Several weeks ago my wife and I watched the new Tom Clancy movie on Amazon Prime called “Without Remorse.” The storyline is loosely based on Clancy’s book, but modernized/updated to reflect current geopolitical situations, even hinting at the current political divide the US finds itself in. Toward the end, when the viewer discovers who the bad guys really are, and that they are trying to start a war, the bad guy has a small speech. And in the speech he says “The Soviets were the greatest enemy we ever had. Because they united us. Now, we fight against each other. But then, the country was united against a common foe. We need that again.”
I have no doubt this is true. If China where to attack Hawaii, the political partisanship would quickly disappear as we unified behind a common enemy. We see current dictators, when domestics problems threaten them, reach out and start conflict with another country, to unite their people against this enemy.
I seems throughout history, from the very beginning, we needed a “common enemy” to help unit us. If we take the Temple Endowment as doctrine, then even Elohim saw that need to “allow Lucifer, our common enemy…. to tempt them, and to try them”.
The Mormon church has at times been united in its fight of a common enemy. The “gentiles” in the early church created an enemy, and united the Saints in the exodus to the west. The US Government’s anti-polygamy laws also provided a common enemy to keep the members unified. While these enemies where not created by the church for the sole purpose of uniting the members, they did in the end provide a unifying influence.
I’d like to explore modern enemies of the church that bring the members together for a common cause. The first one that jumps to my mind, I being a California resident, is Proposition 8 (law banning gay marriage, it passed but was overturned in court). The church said gay marriage was a threat to all families, and was a common enemy of God fearing people everywhere. The members came together with money and time, standing on street corners with signs, manning phone banks, and going door to to door. My take of gay marriage is if you don’t approve of it, and somebody of the same sex ask you to marry them, just say no.
More recently, the evil politicians that seek to take away our religious freedom seems to be the newest common enemy of the church. Elder Oaks and Bednar are the champions of this cause.
Another question is do you think church leaders purposely come up with a common enemy when it looks like the members are scattering? While it is easy to believe that a great famine in North Korea, with a popular uprising of the people could compel Kim Jong-un to sit in a meeting and say “we need to provoke the USA to get the people’s efforts united against an enemy”, I don’t see the Q15 sitting around in a meeting and deciding what “bogeyman” the church needs to unit the members. I think the Q15 genuinely believe the so called enemies are really a threat to the church members, and that they are obligated by their divine calling to warn the people. Any unification of the members that come from the warning is a nice benefit, but not the original purpose.
In fact I believe that calling out a “common enemy” of the church in today’s environment can actually have the opposite effect of unification. Making LGBTQ people an enemy is actually dividing the church today, as evidenced by what happened with the exclusion policy of 2015-2019. Also the Church is still dealing with the bad outcome of Prop 8.
So the questions for you who have lasted to the end of this rambling post:
- What are some of the “common” enemies” that the church leaders have put forth in the past? What are some of the current ones?
- Do you think any of the enemies have a unifying affect on the general membership, or the opposite?
- Do you think the Q15, when deciding what to warn the people about, even discuss whether it will bring the people together, or divide them? Should that even factor into the decision?
Now as Hawkgrrl would say: Discuss.
Wheat & Tares 
For many years, the main enemy seemed to be the federal government. This did unite the church, especially in the polygamy days. The federal government was seen as an occupying force, a bunch of soldiers, a nameless, faceless group that could be exploited.
The governor of Illinois, Thomas Ford, as well as otherofficcila and mob members in Missouri and Illinois who participated in the murder of Joseph Smith, were also portrayed as the enemy. This was very convenient because the majority of these people were either dead or personally unknown to most of the membership of the church. In other words, it was very easy to build caricatures of these individuals that people loved to hate.
My main point here is that, to be a good enemy, the enemy needs to be faceless, nameless, and personally unknown. The best examples of this are in movies. The storm troopers in Star Wars, as well as Nazis, Russians, and the bad guys in most adventure movies, always have their faces covered (or are nonhuman) so we never know who they are. We never know what their thinking. They never have names. We therefore see them as things, objects, an “it.” Killing or fighting them thus isn’t a moral problem.
Leaders in the church have tried, at various times over the past thirty years (at a minimum) to make the LGBT movement the enemy. The problem, in our time, is that many or most of us know LGBT people. They are no longer a nameless, faceless enemy. The caricatures used by the leadership therefore no longer work. We know them, and thus we are unwilling to turn our friends into our enemies. That, I believe, is why the LGBT issue has caused such a splintering among members of the church.
