Mormonism's Cultural Defecit

[_KimberlyAnn]

This is a little essay I wrote after a trip to Santa Fe. It was posted on RfM some months ago, so if you read it there, please pardon the repeat.


There's a disconcerting sterility to Mormonism that I didn't notice when I was a member, but which is striking to me now, and the worst part of it is the sameness of everything. Members seem a little like clones, there's very little physical difference in most of the buildings and their interiors are bland and lifeless. The LDS seem make no attempt to adapt to the cultures of their members or conform their buildings at all to their surroundings.

On my recent trip to Santa Fe, New Mexico, literally translated as "Holy Faith", I saw dozens of beautiful churches, both Catholic and Protestant. They were all different, yet reflected the culture and landscape of Santa Fe. Built in a beautifully simple Pueblo style, they seemed vibrant and full of life just like the mostly ethnic congregations they housed. On Sunday morning, as we strolled along the painted sidewalks of that artsy city, we saw inside some of the old churches. The parishioners wore the brightly woven ponchos, large silver and turquoise jewelry and fringed jackets that anyone would expect to see in the Southwest. The congregation was a lively mix of people.

Saturday night, my husband and I saw large groups of Santa Fe youth bedecked in traditional Native American and Spanish dress walking to a local Catholic church for a dance. They looked so lively and fun we wished we could join them!

In contrast, while driving though one of the nicer suburban neighborhoods, we spied a large, bland, box-like building which I immediately recognized as the local LDS church. The brethren had obviously made only minimal attempts to match the surrounding architecture or terrain. A lifeless, soulless building plopped sloppily amid the more expensive homes of the upper middle class, the Mormon church's preferred congregants. The parking lot was gated and locked, and in my mind I could envision the white shirted, white bread Priesthood holders leading their homogeneous families dutifully through the industrial looking doors on Sunday morning.

It's not just the case in Santa Fe, New Mexico - it's just the way things are all over the world. Mormonism is about sameness. There's little tolerance for diversity or cultural expression. Conformity is the mark of a faithful Latter-Day Saint; abandoning any ethnic or cultural dress, attitudes or activities that aren't traditionally Mormon or white and delightsome is an expected part of belonging to God's One True Church.

There is a cultural vacuum in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a hospital-like sterility that makes me more and more grateful every day that I no longer have to live in that environment and conform my self to the blandness of Mormonism.

KA

[_Blixa]

Well you know how I feel about it. Had I believed in God I might have gone Catholic for the architecture alone.

[_Yoda]

Well you know how I feel about it. Had I believed in God I might have gone Catholic for the architecture alone.

I would have gone Catholic for the music.

;)

[_Mercury]

It should be rebranded McMormonism

[_harmony]

There is a cultural vacuum in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a hospital-like sterility that makes me more and more grateful every day that I no longer have to live in that environment and conform my self to the blandness of Mormonism.

KA

I visited Tucson last winter. We spent a week there, in a very different community, climate, and environment than we were accustomed to. One thing that struck me quite forcibly was the sameness of the new neighborhoods. All the homes looked like they were built by the same builder, with colors from a limited palette, and everything..everything!... was covered in stucco, as if there was no other building material. Should I judge the Tucson culture as you've judged the Mormons? That they shun diversity, or that they marginalize other cultures? No. But their new neighborhoods all looked the same (the old ones at least had some character).

Just because the church buildings are cut from the same pattern (supposedly to save money... open the books so we can see how much we've saved!) doesn't mean the people themselves are bland stereotypical robots.

And you should have gone to the dance, instead of just wishing you could.

[_Daniel Peterson]

I would have gone Catholic for the music.

Have you ever heard the hymns at mass?

Give me Isaac Watts and the Wesleyan hymn tradition any day.

Of course, Schubert's Mass in G and Mozart's Requiem and such things are wonderful, but you won't hear them on a typical Sunday at the local parish church -- which, incidentally, should not be unrealistically idealized: There's some marvelous Catholic architecture, but most parish churches are at best mediocre and some are positively awash in interior kitsch.

I'm by no means an anti-Catholic. Far -- very far -- from it. But let's not indulge in fantasy here. And more than a few Catholics feel somewhat the same way. See, for example, Thomas Day's Why Catholics Can't Sing: The Culture of Catholicism and the Triumph of Bad Taste.

Astonishingly, I find myself agreeing with harmony for once: I'm not convinced that Mormons are exceptionally bland. They share, for better or worse, in the culture around them. Unfortunately, I don't think anybody's likely to confuse contemporary American culture with Renaissance Florence or classical Athens. But I know plenty of Latter-day Saints with good taste in literature, music, and art, who think deeply and well.

