Archive for the ‘ Missouri Mormons ’ Category

Pennies from Heaven: How Mormon Economics Shape the G.O.P.

Harper’s magazine

I grew up a Mormon, but the wrong kind of Mormon: we were Missouri Mormons, or RLDS – as contrasted with the more successful Utah Mormons or LDS. This contrast was so blatant the church renamed itself the Community of Christ – for reasons it has never made clear. It didn’t really matter, it was doomed and it could not save itself – or do much of anything else – as its long decline has testified. We were losers, but to this day my family members refuse to recognize this.

My marker pen got a good workout on this article. But the basic point is an old one: Mormons are as American as apple-pie – something Americans themselves have refused to acknowledge. But as Americans are becoming more conservative, their ideology is merging with the Mormon one. This quote is typical:

As Kim Clark, the former dean of the Harvard Business School, told journalist Jeff Benedict in the Mormon Way of Doing Business: “I grew up in a home where we were not only expected to make our bed, do the dishes, and go to Church and say our prayers, but we were expected to be a leader and do it well. This has had a significant influence on how I think about the world and what I do and how I do it. Clark goes on to recall how his mother sent him off to school each day by grabbing his lapels and issuing a rather blunt exhortation: “Remember who you are.”

RLDS kids, by contrast, only aspired to be school teachers or nurses - definitely not businessmen. By contrast, we were nobodies doing nothing and going nowhere.

2011
09/29
CATEGORY
Missouri Mormons
Political comment
Religion
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The Church Was a Product of the Fifties

The church I am referring to here is the church of my childhood, called the RLDS Church at the time, and later renamed The Community of Christ. None of my other readers will be interested in this.

Any social movement is a product of its times, and is part of them; it cannot be otherwise. Religious people, of course refuse to believe this, and insist their religion exists outside of time – but this is only the nature of religion. In reality, every physical thing exists in time – and nothing is excepted.

In the case of my family’s religion, it got a good start under its first leader, Joseph Smith III in the late 19th Century, but then slowly faded, in the early 20th Century, under the leadership of his sons. America had become obsessed with Growth, and a church that did not grow was considered a failure. The church had failed, especially compared with its main competition, the LDS church, and it knew it.

It knew it unconsciously, that is, but refused to know it consciously – to this day, my family refuses to acknowledge this fact – to my continuing amazement.

It had to do something to keep the members it had (quite a few had already left) so it decided to become another church – with its own internal standards of success – which included the ability to overlook its continuing decline.

In this way, it is typical of 21st Century America – a country with no future.

2011
09/07
CATEGORY
Missouri Mormons
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Kierkegaard and the Church

What church am I referring to here? The church I grew up in, the church of my family. It used to be called the RLDS – we were the Missouri Mormons, and we carefully distinguished ourselves from the Utah sort (the LDS). It is now called the Community of Christ.

About the time the name changed, I left it. I was attending the University of Illinois, 1956-1959 at the time. All of a sudden, when I was going up the steps to the Engineering Library, I had a realization: the church was not important. I am the only one in my extended family to have this realization. For years, I did not leave the church officially, because it would hurt my mother too much. But eventually she died – one of the nicest things she ever did.

Although I had parted with the church intellectually, as did the woman I married, it still lurks in my subconscious and effects me there. When I heard about the philosophy of Kierkegaard, I thought “This something the church could adopt,” since Kierkegaard was a staunch Christian.

There is only one problem, and the same problem: the church is nothing, and always will be. The chances of it becoming a leader in theology are less than zero.

2011
08/01
CATEGORY
Missouri Mormons
Philosophy
Religion
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Mormonism is Now Cool

iTunes – Fresh Air podcast

Our ancestors must be turning in their graves. There is a hit musical now about the Book of Mormon. One hundred years ago the Mormons were the laughing-stock of America, now they are so acceptable Broadway can poke fun at them – much to their delight, I am sure. They have arrived.

I was raised a Mormon – but a Missouri Mormon (RLDS). Somewhere back in the Fifties the Utah Mormons became successful in a big way – and therefore became respectable in a big way.

Our church had to change its name to Community of Christ – and, it seems to me, is doomed, since its children are not interested in it, and it is getting no new converts. Success feeds on itself – as does failure.