I don’t blame the leadership. They are acting according to the principles that they know, understand, and have learned over the course of their lives. The problem is that the worldview that they have concerning LGBT issues is dramatically different from the image that most or many of the members of the church have concerning LGBT issues. When 2 worldviews collide like this, there needs to be a whole lot of listening happening on both sides. Otherwise, as we have occasionly seen in the comment section of this and other blogs, we start to make anyone who disagrees with us into the enemy, which in many ways, is even more sad.
Good post. Andrew has a great point that the enemy has to be faceless, nameless and personally unknown. I think he’s spot 0n about the LGBTQ issue and why it sort of blew up in the church’s face: LGBTQ people are people; they are mothers, sisters, sons, daughters, fathers, etc. and it’s therefore becoming more and more difficult to keep them “less than” because it’s so blindingly obvious that they’re actual human beings.
My concern is that even as the church is (too) slowly accepting LGBTQ people as actual people, one of the things about this whole “find/make an enemy” thing is that shadowy, conspiracy type language is still able to be used effectively to marshal at least some church members. Leaders can still resort to vague, but seemingly convincing language about “the winds of Satan” or the influence of Lucifer or some such other nonsense. A great example of this is when conservatives used the phrase “family values”; it sounds like a kind of benign concept that everybody could agree with (everyone’s part of a family, right?) but was code for the fact that only certain kinds of families mattered (or counted) in the eyes of conservatives. So Satan can still be used to instill fear and paranoia into members because it’s still a relatively effective concept/tool for true believers.
To answer your question, I think such strategies, though they are likely to be employed for quite a while still, are becoming less effective in a church setting, in part because of what I see as a kind of growing, but silent skepticism among members. I’ve been talking with folks at church more recently and I’ve detected an undercurrent of maybe a little less buy in from more members of my ward lately than I’ve previously noticed. Maybe it’s part of the post-COVID church experience; I don’t know. But I do think that relying on a kind of scapegoat for all of the things wrong in the world (Satan, or Secret Combinations or whatever) is slowly getting less effective. Which is, IMHO, a good thing. The sooner we realize that we are causing the problems of the world and not Satan, the sooner we’ll be able to start taking proper responsibility for them and join a good chunk of the secular world in putting more time and resources towards minimizing them.
Violence, a threat of violence, or a perceived threat of violence tends to unify committed group members.
Polygamy did not unify Mormons. It contributed to the split of Mormons into multiple groups. Anti-polygamy combined with the perceived federal threat of violence seems to have tended to unify Brighamites — except for later group splits — but there were also always those who did not approve of polygamy, some of whom remained publicly silent about it.
The church’s Prop 22 and Prop 8 campaigns garnered a great deal of support among Mormons, but it was far from universal and Prop 8 contributed to massive disaffection. The November 2015 policy seemed even more divisive, but that could just be my perspective.
Even enlisting talk of Satan (as in “Victory for Satan” or identifying whatever one doesn’t like about current trends or events as “satanic”) doesn’t work particularly well as a unifying “common enemy.” There are always those group members who think people are capable of coming up with trends and ideas not popular with Church leaders on their own without any necessary input from Satan.
I’m not sure any truly unifying “common enemy” for the Church is possible without geographical distance between groups and threats of violence from without. “Religious freedom” might if it were truly about religious freedom, but there are significantly differing views on what constitutes religious freedom and what constitutes trying to force one’s religious ideas on a secular, pluralistic society in the name of “religious freedom”.
I doubt the Q15 often consider what will bring people together if/when they seek to identify a “common enemy.” But I think they did consider that in the reversal of the November 2015 policy and in the change of plans about the Manti temple. As to each of those, and perhaps other analogous matters, it was the Church bureaucracy and some of its leaders that were perceived by some as the “common enemy.” 🙂 Oh, well.
From the past: interracial marriage.
Porn and abortion are two current common enemies. Boys playing with their little factory used to be. The church is generally still against this, but quietly.
Here’s a list of things I wish the church would consider common enemies: racial injustice, child protection (especially within the church’s own walls), and poverty.
