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(The following was written during the 2008 American presidential
primary season.)
I stood in the Celestial Room of the temple, a rather ornate and grand
room that symbolizes the eternal life that earthly families can
obtain, in the afterlife, on a planet of their own. As I talked
with a young man who hoped one day to reign over and populate his own
planet, two men dressed in dark suits and sporting sunglasses and
ear pieces inched toward me, one from each side of the room.
The visit to
the temple began innocently enough. Wheeling into the parking lot in
my big Suburban, the attendant glanced at me with a knowing smile. I
could be one of the faithful. Little could he know that behind the
tinted windows in the back rows sat friends, not a large brood of
children. I sensed disappointment on the face of the greeters when
six college students piled out of the Suburban behind my wife and I.
Half a dozen or so darkly-dressed, neatly attired men, who could have
passed for FBI or secret service agents, stood in silence, seemingly
ignoring us.
We were
ushered toward what resembled an old-fashioned revival tent. Inside
the tent were pictures of Jesus as depicted by artists from the Middle
Ages. He was variously smiling, triumphant, gentle, pleading with God
in the Garden of Gethsemane … but never hanging on the cross.
Before
exiting the tent and entering the temple, we were required to sit and
watch a brief video. The message was disarmingly simple: the people
who built this temple were just like me, good Christian folk who
believed in Jesus and the Bible.
Basking in a
glow of religious comradary, we donned white booties to protect the
sacredness of the temple, then stepped through the door and into the
holy place. We were standing on ground so sacred that it would only
be open to Gentiles for two weeks, after which only the most faithful
of the faithful (and certainly no Gentiles, or unbelievers) would be
allowed entrance.
Scores of
sentinels stood faithfully at their appointed posts, ready to steer us
through the sacred building. These temple guides, lay volunteers from
local congregations throughout the state, had been instructed to smile
and point visitors in the right direction. They were ready to supply
memorized answers to whatever questions might be asked, whether or not
the answers really had anything to do with the query.
The building,
to be certain, was impressive. Magnificent, even. The furnishings
appeared to be of the finest, most expensive materials. And although
the temple had been promoted within our community as a place of
worship, I knew the truth: no worship services would ever take place
in this facility that had been built for exactly two religious
rituals.
I almost felt
sorry for raising the question, for the posted guide was an older lady
that could have passed for my grandmother. “Where in the Bible did
God instruct Christians to build a temple like this?” She hesitated
for just a moment, averting my eyes by turning her head slightly to
the side before answering my question. “Oh, I’m sure it’s in there
somewhere,” she said, with a nod of her head that both dismissed my
question and indicated I should move along.
Not long
after having my first question dismissed, we entered a rather large
room in the center of which stood two life-sized statutes of oxen
bearing on their backs a large, circular font. In front of the font
stood a podium, and a walkway of sorts led to the font. In this font
the faithful would dutifully carry out one of the two rituals for
which the temple existed: baptism on behalf of persons already dead,
predicated on the belief that we Gentiles, should we die without
embracing the true faith, could yet find eternal salvation in the
afterlife. Into this room, week after week for as long as the temple
should stand, the faithful from area congregations would make
pilgrimages, being baptized over and over and over again, as a lay
priest read aloud the names of deceased unbelievers who yet needed
salvation that only could be found on the backs of the oxen.
Yet it was in
the Celestial Room that I got into trouble.
The second
ritual for which the temple existed had to do with marriage. But
these temple marriages were of a special variety, for in the holy
sanctuary a faithful believer could be forever wed to his bride in a
“celestial sealing.” Death would not end these marriages. Indeed,
death would usher the husband into his destiny: godhood. In the
afterlife the husband would become a god, ruling, with his subservient
spiritual wife at his side, over his own planet somewhere in the outer
reaches of space. The god’s wife would forever be pregnant with
spiritual children who would one day become human beings and populate
the planet of the former human-then-god. Someday the male gender of
those spirit-beings-turned-humans would have the opportunity to become
gods of their own planets, all part of a spirit to human to god cycle
that had no beginning and would have no ending.
A friend, a
member of the faithful, had once referred to these beliefs as Space
Doctrine. Although the foundational theology of his religion and the
reason for temples, he admitted that these beliefs were taught only
gradually to members of his religion. And yes, they could seem
strange on the surface.
So that day
in the temple, standing under the chandelier in the magnificent
Celestial Room that celebrated and symbolized the glorious afterlife
of the faithful, I turned to the guide who was on duty. He was a
young man, and I wanted to know if he dwelled often on the fact that
one day he would be a god with his own planet. Shifting
uncomfortably, he mumbled something to the effect that he did not
think about things like that, but instead focused on his duties here
on earth.
