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
The competition’s tough, but “The Home Teachers” is Mormonism’s Best Worst Movie!
After watching “Best Worst Movie,” the film homage to the deliriously bad “Troll 2,” I got to thinking: What is the best worst LDS movie — the one so bad that it makes you squirm but you still like enough to put in the DVD player a couple of times a year?
The battle’s fierce. Among the contenders are:
• “Book of Mormon Movie,” where the actors’ age with salt n pepper hair but no facial lines.
• “Charly” where viewers wish star Heather Beers would reject all the dreary men in her life.
• “Beauty and the Beast,” where bad acting is mixed with cinematography and sets more often used in soft-core porn.
• And “The RM,” where love occurs in a montage with bad music.
But “The Home Teachers” gets my vote for the best of the worst. Directed by Kurt Hale, the 2004 Halestorm film takes a subject that could have been softly parodied for a few chuckles and instead turns it into a road movie featuring a poor imitation of a Chris Farley, David Spade buddy film.
The Farley character is family man/football fanatic Greg Blazer (Michael Birkeland), who just wants to get home from church and watch NFL football. Unfortunately, he’s corralled by the Spade character, Nelson Parker (Jeff Birk), his anal retentive home teaching companion, who insists they get all their families visited even if it requires a three-hour drive across the state.
Birkeland is the better actor, but he’s no Chris Farley. He whines instead of creating pathos and his voice is a monotone. His one talent, physical comedy, makes the film watchable. My children howl with laughter during an otherwise appalling home teaching scene where Birkeland’s Blazer destroys the home of a down on their luck family. There is another, funnier Farleyesque scene where Birkeland ends up doing the “tango” with a corpse during a funeral viewing. And my kids scream with laugher when Birkeland, with a deer head over his head, runs frantically away from stupid hunters.
Birk’s obsessive compulsive “Nelson Parker” is very bizarre. He looks more like Ben Stiller than David Spade and he acts nothing like Spade. Although intended to inspire comedy, Parker is very creepy with his steely grin and troubled eyes. There were times I thought Parker might physically attack his home teaching companion. When, near the end of the film, Parker admits that his unseen wife has left him, I was relieved; I’d been worried he’d killed her for unfaithfulness.
With Birkeland’s comedy, Birk’s creepiness and jazzed-up LDS songs, the film remains very bad, save for a too-small performance by the always-talented LDS actress Tayva Patch as a criminal’s moll. (Patch died in 2015). There are cameos by celebrity Jimmy Chunga and baseball player Wally Joyner. The film has the usual let’s-wrap-it-up-with-a-spiritual-experience scene accompanied by familiar montage music and all ends well — even creepy Nelson wins his wife back!
After the credits, there’s a bizarre scene where the home teacher visits Fred Lampropoulos. He talks a mile a minute to them amidst a home decorated with his campaign signs. It’s a weird time capsule — Lampropolous failed in a Utah gubernatorial bid in 2004. It seems way out of place in this already goofy film until you notice that one of the film’s associate producers (investors?) is another Lampropoulos.
The late Douglas Thayer, a BYU English professor who died in 2017 at 88, penned some pretty good books, including a memoir of his boyhood in Provo, “Hooligan,” and the novel, “The Treehouse,” a well-written but bleak-to-a-fault novel of a Mormon youth’s teen years, mission to Germany, a horrific stint in the Korean War, and his post-war life.
Thayer is a top-tier Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints novelist out there. His final novel, “Will Wonders Ever Cease: A Hopeful Novel for Mormon Mothers and Their Teenage Sons” (Zarahemla Books, 2014), is a good read that mixes an adventure with the protagonist’s stream-of-consciousness thinking as he works to avoid peril and death.
The plot involves Kyle Hooper, 15-year-old Mormon boy in Colorado who takes off in a Suburban to go skiing without his parents’ permission. Almost abruptly, Kyle’s knocked unconscious and his vehicle carried away by a massive snow avalanche.
He comes to several hours later alive thanks to the strength of the Suburban, fortified years earlier by his late grandfather. Kyle is deeply buried in snow, but lucky enough to have landed close to a stream under the avalanche. That allows him to have oxygen. Without a cell phone — it’s smashed — but a car with battery power and some food and drink, he struggles through several days trying desperately to survive and dig himself out.
