Hey, my note about the Jesus’ General blog got me a comment (see post below) from the General himself. So I dashed off to him the following response:

Thanks for your comment, General sir, on my blog, Radical Writ. I am obviously but a low-level NCO in the 420th Blogger Battalion, but we all have our duties, both great and small, to perform in the service of our white male heterosexual Lord. I am humbly proud to serve.

I hail from Nampa, Idaho, so I was somewhat insulated from most of the North Utah area of Preston, Malad, Montpelier, etc. But the reach of Joseph Smith’s teaching spread far and wide across the Snake River plain. You can’t drive sixteen blocks in my hometown without seeing the glorious spire of an LDS church reaching into heaven.

I have a few Mormon-related memories. One is that terrifying baptism at age eight. The white robe, the creepy bishop, the big pool surrounded by huge golden oxen statues. When they dunked me, I kicked slightly and my right toe remained above the water’s surface. I came up sputtering and nearly drowned. Then they told me I had to go in again, because my toe hadn’t dunked. I remember thinking, “Go ahead and let my toe go to hell, I won’t need it in the afterlife!” Nope, it was back under again.

Another memory comes from high school. Like most Mormon towns, we had that Seminary across the street from the school so the LDS kids could take a period off *during the middle of the school day* and leave our closed campus to attend a religious class. I made a huge stink about this and wrote letters to the school paper and the local newspaper wondering why the separation of church and state didn’t apply in this situation. I wrote it in a satirical tone, explaining how I admired the principle, and how I was willing to start a seminary for the church of Satan across the street so we could show how tolerant of religious diversity we all were. Needless to say, I didn’t get invited to many stake dances after that.

Then there was the time my rock band got to play at a stake dance. We had to submit our setlist before the gig, and they struck about half of our songs. One was Pat Benatar’s “Hell Is For Children”. I tried explaining to the elder in charge that it was a song condemning child abuse, and wasn’t that a good thing? No, no, no, it wouldn’t matter if the rest of the lyrics said, “there is but one God and Joseph Smith is His Prophet,” because the chorus has the word “hell” in it.

As you may guess, I don’t claim to be a Mormon (although, technically speaking, they still claim me.) I call myself A Positive Christian Atheist (http://www.radicalruss.net/blog/2004/11/positive-christian-atheist.php) — love the Jesus philosophy, don’t buy the paranormal deistic mumbo-jumbo.

Again, thanks for noticing my humble little trackback ping.

“Radical” Russ — one good Mormon thing; I inherited a 49,000 name genealogical database from my aunt…

P.S. How many Mormons does it take to change a light bulb? Ten. One to change the light bulb and nine to bring the punch and cookies.

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