What Makes Mormons Weird?
Not many things about me are weird. (Really!) I fit pretty neatly into a lot of the computer nerd stereotypes. The deviations aren’t weird, exactly — I have better hygiene and I spend less on tech toys that I’ll never use. Nobody would say that’s weird about me. But I’m *Mormon*, and that’s weird sometimes.
What’s weird about it? From the perspective of an honest-to-goodness Mormon (a believing, obeying Mormon):
1. Baptism. We believe you have to be baptized in a physical tank of water (stream, lake, etc.) to attain the highest level of exaltation.
2. Heaven. Woah! What’s that? “Highest level of exaltation?” Yeah, that would be number two. We believe in multiple levels of existence after judgement — not the simple dichotomy of heaven and hell, but an infinite gradation of levels based on our degree of conformity to the principles taught by Jesus Christ.
3. Baptism for Everyone. We believe that people who aren’t baptized (who live and die in countries where the church does not operate, for instance) still need to be baptized. Pretty uncompromizing on that point. We do proxy baptisms for those people, which ordinances they can accept or not in the next phase of life. (The “afterlife,” or whatever you want to call it.)
4. God. We believe that God went through an experience just like what we’re doing now. It’s an outgrowth of our belief that we are children of a physical, living God. The really weird implication of this is that we believe we can eventually become gods ourselves — creating our own worlds and continuing the great work. Egotistical? Hopeful? I find it feels very ‘right.’ What else would the goal of this life be? I don’t really want to float around on clouds for eternity.
5. Polygamy. We don’t practice it anymore, and we really do excommunicate people who do. But we used to, and that makes us weird. I know.
6. Garments. ‘Mormon underwear.’ This is weird, too. Any faithful Mormon who’s been to the temple will be wearing special under-garments. How weird is that? Well, not so weird when you think about it. Because every Mormon male who’s been to the temple holds the priesthood, which we believe is the authority to act in the name of God. Women are partners in that priesthood. Every church that claims to have that kind of authority uses special clothing to mark those who hold such authority. Catholic priests wear very distinctive robes. Ancient Israel had elaborate clothing for their temple ordinances and those authorized to administer them. Our garments are very similar. An inward, instead of outward, expression of the covenants we make in the temple. Because, frankly, if every Mormon wore robes on the outside, that would be a whole lot weirder.
7. Exclusivity. We believe we are the only church on the face of the Earth truly authorized to act in the name of God. We believe our ordinances, like our baptism, are the only ‘right’ ones. So if you’re Catholic and you want to become a Mormon, you’ll have to be baptized again. Why? I’ll tell you what. From my perspective, it’s truly weird to think that other churches claim to be true and accept ordinances performed by other churches. Can there truly be many different, true churches? The Lord made repeated references to “one” church in the Bible. Whether the LDS church is that one church is a valid question, but separate from the issue that there’s only one true church.
Does that mean you’ll go straight to Hell when you die, if you’re Baptist or Lutheran? No. Remember point number three? We’ll perform a proxy baptism for you, so you can accept it later on if you need to. What a deal, huh?
8. No Coffee, Tea, or Alcohol. It’s called the “Word of Wisdom,” which name comes from modern scripture. (Which I just realized is going to be point number 9.) Mormonism is an eminently practical religion. We encourage people to be healthy. Only a subset of the full principle of healthy living is codified into the ‘word of wisdom,’ but that part is very important. As is often the case in life, the no’s end up being most frequently emphasized. To go to the temple, we have to tell our bishop (local church leader, a volunteer position in which people serve for 5-year shifts, typically) that we are following the word of wisdom.
9. Modern scripture. “But the Bible concludes with a warning against adding to this book!” Yes, I’ve read that, too. The standard answer is that it applies to the Book of Revelation, and it applies to men. We are not to tamper with the Word of God. I agree with both of these. We don’t believe any man — Joseph Smith or anyone else — has the authority to change doctrine, edit scripture, or write new scripture. But we do believe that God may do any of those things. And we believe that God works through men. So when Joseph Smith revised the Bible, he wasn’t just sitting down and writing changes as he thought them up. God inspired him to make specific changes to correct changes others had introduced accidentally or deliberately over the thousands of years.
10. We live in Utah. I mean, we don’t all. In fact, the majority don’t. But we settled here, long ago. And that’s just weird. But then, that’s why we did it. People didn’t really like Mormons at the time, so we needed a place that nobody else wanted. The long-term implications have resulted in us living in a desert now. Bummer, but we’re dealing with it.
I dunno. Anything else? Occasional bouts of hypocrisy, double standards, “members” who flagrantly violate principles and rules — these are common to any large organization. People, Mormon or not, are still people.