Kyle is a well-developed character of Thayer’s and the reader will enjoy following along with his ingenious and courageous efforts to save himself from what looks like a long, prolonged and certain death. Mixed in with the survival efforts in this slim novel are this typical but charismatic teen’s thoughts, which run the gamut from girls, church, testimony, his very religious mother, his remote father, his less religious but very talented grandfather, a brother, Trace, who died recently, family, his best friends, and musings about how friends and family are taking his ordeal.
In one emotional scene, Kyle turns on the Suburban’s radio and learns he’s been given up for dead, and retrieval efforts won’t resume until spring.
Within these thoughts, three characters are well-formed by Thayer, an author in his 80s. Kyle’s mother, Lucille, who is originally perceived as a Mormon scold but is revealed to be refreshingly progressive on issues such as homosexuality and premarital pregnancy, and possessed of a strong will, his Grandpa Hooper, whose legacy of common sense and handyman’s know-how is used to great advantage by Kyle, and his late brother, Trace, whose last months alive Kyle recalls as he endures his own struggle to survive.
About the only thing I don’t like about this novel is the bland title, which seems more suitable for self-help or inspirational genres. But it’s a good read, compelling and thought-provoking and readers — drawn into Kyle’s plight — won’t be able to put the book down in the final pages.
-- Doug Gibson
This is another Culture of Mormonism blog post rescued from the Wayback Machine. It was written on Aug. 7, 2009. It's a kind of whimsically portrayed -- but accurate -- account of our daughter Sophie Gibson's baptism. I am happy it contains a mention of my now-deceased father, Ray, blessing Sophie. He blessed all our children after their baptisms. It ialso ncludes a great cartoon from Cal Grondahl. It was originally published at the now-defunct StandardBlogs.
We baptized our middle child this past Saturday. Little Sophie Gibson’s bouts of occasional naughtiness will now be logged in the heavens, I was quick to assure her the night before, when she didn’t want to practice the LDS baptismal ritual. Nevertheless, I managed to get her to hold my right hand as my left was raised and we simulated the baptism … I know what some of you are thinking, and yes, it did lead to repercussions in the font.
When I was baptized almost 38 years ago, I don’t recall much fuss about it. It was my birthday, which may be somewhat unique. But I was hustled into the car, driven to the stake center and dunked by my father. Then we went home and waited until Sunday for the confirmation.
It’s different now. Little cards were mailed to friends for Sophie’s baptism — and older daughter Mary’s a few years back — and a couple of cakes and lots of soda pop was purchased. There was a family and friends get-together at the home a couple of hours before the big event. Like these events always are, the older attendees grabbed the comfortable chairs in the living room while younger parents chatted in the kitchen while their kids scarfed cake, ice cream and soda. Occasionally a toddler would wander into the living room to be oohed and aahed at by the seniors.
The next step is heading to the chapel for the service. It’s a relief because other than Sophie’s rather timid interview with the bishop, we have nothing to do with its preparation. The songs, talks and prayers are all handled by the efficient bureaucracy that is the LDS faith. There were only two eight-year-olds to be baptized so things moved quickly.
We moved to the baptismal room. Sophie and I were first. I raised my left hand and uttered what I thought was a pretty good prayer. As I raised a dripping Sophie out of the font, though, I noticed a batch of gray and white heads hovering over the younger toddlers who usually grab the front-row seat at these events.
“You forgot the word of,” said one white head.
No problem. I baptized Sophie again and all seemed well.
The second baptism followed and both of us were in the dressing room. I was halfway into my clean clothes when a man in authority came in looking grave.
“Which hand did you raise during the baptism?” he asked.
Uh oh. I knew I’d goofed.
“The left,” I answered.
The other baptizer with me admitted he also had baptized his granddaughter with the left hand up.
“You’ll both have to do the baptism again,” we were told.
So, I hustled out of my dry clothes and started to get into the wet clothes. I told the other baptizer he could go first this time.
A few minutes later there was another visitor.
“Because you went first originally you’ll have to go first again. How soon can you be ready?”
I told him just a minute.
This was all my fault. I was giving my daughter quite an introduction to baptism. When we went into the font for a third time, I noticed a dead earwig. I wondered if this would scare Sophie, since she screams when she sees an earwig in the house, but she just pointed and said, “Look dad, an earwig.”
With my right hand up, I aced Sophie’s third baptism attempt.
Later, my father managed Sophie’s confirmation in only one take.
