Mormon Apocalypse, Pt. 1
America is special. America has a mission. America is a beacon of liberty. America, God shed His grace on thee.
We call it American exceptionalism—the belief that, from among the countries of the world, the United States of America has been uniquely called by God to be X. In this equation, X equals whatever you think America stands for.
The Shining City on a Hill, the New Jerusalem, Manifest Destiny, the Sacred Union, the Great Society, the protector of God’s chosen people—X has many incarnations, some of them draped with Geneva gowns or encased in sidewinder missiles.
Harsh realities have pulled Christians back from the brink of this idolatry—half a million dead here, a generation lost to a sexual or unitarian revolution there—causing believers to remember that Stone that smashed the idol of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, or that line from Kipling about being one with Nineveh and Tyre. Maybe we’re not so special after all. Or just as special as, say, those Iraqi Christians recently liberated from their homes and churches.
Like Rome, America has a religion that supports and guarantees her greatness, one that sacralizes her exceptionalism. Imagine, if you will, if this country had a sacred past, one that factored into the salvation narrative itself. You look at this vast continent, and your mind boggles—all of this land, and it was only occupied by loincloth-wearing animists for a thousand or more years? Was anyone else here before them? Where did the lost tribes of Israel go? What if they came here! And since transatlantic travel was pretty scarce during the first century a.d., and since Jesus Christ came first “to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” wouldn’t it follow that He appeared, resurrected from the dead, right here in America? And lest the gates of Hell prevail, doesn’t it then follow that a record of this would be written down, on golden tablets that would endure centuries of weather, and buried for later discovery? And (skipping ahead) wouldn’t the discovery here of “another testament of Jesus Christ” firmly establish the uniqueness, the permanence of America? And (skipping further ahead) wouldn’t any threat to America therefore be an attack on God?
W. Cleon Skousen thought so. For him the threat was the Red Menace, and he fought it on behalf of Elohim as an FBI special agent, a speaker for the John Birch Society, and in his book The Naked Communist (1958), in which he prophetically listed the goals of communism—many of which were fulfilled during the Cold War.
Skousen, you may have guessed, was a committed Mormon. As such, he denied the key tenets of Christianity, while using biblical terminology. Thus, for example, he believed that the one we all know as god, the father of Jesus (and Lucifer), was once a mere creature, but this “Elohim” “acquired,” through virtue, the glory and power of a god, being recognized as such by the universe’s “vast numbers of intelligences.” Thus, Skousen wrote (in 1953),
since God “acquired” the honor and sustaining influence of “all things” it follows . . . that if He should do anything to violate the confidence or “sense of justice” of these intelligences, they would promptly withdraw their support, and the “power” of God would disintegrate.
You may ask yourself, why in the world would anyone become a Mormon? This perception isn’t lost on the Latter-Day Saints, who don’t advertise that you, too, could rule your own galaxy, any more than Tom Cruise speaks publicly of the fate of the Thetans. Instead, they make those heartwarming commercials about family time and other things that interest conservatives.
Like, say, the threat of communism. Or liberals. Or the “racist” Barack Obama. Or any other threat to the aforementioned American exceptionalism.
Glenn Beck, the weeping conservative firebrand, has been a Mormon for a little over ten years. And while he pays homage to the writings of such great conservatives as George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther King, Jr.—which writings he calls “our American scriptures”—Beck has made it no secret that his favorite author is Cleon Skousen. Not Cleon Skousen, apologist of Interplanetary Elohim, but Cleon Skousen, author of The 5,000 Year Leap (1981), a catalog of the “divine” teachings of America’s Founding Fathers, who, it turns out, were to a man advocates of Mormon-style American exceptionalism. Beck urges his audiences to purchase the book, for which he has written a new Foreword.
It was the unstated theme of Mormon-style American exceptionalism that undergirded every word of Glenn Beck’s keynote speech at his recent “ecumenical” Restoring Honor rally in Washington, D.C.
To be continued . . .
