of sexual unions that has given mankind its very existence for the past gazillion years has been construed as being "on the wrong side of history." It should be noted that they are using the concept of history in the classical sense of cultural Marxism--that of "progress," of the unfolding of a new chapter--as though the newness or "presentness" (this should be a code-word to you historians out there--"presentism"--which is high-browed insult of the first order to a serious historian) of a thing made it inherently worthwhile or useful. The idea of progress is a nebulous word, devoid of any real meaning. Ultimately, it boils down to a sugary glaze for anyone's political agenda. Its usage tells us nothing about an idea's merit.

I don't think I will insult the reader by laying out the benefits heterosexuality has given to the world. Frankly, it deserves a "privileged status" if for no other reason than because we owe our existence to it. Even Ancient Greece held monogamy in high regard (in spite of the popular stories surrounding their allowance of homosexuality), noting that Cecrops, a partially divine early king of Athens, both civilized mankind and establish monogamy as the divine order.

So it's odd indeed that the Church would be on the "wrong side of history," the same history that gives this writer his very life.

2) The Church does not mobilize politically for human rights abuses

To be sure, the constant streams of comments in General Conference about the wars in the world and about how Satan rules over the peoples with blood should indicate that Church is quite aware of human rights abuses. Alexander Morrison, a member of the seventy, has done work with the U.N. in researching tropical diseases.

This is correct. But why is it? Notice...the Church doesn't even mobilize for every moral issue. It has to be a winnable one--one where the Church can command influence. Whenever a federal amendment is proposed for homosexual marriage, the Church does no more than issue a two-line statement expressing its general support. Why? Because it does not command the human resources necessary to carry out an effective campaign on a national level. The author of the cited piece seems to be outraged at the Church for recognizing what it can and cannot do.

Let's imagine that every Latter-day Saint in the Church donated five dollars to a Save Darfur fund (and the Church has donated about 17 million to humanitarian aid in conflicts worldwide--not just Darfur--in 2006 alone). Let's say President Monson condemned it specifically (note, they have offered ample condemnation of these things in general)...where would be then where we aren't now? Does that suddenly give them "street cred" in the eyes of progressives? Perhaps it would have an impact on policymakers; but perhaps it would not.

In California, on the other hand, there is a mass of human and monetary resources that can carry out what the Church (and I) see as good policy. Disagree on the policy if you wish, but intelligent people should be able to distinguish some between a campaign that will have an immediate impact and a conflict where complex geopolitical actors are tragically pulling the strings. The Church has a built-in The most the Church can do in such circumstances is provide humanitarian aid and teach its members to abhor such bloodshed. Speaking for myself, LDS doctrine has successfully taught me and countless others to do just that.

In any case, to argue that the Church is "on the wrong side of history" is at best a limited and provincial argument that defines history as nothing more than the fodder for a political tract.

True, it's on the Huffington Post--but an outrageous argument becomes no less outrageous simply because it comes from someone known for their intellectual laxity. Additionally, I have seen this argument gain some traction amongst otherwise knowledgable people.

But it won't under my watch.

I'm a little outraged right now

I was familiar with the U.S. manual on counterinsurgency published in 2004. I had even read parts of it (for a class...I was pressed for time and just absorbed enough to make through the seminar without sounding dumb).

I read today that the military adviser in host country where counterinsurgency operations are taking place (read: Iraq) need not concern himself with that country's democratization or with the democratic process. Even Captain Moroni bothered to get the voice of the people to support his lifting of the writ of habeas corpus, as it were.

Not that this a surprised to me, but normally, one must piece together egregious acts of the government. Here we have it plain as day.

I love America, but this is outrageous.

Lies, Damned Lies, and Birth Certificates

I have been deceived.

Alas, I must print my mea culpa here and state the truth clearly that no one may misunderstand...

Obama is not whom he says he is...

Here is the smoking gun evidence...clear as crystal...*sob* I have been deceived *SOB*...

Why the Law Does and Does Not Matter

An odd title, coming from me...considering that I see myself as a hardliner for evidence/legal reasoning. But frankly, Proposition 8, while a decidedly legal maneuver, actually has very little to do with "the law."

For us to believe that there is no connection between the societal values which we hold and the laws that we as a society pass is not sustainable by appeals to any sort of appeal to case studies. Yet homosexual activists, even the California Supreme Court, suggest that opening marital opportunities to homosexual just gives them more civil rights, that it has no effect on heterosexuals, that any opposition to these privileges must be born of good old-fashioned bigotry.

By sustaining the California Supreme Court decision, we are not just offering economic benefits to homosexual couples. I wish we were. However, just as a marriage license and a speeding ticket are not just pieces of paper but are cultural rudders, as it were, the legal definition of marriage as heterosexual is similarly a cultural rudder that would have not only legal implications but also fuzzier but more wide-reaching implications concerning our collective worldview. Legal decisions, alas, have consequences. I've discussed these consequences elsewhere...but how do they come about?

Discourse
The first is in our discourse...the "rectification of names." Bill Clinton famously refused to call the Rwandan massacres "genocide" because of the responsibility to act that naming would bring. To think that we can just words/metaphors loosely without it affecting our reasoning would be fallacious. In other words, words and ideas have consequences, as Richard Weaver has famously argued. There's a reason thinkers debated the number of angels dancing on the head of the pin was of tremendous importance to Middle Ages thinkers...because that question directly addressed how they saw the fundamental reality of the world...of time and space. That we discount it as nonsense simply shows that we no longer use ideas as our governing assumptions. The idea of heterosexuality, of homosexuality...it's all considered to be an artificial creation of our own minds which has, its heart, nothingness. And the idea that ideas aren't significant is itself a significant intellectual development for the modern world. We can no longer question the abstract utility of a movement, but only in terms of dollars and cents. Invoke the concept of morality and you'll be a right-wing demagogue (though I myself am averse to the term for merely tactical reasons).

State antagonism
Simply put, we can't trust that the state is our friend. While religions may not be required to perform gay marriages, taking the Court at its word, the state has now established itself to be directly at odds with the interests of various religious groups. And who has the greater power of dissemination when it comes to the spreading of ideology? As one scholar noted, the state holds the power of the Repressive State Apparatus (the public school system and the Courts), so while their precise ruling may give some wiggle room to churches to act as they will, the educational system will be mobilized as an ideological "means of production" (in Marxist theory) to assure the state's decision. We are wrong if we think the state to be a passive entity that simply follows our bidding at election time.

As my friend Ashly noted, we are essentially burning our conceptions of sexuality and gender at the altar of the government's god. Parents who oppose it cannot be notified of its teaching or even opt out of their children being taught it. The state has its interests. My opponents suggest that we are invoking fear...and yes, I am (fear is really the staple of all politics at some level...liberal or conservative). So suggesting that I use fear really sheds little light on the subject...they need to demonstrate to me that my fears cannot plausibly materialize. Given the track record, they will be hard-pressed to do so.

So let's not think that we're just offering civil rights to an oppressed group. That's a compelling narrative, but let's recognize that the forces against Prop. 8 are the same forces that will try to mold our next generation in the government's image.

Hate Crimes?