Some thoughts:
1. Walt Kelly’s comic strip character Pogo famously observed “We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us.” Perhaps we would do well to reflect on whether we are our own worst enemy in the collective sense as members of the Church.
2. The point about the Church’s enemies being nameless is a good one, but some do have names. These include the September Six, Kate Kelly, Sam Young, John Dehlin, Natasha Helfer and many more, including to some extent their sympathizers. We could nearly add Fiona Givens to the list given her apparent forced exit from the Maxwell Institute over her Heavenly Mother comments during a fireside.
3. The Church is losing members for a number of reasons. It is easier to find scapegoats than to reflect upon possible needed institutional changes and to carry out those changes. Hence, a reaction toward orthodoxy.
4. How this pullback to orthodoxy, dogma and authoritarianism will affect nuanced, progressive members remains to be seen.
One enemy is “the world”.
Be not of the world is a common phrase. (Talk about nameless!). However i have heard this from other churches also. So, everyone who is not of ones own church, is of “the world” and we should not be a part of them. So, who is the world?
Wonder why people self isolate and not want to have other friends. How many people in the Mormon corridor are afraid to move because of the ” outside world”. How many TBM even living outside the mormon corridor even have friends (not mere aquaintances), who are not members.
My other thought of “the enemy” are the ex-mormons. Do not be part of them.
So, I see the church of asking its memebers to associate with only peopke who will follow mormon dogma. This have nothing about following Christ and providing service to mankind.
In the end, the enemy is any one who does not convert to ultra orthodox mormon ideas.
The pullback to orthodoxy that Tom Irvine discusses is a concerning trend in the church, currently.
How we read the New Testament and then still move toward orthodoxy is a conundrum as Jesus seemed to push against orthodoxy in its many forms. But it seems to be a common reaction among many members who feel they are losing to an ambiguous enemy.
Sometimes we hear Satan or “the adversary” mentioned at church more often than Jesus. There is still an unreasonable fear of intellectuals, feminists, and LGBTQ+ individuals.
The church could respond to the current pressures it is experiencing by transitioning into an organization that welcomes diverse groups of people and focuses on serving and advocating for the vulnerable and disadvantaged. Judging less and serving more. Instead we see in many pockets a retrenchment into outdated paradigms. Recent excommunications leave members in a state of fear that contributes to this.
Well said, Tom.
The “common enemy” that makes the most sense to have is the modern entertainment industry. This enemy is against everything the Church stands for.
The modern entertainment industry has an open and stated agenda of promoting substance abuse and wanton sexuality. Part of this agenda includes an attempt to destroy traditional marriage and family.
Modern Hollywood portrays marriage as a burdensome institution to be scorned and ridiculed. Indeed, Hollywood treats marriage as something to be avoided at all costs.
Unfortunately, an impressionable public has begun to imitate what is shown on television and movies. As a result, the rates of illegitimacy and disease are skyrocketing.
The irrefutable fact is that wanton, uncontrolled sexuality does have harmful effects for both the individual and society. Shame on those who seek to impose this harm.
Talk by RMN “Faith Will Move Mountains” Apr 2021 called out a few groups but I think he is indirectly preaching blissful ignorance – my faith crisis is not because I was a lazy learner, and I like my association with other doubters.
My fave boogeyman: The World – and thus, the worldly. Interestingly, though, all the good stuff is also in “The World”: literature, art, fashion, science, Mars rovers, the most stimulating human beings, great restaurants, NYC & LA, Greek islands in the summer… If our lifeless Sunday meetings are an example of righteous unworldliness, I’m just not interested. I will literally die of boredom.
ALL members should read the recent book by former bishop Richard Ostler about our LGBTQ loved ones. Furthermore, I would hope that folks like Elder Gong would advocate for efforts to tone down any harmful rhetoric about this group as an enemy.
Upvoting your own post is bad form, J Charity, whether one is Of The World or not.
So is downvoting my post about upvoting yours …
JSC, where’s your data?
Lots of good enemies identified above. I guess I would add gays, feminists, and intellectuals, courtesy of BKP – lots of overlap there with enemies listed above, and I do not think that hostility has changed. I could give recent conference talks to cite all of those – Pres Oaks talking about experts not really being experts, Anderson on abortion and Anderson and Oaks telling women not to delay marriage or family, multiple talks on complementary gender roles in April 2020, Oaks in gay marriage, plus other concrete examples like the Church routinely intervening in political and legal issues to ensure its continued right to discriminate against LGBTQ folks and BYU swapping out actual scholars for CES teachers in its religion department.