Read "Mormon Apocalypse, Part 2" here.
This article first appeared in the October 2010 issue of Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture. To subscribe (12 issues for $19.99), click here.
Entries(RSS)
This is a vitally important and perceptive commentary on the state of the U.S. If enough people could come to understand what Mr. Wolf is saying and manage to come back to a genuine Christianity, this would be a different and better country. The problem is, that American exceptionalism is the default rhetoric of every movement and has been for a long time. The Tea Partiers ought to be talking about pealing back government and war. Instead they are buying into
this nonsense. Would-be leaders always wrap themselves in the Lincoln mantle. They cannot think beyond it, and it is a sure fire winner.
How the cartoonish and uninspired Book of Mormon sold a copy to anyone outside of Joseph Smith's family always baffles me. How the LDS, in a pragmatist society, grew to the goliath it is seems a bit more understandable.
But the notion that anyone takes Beck seriously as a commentator on anything is just depressing.
Good article. Mormonism is a true American religion, meaning that its a faith entirely shaped by the nation-state and its culture which tries to fit Christ somewhere in the middle of it like the piece of a puzzle. It's should be no surprise such a faith was born from the burnt-over district because its an identi-kit of different ideas ranging from James Fennimore Cooper to claiming decendency from Old Testament Israel.
Lincoln and King were not conservatives, no more than Beck When I see or hear Beck and his followers I'm always reminded of the movie Elmer Gantry.
Clyde Wilson
"The Tea Partiers ought to be talking about pealing back government and war. Instead they are buying into this nonsense."
Without wasting time to dive into the behind the scenes maneuvering of the normal GOP moves, it looks to me like Mitt Romney is their choice and the Tea Party, is their unknown variable.
GOP Solution:
Get inside the tea party, get control of it and make it less of a variable. Get Glenn Beck, Bill O'Rielly and The Three Stooges to cajole,lie and posture,from within the Tea Party, while the stalwarts hammer away from the outside on some of those silly poster candidates and mavericks that have jumped stalwart boundaries.
Stalwart Rule #1
(Don't mention immigration, the prohibitive costs of endless war, or any of those divisive social issues)
Stalwart Rule #2
Get Gingrich fundraising with the Catholics, and the Papists,
Stalwart Rule #3 Get Palin raising cane and money from the other working stiffs,
Stalwart Result #1 we can have the nomination sewed up, a party united against everything yet standing for nothing, with lots of money in hand.
Stalwart Result #2 And it will all be over before the first ballot or hanging chad in New Hampshire or Iowa is ever counted.
Stalwart Plan #3 In case of emergency? (Or if something happens to upset stalwart results?)
$$#@#$$ YIKES!! THE HARD WAY!!
When Lincoln wanted Fremont out of the Republican race he invoked THE HARD WAY!!.
Fremont demanded the resignation of the man who had urged Lincoln to make Fremont a general earlier in the war, Montgomery Blair, who was disliked by Radical Republicans.
On Sept. 22, 1864, Fremont withdrew from the contest. On Sept. 23, 1864, President Lincoln sent the following letter to Montgomery Blair:
“My Dear Sir: You have generously said to me more than once, that whenever your resignation could be a relief to me, it was at my disposal. The time has come...."
It hasn't changed much over the years. For instance here is a more recent headline:
"after being dealt early 1996 campaign scares in Iowa, New Hampshire and Arizona by TV commentator Pat Buchanan and multimillionaire Steve Forbes, "Beltway Bob," as Buchanan derisively dubbed him, has turned into the "Comeback Adult" and "Mr. Inevitable."
Good things have always come to those who wait in the GOP.
I read this exceptional article in the magazine and am looking forward to Part 2.
How I wish America were not "exceptional," but just a normal country, a big Switzerland, that still followed the original U.S. Constitution. But I suppose you can only be Switzerland if you have 8 million people instead of 308 million.
I'm also looking forward to Part II of this article. Good stuff, and a great October issue overall.
