Yesterday, I had a conversation with a fellow student who is a conservative Christian about the theological differences between his church and Mormonism. At the end of it, he invited me to attend a Christian fellowship meeting on campus. I was delighted and surprised–I’m not used to Mormons being included in Christian groups, though whether it is because we are not wanted or because we self-isolate is often hard to say.
But one thing in particular struck me about this conversation–what was perceived to be our common Christian ground was less our beliefs, though there was certainly more overlap than not, than Mormonism’s conservative social values on topics from marriage to alcohol. Although Prop 8 has given the church a bad reputation in some circles, on the basis of this experience, it appears that it has also opened new doors to fellowshipping with other Christians. Whether the costs of Prop 8 are worth this opportunity and whether conservative social values should be the center of our religious belief are highly debatable, but I am curious as to whether others have found that it has also made being Mormon easier around other Christians.
October 8, 2009 at 11:49 am
I think there’s definitely something to the phenomenon you’re describing, Nat. When Church leaders make a decision to invest a lot of financial, material, and social capital on something, they take more into account that the merits of the issue taken in a vacuum, I think. The impact that our participation would have on Mormon/Evangelical relations, on public perceptions of Mormonism inside and (probably particularly) outside of the US, and on our ability to fulfill the global mission of the Church would have been the concerns that drove the cost/benefit calculations that President Monson and others make when it comes to Prop 8 and other similar enterprises. I tried to work through some of the practical implications in a thread last fall.
October 8, 2009 at 11:59 am
My experience is that Prop 8 has made us a little less “strange” to the hardcore evangelicals … but the rest of our doctrine still leaves them cold.
October 8, 2009 at 12:08 pm
“Although Prop 8 has given the church a bad reputation in some circles, on the basis of this experience, it appears that it has also opened new doors to fellowshipping with other Christians. ”
We have been viewed as useful and effective allies in the cultural wars for a long time. I do not think Prop 8 changes this very much.
October 8, 2009 at 12:13 pm
I sure hope Prop 8 wasn’t done to suck up to Evangelicals. That would be horrible. Why suck up to the people who have been the most hard-core Mormon haters over the years?
October 8, 2009 at 12:32 pm
I’m with Chris. Evangelicals will use us as a political tool and then discard us when it really matters. They will never vote for a Mormon president, for example. Not when they can get a Baptist preacher instead.
October 8, 2009 at 12:33 pm
also, right-wing Christian groups are the biggest funders of anti-Mormon propaganda. If allying with them on prop 8 has made them lessen their funding of anti-Mormon propaganda, then I would say that relationship was worth it. Otherwise, they will continue shaking our hand with their right while with their left they stab us in the back.
October 8, 2009 at 12:40 pm
I actually think that we can overstate our differences with evangelicals. I think most evangelicals, like most people, do not think or care about Mormons as much as we think they do. Dan, I do not think they are using us, we just have mutual political goals (often times these are not my goals). This does not always translate into religious common ground.
October 8, 2009 at 12:40 pm
“Although Prop 8 has given the church a bad reputation in some circles, on the basis of this experience, it appears that it has also opened new doors to fellowshipping with other Christians. ”
This may be true in this case for you, but I haven’t seen it. Most of my evangelical coworkers or acquaintances already view me suspiciously because I am Mormon, and somewhat left of center politically, as well. That they might find us as a group as useful allies in their political efforts, I find possible. On a personal level, not so much.
I always feel bad when I tell our ward mission leader that I haven’t had many interesting or fruitful conversations about religion. I rarely have people start them with me, and conversely, when I try to initiate one, the defenses go up in a hurry. I would really like to have just a normal, friend relationship with these folks. As long as I leave it at that, it seems to work. But if one of us brings religion into a conversation, it’s like a room-size wet blanket. It is very frustrating.
October 8, 2009 at 1:10 pm
I find it’s always easier to talk about religion with other believers than non-believers; and easier to talk with others who actually believe in the reality of the resurrection, etc., than those who are wishy-washy on the point, like many Episcopalians and certainly the UU’ers and modern Quakers.
