Mormon Memories and Current Skepticism

I have been re-reading Jon Krakauer's "Under the Banner of Heaven" (full book review to come at An Unused Voice) ahead of HBO's telecast of Big Love. This HBO Original series chronicles a polygamist family in Utah living the Principle of "plural marriage", a Principle originally revealed by god to Joseph Smith, founder and first prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints, also known as the LDS church or simply the Mormon church.

Of course, the modern Mormon church has eschewed polygamy for many years. Current adherents of the Principle are typically followers of "Mormon spin-off" faiths and usually collectively known as Mormon fundamentalists. The core of Krakauer's book is the tale of two Mormon fundamentalists who commit a senseless double-murder while in the grip of a religious fervour. Around this central narrative, Krakauer recounts the thoroughly fascinating history of Mormonism, from Joseph Smith's first encounter with the angel Moroni, through the Brigham Young years, to the 1890 Manifesto reversing the church position on plural marriage and the subsequent proliferation of polygamist sects splintering from the mainstream church. He also tells us a little about the modern Mormon church, including how many believers go on missions to convert the masses to the one true church.

While reading all of this, I suddenly remembered that I have had an encounter with Mormon missionaries. This was back in my days as a university student in Australia. Two very friendly, neatly dressed women knocked at my apartment door. They asked me if I was a believer in god, if I had ever gone to church, if I ever thought about what might help make the world better. I can't remember what I told them. Back then, I would sometimes tell the evangelist types that I did visit church and was "considering the faith", just to get them off my back. Perhaps this is what I told these two friendly ladies. I remember that they were not overly persistent, but they did say that their church was different. I also distinctly remember one of them saying "Not to worry, we are not Jehovah's Witnesses". Come to think of it, that was a pretty strange thing to say!

They did not ask to be let into the apartment and left me with a pamphlet, urging me to read it. I think one of them said that if I prayed upon reading the pamphlet, the truth of its message will be shown to me.

I vaguely remember the pamphlet; the front page was green in colour, possibly with a tree/ leaf or earth motif. But I might be confusing this with other church materials that I have seen over the years. I mean, the average church pamphlet designer does tend to like the Garden of Eden / God's Heaven on Earth theme - the "nature" clip-art collection must get a thorough ransacking.

What I definitely am NOT confusing with other church materials are the contents of the pamphlet. In a few paragraphs and not many words, the pamphlet told the story of the angel Moroni giving Joseph Smith the golden plates, upon which were written the Truth of the coming of Christ to the New World, the message of his 2nd coming and the salvation of man. Joseph Smith, the prophet of god, then translated the golden plates into the Book of Mormon and founded the one true church, the LDS church.

Okay, I admit I did not pray as the missionaries had suggested. However, there was something about the pamphlet - the conviction of its proclaimations, the font, the layout, the way the words "Book of Mormon" were made to seemingly glow on the page - well, I half-expected to be visited by a flash of light or something. It was all so far fetched, I almost thought there must be some truth to it. I knew nothing about Mormonism, apart from the fact that Donnie and Marie Osmond, whom I had seen on their eponymous TV show as a child, were Mormons.

Well, there was no flash of light, nor the "burning bosom" that I now know that Mormons talk about. The truth was not shown to me. I did learn that the LDS church had some pretty non-orthodox beliefs. I had not earlier connected Mormonism to LDS. I had some vague knowledge of the existence of the LDS church (they have been in Asia for quite a while), but I could not tell from the name of the church that there was such an outlandish story behind the faith. Jesus visited America, an angel visiting a 19th century American prophet, sacred golden plates - I mean, this seems the stuff of bad Victorian-era fiction!

Since then, I have read a few more things about Joseph Smith and Mormon history. Boy, they were wise to leave some of this stuff off the pamphlets. The thing about the magic translating spectacles would have been an instant deal-breaker for me. And the fact that the magic translating spectacles conveniently disappeared without a trace. Magic spectacles that Joseph Smith put on to read the sacred golden plates! It's like something you read to kids as a bedtime story! This was all very fine and well for people in the 19th century to believe, but I cannot imagine myself ever getting past this. I guess my own half-Buddhist, half-secular-humanist leanings have something to do with my predisposition towards skepticism, but come on! Magic spectacles! A magic quill would have been much sexier. Look what it did for JK Rowling!

And I haven't even gotten to the hat! Once he had lost the magic spectacles, Joseph Smith had to resort to translating the golden plates by sticking his head in an upturned hat, into which he had placed his special magic peep stone. See how "magic" is everywhere in this story? But never mind the magic for now - he translated sacred scripture by looking into a hat!! Again, this was probably quite appealing in the 19th century. It probably struck people back then as being refreshingly down to earth and balanced out the grandiosity of the angel and the great glittering golden plates.

But .... he was looking into a hat. Not wearing it, or touching it, or even pulling a rabbit out of it (which would have been more in keeping with the magic theme). Sticking his head inside the hat. It's all rather ... undignified, no?? If the magic spectacles had not sent me fleeing, this definitely would have done it.

And that is all without getting in the story told in the Book of Mormon itself. The convoluted tale of Lehi who journeyed with his followers from Israel to the New World six hundred years before Christ, his sons Laman and Nephi, the rival clans of Lamanites (the baddies) and Nephites (the goodies), Jesus visiting them in the New World after his resurrection and the final doomed battle between the two clans which killed off the Nephites, leaving as their last survivor a man named Moroni, who would later visit Joseph Smith in angel form to deliver this story inscribed on the golden plates.

There is one telling detail in this story. The Lamanites were an unruly, ungodly bunch and were cursed by God with dark skin as punishment. Later on the Lamanites wiped off the Nephites from the face of the earth and went on to become the forebears of the native Americans (or American Indians). All this is purported to have happened pre-Columbus and the complete annihilation of the fair-skinned Nephites explains why Columbus found no whitemen when he discovered America.

See, this is the sort of story that would have made perfect sense to your average 19th century American. Historians agree that many Americans in that era were proudly, prodigiously racist. That people of colour were "cursed by God" was something they could readily accept and believe. That the "savages" of the native American tribes were descended from a cursed race only enforced the righteousness of the godly pale-skinned true believers. Joseph Smith's home-spun saga of Good versus Evil fed and flattered the preconceived notions of the time. It pandered to its intended audience and it was a story with great purchase because of that.

Seen through our more enlightened eyes (or perhaps, simply our evolved value systems), it is blatantly, horribly racist. Off-puttingly so. But also in a way that is transparently a product of its time. More than any of the logical inconsistencies of the Book of Mormon (eg. descriptions of animals, equipment and tools that had not arrived in the Americas till after Columbus), this little detail tells me that this was a story of Joseph Smith's creation, not one that is divinely revealed. It's bad fanfiction of the 19th century vintage - riffing off a familiar story or character (in this case, Jesus Christ) by setting said story or character in a different time or place (in this case, America), replete with anachronisms (in this case, too many to recount), convenient and pat plot contrivances (in this case, the Nephite genocide) and consciously "knowing" references (in this case, the cursed Lamanites) that appeal directly to fandom (in this case, the average 19th century American amenable to embracing a new faith).

Even if I could get past the silliness of the spectacles and the hat, I absolutely draw the line at bad fanfiction. Really, there isn't even the consolation of a non-canon slash pairing. It's entirely unsupportable.