sign in sign up
<<
Home , Eugene England, Lost Boys (novel), Orson Scott Card, Seventh Son (novel)

52-59_smith_card:a_chandler_kafka 2/13/2011 8:57 pm page 52

SUNSTONE

I, Ender, being born of goodly parents . . .

SACRED SCI-FI AS MORMON MYTHMAKER

By Christopher C. Smith

LMOST EVERY CULTURE HAS TRADITIONAL new myths are less vulnerable than the old mythologies be - mythologie s— usually stories set in a primordial cause they make no claim to be literally, historically true. A time of gods and heroes. Although in popular dis - Their claim to truth is at a deeper, more visceral level. course the term “myth” typically refers only to fiction, lit - and can be used either to chal - erary critics and theologians use it to refer to any “existen - lenge and replace or to support and complement traditional tial” stor y— even a historical one. Myths explain how the religious mythologies. One author who has adopted the world came to be, why it is the way it is, and toward what latter strategy is Mormon novelist Orson Scott Card. end it is headed. They explore the meaning of life and pro - Literary critic Marek Oziewicz has found in Card’s fiction all vide role models for people to imitate. They express deep the earmarks of a modern mythology. It has universal scope, psychological archetypes and instill a sense of wonder. In creates continuity between past, present, and future, inte - short, they answer the Big Questions of life and teach us grates emotion and morality with technology, and posits the how to live. interrelatedness of all existence. 2 Indeed, few science fiction Due to modernization in recent centuries, the world has and fantasy authors’ narratives feel as mythic as Card’s. undergone radical changes. A new, scientific way of thinking However, nearly all his fiction builds on the work of another has challenged traditional religious mythologies, especially modern mythmaker: Mormonism’s founder . in the West. The result is a sort of mythic deficit that leaves Card’s brand of mythmaking is deliberately and thoroughly many people feeling disconnected and unfulfilled. New Mormon in tone and tenor. technologies have also raised new ethical questions that old In some respects, Mormonism is a mythology well tai - myths often are not equipped to address. Thus, some people lored for the Space and Information Age. Its deity is a man have turned to reactionary religious fundamentalisms while who progressed to godhood through the acquisition of other, more “liberal” religious thinkers have sought to up - knowledge and with the help of other advanced beings. This date their religious mythologies for the modern world. 1 deity is said to live near a star called Kolob on one of what Another response has been to construct entirely new may be an infinite number of inhabited worlds. Smith taught myths, often in the form of fantasy and science fiction narra - a materialist ontology in which miracles obey the laws of na - tives. Fantasy is similar to fundamentalist religion in that it ture and where spirit is a kind of matter. 3 On the other hand, takes refuge from modernity in an idealized, “magical” past. Mormonism also has spiritual and magica l— one might even Science fiction is similar to liberal religion in that it accepts say fantastica l— elements. Smith was a practitioner of folk the scientific worldview but infuses it with meaning, magic, a believer in angels and devils, and a connoisseur of wonder, heroism, and sometimes even spirituality. These arcane rituals and artifacts. 4 Card, an author of both science fiction and fantasy, has tapped into themes from both ends CHRISTOPHER C. SMITH is currently pursuing a of the spectrum of Mormon thought. Indeed, almost all of Ph.D. in religions in North America at Claremont Card’s fiction, whether specifically billed as “Mormon” or Graduate University but somehow manages to fit a not, integrates concepts from Smith’s mythologies to create little science fiction into his reading schedule every new myths and new stories that illustrate and explore the now and then. same principles.