2011
06/01
CATEGORY
Missouri Mormons
Religion
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They Pretend They Never Had a Past

I refer to my family here. We were Missouri Mormons – which we carefully distinguished from the Utah Mormons. They were the other - and not a very nice other at that.

Eventually, however it became obvious that they were becoming successful and we were not. So the RLDS (the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) became the Community of Christ. This nicely overlooked the fact that we were a complete failure. I am still amazed by my family’s inability to recognize this.

But this is only part of a larger belief: that they have no past – therefore, they can make it whatever they want, and change it as often as they please.

But there is a larger context, which is even more confusing: the Mormons believe they are the lost tribes of Israel – and therefore Jews, and the real Jews at that. They see nothing confusing about this: here again, they can believe whatever they want – and whatever they believe is real – to them.

If no one else can understand this, that is their problem.

2011
05/19
CATEGORY
Missouri Mormons
Religion
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My Problem With People

This problem has been residing at some lower level in my psyche, and has now decided to surface – whether I want it to or not. Now that I have written this sentence, I am analyzing it – and realizing that the “I” I used so glibly is really a bunch of things, must of them unconscious. They can easily get out of hand and wreck you.

I have had personal experience with mental illness. My ex-wife succumbed to schizophrenia in her early twenties – and never recovered. The last time I saw her she looked like a ghost – and shortly thereafter killed herself.

I am better off than she was: I know I am in trouble. She never realized that – and as I observe the gringos around me down here, I see many of them are not either. They tried to leave their problems behind them, but they came right along with them.

As I have mentioned before, I am listening to the book 1861: the Civil War Awakening – and it is effecting me strongly. This was a whole nation, my nation, with something terribly wrong with it – that it never really solved either. I just listened to a chapter about Ohio, where James Garfield was a young man. He was a Campbellite, and a really amazing guy. From Wikipedia:

Campbellite refers to any of the religious groups historically descended from the Restoration Movement, a religious reform movement in the early 19th century in the United States. The major groups are:

Some (though not all) members of these groups consider the term “Campbellite” derogatory, saying that they are followers of Jesus, not Campbell. They draw parallels with Martin Luther‘s protest of the name “Lutherans.” Others deem it a neutral tribute to the origins of their churches in the work of Thomas Campbell and Alexander Campbell (among others). These groups were originally called “reformed Baptist”, but were not related to the Reformed Baptist tradition.

Other prominent individuals in the early movement included Sidney Rigdon and Parley P. Pratt, who, along with more than 3,000 of their adherents converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints or “Mormonism” in the 1830s in Ohio.

This is where my family comes in: they were Mormons, albeit Missouri Mormons (a very complicated story in itself). As I read about the period now, I am amazed that the Mormons were not concerned with the burning issue of their time: slavery – as was the rest of the Restoration Movement.

They were not interested an anyone but themselves: they were God’s people, and no one else was important. They succeeded in antagonizing their neighbors (something very easy to do) in Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois. This ended with the death of their leader at the hands of a mob.

Perhaps I could solve my problems by starting my own church. But there is so much of that going on I would have to be extra-crazy to get any attention. My brother is a disciple of Glenn Beck (also a Mormon) and it would be hard to get any crazier than that guy.

2011
04/14
CATEGORY
Family
History
Missouri Mormons
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The RLDS Church was Economically Successful

In this way it was like the LDS, who were also economically successful. When the RLDS became less successful economically, during WWII, they faded. They couldn’t make the move from the family farm/small business world to the corporate world that was taking over. The LDS had no problem this way, because they were already a big corporation- and they became successful executives easily.

The RLDS still had their hangup about being in the world, but not of it – and still believed the coming of Zion was immanent. The LDS were more practical, less idealistic, and used to concentrating on money – a knack the RLDS had forgotten.

2011
02/24
CATEGORY
Missouri Mormons
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The Impact of WWII on America

This morning, I was thinking about the impact of WWII on the church of my family; we were Missouri Mormons, or RLDS – and we carefully distinguished ourselves from the Utah Mormons, who were the LDS. We were the good guys and they were the bad guys. About the time of WWII, our church began to fade, and eventually remodeled itself with a new name: The Community of Christ. By the time this happened I had dropped out altogether.

But then I realized this was part of a larger pattern: the impact of WWII on American itself – which was profound. Just a profound as the impact of the Civil War, in fact.

