How Mormons View America’s Founding
Jonathan Rowe on Aug 16th 2007
There is an interesting conversation occurring here on this thread. Someone makes an interesting point: since Mormons view America’s founding as divinely inspired, Mitt Romney, as a Mormon, may do a better job defending the US Constitution since he’ll view it as a divinely inspired document.
I think the key Founders — Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, et al. — did believe God intervened on their behalf in the Revolution and subsequently in constructing the Constitution (though the Declaration is far more theistic than the Constitution).
However, the ideas contained in the Founding documents — the Declaration, Constitution, and Federalist Papers — are hardly biblical. Indeed, some notable scholars have made the case that some key Founding ideas actually conflict with the Bible; for instance, Romans 13 seems to categorically forbid revolt, arguably making America’s war for independence a sin according to the Bible.
George Washington believed God was pro-political liberty. That’s well and good; the problem is, the Bible doesn’t teach this. The Bible never mentions political liberty; every time it uses the word “liberty,” it refers to spiritual not political liberty.
The Mormon religion, and the book of Mormon, on the other hand, do indeed make Founding-era republican ideals part and parcel of their religion. But that’s not because there is anything magically or divinely true about the Mormon religion; rather, because when Joseph Smith et al. created the religion, they incorporated some of the Founders’ republican ideals, enlightenment teachings, and eccentric theological beliefs into their religion. For instance, Ben Franklin flirted with the proto-Mormon belief that some larger God created the cosmos, and each solar system had its own lesser God — a more “knowable” God — which he would worship.
I don’t think that Mormonism is entirely consistent with the theology of the key Founders (for instance, Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Franklin thought the Bible to be only partially inspired and that man’s reason supersedes biblical revelation as the final arbiter of truth — do Mormon’s believe this?); but Mormon theology is closer to what the Founders believed than is orthodox Trinitarian Christianity.
The Book of Mormon is, by its very nature, extra-biblical, and that’s where Founding era republican ideals are officially incorporated into Mormon theology. What Mormons officially did parallels what some Christians and Unitarians who called themselves Christians did during the Founding era: They incorporated extra-biblical republican principles into their “Christian” theology to make God over in a way more in accord with liberal democratic ideals. Whenever you see buzzwords like “state of nature” in Founding era sermons, or if any of those sermons argued God was on the side of the Americans in the Revolutionary war, God grants unalienable natural rights, God is pro-political liberty, you can be sure this is what was going on.
Filed in The Belfry, The Bureau
Regarding revolt, Daniel 6 seems to promote a level of civil disobedience against the state, in those cases in which the state is forcing someone to violate the laws of God.
I’ll grant that I am not speaking as a Mormon, but one similarity between LDS belief and the Constitution is that both are open to change. Both “Doctrine & Covenants” and the Constitution have been amended to include things that the “founding fathers” never would have envisioned.
One way in which LDS and Christian beliefs are similar, however, is in their belief in a personal God. This is not something that you find in Deist belief.
On the last point, you are right; but the evidence that I’ve examined shows Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Franklin, all to have believed in an active personal God. I think their God was much more rationalistic than the Mormons’. The Founders were much more likely to throw out various parts of scripture as irrational than I think the Mormons would.
Jonathan, you were over on my blog at truthrestored today, from which you based this post. I appreciate your comments. I realize that this is a unique concept to many people but nevertheless one that I thought was very important to consider in Romney’s run and that up until now I have heard no one mention. I’ve done a whole piece on the subject on my other blog at http://logicalsanity.com
I have added your sites to the blogroll on both of my sites, I’d appreciate the same consideration. Logicalsanity deals with much more than just religion, although that is one topic - and with my being Mormon it, of course, has a Mormon slant on religion. But if you or anyone else wants first hand information on Mormonism from a 5th generation active Mormon that is the place to go. And I’ll be glad to answer any questions.
Again thanks for the advertisement here.
Very thoughtful post, which I’ll try to respond to (briefly, if possible!) as both a former Mormon and a historian of religious thought in this time period.
Mormons do regard the Constitution as divinely inspired. However, when you get down “on the ground” among devout Mormons, you’ll find that their political positions — and their practical understanding of the Constitution — are virtually identical to evangelical Christians on the Right.
Mormonism, you must understand, is not a rationalist religion. To be sure, it incorporates a bit of early 19th-century speculative philosophy and scientific thinking into its theology. (That’s probably where you’re sensing the similarities between Mormonism and, say, Ben Franklin.) But Mormonism’s underlying episteme is strongly supernaturalist. Reason absolutely DOES NOT trump revelation in the Mormon worldview. The difference between Mormon supernaturalism and evangelical Christian supernaturalism is mainly in the primacy of Mormonism’s own prophets and “modern-day revelations” (i.e., the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, etc.) over the Bible.