SO I'm not a fan of hate crime legislation...largely because I just hate crime in general. A white man's death is no less tragic when sparked by his religion than a black man's death is over the color of his skin. Both are terrible blemishes on the human condition.

That said, indulge me a little as I dabble in some Mormon "persecution complex." Read this story . A Brazilian man in Massachusetts killed his wife and stepson (quite brutally...with a hammer). Why? He states quite clearly that it was because of her activity in the Mormon church and her efforts to get him to join.

Where is the Anti-Defamation League right now? What are the hate crimes advocates?

Yes, this is straight-up tribalism...but I also think that I've seen horrific crimes like this get enormous play on the media. Not that I ever thought the televised media was a fair portrayer of reality...

Just Leave Joe Alone

Everyone, for some bizarre, now knows the name of a small-businessman in Toledo, OH. I won't even mention his name here...if you want to read about it, just read something, anything about the debates.

All the man did was ask Senator Obama a question. He never wanted to be a mascot. He just wanted to have an opinion--and even if that opinion is wrong, he has a right to be wrong in peace. Conspiracy theorists have attempted to tie him to Charles Keating of the old days from McCain's Keating five scandal with scanty connections that at best tell us that this small businessman might be *gasp* pro-business. This fellow was just being an interested citizen, and now the media is looking to make him look like the dark underside of the American Everyman.

Yes, he might be incorrect about some of Obama's positions...yes, he might not have jumped through all the bureaucratic hoops of his profession (he's a plumber, but he's not licensed as such). No, he hasn't paid some back taxes. But guess what? How many of us can honestly say that we understand the tax proposals of the candidates, esp. when we get our news from a diet of television soundbytes? How many bother to read factcheck.org to get news faster than the speed of spin, as it were?

Finally, heaven knows how many richer individuals there are who carry out far greater misdeeds under the radar yet slip by without detection--just because they have the weight to throw around. Meanwhile, if Joe slips a little in the proposed earnings for the 3rd quarter of a possible business venture, he's dismissed as a Republican hack.

Let Joe be a single father in peace.

Righteous Gentiles Part I

So, in honor of the broad-mindedness that is, well, me (insert pretentious laugh here), I would like to suggest a list of the top ten “Righteous Gentiles.” In orthodox Judaism, these are known as gerim toshavim, “resident aliens.” These are Gentiles who either formally or informally have associated themselves with the people of the Jews by agreeing to abide by the mitzvot or Noachian laws.

What great men/women among our people have demonstrated similar affinity for our cause, while they themselves remain outside the fray of the Mormon center?

My criteria...

A. They must be well-regarded on either the folk or elite level, and their contributions must be perceived as distinctively Mormon (even if they are not).

B. They aren’t necessary “righteous” by our standards, but their names must have currency among our people as a sympathizer (whether they were actually sympathizers or not is irrelevant)

The List--10th through 5th

10. G.K. Chesterton

A British author and Christian apologist well-renowned for his series of novels, The Father Brown Mysteries as well as his vigorous critiques of secularism and modernity, Chesterton has reached wide audiences amongst all Christians of essentially any Christian faith. Even though he was vehemently opposed to any deviation from Catholic orthodoxy and even levelled a mild critique against Mormons, I rank him #10. Chesterton has been quoted often enough by general authorities and leaders to be comparable with C.S. Lewis. Bruce C. Hafen devoted an entire talk (one of those typically well-worn talks on balancing faith and reason and so-on) to a single quotation by Chesterton. While most of his renown has come from Elder Maxwell’s extensive usage of him, Maxwell alone has made Chesterton’s name worth noting.

9. Richard Muow and co.

The president of Fuller Theological Seminary, Muosw is less known as a person and more known as a symbol. In 2004, Muow declared, at the Mormon Tabernacle, to thousands of LDS that evangelicals “have sinned against you.” He proceeded to provide a mea culpa on behalf of the Evangelical community, stating that they have spread lies and untruths about Mormons and their beliefs. His remarks set off a firestorm within the Intermountain evangelical outreach center, some suggesting that his remarks were only going to empower Mormons more in their wrong-headed beliefs that they were mainstream Christians. This, of course, only increased Muow’s cachet amongst the Utah circles as an evangelical who was finally willing to tell the truth against the roar of the masses. Such things carry tremendous pathos to the Mormons as a people.

Muow’s admission was the culmination for a golden age of Evangelical-Mormon dialogue, starting with Stephen Robinson’s collaborative work with Craig Blomberg, a Protestant scholar of the New Testament at the Denver Seminary in Colorado: How Wide the Divide?: An Evangelical and a Mormon in Conversation. In essence, Muow, Robinson, and Blomberg represented the actualization of many Mormons’ hopes—albeit fleeting— that evangelical leaders might finally acknowledge that we do share some core beliefs and that we are *gasp* indeed Christians.

8. Alexander Doniphan

Doniphan should be noted in his own right for his contributions as a military commander during the Mexican War. Indeed, he has been so noted, as the litany of schools in Missouri have been named after him. But Mormons, of course, have other reasons for the soft spot for ole’ Al in their collective conscience.

Doniphan was an attorney living in Missouri at the time of the Saints’ expulsion from Jackson county in 1833. Doniphan provided legal representation for Joseph Smith during the bazillion legal hearings he had to trudge through in the Missouri era. He refused to execute Joseph when General Lucas commanded him to do so—at risk of court martial and perhaps execution himself. As a member of the Missouri state legislature, he worked to create Caldwell County as a settlement for the Saints in the wake of the expulsion from Jackson county. While he never particularly liked Joseph Smith or his religion, Doniphan will be, for the time being, remembered as a lover of liberty and justice to the Mormon mind.

7. Klaus Baer

The Egyptologist extraordinaire who made made himself famous as the great middle-way on matters concerning the Abraham papyri. Baer instructed Hugh Nibley in Egyptian in 1959 and became attached to the Joseph Smith papyri from that point on. When some of the original papyri were discovered in 1966, Baer, as commissioned by Dialogue, provided a highly agnostic translation of the documents. While devoutly agnostic, Baer refused to jump on board with the critics in declaring Joseph Smith to be a fraud. Indeed, in one letter to the Tanners, he instructed them that similar translation difficulties can be found in the New Testament and that these difficulties cannot be used to delegitimize faith. While Baer does not quite constitute a hero for Mormon thought, he demonstrates the cool-headed scholarship that refuses to point fingers—a tendency most Mormon intellectuals appreciate even if they do not agree with.

6. Margaret Barker

A scholar of Old Testament studies who studied at University of Cambridge, Barker has written widely on monotheism amongst the Canaanites. What has made her a Blessed Gentile? Her scholarship has touched all of Mormon gurus’ soft spots: Enoch, temple theology, and questions re: the plurality of gods. Her most famous work within Mormon circles, The Great Angel: A Study of Israel’s Second God wherein she argues that “the Lord” was indeed seen as a Son of God in early Israelite theology. While her work is certainly unusual in her field, that she is a Cambridge-trained scholar of Old Testament studies has helped Latter-day Saints feel an added sense of legitimacy in their intellectual claims.