[_harmony]

Astonishingly, I find myself agreeing with harmony for once:

Batten down the hatches. Open up your two year's supply. Check your hole card. The Second Coming is imminent.

[_KimberlyAnn]

Harmony, I agree that there are plenty of Mormons with excellent taste in music and literature. Heck, I might even say that I was one of them! But, in my experience, there is a blandness to Mormon culture, regardless of the creativity of individuals. I think Mormonism encourages blandness - sameness. People are expected to conform to the Mormon mold, in the way they talk, pray, dress, and believe. I saw it in every ward I attended.

There were several converts who joined my ward in Oklahoma who dressed differently than everyone else. The first thing the Relief Society president discussed in our Presidency meeting was the need to get two women who joined appropriate clothing to wear to church. By appropriate, she meant dresses. Those women wore...get ready...slacks to church! They also didn't pray using arcane phraseology like the rest of us, so a lesson was planned specifically to teach those poor misguided women, who referred to God as "You", how to appropriately commune with God.

Men and women were expected to conform in dress and thought. Mormons are to follow their Prophet and not speak ill of their leaders, no matter how idiotic those leaders may be. In my experience, anyone not toeing the line was regarded as less righteous, rebellious or even weird. Good grief, Mormon God requires men to wear white shirts and be clean shaven to pass sacrament! Colored shirts and facial hair displease Mormon God - better conform or be whispered about in correlation meeting!

Everyone dressed and looked nearly the same in all the wards I ever attended. Converts learned to fit into the white bread Mormon culture quickly or they went inactive. That was my experience across the board. The central control of the Mormon church from Salt Lake City by a bunch of stodgy old white men insures conformity. That's what they want. Too much local control is dangerous, you know. That might lead to variety, for heaven's sake. Or even women wearing slacks to church or guitars in sacrament meeting! Mormon God doesn't like guitars in church or brass instruments, either. Drums are of the devil. ;)

I stand by my conclusion that Mormonism is culturally bland. The buildings are bland, too. Not all Mormons are bland, but when they attend church, they sure as heck appear to be that way. They've got to conform. Anything other than conformity is considered rebellion.

KA

PS - (for Liz) I grew up in Oklahoma with a Baptist daddy who sang Southern Gospel every weekend with his uncles. They'd play in our living room and my sisters and I would dance and clap along until we were old enough to join in on an instrument. My dad could play any instrument he picked up and this is what our home sounded like almost every Saturday. It's still some of my favorite religious music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfa4YwZ3H4Q

By the way, I don't know any of the people in that video. I chose it because they sound just like my family did when they sang.

[_Daniel Peterson]

The central control of the Mormon church from Salt Lake City by a bunch of stodgy old white men insures conformity.

On Wednesday and Thursday, incidentally, my wife and I sat behind one of them up in Logan, through performances of Giuseppi Verdi's Il Trovatore, Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein's Show Boat, Frank Loesser's The Most Happy Fella, and George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess.

[_harmony]

I think you exaggerate, but no doubt your experience is different from mine.

We have a woman in my ward who wears muu-muus to church. Long flowing muu-muus. Not exactly mainstream, ya know?
We've had women who come in slacks, and men who come in jeans. And in one ward I've been in, the only guy who was clean-shaven was the bishop and the ones who were too young to grow a beard. The bishop was also the only guy who wore a white shirt and tie. All the other men wore plaid shirts and some of them wore overalls. (It was a ward 'way back in the hills near the Canadian border. Most of the cars were pickups, and all of them had a rifle in the window gun rack).

The organist in my ward attended the Julliard school of music. When she puts on a concert, the whole neighborhood comes out. I took my (non-member) mom and a couple of her friends to a concert sponsored by a neighboring stake last winter, of the Young Ambassadors from BYU. It was pretty amazing, as far as entertainment goes. I'm sure she didn't think it was representative of the blandness you're positing is rampant in Mormondom. When the Choir put on a concert in the stake a few years ago, they attended our ward. OMG. I've never heard anything like it, before or since, and I attend a lot of musical events (musically, they were much better than the Kenny Chesney concert I attended a few weeks ago, but I'm still holding to the idea that the Brooks and Dunn concert was the overall best I've ever seen).

I don't mind stereotyping, but at least see it for what it is. You're painting with a pretty broad brush. Not everyone sees Mormon culture with quite the jaundiced eye you do. I don't know of another culture where my kids could have had some of the experiences they did: road shows, dance festivals, talent shows, even the funny lip-sync contests were parts of their adolescence that most kids simply don't get to experience, let alone participate in them all.