The upshot of all this is that the Mormon belief in the divine inspiration of the Constitution is honored mainly as a principle. Mormons have ALWAYS understood their own revelations to take precedence over any secular political or constitutional concerns. They believe that the Constitution and their revelations are in harmony, of course. But as I said, in practice their understanding of the Constitution is almost spot-on identical with the most conservative of American conservatives.
Mormonism is certainly not consistent with the theology or epistemology of the major Founders. I must add that I disagree with Jonathan Rowe’s characterization of the Founders’ belief in an “active personal God.” Quite the contrary. There was a spectrum of opinion there, and some changes of opinion over time, but the Founders cited in this post were strongly deistic, and most explicitly rejected an active or interventionist God. Though all respected the moral teachings of some parts of the Bible, none regarded the Bible as finally authoritative in matters moral or political.
By contrast, Mormonism strongly embraces an active personal God (though with a rather different theology from most of Western Christianity). Mormonism does not put the Bible on the pedestal that, say, evangelical Protestantism does. (No scripture is seen as infallible in Mormonism.) But it does regard the revelations of the Bible (filtered through “modern-day” revelations and revisions of the Bible by Joseph Smith) as taking precedence over human reason or “natural law” (which had a specifically rationalist valence in Founding thought).
Anyway, hope this answers (and not TOO wordily!) some of your questions.
This is an interesting, but I think slightly off portrayal of the Mormon take on liberty, the divinity of the founding documents, and Mormon versus Biblical positions on revolt.
As a Mormon, I can assure you that members across the world (there are now more Mormons outside of America than inside of America), are encouraged by the Mormon Church to obey the laws of the land. The fact of the matter, however, is that some countries literally restrict a person’s freedoms more than others. For instance, some countries bar any church, outside of the state sanctioned church, from meeting for basic worship services. The Mormon faith does not encourage revolt in such a setting, but rather teaches that adherents to its faith must do what is permitted under the law to follow the principles of their faith.
The Book of Mormon documents examples where faithful Christians had their rights stripped of them to the point where their only refuge was silent prayer and meditation in their minds and hearts. Rarely do you see examples in the Bible, Book of Mormon, or in the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormon Church) where outright revolt or conflict is encouraged.
However, when push comes to shove, even the Savior himself laid down the hammer. Just consider the story from the New Testament where he violently kicked the merchants out of the temple in Jerusalem; or consider when the Israelites escaped Egypt, or when the House of Israel fought their way into the Promised Land, kicking out the Canaanites; or for those familiar with the Book of Mormon, look to the example of the Stripling Warriors or Captain Moroni.
The fact of the matter is that the Mormon faith embraces the concept of free agency, where God gave us this mortal experience on earth to learn and grow, and he wants to see what choices we make in life with the free agency granted to us. Will we obey his commandments? Will we help one another, or will we be selfish with our time and resources? The end result of this “free agency” is that good people do good things; AND, bad people do bad things, and often times those bad choices impact others in a negative way. God, however, would cut short the purpose of life if he intervened every time someone made a poor choice, or straight up choose evil over good.
While revolt and intervention is rare in the Bible, and the Book of Mormon for that matter, it does happen when God sees that all else would be lost, but for some sort of intervention. So, from that perspective, sure, I too believe the founding of this country occurred with divine intervention. How involved has God been in the dealings of this nation since that time? I’d be inclined to say not that much. But, if the need were to arise again, I do believe we’d see the sort of intervention Christ taught us by example is sometimes simply necessary for the greater good of all men. We are not in that sort of situation nowadays, however.
Ultimately, however, I agree with your general prediction that Romney would be one to hold the founding documents of this nation in high esteem, and would work hard as President to protect the freedoms promised therein.
I just love it how everyone thinks they’re an expert on Mormonism these days. The first clue that someone actually *is* informed about Mormonism is that they won’t throw out stereotypes or soundbites that purport to summarize Mormonism in one sentence or paragraph.
And a guy with a handle “MagicCicero” chides Mormons for elevating supernaturalism over reason when it comes to politics? And doesn’t even see the irony? That’s classic. For the record, MagicCicero’s comments have no particular factual foundation. The fact that Mormons have consistently avoided the sort of anti-Evolution politicking that Evangelicals pursue should be a clue that Mormons *do not* mix supernaturalism and politics. That fact that there are half a dozen Mormon senators who have (as far as I can tell) been as secularly political in their activities and thinking as any other handful of senators is another clue there’s nothing to support that idea (and it’s cute how MagicCicero uses ALL CAPS to make his statements sound credible).
If anything can be said on the subject, it is this: (1) Mormons are generally more conservative than the average voter, but Mormons as a group hold a full range of opinion on political issues, just like American society as a whole (that’s the larger pool from which American Mormons are drawn, of course); and (2) the strain of early-American Republicanism that runs through early LDS sources supports a pleasantly positive view of American political institutions and founding documents by modern Mormons, but that’s about as far as you can take it.
