ZIONTOLOGY

Mormons have a bit of a reputation for being litigious and pedantic. Maybe they think these are attributes of god. I think it has more to do with the Church's push over the last 50 years or so to build hierarchy within the church resembling a corporation. This is also why the Mormon missionaries wear business attire (with backpacks) as they pedal their bicycles door to door. Anal-retentiveness seems to me to be a cheap substitute for perfection, which Mormons are happy to point to as an attribute of their "gospel" ("The church is perfect, even if its members aren't" "If a perfect church can't produce perfect members, then in what sense is it perfect?").

In recent years the former president of the church (notice that I didn't say "prophet"), Tommy Monson, fought hard to soften the public image of the church. He embraced their colloquial label "Mormon" and ran multiple public relations campaigns which utilized the word in a positive light (i.e. "I'm a Mormon," "mormonsandgays.com," etc.). It seemed to be working, actually. I don't no if it has really helped membership, but the image of the church has literally never been better. Fast forward to this week, however, and Tommy's successor, Russell Nelson, has effectively undone much of the PR gains of the Church.

Rusty Nelson has always been one of the biggest sticks in the mud of the Church's leadership. He reportedly was the driving force behind the Church's 2015 policy change concerning homosexuals in the church, which categorized active homosexuals--especially those in legal gay marriages--as apostates, and the children of which could not be baptized until they reached the age of eighteen and disavowed the sinful lifestyle of their parents (children of straight couples can be baptized at the age of eight without any disavowals). So, for those keeping score it came as no surprise when Ol' Rusty Bucket announced an update to the Church's media style guide.

I know, I know. A style guide? Does this really matter?

Honestly, I didn't think it mattered much at first. If the Church wants to sully their public image, far be it from me to stand in their way. But, I listened to a program on NPR this morning which addressed this issue as it directly pertains to them and how they discuss the Church in their programs. You see, part of the update to the style guide is that news agencies are no longer allowed to refer to the Church as "Mormon" or "Mormonism" or even "LDS." The Church's official statement says that news agencies should refer to the Church by its full name, "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" (say that three times fast), in its first reference and all subsequent references should be "the Church" or the "Church of Jesus Christ" or the "restored Church of Jesus Christ" (Yeah, good luck with that last one). And members of the faith should be referred to as "members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" or "Latter-day Saints" and not "Mormons." [insert "eye roll"]

NPR's response--which I loved--was that it was not up to the Mormon Church to make this decision for news agencies or those who are not adherents to the religion. Furthermore, the term "Mormon" is used as a point of clarification for their listeners and readers, most of whom have no context for the long-winded official name of the Mormon Church.

Hell yeah, exactly this. Rusted Nail-son may want to dodge the Church's sordid history, much of which the Mormon Church has actively sought to bury from public knowledge for over a century, but it is the job of journalists to accurately convey information to the public. I commend NPR for politely declining the rebranding mandate from a man with the hubris to call himself god's mouthpiece. As some of the people on the program pointed out, if god really speaks to the world through this man, and this is one of the rare instances when the man claims to have received such a revelation from god, couldn't god have chosen a more important topic than the name of a church? Ya know, like poverty, world peace, climate change.

I'll tell you why. Because god has nothing to do with it. This is in the best interests of the Mormon Church, according to their CEO. This would be no different than a corporation having some horrible PR nightmare occur, and in an effort to reduce their losses, the board of directors completely remake their image and even change the name of the company in order to distance themselves from the disaster. It's all about business.

In related news, some people in the ex-Mormon community have proposed "Ziontology" as the new preferred name for the Mormon Church. And I kinda like it.

TALKING 'BOUT MY SUPERSTITION

Over the weekend several of my Mormon friends and family posted links to articles about a new revolutionary study which seems to confirm one of their favorite religious prohibitions against the consumption of alcohol.

On the surface, I get it. It feels nice to be vindicated. So, why not gloat a little bit? It's not like pride is a sin. Right?

I have a few things to say about this new study. First, the headlines of the articles linking this study are a bit misleading, claiming that "no amount" of alcohol is good for your overall health, etc. Right, just like no amount of soda, candy bars or binge watching Netflix is good for your overall health. The authors of the study admit from the outset that this particular point is complex and that there are some studies which show that moderate alcohol consumption "can have a protective effect on ischaemic heart disease, diabetes, and several other outcomes." Before reading this study I had never heard of these benefits before. I assumed that it was general knowledge that alcohol wasn't really healthy and even people who cited those articles from the nineties about the potential health benefits of drinking red wine (which had more to do with the grapes used to make the wine than the alcohol) did so with a wink and a nod.