Great article, Pastor Wolf. Thanks! And I can certainly see now how a cult such as this one could arise out of the Yankee-Puritan-we're-predestined-to-usher-in-the-millenium cultural milieu.
I do credit Glenn Beck with encouraging Americans to again examine their founding documents and the original intent of our founders, but I must radically depart with him when he touts American exceptionalism, its divine inspiration, a consolidated, unitary nation (The U.S. uber alles), and the accompanying virtues of Lincoln. As a conservative evangelical of the Presbyterian variety, I have a narrow definition of divine inspiration, and though I find what the founders did to be simply amazing - and certainly not accomplished without God's help - the idea that America was inspired on a par with Scripture and the founding of Ancient Israel, fills me with fear and trepidation. What hubris!
I think Glenn's view as founded in his Mormonism was best expressed in one of his TV shows some months ago where he showed a painting of the founders, many "great" Americans, Moses, I believe, and Jesus Himself. If you can remember it, you'll know what I mean. Very disturbing!
My one hope (no, not certainty!) in all of this is that once enough Americans begin reading the founding documents and our history, the truth will out. I know that for me, once I began rediscovering these things, I couldn't get over the degree to which we'd been lied to, the truth obscured.
Akin to what Mr. Seiler posted earlier, I'd settle for our being like Switzerland. As a poor sinner saved only by God's grace through faith, living amongst other sinners, I'd simply like to have the ordered liberty and traditions passed down to me from my Christian, British forbears, bought and paid for with a lot of blood, sweat, and tears. I'll leave it to God to establish His new heaven and earth in His own good time.
Mr. Seiler,
Excellent point. Kirk Sale will be speaking to this very question at the John Randolph Club, that is, what is the ideal size of a nation.
John @#6 You have touched on a point Dr. Clyde Wilson has reiterated over and over. The country is simply too big, the empire should be partitioned.
The myth of American exceptionalism has been used to steer the masses to accept anything the massive Federal apparatus does as long as the words Freedom and Democracy are amongst the rhetoric.
Beck has been promoting the Mormon Indians-as-Hebrews myth on his show several times. It's an embarrassing spectacle.
I lived in Southwest and knew enough Mormons and even had one for an in-law I became familiar with a portion of the Mormon doctrines. They were quite enthusiastic about converting American Indians based on the Mormon Indians as Hebrews dogma. However, they did allow blacks to officially join the Church or pray in their temples.
If GB is promoting this crap it is as I said. Elmer Gantry.
It appears that Mr. Skousen, Mr. Beck and Mr. Wolf are only familiar with one strand of mormon myth interpretation. Officially, there is no position from Salt Lake City about the destination of the hebrew wanderers and consequently no authorized claim of american indians as solely the offspring of those people. Another version, popular at the intellectual center of Mormondom-BYU, is that the small Jewish tribe landed in an already populated area of mesoamerica and eventually blended in with them. This view inconveniences many narratives.
#2 "How the cartoonish and uninspired Book of Mormon sold a copy to anyone outside of Joseph Smith’s family always baffles me."
That's why it has been almost entirely freely given.
Robert @ 5 writes
"Stalwart Rule #2
Get Gingrich fundraising with the Catholics, and the Papists."
It's probably not coincidence that I read this shortly before opening a solicitation from the man himself for contributions to the Citizens United Foundation. The cheese in this case is his DVD "Nine Days That Changed the World". The letter with the solicitation reads like it could be the subject of this discussion and attempts to play on my Popery.
I didn't realize the former speaker had come into the fold until I read the letter (nor that the Arlington diocese, apparently, hawks its registry to politicos).
I am curious what take the readers here have either on the movie or on CUF. (Rockford Institute is rest assured I am not donating to CUF).
#12
Seriously? Then he will damage his credibility faster and people will stop listening to him.
Although I heard that a giant Marxist rally in Washington DC has boosted his popularity further. How convenient.
