I knew, from the moment I first envisioned the image of The Last Supper superimposed with the faces of the Bush administration and other Republican politicians and pundits, that there were going to be people who would find it offensive; even sacrilegious. That I would include the term "Latter Day" in the name of this imaginary religion, I was sure, would also ruffle a few feathers---especially close to home. But I also knew that there were going to be people who would see it and recognize not only the humor in it but its social commentary.
"The Republican Church..." is political satire. It's also religious satire, obviously, because the lines between Politics and Religion have been getting blurred more and more in recent years. What got this ball rolling? I'm not sure. When I was a kid, I remember Jesse Jackson running for president in 1984 and Pat Robertson in 1988. Was that what started it? I wonder if Al Sharpton thought of those campaigns when he decided to run for the presidency in 2004.
For me, what really got the ball rolling was the administration of George W. Bush and his efforts to distribute federal funds to religious charities, feeling that they would be in a better position to gauge the needs of their respective communities than a government agency would. On January 29, 2001, President Bush, through an executive order, established the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. The very idea of this program has always made me a little uncomfortable. The President called for this program to be enacted through congressional legislation, similar to the 1996 "Charitable Choice" program, but Congress didn't come through for him. They saw a key constitutional problem with what the President was asking of them. It was a clear violation of Constitutional law (which begs the question of why this stipulation didn't stop Congress from enacting Charitable Choice which was also met with criticism on the grounds of separation of church and state).
President Bush once spoke about other concerns that Congress had, including questions about the lack of government oversight and guidelines for the distribution of federal funds once those funds were transferred to the religious charities. Bush's response was to hold a bible over his head and declare that contained within that "handbook" were all the guidelines that the religious charitable organizations needed. In light of that declaration, more than a few eyebrows were raised when former deputy director of the OFBCI David Kuo revealed in his book "Tempting Faith" that the "Peer Review" panel "...were supposed to review the application[s] in a religiously neutral fashion... But their biases were transparent." Leaning heavily toward Christian organizations.
A particularly vocal portion of the American people think that Separation between Church and State means keeping ALL signs, references and images of religion out of government; hence protests against the presence of the Ten Commandments on government property, the campaign to eliminate the statement "In God We Trust" from our currency and the insistence by atheist organizations to eliminate opening prayers in meetings of city councils and other legislative bodies. It has been said that the separation of church and state isn't about keeping religion out of government. It's about keeping government out of religion. This idea has been attributed to Thomas Jefferson but, in my research, I have found nothing by Mr. Jefferson that even comes close to expressing this idea. However, I did find several arguments by historians illustrating through other statements made by the third U.S. President that he felt the stipulation should be more strictly enforced.
Another red flag that got me thinking about the Republican party and Neo-Concervatism in religious terms was during the 2004 Presidential election when I saw a lot of Republican cheerleaders, which certainly isn't unusual in the blood-red state of Utah, take every chance they got to corner anyone who gave them the time and regurgitate every negative thing that was ever said about John Kerry. I made sure never to get into political conversations with these guys. Then I started to think about all the energy they were putting into Kerry-bashing and placing President Bush on a pedestal. Especially in Utah where the Republican nominees for most federal elections are pretty much guaranteed a win (except District Two which tends to be more moderate and is usually represented by a Democrat).
Then I started to look a little closer at these cheerleaders. I already knew they were Republicans. You can't swing a dead cat without hitting a Republican around here. They were also LDS which, again, isn't unusual; Utah is the Mormon breadbasket, and Mormons are known for being enthusiastic when it comes to sharing their beliefs with people. But I have to ask, when did it change from sharing their spiritual beliefs to sharing their political beliefs?
In all fairness, I'm talking about "civilian" Mormons not those in "God's Army," the thousands of young men and women serving full-time proselytizing missions that are strictly about spreading the Gospel of Christ and not political agendas. For the most part, the Church itself is politically neutral. It does not endorse political candidates, nor does it advise its members on how they should vote. It does however encourage its members to take an active part in their government in many ways, particularly through voting. At times it also speaks out on politically charged issues such as gambling, STDs and abortion, looking at them in the light of its own doctrine.
