Book of Mormon

The Book of Mormon

As I drove up to the theatre I saw several young men in white shirts and dark ties zealously working the crowd giving out their literature and offering copies of the Book of Mormon.  Since I was here to see the play I wasn’t certain if it was the script of the play or the religious text, sacred to believers of the faith, that they were offering to the masses out on the streets.

What did the Dalai Lama say about religion and opiates or was that Lenin and Mcartney.  None the less these mormons were manning up in the cold weather prostilitizing to the theatre masses as they approached the gates to be entertained in, as some reviewers have said, “A sacrilegious ride of perversions and mockery of the mormon faith.” 

Now that I have actually had the “sacrilegious ride” I would have to say, although there are some truths to the above quote.  I also have to disagree with it as the play goes much deeper than mere mockery and sarcasm.  I have to admit what is one to expect in a profound religious philosophical sense from the creators of a semi adult weekly animation TV show that has barely survived 17 seasons of prime time audiences.  In a word or several.  The play had depth, breadth.  It was profound with deep meaning far beyond Mormons. 

I have been to Salt Lake City on vacation and seen the Salt Flats, the cathedral, the city that mormons built, the museum documenting their “history”, their institutions of higher learning and all the rest.  I’m no different than most of you.  It is an easy thing to mock, ridicule, make fun in, snicker at, laugh, sneer, deride, criticize and well you get the idea.     

I mean really lost tribes of Israel in North America, Jesus appears to them, golden tablets are buried and found, wars, persecution and migration.  It sounds so Christian.  Who would believe a story like that unless you had faith and several wives.

Let me give you some basic plot line and character development and I will mention there is a scene from hell in which they featured Starbucks coffee. I have to say that was the one thing that offended me.  To me hell is a place without coffee.  I’m afraid the authors lost me on that finer theological point.  Apparently young mormon men, not sure about the women, go off into the secular world for two years to do missionary work.  Our main character, an ace student of mormon theology teachings is set on going to preach to the heathen of Orlando when in fact the elders of the church send him and his nerdy, simple minded partner to Uganda.

In Africa, after, having their luggage stolen they discover a land dominated by AIDS, poverty, war lords, superstition, ignorance, and violence.  People have given up on God and chant a phrase which translates “Fuck God.”  After all what has any one including God done to help these people in their daily despair and misery.  The team of Mormons already stationed in Uganda welcomes the two new missionaries to their demoralized midst as collectively they have been incapable of converting a single soul to the Mormon faith. 

Price and Cunningham begin their mission with yes, missionary zeal.  It is, however, nerdy Elder Cunningham who baptizes a local Ugandan woman in a process symbolically paralleling the sexual act.  Cunningham proceeds to fabricate a version of his faith that he truly does not understand in order to convert the natives.  His version of the faith involves a mix of Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Star Trek and Mormonism woven together in a synergetic symbolic mix of frog fucking, God loving faith finding a new convoluted version of mormonism which would make the founding folk religious zealot Joseph Smith turn in his grave, or at least give up the location of the gold plates he used to translate the book of Mormon in the first place.

As ridiculous as the Mormon religion might seem to an outsider, a non-mormon, this is how ridiculous Cunningham’s fanciful tale sounded.  But it its bizarre quirkiness it served a valuable service in unifying the Ugandans against the oppression of General Butt Naked and his clitoris paranoia.  It gave them hope, strength and eventually victory over seemingly insurmountable odds.  In short the religion had function and value.  In there version of a God, their frog fucking symbolism any crazier than Mormons  with buried golden plated and multiple wives.  

The ultimate brilliance of The Book of Mormon is that beyond its entertainment and shock value it teaches that any  and every religion has value no matter how ludicrous it may appear to the outsider.  A religion when all is said and done is simply a well told story with its unique set of icons, prophets and usually a Book designed to organize a group of people along certain values and standards.  Oh and a God.