5. Jan Shipps

Called “the beloved Gentile” by higher-ups within the Church and the “Jane Goodall of Mormon studies” by others, Jan Shipps almost single-handedly made the study of Mormonism into a mainstream fashion rather than just the niche studies of academics. Before Jan Shipp, few credible scholars indeed commented with any degree of favorability to the Church. Jan Shipps has provided a dominant wherein scholars can understand Mormonism without judging its veracity. It was Shipps who proposed that we stop seeking to determine whether Joseph’s visions were correct or not, but rather, she suggested we look to determine what kind of collective meaning these visions had to the people who experienced them. While Bushman has taken a similar approach, his orthodoxy in the Church has been an obstacle (albeit, one that could be overcome). Shipps has demonstrated that one can study Joseph Smith’s story and still be a sympathetic non-believer.

And if she’s really the Jane Gooddall of Mormons, maybe the Mormon creationists should re-think their position…

Why Mormons are Terrible Politicians...and Why I Love It

Perhaps you've heard the news? In case you haven't, the crusades are on, boys!

When was the last time you heard a LDS leader talk like this? Perhaps I've been blessed by a spate of reasonable leaders and Saints, but it's been a while for me. While pastors are spouting off high-flung rhetoric, our leaders are really doing a terrible job of being politicians. They aren't creating an "other," they aren't using the language of militancy. They don't even use variation in the tone of their voice. How woefully boring. Just logistics and oft-cited remarks, delivered with an almost a statistical enthusiasm. As though they were going over numbers from the quarterly report.

I would never trust them as political consultants...and thank heavens!

How Postmodernism Finally Infected the Evangelical Right

As I said, I'm not a biologist. I don't know about the bones of Piltdown man (though I certainly should) or the wingspan of sundry fowls. But I do believe that thinking is inspired of God.

As a now KY resident (I paid my taxes last year), I must shake my head in shame at the dichotomy that our Christian cousins draw between science and God. Case in point? This in-your-face affront to the God-given intellect...

The Creation Museum...a tribute to the idea that being a Christian doesn't fix stupid (as a favored columnist of mine noted). A tribute to the idea that provincial familiarity is often preferred to grand reality. And given the cultural identification some are ascribing to visiting, a tribute to how postmodernism has even affected the Christian right. Somehow, subverting the scientific process and truth-seeking becomes acceptable because they're preserving their identity as a "peculiar people."

Can everyone do me a favor and work hard to avoid flirting with the Christian Right by adopting their rhetoric? We as Latter-day Saints can and must do better. Unfortunately, many of the scientific overtures towards religion are being made by highly sympathetic, but also agnostic scientists like Brian Greene. Mind you, I have deep respect for Dr. Greene because of his willingness to avoid the hate that lurks over the likes of Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. And even Dawkins is willing to grant that there are well-regarded scientists who believe--even if their belief absolutely baffle him.

Will we make similar overtures to the contributions of biological science? It is not enough for us to merely passively place science on the shelf...that smacks of intentional ignorance, which is something that those outside (and many within) the religious tradition find abhorrent. We must actively give credence to scientific contributions while being prepared with our own, genuine (as opposed to folk) orthodoxy.

Why Feminists Should Vote for Prop. 8

would make a terrible politician. I have my opinions, but I hate holding hands politically with folks whom I find abhorrent in their argumentation. Heaven help me if I had to "pal around with" bigots (as Sarah Palin would say). I prefer to cut my own path...and be lonely in the process if necessary. Indeed, my approach makes me few friends...I have to fight back the opposition while fending off folks who are trying to "help" me.

So some may wonder why I talk so much about this topic. One reason, of course, is because it's more than a little controversial. And I would be lying if I said I didn't dig that. I like getting into hot water; it keeps me clean, as one wise philosopher once noted. The other reason is pragmatic. I would write as vociferously about the Iraq war, but there are plenty of others who do that and far more eloquently. I would write about global warming, but other than cutting back on my gas guzzling, write a few letters, and appear in a few rallies, there's not much that I can contribute that can't be done better by someone else. Plus I am not a scientist so will probably not be able to form the kind of opinion I need to feel passionately about it. I fear that if I were to start reading up on it, I would not be able to tell up from down. But I digress...

Feminism has been the ideology d'jour to promote the rights of homosexual couples. It is understandable that they would. After all, it was Adrienne Rich, the famed literary critic a la feminism (that's a shout out to Ashley Sanders...hi Ash!) who argued that women by their very natures lesbians and had only been coerced or had sold themselves for the economic securities of heterosexuality. Elaine Showalter, while more moderate in her remarks, has argued that women should stop both protesting and imitating, as both demonstrate their dependence on men. Touche, Sister Showalter ONe might look to others such as Nancy Chowderow or Nancy Jones for more solid feminist analysis.

I recognize that in citing feminists in opposition to homosexual marriage, I am severely bucking academic orthodoxy. But last I checked, academics liked doing that, so they should be willing to indulge me a little as I do the same.

But must I accept their conclusions if I accept their reasoning? If I accept that women have been oppressed, must we conclude that they should just stay to themselves? As the prominent feminist historian, Joan Scott noted, such a practice would equate ghettoization of the worst order. Typically we speak of ghettoization in literature...now they're speaking of lives!

Furthermore, legitimzing lesbian unions seems to be the ultimate DELEGITMIZATION of women's contribution to our society. By legitimizing them, we are suggesting that woman ultimately have nothing to offer a child that a man can't offer. No singularity. No special perks. They would become simply homo sapiens in skirts. Men would begin having easier access to adoptive services on the basis of financial well-being (all other things being equal of course). And worse, they're concluding that anything a female mother can do, a man can do just as well. Before women know it, they've been cut out of the pie in their efforts to protest against men.

Legitimizing homosexual unions is concluding that one's female identity is nothing more than a genetic quirk that has nothing to do with parenting. Femininity is a construct...something that man can give and man can take away. Look at a bit of Foucault's work History of Sexuality --such tenets are accepted within the academy and out on the street. One's gender is fluid and can be played with at will. Within religious circles, they're not doing much better on this question...all they've got is "God made me this way"...and even then, that gender is only life-long, not to have much relevance in the life hereafter.

But, Russ, what a caricature you draw! Not really. If men can come to dominate the power structures, then homosexual men would do the same. The best way to preserve women's claim to power in the parenting structure is to support Prop. 8 if only for adoption purposes. As Showalter noted, stop trying to imitate men and start exercising your own power by keeping the men from taking away the parental rights that are properly yours.


But don't listen to me...I'm just a man. You know how important your role as a woman is to society. Fight for it. Drink it up. Live it.

Stopping Time: On Why Some Remain Unconverted

I have a friend who identifies himself as one. Unfortunately, methinks that the term becomes yet another auspice under which one can volley criticisms at the Church..."I'm just being open and transparent." For me, being an "open Mormon" is something quite different.

I had an interesting conversation with a woman today. Missionaries (being as overly-sensitive as they are to any kind of vigorous discussion) would call it a bash. I disagree heartily...I called it posing and answering meaningful questions...and frankly, it prompted her to listen more than she would have. So you can doubt my strategy if you like, but I saw it work (ah the great paradox...I just used the "just bear your testimony" technique to demonstrate how one can do more than "just bear your testimony").