I also think that people who leave the Church or even who doubt or disagree (especially publicly) are being defined as enemies and as dangerous. Excommunications and “don’t rehearse your doubts” and only go to trusted sources etc etc bear that out. In some ways they may be public enemy #1 which is pretty sad.
But as with the other issues – those enemies aren’t unifying us; I think they are mostly dividing us and causing one group to retrench strongly into orthodoxy and many others to disengage or leave.
*Oaks *on* gay marriage not *in* gay marriage. Freudian slip 🙂
@P: Assuming you know who is behind completely anonymous upvotes and downvotes is bad form. Your comments about them say a lot about you and say nothing at all about who is actually doing the upvoting or downvoting.
I’m not sure I agree with your example of a Chinese invasion unifying our country.
I think there would be a group (a very vocal minority) that would say the invasion was our fault; that we did something to the Chinese to deserve it. Then they’d protest our atrocities against the Chinese.
And the division may increase.
And I may be wrong.
You know, I kinda appreciate John Charity Spring.
More than just a breath of stale air, he can be entertaining.
And in spite of his efforts to the contrary, every once in a rare while, he makes a good point.
Perhaps we should adopt the Helen Reddy song, You and Me Against the World as a main church hymn and mantra?
Sorry for the number of posts – I’m in the pool watching the Yankees game and am apparently a little bored or restless.
Wondering: my perspective is that California Prop 22 and Prop 8 may have garnered strong church member support, but it was more like conscription. The pressure to be involved by waving signs at busy intersections, canvassing, contributing $$ was overwhelmingly guilt based. Special meetings were held, individuals assigned roles, in our stake bishops pressured to place signs on their own property. Later, denials that the church was officially involved, that these actions swelled up from concerned members on their own. Yes, this led to disaffection that continues still. Pressured to do something that went against your gut, then told it was your idea to do so.
In my coming-of-age years, the common enemy was Communism. Then long hair on males. Rock music. Then the resurgence of the women’s movement. Non-conformity. In church meeting after church meeting, defining all others as “the world”, and lost. It’s always something.
If the church doesn’t define a bogeyman, then its ‘authority’ is null and existence irrelevant. The church, even RMN, sustains itself by capitalizing the fear of losing loved ones.
A lot of people attack JCS for his comments, but he is right on this one. The church consistently attacks popular movies and tv shows and sets them up as the enemy. The leaders have been fighting the bogeyman of the R rating for decades now, even though there is no basis in doctrine for it.
For my ultra-conservative ward, “the world” still works just fine as a common enemy. For them “world”appears to mean LGBTQ or allies, the “government” (especially biden/dems, or state gov. when mask mandates or property taxes are mentioned), “woke” and “”cancel culture,” exmos, progmos, anyone who questions official church history, rnm or the q15 and black lives matter. Will these common enemies continue to unite the global church? Of course not. But church leaders seem to be only interested in the views and we’ll-being of the dogmatic right. I don’t expect to see any meaningful policy changes that would reflect the needs of a diverse, global church or its disaffected members. I think they are aware of the problem, but the only plan seems to be to double down on dogma until Jesus comes back and fixes everything.
Great post, and I like most of the comments.
A few thoughts:
I think that hate is one of the most basic human emotions, It is based on fear, and as individuals and cultures, we form ever-shifting alliances, to fight against the common enemy. The fight against Nazism comes to mind ( a “good” fight), and then there are fights against perceived enemies, that turn out to have been fear-based hate (the fight against the supposedly Communist-inspired Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s, for example. DON’T read ETB’s writings on this topic; they will make you cringe.)
Just how strong the need to hate is, is shown in Turkey’s anger, more than 100 years after the fact, against President Biden having had the courage to label the mass killing of Armenians during WW One as a genocide. Hate has to justify itself, and that only feeds it further, until the love of Christ finally one day lances the boil.
Mormons were the object of hate during the 1800s, and themselves responded in kind in such atrocities as the Mountain Meadows Massacre.
I have a book on my to-read list bookshelf entitled, “Who Hates Whom.” It is about 200 pages long, and is a summary of about 100 of the most prominent ongoing ethnic and religious conflicts:
The only long-term solution to this basic human condition is a widespread acceptance of the love of Jesus Christ, and that of course does not happen until Christ comes again and imprisons the Dragon and ushers in the Millennium.