Second, the risk of lower alcohol consumption is proportionally lower than higher levels of consumption. Meaning, the more you drink, the higher the risk. This is a bit like saying the more you drive your car, the more likely you are to get into an accident. The only way to completely minimize one's risk of a car accident is to never get into a car. It should be apparent that this is an oversimplification, and, therefore, not very revolutionary, even when applied to alcohol.

Third, I have a problem with their lumping together of certain kinds of risks. Specifically, disease related risks (i.e. cancer and tuberculosis) and risks related to one's actions (i.e. car accidents and self harm). To me, these are important to distinguish because risks related to actions can be moderated through responsible drinking, and can be complicated through other factors like mental illness. If a person with depression drinks they are more likely to try to hurt themselves than someone without depression. From what I can gather, the study shows that there is a higher risk of alcohol contributing to deaths caused by accidents and self harm than caused by disease especially among people under 50 years old. The study also claims that for people between 15-49 alcohol is one of the most common factors for cause of death. What I infer from this is that one shouldn't drink and drive, and one shouldn't drink if they have depression or another mental illness which might be affected by alcohol. Furthermore, these factors can be managed through responsible drinking, and knowing one's limits. 

Fourth, the study is limited in that its methodology basically amounts to drawing conclusions based on correlations, and the integrity of the results depends on the methodology of other researchers (if a study used a flawed methodology it would affect the meta-analysis). This is a problem of meta-analyses in general. I'm sure there are plenty of reasons for for these limitations (most likely financial), and I'm not saying this discredits the study necessarily. I'm saying this is a potential problem which makes it difficult to prove causality. If anything, this just shows the need for further research, especially since this particular study claims to dispute some findings of previous studies. 

Alcohol has risks. No one has seriously disputed this in decades. But lots of things have risks. Lots of good things like driving cars or other foods and drinks. Lots of medications, such as aspirin, Tylenol and Ibuprofen, have negative effects on one's liver similar to alcohol, although to lesser degrees. These risks should absolutely be accounted for while making a decision. But let's not pretend that Mormons abstain from alcohol for health reasons (Utah has more soda shops than bars, despite the link between soda and type II diabetes). 

The Word of Wisdom (the basis for the Mormon prohibition against alcohol) is actually not against all alcohol consumption, and even says that wine is preferred for use in the sacrament: 

"5 That inasmuch as any man drinketh wine or strong drink among you, behold it is not good, neither meet in the sight of your Father, only in assembling yourselves together to offer up your sacraments before him.

6 And, behold, this should be wine, yea, pure wine of the grape of the vine, of your own make.

7 And, again, strong drinks are not for the belly, but for the washing of your bodies."

There are even some who argue that the WoW did not intend to prohibit beer--only wine and liquor. This is how some Mormons justify their use of Kombucha. Not to mention that Joseph Smith, the one who wrote the WoW, never made it a hard set rule, but only a suggestion and continued to drink alcohol with his apostles until the day he died. 

Let's suppose that there are no issues with this study and that there is now clear and indisputable evidence that alcohol is always bad and will eventually kill everyone everywhere. Until such evidence was found, believers did not have a sound reason for abstaining from alcohol. Refusing to do something because god told you not to do it is not a good reason to not do it. And now that there is a good reason to not do it believers do not get to retroactively claim that they were justified all along. 

Muslims and Orthodox Jews have prohibited the consumption of pork for centuries. The original claim was that pigs shouldn't be eaten because they are unclean animals. This was a spiritual claim, not a hygienic one. Now that modern science can examine the composition of meats, some Jews and Muslims are claiming vindication because pork has high sodium and fat content. They claim that god knew this all along and he was protecting them through these prohibitions. Well, pork isn't the only meat with high sodium and fat content. So is beef, and that is totally Kosher (so long as it doesn't have cheese on it, of course). And if god is using these ancient prohibitions to save lives, why didn't he reveal something useful, like washing your hands before you eat or after delivering a child. 

There are plenty of reasons to not drink alcohol, including just simply not having a desire to drink it. But using a religious prohibition as a reason to not do something is tantamount to superstition. And if a superstition turns out to have a nugget of truth behind it, it is still not wisdom. 

