A Crazy Controversy

It's controversy time, ya'll...religion-style (sort of).

A couple of weeks ago, while watching Glenn Beck, I tweeted that if he was such a fan of the founding fathers, perhaps he should hold a seance to freshen up his message. A Twitter friend (one who actually follows me, and I follow back) informed me that Mormons are not permitted to hold seances. This was news to me, as I was unaware that Beck is a Mormon. I replied that Beck was more crazy than I thought. Learning (Wikipedia shoutout) that Beck is a convert to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints reaffirmed my feelings. That's when I became aware of some background chatter regarding my tweets. I do not like to be misrepresented, who does? My final tweet on the subject (or so, I thought):

Yes, I think converting to a somewhat controversial religion in order to stop drinking/love your family makes you crazy, unstable and weak.

Maybe, Glenn Beck who is a recovering alcoholic, needed a restrictive religion to keep him on the wagon or maybe not. I suspect he does need it. I haven't read any of Beck's books. I watch his show a couple of times a week, sometimes more. I only know what he tells me about himself in his live broadcast. Based solely on this information, I believe Beck to be within the realm of crazy, unstable and weak.

Controversial Religion

The skinny on my relationship with the Mormons: My best friend, my sophomore year of high school was Mormon. That spring, I spent nearly every Saturday night at her house and therefore attended church with her on Sundays. When I showed no interest in converting, her church suggested that I stop coming, our friendship did not survive. And I will say, it did have a cultish feel to it (as the elders and mission dudes did not care what my parents thought). And...not to mention, the whole Baptizing the dead thing...yeesh...spooky. So much for my naive notion that her and I shared not only the same God, but Savior as well. Silly me.

Are Mormons Christians? Yes. The crazy kind. I can say this because I am a Baptist. I was raised just outside of Washington, DC, where I attended church regularly. I had no idea that my religion was weird/crazy until I moved to the Midwest. The first couple of churches my live-in fiance *gasp* and I attempted to go to were all about fire and brimstone, no dancing, drinking, smoking, cursing and o'course premarital sex, EEK...all very Footloose. Instead of converting or denouncing my faith, I turned to our President at the time...I now consider myself a Bill Clinton Baptist...usually, this needs no explanation.

I am a fan of freedom; freedom of speech and freedom of religion. You are free to practice your crazypants religion and I am free to call it crazy...and you don't have to kill anyone in the name of religion to be called a crazie!