In the meantime, today’s “hatee” becomes tomorrow’s hater. (This is not to assert moral equivalency. In my opinion, God is on the side of those who commit the fewest atrocities.)
A very funny comedian named Tom Lehrer wrote a song ironically titled “National Brotherhood Week,” that had the following verse:
Oh, the Protestants hate the Catholics,
And the Catholics hate the Protestants.
The Hindus hate the Moslems,
And everybody hates the Jews!”
Here’s an old Kingston Trio song—The Merry Minuet—about everyone hating everyone else: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=L8-BI89mb9A
It’s a little dated, but not as much as you’d expect, sadly.
Here’s the actual Kingston Trio performing it, https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MCTdfo6T-u8, for the purists.
The Enemy: Stand in front of the mirror. What/who do you see? The enemy? No, it’s only me.
@Ms Louise reading your description of the prop 8 campaign (I wasn’t in CA for prop 22) made me sick to my stomach – brings back a lot of bad memories and you’ve described the pressure and tactics precisely. We may have appeared unified but ultimately that was a fracture for many.
Visited with grandson and his wife for the blessing of our fourth great grandchild, their second. During the 3 days we stayed with them the expression “ever darkening world” was used twice, including in the daughter’s blessing, so when we were together I asked what they meant by it. They seemed confused, and didn’t answer. So I pointed out that so much was better than it used to be in the world.
They seemed to think it was part of church culture, but they are quite social including non members, and there didn’t seem to be any focus or hatred, just a church expression. They are young and trusting of the church, as I was at that age, but I also didn’t have access to the internet at that age, and he is an IT professional.
So although they have taken on the expression, they don’t seem to be applying it.
Agree with the above posts about “the world”. There seems to be great focus on how evil “it” is. Not quite sure that anyone who discusses this in church ever really can pin point what the “world” is. WE are part of the world. Remember, it wasn”t “the world” that crucified and killed Jesus. It was religion. “The world” didn’t give Him much heed.
This whole discussion saddens me, because it shows how far away the church is from following Christ. He said to love your enemies, yet here we are discussing how the church uses hate to stir us up against our enemies, imagined enemies or not. Most of the “enemies” are just like a mother telling her child about the monster under the bed. It is an abusive parent who would use such tales to frighten their child into behaving. “If you get out of bed before morning, the monster might get you.” Well, it might keep the child in bed, but it sure doesn’t help them sleep. It is the same thing the church does in frightening members of “the world” or “the movie industry”. The church is saying to us that if we step one toe “out of bed” the monster will get us. Watch one R rated movie and you will be seduced into the immoral world.
Yuck. We should be teaching to be united under Christ, united in his love. The church shouldn’t be uniting us to fight “the gay agenda” or uniting us to be disgusted with porn shoulders. The church is teaching us to hate our enemies. It has Jesus Christ jack*** backwards. It should be teaching us to love the poor, to visit the sick, to feed the hungry. But it is EASIER and quicker to scare children about a monster under the bed to make them stay in bed that it is to love them and assure them they are safe.
The point should be to stay in bed, but to go to sleep. But our church wants us to stay in church and is too lazy to do it with love, so it does it with fear.
And it is even wrong for a country to use hatred of the enemy to unite a country during war. My Dad didn’t talk much about WWII, but one thing he said once was that the soldiers were shown propaganda films to make them hate the Germans. He said this was wrong , and said the government was making the same mistake in Viet Nam and then wondering why US soldiers committed war crimes, like massacring a village. He said that instead of uniting the soldiers in love of country, the government choose to unite the soldiers in hate, then couldn’t understand why the soldiers acted hatefully. My Dad stayed after WWII during the occupation and learned to love the German people. He even had a girlfriend and I was named after her. During occupation, he saw that “the enemy” were just as human as “us”.
Satan is the most reliable Common Enemy. It’s amazing how much Satan talk there is in LDS discourse. The name is thrown around so loosely and so casually, the way we talk about a neighbor or the weather. Using euphemisms like “the Adversary” or “the Evil One” doesn’t make much difference. And so much of that Satan talk is used to move responsibility for sin (individuals do this) or failed programs (leaders to this) from us to The Adversary. Few people actually come out and say “the Devil make me do it” but that’s often the gist of what they are saying. The modus operandi of leadership when faced with a failed program or initiative often boils down to, “We never admit mistakes or apologize, we just blame Satan.” Or the membership, but that’s a different story.
