Originally published by StandardBlogs in 2012.
(Note: I never managed to see Book of Mormon Musical. But I still listen to the score often.)
When I was at the Missionary Training Center, we were taught the slogan “Keep the Gospel Simple Stupid.” We focused on learning the language, memorizing the missionary discussions, and force-feeding our spirituality to a high level. We adapted to a regimen that began at 6:30 a.m. and ended at 10:30 p.m. We learned to work, pray and study with a companion. My culture class — I was sent to The Peru Lima North Mission, including time in the Amazon Jungle — was curiously lightweight. From what I recall, it consisted mainly of a husband and wife dressed in touristy traditional mountain garb and llama sweaters.
In “Book of Mormon Musical,” missionary companions Elder Price and Elder Cunningham are sent to Uganda, where they find themselves all alone amidst warlords, clitoris cutters and people suffering from AIDS. Under these conditions, Elder Price, the strong alpha companion, wilts and leaves. That forces Elder Cunningham, the slow-witted junior companion, to “man up” and teach the natives as best he can. With sheer bluster, he achieves success teaching an “off-the-cuff” ludicrously obscene version of Mormon doctrine that involves Joseph Smith having sex with frogs and Brigham Young’s nose being turned into a clitoris. Meanwhile, Elder Price ends his crisis of faith, decides to just believe and storms back into the warlord’s camp preaching with Old Testament fervor. The play ends with the natives, now missionaries, teaching the bastardized, profane, obscene “Gospel According to Arnold Cunningham.”
The more interesting character is Elder Price, played by Andrew Rannells. In at least two songs, “You and Me, But Mostly Me,” and “I Believe,” he captures aspects of the missionary experience. In the first song, sung with the amiable fool Elder Cunningham, Elder Price is full of the faux confidence that’s packed with equal parts cockiness and fear. With a passive, worshipful lesser companion, he’s ready to achieve missionary greatness.
“It’s something I’ve forseen.
Now that I’m nineteen,
I’ll do something incredible,
That blows God’s freaking mind!”
Throughout the song, Elder Cunningham chirps how pleased he is that he can play second fiddle to Elder Price’s greatness. It’s a sentiment Elder Price is wholeheartedly in agreement with, as he concludes with:
“And there’s no limit to
What we can do
Me and you.
But mostly me!”
After a spurt of arrogant, fear-driven bravado, Elder Price suffers culture shock and dismay at how unenthusiastic most are to his message — a reaction, albeit to a lesser degree, for missionaries. Again, this is farce. In the real world, an inexperienced Elder Price would not be tossed, along with Elder Cunningham, alone as a pair into a dangerous environment. His reaction: He decides to take off to Orlando, where he feels the Lord should have sent him in the first place. After undergoing some heavy-duty guilt — a shared feeling for many active Latter-day Saints who try to live a religion that assigns degrees of salvation based on works — he surrenders to faith, and achieves his best missionary success with a full-throated, skepticism-be-damned testimony of various LDS doctrines, conventional or otherwise. An example from “I Believe”:
“You cannot just believe part way,
You have to believe in it all.
My problem was doubting the Lord’s will
Instead of standing tall.
I can’t allow myself to have any doubt.
It’s time to set my worries free.
Time to show the world what Elder Price is about!
And share the power inside of me…
I believe that God has a plan for all of us.
I believe that plan involves me getting my own planet.
And I believe; that the current President of The Church, Thomas Monson, speaks directly to God.
I am A Mormon,
And, dang it! a Mormon just believes!”
Being a missionary is hard work. It involves something else that was drummed into us at the MTC — the slogan “Capture the Vision”: Elder Price’s transition to successful missionary is to eliminate doubt, for at least two years. His fuel is faith; he thrives on faith. His optimism is the sizzle that sells the faith. He’s captured the vision.
A lot of Mormons have criticized “Book of Mormon Musical”; it’s inaccurate to a fault, it makes fun of LDS beliefs; it spoofs, for very vulgar laughs, doctrines and characters in LDS history that are treated with reverence by faithful members. But, Jon Stewart is right. It’s a simple, stupid, but profound declaration of how faith, and just believing, can bring meaning into many lives.
“It’s so good it makes me $%^%*&^ hate it,” Stewart told Stone and Parker, describing the message as “sweet.”
It is; faith is sweet; to believe with enough faith to touch lives is a good thing. To gain courage to change lives for the better is sweet. And that’s why “Book of Mormon Musical,” proudly R-rated, is worth listening to.
-- Doug Gibson
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