Re: Mormons Back Bush Middle East Policy

["Hunter Gray" <hunterbadbear@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Don't jump on this one. I read the Times piece -- and I'd say its header is
far from the mark.

The Mormon anti-War statement given earlier this week at the 172th
Semi-Annual General Conference at SLC
 by Russell Nelson, a member of the 12 member Quorum of Apostles -- highest
body in the more than 11 million member LDS church -- should certainly
continue to be viewed as a major [but not surprising] and very positive
pronouncement. And, again, its related dimension explicitly and
affirmatively referring to the common theological roots of Christianity,
Judaism, and Islam is both refreshing -- and unsurprising.

 As I clearly noted in my accompanying comment on the initial media story,
the Church -- [like other mainline Christian denominations],  is not
pacifist in nature. [After all, Brigham Young, with many Federal enemies,
carried a revolver or two and there was once a Mormon Battalion that
skirmished with United States troops.]

And the LDS church, like any other large body,  is certainly far from
monolithic.  This isn't the first time, the Deseret News -- which reflects
various internal church currents -- has issued  its editorial
"clarification" on something and, despite the fact that -- far more than a
"church paper" -- it's an excellent Western regional newspaper [available on
newsstands locally], it has its ebbs and flows and quirks.  It is true,
however, that the Mormon church is extremely sensitive to broad national
opinion and would not want to be misinterpreted as unpatriotic.  The other
mainline Christian denominations, not as recently attacked as the Mormons in
the historical sense, would still hold the same basic concern.

But, all of that said, Apostle Nelson  certainly did not speak in a void --
and gave the very positive Church position on the current crisis and the
critical need for peaceful solutions.  When the newspapers in this region
interpreted it as just that -- e.g., our local Pocatello paper, in a 70%
Mormon setting -- they, too, knew exactly what they were saying.  The
Apostle statement stands as important and positive -- especially in the
relatively conservative Mountain West and environs.

Moving into a somewhat different dimension, I do have to say that I'm
surprised at the depth of ignorance exhibited by so many Gentiles on the
whole matter of Mormonism.  [Much of this is reminiscent of  the virulent
anti-Catholicism of  even a generation or two ago [e.g., "The Pope"] which
does more than linger even today.  In a discussion of this on our Redbadbear
list, I commented yesterday:

"The ignorance about Mormons that I've encountered is really far out.  Some
of these "critics" seem to be much more comfortable with, say, "mainline"
Presbyterian Calvinism, which has always served that with which it grew
up -- capitalism -- very faithfully -- while trashing Mormonism which
developed in the utopian tradition and still maintains much of its old
communalism.  These critics are often thrown when they learn that Butch
Cassidy and most of his Wild Bunch [though not, apparently, Sundance] were
all Mormons.  And their train-robbing focus may well have stemmed not only
from the considerable grassroots resentment in the West about Eastern
Capitalists -- but the pervasive Mormon concern about the predatory Gentile
interests -- railroads, banks, and copper bosses -- pushing their way into
the primarily agriculturally-based, communalistic lands of Zion and
Deseret."

I also said, with especial [but unstated] reference to some of the people on
this very Marxmail list, that:

"If the radical movement in the United States -- and not just here -- is
ever going to root-in and feather-out,
it's damn sure going to have to not only live and work long and hard at the
grassroots -- but do so on a shoulder-to-shoulder basis with at least
respect for things like people's religion.  All the intricate ideological
refinement in the Creation isn't going to mean one damn thing -- if people
are turned off by arrogance and superciliousness."

And I'd also add to my statement, the relative absence of any sense of humor
in some of these ostensibly intellectual circles.

Yours,

Hunter [Hunterbear]

Hunter Gray  [Hunterbear]
www.hunterbear.org
Protected by Na´shdo´i´ba´i´
and Ohkwari'

----- Original Message -----
From: "Juan Rafael Fajardo" <fajardos@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "Marxism List" <marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, October 10, 2002 8:13 PM
Subject: Mormons Back Bush Middle East Policy


> Mormons Back Bush Middle East Policy
> By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
>
> Filed at 9:46 p.m. ET
>
> SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- The Mormon church offered support for President
> Bush's policy in the Middle East, qualifying remarks by an apostle who
> denounced war at a conference of thousands of faithful last weekend.
>
> [...]
>
> Since the sermon, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has
> declared its support for Bush, most clearly in a Wednesday editorial in
> the church-owned Deseret News.
>
> ``Saddam Hussein and the threat he represents to the United States and
> her allies will not go away on his own,'' the editorial said. ``This
> time, the nation may well have to strike first.''
>
> [...]
>
> Scholars said the church's quick clarification of Nelson's remarks was
> unsurprising.
>
> =======================
> Full text at:
> http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Mormon-War--Peace.html
>
>
> >



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