Here's another sample of Cal Grondahl's Standard Works cartoons, done over a several-year period, roughly about 2009 to early 2014. A website change ended the site (except for Wayback), but these were saved at Flickr and Facebook. We use them on the Culture of Mormonism blog. Enjoy!
(Editor's note: this blog was published 10 years ago at StandardNet. I rescued it from Wayback. My faith has moved away from calling itself "Mormons." Leaders prefer we use the full-term, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I'm a Mormon site ended in 2018. Of course it was never a dating site; it just seemed like one. I still like Elder Penrose's far earlier effort at telling us about why he's a Latter-day Saint.)
At the I'm a Mormon website, this beautiful 30-something strawberry reddish/blonde named Rochelle is smiling at me … for a few seconds. A click on her profile indicates she’s a married Mormon mom from Texas. I imagine that Rochelle is soon ignored by the scores of thousands of single men, mostly Mormon, who peruse the social media chat site “I’m a Mormon” — as do the many single women who likely pass on 25-34 married man, Todd.
A social media site to connect Mormons across the globe is an obvious cybercentury tool. But it’s not being cynical to also see “I’m a Mormon” as a dating site trove for lonely church members. It’s designed to look like one. Users can peruse any gender preference. I type in Female, African-American, 25-34 and find Lydia, Jewel, Laney and dozens more just waiting for a click. There’s a lot of information shared but the dating site analogy only goes so far. There’s no body measurements or described “turn-ons.”
I’ve had enough of “I’m a Mormon.” I’d have a tough time explaining my interest if my wife caught me perusing the site. Besides, I really belong on the 35 to 49-age webpages. (Today I'm 58, and still happily married).
However, “I-am-a-Mormon” efforts are not without precedence in the LDS Church. They’ve just been more staid in the past. I’m perusing a very yellowed, torn 110-year-old pamphlet, “Why I Am a Mormon,” written by President Charles W. Penrose. Published by the missions (all 10) located in North America, begins with the same fussing about calling LDS members “Mormons” that was heard recently at General Conference. Penrose writes, “To call them ‘Mormons,’ therefore, is as nonsensical as it would be to call them Jeremiahs or Daniels. Peters or Paul.” Penrose adds that he regards as “Mormonism” as “vulgarly” used by his faith’s opponents.
There’s a good bet that was true in 1901, and Penrose is a good sport to tell the gentile world why he’s a Mormon. I have a great deal of affection for this tract — given to me as a family heirloom by a woman who died shortly after I received it. It’s an unapologetic, no evasions tolerated defense of the Gospel. It can be bought — old or new editions — at amazon and elsewhere.
Penrose’s main argument is that Mormonism “is the only religious system that professes to have been established by direct divine authority.” He’s blunt about the divine failures of other religions, including Catholicism, Episcopalism, or those of the Protestant Reformation. He writes, “They are the works of men. It matters not whether their founders were good or bad. God had no direct hand in their establishment for the men who made them did not believe in present revelation. To their minds, Deity was dumb to the world.”
Penrose uses the old-fashioned term, “Romish” church to draw a geneaogy of all then-current U.S. churches, drawing a comparison with his claim that the Mormon Church was a restored version of the New Testament gospel.
Midway into the pamphlet, Penrose delves into sharp theological differences that the LDS Church has with other religions, describing the distinctions as a positive that solves the dilemma of human existence. In sometimes confusing parlance, the LDS doctrines of pre-existence, eternal intelligences, and the potential for Godhood are hinted at.
He writes, “Man is capable of advancement into higher spheres until the divinity within him by birth is developed into the fullness of the Godhead, and he becomes one with the Father and Son.”
The latter portions of the tract explains — to the uninitiated — the outlines of eternal marriage and the importance of The Book of Mormon as latter-day Scripture. Penrose is both blunt, “A woman cannot enter into the fullness of celestial glory in a single state, neither can a man” (thus the interest in today’s mormon.org, perhaps?) and a bit of an early feminist, writing, “She (woman) is an independent member of the Church, with a vote equal to a man’s on all public questions.” (the world “public” is significant, however). The Book of Mormon, besides being lauded as being “in perfect accord with the Bible,” is used as a challenge for investigators who may be squeamish about other aspects of the LDS Church. Penrose writes, “If the Book of Mormon is true, ‘Mormonism’ is true. It is a question I heard growing up and still hear often in church meetings.
The final two sections are testimonies of the Prophet Joseph Smith and a personal testimony of how Mormonism satisfies Penrose’s “every human need.”
Whether a believer in the LDS Church or not, Penrose’s pamphlet is compelling reading. It’s persuasive religious propaganda, direct, to-the-point and delivers answers to eternal questions that dwell within most persons’ hearts. Works such as “Why I Am a Mormon,” as well as many other efforts, are the reason the LDS Church grew from strange, very unpopular cultish sect into a global religion with more than 10 million members.