Other terms like “the World” or “Babylon” or “sin” are just amorphous terms alluding to evil and Satan, sort of a stand-in term for “Satan and his minions.” Then there’s the new development of righteous conservative Mormons lumping political adversaries (Democrats, reasonable Republicans) into that same big blob of evil. As Church growth continues to stagnate and leadership retreats more and more into well-funded religious fundamentalism, there will be more and more of all this. It’s just not much fun being a Mormon anymore. Imagine being on a 2-14 football team, when the only question about next year is whether the team will go 2-14 again or sink to 1-15.
“It’s just not much fun being a Mormon anymore.” @Dave B, that’s so true. For so many reasons.
Not only do we blame Satan for the bad but we also give credit to the Holy Ghost for the good. As if we are these empty vessels tossed to and fro between Satan and the Holy Ghost. And both are rooted in fear: if you don’t keep our rules you won’t have the Holy Ghost to guide you and you’ll make bad choices and you’ll be in Satan’s power. As if we are puppets.
Recognizing that both our worst and best impulses are part of us is a lot more empowering and productive.
Dave B FTW: “It’s just not much fun being a Mormon anymore.”
That could very well be the alternate title for this blog.
The other side of the “Satan/World” coin is “God will fix everything”. To some extent, they both absolve us from responsibility in our own lives and in our role in the world around us. We cast our burdens and fears upon the Lord: when they are lightened, we have been blessed. When they aren’t, we are being tried – or are unworthy.
I listened to my son’s sacrament meeting talk on Zoom church yesterday. He was followed by the stake president. One of the first things the SP said was – though very honest – sort of startling to hear from a SP. “I know that God hears our prayers. What I don’t understand is why so often it seems like He isn’t hearing us or helping us.” Now, this wasn’t a rhetorical tool to bring home a point. He was sincerely confessing to not knowing how it works and continued on in that vein. He didn’t turn it around or provide solace.
For the last four years, I have decided to cut out the middle man (the church) and claim my authority directly. Honestly – overall outcomes are no better or worse. The church can at times be a harbor in the storm and at others, shark infested waters. On balance my anxiety relative to evil and my standing with God are greatly reduced. I no longer allow the “church” to keep poking at me and stirring it up.
I wish I found the church to be a safe harbor (I really could use one) – that it were a place of peace rather than fear mongering. I think the leaders do believe what they are laying down. And, up until now at least, it has been a good model for growth and to rally the membership. I think it likely that many generations will pass before the end of the latter-days (and then we might just burn ourselves down without any fiery second coming). Will the current message be able to hold future generations the way it has?
When the Church’s LGBT website first came out it was “mormonsandgays.” After some time and perhaps a very small amount of listening, the site name was changed to “mormonandgay.” That sounds like a tiny shift, but it is a huge one because it changes thinking about “the gays” as a group of non-Mormon people in opposition to the Church and recognizing that gay people are being raised Mormon and being born to Mormon families. Unfortunately, so far, that change is just one baby step forward among many giant leaps backward (e.g. Bednar’s Iran-like announcement that there are no gay latter-day saints). There just isn’t enough understanding and empathy among our leaders yet on this topic, and not nearly enough acknowledgement that having an LGBT family member is basically all you need to say to explain why you aren’t participating or interested. The majority of Church members won’t even try to make you a project if you say that because they know there is nothing they can say or do that will address the situation satisfactorily. However, it feels wrong to use a loved one (who may not be out) as a prop (regardless what Packer’s funeral agenda was).
JCS’s point is an interesting one. I wouldn’t say Hollywood is a common enemy exactly, but they are a competitor, and as such They. Are. Killing. It. Srsly, who among us would not rather spend an afternoon watching a thought-provoking film than listening to the exact same lessons, with the prescribed answers to the obvious questions that we heard the last time we heard this material? Unlike the Church, Hollywood successfully creates, leads and exports American culture. You know they are successful anytime you travel outside the US. Nobody’s heard of the BOM, but everyone knows who the Avengers are. I guess I would say that making Hollywood an enemy (and there is plenty of progressive stuff coming out of Hollywood that will cause the Church to be left further and further behind), is a bit like owning a putt-putt golf course in Arkansas and considering Disney to be your main competitor. It’s partly adorable, partly delusional.
