Who Are These Guys?

That seems to be a popular question for magazines and newspapers looking at "the Mormons" these days. The latest entry: A modern prophet goes global, in the Economist (and thanks to a reader who sent me the link). The accompanying pic shows a blond missionary in white shirt and tie walking past a third-world hovel. Understandably, the piece highlights events in England: "Also dear to Mormon hearts are parts of northern and central England where, soon after Smith had his visions, the faith won many converts." After touching on 19th-century emigration to Utah, it notes that now "the Mormons want their converts to stay put and use their spanking new meeting-house and temple; and their keen young missionaries are as likely to be British or Danish (even, in one case, from Greenland) as American."

In the "who are these guys?" vein (and five bonus points to anyone who can ID that quote without using Google), the article notes: "For now, at least, the Mormons present as paradoxical a mix of American and global culture as any multinational with headquarters in the United States and customers across the world." Hmmm, I don't think we're that paradoxical. But the article makes reference to Mitt Romney, Brandon Flowers, and President Hinckley, certainly an interesting mix of LDS luminaries. It also quotes scholars Douglas Davies ("the Latter-day Saints are too centralised to be a 'world religion' in the full sense") and Margaret Barker ("part of the faith's power lies in its insistence that prophecy and divine revelation did not just happen once") before closing with a paragraph comparing Mormons with Muslims ("like the Muslims, the Mormons will be preachers in the world pulpit in the third Christian millennium").

On the whole, a very nice article, the kind the LDS PR department prays for at night.

Comments

[Mark IV]

Easy. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

[Eric Nielson]

Thanks for passing this along.

Yea, the movie quote was an easy one.

[Matt W.]

Well, at least we're doing well on one front. Poor Michael Otterson is not fairing as well on the blogging front of "On Faith".

[Justin]

I noticed that the church website's comments/corrections page linked to the Economist article several days ago with this note:

"Articles about the growth of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints appear frequently and have been the subject of substantial articles, including cover stories in such newsmagazines as Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report. For a perspective from a British newspaper, read The Economist's view of the Church's international growth."

[Duff]

Dave,
I do mourn for your plight. I, a second cousin to the "Prophet", who sees this religion as just another of the pathetic attempts of "yearners" to find some meaning to their iron age longings, wouldn't wish your difficult task to my worst enemy.
While I am keenly aware and appreciative of the difficulties of my ancestors to move to the west to live their new lives, I have nothing but a sad contempt for the difficulty of their task. Being the pathetic, uneducated followers of Joseph Smith's sad, pathetic, sexual meanderings of lust and power, they had no choice but to follow along and do the best they could move with the Saints to the west and settle the mountains with their "peculiar" faith. Once there, they followed Brother Brigham's dictates and established the outlying communities to spread the power of the church. My great grandparents established many of the Mormon communities in Idaho and Utah that today are Mormon centers.
Their obedience has come to a stop with ME.
I don't buy into the myth. I don't buy into the acceptance of the old stories and I especially don't buy into the pathetic attempt of the so called "mormon intelligencia" to verbalize an apologia for the intellectually unacceptable nonsense that you "mormon intellectuals" banter back and forth in an attempt to message each others intellect, trying to convince each other that what you believe is intellectually acceptable.
Nothing that you believe is intellectually acceptable. You have all committed intellectual suicide.
I watch as the Book of Mormon is quietly pushed aside because it has become an embarrassment because after a hundred years of desperate energies not a single scientific factoid has been found to establish a single claim it has made. Not a single fact, DAVE!!!!
If that were not damning enough, let me point out a couple of "divine truths" God has also revealed that have been lately denied by the church. Well, never mind, you know what they are...everyone knows what they are, at least the poly... one and the other one...the mark of "you know who". Just to name couple. Doesn't it get tedious?
What a relief it is not to have to justify the unjustifiable. Give yourself a break and break the connection. There is no Santa Claus and there is no God. What a relief!
Cut me off. You surely don't want to hear any more of this. I certainly wouldn't if I were you.

[Dave]

Duff, so glad you came down from the mountain to share a few of your pronouncements with us mere mortals. Your daemon seems to be stuck on one message, but makes up in intensity what it lacks in diversity.

Given the propensity of most LDS to express their religious convictions as certain knowledge, the one thing I would expect from Mormons who have truly left the fold is epistemological humility. But no! They "know" their menu of complaints with even more certainty than Mormons. Sometimes I think Exmormons end up with all of the Mormon vices and none of the Mormon virtues. Ironic, isn't it?

[Jon in Austin]

Watch out! Duff's on a rampage! Somebody get him a beer!

[HiveRadical]

"…not a single scientific factoid has been found to establish a single claim it has made. Not a single fact, DAVE!!!!"

Not really true. Ever hear of Nahom? How about all those items mentioned, like concrete, or the use of the name Alma for a male, or the use of metal plates for record keeping. All of those were at one time mocked for their 'absurdity.'

Certainly we've not found an ancient "Welcome to Zarahemla: pop. 1,498,234" sign, and likely never will. But to claim that not a single claim has been confirmed is silly in the extreme.

[David J]

five bonus points to anyone who can ID that quote without using Google

It's from "Major League" but without the expletive.

[Dave]

David J., I'm not familiar with that one; I was thinking of the line from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. I'll have to dig a little deeper for my next movie quip.

[Seth R.]

"Who are these guys?"

Actually, one of them was the infamous bounty hunter Tom Horn. Pretty feared guy throughout the American West, and an excellent tracker.

He was finally tried and hung for shooting a sheep rancher's son in the hills near Laramie Wyoming. It was part of the rather vicious, but largely forgotten "range wars" of Wyoming where sheep ranchers and cow ranchers faced-off and blew each others' brains out with disturbing regularity.

[Bookslinger]

Dave, that's not a "third world hovel". It's a Mongolian "Gur" or "Ger", also known as a "yurt".

I've seen them in the movie "Mongolian Ping Pong" and in a PBS documentary "Wild Horses of Mongolia with Julia Roberts." They can be very nice, and are often well-furnished. They are transportable, but sturdy, and hold up well to wind and cold weather.