Dear Spice: on a Mormon Foreign Policy
Dear Spice,
Thank you for your kind notes.
We do not agree (always!) politically, but your work to free slaves globally is a model of Christian service.
You ask a reasonable question . . .
One thing I’ve had a lot of trouble with about Romney as a Mormon candidate is the implications of Mormon theology of America as the new Zion in foreign policy. I’m curious about your thoughts on that, if you have time.
First, I know you well enough to know that charges of bigotry are unfounded. You agree with me that religion is important in assessing a candidate, but that Mormonism (by itself) should not disqualify a person.
Second, asking a question is a good thing. Many partisans just develop an idea about Mormons, evangelicals, liberal Protestants and go a’ranting.
Mormons do have a elevated view of American’s role in sacred history compared to other faith traditions. Both of us know enough crazy religious and secular people to know any idea can be perverted by the fringe. My belief that God has a continuing work for the Jewish people now and in the future can be twisted into unthinking support for the modern, secular state of Israel. Secularists disdain for religious thinking has a few to “go soft” on tyrants, think Chinese communists, who support their secular worldview.
It probably would not be hard to Google us up some fringe-Mormons.
However, I think there is an easy misunderstanding of what the role of America might mean to a sophisticated Mormon.
The place for America in Mormon thought seems geographical to me and not so much political. On my (outsider) reading of the Book of Mormon, there is no implication for this political order, just a (reasonable) view that God cares about North and South America. In fact, some people in our communities often treat the new world as an after thought in Sacred History. Mormons are not likely to make this mistake!
Just as thoughtful dispensationalists need not confuse modern Israel with the “final” Israel of history, so (I don’t think) Mormon scholars need to attach any significance to any particular American moment.
In fact, we have one-hundred and fifty years of Mormon comment on world affairs. The norm has been to argue for the USA as an exceptional place, but years of persecution by the Federal government did not leave them naive about the state either. After all Joseph, the Mormon prophet, was murdered by an American mob! In short, Mit Romney’s foreign policy pronouncement seem well in the mainstream of American politics: Reagan-like.
Harry Reid does not agree with Mr. Romney and this suggests that while Mr. Romney’s foreign policy is (in his mind) consistent with his Mormonism, it is not demanded by his religious beliefs.
Finally, let me suggest a good reason to think Mr. Romney will be more sophisticated in his view of the world than most Americans, in part because of his Mormon heritage. Mormonism is booming globally. Mr. Romney spent years in France and is fairly fluent in that language. Mormons are more likely to be international in experience than many Americans.
I do not think, therefore, there is any good reason to fear a Romney foreign policy. I disagree with aspects of his plans, such as his defense of torture (as has President Obama effectively), but it is not threatening or abnormal.
Your chum under the Mercy,
John Mark
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coltakashi on 22 Oct 2012 at 12:43 pm #
Mark, thank you for your wise observations.
As a retired Air Force officer and a lifelong Mormon who served my mission in Japan, let me offer my perspective.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints does not confuse Zion with the United States government. To the contrary, the government has at times been actively hostile to the LDS Church. And any notion someone might have that the government would be in any way subordinate to the LDS Church, prior to the Second Coming of Christ when he comes to rule the earth as its Creator and sovereign, has no basis in LDS history or teaching. The LDS Church is aggressively neutral in politics. There is no “Mormon foreign policy” expressed in any of the formal curricula taught to church members, which anyone can read at http://www.LDS.org. The primary international concern the LDS Church has is the ability to operate legally in every nation where there are members of the Church, including the ability to have its members and missionaries freely move across international borders. That freedom includes the ability to send aid to areas affected by disasters, such as Haiti.
Religioys freedom is also the focus of Mormon beliefs that God “raised up” the Founding Fathers to create an environment in which free exercise of religion is protected through the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the terms of the Constitution. To the extent that the USA has acted to estalish freedom in more countries around the world, Mormons believe it has been doing God’s work, but this has been withput any need to have Mormons running the process. Mormons reject the notion that God cannot bring about geopolitical changes in human societies without purposeful human intervention. They are content to let God steer the course of history in that larger sense.
Furthermore, one of the fundamental beliefs of Mormon teaching is freedom of conscience for all men and women. Mormons actively participate in democratic processes with their neighbors who are not Mormons. The notion of Mormons coercing the rest of America to go along with a particular foreign policy would be anathema to the Latter-day Saints.
The Zion that Mormons seek to establish is a gathering into the LDS Church in congregations in 150 nations, to form a voluntary society of people who love God and love their neighbors as themselves. Its goals are achieved by forming a righteous community, not through political power over people who are not volunteers.
Rockgod28 on 22 Oct 2012 at 2:03 pm #
Articles of Faith of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints:
10 We believe in the literal gathering of Israel and in the restoration of the Ten Tribes; that Zion (the New Jerusalem) will be built upon the American continent; that Christ will reign personally upon the earth; and, that the earth will be renewed and receive its paradisiacal glory.
Here it is, the direct reference. So what does this mean for foreign policy of a Mormon President?
Let us break it down.
-Literal gathering of Israel.
-Restoration of the Ten Tribes
-Zion (New Jerusalem) will be built on the American continent
-Christ will reign personally upon the earth
-the earth will be renewed and receive its paradisiacal glory
Literal gathering of Israel:
Already happened. On October 24th, 1841 Orson Hyde dedicated the land for the gathering of the scattered tribe of Judah. Over one hundred years later May 15th, 1948 Israel was an independent state. There is also a spiritual aspect called the House of Israel which is the Church which is gathering Israel too.
