listening to the Book of Mormon soundtrack this week

[Anonymous]

I listened to the Book of Mormon musical soundtrack several times this week. Still haven't seen the actual musical.

I was struck by two songs really powerfully, in different ways. The first is "Spooky Mormon Hell Dreams". They nailed it, freaking bullseye. The sense of guilt a missionary can feel if they've disobeyed the rules is very powerful. You think you're doing something really awful, so I had to laugh when the song compared breaking "rule #72", or leaving his companion, with Jeffery Dahmer, Hitler, Gengis Khan, and Johnny Cochran (LOL). Even the high number of that rule is funny because it makes it sound like there's this really long and exhaustive list of rules that missionaries operate under. Which is funny because it's true!

The other sung that struck me the most of the whole soundtrack is "I Believe". Elder Price has to make his choice, and he comes down on the side of belief. And he goes all the way. The songwriters were absolutely brilliant in this piece. They interweave all the "obvious" Christian beliefs like that God sent his Son to die for our sins, or that God has a plan for every one of us, with the kooky Mormon stuff like God's plan involving "me getting my own planet", or "in 1978 God changed his mind about black people", or "God lives on the planet Kolob" (technically slightly off, but close enough).

The Mormon Church may no longer admit that they believe they can become gods one day, but Elder Price knows. Other than nitpickety stuff like Kolob being the star nearest heaven, not heaven itself, there's really nothing described as Mormon beliefs in that song that isn't true Mormon beliefs. What's funny is that the creators of South Park were once again more "honest" about Mormon belief than the church is about itself today.

But what really hit me hard in that song? Someone involved in creating that has to be an RM. I'm finding it hard to believe that this song was created by people who were never believers.

"I know that I must go and do the things my God commands. I realize now why he sent me here! You ask the Lord in faith, he will always answer you. Just believe in him, and have no fear."
Then he marches into the General's camp and in a strong voice pronounces "I believe that Satan has a hold of you! I believe that the Lord God has sent me here!" This perfectly, even exquisitely captures the sense of bravado that true believing missionaries feel. I recall standing on top of a mountain/hill overlooking the Swiss city of Olten and feeling a lot of that same emotion: God has called me here, it is my job, my stewardship, to go tell all of these people about the church, to inform them of God's wishes and plans, etc. I felt like I had a divine commission, directly from God himself, to that entire city, and I took it seriously.

"And now I can feel the excitement, this is the moment I was born to do. And I feel so incredible, to be sharing my faith with you. The scriptures say that if you ask in faith, if you ask God himself you'll know. But you must ask him without any doubt, and let your spirit grow!" These are absolute gems of Mormon missionary attitude, that I cannot believe any nevermos could have understood well enough to put into these words.

And then the very next lines are "I believe, that God lives on a planet called Kolob. I believe that Jesus has his own planet as well. And I believe, that the Garden of Eden was in Jackson County, Missouri! If you believe the Lord will reveal it. And you'll know it's all true you'll just feel it. You'll be a Mormon, and by Gosh, a Mormon just believes!"

It's breathtaking to me as I listen to this song again how many absolute gems of Mormon faith and spirituality are interspersed so jarringly with things like "I believe that in 1978 God changed his mind about black people" and the other more "kooky" things that the church nowadays tries to downplay, label as "not official" and deprecated, and leave it on the side of the road like the trash.

Anyhow, this isn't doing it justice. If you haven't heard it lately, go back and listen to "I Believe" again and tell me I'm off track here. This song is simply brilliant. It captures some of the essence of Mormon faith in a way that is more stark and honest than you ever, ever see from the church nowadays. The Mormonism of Elder Price was what I grew up with in the 70s and 80s, but I doubt the latest generation of Mormon kids will ever identify with it the way mine did.

Again I say, the South Park creators nailed Mormonism more honestly, and more seriously, dare I say it, than the Mormon church of today does. Yeah, there's the frog stuff, and the Brigham Young facial deformity stuff, and Elder Cunningham making stuff up about the beliefs of the church in order to stop some really bad things from happening around him, but all that stuff just serves to illustrate some the shockingly bad fit of Mormonism in places like Africa where the problems people are dealing with are just totally different than Mormons are equipped by their church to deal. This theme comes up repeatedly throughout the musical in different forms (witness the Sal Tlay Ka City song) - or at least it comes up the soundtrack, I still haven't seen the whole thing yet.

Oh well, sorry for the rambling. I'm just really geeking out on this thing this week, and felt inspired to talk about it. Yeah, I heard the soundtrack soon after the musical came out, but I never really listened to it and appreciated it then the way I did this week. I'm really impressed. And I'm also 100% sure that almost no TBMs will ever "get it" about this musical. They won't even see it, and if they do, they'll get hung up on the f-bombs and never even get to thinking about what it all means, and what the authors are trying to say.

[_Sethbag]

I Believe.

[_3sheets2thewind]

For a long time now have been rumors of how Mormon where the South park creators.

[_zeezrom]

I enjoyed reading this post, SB.

[_Stormy Waters]

I'd like to see it in person but the tour doesn't come close enough to where I live to make it worth it.

Also this song is available online. Although a little modified. Hello