PAGE 52 MARCH 2011 52-59_smith_card:a_chandler_kafka 2/13/2011 8:57 pm page 53

SUNSTONE

Although Thomas S. Monson is the institutional suc - acter’s physical death. More often, his works climax with cessor to Joseph’s prophetic mantle, Card is undeniably what could be called a moral sacrifice. This is the case in Smith’s mythmaking heir. Just as the stories of Nephi, Alma, Ender’s Game . Here a child protagonist named Ender is ma - and Moroni have firmly established themselves in the imag - nipulated by his adult teachers into annihilating an entire inations of millions, so have those of Ender, Alvin Maker, alien race that ostensibly threatens the survival of hu - and Lanik Mueller. This article will explore how Card’s mankind. When Ender realizes what he has unwittingly works have established him not only as an expresser and de - done, he anonymously vilifies himself in a book called The fender of Mormonism but also as a reformer, pushing his Hive Queen so that humanity’s collective guilt for this mass- faith community in new directions. murder will be imputed to him, allowing humanity to make a moral recovery. Through Ender’s writings, humankind EXPRESSING MORMONISM comes to understand that the aliens were simply misunder - stood and did not really need to be destroyed. This under - HEN I SAY that Card expresses Mormonism, I standing, however, requires Ender’s voluntary alienation am not talking about his penchant for dropping from his own species. For the rest of his life, Ender carries a W superficial Mormon references into his writings terrible burden of guilt for humanity’s crime. 10 as inside jokes that only Mormon readers will get. Certainly Something similar occurs in the novel Treason . Here the those are there, but they are not at the heart of his writing. In main character, Lanik Mueller, must betray the trust of a fact, Card has written that sometimes make the personified earth by using its power to kill an entire nation worst readers of his fiction, “because, having caught a of powerful and evil people. The earth’s anger is such that Mormon reference (and knowing that I’m a Mormon) they Lanik knows it might kill him, but he chooses to commit his think they’ve ‘got it.’ Often what they catch is merely a wink, crime anyway for the sake of the greater good. The earth’s or a note passed in class, nothing substantive; they miss the wrath turns out not to be fatal after all, but its agonized substance because they think the wink is all; they think the screams ring in his ears forever. Eventually Lanik comes to note is the book.” 5 suspect that “the ultimate sacrifice isn’t death after all; the The Mormon themes that Card really wants his readers to ultimate sacrifice is willingly bearing the penalty for your absorb are much richer and more deeply embedded in the own actions.” 11 fabric of his narratives. And they are not the sorts of things In Card’s worlds, moral sacrifice has more weight than that only a Mormon will notice and understand. Although physical sacrifice does, echoing the Mormon teaching that Card claims that he never proselytizes in his fiction, he has Christ’s suffering in the garden of Gethsemane was more im - also said he intends to give readers “an emotionally moving portant than his death on the cross. As Card himself has [and] transformative experience that leads them to value the summarized the doctrine, same virtues that I valu e— honor, sacrifice, kindness. But those readers may remain completely unaware that some as - Christ’s real suffering was the anguish he felt as he pects of what they respond to are ideas from the LDS bore the horror of complete spiritual separation Church.” In other words, his intent is not to make converts from Go d— taking upon himself to an infinite de - to Mormonism, but to instill Mormon values. 6 gree the torment that is the natural spiritual conse - One of the most obvious and important recurring motifs quence of sin. The remorse and despair we feel . . . in Card’s work is sacrifice. Probably the majority of Card’s because of our disobedience to or rejection of God, works climax with the central character choosing to sacri - [Christ] felt so utterly that we cannot imagine it. In fice for the greater good. Sometimes this sacrifice involves this context, what was done to his body was almost the physical death of the character, as in the short story “The a distraction. Many people have borne as Porcelain Salamander.” Here a white salamander gives its life much. 12 to save a girl who is in imminent danger. In so doing, it re - leases the girl from a curse that had paralyzed her from Although some non-Mormon Christians might consider birth. 7 Similarly, the protagonist of the novel Hart’s Hope lifts such a view heretical, the phenomenal success of Ender’s the curse of the evil Queen Beauty, but only at the cost of his Game suggests that at the very least, the reading public finds son’s life. 8 These stories of course reflect the classic Christic moral sacrifice more compelling than the physical sacrifices pattern in which the curse of sin and death is defeated depicted in some of Card’s other novels. through the voluntary sacrifice of a sinless messiah. The pat - Card emphasizes sacrifice partly to make the point that tern recurs in where a character named Stevie dies communities are more important than individuals, and that in order to contain the supernatural evil at work in his com - for any civilization to survive, its members must be willing munity. Whereas other characters in the book are unable to to make sacrifices for the community. A great many of Card’s detect the evil because they have “good and evil mixed up” stories are designed to model this moral imperative for his inside them, Stevie is able to sense it because he is com - readers. 13 As Michael Collings has written, “perhaps more pletely innocent and pure. 9 than any other, the image of community forms the heart of But not all of the sacrifice in Card’s novels involves a char - Card’s fictions.” 14

