Perhaps you’re old enough to remember the lyric from the old Stealers Wheel song, “Stuck in the Middle with You,” whose title I co-opted for this blog. This feeling of being stuck in the middle is where many latter-day saints end up in politics. It’s not that our views and politics are unclear. It’s the challenge of finding a place to call “home” in the political spectrum. The Q movement brings this problem to the forefront once again.
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In the 1838, the followers of the Prophet Joseph Smith were driven from Missouri by force of an extermination order issued by the state’s governor. They ended up as wretched refugees gathered on the eastern banks of the Mississippi River in Illinois. The people of Illinois were horrified as they learned of the depredations committed against these gentle people by the Missouri mobs. Missourians, as seen in the 1850s with the Bleeding Kansas fiasco, were rough and lawless and they very nearly started a civil war in Kansas over slavery and statehood. In the late 1830s they were no different and many of the same militia and mob leaders who drove the Mormons from the state were associated with Bleeding Kansas.
The government of Illinois issued a charter for the latter-day saints to establish a city named Nauvoo. Nauvoo was once the town of Commerce, Illinois, but under latter-day saint leadership, the town flourished. It quickly became larger than Chicago was at the time and it had a bustling economy. State politicos courted the saints for their votes. As a rule, the latter-day saints tended to vote as a bloc, based on the community’s best interests. Both Whigs and Democrats were interested in getting this block of voters onboard, even though they quietly hated the Mormons. As the community’s numbers grew, an actual state political party called the Anti-Mormon Party arose. As controversy arose over the rumors of polygamy and intolerant Protestant ministers preached their venom against the saints, both political parties became anti-Mormon—but to win, they needed Mormon votes.
At the time Joseph Smith joked that, to the latter-day saints, elections were like deciding to whom we would hand the rope with which to hang us. His point was that both sides hated us and that both would likely turn on us and do us harm. That’s why he became a presidential candidate in the 1844 election. He knew that, if he was the candidate, the saints would not give their votes to either the Whigs or the Democrats and that voting would not split the Church. This decision appears to be inspired when we realize that Jaoseph was assassinated in June that year, just a few months against the election. During that period when the Church had to function without its Prophet, the unity of the saints held them together. They did not devolve into partisan bickering that could have divided the people.
During Mitt Romney’s runs for the White House, we saw this happen again. Anti-Mormons on both sides of the political spectrum attacked Romney and the Church. The Left hates Mormons because we stand firmly for traditional marriage, oppose same-sex marriage, abortion, and the welfare state. We don’t believe in being taxed to death to pay for social programs we don’t support. That lands most of us in the Republican camp. Unfortunately, the Right is dominated by Christian conservatives who hate Mormons and consider us dangerous cultists. The right sees us as squishy on abortion because we would allow it in cases of rape, incest, or when the mother’s life is in danger. They see us as weak on immigration because a sizable number of illegal immigrants are latter-day saints from south-of-the-border. When Romney ran, the Left hated on him because he was socially conservative and the Right hated him because he didn’t have the right theology. Anti-Mormon ministers worked against him tirelessly. The then-president of the Southern Baptist Convention admitted that candidate Romney’s religion was a bigger problem for evangelicals than Newt Gingrich’s history of adultery. Their flocks took to social media and discussion forums armed with anti-Mormon “facts” and sought to dissuade others from voting for the guy their own party nominated. Just enough people stayed home to ensure an Obama victory.
It is a curious situation to be hated by both political factions in the U.S.A. When you are a Mormon, you really can’t fully commit to either party because of the hatred they have for you. If you do, you have to compromise your faith in some degree. That explains both Harry Reid and Mitt Romney to some degree.
Now along comes the Q movement. For the first time ever, a large number of Americans are waking up to the dangers that the Book of Mormon warned us about: the Cabal. These modern day “Gadianton robbers” (which was the name of the Cabal in the Book of Mormon’s time) are finally being exposed and the American people are waking up. It’s natural for latter-day saints to feel excited about this. Perhaps, we think, we’ll get enough people on our side to fight it and defeat it. We think we can finally join in a non-partisan, all-American movement that crosses lines of race, religion, and party to confront the evil ones and drive them into the shadows. Well, maybe not.
I spent the last few days responding to hateful anti-Mormon messages that came as a result of an article from the LDSAnon blog that I shared on Voat’s QRV discussion group. I was testing the waters somewhat. I wanted to see if the Q movement, which Q says is not about parties, races, or religions—just good and evil—is open enough to allow a Mormon to speak his mind without being attacked. I discovered quickly that this is not the case. Anti-Mormon Christians, anti-Mormon secularists, and bitter exMormon apostates bombarded me with in mere minutes of my posting the link.
Therefore, I have to ask. If the Q movement wins and successfully defeats the Cabal, what becomes of Mormons living in the midst of the victors? Will they continue to mistreat and malign the Church and its members? Will they use their power to block the construction of temples or limit the work of missionaries? Will they continue to call us cultists, liars, and deceivers? If so, what is the point of supporting them?
The Left doesn’t want us. They are wholly owned and operated by the Cabal. Their agenda is opposed to true religious liberty. If Mormons want acceptance in the Cabal’s world, we will need to become “tolerant” and “inclusive” of gays, transsexuals, and pedophiles and give them places of power and influence in the Church. We will have to drop opposition to abortion and support of traditional families. In a Left-dominated world, China is the example of where they are heading. How would the Church fare under state control and in a society dominated by a social credit system that rates people on their communist orthodoxy?
The reason I support the Q movement is that I believe a victory there buys us time to preach the gospel in nations that have been denied to us, like North Korea or the Arab world. I don’t think the Q movement will achieve permanent victory over the Cabal. It always comes back. We see that again and again in the Book of Mormon. Someone on the good side becomes disaffected and they defect to the side of the Cabal. They use their influence to try to stir up contention and destroy the Church and the society they abandoned. Even if the Q side wins, that’s what will happen in less than a generation. If the Q people don’t repent of anti-Mormonism, it will happen way sooner than they think.
Meanwhile, we latter-day saints are “stuck in the middle with Q.” We can support the movement, but the movement may not want us. Certainly there is a strong WASPy contingent that hates on Muslims, Mormons, and Catholics. To them, America has a state church: Evangelical Christianity. Anyone who doesn’t toe the line and follow that particular religion is marginalized and targeted in some degree. That’s why latter-day saints that support the Q movement should be wary and cautious. This isn’t part of the Gospel plan. Q will not achieve the establishment of Zion. It likely leads to civil war and the collapse of America, which will force us to come together and build Zion for a safety and a refuge where the refugees from the failed movement will eventually. Like Joseph in Egypt, whose brothers didn’t recognize him because his face was veiled, the evangelicals don’t recognize who we are yet. The time will come when they will and they will be glad to know who we are and what we represent.
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