After the baptism, with all guests gone and Little Caesar pizza in our mouths, there was peace.
I caught Sophie eagerly telling everyone about her three baptisms.
“If you tell your grandchildren that you were baptized three times, make sure you mention it was dad’s fault,” I advised Sophie.
Mary baptized. Sophie baptized. In three-plus years it’ll be Joe’s turn — the final baptism day.
-- Doug Gibson
I wrote this column a while back in late 2010. I thought it's interesting enough to post on blog. Perennial candidate Rex Rammell is still running for political office as late as 2018. ... After a few recent conversations with some older members of the LDS Faith, I know the White Horse Prophecy still fascinates some.
Most of us Mormons, if we are long-timers in the church, have heard that the “Constitution will hang by a thread” in the last days and that the LDS prophet, or church leadership, will save the United States from destruction.
This all comes from the “White Horse prophecy,” a bit of Mormon lore, where two devout followers, Edwin Rushton and Theodore Turley, apparently had a conversation with the prophet Joseph Smith. A “transcript” of Smith’s part of the conversation, 10-plus years later, ended up in Paradise, Utah’s John J. Robert’s private journal.
I have to admit, growing up, I thought the White Horse prophecy was Mormon doctrine. Many of the LDS adults I listened to spoke of it as if it were church doctrine. As I grew older, and couldn’t find it propagated in any priesthood or Sunday School texts, I realized it was apocrypha. It’s not impossible that Smith actually said that, it’s just that it doesn’t mean it’s a revelation by LDS Church standards.
When an LDS prophet receives revelation from God, it is submitted to the church’s Council of the 12 Apostles and discussed — and I imagine debated — in detail before it passes muster as prophecy.
In other words, a secondhand, 10-year-old journal transcript of an alleged conversation a late prophet might have had doesn’t cut it for inclusion in LDS General Conference. In fact, as early as 1918, church leaders were discounting the White Horse prophecy. The church leader at the time, Joseph F. Smith, described it as “trash” and “false.”
There is an excellent article from the FAIR LDS site on the White Horse prophecy, that includes the entire journal account, at Read
So why does the White Horse prophecy have such an ability to hook more credulous members? I think it’s human nature. We all want to have a little of the Indiana Jones in us. We romanticize our church existence, fantasize that there is more to it than a two-year mission, counting members during sacrament meeting, home teaching, collecting fasts offerings and Gospel Doctrine lessons. We admire our faith and want its important to be inflated more in the world than it is. Also, let’s face it, the White Horse prophecy makes for great LDS conversation. But even Bruce R. McConkie, in his once-revered “Mormon Doctrine,” called it “false and deceptive.”
Other faiths are no different. Look at the rapture fantasies of fundamentalist Christians. Another example, that twists into hate and sin, is radical Muslims or — to a far lesser extent, radical Christians — killing infidels or abortionists.
In short, though, to the rest of the world, the White Horse prophecy can only embarrass the Mormon church on those occasions when it, for some reason or another, makes the media wires. And that has occurred with fringe Idaho gubernatorial candidate Rex Rammell, a Republican, calling for a Jan. 19 meeting — open only to 100 handpicked LDS priesthood holders — that will discuss the White Horse prophecy in detail. (Hat tip to Top of Utah Voices columnist Neal Humphrey) (Note: Rammell had a change of heart on making the meetings LDS Priesthood exclusive.)
Sigh.
“I am tired of people telling me that I can’t bring God and the Constitution into my campaign speeches. ... We are in America’s second Revolutionary War to save our freedom, which we paid for with blood. We need God’s help and I’m not ashamed to ask for it,” Rammell was quoted in 2010.
And, as Rammell explains in an Idaho Statesman article on his crusade, he is willing to discuss the issue with non-Mormons and expects them to join his efforts to defend constitutional principles. Read
Personally, I would like to see as many religions as possible involved any of these types of crusades that the Rammells of the world engage in. I believe in an equal distribution of outlandish theories.
As for his crusade, Rammell is probably a longshot toward bringing the White Horse prophecy into the Idaho statehouse. In 2008, he won only 5.4 percent of the vote in an independent candidacy for U.S. Senate. (Note: He didn't do too bad in 2010, gaining 26 percent of the vote but losing the GOP primary to then-incumbent Gov. Butch Otter.)
--- Doug Gibson