MARCH 2011 PAGE 53 52-59_smith_card:a_chandler_kafka 2/13/2011 8:57 pm page 54

SUNSTONE

In the Alvin Maker series, Card sets up a dualism between freedom or moral responsibility. Although Card’s novels ex - Making and Unmaking—Being and Nonbeing—and de - plore possible routes toward human deification and the per - clares that it is more basic than all other dualisms. 15 The se - fection of society, they always make perfectly clear that hu - ries dramatizes how the good forces of Making overcome the manity must choose its destiny freely without coercion or evil forces of Unmaking, 16 climaxing with Alvin’s under - external manipulation of any kind. taking what Card considers to be the ultimate act of Making: When we put all of this together, we get an outline of the construction of an ideal community. 17 Card has stated Mormonism’s major concepts: the work of the Savior, the that one of his guiding moral and political principles is “to importance of family and the faith community, and the build and create against the entropy that has become the origin and destiny of humankind. Likely these themes could theme song of our society.” 18 This imperative drives Card’s be absorbed by any reader regardless of religious back - much-criticized resistance to the legalization of gay mar - ground. Thus, however much Card may claim not to be riage. 19 Card has written that gay marriage and gay sexuality proselytizing his readers, his novels do compellingly express can lead only to the dissolution of American society, and that the plan of salvation in the language of myth and story. gays therefore have a sacred duty to sacrifice their own de - sires for the sake of civilization. 20 DEFENDING MORMONISM However, Card proves himself quite capable of sympa - thetically portraying homosexual life in his novel The Ships HEN CARD STARTED his studies at BYU, he of Earth . He acknowledges that has biolog - wanted to focus on archae - ical causes and that gays are often subject to humiliating and ology but abandoned this line of study when he W 26 even violent discrimination. However, a gay character who discovered that it requires a lot of hard, hot, boring work. believes his desires are unnatural follows Card’s philosophy, However, it seems that his interest in the subject has not marrying a woman and having children with her out of a flagged. His Homecoming series, a five-book science fiction sense of duty to propagate the community. The character Book of Mormon allegory, takes pains to make some sticky discovers that becoming part of the web of life through re - details in the Book of Mormon plausible. production gives him a sense of profound joy, even though For example, at one point in the first book of Nephi, an the sexual act itself is not particularly pleasurable. 21 unnamed woman saves Nephi’s life by pleading with Laman Repeatedly throughout the Homecoming series, Card equates in the wilderness (1 Nephi 7:19–21). Card has noted that the Tree of Life with marriage and procreation. 22 Presumably people often assume this woman is Nephi’s wife-to-be, but he believes that laws against homosexual activity will help Card believes that Laman would have been more likely to gay people find true fulfillment and happiness through exer - listen to his own betrothed. This interpretation finds its way cise of their reproductive powers. into Card’s allegory. 27 In another episode from 1 Nephi The themes of sacrifice and community in Card’s works (16:13–32), Lehi’s family is traveling in the wilderness when are not isolated concepts. Quite frequently they are em - their bows lose their spring and they run out of food. Lehi bedded in larger analogues of the LDS plan of salvation. seems to doubt the wisdom of continuing, but Nephi takes Treason , for instance, is the story of the redemption and the initiative and makes a new bow. He then goes to ask his gradual deification of Lanik Mueller. At each stage of his father where to hunt. Card’s novel shows that Volemak’s journey, Lanik acquires new deific attributes while learning (Lehi’s corollary) claim to leadership of the party weakened to use his powers responsibly. He completes his deification when his faith faltered. Nafai’s (Nephi’s corollary) deference when he marries and decides to have children. 23 The pattern to Volemak in choosing a hunting ground helps reestablish is neater in , where the males of the alien Volemak’s authority and preserve peace among the species called “piggies” have a three-stage life-cycle that brothers. 28 By constructing plausible motivations for quite clearly corresponds to pre-mortal, mortal, and post- Homecoming characters’ actions, Card also lends plausibility mortal existence. In the final stage, they procreate more or to the Book of Mormon narrative. less eternally. 24 The sequel to Speaker for the Dead teaches In other passages, Card creates explanations for Book of something very similar to the LDS idea of eternal intelli - Mormon anomalies. For example, when his Nephi character gences and even suggests a somewhat plausible physical beheads the Laban character and then dons Laban’s clothes basis for the doctrine by drawing on the insights of quantum (1 Nephi 4:18–19), Card explains that no blood soiled the physics. 25 clothes because of “the downhill slope of the street and the Of course, the plan of salvation would not be possible fact that the blood mostly poured upward out of the neck, without free wil l— a theme that pervades all of Card’s works. away from the body.” 29 In some cases he resolves difficulties In The Worthing Saga , the godlike protectors of humanity with science fictional technology that obviously would not decide that they are compromising human free will and work from an apologetic perspective. For example, Card withdraw their protections. In the Homecoming series, both makes the Book of Mormon scene where Nephi tricks the godlike computer called the Oversoul and the godlike Laban’s servant Zoram into believing that Nephi is Laban (1 being called the Keeper of Earth restrict their interventions Nephi 4:21) more plausible by having his Nephi character in human history so as never to interfere with human wear a holographic costume. 30

