Showing posts with label Jesus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jesus. Show all posts
Saturday, March 15, 2014
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Dear White Christian America: Jesus Wasn't White
The historical Jesus would likely be subject to stop-and-frisk policies by the NYPD.
March 18, 2013 | Alternet
The History Channel miniseries The Bible is one of the most popular TV shows in recent memory. "The greatest story ever told" seems to have much life left in it.
During an age of economic uncertainty (and even more so among Christian Dominionist evangelicals who believe Barack Obama is the anti-Christ ) it makes sense that a retreat to a popularized version of the underpinnings of Christian faith, tailor-made for cable TV, has proven to be popular.
The Bible will likely draw more viewers following the controversy generated by a recent episode that offered up a vision of “Satan” whose facial features are almost identical to those of President Barack Obama.
The right-wing echo chamber is resonating with affirmation and joy at this discovery: the Christian Dominionists on the Right instinctively knew that the election of Barack Obama, the United States’ first black president, beckoned the “End Times.” (McCain’s campaign even offered up an ad in 2008 suggesting this very fact.) Now, the History Channel has validated their version of reality.
The Bible is not a "true" or "accurate" depiction of events. Like other TV shows and films, the final product is the result of the many decisions made by producers, actors, directors, writers, and editors. However, that does not mean that we should avoid asking some basic questions about the accuracy of the miniseries. For some, what follows is an uncomfortable truth.
The historical figure known as Jesus of Nazareth was not "white. He was not European. Based on the scholarly consensus, the historical Jesus would be a Middle Eastern Jew of medium, if not dark, complexion. He was certainly dark enough to have spent time in the Middle East and elsewhere, and not to have had his skin tone commented upon or noted.
This Jesus would be hounded and harassed by the TSA, looked at as a de facto "suspicious" person in post-9/11 America, and be racially profiled by the national security state. The historical Jesus would likely be subject to stop-and-frisk policies by the New York police and others. If it were too late at night, and the historical Jesus was trying to get a cab--especially if he were not attired "professionally"--he would be left standing curbside because brown folks in their 20s and 30s who look like him are presumed to be criminals.
Despite the "common sense" depiction of Jesus in the (white) American popular imagination, the historical Jesus Christ is not a white surfer dude with blue eyes, long flowing hair, and tanned and toned skin.
When I was an undergraduate and forced to take a series of religious studies classes as part of a core requirement, I was exposed first-hand to how volatile such a basic observation can be to some Christians and others who identify with that faith tradition. Our professor was discussing how the Bible is a historical text that has been edited and changed to reveal the prevailing political and social norms of a given time. I asked a question about the Civil Rights Movement and how black folks tried to use the text for purposes of political inspiration and motivation in the face of great adversity.
This transitioned to a followup question where I asked, "What color was Jesus?" Having just seen the movie, Malcolm X, I was curious as to the professor's response. He looked around and plainly said that Jesus Christ was not white or European. He would likely be a medium-complected Jew with brown or darker skin.
Check and mate: thus my followup, "Could one reasonably say that Jesus the historical figure was black?"
Our masterful professor looked around in a contemplative manner and said, "Depending on who you ask, and in what context, one could say that he could be considered 'black' in a society like America where whites have been so color conscious and race obsessed." You could have heard a pin hit the floor as gasps of anger erupted from the white (and some black and brown) students in the class.
Some students actually tried to get this professor fired. He was saved by a few things. First, his research claims, historiography on the matter, and credentials were impeccable. He had tenure. And he was white. It is quite likely that a black faculty member making such a basic claim would have had far fewer protections.
In these discussions of faith, some would likely object that race doesn't matter. Who cares what color the historical Jesus is/was?
Here, the color of Jesus Christ matters while simultaneously being of little import. Thus, a paradox. If the color of Jesus Christ is unimportant, why then the objection to the question and a resistance to changing the images to be more historically accurate? Moreover, such a basic question about the lie that is white Jesus, is often deflected and redirected into one which ends with the power of the white racial frame enabling those invested in its distortion(s) of reality arguing that anyone, especially a person of color, asking such things must be a black "racist" or anti-white.
If a Christian is a true believer why would they have difficulty reconciling their faith with such a superficial thing as changing the historical lie that is white Jesus into one that is more accurate, a man of color, whose message would be unchanged? Would it really be that hard for some white Christians (and others) to kneel before a black or brown Jesus Christ? Are the psychic wages of whiteness so great as to distort a person's image of God?
These matters of race, religion and politics remain potent even in 21st-century America. See how President Obama's presidential campaign was almost destroyed by Reverend Wright and the white conservative bogeyman known as "black liberation theology."
Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo's White Jesus were iconic images that enabled European colonialism and imperialism. In these grand projects of global white power and conquest, "Christian" became synonymous with free, white and civilized. "Heathen" meant that whole populations could be subjected to extermination, enslavement and exploitation.
The current and most popular image of Jesus as created by Warner Sallman in 1941 depicts the former as a white "American." Here, American exceptionalism, Manifest Destiny, and rise as an Imperial power were ordained as being one with Jesus, and a blessing from God for a country whose elites imagined it to be a "shining city on the hill."
This logic is perfectly cogent: a racial project of exploitation and enslavement of non-whites by Europeans, one legitimized by a belief in the natural inferiority of people of color, the pseudo-science of the Great Chain of Being, a belief in the Curse of Ham as well as other myths, must, for reasons of practical necessity, be predicated on the existence of a "white" God.
A twisted complement to how the whiteness of Jesus has been historically naturalized in the West is how the same ahistorical image adorns many African-American churches (as well as those of Latinos, Asians, Native Americans, and others) in this country and throughout the world.
Is there any greater example of the twisted nature of the color line, and the power of internalized white supremacy, than how many millions of black and brown folks kneel and pray before the image of a white god -- an image which has long been used to justify and legitimate white supremacy and racial exploitation? Black and white Christians pray to the same mythologized and historically inaccurate image of Jesus; yet, they do not pray or worship together in the same churches.
Research shows that white audiences will not watch TV shows or movies which they judge to have too many people of color as characters. A historically accurate version of the Bible, which embraced the demographic realities of the era such as HBO's epic series, Rome, would be a revelation. Unfortunately, many in the American public would be unwilling to hear such a basic truth, for it would be too upsetting for those who have internalized whiteness and white privilege even on matters of religion and faith.
March 18, 2013 | Alternet
The History Channel miniseries The Bible is one of the most popular TV shows in recent memory. "The greatest story ever told" seems to have much life left in it.
During an age of economic uncertainty (and even more so among Christian Dominionist evangelicals who believe Barack Obama is the anti-Christ ) it makes sense that a retreat to a popularized version of the underpinnings of Christian faith, tailor-made for cable TV, has proven to be popular.
The Bible will likely draw more viewers following the controversy generated by a recent episode that offered up a vision of “Satan” whose facial features are almost identical to those of President Barack Obama.
The right-wing echo chamber is resonating with affirmation and joy at this discovery: the Christian Dominionists on the Right instinctively knew that the election of Barack Obama, the United States’ first black president, beckoned the “End Times.” (McCain’s campaign even offered up an ad in 2008 suggesting this very fact.) Now, the History Channel has validated their version of reality.
The Bible is not a "true" or "accurate" depiction of events. Like other TV shows and films, the final product is the result of the many decisions made by producers, actors, directors, writers, and editors. However, that does not mean that we should avoid asking some basic questions about the accuracy of the miniseries. For some, what follows is an uncomfortable truth.
The historical figure known as Jesus of Nazareth was not "white. He was not European. Based on the scholarly consensus, the historical Jesus would be a Middle Eastern Jew of medium, if not dark, complexion. He was certainly dark enough to have spent time in the Middle East and elsewhere, and not to have had his skin tone commented upon or noted.
This Jesus would be hounded and harassed by the TSA, looked at as a de facto "suspicious" person in post-9/11 America, and be racially profiled by the national security state. The historical Jesus would likely be subject to stop-and-frisk policies by the New York police and others. If it were too late at night, and the historical Jesus was trying to get a cab--especially if he were not attired "professionally"--he would be left standing curbside because brown folks in their 20s and 30s who look like him are presumed to be criminals.
Despite the "common sense" depiction of Jesus in the (white) American popular imagination, the historical Jesus Christ is not a white surfer dude with blue eyes, long flowing hair, and tanned and toned skin.
When I was an undergraduate and forced to take a series of religious studies classes as part of a core requirement, I was exposed first-hand to how volatile such a basic observation can be to some Christians and others who identify with that faith tradition. Our professor was discussing how the Bible is a historical text that has been edited and changed to reveal the prevailing political and social norms of a given time. I asked a question about the Civil Rights Movement and how black folks tried to use the text for purposes of political inspiration and motivation in the face of great adversity.
This transitioned to a followup question where I asked, "What color was Jesus?" Having just seen the movie, Malcolm X, I was curious as to the professor's response. He looked around and plainly said that Jesus Christ was not white or European. He would likely be a medium-complected Jew with brown or darker skin.
Check and mate: thus my followup, "Could one reasonably say that Jesus the historical figure was black?"
Our masterful professor looked around in a contemplative manner and said, "Depending on who you ask, and in what context, one could say that he could be considered 'black' in a society like America where whites have been so color conscious and race obsessed." You could have heard a pin hit the floor as gasps of anger erupted from the white (and some black and brown) students in the class.
Some students actually tried to get this professor fired. He was saved by a few things. First, his research claims, historiography on the matter, and credentials were impeccable. He had tenure. And he was white. It is quite likely that a black faculty member making such a basic claim would have had far fewer protections.
In these discussions of faith, some would likely object that race doesn't matter. Who cares what color the historical Jesus is/was?
Here, the color of Jesus Christ matters while simultaneously being of little import. Thus, a paradox. If the color of Jesus Christ is unimportant, why then the objection to the question and a resistance to changing the images to be more historically accurate? Moreover, such a basic question about the lie that is white Jesus, is often deflected and redirected into one which ends with the power of the white racial frame enabling those invested in its distortion(s) of reality arguing that anyone, especially a person of color, asking such things must be a black "racist" or anti-white.
If a Christian is a true believer why would they have difficulty reconciling their faith with such a superficial thing as changing the historical lie that is white Jesus into one that is more accurate, a man of color, whose message would be unchanged? Would it really be that hard for some white Christians (and others) to kneel before a black or brown Jesus Christ? Are the psychic wages of whiteness so great as to distort a person's image of God?
These matters of race, religion and politics remain potent even in 21st-century America. See how President Obama's presidential campaign was almost destroyed by Reverend Wright and the white conservative bogeyman known as "black liberation theology."
Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo's White Jesus were iconic images that enabled European colonialism and imperialism. In these grand projects of global white power and conquest, "Christian" became synonymous with free, white and civilized. "Heathen" meant that whole populations could be subjected to extermination, enslavement and exploitation.
The current and most popular image of Jesus as created by Warner Sallman in 1941 depicts the former as a white "American." Here, American exceptionalism, Manifest Destiny, and rise as an Imperial power were ordained as being one with Jesus, and a blessing from God for a country whose elites imagined it to be a "shining city on the hill."
