Caffeine Controversy: When Even The Insiders Can't Explain Doctrine

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“Mormons don’t drink coffee or tea because caffeine is a mind-altering substance, right?  That’s what I was told.”


          I was sitting with a group of students waiting for class to begin; we were talking about our different obsessions.  I brought up my coffee obsession – I spend a lot of time and energy thinking about brewing methods and roast qualities.  This discussion then segued into the Mormon taboo against coffee and tea. 

          My classmate’s statement was entirely right – at least, correct according to the interpretation I grew up with. 

         “I grew up thinking that it was the caffeine in coffee and tea that you needed to avoid – we were also told to avoid caffeinated sodas,” I said.  “But now caffeinated soda is OK.” 

          The proscription against coffee and tea owes to the Word of Wisdom, which proscribes against the consumption of hot drinks.  I said as much to my classmates.

          “So no hot chocolate?” said another classmate.

          “We-e-ell…no, hot chocolate is OK.” 

          Mormonism is confusing, even to people who grew up in it.  The reason that Mormonism is so confusing is because it changes all the time and once it changes, there is a collective denial that the policies were ever any different.  A more serious example would be the priesthood ban on blacks; until 1978 black men were banned from holding the priesthood, a policy that effectively barred them from the majority of church life.  Church officials have never offered an apology or explanation for the ban.  Nor have they refuted the words of earlier leaders, who taught some truly reprehensible teachings on race in the name of God.  There is just a collective denial.  

         While conducting research for this post, I came across a commentary in the Deseret News about the caffeinated sodacontroversy.  The author began by saying that everyone knows what the stance is on Coca-Cola, that the Word of Wisdom doesn’t specifically mention Coca-Cola.  She then tells an anecdote from her childhood where her mother poured caffeine-free Coca-Cola down the drain, to “avoid the appearance of evil.”  The author’s conclusion was that she would still avoid Coca-Cola.  Reading this article brought back memories of a youth camp counselor who told our group of girls that she would not marry a man who had touched a cup of coffee.  All of this must seem very silly to outsiders but following the Word of Wisdom – whatever the current interpretation may be – is a serious issue within Mormon circles. 

         I grew up thinking that caffeinated soda was bad, a teaching that was echoed by the members around me.  In her memoir “Book of Mormon Girl,” author Joanna Brooks writes that she felt like a “root beer among colas.”  Brooks was raised to avoid caffeinated sodas; she writes about being a child at non-Mormon birthday parties, worrying about finding the root beer among cola drinks. 

Then, somewhere along the way, caffeinated sodas became acceptable.  Perhaps it was the Monson effect - the current church president drinks a lot of Pepsi.  Perhaps people became used to the idea of caffeinated sodas.  But all of this was unofficial.  Then, last summer, the Mormon Newsroom released a statement saying the Word of Wisdom only applied to coffee and tea, creating a huge controversy within Mormon circles.  

          As a Mormon, I was a pretty anxious personality.  Now, based on the fact that I can’t even explain the rationale behind a policy that is so integral to Mormonism, I am beginning to understand why I was so anxious.  We were raised to take this all very seriously.  We were promised that Mormon doctrine was infinite and unchanging.  But whatever it was that we were supposed to do and why, we really didn’t know.  Or rather, we did know, at least until someone came along and told us we were wrong. 

         We just knew we had to follow no matter what.  

Ted Talks: Julia Sweeney

I found this video a couple weeks ago and loved it.  The comedian Julia Sweeney was raised Catholic.   I hadn't realized that Catholics also have an age of accountability but her realization on the subject was uncannily similar to my fears about baptism.  (There is also a fantastic anecdote about meeting with the Mormon missionaries!)

Marriage Just Makes Things Easier

“Marriage just makes things easier.” 

          My husband and I were visiting with an old friend, a physicist who was getting serious with a woman, when he made that statement. In this particular context about marriage, our friend was talking about health insurance and child custody. He was serious about the relationship – and a person can always argue that marriage is just a piece of paper – but in this society, practicality dictates that two people who are committed to each other are better off formalizing their union by marrying. My husband and I nodded at what our friend was saying – marriage, the legal contract between two people, does make everything easier. Health insurance, child custody, property laws, immigration - these are some of the very tangible benefits that come when two people sign a marriage contract.
          My husband is a foreign national. He came to the U.S. for graduate school and stayed afterwards, working first as a post-doc, then as an engineer for a large company. Although he has always had a visa, there are certain hassles that are inherent to holding a work visa in this country. Several years ago, one of our friends, who was on an H1B non-profit visa, lost the funding for his position. He was given several months in which he could find a job or else he had return to India. Luckily, he found another position and was able to remain. But if he hadn’t, once his visa expired he would have been required to leave the country immediately, leaving all traces of his life behind.
          For me, marriage means that even if my husband loses his job and cannot find another one immediately, he will not be forced to leave this country. Marriage also means that we can share health insurance, which, in light of a serious accident I had several years ago, is a precious thing indeed.  I can always say that my relationship isn’t defined by a piece of paper.  Emotionally, it isn’t. But practically speaking, marriage allows us a certain protection, one that is barred to many other couples simply because of their sexual orientation. 

