Mormon bunk

Ostensibly in relation to the Mitt Romney campaign, The New York Times recently reported on a Kansas City Baptist leader who is spreading a message of “countering Mormon beliefs” (read full article here), and I am sympathetic.  Far from a mere partisan, political opinion, we are talking about profound “unease” here.

It’s almost as though the author couldn’t sort things out, though.  Please read this:

“I don’t have any concerns about Mitt Romney using his position as either a candidate or as president of the United States to push Mormonism,” said Mr. Roberts, an author of “Mormonism Unmasked” and president of the Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, who said he had no plans to travel to South Carolina before the voting. “The concern among evangelicals is that the Mormon Church will use his position around the world as a calling card for legitimizing their church and proselytizing people.”

This quotation baffles me.  How can you not have any concerns about a prominent Mormon’s using his position to “push Mormonism” at the same time as you do have a concern that he will use his position to legitimize said Mormonism and proselyte people?  Sometimes I get things in my head that keep me from hearing, so maybe someone could help in interpreting what I take as a lack of proofreading of this passage in the Times.

Regardless, I am among those who are concerned–not necessarily that any appreciable number of people would be influenced to accept Mormonism if Romney were elected president, but that anyone affiliated Mormonism is one of two things:  idiotic or disingenuous¹.  (And, to this short list of labels, when considering founder/”prophet” Joseph Smith, I must add two more possibilities:  fraudulent and delusional.)

Here, I mean no personal slam–not even against the long-deceased Smith, and certainly not against current-day Mormons who are to some extent the victims of circumstance.  I’m not calling them worthless souls.  I’m saying they’re either not mentally strong enough to recognize a hoax, or they’re not being honest.  The problem here is that Mormonism is founded on a ludicrous set of bunkish beliefs that no sane person should accept.

Therefore, in the Romney case, it seems to me that we have two possibilities:

1. that Romney is idiotic — a bear of very little brain, not being able to sort out fact from fiction
2. that Romney is disingenuous — undeniably affiliated with Mormonism and not really accepting the bunk

Which is it?  As Fox News, which I find almost as annoying as any other news show, is fond of saying, you decide.

In related news, “the world’s leading Internet Evangelist” (which I had heretofore never heard of!) has launched a similar campaign, with the goal of educating a largely biblically illiterate public about what Mormons really believe (read full article here).  I appreciated this no-nonsense passage:

Keller concluded, “Mitt Romney is a ‘temple Mormon,’ meaning he has gone through the secretive temple rituals, including taking a blood oath to his ‘church’ above everything else, and wears the temple garments (magical underwear) with satanic markings that he believes protects him. Listen, if people want to vote for a man who believes he will die and become the god of his own planet, have an endless supply of women to have sex with and create spirit babies, that is fine. All I have ever asked Romney or anyone in his cult like Glenn Beck to do is be honest about what they really believe and to quit lying to people!”

At this writing, it seems that Romney is seen as the most likely to win the Republican nomination.  Whether a man with such bunkish beliefs is mentally fit to lead a country is my concern.  (Whether he could beat President Obama is another story, and whether any of this process really matters in the country’s trajectory is yet another one.  I believe all of this political stuff is eclipsed by the light of the Kingdom of God.)  We are not talking about different brands of mainstream Christianity.  We are not talking about amorphous, minor, theological differences.  We are not even talking about the string of Roman heresies or the unfounded silliness found in most denominations.

We are talking about the historically attested, essence of Christianity vs. the fraudulent fiction that is Mormonism.

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¹ Disengenuous:  lacking in candor; also : giving a false appearance of simple frankness : calculating (Merriam-Webster online).

Addiction

A sister blogger referred recently to her coffee addiction, and this reference, of course, made me think of silly religious systems.  Why?  Thought you’d never ask….

While in Greeley, Colorado, I had the pleasure of working one day a week with the Greeley Children’s Chorale as accompanist.  There were two choirs, and my counterpart in the other choir was a Mormon.  We invited her and her husband over for dessert and coffee one evening and were reminded that Mormons aren’t allowed to (perhaps this is a regional/bishop-of-the-ward decision, like the decisions made by some Amish bishops relative to telephones and transportation once in a while) drink coffee or tea, but they do drink hot chocolate.  I asked about herbal, decaffeinated tea.  No, they can’t drink that, either.

Apparently–and I can think of no other reason–the bishops don’t understand the difference between tea and herbal “tea.”  Herbal tea is not really tea, has no caffeine, and as such, could have no addictive qualities.  On the other hand, chocolate does have caffeine, and could conceivably be mildly addictive.  So why can they drink that?