Mr. George,
I too am a Roman Catholic of sorts. I am simply tired of the GOP using other peoples faith to further their own agendas. At least apostates like Biden and Pelosi admit that they will not allow their faith to have the slightest influence on anything they do as politicians. The GOP,however, is just as earnest in this practice , they are just a little more adept and audacious in taking advantage the weak and misinformed.
I don't doubt that the last Pope was familiar with all the sore spots of communisim and willing to assist his fellow Catholics in Poland and elsewhere in pooring salt into those raw, open wounds. He was a brave man in many instances and I am sure the film they are hawking is probably good. Yet, the GOP has a bad habit of using the flock against our Holy Father when the going gets tough. As when they helped destroy(against his advice) some of the most ancient christian communities( some probably founded by the first Apostles) during operation shock and awe; Or when they always head for the tall grass when he is being insulted and demeaned by America's mass propoganda campaigns---usually just before launching their next ill-conceived military expedition against another defenseless people.
As Clyde Wilson is fond of saying, "there can be no hope in current politics if it includes the GOP." I prefer the government give my tax money away (if they insist) to folks I know, or might know over here, rather than folks I don't know and will never know over there.
Jeff Anderson writes: "How the cartoonish and uninspired Book of Mormon sold a copy to anyone outside of Joseph Smith’s family always baffles me. How the LDS, in a pragmatist society, grew to the goliath it is seems a bit more understandable."
It makes perfect sense if you understand Anglo-Saxon Protestantism and Yankees. A fierce sense of national, and especially ethnic Anglo-Saxon, exceptionalism is central to the Anglophone reformations. Especially with the Puritans it took a hardcore Judaizing form, one in which Anglo-Saxons were often presented as the new or true Jews. Playwright Ben Jonson parodies that brilliantly, particularly in The Alchemist and Bartholomew Fair.
Those same Anglo-Saxon Puritans that Jonson recognized as ridiculous monsters posing a major threat became America's New England settlers. Their culture, the original and specific Yankee culture is but the New World version of the English father culture. And those Yankees, most specifically those who are its genetic inheritors but also those who have assimilated fully to that culture, have always led American toward utter perversion with a faith in American exceptionalism behind the dragging.
Unitarianism and Universalism, Transcendentalism and the first feminism, campaigns to save the world through diet or uplifting all the black and brown people worldwide, the Social Gospel - these and other abominations are the inherent fruits of WASP culture, of Yankee culture.
Another logical fruit of Yankee Anglo-Saxon culture, a 'conservative' fruit as opposed to the 'liberal' fruit of Unitarian-Universalism (and yes, my point is that the conservative fruit of WASP culture is as awful as its liberal fruits), is Mormonism.
The founders of Mormonism were all Anglo-Saxons of New England ancestry, most then living in the 'burnt-over' district of upstate NY, where large numbers of New England Yankees had emigrated after the Revolution. Their crazy new religion spread like wildfire among the descendants of New England WASPs, not merely in NY and nearby parts of PA but into northern OH.
Considering the Anglo-Saxon origins, it is no mistake that Mormons found it 1000 times easier to convert Scandinavian and northern German immigrants than to convert Irish or Italian or Polish immigrants, or the Scotch-irish from the South and the lower midwest.
Mormonism is as American as apple pie, as American as New England Anglo-Saxon Puritans and their now primarily agnostic or modern deist descendants.
This article was one of the brightest jewels of a very insightful and courageous issue. Every time Chronicles arrives in my mailbox I go directly to read it "without passing GO" as they say in Monopoly, but this one challenged us in a special way to think very creatively and soberly.
Sadly, in my humble opinion, it will be very difficult to convince people of the soundness of the arguments. I attended last weekend a conference focused on G.K. Chesterton; during the Q & A, I asked the presenters if they were familiar with the issue and if they had any comments. Since I put them on the spot I'll spare their names but to their credit they were cautiously encouraging of some of the thoughts expressed in the articles. However, among some of the attendees, all of whom had just heard a fine lecture about the virtue of smallness, the reaction was hardly enthusiastic; several looked at me and/or spoke to me as if I'd just wondered into the Louvre with my paint-by-numbers set to touch up the Mona Lisa or something. So many folks, otherwise of sound instincts, are still trapped in a mindset that somehow this 50 state/ 300 million peopled empire is etched into perpetuity just below the commandments on Mose's tablets.
