Golden compass, golden plates, golden rule

Travel along the outer loop of the Washington Beltway, and at one point the spires of a Mormon Temple suddenly come into view, rising above a railroad bridge. In apparent response to the spires’ Oz-like appearance, some years ago some wag scrawled the words “SURRENDER DOROTHY” on that bridge. (Last time I was there, the words had been scrubbed, but in such a precise way that you could still tell what they had been.)

The Mormon faith, a homegrown extension of traditional Christian beliefs, is little understood by most Americans—which is why GOP Presidential candidate Mitt Romney has had to (if I may use this metaphor) play his cards carefully. His recent speech about religious faith and political practice attempted to remove doubts held by conservative Christians, who might otherwise be seen as his natural allies, regarding the effect his Mormonism might have on his policies. Without getting into the details of Mormon theology, he emphasized both its commonalities with Christianity, and the value of tolerance of different religious viewpoints.

Ironically enough, analysis of Romney’s speech shared the airwaves with news stories about another religious controversy, this one regarding the new film adaptation of Philip Pullman’s novel “The Golden Compass.” As with “The Da Vinci Code” before it, this film is seen as part of an attack on organized religion, particularly Roman Catholicism. Conservative religious commentators have shown more concern about “The Golden Compass” because the film is aimed at young adults, and they fear that kids might be enticed by the movie to read Pullman’s entire series, and possibly adopt some of its supposedly atheistic viewpoints.

So our domestic fundamentalists find themselves besieged on many fronts, and caught in a set of dilemmas. If they throw in their lot with nominee-apparent Rudy Giuliani, as Pat Robertson has done, they open themselves to charges of hypocritically abandoning their values to gain power. If they support the well funded Romney, they have to explain away their previous critiques of Mormonism as an unacceptable cult. If they choose Mike Huckabee, they risk running into internal opposition from economic Mammonists in the Republican Party who fear that Huckabee might try to, you know, do something radical like paying for the provision of government services by actually assessing and collecting some revenues. And on top of it all, they face reinvigorated movements among secular humanists, atheists and diversity-tolerant Christians, all undermining their claims to divine authority.

The cause of community, and of peace among communities, is not well served by having any community feel threatened. Threats give rise to defensiveness and increased rigidity within the threatened community. This can in turn trigger more defensiveness in other communities that might be alarmed by what the first community is doing to protect itself—and that can lead to an “escalating downward spiral” of mistrust, suspicion, non-communication and, eventually, violence.

But an answer exists—and for Christians, it’s found in Matthew 7:12: “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” So, if anyone—Christian, Mormon, atheist, Jewish, Muslim, whatever—wants their religious (or non-religious) viewpoints to be respected and honored, it might not take a Golden Compass to show which way to go.