Thanks Dennis; very soon I’m going to be putting my perma-links back to jonrowe.blogspot.com and when I do, I’ll be sure to give you one.
I made a point here on how Romney might be able to spin Mormons’ eccentric beliefs (esp. against evangelical and Catholic conservatives who may try to hold that against him) as being in accord with American tradition.
I’m not sure if it was by coincidence, but two scholars (who have a book coming out soon on the matter) later noted in an article a very similar point about early Presidents not being “Christian” according to the standards which evangelicals and Catholics say Mormons aren’t “Christian.”
http://jonrowe.blogspot.com/2007/04/christianist-mormons-and-early.html
Dave, Dave, Dave. All the trouble you took to criticize my post, and yet you don’t seem to have read it. First of all, I certainly didn’t summarize Mormonism in one sentence or paragraph. In fact, I wrote five lengthy paragraphs, plus two sentences tacked on for good measure.
Re-reading my post, I admit I should said “the vast majority” of Mormons when talking about the similarity of their views to those of evangelical Christians. I apologize for the omission. In any event, how is this a stereotype? The facts, I think, are on my side. The vast majority of Mormons do vote with the evangelical Right on virtually every political issue. The only counterargument you bring up is the lack of involvement of Mormons in anti-evolution crusades. If, “for the record,” my comments on this subject have “no factual foundation,” you’re going to have to do better than that.
You are right that there is a range of political opinions espoused by Mormons. I seem to recall that the late President Faust was a notable Democrat, for example. So is Elder Marlon K. Jensen of the Seventy. Quite obviously, Harry Reid is. Still, have you ever been to Utah? Or to any ward in any state where the discussion is about, say, gay marriage? How about abortion? Or some other moral issue that is informed by religious concerns? The consistency of Mormon support for anti-gay and anti-abortion measures, among others, should be a clue to you that Mormons do see their religious viewpoints and their political positions as interconnected. Where else do you think most Mormons get their ideas from? Do you think that they would see their politics as separate and distinct from their religious views? (And I am not arguing whether they should or not; merely that they do not.)
To the extent that supernaturalism infuses most Mormons’ political viewpoints, it is a natural extension of their religious beliefs. Do you think that Senators Hatch, Bennett, et al. were not influenced by their religion in voting for, say, the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996 (I think that was the year)? Haven’t you read the Proclamation on the Family? The one that adorns the walls and refrigerators of Mormons just about everywhere? It is true that Hatch and others do not say, “I vote this way because I am Mormon.” Evangelical Christians do not generally share this circumspection, and we can be grateful that Senators Hatch et al. are more modest. Public modesty, however, does not make Mormon lawmakers “secularly political,” whatever that means. Religion deeply informs secular politics, for Mormons as it does for others.
Dave, you seem to have flat out missed the boat on my post — and maybe I should write this ALL CAPS just to be cute — my argument was that Mormons are epistemic supernaturalists: that is, that revelation trumps reason IN THEIR RELIGION (gee, look at those pretty caps). This was the overwhelming emphasis of my post; not politics, but religious epistemology. I nowhere said that Mormons reject reason; I said that revelation trumps it. If you disagree, you are well within your rights, but you are part of a minority of Mormons. You also stand in direct opposition to the statements of past and present church leaders.
You dismissed my arguments out of hand without even addressing any significant ones. You didn’t even demonstrate any familiarity with what I’d said. Instead, you lashed out because I apparently claimed to be an “expert on Mormonism,” and I suspect I know why.
I’m venturing into speculation here, but I’m going to guess that you DIDN’T (those caps again!) read what I said too carefully. Instead, you saw that I described myself as a “former Mormon,” and you immediately bristled at the fact that such a person would dare offer any analysis of Mormonism. Never mind that I did not make sweeping negative judgments. Never mind that I actually pointed out that Mormons see the harmony between their doctrines and the Constitution. From the moment you saw “former Mormon,” my argument was irrelevant to you. The only thing that mattered was putting me in my place.
Oh, one last point. The “Magic” in MagicCicero is purely random. That you see irony in my discussion of supernaturalism and reason because of the name I posted under has nothing to do with the validity of the argument, or its factuality. You are making an ad hominem attack, Dave. It may be convenient, but it is not especially convincing.
I was trying to discuss Mormonism and its understanding of the Constitution as level-headedly as possible. To the extent that I offended, I apologize sincerely. To the extent that I failed to make my points, however, I would expect to see those points addressed, not dismissed, or rolled into ad hominem jokes about my online name or my penchant for using ALL CAPS to emphasize certain words. I am familiar with your blog, and I would have expected you to rise above the cheap theatricality of Mormon apologetics. Perhaps I’ll remember to lower my expectations in the future.
