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Back to the Cult of Mormon by Tamara Johnson Now that Elizabeth Smart has returned home, the media have begun to obsess over whether "self-styled prophet" Brian Mitchell has damaged the girl's mental health by indoctrinating her into his strange religion. "There is clearly a psychological impact that occurred at some point,'' asserts Salt Lake Police Chief Rick Dinse. The girl's aunt, Angela Dumke, agrees. "He's nuts," she says of Mitchell. "This guy's probably involved in polygamy." Ed Smart believes that Mitchell "brainwashed" his daughter. Her uncle, Tom Smart, says his niece is a victim of Stockholm Syndrome and will certainly require counseling. But having been raised by Mormons, and having lived part of my childhood in Utah, I wonder if the Smarts and others in their community are in a good position to set the sanity standard. They belong to a religion that preaches direct revelation--that's talking to angels, folks. In fact, it has been mentioned by several news sources that on the girl's first night home, she watched The Trouble with Angels, a video Ed describes as his daughter's favorite. In addition, Mormons also follow the advice of "a living prophet," one Gordon B. Hinckley, who has spoken of the priesthood that is extended to all worthy men and boys over the age of twelve in this way: Think of it, my dear young brethren. This priesthood which you hold carries with it the keys of the ministering of angels. That means, as I interpret it, that if you live worthy of the priesthood, you have the right to receive and enjoy the very power of heavenly beings to guide you, to protect you, to bless you. What boy, if he is thoughtful, would not welcome this. As holders of the priesthood, Elizabeth's father, uncles, even her older brother, are subject to heavenly guidance and Elizabeth, her mother, and her little sister are expected to submit to their higher authority. Again, the words of their prophet: It is true that man's essential nature does not change, and that principles laid down centuries ago by the prophets are as applicable today as they were when they were first enunciated; but the world evidently knows not how to apply them. Today that application needs the direction of the Almighty as certainly as when Jehovah spoke to Enoch and Moses and Isaiah and Elijah. So really, how should a fourteen-year-old Mormon girl be expected to know the difference between her father's "revelations" and those of a traveling stranger who calls himself Emmanuel? Witnesses have pointed to the crazy look in Brian Mitchell's eyes, but am I the only one who finds her father to have a similar nutty look? In fact, in my experience many Mormon men have a weird look in their eye and they speak strangely too. I was taught, for example, to use a respectful thee and thou in my prayers and to think of myself as a "helpmeet" to my future husband (in other words, "second in command.") In such a context, words like "thou sayest" don't seem so unusual to me. I heard those kinds of anachronisms every Sunday. Mormons, like Elizabeth's aunt like, like to show shock at the subject of polygamy as an expression of how far away from those teachings the church is now, but my grandmother was born into a polygamous household. I have heard stories not so different from the following recorded in 1872 by Mrs. T.B.H. Stenhouse in A Lady's Life Among the Mormons: Expose of Polygamy in Utah: If a woman gets "broken in," or "tamed," the husband rejoices, and the "sisters" "join in prayer," relating in the subjugated woman's ears all the blessings of "obedience..." she learns from the revelation that "If any man have a wife which holds the keys of this power, and he teaches her the law of my priesthood, as pertaining to these things then she shall believe, and administer unto him, or she shall be destroyed, sayeth the Lord your God, for I will destroy her." This is a beautiful position for any loving wife to be placed in! [Emphasis mine] In reality, Mormon women know that their religion was not only founded on the principle of polygamy, but that the church actively teaches, as Brian Mitchell correctly states, that polygamy is "a lost blessing," one that will be restored to the faithful in heaven. Since sex education is actively discouraged by many Mormon families, it is understandable to me that Elizabeth Smart would be confused about her abduction. I grew up hearing many stories in church about how God spoke to various men, and occasionally even women, about who he had chosen for them to marry. Often the point of the story was that God's choice wasn't necessarily the person the speaker might have chosen for him or herself. I remember one particularly shocking testimony meeting in which my Sunday school teacher revealed that he had really wanted to marry a much more beautiful woman than his wife, but that God had repeatedly whispered to him, "Marry the redhead! Marry the redhead!" If in doubt, one was to pray--day and night if necessary. Yet even excessive prayer is something the newspapers have offered as indication of Brian Mitchell's obviously deranged mind. If Elizabeth Smart has suffered psychological damage, I can only speculate how much it might be compounded by her father referring to her suddenly as "a young woman." With a woman's value in the Mormon church reduced almost entirely to "her virtue," such a statement is the equivalent of a scarlet letter. I only hope that Elizabeth will get the help she needs to recover--not only from her kidnapping ordeal, but from her initial "brainwashing" as well.
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I was fifteen. But I knew that opening a wedding
present that had a handkerchief and this poem in it was fucked up.
And I knew that the real message was “Don’t let a guy blow his wad into
you and expect another guy to marry you.”.
Tamara Johnson from The Preamble to Jimmy Jazz's first novel House of the Unwed Mother. .............................................. |