My First Bit of Hate Mail
I just got my first honest-to-goodness piece of nutbag hatemail today. The hate was not directed against me in this case, but it was still unseemly:
Dear Mr Wright,
I have seen from your blog that you plan to vote for Mitt Romney this November. Do not be deceived, whether Romney wins or not, should you, Mr Wright, declare that you want a Mormon to rule over you, you will not escape the judgement of God.
“And all the people said unto Samuel, Pray for thy servants unto the LORD thy God, that we die not: for we have added unto all our sins this evil, to ask us a king.” (1 Samuel 12:19)
Voting for Romney will not save you from the coming judgment. Stop putting your hopes in mere men who cannot save. REPENT and submit to the King God has already chosen for you.
Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel. Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him. (Psalm 2: 6-12)
I have heard all my life about anti-religious bigotry, but never actually came across any that come from any other source than Leftist laiacists. Is this the kind of crap Mormons have to put up with? Don’t get me wrong, they are heretics with a particularly outre version of Christianity, and their baptism is not valid. But they are less loony than Moonies, Christian Scientists, Young-Earth Creationists, Witches and Unitarians, all of which I have among my friends and loved one.
Me personally, I have more of a problem being too Ecumenical and irenic rather than being too supremacist. I have to remind myself that there is no salvation outside the Church, but I am hoping the Ark includes everyone baptized in the name of the Trinity, and other virtuous pagans saved like Trajan.
I am not offended at the bigotry, nor at the lack of civility but I am offended at the lack of Civics. Namely, the president is simply not a king. There is no offense even in the strictest possible religious interpretation of Catholic doctrine against voting for a Mormon to be your servant.
In America, we citizens are king, I and every other enfranchised voter. We the people are the sovereign. The president is our butler, our seneschal, an administrator we appoint to enforce the laws made by our representatives, and a bouncer we employ to keep out of that nationwide party we call America anyone trying to sneak in without an invitation.
By the logic of the nutbag, all voting is illegal, since it sets up a king in opposition to God, and all forms of government were illegitimate after the administration of Samuel the Judge, including the reign of St Constantine and St Louis. The only legitimate form of government is Bronze Age Theocratic tribalism under the administration of Judges in the Holy Land in the years between the exodus and the reign of Saul.
In reality, of this period, the Good Book says, Judges 21:25, “In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes.”
The manly yet poetic language of the Old Testament is open to misinterpretation, but this language is a description and condemnation of the anarchy of those times.
Only twice have I come across any Anti-Catholic bigotry, and I am grateful for its rarity. The Church of Later Day Saints, while I condemn them for preaching a false and abominable doctrine, I salute and admire them for maintaining a voice of sanity and decency in an increasingly lunatic world, and each Mormon I have ever met personally has been a shining example of virtue and charity and neighborliness.
In this case, I embrace the Mormons and scorn any fellow Catholics whose mouths are full of hate.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