This logic is perfectly cogent: a racial project of exploitation and enslavement of non-whites by Europeans, one legitimized by a belief in the natural inferiority of people of color, the pseudo-science of the Great Chain of Being, a belief in the Curse of Ham as well as other myths, must, for reasons of practical necessity, be predicated on the existence of a "white" God.
A twisted complement to how the whiteness of Jesus has been historically naturalized in the West is how the same ahistorical image adorns many African-American churches (as well as those of Latinos, Asians, Native Americans, and others) in this country and throughout the world.
Is there any greater example of the twisted nature of the color line, and the power of internalized white supremacy, than how many millions of black and brown folks kneel and pray before the image of a white god -- an image which has long been used to justify and legitimate white supremacy and racial exploitation? Black and white Christians pray to the same mythologized and historically inaccurate image of Jesus; yet, they do not pray or worship together in the same churches.
Research shows that white audiences will not watch TV shows or movies which they judge to have too many people of color as characters. A historically accurate version of the Bible, which embraced the demographic realities of the era such as HBO's epic series, Rome, would be a revelation. Unfortunately, many in the American public would be unwilling to hear such a basic truth, for it would be too upsetting for those who have internalized whiteness and white privilege even on matters of religion and faith.
Sunday, June 24, 2012
If We Wake Up With a Mormon in the White House...
...What Happens? What Joseph Smith's Run for President Suggests About Mitt Romney
The truth about the man with 33 wives -- and what that tells us about Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
CHAPTER ONE:
According to a controversial Joseph Smith prophecy, when America degenerates to the point where “the Constitution hangs by a thread” -- and most TV pundits agree we’re there already -- at this time, a Mormon will be elected President of the United States, triggering a whole series of disaster-film plot twists: the end of the world as we know it; the overthrow of “gentile” rule; and the long-promised Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Only, instead of teleporting Himself somewhere interesting like Jerusalem, say the Mormons, Jesus will stage his comeback in Independence, Missouri.
Let me put it another way. Mitt Romney was raised to believe that if Mitt Romney is elected president, Mitt Romney will rule the world (or whatever is left of it) as the Mormon gods’ Viceroy, while Jesus Christ stumbles through tornado country, making crop circles in a corn field, or whatever it is you do there.
If you don’t believe me, it’s because you don’t know the operating software system Romney runs on. A slow and stupid operating system, sure, but it may soon be hooked up to about 5,000 nuclear warheads and a global empire, so ignoring it won’t save you.
It sounds too crazy to be true, I know -- but by now we liberal elites should know not to trust our instincts. Look at what happened in the case of Barack Obama: rather than taking at face value his stated ideas about financial reform (Obama made Larry Summers, architect of the financial deregulation disaster, his economics brain-bug), about health care (he ran on the least progressive and most pro-industry health care plan of the three major Democratic candidates), and about the American empire (which were neocon-friendly), liberal media elites projected onto him everything they wanted him to be: an idealized secular humanist version of Obama. By dismissing the “obvious” surface of our presidential politics, the media set us up for the biggest political Obummer of the century.
That’s where this movie comes in. A Mormon President tells the story of some stupid and confused hillbillies and the boner-wielding con man who leads them to ruin. In other words, it’s about us. In January 2013.
Forget about being clever, folks: To paraphrase a line from Starship Troopers, “To fight stupid, we must become stupid.”
CHAPTER TWO: Mugged by Moroni
If it’s not clear by now, the problem with reviewing A Mormon President is this: The movie was supposed to be unintentionally funny, softball material, a 21st century version of those old “Crown” history films they used to show in my public school civics class. It was supposed to serve one purpose: To make me look like I have talent. It would play the Washington Generals to my Harlem Globetrotters.
But I done figured wrong. As the story of Joseph Smith’s 1844 run for president unfolded into something weirder and scarier than I had bargained for, I started to realize it didn’t matter if the movie was unintentionally funny or not. Like it or not, my smug lack of curiosity about Mitt Romney’s religious identity was crumbling before a straight-to-DVD production. I found myself, as it were, Mugged by Moroni.
Now that I know a little more about Mitt Romney 1.0 -- that is, Joseph Smith, Jr., who was not only the first Mormon, but the first Mormon to run for president -- I’m not finding much to laugh at anymore.
Let me cut to the quick here and make things clear, in case I’m starting to sound like the Mel Gibson character in Conspiracy Theory.
First of all, although Joseph Smith's candidacy was equal parts tragedy and farce (in a Tommy Boy sort of way), he did offer a template for a future Mormon president with the example he set as ruler over the township of Nauvoo, Illinois, a unique post granted him via special city charter by the Illinois governor after the Mormons' cruel expulsion from Missouri in 1838.
Within a couple of years after settling in Nauvoo -- a city whose population quickly grew to parity with Chicago’s -- Smith transformed his fiefdom into a sort of Mormon Bantustan. He was Mayor, and Chief Justice, and got away with calling himself "King, Priest, and Ruler over Israel on Earth." Creepiest of all, he led the Nauvoo Legion, a unit roughly one-third the size of the total United States military. Not one for half measures, Smith gave himself the rank of “Lt. General,” the highest rank held by an American military officer since George Washington.
In 1841, Lt. Gen. Joseph Smith displayed his might by leading a huge military parade. One historian interviewed for A Mormon President compares the procession to “a May Day parade in the Soviet Union during the Cold War. And this terrified a number of people, who, at that point, really switched gears and said, ‘These people are dangerous and we need to protect ourselves.'"
The grand martial display marked how far the Mormons had come in a short time. Three years earlier, Smith and his followers had felt the full force of an official order signed by Missouri governor Lilburn Boggs, which went like this: "The Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated, or driven from the state, if necessary, for the public peace. Their outrages are beyond all description."
Before watching A Mormon President, I knew something about how the Missourians had massacred the Mormons prior to running them out of that godforsaken state. What I didn’t know was that a Mormon was the one who had apparently started all the extermination talk. The movie shows a perennial second banana, Sidney Rigdon -- who is played by a Billy Crystal look-alike in an Abe Lincoln beard -- making a speech in which he threatens Missouri's "gentiles" with "a war of extermination."
Here’s the thing about extermination threats: When you’re the weird little minority in a sea of armed, whiskey-guzzling Christians, it is generally a bad strategy to speak publicly of your intention to wipe out everybody else.
The Missourians were slow to react. There’s something about suicidal cultists that makes the sure-to-win side hesitate. (Are they hiding something we don’t know about? There’s got to be some angle we’re not catching!) Gov. Boggs grew weary of waiting and signed the order. The locals went to work massacring the men, the womenfolk, and the children, before finally driving other Mormons out of the state. Smith, Rigdon, and others landed in a Missouri jail… from which they eventually made their escape.
Safe at last in Nauvoo, Illinois, Smith made a riverside prophecy that the Missouri governor would "die by violent hands within one year." Which brings us to the thug who served as head of Smith’s security detail: Orrin Porter Rockwell. In the film, he resembles a 19th century Hells Angel biker, if a little meaner and crazier. Soon after the boss's prophecy, Rockwell slipped back over to Missouri and… next thing you know… someone is blasting Gov. Boggs with four shots -- two balls of buckshot in the neck, two in the head -- leaving him all but dead.
A couple of years later, Smith's thoughts turned national. He established an inner circle called “the Council of 50," which was “like an Ollie North thing,” as one historian describes it in A Mormon President. This group ran Smith’s campaign and planned his takeover of power, with the idea of helping him run things from inside the White House.
In his final display of power -- the one that led to his downfall -- Smith declared martial law in his principality and used his mighty Nauvoo Legion to destroy the Nauvoo Expositor's printing press in reaction to the newspaper's having dared criticize his polygamy and power-lust. This led to his being thrown into the pokey once again… where he soon found himself shot and bayoneted by an armed mob. Before meeting his grisly demise, he offered up the White Horse Prophecy, a revelation that he (or some worthy Mormon in years to come) was pre-ordained to become president at a time when the “Constitution is hanging by a thread as fine as a silk fiber.”
The prophecy is not accepted as church doctrine but remains part of Mormon lore. Adam Christing, the director of A Mormon President, explained it to me this way: “It’s just like in our time. The prophecy says, ‘The government is in disarray. The Constitution is going to be hanging by a thread, and the gentiles are going to screw it up so bad that it’s going to take God’s people to save the day.’ I do think there’s been a tiny underground hope in Mormon Land, if you will, that Romney could be the fulfillment of that White Horse Prophecy. Like a knight-in-shining-armor thing."
Romney, a seventh-generation Mormon who has served as a Latter-day Saint bishop, has distanced himself from the founder's theocratic talk, just as he has repudiated plural marriage. "That's not official church doctrine," he said of the White Horse Prophecy in a 2011 Salt Lake Tribune interview. "There are a lot of things that are speculation and discussion by church members and even church leaders that aren't official church doctrine. I don't put that at the heart of my religious belief."
But Christing told me he believes Romney has taken a secret oath pledging his loyalty first and foremost to his church: "There are, still today, very secret ceremonies in the Mormon temple, which Romney has participated in -- virtually all of those, including something called the Oath of Consecration, where he consecrates his money, his time, his talents. His whole life, really.”
Here is the Oath of Consecration: “You and each of you covenant and promise before God, angels, and these witnesses at this altar, that you do accept the law of consecration as contained in this, The Book of Doctrine and Covenants, in that you do consecrate yourselves, your time, talents, and everything with which the Lord has blessed you, or with which he may bless you, to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, for the building up of the kingdom of God on the earth and for the establishment of Zion."
"There was a time when sharing this info was dangerous," Christing said in an email. "Now, it's probably on Google. To me, the interesting thing is that the oath of consecration is specifically directed to the Mormon church (not God)."
CHAPTER THREE: Joseph Smith's Game
And then there is the matter of polygamy. By the time he was murdered, Joseph Smith had amassed 33 wives, eleven of whom were married and still living with their husbands. They ranged in age from 14 to roughly 60, according to an expert interviewed in the film.
Christing, who belongs to the second largest Mormon branch, the Reorganized Church of Latter-day Saints, treats Smith’s polygamy not just as a historical quirk but as an element of the behaviors we might associate with a sociopathic cult leader: “When Joseph reads to his wife Emma the ‘revelation’ from God instructing Joseph to marry as many wives as he can, he reads her a ‘letter’ from God telling his wife that if she doesn’t accept it, she’ll be damned. So if you believe that Smith was the prophet -- basically he’s saying to his wife, ‘If you don’t believe this, you’re going to hell.’”
Emma wasn't the only one thus coerced. Christing adds: “Imagine if you’re an 18-year-old woman. You’ve maybe left your family, or come with one family member from England, and you’ve arrived on a boat at New Orleans, and you come up the Mississippi River, and you get off the boat in Nauvoo, and there’s Brigham Young and Joseph Smith. And Joseph says, ‘God gave me a revelation to take plural wives, and if I don’t, an angel of God will kill me. An angel appeared to me with a drawn sword, and he’ll kill me.’ That’s a little bit of pressure to get from the ‘prophet,’ you know?”
The journey from England to Illinois was the one taken by Mitt Romney’s great-great-great grandfather, Miles Romney, along with his wife, Elizabeth, from the miserable factory town of Preston, England, to Illinois. Miles, an architect, was tasked with assisting the construction of the Nauvoo Temple.