I couldn’t
let him off the hook that easy. I pressed him again. The temple
exists for the express purpose of preparing men to be gods in the
afterlife. The very room we were standing in testified that godhood
awaited faithful males. Surely he had to, at least every once in a
while, think about his future godhood?
Now the poor
guy was sweating. And those I had brought with me had moved on to the
next room, perhaps a little embarrassed that I was grilling the
unfortunate young man.
That’s when
the men in black began making their move. I had not noticed them
previously. They stepped seemingly out of nowhere, one on each side
of me, obviously prepared to take me by the elbows and escort me on my
merry way to the next room. But before they could reach me, I moved
along of my own accord, much to the relief of the young
man-who-would-one-day-be-a-god-but-who-did-not-want-to-talk-about-it-right-now.
When I
exited the newly-built Mormon Temple that day, slipping off my white
booties and stepping back into the Montana sunshine, more men in black
loitered nearby. Perhaps it was my imagination, but they seemed to
create an informal corridor as we walked back to our now-tainted
Suburban. The parking attendants did not smile as we drove away.
From my
temple experience I learned first-hand just how bizarre I already knew
the Mormon faith to be. Yet I marveled at the gall of a polytheistic
religion – a faith which teaches not just multiple gods, but an
infinite number of gods – that in the 21st century boldly
lays claim to the mantle of Christianity.
That temple
experience was seven years ago. Today Mitt Romney, a temple Mormon
and former bishop (the equivalent of a pastor) within his faith, is running for the presidency of
the United States. Like other Mormon leaders in recent decades,
Romney
publicly denies the historical and theological anti-Christian
foundation of Mormonism. Right-wing evangelicals are shunning his
candidacy, despite the fact that Mormons are their allies on social
and moral issues and have quietly been a part of the Religious Right
from the beginning. Although sharing similar cultural beliefs,
fundamentalists like James Dobson and Richard Land cannot bring
themselves to endorse a member of a polytheistic faith that claims to
be Christian.
As for this
moderate, traditional Baptist, I too cannot embrace Romney’s
candidacy. It has nothing to with the fact that he is a Republican,
nor does it have to do with the fact that his religious beliefs are
polytheistic. In fact, I think John Leland, 18th century
Baptist evangelist, was right when he declared that government should
not be concerned over whether a man worships “one God, three Gods, no
God, or twenty Gods.” The Mormon concept of infinite gods had yet to
be formulated by a treasure seeker named Joseph Smith, but I am sure
Leland would have affirmed the equality of the Mormon faith in the
public square, along with all others, even while disagreeing with
Smith’s teachings.
No, the
problem I have with Mitt Romney is not with his religion in and of
itself, but has to do with attendant issues:
his denial of the historical separation of church and state and
embrace of Christian nationalism, his public deception
regarding his faith, and his personal belief in his own god-status. I cannot bring myself to vote
for a presidential candidate who advocates Christian nationalism, nor
could I vote for a candidate who believes he is a god-in-the-making.
(Nor would I vote for Sun Myung Moon or the Old Testament Yahweh, incidentally.) The idea
of a self-determined god-in-the-making (or a god of any kind) leading a nation founded on the separation of
church and state seems, well, bizarre.
Whereas
I do not vote for or against a person for political office on the
basis of the individual's faith, attendant issues should be of concern
to all. Like Baptists of old, my primary issue is that of church
state separation. For most of their post-colonial history,
Baptists opposed presidential candidates who did not endorse church
state separation. Today, although I would in theory vote for a
Baptist, I would not vote for a Baptist who is opposed to separation
of church and state. While I could well vote for a Muslim,
I would not vote for a Muslim who believes government should be
subservient to Sharia (Islamic law). While I could well
vote for an evangelical Christian, I would not vote for an evangelical
who believes in Christian Reconstructionism or Christian Nationalism.
And while I would have no problem voting for an atheist, I would not vote for an atheist who is
hostile (rather than merely indifferent) to religion.
As to
Romney,
the man is going to rule over his own planet in his eternal
afterlife. That’s quite enough for any one person.
Here on
planet earth in the United States of America, I’ll vote for someone
who does not embrace historical myths about the founding of our
nation, who knows he (or she) is not a god-in-the-making, and/or whose religious
beliefs (or lack thereof) include acknowledgement of the pluralistic,
secular foundation of our nation while, at the same time, displaying no
hostility to religion in general.
Note: The October 8, 2007 edition of Newsweek
magazine ran a
feature story on Romney's Mormon faith. The essence of the
story is Romney's discomfort with discussing his faith in public.
For more information on Mormonism, read
Understanding the Latter Day Saints. |