BONUS MATERIAL:

Christopher Hitchens on superstitions, among other things:

HIGH-MINDED HIVE MIND

There has been a long-winded debate among Mormons and ExMormons about the Church's influence over politics. I first came across this argument when GOP primary winner, and man whose political career died trying, Mitt Romney ran for US president in 2012. The question came up of whether or not the Church might try to influence Mitt's policies as president or outright tell him what to do. A similar concern arose of JFK in relation to the Vatican. At the time, Mitt assured voters that he would represent his constituents and not be bullied into submission by a church which has had a sordid political history.

In the past the Mormon Church has sought to influence politics in very direct ways. As early as their first settlements in the American frontier, Mormon founder, and man who repeatedly takes your 14 year old daughter behind the barn to "just talk about God and stuff," Joseph Smith had gathered thousands of followers in Ohio, Illinois, and Missouri. These small communities which relied almost entirely on local government were soon overrun by apocalyptic "Latter-day Saints" with a single religious mind who all voted according to their prophet's conscience (a prophet who was convicted of fraud in his youth for convincing other men to dig for buried treasure by staring at a magic stone in a hat, and who later started a religion based on an ancient gold book he found in the dirt which he "translated" by using a magic stone in a hat, and wouldn't let anyone with a background in linguistics touch it).

It is no wonder, then, that the locals responded with violence to oust their hive-minded new neighbors (who also happened to be stealing their wives and daughters as polygamous sister-wives, which is also why the Church was so in favor of a woman's right to vote since it would effectively give Mormon polygamous households several more votes).

The Church has learned over the years to be more subtle in their political influence. But as we have seen over the past few decades, the Church still can't keep its greasy fingers off of certain issues. We still don't know the full extent to which the Church has actively sought to thwart the gay rights movement in Hawaii and California. In Hawaii they kept to the shadows when gay marriage was proposed, but became much more brazen when the issue came up as Prop 8 in California, issuing an official statement from the Church to be read over the pulpits asking members to donate their time and as much money as they could to fight this societal evil. And many people took the Church seriously, sacrificing their children's college education to help fund the anti-gay marriage agenda (the Church teaches that members will face a choice like Abraham sacrificing his son Issac as a show of good faith to God, and people look for such sacrifices in their lives believing God is testing their faith).

For years the Church has denied any wrong doing regarding Prop 8 (among other things), and claims that most of their donations, like their humanitarian efforts, came in the form of faithful members volunteering their time. Maybe this is true, but many sources (such as the documentary "8: A Mormon Proposition") have shown that the Church has donated a metric butt-load of money as well.

More recently the church has sought to influence politics in Utah, where they have the strongest foothold. Around the time the US Supreme Court legalized gay marriage (2015), the Church successfully got the Utah legislature to incorporate protections for "religious liberty" in a bill which offered housing and employment protections for LGBT people. In other words, the Church successfully pleaded for the right to discriminate against gay people.

They have also successfully changed votes in the state senate regarding other issues, such as medical marijuana, liquor laws and comprehensive sex education. And despite their long history of breaching the bounds of tax exemption, officially the Church has maintained that they DO NOT tell their members how to vote (see video below).

Next they'll be telling me the Church no longer practices polygamy.

Well, in recent news--yesterday, in fact--the Church sent out a mass email to members in the state of Utah asking ever so politely that they vote "NO" on a bill which would legalize medical marijuana (see left).

It seems that no one told self-proclaimed prophet of God, and nonagenarian who's pretty sure today is a weekday, Russell Nelson that there are some things a prophet just can't do (should we tell him God is supposed to be omniscient?). I guess this is what happens when you send a self-righteous heart surgeon to do an attorney's job.

And, of course, the IRS will do nothing regarding the Church's tax exempt status. The best we can hope for is that enough ExMormons petition the Freedom From Religion Foundation to sue the Church.

The thing I don't understand is why the Church gets involved at all. They have a long list of prohibitions for their members which include many legal things, such as tobacco and alcohol, coffee and tea, premarital sex, watching R rated movies, dating before the age of 16, wearing revealing clothes, swearing, shopping on Sundays, etc. Yet, when issues come up in American politics (notably, not the rest of the world), the Church shoves itself into the conversation where less than 2% of the population (at best!) adheres to their worldview. Why not stay out of it and if it becomes legal, like gay marriage and alcohol and everything else, just issue yet-another prohibition for members. This is how the system is supposed to work.

Sigh...




BONUS MATERIAL:




Former Mormon prophet, and nice young man just trying to pay for college by selling magazine subscriptions, Gordon Hinckley reassuring the public that the Mormon Church does not tell members how to vote.