          It would be selfish for me to argue that other couples, who are also committed to a future together, cannot enjoy the same privileges that I take for granted.

Book Review: Elders

          The book “Elders”, written by Ryan McIlvain, features two LDS (Mormon) missionaries as they go about proseletyzing in the town of Carinha, Brazil. Elder McLeod is an American who is burnt out after eighteen months of proselytizing; he refuses to cater to the politics within the mission field and as a result, is characterized as difficult and unruly. Elder Passos, a Brazilian who joined the LDS church after the death of his mother, struggles to balance his faith with his identity. This story takes place against the backdrop of the 9/11 attacks and the American invasion of Iraq, a tension that is reflected in the hostiles attitudes towards Elder McLeod. Elder McLeod and Elder Passos are companions; the strict missionary rules require them to spend every moment together, a fact that results in a tenuous friendship between two unlikely people. These characters are boys that are turning into men, with all of the uncertainty that marks such a transition.
          Elder Passos is devout, overly-serious, ambitious about the future, and uncertain about his place in the world. He studies English in his spare time, hoping to attend BYU. Perhaps the most poignant moment came at a time when the entire country is watching Brazil play in the final match of the Latin American Football Championships on a Sunday, at the same time as church. The mission president, an American, has insisted that church cannot be canceled, rescheduled, or skipped. Looking at the mission president, Elder Passos sees “a man who could look at an entire culture and see a game, merely, who could look at a country-wide communion and see a crowd.” As a Mormon, Passos possesses a simple, sincere faith: he believes, with all his heart, that the teachings of the LDS Church are true.
          The conflict in this story centers on an investigator Josefina and her husband Leandro. For Passos and McLeod, the stakes are high regarding these potential converts: in them, the two missionaries see the chance to resolve their internal conflicts. McLeod seeks ‘faith as a principle in action’: to learn faith through the action of teaching others. Passos is seeks the potential convert, the ‘one star in a million, a golden elect’, as a way of changing lives, just as his own life was changed after the death of his mother.
          Most stories written about Mormons tend to go for the dramatic: all in or all out. Good versus bad. This is not one of those stories. Rather, this is a book that focuses on the small: the little gestures of friendship that are often misinterpreted or over-looked, the simmering doubts that never come to a full boil, the nagging worries and insecurities that accompany faith. The result was something quite beautiful, a story that lingered in the mind long after reading.

An Outsider's Perspective Of Mormonism

          I am guilty, even now, of assuming that never-Mormons can never fully understand Mormon culture. Some of this attitude is a result of some of the questions and assumptions I have heard over the years. For example, a couple weeks ago, I had someone ask me if Mormons were allowed to celebrate Halloween. But, as with many things, I have been unduly harsh in my judgment. It is true that Mormon culture is confusing, with a lot of Mormon-specific terminology and beliefs. However, sometimes outsiders can see things that insiders, with their limited perspective, cannot.
          Last week I wrote about re-reading the book “Under The Banner of Heaven” by Jon Krakauer. This is a book that centers on a religiously-motivated murder; the Lafferty brothers, who were raised in a strict Mormon home, ultimately went back to a more fundamentalist interpretation of Mormonism that included polygamy, prophecy, and blood atonement. Krakauer used this example – and examples from other modern fundamentalist groups – to draw a connection between the actions of fundamentalists and the origins of their beliefs in early Mormon teachings. The first time I read “Under The Banner of Heaven” I missed a lot of details, owing to my limited insider’s point of view. Fast forward a decade, during which my perspective on the Mormon faith shifted more towards an outsider’s point of view, and I began to see things I had been unable to see before.
          I grew up with a highly white-washed, saccharine view of Mormon origins. Everything was painted in black and white: Mormons and non-Mormons, good and evil. The good Mormons and the mob that persecuted the Mormons. But life is more complicated than that. Instead of black and white, most of life is painted in varying shades of complexity. People are a mixture of good and bad intentions, a fact that seems to be reflected in an outsider’s view of Mormon history. Mormons (and ex-Mormons) have something to prove about their history. Never-Mormons do not, which allows them a valuable impartiality.
          And so that brings me to my main question: can outsiders truly understand Mormon culture? It appears to me that the answer is yes, that outsiders can see things about Mormon culture that, as insiders, we don’t see. The more I travel out of Mormonism, the more I begin to see my past struggles with a clearer eye. I never had to struggle with balancing my faith with unsavory Mormon history; I only discovered the alternate history after leaving. I did, however, struggle to make sense of the rationale behind the priesthood ban on blacks. I remember struggling with the idea that access to Heaven is only granted as a result of Mormon temple rituals and that only by getting married and having children would I be allowed into Heaven. Specific rituals and beliefs struck me as being an arbitrary requirement that had nothing to do with how good or bad a person's heart was.  I remember struggling with the idea that faith in the Mormon Church was the only way to truly be happy, when the reality was that it made me miserable. Now that I am out, I am recognizing the mental gymnastics that I had to put myself through in order to align my own personal convictions with the teachings of Mormonism.
          Yes, there are a lot of misconceptions out there about Mormonism. But the truth is that the outsiders who take the time to listen and research end up coming away with a far more complete assessment of Mormon culture than many insiders, with their limited perspective, can manage.
          Myself included.

