Excommunication

When my wife was a wee lassie around 11 years old, her father, who seemed to be lacking in character, divorced her mother. Sometime after the divorce the elders from her church came to their home to inform her mother that the church was going to excommunicate her mother from her church (a Missouri Lutheran congregation) because they did not believe in divorce and she was a divorced woman. It didn’t seem to make any difference that her father was the one who did initiated the divorce. That made absolutely no sense her Doreen who turned to those men and said, “What gives you the right to excommunicate my mother?!” They didn’t. Such is the reason and insight and the occasional good response of church folk who are in the wrong. It makes me proud of my wife.

There was a young woman by the name of Lani Gerson who in her teen years decided to leave the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in which she had grown up. She received a number of letters encouraging her to return to the church but she was not interested. Then one day a young bishop in the church came to her door and invited her to attend her excommunication trial. As she said, “I was dumbfounded” and told the young bishop, “I have already quit – you can’t fire me.” She said he made no attempt to get to know her or understand her position and showed no indication of wanting to know her. Excommunication in the Mormon Church is a rare thing generally used when someone makes a serious violation of the church tenants. Lani Gerson, now 65 years old has no idea if they went ahead with the trial, but she certainly did not attend.

Occasionally someone asks me if Mormons are Christians and I reply of course they are; it is right in the name, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I know several Mormons; I have attended their worship services and am impressed by their lay leadership. I even co-officiated at a wedding with a Roman Catholic priest in a wedding between a Roman Catholic girl and a Mormon boy. I am also impressed by their common practice of their young people dedicating two years of service to the church. I also appreciate their work in genealogy of which anybody can access the records to check out their family tree. They do it to bring the dead into membership of their church. Seems strange to me, but it still is helpful for research purposes.

I am also impressed with that amount of lay leadership that takes place in the Church of Latter-Day saints which unlike the other protestant cousins, don’t assign the piety to paid clergy.

But that does not mean they cannot be insensitive to people and show a lack of interest and caring towards people like Lani Gerson, though I am sure her story is not typical.

We know the Mitt Romney is a Mormon, and active Mormon he made his two year commitment in his youth. He has assumed high church office and was the top church leader in Massachusetts from 1986 to 1994. And prior to that he served as a bishop, and a lay pastor of congregations in Belmond and Cambridge Massachusetts. In those positions he had responsibilities of organizational work and counseling. He also taught Sunday School and worked with teenagers. He tithes 10% of his income to the church. He is quiet about all this but has been a definite church leader and still attends when he is able.

He is also the young bishop who visited with Lani Gerson and showed his lack of ability to relate to common folk. There are similar stories to this. One such story is about Caroly Caci who also was lectured by the young Romney bishop when she was a divorced mother of five her fifties and he lectured her on premarital sex now that she was dating. She said, “You’ve got to be kidding. That’s none of your business.” Later she heard that he regretting his words but never apologized. He also was known to brush off domestic abuse concerns when asked.

In other words Romney, while a very smart, intelligent, and ambitious man, seems to lack empathy for ordinary folk. He is rich and is surrounded by rich folk. His lack of empathy I believe is reflected in the financial positions he takes with his running mate Paul Ryan; a budget that reflects Social Darwinism that I wrote about in a previous article. It is insensitive and seems out of touch with middle class and poorer folks concerns.

There was a similar line of thinking one finds in the Old Testament; a belief that good people are rewarded by being rich and bad people are punished in being poor. The wisdom writers in scripture, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Psalms, Proverbs and Job (read that one) and took a look around their society and concluded, the there were lots of nasty dudes who got rich anyway and a lot of good hardworking folk who just could never catch a break. They were sensitive and wise and wonderful leaders of their people.

I want to see that same type of empathy and wisdom in our country’s political leaders and I just don’t find in very often in the Republican candidates currently running for office. I don’t think it is rampant is Democratic candidates either; both sides far too influenced by the rich and powerful in this country, but I do find a few as I mentioned in the previous article. And I think they are clearly present in Republican leaders in the past, i.e. Eisenhower, Henry Cabot Lodge, and their ilk, but not so much in recent years.

I would hope that more voters would stand up to those politicians who are in fact excommunicating them from the governmental process as my wife stood up to the church leaders those many years ago, and say, “What gives you the right to do that?” Perhaps they will repent.