During a recent broadcast on Russia Today, the host button-holed lapsed Catholic and coke-head Beck at one of his less succesful $100,000 gigs, and forced him to admit that he has an employee who listens to Alex Jones' satellite radio show. Beck then re-packages Jones' material as his own. Beck is a plagiarist plain and simple. Since I drive several hours a day, talk radio is my life. What bothers me most about Beck's show is that he's sponsored by GoldLine, a creepy outfit that buys peoples' precious metal and converts it into worthless paper dollars.
And Beck is the spokesman for the right wing. We truly are in deep kimchi.
The best radio talk show in the Ron Smith Show on WBAL.com 9 a.m. thil noon Eastern time.
Great article Aaron!
* best radio talk show is the Ron Smith Show on http://www.WBAL.com between 9 a.m. until noon Eastern time
Robert @ 17
Thank you for your reply. Understand my intent was not to take issue with your post. Given the circumstances, it seemed you could have been referring the the same solicitation I received (and that caught me somewhat off-guard).
Additionally, I would like to apologize to the Arlington diocese for jumping to conclusions. On further reflection, I can think of at least one other source that could have outed me to the Solicitation Machine as a papist.
Andrew,
I did not think you were at issue with it. I appreciated your comment. I think I may have seen the mailing but my reference to Newt was not based on that particular mailing. What the GOP does is take some ordinay Catholic like George Wiegel, Novak, Gingrich, Santorum or the like and use them for their own ends. So long as this silly coalition of the willing stick to the PC script and the GOP talking points, they are provided a decent living, some public exposure to peddle their snake oil-- perhaps a weekly or monthly column in one of the beltway rags, or a desk deep in a beltway think tank --- while at the same time gathering a good percentage of naive pro -lifers and otherwise honorable folk who will consider their
stupid party as the lesser of the two evil twins. If they step outside the party lines,however, first it seems they are quietly ignored, then exposed to subtle sanctions and finally if necessary, calumniated and exposed as radicals, dangerous reactionaries and perverts to the cause of duopoly. In other words these Catholic party hacks seem always willing to assume endless responsibilties for the GOP but never any authority. Evidently as people of faith, they believe that is the way "GOP intended it."
Curious question for Christians here.
What Beck is doing right now - would it have amounted to heresy or blasphemy or perhaps even a crime of civil disobedience in the centuries past in the Christian world? Would anything similar to American exceptionalism have received condoning treatment from authorities?
Prateek, yes, as a Catholic I can tell you that before Vatican II if I had participated in such an event would make me guilty of indifferentism in the least and heresy (praying with pagans - Beck) at worst.
I figured. But you know, I really got angry reading some news of the bullying stories that have been coming out, and they make me wonder about the moral credentials of small town America. Apart from the incident of videotaping an eighteen year old's private life, it came out that in Cleveland, Ohio, a family of Croatian immigrants lost a daughter to a suicide after several events at her school when both boys and girls equally conducted sexual humiliation on her, made dirty ethnic jokes about her, and violently beat her up and shoved her down stairs (yes, girls did that). What horrified me most was that the schoolgirls went to the funeral and started laughing near the open casket of the recently deceased Croatian girl. In front of the family.
So, on one hand, you have Christianity reduced to talk show host antics, and on the other hand, children in some public schools are relishing their chance to drive an immigrant girl to suicide and then laugh at her corpse. And then there was this story of one female TV talking head who started laughing in an interview when the host brought up a controversy she started. It turned out that she called the daughters of some famous politician "prostitutes", even though they weren't, and even though those girls were still in junior high school. Even schoolgoing children are ripe for public humiliation on national TV! And then this talk about Jesus, Moses, and Washington. Wow.