PAGE 54 MARCH 2011 52-59_smith_card:a_chandler_kafka 2/13/2011 8:57 pm page 55

SUNSTONE

Card also defends the Book of Mormon by historically colonists corresponding to the Book of Mormon’s contextualizing its rather unegalitarian attitude toward Jaredites. 36 Supporting Card’s belief that the Book of gender. Card is feminist enough to be bothered by the fact Mormon Mulekites were a native underclass who invented that few women are mentioned in the Book of Mormon and their supposed Hebrew ancestry for political reasons, the only three are actually named. 31 In the Homecoming Saga , underclass of “Darakemba” in the Homecoming novels is Card enriches the Book of Mormon narrative by including similarly native to the region. 37 The presence of non-Hebrew many strong female characters but also seems to defend the “others” in the land is of course a staple of the Limited male-centered worldview of the Book of Mormon by sug - Geography apologetic, even though the Book of Mormon gesting that the nomadic lifestyle his characters are living text seems to indicate that the land was empty when Lehi more or less necessitates male rule. 32 and his family arrived (2 Nephi 1:5–9). 38 Card’s apologetic intentions are perhaps most explicitly In addition to commenting on the text of the Book of signaled in his treatment of Book of Mormon geography. Mormon, the Homecoming series has much to say about its Card has his voyagers from the planet Harmony land their translation. In the series, a godlike computer called the spaceships in Central America, on the Tehuantepec Peninsula. Although Th omas S. Monson is the institu tional succe ssor to Jos eph’s prophetic mantle, Card is unde niably Smith’s myth - maki ng h eir.

The geography in Card’s novels follows all the major princi - Oversoul communicates its will directly to the minds of ples of the Tehuantepec Limited Geography Theory outlined gifted humans. Although this revelation is direct and objec - by Book of Mormon apologist John Sorenson, even to the tive, it comes as raw information and must be interpreted by point of rotating the cardinal points ninety degrees so that the human brain as words and images. This creates a situa - the east and west seas are actually on the north and south. 33 tion in which the content of revelation comes from “God,” Card also includes a number of cultural Mayanisms in his but the precise shape and expression of it comes from the novels, such as ball courts, the Mayan calendar, and the be - prophet to whom it is revealed. 39 Card even suggests that lief that the jaguar is a mischievous devil-figure. 34 Similarly, sometimes it is difficult to tell which of our thoughts and

m his analogues of the Jaredites have a hieroglyphic written impressions come from God and which come from our - o c . 40 o

t language with characteristics typical of Egyptian and Olmec selves. These ideas basically parallel Card’s view of Joseph o

h 35 p

k writing. Presumably Card is signaling that he believes the Smith’s translation of the Book of Mormon, which contains c o t s i historical Jaredites were Olmecs and the historical Nephites anachronisms and grammatical deficiencies that Card attrib - —

n 41 o

s were Mayans. utes to Smith instead of to God. m A i l l

i Further, when Card’s Nephites arrive in the promised Card’s apologetic efforts on other subjects are less elabo - w

s

s land, they assume that the land is uninhabited and only later rate than his sci-fi commentary on the Book of Mormon but o r