One of the interviewees in A Mormon President is a gorgeous Mormon with a pre-Raphaelite face draped with perfectly silk dark hair. Her name is Kara Lyn Roundy. When she speaks of Joseph Smith, she lights up: “All I know is that there’s one prophet at the head of the church who has been given the keys to the holy priesthood. And he has been ordained by God…. It is so key for people to understand: There is only one Church on the face of the planet that has all the keys of the priesthood, and that is in the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.” When this MMILF gushes over Joseph Smith, you want to agree with her. You might even want to know what his secret was. The more one learns about his shameless pick-up techniques, the more one realizes there’s a Mormon version of The Game just waiting to be revealed to shy nerds everywhere.
On the topic of Mitt Romney, she says: “I think Mitt Romney is brilliant. He is a briiiiiiilliant businessman. I mean, he turns businesses around. He’s the first guy who took charge of the Olympics, profited $70 million."
CUT TO: Still image of a smiling Romney holding the Olympic flame.
CUT TO: Still image of Romney clutching gold medals as the camera zooms in, Ken Burns-style, on his smile.
"I mean, who’s ever done that?" Roundy says. "That’s the kind of guy I want running my country.”
A Mormon President has other funny moments. Over a PBS-ready piano soundtrack, experts on Mormonism try to persuade the viewer that, despite his status as prophet, Joseph Smith had a "regular Joe" side. “He was the kind of guy who would get down on the floor and wrestle with kids," one historian says.
CUT TO: Handsome Actor Guy With Suspiciously Romney-Like Facial Structure, in 1830s frontiersman costume, rolling through a meadow with kids.
Whoa, Amber Alert! Try that one again, fellas.
A Utah-dad type tells the camera: “Joseph Smith wouldn’t be someone I’d want to live next door to me.”
Wait a minute -- can you say that in a Mormon movie?
Another interviewee, credibly silver-haired, says: “He was all of the things that a classic Old Testament prophet said they were -- and Joseph is saying, ‘I am the same kind of prophet.’ And if it’s true, it’s scary. And if it’s false, Joseph Smith is a charlatan.”
So this movie isn't really the Mormon Schlock I had expected -- or had hoped -- it would be. But all this is mere backdrop to its main focus: Smith’s run for the presidency, a subject that the voice-over correctly points out “has never been told before." It is a story I knew nothing about, and cared even less about, until A Mormon President forced me to.
CHAPTER FOUR: The Outlaw and the Insider
Smith's presidential campaign is not only relevant to our looming tragicomedy of 2013, but also the perfect E-Z to swallow entrée into the bizarre and unnerving nexus between Mormonism and presidential politics -- an area many liberals would prefer to avoid, as if merely bringing up future-President Romney’s Mormonism reveals a lack of faith in the American system, or maybe even a cryptic intolerance.
In early 1844 Smith announced he was running as the “outsider” candidate of his day. “Tell the people we have had Whig and Democrats Presidents long enough,” he declared. “We care not a fig for Whig or Democrat; they are both alike to us.”
Sounds familiar, don’t it? In fact, it’s so familiar it’s kind of humiliating. These days, our version of the “he-gets-it” political analyst is one who takes pride in “seeing through the discredited left-right, Republocrat bullshit” -- which makes such a pundit nothing more than warmed-over Mormon Prophet meat.
At least Smith had a few snappy lines when he went after the hacks of his time. He surveyed the field of candidates in 1844 -- twiddle-dee-dee Whigs like Henry Clay and incumbent President John Tyler; twiddle-dee-dum Democrats like ex-President Martin van Buren, John C. Calhoun, and dark-horse James K. Polk -- and he scowled: “I mourn for the depravity of the world; I despise the imbecility of American statesmen; I detest shrinkage of candidates for office, from pledges and responsibility."
The white male American electorate in those days was roughly evenly divided between Whig voters and Democrat voters. Smith planned to leverage that electoral split to his advantage. The parties seemed incapable of addressing the Big Issues of slavery and territorial expansion (i.e., admitting Texas into the Union). It was understood that taking a stand on slavery could lead to civil war; and taking a stand on expansion could lead to war with Mexico, war with Britain, civil war, or some combination thereof.
The establishment parties' tiptoeing around the major questions of the day created an opportunity for a maverick like Smith, who pledged to rid the nation of slavery through "voluntary" abolition by Southern slave states (which may bring to mind Romney's plan to solve illegal immigration by flicking on the super-secret voluntary self-deporting gene in Mexicans). Smith also advocated the re-establishment of the national bank (which may recall Romney's role as the biggest booster of the Federal Reserve among the Republican candidates). Smith, further, wasn't shy about saying he favored the annexation of Texas and the Oregon territories, as well as Canada and Mexico (not to mention all the wives inhabiting those far-flung places… which makes one consider Romney's grim and aggressive monogamy, which seems bound to explode in ways that could make us all rue the day Abraham Lincoln signed into law anti-polygamy legislation…).
Crawling further out onto a political limb, Smith demanded radical penal reform, calling for the release of all inmates but murderers and the abolition of debtors' prisons (and this is a bug in the Operating System that may be ignored, except that it highlights the difference between Smith, an outlaw, and Romney, an insider).
So far, I’m making Joseph Smith’s politics out to be more respectable than they really were. The story of his run for president really gets its start with his founding of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Weird events accelerate at a parabolic rate, right up to his murder-by-cuckold-mob in June 1844.
Joseph Smith started peddling his very own Anti-Depressant for scared and lonely frontier settlers in 1830. It really was “new & improved” -- a re-branded version of Judeo-Christianity made especially for the Second Great Awakening, a time of competing religious products that offered hysterical reinterpretations of the same damn book about the same actions taking place in the same place on the other side of the globe. According to a Smith “revelation,” America itself was the new Promised Land. He got his followers to prepare a landing pad for Jesus in what would be the hometown of Harry S. Truman, the only human being ever to drop the atom bomb.
Coincidence? It better well fucking be, or we are gentile toast, folks.
Things get scary in A Mormon President when an “ex-Mormon pastor” named Shawn McCraney says: “I absolutely believe that the [Mormon] church today is the living embodiment of everything Joseph Smith represented. He was the seed; they are the fruit.” Meaning: Mitt Romney is The Fruit. I know it doesn’t sound right, saying that -- especially considering that Mormons were the big reason why Prop 8 passed in California -- but there it is.
Then the director of the Mormonism Research Ministry, standing before the monstrous LDS temple in Salt Lake City, tells the viewer: “The Mormon Church’s basic premise is that all of the churches are wrong, that their creeds are an abomination, and that their professors are corrupt, and that really there are no true churches on the face of the earth, except for the LDS church.”
Holy shit! No wonder Mormons are the nicest people in America: They hate our fucking guts!
CHAPTER FIVE: The Director's Tale
The Reorganized Church of Latter-day Saints was made possible by the aforementioned second banana Sidney Rigdon. After Smith was killed-by-mob, Rigdon, no longer able to stomach polygamy, broke away from Smith's successor, the many-wived Brigham Young, and founded the second largest Mormon church (out of some 400 branches), the one Adam Christing grew up in.
Christing wears many hats: Filmmaker, entrepreneur, magician, amateur historian, philosopher, corporate events speaking pro, and… standup comic.
One doesn’t usually associate Mormons with funny, but that just shows how little we “gentiles” know. “I do think I’m very funny, in terms of my standup show,” Christing told me. “But I gravitate more toward philosophy. I also own the domain -- believe it or not -- themeaningoflife.com. I actually lost well over $50,000 trying to develop that site, so right now it’s in limbo.” When it comes to his stage act, Christing is the Shecky Greene of Reorganized Mormons. A sampling of his material:
He has the comic pause down perfectly. He is able to light a given joke's delayed-action fuse and wait for the laughter to ripple through the crowd. His demo reel is a thing of beauty. It looks like it was lifted directly from an old SCTV episode, with Christing as a Latter-day Bobby Bittman.
In 1990, he founded Clean Comedians, to promote a brand of standup comedy perfect for corporate events, in that it has zero profanity. The organization also offers its clients a money-back guarantee: “If it isn’t funny, we’ll refund your money.” One fan was President George W. Bush, who was so blown away by Clean Comedians Bush impersonators, Steve Bridges, that he teamed up with him at a White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
In 2005, Christing sold Clean Comedians and soon started plowing roughly $350,000 into A Mormon President, which he did not complete until 2011 (and is still tinkering with today, in preparation for further screenings). “I’ve been obsessed with the story of Joseph Smith since I was young,” he said. “I’ve got a huge library of everything related to Joseph Smith. And the more I read, the more complex he became to me. Is this guy a fraud? Does he really think he’s a prophet?”
He took no money from any particular group: “I didn’t want to make a puff piece. The Mormon Church, in my opinion -- if you go to the Temple, and you watch one of the films in the Visitor Center, they’re not going to show you his polygamy, they’re not going to show you his politics or what he did to the Nauvoo Expositor. And those were very huge factors in his life. So you won’t know, ‘Why did anyone want to kill this guy?’ On the other hand, if you watch certain Evangelical Christian films, they make him seem like a monster, like the film The God Makers. I feel like that’s way over the top. This guy was a wonderful human being in many ways: very charismatic, loved children, very generous. But he also had these other aspects to his personality -- the secrecy stuff, and an enormous ego... I just wanted to tell the most accurate account of his life that I could, from multiple perspectives. And that’s why I didn’t take money from anybody.... The Mormon Church didn’t finance it, no Evangelical ministry financed it. Just individuals who wanted to make an accurate film. And I think we succeeded.”
CHAPTER SIX: Romney's Twisted Roots
Some Mormons hold that Smith was “assassinated” in a “conspiracy.” The theory first made the rounds in The Carthage Conspiracy, a book published in 1975, at the height of Watergate and Church Committee hearings, a time when such theories were briefly recognized as political realities. Getting murdered in a conspiracy involving powerful Whig Party bosses is a more romantic way for a prophet to go than being gunned down by drunken cuckolds in blackface as you try to squeeze your way out a second-story window.
The lack of grassy knoll or programmed patsy seems not to matter to Christing and others who believe. “Absolutely, absolutely,” the filmmaker said, when I asked him if Smith was the victim of a conspiracy. “With the J.F.K. thing, the speculation gets pretty wild. I think it’s a little simpler with Joseph Smith.”
Almost everyone within a 100 mile radius of Smith wanted this frontier Charlie Manson dead. Not because he wanted to bring about world peace (as J.F.K. conspiracy theorists like Oliver Stone allege), but rather because he seduced their wives and fucked their sense of normalcy. An assassination-by-conspiracy, however, renders the death more significant and less mundane.
While Mormon historical revisionism attempts to turn Smith’s embarrassing Last Act into the stuff of historical tragedy, two generations of Romneys have been revising and refining his run for the presidency, undoing Smith’s “mistakes.” Before the rise of the current presumptive Republican nominee, the closest LDS member to finish what the first Mormon had started was probably Mitt’s dad, Gov. George W. Romney, who ran as the moderate Rockefeller Republican candidate, to the left of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, in 1968.
