Secular Morality

This week we have a high school student named Jack in our office as part of a work study program. As we were getting to know him at the beginning of the morning, Robin decided to start a conversation about alcohol, and then spontaneously drop in “Carolyn doesn’t drink. She’s Mormon.”

Kind of irritated that she felt the need to broadcast this, I responded, “He probably doesn’t even know what that is. It’s an American religion after all.”

So Robin turns to Jack: “Have you ever heard of Mormons?”

Jack, rather tentatively, then says “Yeah…aren’t they one of those absolutely crazy religions?”

Amidst incredible laughter, Robin announced that maybe the religion was crazy, but really it was just another sect of Christianity, and I really am among the more normal – even if I believe in a religion that “demonizes the human body” because I don’t wear strapless tops, or bikinis, or engage in extramarital relations, and I also do silly things like not drink alcohol, or coffee, or tea…you get the idea.

It always amazes me how people see Mormonism as a list of impossible rules and restrictions and nothing more. Such is not how I perceive my religion at all. Maybe it’s from force of habit that I have such standards, but I prefer to think of it as an outward expression of a much deeper inner conviction. Saying “I don’t smoke” isn’t an intricate part of the faith in and of itself. It’s not like people who want to convert to the religion think “Wow! I really want to give 10% of my income to a church, and commit myself to a family, and not look at porn, or watch R-rated movies, and never drink or smoke or do drugs again, and stop swearing, and not gamble, and change my whole wardrobe, and sign up for hours worth of volunteer time at the church every week, and…hey! The Mormon church does all of those things! Maybe I’ll join it!” Instead, more typically, the thought process goes like this: “Mormons have an interesting theology, so I decided to learn more about it, and after learning about it for a while, I decided to pray about it, and the prayers led me to belief that this was a good religion, and I started praying about things more specifically, like whether I should quit smoking, and I felt like God wanted me to do that, so I did, and even though it was really hard, I saw these huge blessings in my life and felt a much stronger relationship with Christ then I ever had, and that really motivated me to try my best to worship him in every aspect of my life…”

Anyway, I digress. The point of this entry was to highlight a very strange dichotomy in modern culture. So, a few hours later at lunch time, Jack avoids one of the main dishes offered in the cafeteria, announcing that he’s a vegetarian. Robin teasingly commented that her family included cattle ranchers, but no one else blinked an eye.

In fact, I’ve ran into several vegetarian/vegan people here, and most everyone is highly respectful of their decision – maybe because it’s “cool” to tackle environmental causes and not eat meat.

Likewise, most people don’t think it’s terribly odd if you say I’m a Jew and I keep kosher, or I’m Muslim and I follow halal. But to say I’m a Mormon and I don’t drink coffee, people are shocked.

Today, I was writing today about the Muslim struggle to be accepted as “British” because they’re so different. In a strange sense though, I think when people are already expecting them to be foreign, they tolerate those differences more. After getting use to a different race and language and dress style and food, adding one more random thing can be effectively grouped as “just a Muslim thing” and then dismissed.

But I, on the other hand, am far too normal to be allowed to be strange. I’m too much of an All-American, too much of a cute blonde intelligent ambitious middle class girl, for it to make any sense at all why I would voluntarily adapt a huge pattern of abstinence. I received much the same reaction in my religious studies class last fall when we talked about a New York Times article featuring Ivy League girls who wanted to be stay-at-home moms, and everyone was horrified that such an education would be “wasted.” I, of course, defended the girls saying I planned on doing almost the exact same thing. No one could understand why the girl who consistently set the curve would not choose money over a family.

It reminds me of a comparison Cheryl made during a phone conversation last spring. She mentioned how if a middle-class woman is talking with her friends and says “I’ve decided to pay off my credit cards and not take a home-equity loan out on my house and maybe I'll avoid buying a new car for another three years because the leader of my church, the Prophet, told us to get out debt”, her friends would think she was insane.

But if the same middle-class woman uttered the exact same statement, amended to “because Oprah recommended avoiding debt on her Tuesday program,” all of her friends would think the idea was brilliant.