Religious systems are often too big for their britches (and a mite silly, to boot).  They seem to feed off their own power and sillinesses.  The system in which I myself was reared is less silly but can still be downright silly.  They’re pretty much all silly.

P.S.  I had a really slow, unproductive, fairly negative day on Tuesday.  I had no caffeine all day.  I had a better day Wednesday, plowing through many peripheral tasks and actually getting to the core of my work for maybe an hour or an hour and a half.  Caffeine, I’m sorry to have to acknowledge, seemed to assist–at least in my determination.

P.P.S.  Have you heard that one of our country’s leading Republican presidential candidates is a Mormon?

Tithing by choice (2 – practicalities)

This post jumps right on in to perhaps even more troubled waters after the toe-dipping of yesterday’s post.  I’d like to offer practicalities, philosophies, and other thoughts related to tithing and contributing.

Nowhere in all the New Covenant documents is the tithe enjoined upon believers.  Charitable giving is a choice—a good one, but a choice nonetheless.  Yes, “God loves a cheerful giver,” but He does not say, “First, love me.  Next, love your neighbor.  Third, give 10% of your money.”  The decision to give, and the percentage are up to the individual.

I once felt good about approaching 10% and even surpassing it over a fiscal year or two, way back when.  As I recall, more than half of this was given to Christian organizations other than my church, and that was because I found the church budget philosophically and practically wanting.  I would have been found in direct contradiction to scripture if scripture had any command for Christians to tithe, but it doesn’t.  (There is no Levitical priesthood in the church, so there is no reason to tithe.  That part of it really is that simple.)

Since then, I have had to feel good about smaller amounts.  It’s not easy, because I would like to give more to Christian and humanitarian charities I believe in.  If I had more of a surplus for daily living, I would give more.  Remember the widow with the two pennies, I try to tell myself in my discouragement.  But I still have questions.  Here are some more.

Should we “tithe” according to our pay schedules—every two weeks, on Fridays?  bi-monthly on the 15th and 30th? or every month, in some cases?

In calculating, does the 10% come off the top, or after tax?  Should we wait to calculate until after the final reckoning of the tax return? How can we know how we’ve “prospered” until after April 15? What would the institutional church do if no one paid the bills until sometime after April 15 every year?

Would the answer be different if paying taxes to Caesar were a choice and not exacted by mandated withholding?

What about tithing by credit card? (Although that might be convenient and get me “rewards” which I could then tithe based upon (!), it sure does seem cold and institutionalized.)

When a Christian college student receives a paycheck for $72.51 for two weeks of every-other-day work, does he exempt himself from tithing because he is a poor college student, or does he give $7.26 (rounding up would seem to be safer than cheating God out of a half-penny) to the collection plate next Sunday?  Does he hold Christians around him to a different tithing standard because they’re not college students?

When college students or foreign missionaries receive care packages from Aunt Sue or Martha Supportive, do they offer 10% of the cookies to poorer students or to indigenous neighbors?

Does contributing to the Red Cross or to Hope International or to the World Bible Translation Center “count” as part of your tithe?

Does an individual have the right or responsibility to approve or support the spending of the money she tithes?

This last question makes me think of the question of ownership of a retail establishment and spending money in that store.  For instance, at one time, a large grocery store chain was owned by Mormons.  Did buying a gallon of milk there give me the right to say “No, you can’t send a penny of my $2 to the LDS Church”?  Well, no, but it did give me pause about patronizing that store when I had a choice.)  In this age of mobility, global communication, and lots and lots of free choice, I figure I have some responsibility to be prudent in where I spend and contribute money.

If large portions of a church budget are allocated to salaries for staff positions I don’t believe in, or for physical plant/facilities, it makes me look elsewhere for a greater “return” on my dollar.  While this may seem overly humanistic and even crass in its monetary outlook, the alternative, for me, is a careless, thoughtless, or even halfhearted dropping of a check into a plate–which ends up being a gesture of upholding the status quo and religion’s establishments than a faith-based offering to advance God’s Kingdom.

All this would be pretty troubling if tithing were an in-force law, wouldn’t it?  :-)

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For further reading:

1. This prior post, (which says some of the same things I’ve said above in different ways), and/or
2. This one on the inhospitable nature of church offerings, and/or
3. This brief article (not my own), with caution and with the caveat that I do not necessarily endorse its spirit or even the ramifications of the actions suggested therein.