Back then, the surface reality in America had become so weird and violent that nothing in Mormonism really shocked anyone. If it turned out that George W. Romney wore “Mormon underwear” (the subject of quips made by satirists-in-chief Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert), it might even have won him a few votes. Another difference: In '68, the Republicans had yet to mold and fired up the Christian Right bloc. The Evangelicals, after all, are the ones most put off by Mormonism. They take its polytheism to heart, although they’ve learned to keep quiet about it, except in online forums like Free Republic.
The Romneys are to Mormons as Mayflower families are to America as a whole: After his great-great grandfather helped erect the Nauvoo Temple, where Smith held his military parade in 1841, Mitt's great-grandfather was born among this original LDS band. After Smith’s murder, the church split. Most followed Smith's pro-polygamy-wingman, Brigham Young, to the Utah Territory; a small number stayed with Smith’s widow, Emma Smith, and founded the breakaway Reorganized Church of Latter-Day Saints, the anti-polygamy branch that Christing was later born into.
The Romneys went with the polygamists. And they stayed with the polygamists. In fact, you couldn’t pry polygamy from the Romney clan with a crowbar if you tried. Abraham Lincoln, father of the Republican Party, certainly did his best, when he signed the 1862 Anti-Bigamy Act, which outlawed plural marriage in U.S. territories. But that didn’t stop Miles P. Romney, Mitt’s great-grandfather, from racking up five wives.
Another notable Republican, Sen. George Edmunds, made life even harder for frontier swingers with the Edmunds Anti-Polygamy Act of 1882, which pushed Mitt's great-granddad deep into the hinterlands, wives in tow. By the time the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints itself renounced polygamy in 1890, Miles P. Romney and his brood hightailed it to Mexico, feds on their tail, crossing the Rio Grande as voluntarily as an illegal Mexican immigrant might under President Romney in years to come.
Folks didn't take kindly to Mitt's great-grandpa, as this editorial in the Apache Chief more than suggests:
And that’s the final edited version! Imagine the early drafts!
Miles and his wives settled in Mexico. The Romney clan remained there long enough for Mitt’s own father, George W. Romney, to be born in Chihuahua, meaning Mitt’s dad grew up with one grandpa and a whole bunch of grandmas. He went on to serve as the 43rd governor of Michigan. Because of his provenance, "birther” talk abounded during his run for president.
If you look at the refinement of Mormon presidential candidates… from Joseph Smith, through George W. Romney, up to Mitt today… you can almost watch time-motion political calibration evolve to match the Zeitgeist of America. Smith, the consummate outsider candidate in 1844, drew too much attention to the Mormon stuff and ended up the victim of lynch-mob murder. George W. Romney started out as the centrist candidate in the year 1968, only to make the mistake of saying in a television interview that he had been “brainwashed” into supporting the Vietnam war by American diplomats and military officials. That off-the-cuff quote sank his chances.
By now, the Mormon President Project has been perfected. Mitt stands as an empty reflection of an American Winner. He's the corporate jock with the gray temples, the chiseled features, and the starched dickishness most people expect from their bosses. This is a country that made a hit reality show out of an asshole firing people -- and that is the electorate counted on by the latest Joseph Smith upgrade.
It is because he has so skillfully and aggressively made himself all things to all Establishment-center-righties that A Mormon President may be the clearest window into Mitt’s soul. For me, one peek was enough to send me loading up on canned foods and planning my move to an undisclosed location near Mormon Zion. Because when Mitt Romney becomes the Mormon President foretold by Smith, and he sends those bombs into Iran to herald the start of the Thousand Year Mormon Rule, and Jesus teleports down to that Missouri cornfield to freak everyone out with his crop circles -- I want to be ready. I don’t want some cheery clean-cut Mormon baptizing my bones after I’m dead. If Romney wins, I figure I’ve got two months to get baptized and make myself into one of the 13 million who rules over the rest of you 7 billion fools.
The truth about the man with 33 wives -- and what that tells us about Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
"I intend to lay a foundation that will revolutionize the whole world."--Joseph Smith, Jr.
CHAPTER ONE:
According to a controversial Joseph Smith prophecy, when America degenerates to the point where “the Constitution hangs by a thread” -- and most TV pundits agree we’re there already -- at this time, a Mormon will be elected President of the United States, triggering a whole series of disaster-film plot twists: the end of the world as we know it; the overthrow of “gentile” rule; and the long-promised Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Only, instead of teleporting Himself somewhere interesting like Jerusalem, say the Mormons, Jesus will stage his comeback in Independence, Missouri.
Let me put it another way. Mitt Romney was raised to believe that if Mitt Romney is elected president, Mitt Romney will rule the world (or whatever is left of it) as the Mormon gods’ Viceroy, while Jesus Christ stumbles through tornado country, making crop circles in a corn field, or whatever it is you do there.
If you don’t believe me, it’s because you don’t know the operating software system Romney runs on. A slow and stupid operating system, sure, but it may soon be hooked up to about 5,000 nuclear warheads and a global empire, so ignoring it won’t save you.
It sounds too crazy to be true, I know -- but by now we liberal elites should know not to trust our instincts. Look at what happened in the case of Barack Obama: rather than taking at face value his stated ideas about financial reform (Obama made Larry Summers, architect of the financial deregulation disaster, his economics brain-bug), about health care (he ran on the least progressive and most pro-industry health care plan of the three major Democratic candidates), and about the American empire (which were neocon-friendly), liberal media elites projected onto him everything they wanted him to be: an idealized secular humanist version of Obama. By dismissing the “obvious” surface of our presidential politics, the media set us up for the biggest political Obummer of the century.
That’s where this movie comes in. A Mormon President tells the story of some stupid and confused hillbillies and the boner-wielding con man who leads them to ruin. In other words, it’s about us. In January 2013.
Forget about being clever, folks: To paraphrase a line from Starship Troopers, “To fight stupid, we must become stupid.”
CHAPTER TWO: Mugged by Moroni
If it’s not clear by now, the problem with reviewing A Mormon President is this: The movie was supposed to be unintentionally funny, softball material, a 21st century version of those old “Crown” history films they used to show in my public school civics class. It was supposed to serve one purpose: To make me look like I have talent. It would play the Washington Generals to my Harlem Globetrotters.
But I done figured wrong. As the story of Joseph Smith’s 1844 run for president unfolded into something weirder and scarier than I had bargained for, I started to realize it didn’t matter if the movie was unintentionally funny or not. Like it or not, my smug lack of curiosity about Mitt Romney’s religious identity was crumbling before a straight-to-DVD production. I found myself, as it were, Mugged by Moroni.
Now that I know a little more about Mitt Romney 1.0 -- that is, Joseph Smith, Jr., who was not only the first Mormon, but the first Mormon to run for president -- I’m not finding much to laugh at anymore.
Let me cut to the quick here and make things clear, in case I’m starting to sound like the Mel Gibson character in Conspiracy Theory.
First of all, although Joseph Smith's candidacy was equal parts tragedy and farce (in a Tommy Boy sort of way), he did offer a template for a future Mormon president with the example he set as ruler over the township of Nauvoo, Illinois, a unique post granted him via special city charter by the Illinois governor after the Mormons' cruel expulsion from Missouri in 1838.
Within a couple of years after settling in Nauvoo -- a city whose population quickly grew to parity with Chicago’s -- Smith transformed his fiefdom into a sort of Mormon Bantustan. He was Mayor, and Chief Justice, and got away with calling himself "King, Priest, and Ruler over Israel on Earth." Creepiest of all, he led the Nauvoo Legion, a unit roughly one-third the size of the total United States military. Not one for half measures, Smith gave himself the rank of “Lt. General,” the highest rank held by an American military officer since George Washington.
In 1841, Lt. Gen. Joseph Smith displayed his might by leading a huge military parade. One historian interviewed for A Mormon President compares the procession to “a May Day parade in the Soviet Union during the Cold War. And this terrified a number of people, who, at that point, really switched gears and said, ‘These people are dangerous and we need to protect ourselves.'"
The grand martial display marked how far the Mormons had come in a short time. Three years earlier, Smith and his followers had felt the full force of an official order signed by Missouri governor Lilburn Boggs, which went like this: "The Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated, or driven from the state, if necessary, for the public peace. Their outrages are beyond all description."
Before watching A Mormon President, I knew something about how the Missourians had massacred the Mormons prior to running them out of that godforsaken state. What I didn’t know was that a Mormon was the one who had apparently started all the extermination talk. The movie shows a perennial second banana, Sidney Rigdon -- who is played by a Billy Crystal look-alike in an Abe Lincoln beard -- making a speech in which he threatens Missouri's "gentiles" with "a war of extermination."
Here’s the thing about extermination threats: When you’re the weird little minority in a sea of armed, whiskey-guzzling Christians, it is generally a bad strategy to speak publicly of your intention to wipe out everybody else.
The Missourians were slow to react. There’s something about suicidal cultists that makes the sure-to-win side hesitate. (Are they hiding something we don’t know about? There’s got to be some angle we’re not catching!) Gov. Boggs grew weary of waiting and signed the order. The locals went to work massacring the men, the womenfolk, and the children, before finally driving other Mormons out of the state. Smith, Rigdon, and others landed in a Missouri jail… from which they eventually made their escape.
Safe at last in Nauvoo, Illinois, Smith made a riverside prophecy that the Missouri governor would "die by violent hands within one year." Which brings us to the thug who served as head of Smith’s security detail: Orrin Porter Rockwell. In the film, he resembles a 19th century Hells Angel biker, if a little meaner and crazier. Soon after the boss's prophecy, Rockwell slipped back over to Missouri and… next thing you know… someone is blasting Gov. Boggs with four shots -- two balls of buckshot in the neck, two in the head -- leaving him all but dead.
A couple of years later, Smith's thoughts turned national. He established an inner circle called “the Council of 50," which was “like an Ollie North thing,” as one historian describes it in A Mormon President. This group ran Smith’s campaign and planned his takeover of power, with the idea of helping him run things from inside the White House.
In his final display of power -- the one that led to his downfall -- Smith declared martial law in his principality and used his mighty Nauvoo Legion to destroy the Nauvoo Expositor's printing press in reaction to the newspaper's having dared criticize his polygamy and power-lust. This led to his being thrown into the pokey once again… where he soon found himself shot and bayoneted by an armed mob. Before meeting his grisly demise, he offered up the White Horse Prophecy, a revelation that he (or some worthy Mormon in years to come) was pre-ordained to become president at a time when the “Constitution is hanging by a thread as fine as a silk fiber.”
The prophecy is not accepted as church doctrine but remains part of Mormon lore. Adam Christing, the director of A Mormon President, explained it to me this way: “It’s just like in our time. The prophecy says, ‘The government is in disarray. The Constitution is going to be hanging by a thread, and the gentiles are going to screw it up so bad that it’s going to take God’s people to save the day.’ I do think there’s been a tiny underground hope in Mormon Land, if you will, that Romney could be the fulfillment of that White Horse Prophecy. Like a knight-in-shining-armor thing."