Restoration of the Ten Tribes:
In 722 BCE the Assyrian Empire conquered the Kingdom of Israel or Northern Kingdom carrying off a significant portion of the population and assimilating others. How would you identify a person being part of one of the Tribes of Israel literally? In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints does extensive and detailed genealogy that might make it possible in the future to verify the Ten Tribes. Right now there is no designation or indicator of the Tribe a person belongs to in the genealogical records or Indexing of the Church. The spiritual aspect is the same as the literal gathering of Israel and restoration of the Ten Tribes is to preach the gospel to the world.
Zion (the New Jerusalem):
First what is Zion to an LDS member? Moses 7:18 – And the Lord called his people Zion, because they were of one heart and one mind, and dwelt in righteousness; and there was no poor among them.
Imagine everyone in a whole nation following this rule: Love thy neighbor as thyself. Or serving the least of our brethern to clothe the naked, feed the hungry, give drink to those in thirst, take care of the widowed and fatherless, and not neglecting those in prison. That is Zion, the New Jerusalem, a nation actually literally following the gospel of Jesus Christ in their daily lives not by compulsion or government laws, but because they want to by their own choice.
Christ will reign personally upon the earth:
The Second Coming of Jesus Christ. He will reign for 1000 years personally upon the earth. Very literal both politically and spiritually.
The earth will be renewed and receive its paradisiacal glory:
With Jesus Christ personally reigning upon the earth, how can it not be renewed and receive glory with the presence of the Son of God. It will.
So how can this relate to a Mormon President’s foreign policy?
It is all in Doctrine and Covenants Section 134.
No mention of waterboarding. What is the purpose of that form of torture? Information extraction or changing the beliefs of an individual?
No tortures of the old days to break a person’s spirit, body or soul by the United States government. As far as I know, no one at Gitmo or any other detention center of the United States stops a person from worshiping or controlling their conscience. Waterboarding, sleep deprivation or other aggressive interrogation techniques is punishment of the guilty in a time of war who may have vital information for the war effort to bring terrorists to justice. Nothing more and if there is that is beyond the scope of interrogations and the interrogator should be prosecuted for a crime. However I do not believe that is the case or the intent of the Intelligence community or soldiers who as we know are held to a higher standard of conduct.
However to address the issue of religious influence there is verse 9:
We do not believe it just to mingle religious influence with civil government, whereby one religious society is fostered and another proscribed in its spiritual privileges, and the individual rights of its members, as citizens, denied.
So there you go, question and concern about Zion and civil government resolved. When Mitt Romney is elected President the country will see for themselves how he will govern. That is what Congress and the Judiciary are for to check the power of the Presidency like it did with President Obama (mostly, ObamaCare a tax, not a mandate, I’m looking at you Chief Justice Roberts).
Three weeks to go.
Go Romney/Ryan! 2012!
bfwebster on 22 Oct 2012 at 2:08 pm #
A few additional comments and observations.
American Latter-day Saints generally view the USA (and in particular, the US Constitution and its Bill of Rights) as having been established in order to provide a place with sufficient religious freedom for the restoration of the Church to have taken place. Given that the bulk of LDS church members, under the direction of Brigham Young, ended up fleeing the US by 1846 and heading for what was then sparsely inhabited Mexican territory, it seems that even those guarantees barely sufficed. Brigham Young probably summed it up best when he said (in a possibly apocryphal quote), “I love the Constitution of this land, but I hate the damned rascals that administer the Constitution.”
As you correctly note, the concept of ‘Zion’ doesn’t apply to the USA as a nation: it applies geographically to North and South America. Even more broadly, the LDS Church starting in the second half of the 20th century actively discouraged (and discourages) members and converts from ‘gathering’ to Utah, but instead stresses that the gathering place for members — in effect, Zion — is in their own cities and nations, wherever those might be in the world.
Perhaps the key moment in this shift came in a talk given in 1972 at a regional LDS Church conference for Mexico and Central America. The speaker, Bruce R. McConkie (then a member of the LDS Church’s First Council of the Seventy, but called to be an Apostle later that same year) said, “The place of the gathering for the Mexican Saints is in Mexico; the place of the gathering for the Guatemalan Saints is in Guatemala; the place of gathering for the Brazilian Saints is in Brazil; and so it goes throughout the length and breadth of the whole earth. Japan is for the Japanese; Korea is for the Koreans; Australia is for the Australians; every nation is the gathering place for its own people.” His words were quoted the following year in LDS General Conference by Harold B. Lee, President of the LDS Church, who re-emphasized the point.
Somewhere in here, it’s worth noting that sometime in the next several years, Spanish will likely take over English as the plurality language among Latter-day Saints, and that for a few years now the majority of LDS Church membership has been outside of the United States.
So, America as a country is not, in fact, “Zion” and never has been within LDS beliefs. To the contrary, there was all through the 19th century a great deal of tension between the LDS Church and the United States government, including the invasion of Utah territory by US Army troops in 1857 (the “Utah War”) and a few decades later the imprisonment of LDS Church leaders, seizure of Church property, and threatened disenfranchisement of LDS Church members over the issue of polygamy and which led LDS Church President Wilford Woodruff to end the practice.
On the other hand, Mitt Romney almost certainly believes — as do vast numbers of Americans of all religious persuasions, as well as not a few citizens of other countries — that America (as a country) represents, in Lincoln’s words, “the last best hope of earth”. I think that will govern his foreign (and domestic) policy more than any religious considerations. ..bruce..