In the spirit of learning about the spiritual path of all people, I am doing a little series on the different religions that are popular in our world. As context, religioustolerance.org (great site worth checking out) estimates that there are 19 major world religions organized into 270 large religious groups. Christianity is the largest of those groups, with 2.1 billion people worldwide (33%) practicing about 34,000 different forms. Though my personal hope is for there to be as many unique pathways to God as there are people in the world, we put ourselves and others in boxes, for both good and bad reasons. Anyway, just one of those 34,000 Christian groups are Mormons, who are the lucky winners of my first "religious world tour" blog entry.
In 1820, near Palmyra in western New York state, 14 year-old Joseph Smith began his spiritual journey as a Methodist, where he came across this scripture from the book of James 1:5:
If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.
Ask, and it shall be given. Disenchanted by infighting and turf wars between competing protestant faiths (hmm.. sounds very familiar), he did what he had done most of his young life to find clarity - he went to the woods to meditate. This time, he was armed with the knowledge that he needed only to ask God for wisdom. What he experienced there is what Mormons now call the "First Vision", and he emerged with what he felt was a divinely-inspired mission to restore Christianity to it's most primitive roots - it source.
Things got even more and more interesting. In 1827, Smith was visited by a resurrected pre-Columbian Prophet named Moroni and given the Golden Plates laid out in a form of Egyptian herioglyphics, which Smith translated into the 500-page book of Mormon over a period of 60 days. His methods of divination were as fascinating as the purported sources of the prophecies - ancient prophets who evidently arrived to the New World 600 b.c. To be clear, Joseph Smith's visions and the Book of Mormon are attributed to, not middle-eastern, but mostly American-based prophets, which geographically places the birth of Mormonism in North America. Another interesting (and perhaps related) bit is that Nature was a strong influence for Mormons, a connection which continues today. With the Bible and Book of Mormon, Smith (along with his new wife Emma, Oliver Cowdry, and Martin Harris who had helped him interpret the stones) started the Mormon Church on April 6, 1830.
A short aside here, as many who read that last paragraph may be saying... "OMG!!! what a bunch of hooey!!". Remember that if you're a Christian, you believe that the visions came from a guy who claimed to be a son of God coneived from immaculate conception, died, and came back to life - or that the Bible, which has been translated in several different langauges, contains entirely accurate infiormation. Also, for all you smug science-leaning people out there, you hang your hat on life on earth beginning because lightening hit a bunch of warm mud-puddles and randomly created DNA, one of the most complicated chemical substances known. Or that reality can actually be defined by empirical observations organized into testable operating theories by human minds, and based on nothing but what we as humans can measure and experience. With EVERY belief system, we accept certain facts as truth without bothering to (or without being able to) truly understand the underlying forces. Every one of us, despite what we believe about ourselves, operates in this world with an incredible amount of blind faith in our world view - just like the Mormons. I personally find this very comforting.
The Mormons got around, and their rapid expansion was not met with enthusiasm by their protestant contemporaries. Their persecution is historical fact, and the only reason Brigham Young became the leader of the Utah Mormons is that Joseph Smith was murdered by mobs in Carthage Illinois on June 27, 1844. This was after mobs had chased them from New York, Ohio, and Missouri. It's interesting that Smith aligned himself with the indigenous Americans, because the religious persecution his people endured, while not nearly so violent and on a different scale, was nevertheless similar. Near my hometown in northwest Missouri, there was an actual attack on the Mormons in 1838, killing 21 and resulting in their expulsion from the State of Missouri completely - meaning that if you were a Mormon you either had to leave the state, or face death. After Smith's death, the church split and reorganized, with some following Brigham Young to Utah, in 1847, and others forming the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ-latter day saints. Obiously, this is just the tip of the historical iceberg, but it's a very cool history worth checking out.
Like many organized religions, Mormons have combined their spriritual teachings and guidance with a strong focus on evangelism and active participation in political arenas. Their political power, and ability to assert that power over others in a shared society by outnumbering people in a region and voting in blocks, explains much of why non-mormons dislike them as well as why their own followers are so well served by them. You can, and perhaps occasionally do, call the Mormons a lot of things - but "ineffective" shouldn't be one of them. They have doubled in size about every 15 years for the last 180 years, and now number over 14 million worldwide. They are exceptionally competent business people, and have built strong cultural, political, and religious institutions that reach around the world. Like many heirarchical, evangelical religions, I personally think that many past and present Mormon leaders struggle with the very same ego-driven human agendas that Jesus, and Joseph Smith, were hoping to overcome. Even Smith initated martial law for a time during his time as a mayor in Nauvoo, Illinois, and as Governor of Utah Brigham Young's relationship with power was always alot more evident than his relationship with God (in my opinion).
Wow.. this takes awhile. So, what do Mormons actually believe that compares or contrasts with other religions? A formative idea is the Great Apostasy, that after the death of Jesus and the 12 Apostles, the religious authority chain was broken, and only restored by Joseph Smith's revelations in the book of Mormon. So the book of Mormon picks up the Bible from that point on, and "corrects" biblical translations according to the divine interpretation of the modern prophet (e.g for the LDS, president Thomas Monson) and the general authorities supporting him in the church leadership. Like Christianity, most Mormons believe in the resurrection of Christ as the true Son of God, but from there it is a fairly specific ideoogical code as dictated by the church patriarchy of that sect of Mormonism/LDS/RLDS etc.. This provides a remarkable degree of cultural and religious structure to it's adherents, as continually defined by the president and general authorities as interpreted from the "Standard Works" (The Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearly at Great Price). This explains the highly structured lifestyle and world view most of us are generally familiar with in Mormons - abstinence from all addictive substances and premarital sex, missionary service, pure tithing, frequent prayer, and strong adherence to church-driven norms and social requirements. While many would consider this nothing short of a cage, many Mormons feel enormous benefits from this lifestyle - not only for the spiritual security of maintaining a life of grace and spiritual salvation (which they call "Exaltation"), but for the social security of a self-contained community of like-minded people.
So, the next time you meet a Mormon, realize that they are a person too, on their own spiritual path, and get to know them. They may leave disappointed that you haven't chosen their path, or they may leave thankful that you took a moment to listen to and value theirs, but either way you have nothing to lose. By the way, there is a great Mormon Blog here where you can learn all about what especially young Mormons are thinking and talking about.
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