Romney, a seventh-generation Mormon who has served as a Latter-day Saint bishop, has distanced himself from the founder's theocratic talk, just as he has repudiated plural marriage. "That's not official church doctrine," he said of the White Horse Prophecy in a 2011 Salt Lake Tribune interview. "There are a lot of things that are speculation and discussion by church members and even church leaders that aren't official church doctrine. I don't put that at the heart of my religious belief."
But Christing told me he believes Romney has taken a secret oath pledging his loyalty first and foremost to his church: "There are, still today, very secret ceremonies in the Mormon temple, which Romney has participated in -- virtually all of those, including something called the Oath of Consecration, where he consecrates his money, his time, his talents. His whole life, really.”
Here is the Oath of Consecration: “You and each of you covenant and promise before God, angels, and these witnesses at this altar, that you do accept the law of consecration as contained in this, The Book of Doctrine and Covenants, in that you do consecrate yourselves, your time, talents, and everything with which the Lord has blessed you, or with which he may bless you, to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, for the building up of the kingdom of God on the earth and for the establishment of Zion."
"There was a time when sharing this info was dangerous," Christing said in an email. "Now, it's probably on Google. To me, the interesting thing is that the oath of consecration is specifically directed to the Mormon church (not God)."
CHAPTER THREE: Joseph Smith's Game
And then there is the matter of polygamy. By the time he was murdered, Joseph Smith had amassed 33 wives, eleven of whom were married and still living with their husbands. They ranged in age from 14 to roughly 60, according to an expert interviewed in the film.
Christing, who belongs to the second largest Mormon branch, the Reorganized Church of Latter-day Saints, treats Smith’s polygamy not just as a historical quirk but as an element of the behaviors we might associate with a sociopathic cult leader: “When Joseph reads to his wife Emma the ‘revelation’ from God instructing Joseph to marry as many wives as he can, he reads her a ‘letter’ from God telling his wife that if she doesn’t accept it, she’ll be damned. So if you believe that Smith was the prophet -- basically he’s saying to his wife, ‘If you don’t believe this, you’re going to hell.’”
Emma wasn't the only one thus coerced. Christing adds: “Imagine if you’re an 18-year-old woman. You’ve maybe left your family, or come with one family member from England, and you’ve arrived on a boat at New Orleans, and you come up the Mississippi River, and you get off the boat in Nauvoo, and there’s Brigham Young and Joseph Smith. And Joseph says, ‘God gave me a revelation to take plural wives, and if I don’t, an angel of God will kill me. An angel appeared to me with a drawn sword, and he’ll kill me.’ That’s a little bit of pressure to get from the ‘prophet,’ you know?”
The journey from England to Illinois was the one taken by Mitt Romney’s great-great-great grandfather, Miles Romney, along with his wife, Elizabeth, from the miserable factory town of Preston, England, to Illinois. Miles, an architect, was tasked with assisting the construction of the Nauvoo Temple.
One of the interviewees in A Mormon President is a gorgeous Mormon with a pre-Raphaelite face draped with perfectly silk dark hair. Her name is Kara Lyn Roundy. When she speaks of Joseph Smith, she lights up: “All I know is that there’s one prophet at the head of the church who has been given the keys to the holy priesthood. And he has been ordained by God…. It is so key for people to understand: There is only one Church on the face of the planet that has all the keys of the priesthood, and that is in the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.” When this MMILF gushes over Joseph Smith, you want to agree with her. You might even want to know what his secret was. The more one learns about his shameless pick-up techniques, the more one realizes there’s a Mormon version of The Game just waiting to be revealed to shy nerds everywhere.
On the topic of Mitt Romney, she says: “I think Mitt Romney is brilliant. He is a briiiiiiilliant businessman. I mean, he turns businesses around. He’s the first guy who took charge of the Olympics, profited $70 million."
CUT TO: Still image of a smiling Romney holding the Olympic flame.
CUT TO: Still image of Romney clutching gold medals as the camera zooms in, Ken Burns-style, on his smile.
"I mean, who’s ever done that?" Roundy says. "That’s the kind of guy I want running my country.”
A Mormon President has other funny moments. Over a PBS-ready piano soundtrack, experts on Mormonism try to persuade the viewer that, despite his status as prophet, Joseph Smith had a "regular Joe" side. “He was the kind of guy who would get down on the floor and wrestle with kids," one historian says.
CUT TO: Handsome Actor Guy With Suspiciously Romney-Like Facial Structure, in 1830s frontiersman costume, rolling through a meadow with kids.
Whoa, Amber Alert! Try that one again, fellas.
A Utah-dad type tells the camera: “Joseph Smith wouldn’t be someone I’d want to live next door to me.”
Wait a minute -- can you say that in a Mormon movie?
Another interviewee, credibly silver-haired, says: “He was all of the things that a classic Old Testament prophet said they were -- and Joseph is saying, ‘I am the same kind of prophet.’ And if it’s true, it’s scary. And if it’s false, Joseph Smith is a charlatan.”
So this movie isn't really the Mormon Schlock I had expected -- or had hoped -- it would be. But all this is mere backdrop to its main focus: Smith’s run for the presidency, a subject that the voice-over correctly points out “has never been told before." It is a story I knew nothing about, and cared even less about, until A Mormon President forced me to.
CHAPTER FOUR: The Outlaw and the Insider
Smith's presidential campaign is not only relevant to our looming tragicomedy of 2013, but also the perfect E-Z to swallow entrée into the bizarre and unnerving nexus between Mormonism and presidential politics -- an area many liberals would prefer to avoid, as if merely bringing up future-President Romney’s Mormonism reveals a lack of faith in the American system, or maybe even a cryptic intolerance.
In early 1844 Smith announced he was running as the “outsider” candidate of his day. “Tell the people we have had Whig and Democrats Presidents long enough,” he declared. “We care not a fig for Whig or Democrat; they are both alike to us.”
Sounds familiar, don’t it? In fact, it’s so familiar it’s kind of humiliating. These days, our version of the “he-gets-it” political analyst is one who takes pride in “seeing through the discredited left-right, Republocrat bullshit” -- which makes such a pundit nothing more than warmed-over Mormon Prophet meat.
At least Smith had a few snappy lines when he went after the hacks of his time. He surveyed the field of candidates in 1844 -- twiddle-dee-dee Whigs like Henry Clay and incumbent President John Tyler; twiddle-dee-dum Democrats like ex-President Martin van Buren, John C. Calhoun, and dark-horse James K. Polk -- and he scowled: “I mourn for the depravity of the world; I despise the imbecility of American statesmen; I detest shrinkage of candidates for office, from pledges and responsibility."
The white male American electorate in those days was roughly evenly divided between Whig voters and Democrat voters. Smith planned to leverage that electoral split to his advantage. The parties seemed incapable of addressing the Big Issues of slavery and territorial expansion (i.e., admitting Texas into the Union). It was understood that taking a stand on slavery could lead to civil war; and taking a stand on expansion could lead to war with Mexico, war with Britain, civil war, or some combination thereof.
The establishment parties' tiptoeing around the major questions of the day created an opportunity for a maverick like Smith, who pledged to rid the nation of slavery through "voluntary" abolition by Southern slave states (which may bring to mind Romney's plan to solve illegal immigration by flicking on the super-secret voluntary self-deporting gene in Mexicans). Smith also advocated the re-establishment of the national bank (which may recall Romney's role as the biggest booster of the Federal Reserve among the Republican candidates). Smith, further, wasn't shy about saying he favored the annexation of Texas and the Oregon territories, as well as Canada and Mexico (not to mention all the wives inhabiting those far-flung places… which makes one consider Romney's grim and aggressive monogamy, which seems bound to explode in ways that could make us all rue the day Abraham Lincoln signed into law anti-polygamy legislation…).
Crawling further out onto a political limb, Smith demanded radical penal reform, calling for the release of all inmates but murderers and the abolition of debtors' prisons (and this is a bug in the Operating System that may be ignored, except that it highlights the difference between Smith, an outlaw, and Romney, an insider).
So far, I’m making Joseph Smith’s politics out to be more respectable than they really were. The story of his run for president really gets its start with his founding of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Weird events accelerate at a parabolic rate, right up to his murder-by-cuckold-mob in June 1844.
Joseph Smith started peddling his very own Anti-Depressant for scared and lonely frontier settlers in 1830. It really was “new & improved” -- a re-branded version of Judeo-Christianity made especially for the Second Great Awakening, a time of competing religious products that offered hysterical reinterpretations of the same damn book about the same actions taking place in the same place on the other side of the globe. According to a Smith “revelation,” America itself was the new Promised Land. He got his followers to prepare a landing pad for Jesus in what would be the hometown of Harry S. Truman, the only human being ever to drop the atom bomb.
Coincidence? It better well fucking be, or we are gentile toast, folks.
Things get scary in A Mormon President when an “ex-Mormon pastor” named Shawn McCraney says: “I absolutely believe that the [Mormon] church today is the living embodiment of everything Joseph Smith represented. He was the seed; they are the fruit.” Meaning: Mitt Romney is The Fruit. I know it doesn’t sound right, saying that -- especially considering that Mormons were the big reason why Prop 8 passed in California -- but there it is.
Then the director of the Mormonism Research Ministry, standing before the monstrous LDS temple in Salt Lake City, tells the viewer: “The Mormon Church’s basic premise is that all of the churches are wrong, that their creeds are an abomination, and that their professors are corrupt, and that really there are no true churches on the face of the earth, except for the LDS church.”
Holy shit! No wonder Mormons are the nicest people in America: They hate our fucking guts!
CHAPTER FIVE: The Director's Tale
The Reorganized Church of Latter-day Saints was made possible by the aforementioned second banana Sidney Rigdon. After Smith was killed-by-mob, Rigdon, no longer able to stomach polygamy, broke away from Smith's successor, the many-wived Brigham Young, and founded the second largest Mormon church (out of some 400 branches), the one Adam Christing grew up in.
Christing wears many hats: Filmmaker, entrepreneur, magician, amateur historian, philosopher, corporate events speaking pro, and… standup comic.
One doesn’t usually associate Mormons with funny, but that just shows how little we “gentiles” know. “I do think I’m very funny, in terms of my standup show,” Christing told me. “But I gravitate more toward philosophy. I also own the domain -- believe it or not -- themeaningoflife.com. I actually lost well over $50,000 trying to develop that site, so right now it’s in limbo.” When it comes to his stage act, Christing is the Shecky Greene of Reorganized Mormons. A sampling of his material:
“I was just in Los Angeles, and I was speaking at this animal rights barbecue, and...”
“I'd like to go to assertiveness training class. First I need to check with my wife.”
He has the comic pause down perfectly. He is able to light a given joke's delayed-action fuse and wait for the laughter to ripple through the crowd. His demo reel is a thing of beauty. It looks like it was lifted directly from an old SCTV episode, with Christing as a Latter-day Bobby Bittman.
In 1990, he founded Clean Comedians, to promote a brand of standup comedy perfect for corporate events, in that it has zero profanity. The organization also offers its clients a money-back guarantee: “If it isn’t funny, we’ll refund your money.” One fan was President George W. Bush, who was so blown away by Clean Comedians Bush impersonators, Steve Bridges, that he teamed up with him at a White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
In 2005, Christing sold Clean Comedians and soon started plowing roughly $350,000 into A Mormon President, which he did not complete until 2011 (and is still tinkering with today, in preparation for further screenings). “I’ve been obsessed with the story of Joseph Smith since I was young,” he said. “I’ve got a huge library of everything related to Joseph Smith. And the more I read, the more complex he became to me. Is this guy a fraud? Does he really think he’s a prophet?”
