Rick Perry, 'The Book of Mormon' & Weiss's Law
Why did the controversy about Texas Gov. Rick Perry's weekend prayer-a-palooza remind me of a current hit Broadway show? It's all about the theology.
I'll mostly leave it to others to calculate the political effect of the Houston event, titled "The Response." I'll only note this bit of context:
Organizers claim that about 30,000 attended, a figure I take with the same ocean of salt I shake on any estimate that doesn't include an turnstile count. For comparison, I looked up the announced attendance in that same stadium just short of a year ago, at last year's first preseason home game of the Houston Texans: 70,725.
If I were a supporter of Perry's run for the White House, I wouldn't be thrilled by that. Seriously, losing by a 2-1 margin to an exhibition game? Even if it was the Cowboys.
Of course, Perry isn't an official candidate. Yet. And I can think of exactly one way for him to prove his claim that this was an entirely apolitical event: If he doesn't run.
Anyway. Theology and Broadway.
From the moment Perry called for the event, supporters and opponents have engaged in a biblical prooftext battle. Perry himself kicked it off back in May when he issued his invitation: "As Jesus prayed publicly for the benefit of others in John 11:41-42, so should we express our faith in this way."
On the other hand, you have the Rev. Jim Rigby, pastor of St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Austin who wrote a piece for The Progressive Christian titled "Five Scriptures You Won't Hear at Rick Perry's Prayer Event ."
He trotted out: "And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray in public places to be seen by others... But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your heavenly parent, who is unseen." (Matthew 6:5-6)
On the one side you had the American Family Association and the International House of Prayer (IHOP), notable for their positions about the will of God and homosexuality. And pastor John Hagee, notable for his anti-Catholicism. And the Rev. Rev. C. Peter Wagner who suggested that Satan and his minions were responsible for the earthquake an tsunami in Japan and that God's choice not to intercede had something to do with a lack of Japanese Christians
And on the other side we have Christian pastors like Rigby and others who are just as certain that the will of the Almighty bends toward gay marriage or an emphasis on the social gospel and not so much a literal battle between the faithful and unseen, supernatural forces. Not to mention leaders of other faiths who have their own ideas about the will of God or lack thereof.
What struck me about a lot of the back and forth is the apparent belief by those on both sides that if their opponents would just pay attention to their theological arguments, the truth would be self-evident.
Which brings me to "The Book of Mormon." Not the religious scriptures of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, but the hit Broadway show.
As influences on popular culture go, a Broadway play is a horse-and-buggy event in a broadband world. Eight shows a week, a bit over a thousand people per show. More people saw the final Harry Potter movie in any one large multiplex during the first week than have seen the Book of Mormon since it opened.
And yet, there's a special buzz to Broadway -- the show has been written about in many newspapers and other media. It won a flock of Tonys. And buying the original cast album is as easy as a mouse click.
Based on the songs, the show is vulgar and funny and musically rousing. And despite the slapstick and scatology, it takes religion very, very seriously.
Fans of the cartoon South Park will not be surprised by that. Two of the play's creators are Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of South Park. The TV show has often taken on religious themes. For some reason, Parker and Stone have been fascinated by Mormon theology for many years. And in one episode back in 2003, they gave an amazingly clear and straightforward account of the Mormons' explanation of how their faith came to be.
Parker and Stone say they're atheists. Which gives them an interesting perspective on matters of faith. As Stone told ABC's Jake Tapper earlier this year: "Anybody's religion, to an outsider, it's just as goofy. I don't think either of us think Mormonism is any goofier than Hinduism or Christianity, from an outsider's point of view."
Which is very close to a saying I coined some years back. I call it Weiss's Law of Religious Relativism: Any religion is crazy, by definition, to a nonbeliever. Those aspects of religion that depend on faith would be considered insane in any other context.
The flip side is that to the faithful, anybody who fails to believe as they do seems crazy. But many people who are resolute in their faith -- Reliant Stadium featured a bunch of them on Saturday - either don't know or want to know how they look from the outside.
One of the showstopper songs in the musical is called "I Believe." A young Mormon missionary who temporarily lost his faith is bucking himself back up with a list of things his religion teaches:
I believe that the Lord, God, created the universe.
I believe that He sent His only Son to die for my sins.
And I believe that ancient Jews built boats and sailed to America...
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 believe that God lives on a planet called Kolob.
I believe that Jesus has his own planet as well.
And I believe that the Garden of Eden was in Jackson County, Missouri....
I suspect that most of the Christian supporters and opponents of "The Response" would find consider some of those claims self-evident and others crazy. If you're in that camp, here's a thought experiment for you:
Imagine you've been introduced to a visitor from Alpha Centauri and your task is to explain which of those claims is nutty, and exactly why the others aren't.
That would be "The Response" I'd pay to hear.
