More on Big Love
A couple months ago, Cathleen Kaveny offered a brief plug for the HBO show Big Love, which portrays the life of a polygamous Mormon family (the Hendricksons) trying to live their religious commitment to “the principle” of plural marriage in mainstream society. Following Cathy’s suggestion, my wife and I rented the first disk from Blockbuster and promptly finished the whole first two seasons in about two weeks. The show sparked controversy this season by depicting a Mormon temple ceremony that is usually only open to a very select subset of Mormons. The ceremony is particular to the “mainline” branch of Mormonism, also known as “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” (LDS). People in the LDS church have been uneasy about the show from the beginning mainly because the LDS church is portrayed in the show as the “mainstream, yuppie, suburban, politically-catty” religious foil to the humble and religiously sincere Hendricksons. On the other side, there is the fundamentalist polygamous compound that Bill Hendrickson (the husband) “escaped from,” which fills the role of “cultish, anti-modern, backwoods, economically-exploitive” religious foil to the honest-dealing, secular-friendly Hendricksons. These two foils make the Hendricksons’ polygamy look quite “mainstream” much to the understandable chagrin of LDS folks. One of my theology students, who happens to be Mormon, recently pointed me to this blog post by Matthew Bowman, who is a Mormon graduate student in history at Georgetown. I thought it was a fascinating and insightful treatment of the controversy and the show, and I just thought I’d share it along with a few of my own reactions.
Bowman attributes the recent dust-up to a long-standing tension within Mormonism between the desire for “secular” assimilation and the need to keep one’s religious tradition sacred. Indeed, this is well-trod territory in the history of the co-emergence of religion and secularity more generally. I think Bowman is right to point to this as the crux of the issue. I think the Hendricksons are most sympathetic to the viewing culture because their faith interferes little with the pursuit of their secular interests (Bill is a business owner, Nicki (wife #2) has a shopping addiction, Barb (wife #1) is a school teacher and one-time (almost) “mom of the year,” etc.). The culture at large, I think, expects the kind of “humble honesty” toward which the Hendricksons’ aspire, and they present little threat to the established political and economic order, which is the one thing, above all others, Western secularism holds sacred. Both the LDS and the fundamentalist groups are portrayed as having potential political aspirations or questionable business dealings, both of which are destabilizing to the “secular order.” Furthermore, as people insert themselves more and more into this “secular order,” secrecy becomes less and less tolerable, which you see with the Hendricksons’ “coming out of the closet” as the series progresses. Because the fundamentalists and the LDS still want to maintain a level of “separateness” from the “secular order,” they will always seem to destabilize that order. What seems most interesting here is that the stability of the “moral order,” which one would expect to be challenged most by the Hendricksons’ polygamy, is much less important than the stability of the “political/economic order.” As the long as the Hendricksons’ remain honest about their lifestyle and keep it from interfering in the commercial, political, and moral lives of those around them, they will remain the most sypathetic characters on the show. The show, then, seems to tout the long-held secular dogma that as long as religion remains private almost anything goes, but once it becomes public, watch out! Thus, the show is perhaps less about being Mormon in America than it is about how to be religious in America, which, it seems to me, could be both a source of relief and consternation for Mormons (not to mention the rest of us!).
Eric, as always you broaden our horizons and give us a great bandwidth to consider what the parameters of the situation is. Second, your post is quite ad rem to all the polemics going on now about Notre Dame. At the same time there are distinctions to be made. Both the bishops of America and Jesus are attacking some societal norms. The huge difference is the bishops seek to change laws while Jesus seeks to change lives. The bishops are supporting a monied constituency while Jesus did not attend lavish dinners and hang out with the rich as practically all bishops do. Although the secular dogma does not have an inherent interest in abortion as much as it demands the glorification of money. E.G. On the tax cut for the rich, Chaney said: “We deserve it.”
So should there be a distinction in the secular dogma. The bishops seem obsessed with abortion, yet are fine with the almight dollar. Should you not detail more what the secular dogma is vis a vis the religion. After all as we can see here, people committed to religion have different ideas about what it is to be religious in America. Where is Justinian when we need him. Oh I forgot. He failed.
Bill,
Thanks for your comment. I do think there is a connection between the themes I brought out in discussing Big Love, and the current Notre Dame situtation. However, I don’t know that I’ve quite wrapped my mind around it. I think the way in, though, is through the assimilation/separation debate. It seems to me that Mormons and Catholics might have some common ground on this issue, as both find themselves thrown into a secular context that has been largely shaped by Protestant Christianity. In her Santa Clara Lecture on “Prophetic Discourse in the Public Square,” Kaveny articulated a similar assimilation/separation motif plaguing Catholic prophetic discourse on abortion. On the one hand, pro-life Catholics are trying desperately to insert themselves into the legal and political machinery of American discourse, but on the other hand, many of them are trying to do so while claiming their authority and identity exist outside/above the American polity. Thus, they claim to be “in but not of” the secular sphere they are trying to influence. This speaks to why their voices often do not find a very sympathetic audience.
Closer to your point, though, is the fact that the perceived sincerity of their religious conviction is often undermined by the some-time collusion of the pro-life movement with the political right. Thus, it is unclear whether they are truely “not of”/above the secular fray. So, from the perspective of the private/public secular dogma to which I was refering, the pro-life movement is plagued by being both politically ambitious AND maintaining a rhetoric of superiority toward the culture they are critiquing. Of course, as you point out, there are also economic interests to think about as well. So, they want to have their cake (a separate Catholic identity) and eat it too (an influence on “secular” politics). And no one likes the greedy kid at the birthday party!
So, where does this leave the Notre Dame debacle? The concerns about Obama being honored by Notre Dame seem to be coming from a fear of over-assimilation that might result in a loss of Catholic identity. But at the same time, Notre Dame has a precedent of honoring sitting Presidents (e.g. Eisenhower, Kennedy, Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr., W.). So, Notre Dame has already “agreed” to be in the “secular” public discourse, and Catholics, on the whole, I think have benefited from the cultural and intellectual capital that Notre Dame’s “secular” presence and prestige have brought. So, this is a discussion Catholics invited long before Obama was the President, and it’s frankly embarassing that, this time, Catholics don’t seem to be interested in showing up to their own party.
“So, this is a discussion Catholics invited long before Obama was the President, and it’s frankly embarassing that, this time, Catholics don’t seem to be interested in showing up to their own party.”
Spot on.