Never No Never

Just to be clear: I have never called anyone a "Gentile" in my life.  Having spent almost three decades in the church, I also don't recall anyone else using this term in reference to people of other faiths.  It's semi-hilarious (and/or silly) when serious articles about Mormonism attempt to tell me that Mormons call people who aren't Mormon "gentiles."  Nope.

Let He Who is Without Sweeping Generalizations Cast the First Label

Have you heard the biggest religion and politics story of the past few days?  Here's Anderson Cooper's interview with Robert Jeffress, the pastor who said Mormonism is not Christianity, but instead is a cult.

I have a few reactions to Robert Jeffress:

Anger: How dare he claim to know and understand MY religion!

Disbelief:  How can you call a church "not-Christian" when its name is "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" and the Christ that you claim you believe in taught love and acceptance of others?

Skepticism:  Is Jeffress serious?  Or is he just using inflammatory language to get attention?

Cynicism: It's yet another example of using your beliefs to browbeat your political opponent.

Yet, Jeffress' assertion that Mormonism is a cult (not a "sociological cult" but a "theological" one, as if the media is able to make such fine distinctions) is not unusual.  It's part of what I call the "Mormon Weirdness Factor" - we have "secret" temple ceremonies, believe that Joseph Smith saw God and Jesus Christ, and call our church leader a "Prophet."  Any way you slice it, Mormons are weird to a lot of Americans.  We like to think of ourselves as peculiar in a good way, but we are simply very different than mainstream Americans and many other Christian churches.

What Jeffress said was just plain wrong.  When I hear this story, however, my prevailing sentiment is pity.  How tragic that Pastor Jeffress can't see past his own labeling.  Does someone who's "Christian" by Jeffress' definition automatically get his vote?  What a sad way to live.  How often do we label others because of their background?  Haven't we all, at one time or another, made sweeping generalizations (and yes, that is a broad generalized statement!)?

Fill in the blanks:

Liberals are ____________.
Families with a lot of kids are ________.
Conservatives are __________.
University of Utah students are ____________.
Young people are ___________.
Fat people are ____________.
Gay people are ____________.
People from the east coast are __________.

It's a lazy way of categorizing - assume that one group has certain characteristics, and it allows you to write off an entire group of people without knowing them.  The more I read about Jeffress' statements on Mormons, the more I want to avoid judging.  I want to have charity towards all, and malice towards none.  I want to have enough humility to admit that I do not fully understand others' religious beliefs, but I respect them as sincere people of faith.  I want to see others as my brothers and sisters, who are earnestly striving to live by the light they have found.  I want to avoid labeling other people.  Anyone who wants to call themselves Christian?  Let 'em!

Addictions

Having spent little over 15 minutes on Goodreads.com, a book rating website, I discovered about 20 books I want to read.  I am slightly addicted to reading.  Is addiction always a bad thing?

Here are my addictions, in no particular order:
- Chocolate
- Reading
- Law & Order Re-runs
- Solitude
- Broadway Musicals
- Wheat Thins (and Peanut butter)
- Quiz bowl trivia
- The Black Hole Known as the Internet
- Tax Reform (a bit wonkish, but true)
- Seasonal earrings

Mormon(s) For President

Now that two Mormons have entered the Republican primary, it seems inevitable that we'll have a lot of hoopla over this question: "Is America willing to elect a Mormon President?"  I was reminded of this by a recent article at Feminist Mormon Housewives, which provided an overview of the anti-Mormon arguments being made.  You can read the article here - it links to some of the anti-Mormon articles in various places.  I do hope, as an American Mormon, that someday there will be a Mormon President (I just think it should be a Harry-Reid-type Mormon, not a Mitt-Romney-type - but that's another post).  A significant number of people are less likely to vote for a Mormon, but that number has been dropping in recent years, which I think is a sign of progress.

There shouldn't be a religious test for office - any other argument on this matter is simply bigoted.  Any Christian, Muslim, Jew, Atheist or Agnostic should stand or fall on his or her political arguments.  It's part of what makes America great: equal opportunity and separation of church and state.

