Green Oasis

I pledge allegiance to the ideals of the United States of America,
And to the republic by which they are upheld,
One nation, indivisible, with liberty, opportunity, and justice for all.

It strikes me as backward that the citizens of my home country pledge allegiance first to a piece of cloth symbolizing the United States, second to the republic which is assumed to have liberty and justice for all. This promotes a kind of shallow patriotism for symbols and institutions which can easily be corrupted to become nationalism.

Our allegiance would be better placed with the ideals of liberty and justice and only secondarily to the republic of the United States. We have seen recently how the republic has been perverted. The executive branch uses the authoritarian tactics of ubiquitous surveillance, torture, restriction of liberty, and so forth in the name of public security. The republic itself is only a tool to promote liberty and justice. When that tool fails to fulfill its purpose, we are duty-bound to either reform the tool or, if that proves impossible, to discard it in favor another tool which will serve our purposes. I hope that the adapted pledge above embodies well placed allegiance.

I am sure many religious readers will be upset by the omission of the words “under God”. They may perceive this as an attack on the religious values of the people of the United States. The reality is that this is the opposite of the truth. Our great nation was founded by men who were wise enough to create a separation between the religious and political powers. This protects the church from the tyranny and corruption of the state, and the state from undue influence by the church. Our Founding Fathers created a secular state (i.e. a state with no power to discourage or promote religion) in order to protect the free exercise of its citizens’ consciences. Removing the words “under God” is an acknowledgment of the wisdom of the Founding Fathers in creating a secular state where the people are free to be Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, to have no religion at all, or whatever else their consciences may dictate without the threat of state oppression.

Additionally, the words “under God” were only added in the middle of the 20^th century. The pledge of allegiance hasn’t contained that language for over half of its history. Removing the religious language in the current pledge is a correction, reverting it to its original, secular state.

The adaptation quoted at the beginning of this post was intended to preserve the familiar cadence of the current pledge. It should be easy to recite this adaptation in place of the current pledge. The following adaptation however is more in line with what I see as the ideal pledge, but it doesn’t have the same singsong rhythm we learned as schoolchildren. I prefer it anyway because it embodies more closely what I think is great about the United States of America.

I pledge allegiance to the ideals of liberty, opportunity, and justice for all;
And to the republic by which they are upheld,
One nation, indivisible, a home for the noble free.

I remember pitying him. His wife seemed embarrassed by him, just like the wife of the man who dressed in women’s underwear. He avoided looking directly in our eyes, and she didn’t hurry to introduce him to us. He had left the LDS church and was wandering in strange paths. The other missionaries informed me before we visited their home about his dabbling in Buddhism. I shook my head in disbelief that he could have left the truth, and for something as silly as Buddhism.

We sat down and ate dinner together, but I had no respect for my host. He was a fool and a traitor. I remember the pain-stricken look on his wife’s face as we discussed her husband when he wasn’t in the room. How could he do this to his wife and children?

I met a former leader in the Mormon church later in my missionary service. He had been an Elders Quorum President, but he and his wife had left the church. He seemed confident and unashamed. How could he doubt the truth? What could lead someone so strong to be so weak? He didn’t even have the good sense to be ashamed of his faithlessness. The missionaries discussed how we could bring him back into the fold as we left his home.

Now that I am an atheist who enjoys Buddhism, now that I have left behind leadership positions in the church, will others see me and judge me the same way that I judged these men? Will an awkward wall separate us when we don’t know what to say to each other? Will they see the strength of my convictions as a weakness and a delusion? Will they shake their head in disbelief that I could leave the truth? Will they paternally plot to save my soul? Will they try to make my wife and children ashamed of me? Do they pity me?

Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. (Matthew 7:1–2)

Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body. And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; For this is my blood…
Matthew 26:26–28

Did Jesus not command us to kill him? To break his body and drink his blood? He commanded us to take and bind him, scourge him, and ultimately crucify him. He went to the cross willingly so that we could find nourishment in pieces of his rent flesh and spilt blood. His corpse was the bread of life and the fountain of living waters. We locked his body in the tomb of our churches, thinking to reverence it. His truth defied the sepulcher of our reverence. He rose on the third day, free from the prison of our pallid devotion. If we look for Jesus in the tomb of our faith, we should expect to hear the answer which mocks our pride “He is not here, for he is risen.”

It is only in his death that we find salvation from error and deceit. The truth is not in our books, doctrines, myths, sacraments, beliefs, ordinances, rites, dogmas, idols, commandments, or beliefs. The truth is too large for them to contain it. It is the sweet aroma which escapes from their dead bodies. Our Jesus-shaped idols will not answer our prayers. Jesus demands that we kill him that we may gain life. He that loves Jesus’ life shall lose it. He that hates Jesus’ life shall gain eternal life.

Only one Apostle had ears to hear His words. Only one Apostle had the courage to follow the commandments of his Lord. Only his most beloved Apostle loved Jesus enough to set him free.

Kill God. Lay him on the altar. Stay not the blade that ends the innocent life. Let the burnt offering send a sweet savor up to the empty heavens. Consume the offering of Jonah’s flesh and blood. Digest him in the depths of your belly bringing health to your navel and marrow to your bones. Make his carcass live again in the temple of your own body and blood. Bid all saints to come forth from the grave and walk among the living, rejoicing in the deliverance of the tyrant Jesus crucified. Proclaim to the world “God is dead! I am become God!”

I didn’t really want to be there. The Mormon missionaries had called me and asked if I could visit a young woman with them. I felt obligated to help despite being on the verge of leaving the Mormon church. I hadn’t come out of the closet to anyone except my wife, so I had no good reason to refuse which wouldn’t out me. Besides, I was trying to be as faithful as possible to try one last time to receive a witness of God’s existence.