Although the banal, virtually non-doctrinal, attractive faces/social media “I’m a Mormon” campaign may have its place in a digital world, I can’t help thinking that it would appall Penrose — who died 96 years ago — if he rose from the dead and witnessed it today.
-- Doug Gibson
As Political Surf readers know, I mentioned the new biography of early Mormon leader Parley P. Pratt, “Parley P. Pratt: The Apostle Paul of Mormonism,” Oxford University Press, 2011, by Terryl L. Givens and Matthew J. Grow, in a previous blog that dealt with Pratt’s death (read). I will be reviewing the biography soon in the print edition of The Standard-Examiner. However, I had the opportunity to ask the authors, Givens and Grow, some questions about Pratt, his contemporaries, and the biography. The results are below:
Q: Did Pratt view his calling in life as an apostle to be as the apostles in the Book of Acts, such as as receiving visions, being persecuted or martyred, as Stephen, performing miracles, debating disbelievers, gathering and counseling members, and preaching without recompense and living in poverty?
A: There is no doubt that Pratt saw his calling as an apostle as consistent with the New Testament pattern of apostleship. He was a fervent restorationist, was convinced that Joseph Smith had received the authority and keys necessary to restore the kingdom of God, and personally experienced those spiritual gifts such as healing that he believed were sure evidence of an authentic restoration. His willingness to leave his family behind time and again to preach the gospel at home and in foreign lands, and suffer persecution and imprisonment for the gospel’s sake, was in part a consequence of the office he held and the biblical precedent of apostolic sacrifice and martyrdom.
Q: As a premillennialist, did Pratt have any theories as to a particular time Christ was going to return. Would he have been amazed that Christ had not returned by 2011?
A: Pratt’s millennial expectations preceded his conversion to Mormonism, but found particular focus and support from two events. First was his exposure to the Book of Mormon itself-Isaiah’s “ensign to the nations.” Second was its reinforcement of his personal interest in the spiritual destiny of the American Indians. In light of Book of Mormon prophecies, he read the Indian Removal Act of 1830 as a providential episode that heralded the gathering of that segment of Israel, and was convinced the Second Coming was accordingly imminent. Smith’s announcement of the city of Zion to be built further confirmed him in his sense that he was living on the cusp of millennial events. The failure to realize the promise of Zion in Missouri was devastating to Pratt, as it was to thousands of his co-religionists.
Q: Pratt’s books and pamphlets, although rarely discussed today, are so much a part of Mormonism’s deepest beliefs. Did these emulate mostly from his private talks with Joseph Smith or from his personal study? And did he ever run into conflict on his published doctrine with Brigham Young, as his brother Orson often did?
A: Because so little is recorded of Smith’s Kirtland teachings and personal interactions with other leaders, it is impossible to know how much of Pratt’s writing was directly derivative of Smith’s ideas, and how much was Pratt’s own extrapolation and elaboration of seeds he garnered from Smith and his revelations. Most likely, it was both. Smith did on one occasion complain that Pratt and other “great big elders” were passing off his ideas as their own. Some later editions of Pratt’s writings had portions edited out, but we found no evidence of Young criticizing any particular ideas of his. Rather, Young recommended Pratt’s writings to others.
Q: Did Brigham Young like Parley P. Pratt? An earlier biography of Pratt (Stanley) claimed the prophet disliked him and kept him away via constant missions?
A: In general, Young and Pratt seem to have had a good relationship, though there were moments of tension and conflict. For instance, during the trek west, Young rebuked Pratt over several issues related to authority and organization of the trek west. In general, though, Young respected Pratt for his preaching and literary talents, as well as his willingness and ability to take on difficult tasks like the Southern Utah Expedition, and Pratt accepted Young as his quorum president (and later Church president) and looked to him for guidance and advice.
Q: Regarding Pratt’s murder, do you think he wished to be a martyr or had resigned himself to dying when he left the Van Buren jail?
A: The last years of Pratt’s life were marked by disappointment in the millennium deferred, and in the failure of the Saints to attain the high standards expected of them. (Their unwillingness to generously support his missionary endeavors was one factor in that perception). He missed his family terribly during his missions, and was worn out emotionally and physically. In his final days, he refused to take precautions to defend himself against the man thirsting for his blood, and certainly met his death with uncommon equanimity.
Q: What are some unanswered questions about Parley P. Pratt that are still left to be discovered by historians?
A: One important question relates to your question 3. How much of a role did Pratt have as a catalyst to Joseph Smith’s own expansion of his ideas, especially in regard to human theosis, which Pratt discussed in print long before the King Follett discourse? Another question might be the enduring theological legacy of Pratt’s works. How did Pratt’s books, especially Voice of Warning and Key to the Science of Theology, shape Mormon thought throughout the nineteenth century and the twentieth (and indeed to the present)?
-- Interview by Doug Gibson