Her stance, while very respectful, was almost tautological in its approach. She had determined that Joseph Smith was a fraud...and therefore could funnel (at least in her own mind) all new information through that lens. I wondered...why? I had a very difficult time believing that she was that closed to the Spirit that she would be unwilling to entertain the possibility. Perhaps it was the "false traditions of her fathers," yet so many overcome such limitations. Why not her? Her agency? Well, that's not very comforting...I'm still left believing that she ultimately chose to fight the spirit of revelation. There must be a different explanation.

Orson F. Whitney portrayed it perfectly:

Perhaps the Lord needs such men on the outside of his Church, to help it along. They are among its auxiliaries, and can do more good for the cause where the Lord has placed them, than anywhere else… Hence, some are drawn into the fold and receive a testimony of Truth, while others remain unconverted…the beauties and glories of the gospel being veiled temporarily from their view, for wise purpose. The Lord will open their eyes in his own due time…God is using more than one people for the accomplishment of his great and marvelous work. The Latter Day Saints cannot do it all. It is too vast, too arduous for any one people…We have no quarrel with the Gentiles. They are our partners in a certain sense.

One might compare these perceptions to a person's reaction to Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity concerning the speed of light and time perception (not a physicist, so if I'm dead wrong, you can correct me--but if I'm right, then you can say: "What a well-rounded person he is"). Basically, if one travels at the speed of light, then the perception of time slows down until time essentially ceases to exist to those outside one's frame of reference. One's length decreases. Poppycock, a simple-minded critic would say. They'll take their regular old 24-hour days, thank you very much.

We must understand that we are asking investigators to do something similar...stop time. It's possible, but it's utterly fantastic, even absurd to the uninitiated. And what if taking such ideas seriously would cause them to lose faith in their families, in everything? I've seen what happens when individuals open themselves up fully to radically different after their worldview has fallen apart...the new paradigm consumes them. They lose balance in life. They become a creature of ideology.

Is it possible, as President Whitney said, that some are kept from the truth not only because they know where to find it but also because the Lord would rather have them elsewhere for the time being? If the Pope joined the Church, there would not likely be massive Mormon baptisms, but charges of scandal, of madness, of intrigue. If Mother Theresa had become a member, could she have retained her credibility? Could it not be the Pope, Mother Theresa and others are/were doing their parts in the vast work of temporal and spiritual salvation? While they might be introducing incorrect doctrines, isn't it possible that the Lord plans on getting that straightened out later...in the meantime, he needed Mother Theresa's humanitarianism, Martin Luther's defiance, and Isaac Newton's mind?

Why "Hotel California" Makes for Great Sacrament Meeting material

Yes, I know that the song, "Hotel California" is among those well-worn classics where everyone thinks they "know" what the song means...just like everyone knows the "lessons of Vietnam," the interpretation of "Bye, Bye, Miss American Pie," and what their respective gender is looking for a relationship.

However, if I didn't see that I had something to add, I would certainly refrain from the melee of interpretations. And I understand some of them are l(to seriously understate) less-than-edifying. And it's possible that this is not a new interpretation. But I like it, so if it isn't new...tough. And I won't take you threw the historiography of interpretation for the song...I have neither the time nor you have the patience (or even the desire, really...). That said...

Hotel Caliifornia, written, performed, and made legendary by The Eagles, tells the story of a desert traveler who happens across on an old mission in old California. A woman greets him, holding up a light in the doorway. Her hair "tiffany-twisted" (prob. meaning an obsession with Tiffany's, the jeweler), she receives him into a world of luxury, "pretty boys," and dancing. People eat to their hearts content, but still, as it were, "cannot kill the beast." "We are prisoners here," the women notes, "of our own device." Meanwhile, voices haunt the man, saying "Welcome to the Hotel California, such a lovely place, such a lovely face, such a lovely face/ They livin' it up at the hotel California/What a nice surprise, bring your alibis." Before long, the man finds himself going mad and tries to leave. The clerk stops him and says: "We are programmed to receive; you can checkout anytime you like, but you can never leave."

Now for the fun part...interpretation! In doing so, I must of necessity be slightly outrageous and assume that I know precisely what it means and that anyone who disagrees with me is a fool (reminds me of Voltaire who quipped: "'I always made one prayer to God, a very short one. Here it is: 'O Lord, make our enemies quite ridiculous!' God granted it.'). But I tend to think, given what the clerk says about how one can never leave, that the hotel is an imagined edifice. And what are they prisoners of? Whatever it is, they freely choose it...and it is a prison of luxury. Finally,it is prison that is considered to be a bit of an indulgence..."what a nice surprise, bring your alibis" For what are alibis needed if it is a place you would want to tell people about? And finally, notice the aroma surrounding the hotel...colitas (a marijuana bud). Whether these individuals are high or not, the imagery suggests that the joy they are having is an artificial one, wrapped in the haze of drug-induced happiness. Most significantly, one cannot leave this prison once it is indulged in. It becomes a mindset, not a location. A way of life.

I suggest that Hotel California can be usefully read as a critique of materialism. Elder Holland said this much when he spoke of materialism as a "great and spacious building in which the soap opera, Vain Imaginations is playing incessantly."

I'll write a note in honor of the next person to use "Hotel California" lyrics in a talk.

Girls' State Meets Legally Blonde

Aside from the expletive in the flow-chart (my apologies for that...but this was just too priceless to let pass), this flow-chart is highly apropo to Palin's debate style.

I believe she's a bright woman. She's better than all of this. But unfortunately, she's forcing me to take that position on faith. I like faith when we're talking about life's purpose. I don't like it when we're talking about politics.

Bo Gritz and Mormons Gone Mad--MUST we claim him?

As I was meandering about last fall at the Vietnam War conference at the University of Kentucky, I began chatting with a historian about his work on POWs and how non-state actors came to play a role in U.S. foreign policy in the post Vietnam War era. Normally, this would be another airy conversation that academics do for a living. Just then (and not coincidentally, given the topic material), I had a flashback.

(insert dream sequence)
As a youth, a man tells me he's voting for a man named Bo Gritz.

"Sir, why are you voting for him?"

"Because he believes in liberty, my boy! And he's a Mormon."

I never forgot that name...

(Imagine me reading alone in a library...subtly creepy music playing in background...the kind you might hear on Bourne Identity):

The name lingered among the articles. I learned that after serving in Vietnam, he embarked on a "Save the POWs" campaign that consumed a goodly part of a lifetime. He organized big big time, big show commando expeditions into Burma and Laos to save former POWs in Laos and North Vietnam. One counterterrorist Delta Force coordinator noted that they were geared to launch POW rescue missions until Bo Gritz would come onto the scene and make some major announcement.

It gets more bizarre. According to Gritz's account,William Shatner, Clint Eastwood, and Ronald Reagan had joined in planning of the rescue operations in Laos. Shatner and Eastwood saw the makings of good movie material, you see...so they agreed to pay for the mission provided that they get the copyrights for making a movie. Reagan supposedly even told Gritz that he would "start World War III to get them out." The story gets fuzzy around here, as the story goes that Gritz was ambushed by anti-communist militia. Did these hardened anti-communists (probably leftovers of the Hmong mercenaries) just let Gritz walk away after he kindly explained that he was just trying to be Rambo? It's very hard to say.