: t

r learn they were mistaken. The land is inhabited by other perhaps no less significant. The Alvin Maker series, for ex - A

l l

A sentient species as well as by a previous group of human ample, is an allegory of the life of Joseph Smith set in an al -

MARCH 2011 PAGE 55 52-59_smith_card:a_chandler_kafka 2/13/2011 8:57 pm page 56

SUNSTONE

ternate universe where folk magic really works. Here Alvin Maker, Card’s Joseph Smith analogue, has magical powers that he must choose to use for good instead of evil. 42 On the surface, folk magic that really works seems to be merely a fictional device. However, the recent vogue in some apolo - getic circles is to suggest that using his magical seer stone, young Joseph Smith really could find treasures and lost ob - jects and that Smith’s days of magical treasure digging served as a training ground for his activities as a prophet. 43 It is at least possible, then, that part of Card’s motivation in con - structing a universe where magic really works is to create openness to that possibility among inhabitants of our own universe. In another book, The Worthing Saga , Card tackles the problem of suffering from a Mormon perspective. In this book the godlike inhabitants of the world of Worthing have taken on the role of humanity’s guardians by taking away everyone’s pain and suffering, erasing their memories of death, and preventing them from doing things that would harm themselves or others. Eventually the guardians decide that this sort of rigorous supervision takes all the meaning out of life, so they end their guardianship. Pain, they realize, makes joy richer and life better. 44 This scenario reflects the Mormon principle of “opposition in all things”: without the bad things in life, we would never know how to appreciate the good. The possibility For all the apologetics in his books, Card does not remain on the defensive. On several occasions, he actively polemi - that Mormons cizes against two groups critical of Mormonism: atheists and Protestant Christians. In the Homecoming series, for ex - could forfeit their ample, one character argues that neither theism nor atheism has a clear evidentiary advantage over the other. Given the covenant is not choice between two equivalent options, the character says, we should choose the one we want to believ e— the one that makes life worth living. 45 Later books in the same series one often point out that even though atheists claim to be unbiased, they are actually just as biased as theists are. In fact, atheists entertained in are worse off, because they’re unaware of their biases. 46 Toward the end of the last book in the series, the rhetoric be - ldS culture, but comes more virulent. The story implies that pantheists and religious liberals are really just smooth-talking atheists at - apparently Card tempting to deceive others, and that atheists actually know in their hearts that there is a God but are too prideful to admit it (cp. Alma 30:52–53). 47 believes it is worth Meanwhile, Protestants come in for harsh treatment in the first volume of the Alvin Maker series. Here the chief thinking about. human villain is a prideful Presbyterian minister called Reverend Thrower. Periodically Thrower is visited by what prideful, bigoted chauvinist who refuses to believe in mira - he believes is an angel, but readers quickly recognize it as cles even when he sees one with his own eyes. He believes in m o

the devil in disguise—especially when Thrower attempts to a transcendent and immutable God but also in a devil with c . o t o

shake the Visitor’s hand and encounters no substance (cp. horns, claws, and hooves. When challenged by frontier folk h p

48 k c

D&C 129:4–9). The portrayal of a Protestant minister as wisdom, he is incapable of mounting any kind of defense of o t s i —

being in league with the devil should come as no surprise to his views, and he readily agrees to kill Alvin when the devil n o s m

anyone who was endowed prior to 1990, but Card’s minister asks him to. When Thrower fails to kill Alvin, the devil ap - A i l l i w comes across as even more of a buffoon than the character in pears to him with characteristics of a cockroach and a worm, s s