He took no money from any particular group: “I didn’t want to make a puff piece. The Mormon Church, in my opinion -- if you go to the Temple, and you watch one of the films in the Visitor Center, they’re not going to show you his polygamy, they’re not going to show you his politics or what he did to the Nauvoo Expositor. And those were very huge factors in his life. So you won’t know, ‘Why did anyone want to kill this guy?’ On the other hand, if you watch certain Evangelical Christian films, they make him seem like a monster, like the film The God Makers. I feel like that’s way over the top. This guy was a wonderful human being in many ways: very charismatic, loved children, very generous. But he also had these other aspects to his personality -- the secrecy stuff, and an enormous ego... I just wanted to tell the most accurate account of his life that I could, from multiple perspectives. And that’s why I didn’t take money from anybody.... The Mormon Church didn’t finance it, no Evangelical ministry financed it. Just individuals who wanted to make an accurate film. And I think we succeeded.”
CHAPTER SIX: Romney's Twisted Roots
Some Mormons hold that Smith was “assassinated” in a “conspiracy.” The theory first made the rounds in The Carthage Conspiracy, a book published in 1975, at the height of Watergate and Church Committee hearings, a time when such theories were briefly recognized as political realities. Getting murdered in a conspiracy involving powerful Whig Party bosses is a more romantic way for a prophet to go than being gunned down by drunken cuckolds in blackface as you try to squeeze your way out a second-story window.
The lack of grassy knoll or programmed patsy seems not to matter to Christing and others who believe. “Absolutely, absolutely,” the filmmaker said, when I asked him if Smith was the victim of a conspiracy. “With the J.F.K. thing, the speculation gets pretty wild. I think it’s a little simpler with Joseph Smith.”
Almost everyone within a 100 mile radius of Smith wanted this frontier Charlie Manson dead. Not because he wanted to bring about world peace (as J.F.K. conspiracy theorists like Oliver Stone allege), but rather because he seduced their wives and fucked their sense of normalcy. An assassination-by-conspiracy, however, renders the death more significant and less mundane.
While Mormon historical revisionism attempts to turn Smith’s embarrassing Last Act into the stuff of historical tragedy, two generations of Romneys have been revising and refining his run for the presidency, undoing Smith’s “mistakes.” Before the rise of the current presumptive Republican nominee, the closest LDS member to finish what the first Mormon had started was probably Mitt’s dad, Gov. George W. Romney, who ran as the moderate Rockefeller Republican candidate, to the left of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, in 1968.
Back then, the surface reality in America had become so weird and violent that nothing in Mormonism really shocked anyone. If it turned out that George W. Romney wore “Mormon underwear” (the subject of quips made by satirists-in-chief Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert), it might even have won him a few votes. Another difference: In '68, the Republicans had yet to mold and fired up the Christian Right bloc. The Evangelicals, after all, are the ones most put off by Mormonism. They take its polytheism to heart, although they’ve learned to keep quiet about it, except in online forums like Free Republic.
The Romneys are to Mormons as Mayflower families are to America as a whole: After his great-great grandfather helped erect the Nauvoo Temple, where Smith held his military parade in 1841, Mitt's great-grandfather was born among this original LDS band. After Smith’s murder, the church split. Most followed Smith's pro-polygamy-wingman, Brigham Young, to the Utah Territory; a small number stayed with Smith’s widow, Emma Smith, and founded the breakaway Reorganized Church of Latter-Day Saints, the anti-polygamy branch that Christing was later born into.
The Romneys went with the polygamists. And they stayed with the polygamists. In fact, you couldn’t pry polygamy from the Romney clan with a crowbar if you tried. Abraham Lincoln, father of the Republican Party, certainly did his best, when he signed the 1862 Anti-Bigamy Act, which outlawed plural marriage in U.S. territories. But that didn’t stop Miles P. Romney, Mitt’s great-grandfather, from racking up five wives.
Another notable Republican, Sen. George Edmunds, made life even harder for frontier swingers with the Edmunds Anti-Polygamy Act of 1882, which pushed Mitt's great-granddad deep into the hinterlands, wives in tow. By the time the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints itself renounced polygamy in 1890, Miles P. Romney and his brood hightailed it to Mexico, feds on their tail, crossing the Rio Grande as voluntarily as an illegal Mexican immigrant might under President Romney in years to come.
Folks didn't take kindly to Mitt's great-grandpa, as this editorial in the Apache Chief more than suggests:
“Hang a few of their polygamist leaders such as... Romney,” the newspaper wrote. The piece went on to single out Miles P. Romney as “a mass of putrid pus and rotten goose pimples; a skunk, with the face of a baboon, the character of a louse, the breath of a buzzard, and the record of a perjurer and common drunkard.”
And that’s the final edited version! Imagine the early drafts!
Miles and his wives settled in Mexico. The Romney clan remained there long enough for Mitt’s own father, George W. Romney, to be born in Chihuahua, meaning Mitt’s dad grew up with one grandpa and a whole bunch of grandmas. He went on to serve as the 43rd governor of Michigan. Because of his provenance, "birther” talk abounded during his run for president.
If you look at the refinement of Mormon presidential candidates… from Joseph Smith, through George W. Romney, up to Mitt today… you can almost watch time-motion political calibration evolve to match the Zeitgeist of America. Smith, the consummate outsider candidate in 1844, drew too much attention to the Mormon stuff and ended up the victim of lynch-mob murder. George W. Romney started out as the centrist candidate in the year 1968, only to make the mistake of saying in a television interview that he had been “brainwashed” into supporting the Vietnam war by American diplomats and military officials. That off-the-cuff quote sank his chances.
By now, the Mormon President Project has been perfected. Mitt stands as an empty reflection of an American Winner. He's the corporate jock with the gray temples, the chiseled features, and the starched dickishness most people expect from their bosses. This is a country that made a hit reality show out of an asshole firing people -- and that is the electorate counted on by the latest Joseph Smith upgrade.
It is because he has so skillfully and aggressively made himself all things to all Establishment-center-righties that A Mormon President may be the clearest window into Mitt’s soul. For me, one peek was enough to send me loading up on canned foods and planning my move to an undisclosed location near Mormon Zion. Because when Mitt Romney becomes the Mormon President foretold by Smith, and he sends those bombs into Iran to herald the start of the Thousand Year Mormon Rule, and Jesus teleports down to that Missouri cornfield to freak everyone out with his crop circles -- I want to be ready. I don’t want some cheery clean-cut Mormon baptizing my bones after I’m dead. If Romney wins, I figure I’ve got two months to get baptized and make myself into one of the 13 million who rules over the rest of you 7 billion fools.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
WWJThink...
Raise your hands if you think this guy was pro-capital punishment or pro-torture...--jef
Friday, September 23, 2011
Christian Nation--In Name Only
We hear ad nauseum how the US is a "christian" nation. How can we be a christian nation while engaging in war in 7 countries, and cutting fund for social programs which meet the needs of those in poverty?
Oh that's right...christians come pre-forgiven. Forgiveness is built right into the frontal lobe of their brains so that when they commit an act that the bible interprets as a sin, they just present their "Get out of hell free" card--"I'm sorry. I feel all kinds of awful, mister"--and it's just like they didn't kill innocent civilians in Afghanistan; or break up a family by sending addicted parents to prison (instead of a hospital or treatment center, both of which are proven methods of rehabilitation; prison is not "rehabilitating" in any aspect of that word) and their children into the CPS system; it's just like they didn't beat someone up because they were gay or performed abortions; it's just like they didn't bankroll the campaign of a congressman in order to have their man on the inside for crucial votes on cutting taxes for the wealthy while cutting healthcare for the poor and the elderly. "Oh, I'm sorry my greed always takes precedence over the needs of smelly old homeless poor people. In Jesus' name, amen.
Really? Is that how it works? Please tell me that even Republicans feel at least a tiny bit of guilt for fucking over poor people. When no one is around, the doors are locked and there are no recording or broadcasting devices operating within view, do you feel the slightest bit of guilt knowing that you're OK with making the impoverished lives they have even worse? Terrorists are more evil because they destroy lives quickly? Congress destroys lives slowly over a long period of time, and that's good and christian? No, it's fucked up. Christianity can be a hollow religion because when you claim to have been born again or whatever voodoo ritual it takes for the holy spirit to enter your body, your sins are forgiven, so why decrease them? Christians have a bad history of killing and destroying other nations in their history book. And now, they can add kicking homeless people in the face cuz Jesus forgives them to their resumes.
Christian in name only. I have to believe that actual Christians have no problem paying taxes that help fund social programs which offset the insurmountable financial difficulties that plague those living in poverty; but that they DO have a problem with paying taxes to fund war, or taxes which offset tax cuts for the wealthy instead of funding medicare for old people, many of whom are war veterans. How in the name of anything with an appearance of righteousness, can christians justify willfully destroying the lives of the people they are supposed to protect and nurture, according to the words attributed to their savior? They can't, they don't, they point at churches and say "they'll do it!" Without even asking whether churches are suffering financially like the rest of us in this opening few years of the next great depression. Churches and most all other charities are suffering financially too. They can't just add to their burden the needs of everyone negatively affected by cuts in social programs when they can't meet needs as it is, due to having received less money to begin with, but having a budget that doesn't account for down economies, and has the extra burden of making up for these tax cuts for the wealthy, rather than job cuts for the poor.
(Oh, please respond to this any of you who are Republicans and/or Christians. I really want to know how you can defy Jesus' commands by gaining wealth and power and not taking care of the impoverished families in our country. Justify paying no taxes, creating no jobs, creating a permanent state of war--according to the things Jesus is to have said. I'm pretty sure making a conscious decision to screw over poor families is a hard core sin in the views of those sitting on the Board of Directors in Heaven.--jef)
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Signs God Is Furious With the Right
Whatever disaster strikes, there's always an upside in religious rightland, always somebody to point the finger at with glee. Let's turn the tables. September 16, 2011
Editor's note: the following is satire... for the most part.
Why is it that whenever disaster strikes, right-wing religious nuts seem to have all the fun? Some might say it's just because they're sadists, but they always seem to find the silver lining. 9/11? God's calling on America to repent! (No, not for it's foreign policy, you dummy!) Hurricane Katrina? It was that darned homosexual parade the organizers forgot to tell anyone about!
Whatever disaster strikes, there's always an up-side in religious rightland, always somebody to point the finger at with glee. How come they get all the fun?
So when the East Coast got a one-two punch last month, earthquake-hurricane within a few days of one another, it got me thinking. When another hurricane followed up afterward, it was more than I could bear. And so, I offer you a list of God's Top 10 Targets from a not-so-right-but-possibly-
There are at least three different ways to approach this subject, and we have examples of all three. First is to identify specific target groups for repeated offenses—sinners who just won't mend their ways. Second is to identify geographic targets for specific offenses—sin city or state, as the case may be. Third is to identify specific individuals.