Dave is right about evolution. Only very few Mormons consider it a religious obligation to oppose evolution in public school curricula. Unfortunately, there are several other examples of Mormon behaviors where faith trumps reason. The anti-gay referenda come to mind. So does Mormonism’s racist past.
The supremacy of faith over reason is manifests itself most clearly by the common practice of ecclesiastical authorities to discipline Mormon academics whose research challenges Mormon orthodoxy. Between 1973 and 1992, Lavina Anderson has documented over one hundred cases of Church discipline against scholars. Unfortunately, there have been more cases since 1992.
Mormon church leaders have established an authoritarian pattern in response to rational enquiry. Dave is correct insofar as there are important exceptions but they do not invalidate the evidence of anti-rationalist patterns in Mormon power politics.
Readers can check the facts for themselves with quick google searches. Look for people like Lavina Anderson, Grant Palmer or the September Six.
The Mormon concept of inspiration requires a little context to become intelligible. When Mormons consider a text, an institution or a historical figure inspired, they do so in the context of their understanding of history.
To Mormons history is about the human struggle for perfection. Human beings live on earth to be tested. God and Satan struggle for human devotion. Any force that brings human beings closer to God and Jesus is good and inspired.
According to Mormon theology, human salvation requires individuals to enter into covenants with God. Covenants such as baptism and marriage are only eternally binding if they are performed by representative who acts with divine authority. Mormons refer to this authority as the priesthood, which also constitutes the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
From the Mormon perspective, the United States Constitution is important because it created an environment where Christ’s Church could be restored by providing for religious freedom.
By the same logic, Mormons consider Columbus inspired because the discovery of the America’s was an essential precondition to restore their Church. As a matter of fact, Mormons consider Martin Luther inspired for the same reason.
Obviously, that does not mean that Mormon are moving to Minnesota to become Lutherans. In the Mormon world, devotion of Luther does not require loyalty to the Lutheran cause.
Since the devotion of the United States Constitution merges with American nationalism, an important theme in Mormon scripture, Mormons are more attached to the Constitution than to Luther. However, ultimately Mormon theology trumps the Constitution. The Constitution matters only in the context of Mormon eschatology.
Fortunately, conflicts with the United States Constitution are rare. However, one can observe on an almost daily basis that faithful Mormons do feel entitled to exclude their Jewish neighbors, for example, from public school activities as long as the school choir can sing some cheesy songs about Jesus. Notice also that Mitt Romney continues to demand the doubling of the detention camps at Guantanamo Bay.
The United States Constitution matters religiously in the Mormon view of the world because it validates their religion, not the other way around. Therefore Mormon loyalty to the Constitution is motivated by self-interest rather than regard for the rights of others.
Mitt Romney may be a strong supporter of the Constitution in practice. However, this is a man who has taken oaths in the temple to place his primary loyalty to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the leaders thereof. These promises were made under covenant and supercede any loyalty to the nation or the Constitution.
I don’t think the LDS church authorities would dare to make such a call, or would benefit thereby, but the mere fact that they could means that in theory, the church leaders could tell Romney to nuke China or seize power in a coup and he would be under covenant to obey them.
And for what it’s worth, I think that, yes, it is a valid question to ask whether JFK’s primary loyalty would be to the Pope or Lieberman’s to Israel, etc. In this case, I have grave doubts about Romney’s primary loyalty.
[...] However, to tie this to my last post on Mormonism and the American Founding, because Mormons believe that Indians are the lost tribes of Israel, they do believe that the Native Americans’ “The Great Spirit” is the God of the Bible. Indeed, the only way to reconcile referring to “The Great Spirit” as God with Christianity is to incorporate the teaching that Native Americans are, in reality, a lost Israeli tribe. And just as I’ve discovered Ben Franklin flirted with the proto-Mormon belief that some larger God created the cosmos, and each solar system had its own lesser God — a more “knowable” God, lost tribes of Israel thesis likewise traces to a Founding Father — Elias Boudinat. Boudinat, unlike Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Franklin, was, or appeared to be a genuine orthodox Trinitarian Christian. And I’ve seen no evidence whatsoever that those five key Founders believed Indians were the lost tribe of Israel. However, Boudinat did. He even wrote a book on the matter. And Boudinat argued that Indians’ God was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. [...]
[...] Mormons believe that the United States Constitution was divinely inspired. [...]
Mormons believe that authentic Christianity vanished a century after Jesus and was restored only through Joseph Smith. Considered a prophet by Mormons, Smith revised— and in his view corrected— large sections of the Bible in the 19th century. The Mormon scriptures include the Old and New Testaments, but also include books containing Smith’s revelations.