Gritz went on to live in a grand netherworld of Christian militantism and the hard right-wing: "Guns, God, and Gritz" was his campaign slogan in 1992 (when my father voted for him). He had a legitimate achievement...he helped to negotiate an end to the Randy Weaver stand off in Ruby Ridge, Idaho (Weaver was another hard-right winger who was basically armed to the teeth...let's just say the FBI was getting suspicious). He made a name for himself by insisting that the CIA was selling drugs to fund its in Laos (old news btw...that charge had been made by Alfred McCoy in 1973). He began teaching paramilitary tactics in a program called SPIKE (Specially Prepared Individuals for Key Events) on his utopian ranch called, "Almost Heaven" (also armed to the teeth with weaponry). After all, the U.S. was on the verge of moral and economic collapse.

And he, my friends, was one of our own...he later left the Church. The precise reasons are not clear...the rumors range from a refusal to pay taxes and therefore the Church's withholding of a recommend to the Church's stance against his paramilitary activities. I think an all of the above would fit well...the gospel net is wide indeed.

(Snapping back into reality)

"So," I ask the historian, "you talk to manyveterans/POW activists" (remember, activists by their nature try to jar you a little).

"Quite a few, yes."

"Have you ever talked to Bo Gritz?"

"No way, dude," says he. "He's scary"

Gospel Memory, Fallible Beauty

While I hardly want to be schmaltzy, I had a powerful experience this evening involving memory... this governing variable of my mind. I have often noted to my acquaintances that the genius of the gospel is its ability to co-opt and integrate. Let's say I've been staring down a rather vexing personal conundrum for several years (and I'll spare you the ranting...no really, it can be really obnoxious to the uninitiated). It's one that has, quite honestly, taken a toll on my testimony. Strangely enough, it has almost no relationship to the great ambiguities of our age. Not Joseph Smith, not Brigham Young, not terminal illness or the priesthood ban, not even crass local leaders or uncomfortable political positions. But it did erode my faith just the same, and all the more because it rubs me right where it hurts.

So I'm sitting in my car tonight eating my beef baja chalupa and feeling annoyed at planet earth for no particularly good reason. I begin to listening to an old song that I heard often during a difficult period of my mission...and it struck a resonant chord with me then.The song is not impressive by any traditional standards. Its lyrics were cliche and well-worn. But its content appealed to the emotions of my mission...in some ways, I felt as though I were on my mission again. And suddenly, I felt as though I were facing the same problems I had faced on my mission, only in a different form. The result? I stare at myself in the mirror, look myself in the eye and honestly believe that I can handle this. My painful conundrum was suddenly recast in terms I had once known and loved. It's become sadly cliche to speak of how "remember" is one of the most commonly used words in scriptures. I don't speak of the data kinds of memory...but of the personal kind. You know, the kind that will bring men to blows, to marriage, and to causes greater than themselves. So I ask...in an era when memory is disparaged, Is there a place in the gospel for a recognition of both memory's power and its vulnerability?

In the world of academia, memory is, at best, smiled condescendingly upon as an interesting element of identity-formation in some developing nation. It's fallible and fickle, malleable and manipulatable. Yes, we acknowledge, we all must deal with it, but no one should like it. It's something to be deconstructed and re-trained to comply with the tenets of the academy. If you dare use to promote any kind of agenda whatsoever, the professors suggest, be prepared to be wrong. The popular conclusion often drawn from these realizations is essentially a nihlistic agnosticism.

Dabble in the esoteric with me for a moment. Compare memory a bit to Platonic thought. In Plato's Tmaneus, he spoke of a concept called khora, an utterly abstract reeptacle of sorts through which the divine virtue was transmitted into material being. Most significantly, according to Derrida, khora must be by its very nature formless and without definition. Timaneus tells us that if we were to look at khora, we look at like we would a dream. Essentially (barring some serious divine intervention), no one can see khora or know its nature. It only functions as a governing regulator between the ideal and the real. I submit to you that in a gospel context, the memory serves a similar function--with the significant qualification that the holder of the memory can access it much fuller ways that Plato could with khora. I would suggest that our memory and our testimony are intricately related and almost synonymous.

Where is testimony equated with memory in scripture? Where is it not? How often do we hear the newly-converted speak of how they suddenly "see" God's hand working in their lives even when they didn't recognize it? How about where Christ tells us that the Holy Ghost will "bring all things to your remembrance"?

Yet scholarship would tell me that since memory can be so manipulated, how could I ever seriously let such nostalgia influence me in any meaningful way? If state-makers can create a common identity with monuments, marching bands, and banners, why can't my own mind be fooling me into making sense out of an irrational situation? Indeed, Maurice Halbwachs, the patron saint on the sociological study of collective (and by extension) individual memory, noted that collective and even individual memory derives from the social sphere.

How do we protect our memory from these polarized pollutions of both misinformation and information overload? Perhaps we can suppose that memory, as the mind's most fragile instrument can also be its most beautiful work of art. Perhaps memory's beauty, as God would have it, is as at least as much in what it ignores as what it remembers. A perfect awareness of the thoughts, words, and actions alone of every man, woman, and child would not effectively give one a perfect understanding of one's place in the cosmos. Love just might.

Homosexual Marriage and World Poverty

My friends, a common refrain we hear from critics of the Church's position on gay marriage is that the money being spent on this endeavor could be used in so many other worthwhile pursuits such as poverty, literacy education, and elsewhere (to be sure, the Church already is actively involved in these things). Of all the criticisms of the Church's position, it is this one to which I am most sensitive. It churns my stomach to hear of the funds spent on most political campaigns. It's not surprising then to hear that I might cringe at the sound of millions being poured into sound bytes and banners...most of which, in my experience, use misinformation and distortion to promote even a worthwhile message. Yet I support the Church's fundamental decision.

But how? Cognitive dissonance? Provinciality? On the monetary issue, those who do accept the Bible as in any way indicative of good morality (and I recognize that not all do...gosh, even I am not comfortable with the conquest of Canaan) might recognize the story where the women washes Jesus' feet with spikenard...a luxurious ointment that could have brought a year's worth of wages. Jesus reprimanded Judas for not recognizing the symbolic significance at work.

Therefore...as I see it, there are two reasons:

1) Organizational agency
2) Societal trends

Alas, what I am about to say might smack of the dreaded "fear tactics" so loathed by those on both sides of the aisle. However, when the state begins to approve of a policy that a special interest group fundamentally opposes, it is not unreasonable to suppose (as has happened in other cases) that the government will, as a matter of political necessity, stop associating with that special interest group in matters related to the point of disagreement. In other words, it would not be unreasonable to suppose that, as has happened previously in Mormon history, that the government would impose penalties on the Church for refusing to fall in line with the government support for same-sex marriage. The worst case scenario plausible could be that LDS bishops could no longer conduct marriages. In more a dramatic (and far less likely) situation, the government might even cease to recognize LDS marriages as legally binding. It's an extreme situation, I recognize. Given the past relationship between the Boy Scouts and various institutions, however, I am somewhat skeptical that the Church could retain its autonomy in matters marital.

