You Speak-a My Language: Why It's Important to Join in Our Crusad

Pretension...the good word (known in some LDS circles as "Webster's Dictionary") describes it as (clearing throat): "the putting forth of a claim." We have felt it wise that we should live up to the legend of the goodly Noah and abound in pretension, soak it up, and let its juices trickle down our lips. Briefly put, we actually believe things and believe in things.

Herein lies the Mormonism, and therefore, its philosophical underpinnings as they best fit for the 21st century. As Richard Bushman has argued, Joseph Smith stood on "the contested ground where the Enlightenment and Christianity confronted one another." All too often, missionaries and members, I fear, have fallen for the red herring that evangelical Protestantism and orthodox Catholicism pose the greatest threats to our faith. Yet fighting such battles is not just fighting old battles, but they're fighting a battle that has long since withered and died. For all the hoopla of society's "culture wars," the religious landscape is in flux right now...it is highly trite to speak in grave tones of how "people are searching"--but indeed, for what they're worth, the numbers show it. Fluidity is the order of the day: 4 in 10 adults say that they have changed churches during their lifetime. In sum, the historical boundaries of the religious order are disintegrating...leaving what in its place? Spiritualism of an unoffensive, heart-felt, and ultimately innocuous kinds. Never mind that the surveys that show American belief in evolution to be tepid at best also never address how important this view is to them personally. Sure, God created us...why not?

In other words, read: Barack Obama sans Jeremiah Wright. Barack Obama, the man who claims to transcend boundaries, indeed epitomizes the Zeitgeist in a slightly disquieting way. Perhaps I exaggerate Obama's significance, but hey, good speeches do not exist in a vacuum...they resonate and resonate for a reason. His rhetoric resonates because it not only transcends; it also dissipates--untraceable, intangible, and utterly exhilarating to the senses. To the Obama generation, race indeed might not exist, but then ask, does anything exist to them? "Yes, we can" do what? Whatever else he means...one thing is certain: we can feel good listening to his speeches. It is politico-spiritualist hedonism at its height.

Yet we Latter Day Saints tend to take great pride in crossing sabers with their Christian friends, but throw us a secularist or two...suddenly, we freeze in our tracks with snides remarks about "the learned who think they are wise." We're better at handling hedonism, as we often sympathize with those who indulge as not having learned better or "making some mistakes." Yet we fail to see the two activities as actually falling under the same ideological umbrella. Both camps see gospel principles as, at best, loose social pleasantries that can/should give way at the first nudge from the exception. It is not surprising that my professor proudly pointed out (in reference to professors' tendencies to drink) that academics "like to have a good time." The secularist does with the mind does what the hedonist does with the body. Separating these two camps can only be done at our (and more importantly, their) peril. They function under the same assumptions and are largely willing to legitimize the same behavior. Hedonism and secularism are not siblings, but Siamese twins.

What does this mean for the spread of Mormonism? How do we address the fluidity on its own terms while holding to the Church's well-noted moral values? After all, good ole' Chet once remarked: "Morality, like, means that you draw a line somewhere" Yet meanwhile, district meetings, sacrament meetings, and Sunday School lessons seem dominated with two major themes: 1)Why "they" (meaning those of other Christian faiths) are wrong because of the apostasy, Constantine, whatever or 2) how the world is, well...gosh darn it...so worldly.

We must develop an Ammon strategy to engage the secular skeptics (which, believe it or not, includes the party girl and the police officer alongside the professor and the accountant). Their language is different, their expressions wildly variant--but their assumptions are the same I, for one, am not as proficient as I might be...but we can learn...and in so doing, save a few souls who were waiting for someone to just start speaking their language.