Combating Cultural Mormonism with a Little Anarchy
In my estimation, there seems to be a growing number of LDS that are starting to recognize the difference between doctrinal Mormonism and cultural Mormonism, with a discontent concerning the latter.
I, personally, worry that cultural Mormonism is killing too many of these good people with boredom. So, if there are any out in Cyberspace who are tired of the Utah culture being exported to every part of the globe, here are some suggestions from your friendly, neighborhood LDS Anarchist to spice up your church experience and bring a little leavening to the doughy masses.
Feel free to run with any of them and to encourage your LDS and, depending on the suggestion, non-LDS friends to do the same. With enough people doing the following small things, the church will quickly be de-culturalized, leaving only doctrinal Mormonism left. But even if only a very few people do these things, it will still cause a tremendous shift of attitude among the saints and bring about significant cultural change. Lastly, if it is only you working, and you are not having any effect, at all, upon the Cult of Conformity, at least you will have de-culturalized yourself and removed much of the boredom you might have been going through.
Bring back the visual cues of manhood
- Men and boys, grow your beards out.
This is a very easy thing to do, as there is nothing that needs to be done. It is a passive act. You simply allow the facial hair to grow out. This will save you time, energy, electricity (for electric shavers), damage to the skin (no more nicks and cuts) and money (no more shaving equipment needed.)
Many men desire to grow a beard but use the excuse that it grows out in patches and ends up looking horrible, so they cut it. The truth of the matter is that if you just let the hair grow, even the patches start to sprout hair and eventually everything looks even and full, but sometimes it may take six months for a very patchy man to have a full beard. A little patience is all it takes.
Teenage boys of 15 and 16, when they start to notice that their peach fuzz is turning into terminal hairs, will immediately start shaving it off. This is a mistake, as the facial hair is a visual cue that manhood is now upon them.
Young men, aren’t you tired of people treating you like a child? Grow your facial hair out and watch how quickly people begin treating you as a more mature individual. Watch the reaction of your parents, male peers, school teachers and the young women of your age. A beard is a very strong visual cue of manhood and everyone will start to treat you as an adult, especially when your voice deepens. Remember, things should match. A deep voice goes with a full beard. A high pitched voice goes with a clean-shaven (boyish) face. These visual and audible cues were given to us by God on purpose.
Men, unless you are in a profession that requires you to be clean-shaven, let the hair grow out into a full, bushy beard. Ditch the fads and trends of trimming into this or that beard style. You don’t need a goatee, you need a full beard. You were created in the image of God. He’s got a full beard. You’re supposed to have one, too. Be like God in heart and look like God in image. Don’t trim his image. If the mustache gives you trouble when you eat, or if you find that the beard becomes a “flavor saver” (because food gets stuck in it), just exercise the patience of the saints and let it grow until it is long enough to no longer get in the way.
Now, I say grow a full, bushy, untrimmed beard because that is the most manly of beards. Short beards, even when full, indicate young men, whose beards have not yet attained the length of a fully grown man.
Women, compliment your husbands and sons on the fine beards they are growing. You are hard-wired to find beards attractive. Why? Because beards are manly, and women love manliness. So, dump all the (beardless) Roman and (beardless) homosexual propaganda that has filled your head and embrace the real image of Christ. You don’t want a beardless Roman, now do you? Remember, the beardless Romans killed the bearded Christ. You want a Christ-like man, right? So, encourage the growing of the beard, ladies. Besides, you know that women constantly complain of how grown, adult men act like immature 12-year olds, right? Well, have you ever considered that they act like 12-year olds because they still look like 12-year olds? Can you really expect your men to grow up and be adults if they just look like bigger versions of beardless kids?
Men, women and children should consider the functions of the full beard and respect them. Here are some examples:
- Beards come in quite handy during intimacy. (I ain’t gonna elaborate on this one.)
- Beards help to develop the manual dexterity of infants and toddlers, who, as they are held by their fathers, grasp the beard, which fully develops the hand and fingers of the child.
- Beards help to distinguish the father from the mother in the eyes of the child, causing them to view the sexes as very, very different. (“Viva la difference!” as the French say.) This causes young girls to develop into very feminine women and young boys to develop into very masculine men.