2)
As far as the superiority of homes with a father and a mother to homes where only a single parent is present, the research is solid. Proponents of homosexual marriage maintain that a homosexual couple can effectively replicate the male/female roles. This, however, is based on a tremendous assumption that gender, as opposed to biologically sexual makeup, is a construct that can be pieced together at one's will. One can become an effective mother in behavior if not in biology (see Michel Foucault's History of Sexuality work for some of the philosophical underpinnings of the homosexual agenda's argument). The other response is that so many children need homes and don't have them; why don't we let them at least have a loving homosexual couple?

True, a "homosexual couple" can adopt right now, but only one of them can act as guardian. The other is no different from a boyfriend/girlfriend. Marriage adds leverage to whomever is trying to adopt; by granting marital status to homosexuals, we would therefore be putting them on the same level as another competent heterosexual couple in terms of gender. However, two gay men would have more earning power than a heterosexual couple would. Suddenly, all other things being equal, a homosexual couple could win custody of a child based on their ability to financially provide.

This is a difficult issue for me, for I do not want to be the blindly-driven ideologue who refuses to consider the needs of children. I am not among those who suggest that children will be more likely to become homosexual...evidence suggests that they are not at all more likely. However, to say that we won't be sending a message to the children would be incorrect. One very significant message would be that men/women are expendable as genders. According to this line of thinking, neither women nor men have significant contributions to make that can't be made by their counterpart. So while it might solve an immediate problem of providing food and shelter for children, it would come at a societal price of engineering a new model of gendered parenting?

Are we willing to pay it?

Grace Works

So a question to mineself...the snide remark d'jour of critics of the Church concerns the Church's supposedly recent campaign to emphasize 1) their Christianity and 2) the centrality of grace in their theology (hence the recent addition of the subtitle, "Another Testament of Jesus Christ" to the Book of Mormon). They argue that it's all an effort to placate Christian conservatives who insist that we believe in "do-it-yourself" salvation,

Now whatever the merits of that criticism (I, for one, am skeptical...if there has been an increased emphasis on Jesus Christ, it is more a response to secularization than to Christian conservatism), I must concur that upon listening to some testimony meetings, one might wonder precisely where Jesus fits in our theology. On the issue of faith/works, we are all too often intent on "not being Protestant," so we might get a little uncomfortable talking about how it is only by grace we can do good works or about how depraved we are without the Atonement. We much prefer our bicycle analogies where we can at least earn a few pennies on our own.

We also tend to compartmentalize the gospel into principles, convenient, easily packaged, spiritual MREs that are have little sense of interconnectedness. Thus, we can talk about the law of tithing, the law of chastity, the laws of mercy and justice...even bear our testimony of them, all without remembering that w/o the Atonement, we should not be fond, but fearful of these laws. We forget who it was that stared these laws in the eye on our behalf...and won.

So ultimately, we must bow to the cross and the tomb with every gospel topic. I don't think anyone would disagree with that, but nor do I think we do that. This is the kind of idea that will spur a lot of head-nodding, and "how true, Brother Stevensons" and "Absolutely." But such responses, I've found, end discussion and might even serve as a mechanism wherein we keep a subversive idea at arms length.

If we are speaking of a true principle, we simply cannot isolate it from the Atonement. Whether we speak of evolution, love, gravity, tithing...all must hinge on the Atonement. It is therefore pointless to talk about how wonderful tithing is without discussing how wonderful Jesus is. One might as well compliment an opera singer on her make-up, a first-rate mechanic on the quality of his car jack, or a chef for his toque.

The Raw Nerve: Palin and the Politics of the Visceral...

I love those moments when we see a collective societal nerve whacked dead on...the ramifications, however ugly, are also quite revealing and even educational. Indeed, individuals with complex sociopolitical identities are wont to do this (Reed Smoot...the first legitimate Mormon politician; Jack Johnson, the great black boxer who defeated Jim Jeffries; Andrew Sullivan, the self-proclaimed Reagan Conservative-Irish-Catholic-Gay). When you cross societal boundaries and refuse to be categorized, the results will not be pretty or pleasant...though there might be a touch of fun in them just to keep the viewing public from getting burned out from all of the societal experimentation. Sarah Palin, like other great transformers of American politics, is challenging the status quo for better or for worse and has received her due attention for doing so. As a cultural symbol, she should fascinate the turtlenecks and latte sippers...even if their fascination is of a bemused, condescending kind...such as a 19th-century British anthropologist might have engendered towards colonial India.

The actual response has been much darker. We learn precisely how knee-jerk the intellectual structure of power can be when its values are mocked. And Palin indeed does mock them and takes delight in doing so. When she should be worried about the mental strain of child-rearing and overpopulation, she has five. When she should be waxing eloquent about gender identity and how her run is realigning women's place in the world, instead, she talks about "her hunk." When she should be telling her kids to use birth control, she's telling her kids to make families. How obscene.

The response? As Dana Nelson has pointed out, the intellectual elite are far better at self-analysis and "woe is us" than organization; here, they seem to have transcended their immobilization so that they can unleash the full fury of their discipline upon her. Deconstructionism--"she's not really a woman." Theology--"she's Pontius Pilate." Feminism--"No, you don't understand...she's REALLY not a woman." Absurdly, she is depicted as out-of touch with the problems of American women...you know, that giving birth business is so out-of-vogue. And blue-collar work? Religion? All esoteric abstractions...now gender constructs...*sigh of longing* now that's practical. Whoopi Goldberg opined that Palin's speech reminded her of the Nazis. That's not to mention that Whoopi is apparently afraid that McCain would enslave African-Americans

Oh...and let's just stop the nonsense about experience in foreign policy. Henry Kissinger was nothing nigh of brilliant of matters of foreign policy...could navigate the bureaucracy masterfully...and in so doing disenfranchise various populations in the process (whether we speak of East Timor, Taiwan, the Bangladeshis, or the Allende regime). And Kissinger is loathed by the Left (and justifiably so). So when we talk of experience, we mean the correct

Silly season indeed.

No, when you control the means of production (hat tip to Marx), you determine the dissemination of the products sold. Alas, the cultural left have decided to mobilize their tremendous opinion-making power against this affront to their values, this moose in the Left's china closet.

PC Unplugged: I love Islam, but seriously folks...

SO my friends, it pains me to write this...after all, I have a deep and abiding respect for the Muslim people. I believe that Muhummad was a great figure who performed a great service to the peoples of the Middle East in helping to root out polytheism (though the militaristic edge is not exactly comforting...). So I run the risk of being associated with the camo. wearing right-wing nut jobs when I say this...

The British legal system has lost its collective mind and any sense it has of state sovereignty...http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/3522 (a decidedly opinionated piece about it). Whatever the merits or lack thereof found in Sharia law, the snowslide is being opened widely to radicalism and ultimately, the British state sanctioning of domestic abuse. What if another London bombing takes place? To whom will the Sharia court be subject? Can the Supreme Court of England/Wales declare primacy? If so, then why allow such a contrary legal body within the structure's midst?

Will the judges be strict constructionists or broad constructionists? What about if a British person commits a crime against a Muslim? Who will be the legal experts?
Worst of all, does Britain think so little of its own tradition of domestic freedom (even if that freedom was exclusively domestic and middle/upper-class) that it's telling what few ideals it had to take a flying leap? In the name of multiculturalism, the British gov't has just levied an enormous blow against the legal integrity of Britain's structures. All in the name of the multiculturalism.