1. Republicans, for bearing false witness.
It's not just one of the Ten Commandments -- the Bible has repeated warnings against slander, false testimony and plain old lying. But Republicans apparently think that God was talking to somebody else—the exact opposite of their usual assumption—especially since Barack Obama arrived on the scene. Obama was born in Kenya, he is a Muslim, he's a socialist, a Marxist, a fascist, he hates white people (like his mom and his grandparents), he hangs out with terrorists. It goes on and on and on.
God has repeatedly told them not to act like this—yet they pay Him no mind. It's not just Obama, either. When it comes to science, things get just as bad, be it evolution, global warming, reproductive health, or gender orientation; when the science isn't on their side, the lying and slander take up the slack. It's not just that the science is against them, you see. Scientists are fraudsters; they are always conspiring against God and his people, according to some of the more whacked out types—like GOP senators, for example. God may have a great deal of patience, but when folks start trying to drag Him into the mix, that's when the earthquakes and hurricanes begin.
2. The Religious Right, for ignoring Jesus on the separation of church and state.
More than 1,600 years before John Locke and 1,700 years before Thomas Jefferson weighed in on the subject, Jesus said, “Render therefore unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s and unto God those things which are God’s.” (What's more, he said that, in part, as a way of opting out of a tax revolt!) But the Religious Right defiantly continues to oppose Him. God's been extremely patient with them over the years, but that patience has finally run out, as the most anti-separationist elements of the Religious Right—known as dominionists—have come increasingly to the fore. Some might say they're embarrassing Him personally. Others will say it's starting to get really dangerous. Whatever the reason, God's had enough.
3. The nativist right and the GOP, for a rash of anti-immigrant laws.
“Thou shalt neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.” Exodus 22:21 could not be clearer—unless, of course, we switched from the King James Bible to the New International Version: “Do not mistreat an alien or oppress him, for you were aliens in Egypt.”
But for some in the GOP, them's fightin' words. All they can think about is disobeying God. They are positively possessed with the Satanic spirit of disobedience. It began with Arizona's SB-1070 last year. And while a number of states followed Arizona's lead with anti-immigrant laws of their own, the most notorious was Alabama, which faced "a historic outbreak of severe weather" in April.
The same day the law was signed, Alabama’s Episcopal, Methodist and Roman Catholic churches filed a separate lawsuit, claiming the law unconstitutionally interferes with their right of religious freedom. Church leaders said the law “will make it a crime to follow God’s command.” Among other things, the suit said, “The bishops have reason to fear that administering of religious sacraments, which are central to the Christian faith, to known undocumented persons may be criminalized under this law.” If criminalizing Christian sacraments isn't inviting divine retribution, what is?
4. The predatory lending industry and all who enable them.
There are numerous Bible passages condemning usury. Typical of these is Exodus 22:25: "If you lend money to one of my people among you who is needy, do not be like a moneylender; charge him no interest." Naturally, the whole of modern capitalism is built on ignoring a broad reading of this. But predatory lending is a particularly egregious form of defiance. It's proved rather costly to our country as well.
A Wall Street Journal article on December 31, 2007 reported that Ameriquest Mortgage and Countrywide Financial, two of the largest U.S. mortgage lenders, spent $20.5 million and $8.7 million respectively in political donations, campaign contributions, and lobbying activities between 2002 and 2006 in order to defeat anti-predatory lending legislation. Such practices contributed significantly to the financial crisis that plunged us into the Great Recession. But it seems that wasn't a clear enough lesson, especially since those who lobbied most intensely benefited most from the bailouts as well, according to an IMF study. So earthquakes and hurricanes are an old school, Old Testament way for God to make his point.
5. The GOP, for its contempt for the poor.
For more than half a century, the GOP has attacked Democrats and liberals for their concern for the poor. At least since the 1980s, the neo-liberal wing of the Democratic Party has tried to distance themselves from the poor, and reposition the party as defenders of the middle class, instead. The GOP has responded with policies to impoverish the middle class as well, so that they can be safely demonized, too.
But the GOP's venom for all but the wealthy has reached new heights during the Great Recession. Not only should those who caused the crisis be taken care of while all others suffer—far too many national Democratic politicians seem to agree on that one—but a renewed rhetoric of contempt for the poor has emerged, in direct contradiction to what Jesus said, in Luke 6:20: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God."
Increasingly, it seems, Republicans don't think poor people are even human. In January 2010, South Carolina Lt. Governor Andre Baurer (R) compared poor people to stray animals: He told an audience that his grandmother told him "as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed." He compared this to government assistance, which he said is "facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don't think too much further than that.
And so what you've got to do is you've got to curtail that type of behavior. They don't know any better." Then, in early August, Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning, the frontrunner for the GOP senate nomination, compared poor people to scavenging racoons. Talk like that is what causes earthquakes and hurricanes.
6. Privatized public utilities, for the worship of Mammon.
Public utilities are natural monopolies, totally unsuited to private enterprise, since there is no competitive marketplace. This, of course, makes them perfect targets for monopoly capitalists—Mammon's greatest worshipers.
Against them, God struck a mighty blow. In Mansfield, Massachusetts, which has had its own municipal power service since 1903, electrical service was restored for most customers within 24 hours after Irene hit, even though 4,000 out of 9,500 households had lost power—quite unlike what happened to nearby communities served by a commercial outfit. According to a local report, the storm “uprooted old trees and knocked down utility lines all over town.”
“Unlike homes and businesses in Easton, Norton and Foxboro, however, local customers did not have to wait for National Grid to respond with crews or listen to a recording on the telephone.... [M]uch of Easton waited three days for power to return and areas of communities such as Foxboro are still in the dark.” According to another report, about Foxborough, “The outrage expressed... is similar to the movie Network in the scene where people flung open their windows and said, 'I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore.'”
Then there are a couple of geographically specific targets:
7. Virginia.
Virginia was the site of the earthquake's epicenter and the second state where Irene made landfall, so the state is a target-rich environment.
There's House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. On God's bulls-eye scale, the epicenter near Mineral, Virginia is in Cantor's district—a direct hit. And in budget negotiations this year, Cantor's contempt for the poor came through loud and clear. He's been the most aggressive congressional leader when it comes to budget-cutting and pushing the economy as hard as possible over the cliff. Then, after the earthquake hit, Cantor said any federal relief would have to be offset with spending cuts, and quipped, “Obviously, the problem is that people in Virginia don’t have earthquake insurance.” He reiterated his demand for offsetting cuts when Hurricane Irene hit shortly afterward—even though he voted against such a provision after Tropical Storm Gaston hit the Richmond area in 2004.
Then there's Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. No way he escapes God's wrath. Cuccinelli's widely criticized witch-hunt against eminent climate scientist Michael Mann represents the most extreme right-wing attack on the mythical “climate-gate” scandal, which consisted primarily of scientists making snide remarks about ignoramuses like Cuccinelli. He's all wrapped up in sin of bearing false witness. Which is where Hurricane Irene comes in—although it surely doesn't help that Cuccinelli is suing to keep people sick, and has told Virginia's colleges and universities that they can't ban anti-gay discrimination.
And, of course, Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell has tried to have it both ways with God, as well as with the people of Virginia. On the one hand, all the way back in 1989, he wrote a Christian Reconstructionist M.A. thesis, “The Republican Party’s Vision for the Family: The Compelling Issue of the Decade” at the College of Law at Pat Robertson’s Regent University. McDonnell's authorship of the thesis came to light during his 2009 campaign for governor, but because the establishment is in deep denial about Dominionism in general, and Christian Reconstructionism in particular, the full weight of his thesis never really sunk in. On the other hand, McDonnell has tried very assiduously to walk away from that past, given that almost no one wants to admit to such extreme views. He's wobbled back and forth on a number of issues, but generally tried to strike a reasonable demeanor—in sharp contrast to Cuccinelli. But God doesn't like folks who run hot and cold, which is why McDonnell's a target, too.
Finally, just to be a wee bit bipartisan about it, we need to include Virginia's Democratic Senator Mark Warner in our list—though with a bit of twist. On the day of the earthquake, Warner was scheduled to speak at the Library of Congress Packard Campus for Audio Visual Conservation in Culpepper, Virginia. He arrived about 10 minutes after the quake, according to the local Star Exponent, which reported:
The building had been emptied of its staff and the approximate 75 people who came to hear Warner so the former governor talked from under a tree atop Mount Pony.
“I was not going to mention the fact that one of the last times I was in Culpeper there was a tornado,” he said of an appearance years ago at CulpeperFest marked by wild weather. “If you don’t want me to come back, there’s an easier way to do this. If we start seeing frogs, it may be a sign of things to come,” he said.
So it's not that God is angry with Warner, exactly. He just targets Warner for amusement, to see what he'll say next. And, of course, because he, too, represents Virginia, truly a state of sin.
8. North Carolina.
Hurricane Irene could have barreled directly into South Carolina, but it delivered a stiff upper-cut to North Carolina instead. And why not? Governor Bev Perdue tried her darnedest to protect the state. She vetoed its draconian budget bill, only to see her veto over-ridden. It too was an attack on the poor -- the bill didn't just fail to balance spending cuts with tax increases, it actually let a temporary one-cent sales tax expire, along with some income taxes on high earners, while cutting $124 million in local education funding on top of $305 million cut in previous years. Perdue also vetoed a highly restrictive abortion law—one that, among other things, has a 24-hour waiting period, and force-feeds anti-abortion propaganda to women seeking an abortion—call it the “Bearing False Witness By Doctors Act.” But that veto was over-ridden as well—by a single vote in the state senate. So, really, God's hand was forced on this one. He had no choice but to strike North Carolina, and strike it hard.
Finally, there are two individual targets to consider:
9. Rick Perry.
While the one-two punch of the Virginia earthquake and Hurricane Irene were far removed from Texas Governor Rick Perry's stomping grounds, God had not forgotten Perry, but was merely preparing to toy with him. Perry, after all, had responded to a terrible drought in Texas not by implementing any long-term policy measures (which might make Texas better able to deal with the prospects of more severe droughts to come as global warming impacts increase), but by calling on Texans to pray.
Back in April, Perry proclaimed the "three-day period from Friday, April 22, 2011, to Sunday, April 24, 2011, as Days of Prayer for Rain in the State of Texas.” Since then, however, things have only gotten worse, as Timothy Egan noted in the NY Times “Opinionator” blog, "[A] rainless spring was followed by a rainless summer. July was the hottest month in recorded Texas history....Nearly all of Texas is now in 'extreme or exceptional' drought, as classified by federal meteorologists, the worst in Texas history. Lakes have disappeared. Creeks are phantoms, the caked bottoms littered with rotting, dead fish.”
Somehow, though, it seemed like most folks outside of Texas had no idea of Perry's failed prayer initiative. That's where God came in, following up Irene with the tantalizing prospect of a Gulf of Mexico storm that would finally bring relief to the Longhorn state. But alas no. First Tropical Storm Jose petered out entirely, then Tropical Storm Lee turned to Louisiana instead. If you pray with Perry, you obviously take the Lord's name in vain. As one frustrated Texan wrote on Reddit, “Perry's prayer has been answered. The answer was 'No'.” God is making things perfectly clear, as Richard Nixon would say: If you want someone praying for America in the White House, Rick Perry is not your guy.