“ The church consistently attacks popular movies”
I remember many years ago when the movie “Jesus Christ Superstar” came out.
Local church leaders, and especially our seminary teachers strongly nagged us not to go to see that movie. It was evil, the work of Satan.
Fast forward 20 + yrs later we moved to the West Coast. One of my church friends, a convert, told me how she became converted and said that her search to find God began when she saw the movie “Jesus Christ Superstar., “ and culminated with her joining the church.
(Guess Satan’s plan backfired? )
The enemy of the Mormon Church: the truth.
At risk of being a one-note-commenter …
According to the BOM our enemy should be all things evil including materialism, hunger, poverty, wealth and health disparities, costly apparel, adorning churches more than caring for the poor, illiteracy and educational gaps, excessive wealth that impoverishes others etc.
We should be right there with Bernie and Elizabeth and the nuns on a bus fighting against the 1%, advocating for the under-dog and little guy, and pushing back against the growing storm of massive haves and have nots.
But we are rarely if ever warned about materialism (it’s hard for a $100B church with super rich corporate leaders to point that finger). Instead, we hear that money and being rich isn’t bad, as long as you pay your tithing and don’t let it use you.
We could unite in millennial zeal to eradicate hunger, poverty, nakedness, disease, etc. that would be a great unifying cause. But, sadly, humanitarian aid is relegated to our pennies and fast offerings. Furthermore, when we donate, the money is used and applied by the church corporation, we don’t have a hand in it and therefore don’t become as energized or as blessed by the result.
But, you know, whatevs. No one reads Mormon 8 and 9 anyway.
Just saying, although nearly every LDS family either has an LGBT+ family member, close neighbor or friend (making them a poor choice of enemy), I don’t know any member who has a connection with one of the 1%. Granted, there are a few big $ LDS names out in CA and UT and elsewhere, but typically, they keep to themselves and their own kind. They aren’t out there ministering to the the crazy cat lady or that young poor college family, or a ward of refugees.
One line of my family is known for being internationally famous, Scrooge McDuck-rich, and Mormon. I could drop the name, you’d recognize it and nod in agreement “ohhhh!”, but that’s not the point. Unlike Nicodemus, the rich man who asked the Savior how to inherit the kingdom of God and was told to forsake his money but walked away instead, our pioneer family gave up all their goods and wealth not just once, but multiple times for the church. Today, most of the inter-generational wealth has been invested in philanthropic causes. What good is a swimming pool of gold coins worth anyway? There are a few such altruistic wealthy families in Mormondom – ours isn’t unique. My point is, I don’t think we would cannibalize our own in targeting wealth disparities and the mega rich. I think that if called on to join in a push for human dignity and millennial preparation, the few LDS 1%-ers would get on board. Maybe they could use their money to leverage something miraculous. Who knows. Either way, we’d be aligning with Jesus’ message, and that wouldn’t be a bad thing.
If it had occurred under a great leader, COVID-19 could have served as an effective cause to unite behind.
*even just a good leader…
Nicodemus is not the rich young man who walked away.
@Mortimer I’ve never worried about your being a one-note commenter. You’ve always made thought-provoking comments on relevant issues and I hope you’ll keep them coming.
Varja2,
I totally stand corrected. This is a video of you catching me misquoting scriptures.
(From the movie ‘Love and Friendship’ based on the Jan Austin novel.)
MW, thank you! I’m touched.
LOL, Mortimer.Love that clip.
Tad Callister just gave us a nice list of enemies, including “zero population” advocates.
In all my life I have never heard anyone make a case for zero-population. I think he’s on a time warp. And honestly seems eager to find enemies to unite the Church against.
I love the analogies of “the boogeyman”. It seems to me that the “monster in the closet” or the “beast under the bed” which REALLY strikes fear into the hearts of the most ardent TBM(s) is the discovery and declaration of APOSTASY!!!
Elisa: LOL, yes! The only time I’ve ever heard anyone even say the words “Zero Population” was in the lyrics to the song in Saturday’s Warrior!
Zero Population Growth was a real thing in the 70s. They’re still around, but they’ve changed their name, which probably explains why you haven’t heard the term outside of a 70’s musical.