The urge to leave only got stronger as I sat listening to these two young men pressure and manipulate the young woman. She was obviously reluctant to commit to a religion that was so new to her. Her reluctance to disappoint the three men sitting at her kitchen table won out in the end. She agreed to work toward baptism into the Mormon church within a few weeks.

As we left, I’m sure the missionaries were expecting me to be excited to have participated in introducing someone into God’s church. I was instead feeling the pangs of a conscience struggling to be heard.

It wasn’t long before I had sent in my letter to resign my callings and ending my active participation in the church.

Chris Hedges over at TruthDig attended a seminar where he was taught how to convert people to Christianity. He then wrote an insightful article about the manipulative methods which in many ways resemble Mormon missionary tactics. I kept thinking to myself while reading the article, “So they’re finally taking a page from the Mormon missionary play book.” I think most former Mormon missionaries will recognize the tactics known in my time as the Commitment Pattern: prepare, invite, follow up, resolve concerns, build relationships of trust, etc. Just change some of the argot in the article and it becomes a story about Mormon missionary efforts.

I highly recommend reading the article which lays out how religious converts are often made: identifying the susceptible, building false friendships, promising to cure (sometimes nonexistent) fears and shames, smothering the prospective convert with attention, weakening or cutting ties with old friends and family who don’t belong to the group, introducing new rules which function as tokens of membership, imbuing a sense of group superiority, emphasis on an emotional experience rather than thought or reason, peer pressure, and deconstruction of individual identity in favor of a new group identity. I’ve never seen a more concise summation of exactly how missionary efforts are carried out.

There is violence inherent in rituals which separate “us” from “them”. Mormonism is full of those rituals. They create artificial connections and distinctions. Baptism separates members from non-members. Priesthood ordination separates active male members from women and unqualified men. The Washings and Anointings and the Endowment separate the Lord’s Anointed from the the unwashed masses. Sealing sets a distinction between those who have fulfilled all ritual requirements to be exalted in the Celestial Kingdom from those who have not because they are unmarried or married outside of the ritual. Each step along the way confers to the individual an arbitrary reason to feel special and distinct and to feel superior to those who have not taken that step.

In Margaret Toscano’s interview for The Mormons, she tells the story of her excommunication. When asked if her excommunication had affected her relationship to her family, she said:

That’s probably the most painful part about the excommunication is the way in which, if you’re a part of a large Mormon family, it really does hurt your relationship with your family.… One of them, my sister Janice Allred, was also excommunicated. But the way that my family has dealt with this is by silence. We don’t talk about it. It’s this thing in the corner that you never talk about. That makes it really bad.

… This kind of situation for a Mormon family is very difficult, because it creates a contradiction that the family doesn’t want to admit is even there. The contradiction is that if you’re an active, believing Mormon family, you can’t say the church did something wrong. So on one level they’ve got to say the excommunication was right. On the other hand, there’s a part of them—they know me; they know my other sister, and they know Paul. They can’t say—at least most of them won’t say—that we’re bad people. So how do you deal with this contradiction? You know, did we deserve the excommunication? Didn’t we? They don’t even want to think about it.

… For me the really painful thing is that there’s this distance, where you’re no longer part of this assumed believing connection; that it creates a barrier. To me that’s the worst part of it. The other parts that are painful, of course, is that as with most religious communities, basic family rituals are centered around the church, so when you’re excommunicated, you no longer can participate in those family rituals, and that is very painful. Blessings of children, births, marriages, deaths—these vital things that bring us together as families and where even if you haven’t seen a family member for a long time, you connect again at these moments—you’re excluded. I have times now where my family members don’t even tell me about things that are happening, because I can’t participate. So you become an outcast in some ways that is really painful.

Probably the most painful is in death, I think.… My younger sister passed away a little over a year ago. She died of cancer. One Mormon ritual is that when a person dies, you dress them in their temple clothing before you bury them. My brother-in-law, who’s a very active Mormon, very patriarchal, if I can say that, he did not want my sister and myself to be part of that. He didn’t want us to help dress her body, and that—I mean, that cut me so deep, I haven’t gotten over it. I don’t know if I ever will, because this way of saying goodbye to somebody you love, and the idea that somehow I’m unclean, I’m somehow polluted—and he just wanted me to accept this. That was very painful. It’s very, very painful. That’s probably the worst part of being excommunicated.

Judging only from what was said by Margaret Toscano, the rituals of the church separated her from participating in communal grieving. I don’t blame her brother-in-law because he was only following the ritual ban on the participation of the uninitiated or excommunicated.

Mormon ritual got in the way of human compassion and the process of grief. It severed the family in one of its most vulnerable moments. Of course Margaret Toscano was given a path back to full fellowship with the Church and she chose on her own not to take it, but why should that have anything to do with her relationship to her family?

Other examples abound. Mormons probably all know someone who wasn’t able to attend a marriage ceremony because they hadn’t met ritual requirements. Many of my own family and friends couldn’t attend my wedding for that exact reason. Now that I no longer number myself among the faithful, I will not be ritually qualified to fully participate in the celebration of any new child born into my family by standing with the men in my family and blessing the newborn. The women in my family never were able to do so. The ritual has no meaning to me theologically, but it is meaningful in that it is a part of my family’s life. I am now excluded—certainly by my own choice, but also by others who choose to give Mormon ritual rules priority over family relationships—from being a full participant in the life of the family. The church is interjecting itself into the life of the family. What should be family moments have become church rituals. Full family membership has become contingent on church fellowship.

Mormon ritual creates artificial distinctions within the family and is therefore a kind of violence against it.