'Twas The Night Before Excommunication" (The directer's

[_Coggins7]

'Twas the night before excommunication
and all through the land
All the exmos were stirring
and wringing their hands.

They writhed and they nestled, all snug in ther beds
while pages of Dialog danced in their heads
With shelves filled with Tanner, and Decker, and Quinn
Oh my what a lather and froth they were in!

When out of blue their arose such a clatter,
It was FAIR and FARMS with the truth of the matter
To ex-Mormons.org they flew in a flash
For a big group hug, and emotional crash.

The blogs and the chats and the new message boards
gave the lustre of truth to the slogans and corn
When what to their confounded minds should appear
Wade, Gaz, and Coggins, and a keg of rootbeer.

With minds of sharp wit , so lively and quick
the exmos knew in a moment, they'd run out of tricks
More rapid than eagles, the arguments came
They flummoxed the critics, and called them by name:

Now Decker! Now Martin!
Now Nelson and Tanner!
Now Ankerberg, Spencer,
Oh my what's the matter!

On Metcalf, Hutchinson,
Muphy and Quinn.
Mixing graduate studies,
with eggnog and sin.

As dust bunnies before the Dirt Devil fly
The forlorn exmos sat down and did cry,
Their arguments tatterd, there slanders exposed.
The TBMs drank rootbeer, sat back and reposed.

Then in a twinkling, they awoke with a scream
To Shades, and Rollo, and Scratch on their screens!
Leftwingers and singers of sad tales of woe
Of leaving the church blow by blow.

They were dressed all in black, like Ozzy and Priest
Ready and primed for an invideous feast.
With buzzwords and can't, aimed right at the heart
of the followers of Christ, just doing their part.

Their eyes--how they gleamed, with snickering glee
as they mocked and joked of temples you see.
Their smug little lips drawn up in a smirk
as they whined and howled about woman and work.
Of sex, and drugs and rock n' roll
so politically correct, and too often told.

Some were trendy and shallow, some angry and mean.
And the TBM's laughed, in spite of the scene!
And with a wink of their eyes, and nods of their heads
The apologists knew they had nothing to dread.

They opened more cans of Hires and Dad's
and went straight to work on their brand new keypads.
The exmos turned blue with rage and frustration
and with middle fingers raised, gave a strange salutation.

They circled the wagons, and prepared for a fight
but the faithful were ready, with the disinfectant of light.
And I heard them exclaim, as the exmos did quiver

"Merry Christmas to all, and to all chopped liver!"

[_Sam Harris]

Now this is actually funny.

Well, the cog dis necessary for this to be written is...

With buzzwords and can't, aimed right at the heart
of the followers of Christ, just doing their part.

And yet folks wonder why many who leave the LDS church choose atheism. Being that I knew God before I knew Joseph, I knew better....

[_Coggins7]

And yet folks wonder why many who leave the LDS church choose atheism. Being that I knew God before I knew Joseph, I knew better....

Now this is actually funny...


Loran

[_Sam Harris]

Glad I could make the constipated smile.

[_ajax18]

I have to admit that was funny. I hope you don't really think all exmormons are leftist. The hate between me and the leftist runs so deep I'm pretty sure I'd never see eye to eye with them regardless of what I've learned about Mormonism.

[_Runtu]

I have to admit that was funny. I hope you don't really think all exmormons are leftist. The hate between me and the leftist runs so deep I'm pretty sure I'd never see eye to eye with them regardless of what I've learned about Mormonism.

I thought it was kind of cute, too. I'd be happy to raise a root beer with you anytime, Coggins.

[_Dr. Shades]

I'll admit it; that was pretty good!

[_Jersey Girl]

Loran....do NOT make me compliment you a second time. That was great!

Jersey Girl
:-(

[_Coggins7]

[quote]I have to admit that was funny. I hope you don't really think all exmormons are leftist. The hate between me and the leftist runs so deep I'm pretty sure I'd never see eye to eye with them regardless of what I've learned about Mormonism.
[/quote

Absolutely not ajax. Its just that over a number of years, I've noticed that their are two core groups of active, anti-Mormon ex-Mormons (I believe that most "ex-Mormons" leave the church for various reasons but then leave it alone and go on with their lives. The issues they have with it are what they are, but they see no need to actively prosylitize against and attack it in print, on the web, or within organizatins dedicated to this end): one group gravitates heavily toward Evangelical Protestantism, and in particular, its fundamentalist wing. The other, usually the more educated and articulate, gravitates toward secular liberalism (or, more properly, leftiism), and hence you have that whole coterie of intellecuals gathered around Dialog and Signature Books.

These are the active anti-Mormon ex-Mormons, so I really have no idea what happens to those who leave the church and just go on with their lives without it. They don't write books, start organizations, or create 12 Step Programs to recover from the Church's influence. They're invisible. I do think the Left holds a great deal of attraction for some, however, becauses leftism is, in point of fact, a kind of religion or religious beliefs. Its also a religion of a fundamentalist kind which tolerates no dissent or heterodoxy within its ideological perview (which is all of human life, individually and collectively.

My personal experience and view is that, if a Mormon is really a serious liberal, unless that worldview changes at some point, the religion of leftism will eventually take precedence over the gospel (and this is true of other churches as well, not just the Mormon (unless you are in one of the mainline Protestant churches, such as the Episcopal, which, for the most part, are little more than secularized leftwing social clubs in any event)).

Loran

[_Coggins7]

Well, I'm glad to see I've "broken the ice", as one might say, with even some of the more dedicated antagonists here, and so I've decided (given the season as well, in point of fact) to tone down some of my more aggressive rhetoric and cocentrate much more upon ideas than personalities. This will require, of course, that I simply avoid some people (like GIMR, PP, VegasRefugee, Nortinski, CoffeeCat, and a few others (you know who you are) for example) for whom civil discourse is impossibe, and concentrate my responses to those who, even when strongly opposed to the church, can oppose it in a civil, mature way, without personal rancor (this includes you Scratch).

So thank for the kudos and, please understand that, although any really good satire contains elements, at least form the perspective of the writer, of truth (else its humer value would be minimal), the entire exercise was intended not just as a pro-apologist parody of the exmo world, but as something that woulde allow all of us to just sit back and laugh at ourselves for a moment, regardless of what side of this ongoing debate we are on.

Thanks.

Loran