- Bearded men (full, bushy beards, mind you, not the sissy trimmed beards) elicit an involuntary reaction upon all who see them. Beards emit power and virility and evoke instant respect. Big, clean-shaven men with tattoos all over the place, piercings, etc., who look for confrontations, involuntarily avoid bearded men because they don’t feel manly in the presence of bearded men. In point of fact, bearded men look upon beardless men as less manly.
- When two bearded men enter an area and spot each other, they are naturally drawn to each other, involuntarily complimenting the other for their fine facial hair. (This is significant, as men normally do not give compliments of appearance to one another.) A bearded man talking to another bearded man feels like he is talking to a man. A bearded man talking to a beardless man feels like he is talking to a boy. All beardless men know this, or feel this inferiority of manliness when in the presence of fully bearded men. There is no worse feeling to a man than to feel less than manly.
- Conversely, there is no greater feeling to a woman than to feel feminine, but femininity must be contrasted with masculinity to get its greatest effect. A fully bearded man gives the highest contrast of manliness to a woman, which is why women who have experienced fully bearded men don’t want them to ever cut the beard off. They feel supremely feminine in the presence of such a manly man. (Of course, cultural conditioning can take away this natural affinity that women have towards manly beards.)
- Fully bearded men have an air of authority around them that children and women (and beardless men) respond to. There is something in our psyche that still remembers Heavenly Father and that responds to His bearded image.
- There may be many other reasons to grow a beard, but I’ll end with this one: if the Lord ever wants to send you out among the people to prophesy like one of His prophets of old, shouldn’t you look the part?
Worldly trends to eliminate beards Can you imagine a homosexual male with a full beard? Kind of hard to picture, isn’t it? Ever wonder why adult, homosexual males are almost always clean shaven, or have a minimum of facial hair? Every wonder why the “playboy” image, started by Hugh Hefner, is clean-shaven (kind of like the homosexuals?) Homosexual males don’t have children because they don’t get into long-term, committed relationships with females (otherwise known as “marriage.”) “Playboys” (or nowadays the term is “players”) don’t get into long term, committed relationships with females, either. (No marriage.) You think the parallels between homosexual males and players is mere coincidence?
How about the sex performers and industry? The only hair on their bodies (male or female) is found on their heads (and sometimes not even that for the men.) Ever wonder why all this shaving of armpit hair, pubic hair and facial hair? All of the visual cues of adulthood (for men and women) are snipped off by this industry, by the homosexuals and often by the playboys. But think about it, if you take away this hair, what does an adult look like? Answer: A large child.
None of this is coincidence. Just as the hair that develops during puberty is designed by God to be a visual cue that the body is becoming an adult and getting ready for its sexual function between ADULTS, the world would remove all this hair so that it looks like CHILDREN are performing these sacred acts. Thoughts to consider.
(After writing the above, which is based upon my own, personal observations, I did some Internet surfing and came across the following web site that confirmed what I had perceived about beards.)
Pay your tithing in silver
Stop writing checks or paying in cash. Take whatever cash amount you would spend on tithing and convert it into silver coins, specifically, this silver. Package and mail the coins off to your bishop, along with a tithing slip inside. Make sure the slip is filled out so that you are anonymous.
Leave boring sacrament meetings after partaking of the sacrament
If you are tired of banal, boring, lame sacrament meeting talks and seriously consider going inactive, don’t. Just go to church, partake of the sacrament, and as soon as the priests and deacons are dismissed to sit with their families, walk out and go home. You can return later to attend the Gospel Doctrine class, Relief Society or Priesthood Meetings, if you want or need to. If Gospel Doctrine is lame, skip that, too. (However, to remain in good standing, priesthood holders must attend their priesthood meetings, even if they are boring.)
Doing this will allow you to keep your sanity for a few more years. Also, if enough people in your ward participate in collective ditching, the bishopric may get the message that boredom is not a generally accepted principle of the gospel and may make needed improvements to the sacrament meeting. But don’t hold your breath on that one.
Ditch the necktie and white shirt
Last I checked, you can’t be ex’d for that, or even disfellowshipped. But some anally retentive bishops may decide that you are no longer worthy to bless or pass the sacrament, give talks, teach classes or perform ordinances of church record, so, if you are looking for a breather from a heavy church load, conveniently make sure that every Sunday your white shirts and ties are too dirty to wear and dress in nice, comfortable, casual clothes, instead. And if you are called to give a priesthood blessing to some sick person in the ward, don’t be anally retentive yourself and rush home to get dressed in a white shirt and tie. Just go as you are and bless them.
