“He was gripping the steering wheel very hard. The levity had gone out of his voice. The intensity of his remembering frightened her a little. His face, in the glow of the instrument panel, was set in the long lines of a man who was traveling a hated country he could not completely leave.”
Stephen King, ‘Salem’s Lot
Never mind the plot of Stephen King’s novel. The above quote is me wandering back through the Mormonism of my childhood: McConkie Mormonism—in other words, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as it existed in the 1970s and ‘80s. Especially through the sermons of apostle Bruce R. McConkie, it was a sometimes stern and often outspoken religion. With no internet backlash to worry about, it tended to lay things on the line.
There was much sincerity and homespun beauty in McConkie Mormonism, but there was also darkness. From the pulpit in general conference, murder and homosexuality were placed side by side in a line-up of most grievous sins. Native American equaled Lamanite, and make no mistake, black skin meant Cain’s curse.[1] Growing up white and straight in the suburbs, I took these teachings for granted. To this day, I occasionally miss the bold testifying of McConkie Mormonism, though not the above doctrines. Being Mormon felt invigorating, a manly mix of the spirit of prophecy and the spirit of 1776.
McConkie Mormonism was a religion I proudly took to New England on my mission, only to realize it was as human and fault-ridden as any other faith system. Yet in the dark night of that realization, Mormonism somehow became even more precious to me. I clung to it, and still do sometimes for nostalgia’s sake. For me, Mormonism has come to feel a bit like a small Maine town in a Stephen King novel—haunted, yet strangely charming.
“There’s little good in sedentary small towns. Mostly indifference spiced with an occasional vapid evil…”
King is being harsh with this quote, but he has a point. Beginning with my mission, I’ve spent significant amounts of my adult life in small towns. Some folks lift them up, claiming they exhibit a purity big cities lack. That’s just rural chauvinism though. Small towns lack purity, and they exhibit all the dangers of cities: crime, addiction, unemployment, homelessness, and abuse of power.
I’m not saying rural towns are inferior. Compare any given small town to any given big city, and the small town may be a much better place overall. Or it may be much worse. There is no fundamental superiority to be had. Wherever we abide, we’re only human. We can be quite wonderful; we can also be rotten.
“For the first time in his life he felt the slow, terrible beat and swell of the ages and saw his life as a dim and glimmering spark in an edifice which, if seen clearly, might drive all men mad.”
From any vantage point—the small town, the metropolis, or a kingdom of god on Earth—the universe proves too big and too complicated for us to make sense of it all. We cannot make it stable, nor answer for every fault which appears. So, we try to avoid the darkness, at least to put it off for another day. Many times we have built a holy of holies, limited entrance to a chosen few, and told ourselves this would keep the monsters out.
A Disclaimer
If the above reads too dreary, please keep in mind the novel I pulled the quotes from depicts a small group of New Englanders fending off vampires. ‘Salem’s Lot is a horror story and a pretty good one. The tension is purposefully heightened, but the underlying dynamics are real and relevant.
[1] For the clearest example of Elder McConkie closely associating homosexuality and murder, and also for his connecting the Priesthood Ban with Cain’s descendants, see his April 1980 General Conference address: The Coming Tests and Trials and Glory.
Questions for Discussion
Think of a book you’ve read which creates a mesmerizing sense of place. Why did it mesmerize you?
Think of a place you cherish, even though you know it has serious problems. Why do you cherish it?
Looked up your reference McConkie was quite poetic in his style
“We see the Saints of God, who are scattered upon all the face of the earth, rise in power and glory and stand as lights and guides to the people of their own nations.
We see our children and our children’s children stand firm in defense of truth and virtue, crowned with the power of God, carrying off the kingdom…”
But then
“Amid tears of sorrow—our hearts heavy with forebodings—we see evil and crime and carnality covering the earth. Liars and thieves and adulterers and homosexuals and murderers scarcely seek to hide their abominations from our view. Iniquity abounds. There is no peace on earth.
We see evil forces everywhere uniting to destroy the family, to ridicule morality and decency, to glorify all that is lewd and base.”
Part of this is referring to birth control, which he saw as attacking the family.
And finally
“All glory to the Lord our King, for he cometh to reign gloriously among his Saints. He cometh with fire, and the wicked are as stubble. He cometh with loving kindness, and his redeemed inherit the earth. Glory and honor unto the Lord our God. Sing unto him for his wondrous works. Blessed be his great and holy name. All glory to the Lord our King.”
He was a poetic and dramatic speaker. Not anyone as poetic as that (with different content hopefully) today. Maybe in October
As for books the earth children series of books, set in the stone age, are some of my favorites. Plains of passage, Shelters of stoneare a couple.
Prez JFS and Elder BRM efforts to turn the Church into just another conservative Christian denomination was a disaster. BRM ‘s “Mormon Doctrine” stayed around way too long. JFS’s “Man, His Origin and Destiny” turned the Church into a joke. They did irreparable harm to the Church. And some of the damage lives on. The Church needs to clear the slate of their drivel.
Geoff and Roger, thanks for sharing your perspectives on McConkie. I suppose I want to see his and Joseph Fielding Smith’s work remain accessible and regularly referenced, though not as doctrines to live by. Like Journal of Discourses, it seems their published works can be invaluable in giving folks like us a means to explore the Mormonism we were born into. Using my small town analogy from above, their words are a way to get a sense of the community’s values and priorities. It is also very helpful to get candid reactions like you two have given. Thank you.
I knew him and his father in law. II have had lunch with them each on separate occasions and use to call them on the phone to pose doctrinally questionsns. They were always polite but I still think of both of them as so rigid, so pompous , so mean and so wrong on almost everything. But I will credit them for their belief that doctrine matters and is worth studying and their ability to teach the doctrine instead of insipid philosophies of men.. I also found it interesting about how they were both spiritually insecure about so many things. And how protective they were of their claimed spiritual prerogatives. I was at BYU when Bruce savagely attacked the most popular teacher on campusGeorge Pace because Brother Pace was promoting the idea that the words of the Savior were true and you could have an intimate individual relationship with the Savior. I remember a number of BTU religion faculty saying he vilified a wonderful human being because he felt threatened by him. Only apostles could teach such things.Or his father in law teaching that having the HG manifest itself to you was superior to having the visitation of angels. The consensus was it was clear he had never had an angelic encounter but could not dare confess that so he had to go to plan B. Or look at JFS jr role in eliminating the Lectures on Faith from the DandC because he couldn’t understand Lecture 5 then laminating the fact the raising generation weren’t familiar with it when he himself arranged for that very result. Oh well all have feet of clay and they were no exception. I will say I have every book written by either one of them and have read them all and still find value in them unlike most books published by Deseret Book decades after their initial publication
I don’t miss anything about it, except the lovely people who sacrificed so much so that the youth could have such a good time.
I was very lucky, somehow my ward attracted the flotsam and jetsom of a small outlying British university city, that tolerated the excesses of the missionaries and blunted the illiberalism of ‘the church’. So I really got the best of what was on offer and it saved my soul from a childhood of neglect and ignorant abuse.
I also had some excellent bishops, and some who really weren’t. Stake presidents were probably more influenced by senior leadership and so less constructive.
Ordinary town, ordinary people.
Thanks for adding your memories to the post, Bellamy and Handlewithcare.
Bellamy: I’m doing research on Elder McConkie and would like to know more about your experiences with him. Would you mind contacting me? My email is Matt.harris @ csupueblo.edu.
Thank you!