October 8, 2009 at 1:27 pm
#7 Chris, I don’t think we overstate our differences with Evangelicals. I agree that they’re not always attacking us, but they put a considerable amount of energy innoculating their people to our brand of Christianity. I used to occasionally listen to “Christian” radio, but after the umpteenth poorly veiled attack on our doctrine, I didn’t feel I got enough out of it for it to be worth it.
Where would it be worse to be an LDS missionary? San Francisco or the Bible Belt? Well, probably the Bible Belt, but that’s only ’cause Romney lost and Prop 8 passed.
October 8, 2009 at 1:42 pm
My opinion is that its really really hard to pin down what individual evangelicals are after with Mormons unless you talk to them. There is no central evangelical authority that lays out the framework on anything really. Most Bloggernaccle evangelical bashing is attacking a caricature thats largely a creation of the basher based on media reports and a unpleasant encounter or two.
Evangelicals come in all kinds a stripes regarding Mormons. Some are really hateful, some just disagree doctrinally, and some do not really care.
The guy mentioned above could up to a wide range of things with Natalie B. Froma conversion attempt, to genuine friendship
October 8, 2009 at 1:52 pm
#6:
also, right-wing Christian groups are the biggest funders of anti-Mormon propaganda. If allying with them on prop 8 has made them lessen their funding of anti-Mormon propaganda, then I would say that relationship was worth it.
So, it was “worth it” to become “strange bedfellows” with the very churches that your deity allegedly stated had “corrupt” creeds, and hearts that were “far from” him, notwithstanding their lip service? You’re saying that it was laudable to engage in a multimillion dollar campaign to strip established legal rights from a minority group, on the remote chance that so-called “mainstream christians” would accept the LDS church as “christian?” That suggests a rather cold, calculating mindset–one that’s quite willing to victimize those the strategist despises, if it can score points with those he wishes to impress.
Most faithful LDS members I know are quick to denounce the idea that Monson leapt into Prop 8 in order to curry favor with evangelicals. I’m pretty certain that you’re the first LDS person I’ve seen celebrate such a scheme.
>Otherwise, they will continue shaking our hand with
> their right while with their left they stab us in the back.
Notwithstanding the LDS public relations statements, Daniel, the evangelicals are still doing just that. They were happy to take your cash, but they still condemn LDS to Hell.
October 8, 2009 at 2:00 pm
Six months living with a split decision wasn’t much of an establishment.
October 8, 2009 at 2:50 pm
The Evangelicals can condemn me to Hell all they want, Nick.
I still won’t go.
October 8, 2009 at 3:10 pm
11- Just to clarify, I’m pretty sure this was just a regular, pleasant conversation. We bonded over the fact that we didn’t drink and he told me about the alternative activities going on with his group. It was a really nice chat.
October 8, 2009 at 3:22 pm
One outsider’s view:
The charge of political expediency arises not from Mormon ends, but Mormon means. Not from Mormon doctrine but from its “great and abominable” alliance in Prop. 8. From my perspective, it was a tactical coup and a strategic mistake to join a coalition instead of building its own grass roots organization, and then providing almost all the money which gave the wrong impression that the LDS aspired to purchase respectability from Evangelicals and Catholics for 30 shekels of silver.
Actually, adjusting for inflation, that comes to about $40 million, or about $6.50 per American Mormon. I don’t know how much respect that would buy anyway, but next time let someone else pick up the tab as a show of good faith.
October 8, 2009 at 4:33 pm
Brad,
I think you’re right that the larger mission of the Church is key to understanding the Church’s role. In my (more or less) non-baptizing mission in Finland, we had a saying that, “For every door we knock in Finland, someone gets baptized in Brazil.”
In that spirit, for the amount of suckitude I’ve experienced with Prop 8 here in SoCal, I hope a whole bunch of folks in Brazil (or somewhere else, at least) are having a blast.
October 8, 2009 at 4:46 pm
I don’t think much about our relationship with other churches. I focus on our own members. Prop 8 has hurt the membership of our church more than helped. Some have stop coming to church, while others no longer trust the leadership. Anytime a political cause is brought into a group and one side is told to stay is quiet, it can’t be good for the whole group.
October 8, 2009 at 7:05 pm
Chris H. (#7), I take it you haven’t spent much time in the South.