Grow your hair long
Jesus did it. Samson did it. Who is more manly than those two? Long hair and a full, bushy beard complement each other. If you have the Roman hair (short cut) and the Israelite beard (full and bushy), it will almost look hypocritical, like having one foot in Babylon and one foot in Zion. Put both feet in Zion and grow the hair out. You’ll look a whole lot more handsome and manly if you do. Plus, you’ll save on all the barber shop money you spend. (Or, to appease a wife that is unaccustomed to long hair, tell her that you are going to the barber, but instead come back with chocolates and roses…and uncut hair. She’ll soon look forward to your “barber shop” excursions and will end up being the one insisting you never cut your hair.) If anyone asks you why you are not cutting the hair, say you are trying to be like Jesus, or that you have taken a Nazarene vow, or that you’ve noticed that your strength increases the longer your hair is, and you’ve decided to enter a strongman contest.
Call everyone brother and sister so-and-so
And I do mean everyone. Bishops, presidents, missionaries, apostles, prophets and all General Authorities. Everyone. And make it part of every sentence, too, when you are called out on the practice. So, for example: “Hello, Brother Brown.’ “Uh, I’m the bishop, Brother Green.” “Yes, I know, Brother Brown.” “Well, it is customary to call one’s bishop by the title bishop and not brother.” “I was aware of that, Brother Brown. But thanks for the information, anyway.” You get my drift, right? If anyone asks why you are doing this, just get all emotional and, if you are able to, shed a few tears while giving him (not her) a big hug and saying that you love him as your own brother. Fairly quickly, no one will ask you again about it.
Print out your own set of scriptures
Include whatever canon you want. Let it contain the four standard works (any version of the Bible you want, or multiple versions, or the red-letter version, etc.), the Apocrypha, the Inspired Version, etc. Use a desk-top publishing program and a good printer and take it to a binding shop to get it professionally bound. Remember, the saints set the canon. You are a saint, so set your own canon.
Reverse the order of prayer
Instead of ending “in the name of Jesus Christ,” make it a habit of starting with “Heavenly Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, …” and then end with a simple “Amen.”
Reverse the order of priesthood blessings
Instead of saying, “John Smith, by the authority of the Melchizedek Priesthood, we lay our hands on you…etc.” and then ending with, “…and we leave this blessing with you in the name of Jesus Christ, amen,” just begin with, “John Smith, in the name of Jesus Christ and by the authority of…” and end with, “amen.” Sure, you”ll undoubtedly get elders telling you afterward that you screwed up the blessing and must do it again because the order was reversed, but stick to your guns and teach them a thing or two, namely, that stating the authority is what is required, not the order in which the authority is stated.
Drop all the archaic expressions of prayer
Don’t worry, you won’t tick God off by calling him “you” instead of “thee.” Lol. That is a Mormon cultural artifact, nothing more. Use plain, modern English when talking to God and drop all the thees, thous, wilts, etc. Do this in private and in public, after all, it’s going to take practice to get out of this habit. But it’ll be well worth the effort both to witness the expressions of horror by the LDS around you after you’ve said your prayer, as well as seeing how more accepting Christians are of you when you’ve said a prayer without archaic, “holier-than-thou” expressions.
De-McConkie-ize the church: stop ending talks with “In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.”
This practice was started by Bruce R. McConkie. The early saints just said, “Amen.” to end a talk, or just ended it however they wanted to end it and then sat down. Surely you don’t think your entire talk speaks for Jesus, now do you? So, leave off speaking in His name except for ORDINANCES which require speaking in His name and for those times when you are filled with the Spirit and are prophesying in the name of God. (Now how many times has that happened, huh?)
Purchase bottles of vodka and leave them out to be seen
Use the vodka to wash your bodies, as directed by the Word of Wisdom. Make sure they are conspicuously displayed and then invite some church members over for dinner. Have fun with the discussions that ensue.
Other ideas
Obviously, these are just ideas to get you started. Cultural Mormons will probably call you a sinner for doing these things. But then, they also see anarchy as evil, which it isn’t. Just smile and do them anyway. Eventually, the tide of Mormon cultural crap will turn. If you have any other ideas to offer, or if you are already doing some of these or other things, feel free to leave a comment and inform us all of your experience.
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