The question essentially asks: how do Mormons prove their "loyalty" to America?  How can we prove we are not a bunch of robo-tronic zombies secretly intending to create a theocratic state with President Monson as supreme potentate?  The thought that we are mindless minions of Monson stems from the church's involvement in the Proposition 8 fight in California, which created the illusion that all members think and act alike, and do so at the behest of church leadership.  I think, paradoxically, the Utah immigration debate may help prove that American Mormons are not tools of their church in the political world.

It seems simple: the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints put out several statements saying that compassion was needed in the immigration debate, and supporting the Utah compact on immigration reform (read the statements here and here).  If Mormons really were the blind followers that the bigots claim, it seems like the Republican party in Utah (overwhelmingly Mormon) would toe the line and support the Utah compact.  However, recently Republicans voted to strike down one of the key provisions of a the Utah compact, a guest worker program.

It's sad that a lack of compassion by Utah Repblicans for the plight of illegal immigrants might end up helping Romney or Huntsman, but I think they can point to this as an example of how Mormons do not think or act in lockstep with church political statements.  Also, it's sad that they even have to make a case for Mormons at all, because we should be judged at the ballot box on our political ideas and plans, not on our religious beliefs.  Being Mormon isn't relevant to how a person will do as President.

America, Of Thee We Sing

It's the Fourth of July!  Well, almost.  But it feels like the Fourth of July - I saw fireworks on my way home, it's muggy firefly weather, and I have watermelon in the fridge.  So, in honor of America, its glory, its imperfection, its promise, and its contraditions: here are some great patriotic videos.  I do love America, with all it has achieved and all it must still achieve.

Schoolhouse Rock (one of several good ones about American History)


Ray Charles (with Hebrew subtitles?):


Aretha, belt it out, girl!


Did you really think you could get away without the Mormon Tabernacle Choir?  No, sir!


So, Happy Fourth of July!  Be safe, and enjoy the barbeque, apple pie, and/or chocolate chip cookies while you catch the fireworks!

Bonus Round Book Report

I am on track with my goal of reading a book per month, but I am not counting the books that I read for my two book groups, as I consider those "required reading" as opposed to free reading.  But, I just HAVE to put a plug in for a book one of my groups read in May: "I Capture the Castle" by Dodie Smith.  It was a DELIGHTFUL read.

It tells the coming of age tale of Cassandra, a young girl who lives in a dilapidated castle with her impoverished family.  Cassandra narrates the story and I love her funny and beautiful observations about life.  This book made me laugh out loud, and I stayed up late reading it.  I highly recommend this book if you are in the mood for a light and fun read.

Epic Book Report Saga Continues

As promised, over the past few months I also read two books on American women.  The first was "America's women: 400 years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines" by Gail Collins, a liberal opinion columnist at the New York Times.  The second one was "Leading Ladies: America's Trailblazers" by Kay Bailey Hutchinson, a conservative senator from Texas.  As you might imagine, the books differed widely in focus and writing style.  Let me say this clearly: Hutchinson's writing is terrible.  At times her sentences were painful to read.  If she didn't get someone to ghostwrite this for her, she should have, and if she did get someone to ghostwrite it for her, she shouldn't have paid them. 

Collins' book has a narrative arc which focuses on the journey of women throughout America's history.  She theorizes that American women were actually more valued when they were viewed as a productive part of the household - in the early days they were responsible for making candles and soap, spinning thread and making cloth, and other vital household duties.  Once people could buy household necessities in stores, women were devalued and, Collins argues, idealized.  Men began to focus on how women were delicate and needed protection - they were soft and unable to hand the hard stuff (an argument that would have been pretty foreign to the settler women of frontier America - they endured much hardship and worked alongside their husbands).  Collins argues that this was when men began to emphasize women's role as mothers and placing them on a unattainable pedestal.  

Many of the anecdotes Collins relates are charming and she really does tell a fascinating story of the courage of women throughout American history.  On the other hand, she seems to delight in pointing out the flaws of those she chronicles - she focuses on these flaws a little too much, in my opinion.  For example, one of the main point she makes about Dorthea Dix, who was a mental health advocate and Superintendent of Nurses during the civil war, is that Dix was anti-Catholic.  While this seems to be true, it ignores the great good accomplished by Dix both during the civil war and as a mental health advocate.  But I did enjoy that she didn't over-idealize the women she portrayed.  She knows these women are heroines, but they are flawed beings just like us.  