October 8, 2009 at 8:30 pm
Amen Kristine! (#19).
(I served my mission is southern Missouri.)
October 9, 2009 at 5:52 am
I know this shouldn’t influence my thinking, but my kids were subject to some real hateful anti-Mormon stuff in high school sponsored by evangelicals. When I see Romney sucking up to them, it does not sit well with me.
October 9, 2009 at 5:55 am
Cynic alert:
Natalie–I think it’s really cute (quaint?) that you felt the invitation was based on viewing you as a fellow Christian and on common ground. My suspicion was that it was motivated by the desire to save your soul from the wretched church with which you affiliate yourself.
And yes, I know that that is exactly the accusation that people make about Mormons inviting non-members to church activities, and I think that, while we are occasionally innocent, we are largely guilty as charged.
Basically, I think social conservatives are pleased as pie to take our money–Mormon donations are nothing to laugh at–but they certainly don’t view us as equals.
October 9, 2009 at 6:37 am
During my college days (which ended about a year and a half ago), I struck up a conversation with an evangelical campus ministry group that gave out free Pop Tarts and hot chocolate every Wednesday morning on the Quad. As I continued to stop by and chat with them, we had brief religious conversations that were always positive and uplifting. Not once was my very-apparent LDS faith attacked.
I am still friends with these folks and I continue to remember how pleased I was to fellowship with a Christian group on campus that was not the LDSSA (I spent lots of time with them, too). So I can fully believe Natalie when she says that the invitation came from one Christian to another. Yes, folks, there are evangelicals who recognise us as Christian brothers and sisters.
As far as the common conservative ground goes, it has been my observation that liberal Mormons still come across as moderate-to-conservative when compared to non-LDS liberals, if for no other reason than the LDS support of “family values” that seem to be totally tied to the not-left in American politics.
October 9, 2009 at 9:14 am
Really? It has been my observation that “family values” are totally uncorrelated with left-right. All the Catholics and Mormons I know (even the fallen-away ones!) put family first in their calculations.
In contrast, maybe half of the people I know who were raised low-church protestant (e.g. Baptist, Evangelical) have been divorced, have few kids, and spend little time with them. Conversely, all the people I know who have divorced have been Protestant.
Family values is a cultural value, not a religious one. I get so irritated when I hear that some “pro-life pro-family Joe the Plumber type” is on his third wife and his aged mother is living alone in some old-person’s home, and whose kids are working at McDonalds instead of going to community college.
Family values are my father who alone supported 8 of us and paid for all 6’s college education, and my mother who had those 6 kids, forwent her dreams of traveling the world and the assistance of hiring a housekeeper to spend that money on our education. They are still married.
I would say that “family values” are not tied to, but divorced from, the professed beliefs of the not-Mormon Right in the US.
October 9, 2009 at 9:28 am
#24:
Family values is a cultural value, not a religious one. I get so irritated when I hear that some “pro-life pro-family Joe the Plumber type” is on his third wife…
Amen to that, Dan. Here in Washington State, the campaign manager for the Referendum 71 effort to overturn the Domestic Partnership Expansion Act is a fellow named Larry Stinckney. Mr. Stinckney’s campaign organization is called “Protect Marriage Washington.” Mr. Stinckney is so committed to “protecting marriage,” that he’s on his third marriage, after the first two wives had to take out restraining orders against him for domestic abuse!
October 9, 2009 at 11:45 am
Kristine (19),
My wife grew up in the south and, she tells me, was only once accosted about her Mormonism. So I’m going to say that Chris is probably right that most Evangelicals don’t spend a whole lot of time thinking about us.
And dc, my experience from my mission is that missionaries tend to think everything revolves around them; missionaries would certainly draw an inordinate percentage of Evangelical anti-Mormon attacks by virtue of being representatives (literally and symbolically) of the Church.
October 9, 2009 at 12:00 pm
Generalizing from a single person’s experience is always hazardous, and “accosted” is a pretty nebulous standard. I could catalog instances of open and public discrimination (refusing to give the Fellowship of Christian Athletes student of the year award to a Mormon, for instance) or maybe just try to document how many times “The Godmakers” is screened in Nashville every year, but all of that can still be dismissed as anecdotal. They may not spend a lot of time thinking about us, but many (most?) evangelicals, at least in the larger denominations, don’t think nice things when they do think of us. And I think you could probably also point to significant “anti-cult” activity, which amounts largely to anti-Mormonism.
