Mormons in America

I caught the tail end (last hour) of the 2 night PBS special on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The section I saw was well done and fair and quite informative about a faith that is growing fast around the world. It is conservative and yet able to adapt. It is admired and misunderstood. Anyone who has had Mormon friends and I had several during my school days will tell you they are gracious and loyal friends.

Being that I'm not a Republican I won't be voting for Mitt Romney, but it's not because he's a Mormon. There are other issues that stand in the way, but what of Mormonism?

That is the question being raised this week at the Newsweek/Washington Post "On Faith" blog. I point to Martin Marty's contribution, but you can find posts from LDS officials, good old Cal Thomas and Chuck Colson, and others. But here is a portion of what Marty says:

For the most part, they seem to be admired enough not to fall victim of the NIMBY phenomenon: "Not in my back yard," though they are often resented for aggressive efforts to proselytize: "Not at my front door." Minorities who live under strong Mormon cultural influences and in their spheres are often bitter, but their bitterness has not spread to a stage that Latter-day Saints get persecuted.

Today, with the growth of American pluralism, when everyone from New Agers to Hmong to Astrologers to Muslims to Pentecostals to Buddhists live "down the block," Mormons benefit from the protective coloration which such wild diversity promotes.

Those who most resist their status in the mainstream are conservative evangelicals, who admire much in their culture but fear that there will be confusion and destructive results because they are close enough to standard-brand Christianities to be acceptable and far enough from doctrinally more precise Christian traditions to keep them as objects of suspicion.

I think that catches the gist of what's happening! And again, we come back to the issue of religioius literacy. Suspicion is often rooted in lack of knowledge/understanding!