These facts do not prevent Mormons from having their own opinions on social issues, making their own endorsements of political candidates or even having nothing to do with politics at all, withdrawing completely from the process. What makes me nervous, however, is when Mormons start to associate their particular way of thinking as the "righteous" way of thinking. The logic behind this mindset being, "I am an active and upstanding member of the Church in full fellowship; therefore my politics are in line with what God wants." This type of thinking leads to people making moral judgments of others based not on morality, doctrine or even ethics, but rather on their opinions and political affiliations. They forget that even within the Church, there is room for differences of opinion and, in the words of Alex Nibley, "...a diversity of viewpoints makes an organization stronger." These self-described "Good Mormons" are often dumbfounded when they learn that other people, whom they thought were also "Good Mormons," express opinions and politics different from their own.
For example, in 2006, Utah Legislator Chris Buttars (R-West Jordan) waved his morality flag with a couple of bills that would have banned Gay and Lesbian Alliance clubs in Utah public schools. Governor Huntsman said that if they passed, he would veto them for two reasons. 1) He didn't like the language of the bills. And 2) he saw them for what they were: "Message bills" that just distract the legislature from addressing real issues. Thankfully, neither of the bills made it to the governor's desk.
What I found particularly interesting though was Buttars' response to the Governor's promise to veto his bills. He said, "Why doesn't he like them? What's wrong with them?... I find it amazing he'd make those kind of comments, and he's never asked to talk to me... These are no[t] message bills. These are solid pieces of legislation that involve morality. Morality isn't a 'message bill.'"
I always thought that morality should never be legislated.
That Buttars found it "amazing" that the Governor would make such comments is typical of the peculiar "Good Mormon" attitude. The belief that Mormon's should all think the same way about everything. Buttars was amazed because being a "Good Mormon" and a Republican (which is perceived by many to be one and the same in this state) and knowing that Huntsman is also a "Good Mormon" and a Republican, naturally he expects Huntsman to think the same way he does.
Alex Nibley, who I quoted above, son of the late Mormon historian and scholar, Hugh Nibley, faced similar expressions of shock and amazement when people found out that he AND his father were Democrats. In his essay, "Vote LDS," Nibley writes,
"It is easy to find many points where Republican policies have been widely at variance with the moral teachings of the Mormon church. But there is clearly an unwillingness among Mormons to give the same respect to their brethren who are morally turned off by the Republican Party and are drawn to the Democratic Party not in spite of their Mormonism, but actually because of it."I know many people, including my parents, whose Mormonism drives them to be Democrats. They believe the admonitions of King Benjamin in the Book of Mormon when he says we have a moral responsibility to do all we can to help those in poverty. They can't reconcile Benjamin's teachings with Republican hostility toward programs designed to aid the poor.
"When they read in the Doctrine and Covenants, 'he that is idle shall not eat the bread nor wear the garment of the laborer,' they cannot square the scripture with Republican plans to cut capital gains and estate taxes for the country-club set and transfer their tax burden onto middle-class workers. They believe strongly that God has given them a stewardship to protect the land, and they are deeply disturbed by the prevailing Republican attitude that the earth was given to us for development opportunities to make money. On these and many other points, Mormon doctrine is the fuel that feeds these Latter-day Saints' enthusiasm for the Democratic Party."
I remember seeing these "Good Mormon" Republican cheerleaders and their "Fire and Brimstone" tirades against Democrats and support for President Bush and I couldn't help but think of those old-fashioned circus-tent revivalist preachers that travel the country trying to spread the word of God through one side of their mouth and asking for money through the other. Both put a lot of energy into what they're preaching but one is at least talking about God while the other is just talking politics. I can't help but wonder, if these "Good Mormon" Republicans put as much energy into spreading the Gospel of Christ as they do spreading the "Gospel's of Hannity, O'Reilly and Coulter" what would the impact be on the membership of the Church? I imagine that if they took an identical approach of cornering people into hearing their views, the response would be a negative one. But giving them the benefit of assuming that they would treat their faith with more reverence than they do their politics, I think it would do a lot to bring people to Christ instead of just to the voting booth. Hence the language I used to bring people from my web site to the "Republican Church" page. I saw these "Good Mormons" and couldn't help but note that they had more fervor for their politics than they do for their own religion. Which, in the end, is really kind of sad.
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