As a child, I was raised to believe that religion was a transforming and powerful thing. Baptism and acceptance of Christ's love opened the doorway of the path to a clean, pure tranquil soul. God was love and His love was for all people. By the time I was about 12 years old I had seen enough of life that I started to doubt these things. I had witnessed the behavior of people who were baptized, who sat in church every Sunday, and often found it wanting. If God was in the church, if Jesus was in their hearts, as they desperately wanted him to be, why were many so terribly uncharitable, mean-spirited and cruel? Even the folks who were good-natured at church often had a lot of pretty un-Christian ways of thinking.

Historically, religious people have used their dogma to support and condemn positions on a broad range of issues, from the accumulation of wealth to capital punishment. They have even taken great pains to use it to justify lack of toleration for people who look unlike themselves. Biblical passages were used to support their own prejudices, even slavery. For Southerners, in the Ante Bellum United States, slavery was justified because of a curse Noah made upon his son Ham (founder of Hamitic people of Somalia, Ethiopia and Egypt). Ham had looked upon his father's body in an indiscreet manner that offended him. If that one didn't fly, how about "Jesus never said anything against slavery." Now, if that excuse for brutality seemed inadequate there was the old standby of the "superior" "white" people having an obligation to lift up their "inferiors" by exposing them to Christianizing treatment. Kidnapping, beating, torture, and rape were overlooked as part of this spiritual "transformation" process.

Missionary work still continues. Mormon missionaries landed on my doorstep in recent memory. They were typically clean-cut, well-scrubbed, perky, and polite young "white" males. I'm afraid I was not terribly welcoming. Mama had always taught me to be polite to people doing the Lord's work, so, while I brushed them off, I left the door open to future contact. This satisfied both my nagging conscience and my desire to make them go away. I told them I was very busy and to please come back some other time (when I would be careful to avoid the door buzzer). They told me that was okay, they weren't there to come in that day, they were just introducing themselves around the neighborhood and left me a card. A few weeks later I was heading out the door and opened it just when two more clean-cut, well-scrubbed, perky, and polite young Mormon men were standing on the mat. What timing!! They asked if they could come in for a moment. Well, mom's voice was still in my head and before I could stop myself I said: "Yes, you can come in."

One said they just wanted to talk to me a little about the Church. He told me that they were sent specifically to me because they were fluent in Spanish, and they came to minister to our Spanish-speaking friends in the community. He handed me a brand new copy of "El Libro de Mormon" and asked me if I would read some sections with them. I told him I was not Spanish-speaking and he was extremely embarrassed. The initial visitors had told them I was Hispanic. Meanwhile, the other fellow had been looking at a collection of old family photographs I had on display. He had been indicating what a nice family I had. He looked at photos of one blue-eyed grandmother and several Hispanic and Caucasian looking relatives and smiled. Then he picked up a photo of my "black-skinned" great great grandfather from the lot. His eyes bugged out, he physically recoiled, said, and I quote, "Whoa!!" and replaced it. This outburst further embarrassed his colleague and the fellow holding the Spanish bible sought to exit rather quickly. He did, however, have the fortitude to return with an English version of the book before they left for good.

Believe it or not, I don't hold this against these people. The reaction of the one boy showed that his religious upbringing had inculcated racial prejudice into its disciples. To confirm my suspicion, I started to read passages of the Book of Mormon and found that it supported a new version of the "mark of Cain" philosophy. So while it was a relatively new book, it held some of the same old ideas. Dark-skinned people were described as Lamanites. Lamanites had fallen from God's favor and He had turned their skin dark as a punishment. If they repented, God would turn them "white" again. Now, if a person is raised reading a book that says that, how are they gonna respond to my very black great great grandfather? How are they gonna effectively deal with any people of any kind of color at all?

I asked them, when they returned yet again, (sending two new guys, that weren't Spanish-speaking), why they believed that color inferiority passage to be so. Their usually beatific expressions faded and they got very serious. They told me it was true, because it was in The Book of Mormon, and everything in The Book was true.

I have lately seriously considered investigating Eastern Philosophies.

Also by Eleanora Hill:

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