Want to find a cult? Flush out a fundamentalist anything

    During a visit to Annapolis, back when I was trying to play nice with the Republican establishment, I was introduced to a woman who, I was told, was a new member of the central committee. No sooner had we exchanged a handshake when the woman asked me, "Have you been Saved?"
     "None of your business," I started to say, but -- well, I was really, really trying to play nice with all of these wingnuts that I had not realized were serious. I thought all Right Wing zealotry was an act, like kids playing cowboys and Indians, only this was Republicans and Everyone Else.
     Probably not by your definition, I said, but I have a relationship with God. Him, or Her, or That Which Has No Name.  Personally, I really liked that Star Wars term, and wanted to tell the smiling witch who was inquiring about my soul, "May the Force be with you," but that might have ruined the evening.
     I never liked people who think they have all the answers when they never bothered to ask enough questions.
     Fundamentalists, one the other hand, will not tolerate one who questions.
     The biggest threat to a fundamental belief of any kind is a very human question: "Why?"
     "Why?" pops the lid off Pandora's box. First thing you know, someone in the back of the room is asking, "Who says so?"  And it goes downhill from there.  Questions require answers, and answers lead to interpretation and even more questions, which leads to nuance, and that is the definition of education, and education is feared by another name -- Liberalism.
     I think the person who coined the phrase, "Keep It Simple, Stupid," was talking to a fellow fundamentalist, and it was a term of endearment.
     Some of us can't resist the need to ask questions. Seek new ideas or thoughts.
     During my Navy days, I spent three weeks aboard the USS Sacramento off the coast of Vietnam. I shared a small office deep in the ship with two Mormons who were delighted to tell me about their religion. They gave me the Book of Mormon, which I read. They testified, and proselytized, and witnessed for their creed, but I was just full of questions.
     I wasn't trying to undermine their faith; I was trying to understand it, and I was delighted to discover that these two Mormons were able to remain friendly even when others might have become defensive or playing the judgment card.
     I had a similar experience with a young man who worked with me at the News American in Baltimore. As nice a young man as you could ever meet, and full of family values; Monday nights, the TV was off, and he and his wife and kids played board games together.
     Jack Anderson, the syndicated columnist, was a Mormon; not quite as friendly or as engaging as the other Mormons I had met, but not a bad guy to talk to.
     I know that some practices and history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints -- or what we call Mormons -- are less than savory to most of us.
     But you see, those were the actions of strict Mormon fundamentalists.
     That introduction of Gov. Perry by the nice Christian fundamentalist preacher might sound like a warm embrace to people of a like mind, but to me, it was like a preamble to a lynching; the man of the cloth judged all Mormons as not only non-Christian, but anti-Christian members of a cult.
     I have been over the wall and seen the world, and I can testify that the Mormons I have met consider themselves Christians. But not all of them are what you would call fundamentalists.
     Seems that fundamentalists of all  kinds, Christian, Jew, Muslim or Constitutionalists, leave something to be desired.