Prateek, Cleveland could hardly be seen as 'small town' anything, its a major city here in Ohio (where I live). A rather rough bunch up there, but what else would you expect when you send your kids to public schools? I dont think Croats would get any trouble really, I have a Croat coworker who is absolutely indistinguishable from any regular white American except for his mouthfull of a last name.
#24 "would it have amounted to heresy or blasphemy or perhaps even a crime of civil disobedience in the centuries past in the Christian world?"
Yes, in the 12th century when University debates among scholars and religious were serious, public and in pursuit of the truth, the losers were often hoooted out of the University, his books burned and his family shamed. Today they promote them as Academic Deans, Dept. Chairs or give them prime time slots on the talking head circuit. When St. Dominic preached against the Carthi or participated in the scholarly debates in Paris, the audience of listeners were very serious folks who believed in the truth and would often judge the debates and recommend the appropriate sanctions.
Once any opinion becomes as good as any other, every assertion subjective, all standards relative, and every man a slave to his own emotions; talking heads become a dime a dozen except for those, like Beck, who are paid large sums to lie. Such large sums,it is argued, provide the desired air of exclusivity to their gnostic rants.
I am a Serbo-Croat American with a mouthful of a last name and I can attest, I never liked the kinds of kids that would laugh at my own funeral. Then again, I hope that their funereal cackles wouldn't be heard over the chanting of the Psalms nor the movement of angel armies against the types of demons that coerce poor souls to commit such acts.
I must commend Mr. Wolf on his prescient article, tying Mr. Beck's Mormonism to American exceptionalism. I also want to add the concept of restorationism. Note that the great rally was called "Restoring America." The Mormons believe that they belong to the "restored" church, as opposed to the reformed church, or, of course, the church Church, which we Orthodox believe that we have always had and therefore, has no need of restoration nor reform. But let's all focus on the subtext of the possible "Mormonization" of the GOP, just as we are also focused on the Islamization of both of the major political brands in America.
Beck attacks Social Justice but he belongs to a Cult that teaches that God had sexual intercourse with Mary which intercourse produced Jesus.
What will be news is if Messers Beck, Hannity, or Limbaugh begin to speak about Israel's Govt as it does the American Govt; and it will be news because those Neo-Cons would be fired if they did that.
Procreate and you will dominate. Today Utah, tomorrow the world!
The article is well-reasoned, and entertaining; however, I don't agree that religion is the path to this nation's salvation. A classical eduction would do a much better job of returning this once-great country to its previous glories.
I don’t agree that religion is the path to this nation’s salvation."
Yes, I would agree. Faith is a gift and cannot be made into a mandate.
"A classical eduction would do a much better job of returning this once-great country to its previous glories."
A good classical education would at least illumine or prepare one to accept faith if he were blessed with the gift. The two are not in conflict and of course you never said they were, at least for those attending college it would be good to return to the classics for at least their first two years.
Jake at #18. Thanks for your very correct, on-target, and neglected history. Until Appomattox, other and better Americans kept this from becoming the dominant national mode.
Jake's post reminds me of a really good, decade-old piece in LRC titled The Yankee Problem in America, which I believe was written somebody who also writes for Chronicles. I don't remember who. It was written during the time of Bush vs. Gore election.
It said the same things, but only in more detail. The executive summary is that Yankees never really have compassion or sympathy but only a sense of moral superiority. In the name of this moral superiority, they will destroy the way of living of millions of people for supposedly saving the oppressed, even though they care little for the oppressors and oppressed. It is "immoral", they would always deem, when opposing anything.
Of course, while this amazing, amazing historical perspective was pretty enlightening, I found one problem. The piece was written by an avid Bush supporter, who said that only people of the Yankee world support Gore, while the regions of the humble, hardworking masses support Bush. Actually, now I am not entirely sure if The Yankee Problem In America was written by a Chronicles writer, because Chronicles writers aren't fond of Bush, but the style and similarity was there.