And trust me...I know a little something about cultural sensitivity. You can't survive in a Hmong community without it. It's essential for civility...but you can't have competing legal structures and still call yourself a state that believes in equal protection.

Absurd.

The Mormons Who Munch

OK, so I'm as guilty as the next guy for being so Mo-centric (as opposed to ethnocentric). But just do a compare/contrast with me on how this song checks against Mormon conceptions of "being a woman."

Your insights would be much appreciated.

Tactical Morality: A Different Model of Obedience

I revisit an old topic that is becoming increasingly relevant, especially in a culture where not only is bad called good and vice versa, but where neither is called anything. Indeed, we see this same element in part within our own theology where, as Joseph taught, "some things that are right under once circumstnace might be wrong in another." Our theology needs (and fortunately, has) a set of "inner controls" to keep its wild force in check and therefore, retain its usefulness to the world.

Being a Latter-day Saint graduate student in liberal arts can make for some interestingly awkward (or awkwardly interesting) conversations. Most of my effort is spent demonstrating to them that I can read WHOLE books and speak in complete sentences, that I don't care for the Left Behind series, that I find C.S. Lewis to be only occasionaly insightful, and that I don't believe Jesus drives a tank. And yet I am willing to believe that a prophet of God came out of the upstate New York woodwork. Their thoughts probably vacilate between, "Radically instense!" or "Shouldn't you be fixing moonshine somewhere?" Except that I don't drink moonshine. Always full of surprises! So then there are all of the classic accounts of awkward moments at pubs, strange looks about the reason I know Hmong ("cultural imperialist," they mutter under their breath), and various other oddities.

So at the end of the day, I ask: "Why?" The discussions about the reasons for the Word of Wisdom rage ad nauseum. Tit-for-tats continue about why we dress modestly, go to Church on Sunday, or do anything that we do ad absurdium. Is it written in the heavens, my heart crieth out, that one glass of wine a month is worse for you than two gallons of soda a day? Yet one earns sharp talk about health habits whereas the other gets a temple recommend thrown in the batch.

My answer? Postmodernism. Image politics. Divinely-inspired PR. Perhaps it sounds a little too Karl Rove-ish for some folks' tastes, but it is well founded in scripture and modern revelation. Elder Maxswell taught: "We will find that not only are there strategic signposts of morality, but there are also tactical standards of morality with which we must be concerned if we are to preserve our identity in the way that is most helpful to us and to our fellowmen." He cites Sampson's long hair; there was nothing inherently strengthening about hair. He notes Paul's injunction to the women that they keep their heads covered; there is no theology in Jewish or Christian that tells us anything about the goodness or evil inherent woman's hair. What were these images for? Tactics...and seldom are tactics a reflection of eternal principles. Sampson needed to distinguish himself from the otherwise unrighteous Phillistines. The women, feeling a sense of equality from the Pauline epistles ("Ye are all one in Christ") felt reasonably inclined to shed a certain aspect of their gender. Paul counseled against it if only to keep them distinct from the ladies of loose morals who were also known by their refusal to wear a head-covering.

How much of what we do is dictated because we want to be "peculiar"? BYU's honor code? The Word of Wisdom? Modesty? perhaps BYU's honor code (what's better looking to the press than 30,000 clean-cut, modestly-dressed 18-25 year olds)? Notice, this possibility should not be used delegitimize the commandments. After all, Elder Maxwell continued that the "prophet would help us set the tone of tactical morality when such is needed."

Can image politics be the latest way to articulate the message while staying in touch with the postmodern tone of the times? What think you?

A Moment of Reflection on 9/11

Welcome to Never-land...where that odd September day (waving hand) "never happened." Sure, if you do google news, you'll find a few memorials, speeches, calls to remember the dead, etc. But that's hardly the deep-seated, visceral pain that we knew all so well seven years ago. The fixation on the television. The inability to even reason clearly. Believe it or not, I gave a speech in high school on Bin Laden (whose name I pronounced, "Bean Lah-Deen"--betraying my folksy heritage. Hey, we all have our skeletons).

Yes, Steven Jones and his crowd claim that Bush knew about it beforehand, even planned it. I highly doubt it, if only because, as Benjamin Franklin said, the only way you can get two Americans to keep a secret is by shooting one of them.

But neither am I the all-seeing eye, nor does it particularly matter as far as how I feel about it. We learn the same lesson...evil is real, there are conspiring men, and even a war-hater like me who wants out of Iraq recognizes that it would be a greater injustice to sit back and pontificate on the "decline of the West" and American imperialism coming home to roost while people are dying. Intellectualism, at such times, is not just distracting...it's nigh unto criminal.

If by some freak chance a family member/friend of the 9/11 victims visits this blog, I salute you...just for taking a few in the jaw simply because you're American.

God bless.

A Rather Amusing Jab at Sarah Palin..."Like a Bad Diseny Movie."

So he's an actor...he knows how to be a social commentator/comedian all at once. But I must admit...his comparison to the "bad Disney movie" is quite entertaining...indeed, that's probably why people like Palin. You know the movies I'm talking about...feisty mother just living her life and then some politician perchance sees her take on the hockey coach/other mothers...(cue light Southern accent for added folksy factor): "Hmmm...where I come from, we call that good foreign policy."

And yes, if he thinks dinosaurs lifespans make for a legitimate litmus test, I don't want to hear any crowing from the left (even if I agree with them) about how pro-life/traditional marriage positions equate hard-wired bigotry. For the record, Sarah Palin has NEVER said that she buys into the old-school creationist model that the earth is only 6,000 years old. If one must use a litmus test (and I do not...I was considering Giuliani back in the day), which is more sound? What one thinks of an old rock that ceased to be relevant aprx. 3 million years ago? Or a belief that gender doesn't exist except as a social nicety?

Cancer or a Musty Old Document: A Real Trial of Faith

Humble readers, those who know (and, quite logically, love) me best, you know that I enjoy good sparring matches with secular critics of the faith. The old evangelical wing of anti-Mormonism is old, worn-out. The days of the Bible-bash should be consigned to the dust-bin of history. In general, who really believes the Bible any more? Sure, your average Joe Schlunk will tell his kids how they need to get religion, how they should follow the Sermon on the Mount, and other things that seem vaguely reminiscent of a bull-rally for investing in a firm...devoid of a coherent doctrinal or ideological base. The difference is that the commodity they're asking their kids to buy is self-sustenance. It's basically the stuff of "The More You Know" commercials. And who really buys into that stuff unless you're over 21 and/or have kids?


So I suggest that the real questions of faith no longer deal with original sin, faith and works. These issues have simply become litmus tests for one's cultural identity ("Are you a Christian aka 'one of us'?"). And yet, the secular critics tend to be remarkably backward looking in their critiques of Mormonism. Even those within our faith who consider themselves (and rightfully so) educated bemoan how difficult it is to keep faith with all their newly-found knowledge of Church history. "Believing history" and "faithful history" dominate such discussions, as though Christ's central message to his followers was: "Here's what you say when they ask you about polygamy..."