Hutchinson, on the other hand, seems loath to make any negative remarks about anyone.  She gives every one of her "Ladies" a patina of goodness that leads you to think all the women she talks about are saints worthy of a halo.  She never mentions anything controversial - I assume this is in order to appeal to the broadest audience and sell more books, but it gets old after a while and makes me long for the controversy Collins focuses on.

Hutchinson also organizes her book differently than Collins' - she has chapters based on topic, focusing on famous women scientists, Nobel laureates, First Ladies, writers, and other groups.  Hutchinson's book did make me want to read (better-written) stories about the women she portrays - I still need to read Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring," for example.  I was also glad to learn about the women Nobel prize winners and their struggle for acceptance.  

Here, in no particular order, where some of my favorite quotes/stories:

- Speaking about a trailblazing writer, Edgar Allen Poe stated: "Humanity is divided into three classes: Men, women, and Margaret Fuller." (Collins, page 101)

- Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring, spoke at a national book award ceremony and said "Wonder and humility are wholesome emotions, they do not exist side by side with a lust for destruction." (Hutchinson, page 248-249)

- When a line of immigrants was waiting for food at Ellis Island, the guards insisted "Ladies First."  When this was translated for the women, who came from male-dominated societies, an old Slovenian woman cried out, "Long live America, where women are first!" (Collins, page 259)

- "Take your stand and hold it; then let come what will, and receive the blows like a good soldier" - Susan B. Anthony (Hutchinson, page 176)

- The famous former slave orator, Sojourner Truth, entered Indiana and rebel sympathizers threatened to burn down the hall she was scheduled to speak.  She responded: "Then I will speak upon the ashes." (Collins, page 178)

- Jane Addams said in a 1897 speech: "I am not one of those who believe-broadly speaking-that women are better than men.  We have not wrecked railroads, nor corrupted legislatures, nor done many unholy things that men have done; but then we must remember that we have not had the chance." (Hutchinson, page 313)

- When told that it would be easier for Wyoming to become a state if they stopped giving women the right to vote, the state legislature telegraphed to their Washington negotiators: "We will remain out of the union a hundred years, rather than come in without our women." (Collins, page 236)

- Prudence Crandall started a school for black girls In Canterbury, CT.  The state legislature passed a law making it illegal to start a school for out-of-state black children.  Prudence was arrested, and averred: "I am only afraid they will not put me in jail."  Eventually her students were terrorized into leaving, but a few of the black girls she taught went on to become teachers themselves.  (Collins, pages 163-165)

- Barbara Bush, speaking at Wellesley College commencement, ended her speech with this gem: "Somewhere out in this audience may even be someone who will one day follow my footsteps, and preside over the White House as the president's spouse.  I wish him well!" (Hutchinson, page 117)

- Mother Jones, a union organizer, was imprisoned in Colorado in 1913 at age 76.  She said of her ordeal: "I had sewer rats...to fight, and all I had was a beer bottle; I would get one rat and another would run across the cellar at me....I fought the rats inside and out just alike." (Collins, page 288)

- Lindy Boggs, a member of the House of Representatives, was part of the Banking and Currency committee when they were writing a bill to end discrimination in banking.  Lindy added the phrase forbidding discrimination on the basis of sex or marital status, and said to her fellow committee members: "I'm sure it was just an oversight that we didn't have 'sex' or 'marital status' included.  I've taken care of that, and I trust it meets with the committee's approval."  Later, when she was buying her first house alone, the loan officer wrongly tried to turn down her loan, making up federal requirements that did not exist.  Lindy told the loan officer: "My dear, I am the author of the law that forbids this type of requirement for female persons and the elderly.  You are not complying with the federal regulation, you are in defiance of it." (Hutchinson, page 342)

- "If there's a book you really want to read but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it." - Toni Morrison (Hutchinson, page 127)

American women are awesome!