10 God.
Yes, it's true, God Himself was one of the main targets of God's wrath, particularly during the earthquake, which did remarkably little damage to the living. But, as Rob Kerby noted at BeliefNet, churches took some pretty hard hits:
“Churches seemed to bear the brunt of Tuesday’s 5.8 earthquake on the East Coast.
“Significant damage was reported to Washington, D.C.’s National Cathedral and St. Peter’s Catholic Church, historic St. Patrick’s Church near Baltimore, and two churches in Culpepper, Va., close to the epicenter — St. Stephen Episcopal Church and Culpepper Christian Assembly.”
Okay, so maybe God's not self-flagellating. Maybe it's the tenants who are being targeted. But who's to say, really? And if the God's wrath biz is all about appropriating authority to cast blame around, then why not think really big, and proclaim God Himself to be the target? Pat Robertson & company have monopolized this gig for far too long. If the rest of us are to have any hope of catching up, we're got to make ourselves a splash. And what better way to make a splash than proclaiming that God is the target?
Thursday, August 18, 2011
How Did Jesus Go From Being a Socialist in the New Testament to a Selfish Ayn Rand Anarcho-capitalist?
by mark karlin on Wed, 08/17/2011
How did Jesus go from being a socialist in the New Testament to a selfish Ayn Rand anarcho-capitalist in modern-day America? After all, one of the most well-known bible verses is from Mark 10:25: "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."
Sociologist Gregory Paul stated the paradox clearly in an August 12 Washington Post op-ed:
In essence, the modern prosperity theologians who dominate the right wing of the Republican Party are essentially heretics. They've grafted on a post-industrial-age emphasis on the acquisition of capital and material goods to the alleged son of God, Jesus, who was himself essentially the father of socialism (as recounted in the bible).
At the next Republican debate, we would like to see a test of faith. All the candidates should be required to thread a camel through the eye of a needle.
If they can't do it, they have to shut up about Jesus, Christianity and the bible.
Now that would be refreshing.
How did Jesus go from being a socialist in the New Testament to a selfish Ayn Rand anarcho-capitalist in modern-day America? After all, one of the most well-known bible verses is from Mark 10:25: "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."
Sociologist Gregory Paul stated the paradox clearly in an August 12 Washington Post op-ed:
Many conservative Christians, mostly Protestant but also a number of Catholics, have come to believe and proudly proclaim that the creator of the universe favors free wheeling, deregulated, union busting, minimal taxes especially for wealthy investors, plutocrat-boosting capitalism as the ideal earthly scheme for his human creations. And many of these Christian capitalists are ardent followers of Ayn Rand, who was one of - and many of whose followers are - the most hard-line anti-Christian atheists you can get. Meanwhile many Christians who support the capitalist policies associated with social Darwinistic strenuously denounce Darwin's evolutionary science because it supposedly leads to, well, social Darwinism!But Paul points out that the New Testament primarily promotes what would nowadays be called socialism:
But to understand just how non-capitalistic Christianity is supposed to be we turn to the first chapter after the gospels, Acts, which describes the events of the early church. Chapters 2 and 4 state that all "the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need ... No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had.... There were no needy persons among them. From time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need."
Now folks, that's outright socialism of the type described millennia later by Marx - who likely got the general idea from the gospels.Paul further notes that "we have Christian creationists like Jay Richards writing books titled Money, Greed, and God: Why Capitalism Is the Solution and Not the Problem. Can a stranger amalgam of opposing opinions be devised?"
In essence, the modern prosperity theologians who dominate the right wing of the Republican Party are essentially heretics. They've grafted on a post-industrial-age emphasis on the acquisition of capital and material goods to the alleged son of God, Jesus, who was himself essentially the father of socialism (as recounted in the bible).
At the next Republican debate, we would like to see a test of faith. All the candidates should be required to thread a camel through the eye of a needle.
If they can't do it, they have to shut up about Jesus, Christianity and the bible.
Now that would be refreshing.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Rick Perry: Calling All Texans to Prayer!
(Cue MC Hammer--"We got to pray, just to make it today". This is a simplistic show of support for an event for which the cost of it would be better spent feeding the homeless. Rather than renting out the Reliant Stadium (an NFL stadium) for hundred of thousands of dollars and having people spend their hard-earned greenbacks traveling there, wouldn't "Jesus" rather have those people volunteer in their communities, pray together with their friends and neighbors. In a down economy this is just a silly waste of funds for a forgettable symbolic effort that would not please Jesus, as far as the description of Jesus in the bible claims. I'm not attacking Christians, just poking fun at that small number of Christians (reflected below) who believe Jesus was white and preached a diversified stick portfolio and tax breaks for the wealthy are the paths to heaven. That Jesus NEVER existed.--jef)
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Christian Right Group Tries to Kill Comedy Central Show About Jesus
Do you know who was the first person in Christian history to be executed for blasphemy? Jesus.
By Stephen Tomkins, Comment Is Free
June 12, 2010
A new organization has been formed by the US religious right to attack a program that hasn't yet reached pilot stage. JC, a Comedy Central cartoon about Jesus trying to live a normal life in New York, does not have a completed script, but Citizens Against Religious Bigotry (Carb) are calling on advertisers to force the channel to abort it.
Carb, starchier than your average lobbyists, are particularly exercised by the contrast with the way Comedy Central backed down on airing scenes involving Muhammad in South Park, fearing violence. "Does that indicate that Christians then are punished because they aren't crazy?" asked the talk show host and Carb Michael Medved.
So censorship goes pre-emptive, a TV show doesn't even have to be made in order to offend, and the duty to protect the unborn has no relevance to works of creativity. I suppose it's not so big a leap as all that to banning things that don't exist yet for those who devote their careers to banning things they haven't seen.
Religion is all about mystery, and nothing is so mysterious as the minds of the professionally offended. One mystery is what kind of God they serve.
He is said to be Almighty, and yet desperately needs sticking up for. His emotional maturity is not the subject of any creeds but surely something you would assume of the perfect source of all being, if it weren't for his total inability to take any joke featuring himself (or sex for that matter). He tells his followers to turn the other cheek if they are assaulted themselves, but if people make fun of him expects his followers to hit them where it hurts.
The Bible gives us rather conflicting impressions of God's attitudes to this kind of thing, but none of them fit very well with the God of Carb. There's the God of Moses and his successors, pockets full of locusts, boils and thunderbolts, just itching to strike down blasphemers, including those who touch the ark of the covenant to stop it from falling. Sure, this sounds very religious right, but if he really has such an arsenal at hand and the petulance to use it at the drop of an ark, does he really need or want charcoal-suited lobbyists fighting his battles for him by attacking the forces of darkness's advertising revenue?
The Bible also gives us the rather different example of Jesus, the well-known homeless, penniless preacher, who submitted to humiliation and mockery rather more savage than anything Comedy Central might deliver, and who told his followers that their attitude should be the same as his. He told them not to fight back when their faith was attacked and ridiculed, but to count it a blessing.
The letters of St Paul repeatedly point out that the way for believers to stop others blaspheming is not to deserve it. But the humility, gentleness and self-awareness of the New Testament can seem more Christ-like than Christian.
If God has little need of protection from hurt feelings or dented pride, there remains the mystery of whose pride campaigners are defending, and the obvious answer would seem to be their own. Blasphemy dents their sense of honor, by insulting their religion, and what Christians call serving God could often be called self-serving.
Do you know who was the first person in Christian history to be executed for blasphemy? Jesus. "You have heard the blasphemy. What do you think?" says the high priest at Jesus's trial according in Mark's gospel. "They all condemned him as deserving to die."
It is a point that ought to give pause to Christians who use their collective muscle to stop people offending against the faith. The defense of God is a tradition we can trace back from the post-Christian west through inquisitions and councils to the gospels, and when we get there Jesus is not on the side that some of us might have assumed.
Carb, as Medved would doubtless want to point out, do not want to kill anyone. But they want to silence creativity before it has had a chance to create, which is a pretty lousy way to behave.
By Stephen Tomkins, Comment Is Free
June 12, 2010
A new organization has been formed by the US religious right to attack a program that hasn't yet reached pilot stage. JC, a Comedy Central cartoon about Jesus trying to live a normal life in New York, does not have a completed script, but Citizens Against Religious Bigotry (Carb) are calling on advertisers to force the channel to abort it.
Carb, starchier than your average lobbyists, are particularly exercised by the contrast with the way Comedy Central backed down on airing scenes involving Muhammad in South Park, fearing violence. "Does that indicate that Christians then are punished because they aren't crazy?" asked the talk show host and Carb Michael Medved.
So censorship goes pre-emptive, a TV show doesn't even have to be made in order to offend, and the duty to protect the unborn has no relevance to works of creativity. I suppose it's not so big a leap as all that to banning things that don't exist yet for those who devote their careers to banning things they haven't seen.
Religion is all about mystery, and nothing is so mysterious as the minds of the professionally offended. One mystery is what kind of God they serve.
He is said to be Almighty, and yet desperately needs sticking up for. His emotional maturity is not the subject of any creeds but surely something you would assume of the perfect source of all being, if it weren't for his total inability to take any joke featuring himself (or sex for that matter). He tells his followers to turn the other cheek if they are assaulted themselves, but if people make fun of him expects his followers to hit them where it hurts.
The Bible gives us rather conflicting impressions of God's attitudes to this kind of thing, but none of them fit very well with the God of Carb. There's the God of Moses and his successors, pockets full of locusts, boils and thunderbolts, just itching to strike down blasphemers, including those who touch the ark of the covenant to stop it from falling. Sure, this sounds very religious right, but if he really has such an arsenal at hand and the petulance to use it at the drop of an ark, does he really need or want charcoal-suited lobbyists fighting his battles for him by attacking the forces of darkness's advertising revenue?
The Bible also gives us the rather different example of Jesus, the well-known homeless, penniless preacher, who submitted to humiliation and mockery rather more savage than anything Comedy Central might deliver, and who told his followers that their attitude should be the same as his. He told them not to fight back when their faith was attacked and ridiculed, but to count it a blessing.
The letters of St Paul repeatedly point out that the way for believers to stop others blaspheming is not to deserve it. But the humility, gentleness and self-awareness of the New Testament can seem more Christ-like than Christian.
If God has little need of protection from hurt feelings or dented pride, there remains the mystery of whose pride campaigners are defending, and the obvious answer would seem to be their own. Blasphemy dents their sense of honor, by insulting their religion, and what Christians call serving God could often be called self-serving.
Do you know who was the first person in Christian history to be executed for blasphemy? Jesus. "You have heard the blasphemy. What do you think?" says the high priest at Jesus's trial according in Mark's gospel. "They all condemned him as deserving to die."
It is a point that ought to give pause to Christians who use their collective muscle to stop people offending against the faith. The defense of God is a tradition we can trace back from the post-Christian west through inquisitions and councils to the gospels, and when we get there Jesus is not on the side that some of us might have assumed.
Carb, as Medved would doubtless want to point out, do not want to kill anyone. But they want to silence creativity before it has had a chance to create, which is a pretty lousy way to behave.
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