Spent last night - when I should have been writing, natch - re-watching The Mormons with Mom. I had wanted her to see it (well, I want you to see it, too, if you haven't), partly to continue the discussion we've been having about "all religions are weird in their own way."
I thought all along that Mitt Romney's candidacy faced hurdles that came with his religion, and though many questioned the notion (and some still do), the fact remains that we're not, now, contemplating President Romney's future administration, and it's partly because in the South, Evangelical voters have handed substantial pluralities to Mike Huckabee.
Watching The Mormons last night, I saw a little more clearly the things that would upset Baptists and other Fundamentalists, but I also came up with a new reason why This Weird Is Different. And I think it's the difference between what you want to believe and what you have to believe, to make a religion work, things that may explain why Mormons face especially high hurdles of scrutiny for their beliefs.
Let's just state up front - I'm not deeply religious, and I'm not about to give chapter and verse - literally - to back up my points. My faith is my own, not anyone else's. I don't think I'm wildly out of the mainstream... but I'm probably defying major Christian faiths - including my nominal Episcopalian faith - in the way I will put it.
My mom, being the atheist that she is, criticizes religion generally for asking us to believe the impossible - God making the world in 6 days, Christ being resurrected, etc. And frankly, I agree; the hardest thing for anyone who claims some degree of faith to a religion is to accept the simply unbelievable, and that's especially hard when confronted by historical realities and scientific truths.
Still, I don't think such beliefs, especially in Christianity, are really absolutely required (this is where I'm in trouble, I know). In the end, I need a faith that balances with the things I've learned about the physical world and the history of our planet. And in that, I can accept that the teachings of Jesus Christ - to be tolerant, accepting, decent to others - are something worth believing in. I don't have to believe, literally, in the notion of his resurrection for myself to have a sense of faith that he, and God, watch over me.
Watching Tom Cruise's Scientology video that's been so widely exposed on the web, I was struck not by the strangeness of his Church, as much as I was by something he said up front - "Scientology tells me you are the only one who can help." It was then that I realized that in some ways he's the best spokesman they may have - finding a way to make a fairly questionable system of faith explicable and understandable to others. We all, I think, would like to think we can be of help.
The problem, of course, is that when you start asking about what Scientology entails - the electric meters, the intrusive questioning and confessions, the stuff about Xenu - it gets a little hard to believe. Scientology is questioned - more than other religions - not just because the beliefs are so weird, but because it asks so much - emotionally, financially - of its followers.
Let's be clear - I'm not saying I couldn't vote for a Mormon because of his or her religion. My objection to Mitt Romney, like many, came back to the slippery notions of his core political beliefs. But I also don't think the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints can expect people to just accept notions that LDS is like other religions. Set aside Larry O'Donnell's rather incendiary objections about race and polygamy; you still have the questions about The Golden Tablets, the notion of the Garden of Eden being in Missouri, the baptisms of ancestors... and so much more. What is being questioned is not what Mormons want to believe about being good people in the world; it's what they have to believe to have a religion at all. If Joseph Smith just "made up" the Book of Mormon, and didn't find mysterious Golden Tablets buried in a mountain in upstate New York, it goes, rather fundamentally, to the nature of the whole religion.
Unlike many, I'm not afraid of a Mike Huckabee Presidency because of his religious beliefs; I don't agree with his policies - some of which come out of those beliefs, to be sure. But in terms of the religious beliefs Huckabee holds, I can't say I totally disagree - Christ's teachings that we should help others, take care of the needy... these are the things I believe too, and that inform my politics as well. And Huckabee has been challenged, rightfully, to explain the things he has to believe - like Creationism - that do fly in the face of what we know (and he hasn't, necessarily, answered that at all well). And therein, I think, lies the distinction - the difference between the things we want to believe as a philosophy versus the things we have to believe to have a religion.
As one of the most modern of religions, Mormonism has a more thorough command of the machinery of public relations than others; still, PR that's used to obscure, rather than illuminate, can only work so well (and it's why those objections of O'Donnell can't just be set aside, in the end). And that, I think, is what Mormons in public life face - reasonable requests to help illuminate what can seem obscure, and questionable... not "why do you believe that weird thing" but "how do you explain that weird thing that goes to the core of your religious beliefs." And maybe it's inexplicable - who can explain the notion of faith in the resurrection - but God knows... she does, you know... that we have to try. Otherwise, my Mom's right... we got nuthin.
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