Prateek, that writer was Chronicles very own Dr Clyde Wilson, who most assuredly was NOT a Bush supporter! Dr Wilson advocates scorched earth tactics be used against the GOP.
I decided to check it out again, and it was written by Dr. Clyde Wilson and it seems it only said, "Gore prevailed in the power- and plunder-seeking Deep North (Northeast, Upper Midwest, Pacific Coast) and Bush in the regions inhabited by productive and decent Americans."
So that's more about Gore than it is about Bush, and not exactly a Bush praise. I remembered wrong.
A very fun part of this piece says that New England was a barren land and no sane person would stick around and stay there. And none did. Only New England born people eventually stayed in New England, and this reminds me of some writings by Lovecraft where he said that many early New Englanders stuck around as isolated hermits in the wilderness and kept feeding upon their dark Puritan melancholy in loneliness. To imagine the anger, mania, misanthropy, and self-righteousness that kind of living would produce is not possible.
Excellent piece and a hearty amen to Dr. Wilson's comment #1.
@33 robert II
Faith is a gift and cannot be made into a mandate.
Faith is also a fruit of the Holy Spirit.
Lord help Thou mine unbelief!
In this day and age We The People have put their trust in princes and sons of men. It's a crying shame.
The problem, as I see it, has less to do with Joseph Smith or Brigham Young, than it does with Abraham Lincoln. The Mormons, up until the late 1800s were no friend of the u.S. government. In fact they were openly hostile and defiant. They went about as far from civilization as they could to separate from the u.S., yet the government would not (could not?) leave them alone. Left with no real choice, they melded into American society, even becoming respectable outsiders by the middle of the 20th century.
Beck’s choice to hold his rally at the feet of Lincoln had more to do with his belief in the American mythology than it does with his belief in Mormon theology. The Christian right are in no way different in their empire worship despite the doctrinal differences.
Most Mormons outside Utah (and especially in the South) are not very much different in temperament or belief from most mainline protestant Christians. There are, of course, several points of difference that cannot and should not be dismissed out of hand, but most of the "crazy" doctrines enumerated in several of the commentaries above are 19th century relics about which few know and even fewer believe. The voluminous "Journal of Discourses," from which many of these controversies are taken are no longer in print and very rare. A major shift from the more esoteric doctrines to a more simple “Christ centered” program has been occurring for a very long time, although quite rapidly over the past 20 years or so. I am not saying they are orthodox, only that they are more “Christian” and less “Mormon” than they once were, the Book of Mormon not withstanding…
Beck is from this new generation of quasi-protestant Mormons which is why his appeal is not hampered by his adherence to Mormonism.
I think this focus on Mormons is an interesting exercise, but only because of the early Mormon church’s New England roots. The problem is now and ever has been that curious and dangerous critter we call the “Yankee.”
People move by slowly and by degrees—long dead concepts such as states rights, nullification, and constitutionalism are becoming common place, even among Mormons.
Whether or not there can be any meaningful “change” without repudiating Lincoln and the fruits of his war is an all together different question. This will be, in my opinion, the greatest obstacle to this well intentioned, though ill informed, grass roots movement which, for some reason, likes Beck.
It should be noted that Mormons are capitalizing on the spiritual vacuum in post-Cold War Western Europe and setting up shop around these parts, as well. Twenty years ago the "Latter-Day Saints" were unknown in France. Nowadays that is not the case.
So far, the tally is: Coca-Cola, McDonald's, television, artificial multiculturalism, student protests, homosexual "liberation," evangelical missions to Catholic- and Orthodox-baptized populations and Mormonism.
And they say America doesn't export any more!
NGPM,
Guilty as charged, but I dont think you can blame May 68 on us. Homosexual liberation was always stronger in Europe - I blame the hyper sexual Germans for that one.
As absurd as the Book of Mormon is, it is essentially Christian verging into heresy here and there. The real bad doctrines come from the Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price. The only real purpose of the Book of Mormon is to establish the LDS church as true and Joseph Smith as a prophet.