Month: November 2020

My Quandary

A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance
when the need for illusion is great.
Saul Bellow

I preface this reaffirming my love and respect for Mormon people.

The corpus of rationale pointing to fallacies and dearth of artifacts supporting the Book of Mormon, throws validity of Joseph Smith Jr.’s Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints into serious question.  Given this, I’m puzzled that Ph.D.s, M.D.s, MBAs and LLDs., really smart folks, and even a handful who aren’t that smart, choose not to consider these facts.

All I can come up with—and it troubles me—is the personal consequence of, in Ex-Mormon Social Media vernacular “Going down the rabbit hole” are so huge and far-reaching.  Like “Coming Out” LGBTQ,will I alienate family and friends?  Will I lose my job, career, BYU Professorship?  In “Too Big To Fail,” I considered the larger cultural and economic devastation that formal dissolution of The Church of Jesus of Christ of Latter Day Saints would trigger.  Personally, I’m sorry not feeling free dispassionately to discuss, with Mormons, issues which seem to question LDS precepts.

For those in the Closet, but feeling curiosity and courage to glance toward the Rabbit Hole, you’re not alone.  Googling “exmormon” can prove bewildering.  Going to paper and ink, historian and niece of Church President David O. McKay, Faun Brodi’s No Man Knows My History is seminal.  A Brigham Young M.A. with 34 years in the Church Education System (CES), former Director of the LDS Institute of Religion in Whittier, California and Historian Grant H. Palmer’s An Insider View of Mormon Origins is carefully documented and meticulous.  Covering all the bases with photos and illustrations, former missionary Jeremy Runnells’ CES letter is instructive and entertaining.

Matthew 22:21

Matthew 22:21
“Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,
 and unto God the things that are God’s.”

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints are fine people.  I love my Mormon family and friends.

During this fractious and divisive Presidential election, through Facebook it became evident a majority of my LDS family and friends support President Trump.  I wonder, does their Church influence members politics and vote? 

No doubt most would answer, “No.”  Certainly, politics is never promoted from the pulpit nor in the myriad of Church organization, meeting and publications.  Nonetheless, it seem to me impossible to extricate religion, any religion, from politics.

Caveat:  “Figures don’t lie, but liars can figure.”  I see that of Utah’s 3.2 million residents, 2.1 million, 66%, are LDS.  The current U.S. electoral map gives 58.4% of Utah’s votes to Trump.

With two of three Utah residents being LDS and six of ten voting for Trump, I wonder?  Given the Church’s billions-of-dollars invested in Capitalism it will never happen, but, if word trickled down that the Prophet’s political course had turned hard Left, might Utah’s (and Idaho’s) electoral map colors transform from red to blue?