Coyotes

          This past week I had the good fortune of going to Big Bend National Park, where I was able to stock up on some much-needed nature and solitude. Big Bend is located in a remote area of western Texas and borders the Rio Grande. With its combination of desert terrain and mountains, it has a wide sampling of ecological diversity. While at Big Bend, I saw hares and javelinas, cactus and creosote. 



The Rio Grande - the opposite side of the river is Mexico




The view from the Pinnacles trail


          I really enjoy the music of Don Edwards, who sings about the lives of cowboys. Traveling through the flat empty plains of west Texas - and hiking some of the trails around Big Bend - I began to understand his music a little better. One of Don Edwards' songs, called Coyotes, has the phrase

                Sit out under the stars of the Milky Way 
                And listen while the coyotes howl

          With the dark skies of Big Bend, I was fortunate enough to see the clustering of stars, with the characteristic dark band of clouds, that comprises the Milky Way. 
          And that night, the coyotes howled. 

Re-reading Under The Banner of Heaven

          I have stated multiple times that I was in my mid-twenties when I found out that Joseph Smith had married multiple women, including teenagers and women who already had husbands. Although this is technically true, I find that my story of enlightenment about Mormon history is considerably more complex than I had realized. It is true that I did not learn these facts in church. While re-reading Jon Krakauer’s book Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith, I discovered that these facts were hidden in plain sight, if only I had taken the time to look. 
          The first time I read “Under The Banner of Heaven”, I was in college and only a few years out of Mormonism. I remember reading the gory details of this book – the tangled messes of polygamous families, the horrible downslide of the Lafferty brothers, and the devastating murders of Brenda Lafferty and her infant daughter – and dismissing them as having nothing to do with the mainstream Mormon church that I grew up in. My primary reflex was to dismiss anything to do with polygamy as being not-really-Mormon. My secondary reflex was to dismiss any account of Mormon history written by a non-Mormon. These reflexes were there in spite of the fact that by that time I was an atheist who had made the conscious decision to leave the Mormon Church.
          On page 5, Jon Krakaeur states

“The religious literature handed out by the earnest young missionaries in Temple Square makes no mention of the fact that Joseph Smith – still the religion’s focal personage – married at least thirty-three women and probably as many as forty-eight. Nor does it mention that the youngest of these wives was just fourteen years old when Joseph explained to her that God had commanded that she marry him or face eternal damnation.”

          I did read this book when I was younger and yet the details about Mormon history, including Joseph Smith’s polygamous past and some of the more violent aspects of the early teachings, went straight over my head. There were a lot of details that I missed the first time around – the full import of the early teachings about polygamy, the more unsavory aspects of the early leaders, the connection between the early teachings about polygamy and modern Mormon fundamentalists, and the brutality of the blood atonement taught by Brigham Young. The first time reading this book, I ignored the history because it didn't agree with the lessons I grew up with. I also think that I ignored the history because I needed to protect myself. It is not an easy task to examine the short-comings of the religion you grew up with.
          The truth is, reading this book was an uncomfortable experience. There was a lot that was familiar, even within the story of the Lafferty boys. I was raised with a pretty literal interpretation of Mormonism; my father is the type of person who takes the words of the leaders at face value. The visions and revelations of the fundamentalists described in this book are eerily similar to the visions and revelations described by the early leaders. Within this book are the stories of people that took the words of the early Mormon leaders in a very literal sense and twisted them into a violent conclusion.
          I too was raised to take the words of the leaders at face value; to recognize that commonality, no matter how different I may be, is a profoundly uncomfortable feeling.
          Nowadays, the Mormon leaders are very careful about what history they do and do not teach. The majority of Mormons, including the ones I grew up with, are just people that are trying to live a good life according to the standards expected of them. The majority of them will live decent, upstanding lives. No one talks about polygamy anymore and the more radical teachings of the early leaders are being buried under a carefully constructed amnesia. But the words of the leaders are, according to the Mormon teachings, the words of God himself. This is the lesson I learned. This is also the lesson that the Lafferty boys learned.