Huckabee’s defeat of Romney is probably the closest thing we’ve got to evidence about widespread Evangelical attitudes towards Mormonism, and it wasn’t very pretty.
October 11, 2009 at 5:40 am
For the record, I didn’t say that conservatives are actually the folks who have the most believers in “family values” – only that it is a perceived tie. My comments were merely an attempt to explain why evangelicals seem to hate Mormomism (and sometimes Mormons) and yet love to team up with us in political fights.
Personally, I find the supposed tie between “family values” and religion absolutely ridiculous and I totally agree that they exist as a cultural thing that is not specifically connected to any political or religious sway. But that doesn’t stop conservative candidates from mentioning them in every campaign.
Regardless, it is awesome when evangelicals see past the label of “Mormon” and seek to be friends, looking for common ground beyond the scope of religion, just as it is awesome when Mormons do likewise with those of other faiths.
October 11, 2009 at 5:56 am
Natalie, to answer your question, I am somebody who knows a fair amount of evangelicals, and I have not seen that activity on Prop. 8 and other social issues has brought us together in any way. I am sure this may have happened among leaders in California on a temporary basis, but personally I doubt it will be lasting.
I think a lot of Mormons don’t really understand evangelicals at all. Your average evangelical could care less what the Southern Baptist convention thinks. There is no central authority of any kind guiding their political views. Your average evangelical pastor spends 99 percent of his time discussing Jesus and grace and the Bible and 1 percent of his time discussing politics. Most evangelicals I know are actually fairly apolitical.
I am not denying that evangelicals tend to be more conservative politically than the rest of the country. They certainly oppose abortion and SSM by large majorities.
But Mormons, especially those who have not spent much time with evangelicals, have a lot of stereotypical ideas about mainsteam conservative Christians that simply don’t have anything to do with reality. Your average evangelical doesn’t really know much about Mormons at all, but he or she is probably mildly suspicious. The anti-Mormon hate campaigns are really sponsored by a small group of fringe wackos.
October 11, 2009 at 9:02 am
My two sons have joined evangelical churches because they like the doctrine–no, I don’t understand the appeal.
They claim evangelicals really dislike Mormons because of the heretical doctrine we believe–no, I don’t also understand why you should dislike a group because of their doctrinal beliefs.
Anyway, my sons tell me that nothing Mormons can do short of abandoning the teachings of progressing to become as God and adopting the Trinitarian creed will make us acceptable to evangelicals.
October 11, 2009 at 12:09 pm
Anyway, my sons tell me that nothing Mormons can do short of abandoning the teachings of progressing to become as God and adopting the Trinitarian creed will make us acceptable to evangelicals.
Well, it’s probably too early to be holding one’s breath, but we might just be working on that, CC.
October 11, 2009 at 12:38 pm
re: 24
You rock, Dan. I’m glad you’ve snatched my tiara as Queen Of The Bloggernacle.
October 11, 2009 at 10:03 pm
MikeInWeHo, I am falsely accused (and deeply flattered) by your accusation. Actually, if it please the ‘Nacle, I am content merely to play the Court Jester. Only he may speak truth to the King and keep his head — at least so long as it is couched in rhyming haiku.
And having seeing Steve Evans in action, I rather enjoy the modest immunity this role has provided me.
October 13, 2009 at 11:39 am
“Whether the costs of Prop 8 are worth this opportunity and “whether conservative social values should be the center of our religious belief are highly debatable,”
Not debatable at all they shouldn’t be, when social and political values (of any kind) become central to a theological organization, ideology usurps theology every time. Oops, wait, too late . . . .
“but I am curious as to whether others have found that it has also made being Mormon easier around other Christians.”
Its so strange that you say around other Christians as if all other Christians are assumed to be politically conservative in their thinking. It has certainly not made being Mormon easier around members of the UCC, or liberal Episcopalians for just two examples.