But in order to understand WWII, you have to understand the Great Depression – which probably had an even profounder impact – on the whole world. It was one of the major reasons for the rise of Fascism, for example – in Italy, Japan, and in Nazi Germany. To be blunt: the Great Depression caused WWII.

The New Deal in America was trying to cope with the Depression. Its practical effect was limited, but its effect on the way Americans thought about their government was profound. To this day, conservatives are still combating the notion that the government is supposed to help its people. They want the government to disappear so it won’t get in the way of the Power Complex – which consists mainly of the corporations, who have all the money and all the jobs. But let me return to WWII – which after all, happened half a century ago.

WWII made America the most powerful nation in history. But it also made it believe that war was absolutely necessary – and it immediately began the Cold War, and its ramifications in the Korean War and the Vietnam War. We were fighting Communism on all fronts. We were also destroying our economy – as the USSR was destroying its.

The big switch was the Gulf War, which changed our attention to a new enemy – but one we have never officially acknowledged: Islam. This war has gone through many names – but its function is clear enough: the war that never ends – or the war to control the world’s energy – or, as a side effect, its ideology.

But the overall effect is even clearer: this is a war to destroy America by installing a totalitarian regime. True, this is a new kind of totalitarianism that has no need of violent measures against its citizens – because they are part of it, and enforce its demands themselves. They have identified with their oppressors (a very common situation) and are now oppressing themselves economically – by handing over the fruits of their economy to the very rich and powerful.

We have returned to the Middle Ages – but with a high-tech twist.

2011
01/10
CATEGORY
History
Missouri Mormons
Political comment
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Mormonism as an Expression of a Social Mood

I am now reading Mood Matters – which is all about social moods and how they effect social events. I immediately related this to Mormonism, the religion of my family-of-origin. I have long suspected that Mormonism occurred in response to some social needs of its time and place: the early 19th Century in America and England.

This theory claims that Mormonism, as a social event, arose because of this social mood. Joseph Smith and his Book of Mormon satisfied that social need. What that need was we can only speculate, but it seems to have been a desire for a new revelation of God’s will. Joseph Smith just happened to come along at the right time and provided those revelations – whose content was not so important.

The Mormon explanation is God (with the assistance of Joseph Smith) brought about Mormonism. This theory asserts just the opposite: that the social mood of a segment of the population resulted in a social event: a new religion.

Succeeding events seem to bear this out. When Joseph Smith died, this should have been the end of Mormonism, but it wasn’t. Another leader arose (Brigham Young), they made the trek to Utah – and are now the fastest-growing church in America.  Everything that happened was the result of underlying social drives which expressed itself in the Mormon Movement.

Even the Missouri Mormons, which my family belonged to, had a similar momentum. It was driven by its members, and less so by the church organization. Eventually, this momentum slackened, largely due to the success of the Utah Mormons, and it had to go through a major makeover. Today, as I write this, most family members, even those who are no longer active in the church, still feel it is somehow important. This astonishes me, because I can clearly see its days are over. But moods like this are immune to the facts. The church meets some unconscious needs of theirs; it makes then feel good – and that is all they care about.

2010
06/22
CATEGORY
Missouri Mormons
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Pearl S. Buck

I am now listening to The Good Earth, and I must say it is a different kind of literature – I don’t know quite what to make of it. It is clear she has a deep sympathy for the Chinese peasants, the like of which I have not encountered before. From Wikipedia:

Pearl Sydenstricker Buck (June 26, 1892 — March 6, 1973) also known by her Chinese name Sai Zhenzhu (Chinese: 賽珍珠; pinyin: Sài Zhēnzhū), was an award-winning American writer who spent most of her time until 1934 in China. Her novel The Good Earth was the best-selling fiction book in the U.S. in 1931 and 1932, and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1932. In 1938, she became the first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, “for her rich and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China and for her biographical masterpieces.”[1]

While browsing this I became interested in the Fundamentalist–Modernist Controversy, which she was involved in.

This process resulted in the modern division of Protestant American religious life into mainline Christianity on the one hand and evangelical and fundamentalist Christianity on the other. As such, the Fundamentalist–Modernist Controversy in the Presbyterian Church is part of a wider set of developments in American religious life.

The religion I was raised in, the Missouri Mormons, have also been affected by this – but they have little awareness of what went on the larger conflict.

2010
06/15
CATEGORY
Literature
Missouri Mormons
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