And lest you think me to be trashing my fellow thinkers, I am not; I speak as one who has been (and in some ways, still am) there. We think of ourselves as enlightened and we shake our heads slowly when we see our brethren/sistren drop some horrifically ignorant/malapropo comment about Mormon history or doctrine. To be sure, many of us thinkers have suffered soul-wrenching tragedy. So I don't suggest we are all removed from the cold realities of life. But many of us, even if we aren't, still seek to be because we couldn't handle the realities of mortality.

So I wonder...in all our complaining about the problems that we face as "thinkers," do we realize that the person who just claimed that Joseph was never physically intimate with his plural wives might have given several priesthood blessings to his son to no avail? Or that the woman he still insists that African-Americans were neutral in the premortal existence just saw her temple marriage of 30 years fall apart because her husband ran off with his secretary? Which set of facts are more trying? A musty old document discussing some arcane sermon of Brigham Young or the lurking doubts that you have failed as a father, a spouse? A new mental process or the in-your-face possibility that God, if he's there, really doesn't care? One wears you down gradually; the other slams you to your knees in a rainy park (and I'm not being sensational; I just heard an account of this yesterday). Historical facts hint, wink, imply. The facts of cancer, of marriage grab you by the lapels and throw you on your face.

A call to my fellow thinkers; perhaps our focus/fetish with balancing reason with spirituality, while commendable and laudable, should also be balanced with an extra dose of charity. Perhaps we can learn something from the factually challenged...and it has nothing to do with archives.

Friendly Fire: When "the System" of Mormonism--not just Brother Smith--Gets You Down

As I was musing on the cosmos the other day (and musing is what I do), I was browsing a prominent blog on Mormonism where one particularly prolific poster mentioned the danger of theological "friendly fire" fatalities, even within the Church.

Friendly fire, at least in the non-military man's terms (I looked up an article on it and found it be far too complex for this late in the day), is a military attack intended for the enemy but which ultimately ends up killing a fellow soldier. Perhaps we object to such an overtly military metaphor to our faith, yet we are more than willing (indeed, I am willing) to accept military metaphors throughout 1/3 of the Book of Mormon and numerous hymns ("Onward Christian Soldiers, marching as to war"). If military metaphors so often define our plight, then is it wrong to discuss this very real element of warfare? Is it possible that in our zeal to preach, we end up killing those whom we are trying to protect?

An interesting concept indeed. And the application is not wholly novel...at least one other theologian has used the term in Christian theology. But instead of thinking about how we are the victims of friendly fire, as this author does (and we're always the victims, aren't we? *wink*), I wonder more about those of us who are the unwitting snipers, who, in the twilight of the battlefield, sometimes confuse the shadowy figure that is our brother for the shadowy figure we call "false doctrine," "moral relativism," or any other buzz-word in the Church. I know, I know...it's an old trope for folks to blather on about how we "can't force on others how we perceive things." To be a little colloquial, no freaking duh! And no, I'm not offering up some nutrition-less diet of universalism, etc. That attitude just leads to a bunch of smiling individualists who don't really know what there is to smile about.

Yet I am suggesting that even active members sometimes do not walk around with theological bullet-proof vests...nor should we always expect them to. I must admit...I have often been altogether too quick to rip out the old reliable, "The Church is perfect, but its members aren't." Has anyone ever heard of that comment actually comforting a person? If pressed, how would you define the Church? A paper chart hierarchy? A collective of individuals striving for a similar goal? How can honestly separate "the Church" from ourselves? That argument only serves to give us a false sense of self-exoneration, an excuse to mutter to ourselves when hearing about the offended: "*Harumph* Well, there's somebody who doesn't have a testimony..." or, more sympathetically, "Once they just realize the love of Gospel for them...oh well...we do what we can do..."

I can feel for the latter of the positions. Yet I suggest: "The way that Christ oftenworks is through us." And what if we are the ones who have levied the fire? How easy it is to let ourselves off because we convince ourselves that "we're just telling things as we see it...I don't sugar coat things." Unfortunately, a continued lack of sugar can cause spiritual hypoglycemia...with its attendant problems of blurred vision, weak knees. And it is our duty as Latter Day Saints to strengthen the weak knees and to help lift the scales from the eyes.

All I suggest is that when we hurt someone, let us cry over them...even if we accidentally pulled the trigger. And the beauty of the gospel is that the Atonement can give our tears a healing power that even military doctors cannot.

How to Create a Neanderthal: Power Structures and the Academic Elite

You like that, Foucault? Never thought that postmodernism could become (insert thundering voice of the divine) "the structure of power."

So as I sit in my left-wingish graduate seminars, I can't help but get the impression that individuals are surprised that I can speak in complete sentences. First, I'm Mormon, second, I'm from the West, and third, I'm conservative? As our good friend from seriouslysoblessed.blogspot.com would say, "Ew, ew, ew..."

Every organization, ideological structure, or -ism has its methods of negotiating the existence of dissent (for some excellent writings on this, read Gramsci and Raymond Williams...alas, I haven't the mood right now to indulge in academic abstractions). While it's an old cliche that probably belongs on right-wing, gun-toting, squirrel-eating blogs, I would suggest to you that the academic-liberal agenda (I say academic because it's quite different from mainstream liberalism), for its talk of free-wheeling debate and intellectual exchange, is ultimately interested in the maintenance of its own power base of assumptions ("gender is a construct," "everything is a construct," "your mom is a construct") far more than intellectual exchange as a virtue unto itself. It is not immune to the power structures that eliminate dissent. It uses metaphors, images, and power-plays to stand guard over its ideological territory.

What images do they use? I find it amusing that academics must, by necessity, position themselves in the image of "dissenter," "the burr in the saddle," the rage against the machine. Whether the dissenter wears a tie or wears nothing at all (or even nothing but a tie), the important thing is not that they are "correct" (what is "correct" anyway?), but that they are seeking to dismantle the structures of power. They might couch their subversion in language such as "cultural analysis" or even "academic freedom" (and can someone remind us what "liberty" is, again? Wake me when you're finished citing Enlightenment thinkers...that's SO establishment).

And the conservative caricature? Conservatives tote guns, like to talk about Mexicans as the "Spanish people," hate latte. They think Jesus drives a tank, find "Left Behind" to be inspirational literature, and think Derrida is the spawn of Satan. They oppose abortion because they hate women, support heterosexual marriage because homosexuals must be monsters who ultimately want to marry horses, and support the war because Islam is the Mormonism that they can actually go to war with and get away with it.

But what do they, the liberals/progressives, really want?. Do they want universal health-care? Isolationism? Circumscribed engagement? Do they really just want free access to abortions? Same-sex marriage? "Equal rights"? Will they be happy with these accomplishments?

I suggest that academic-progressives either 1) want to employ the Foucaultian power structures that they spend all day making snide remarks about or 2) want to watch the cultural/ideological world burn. A caricature, I know...but you know how it goes with blogs...we have to shock you into paying attention :)

I'm reminded of an exchange between an RAF officer and a veteran imperial official during a visit to what we now know as Iraq while it was still under British mandate during the 20s. The RAF officer mentioned that those fighting World War I for something greater than mere acquisition. His veteran acquaintance responded: "Oh you mean Brave Little Belgium, a World Safe for Democracy?" "Something like that." "Oh come now sir. That's rather an academic line, don't you think?"

"Academic freedom," not surprisingly, strikes me as a rather "academic line" as well.