49 o

the old endowment ceremony. The minister is an arrogant, driving Thrower to attempt suicide. When his suicide is pre - r

PAGE 56 MARCH 2011 52-59_smith_card:a_chandler_kafka 2/13/2011 8:57 pm page 57

SUNSTONE

vented by a sincere parishioner, Thrower recruits the parish - one of the very first things he does is make a slave girl his ioner into the murder plot. 50 In short, Card makes the or - counselor—promptly laying the groundwork for egalitarian thodox Protestant ministry appear as despicable as possible, treatment of women. 54 Clearly gender relations are an im - reinforcing the traditional Mormon antipathy to Christian portant subject for Card. orthodoxy. The same can be said of race. In the Alvin Maker series, a character named Cavil Planter invents an intricate theolog - CHANGING MORMONISM ical justification for his doctrine that black blood is evil. In the words of , “Card thus deconstructs for HILE A PROSELYTIZER and defender of his Mormon readers the influential work of those few Mormonism, Card is also a reformer. His inten - Mormon theologians who have provided a rationale for ex - W tions in this direction are rarely made explicit, clusion of blacks from the priesthood that would blame but they are a significant subtext in several stories. them rather than whites.” In contrast to Cavil Planter’s In Folk of the Fringe , Card envisions a post-apocalyptic racism, Card’s protagonist Alvin Maker is a model of racial in which has become an independent openness. He takes a black friend through a sort of endow - Mormon nation. Much of the book reflects very positively ment, after which the black man develops a prophetic gift. 55 on Mormon society, but in a few respects, it suggests that The deconstruction of racist Mormon folk doctrine con - Mormons have failed to retain divine favor. In one chapter, tinues when in a vision, Alvin is shown Adam, Eve, Cain, the Salt Lake Temple is nearly submerged beneath a swollen and Abel, and all of them—not only Cain—are black. 56 In Great Salt Lake—hardly the glorious future that most Folk of the Fringe, Card depicts the future Mormon commu - Mormons envision for the temple. 51 In another chapter, a nity as much more multi-ethnic and accepting of blacks Mormon named Sam Monson is coerced by a divine power than are other religious groups, perhaps depicting the to impregnate a Native American woman with a new Indian Mormon Church he hopes for. 57 messiah. According to the story, the Mormon covenant has One of the most common recurring motifs in Card’s fic - been forfeited and is being handed over to the Lamanites. tion is humanity’s responsibility to care for the environment. Sam muses, In several stories and novels, he actually personifies the land and places it in the role of deity. In the Alvin Maker series, It sounded so close to what the old prophets in the the earth is presented as a sort of superorganism that endows Book of Mormon said would happen to America; those who live harmoniously with it with magical powers close, but dangerously different. As if there was no while rejecting those who exploit it. Caucasians, in fact, are hope for the Europeans anymore. As if their chance rejected because of their failure to live sustainably. “Hack had already been lost, as if no repentance would be al - and cut and chop and burn,” a Native American character lowed . . . . Someone else would inherit. It made him says, “that was the White man’s way. Take from the forest, sick at heart, to realize what the white man had lost, take from the land, take from the river, but put nothing had thrown away, had torn up and destroyed. 52 back.” 58 Likewise in Folk of the Fringe , we learn that the reason Europeans came to dominate the continent in the The possibility that Mormons could forfeit their covenant first place was the land’s displeasure with the Native is not one often entertained in LDS culture, but apparently Americans when they “cut down the forests of Utah and Card believes it is worth thinking about. Arizona and turned them into red-rock deserts.” The new Among the specific concepts Card may be trying to com - European overlords unfortunately fare no better in the land’s municate to the Mormon community are gender egalitari - eyes, because now “the land is suffering from a thousand dif - anism, racial inclusivity, respect for the environment, and a ferent poisons.” 59 critique of hypocrisy and false piety. In Pastwatch , the situation is even more desperate. Two With respect to gender, Card seems to be a complemen - hundred years in the future, the Earth is depleted and tarian, meaning that he recognizes the differences between broken beyond recovery. The topsoil is all but gone, the men and women and believes that each has complementary cloud cover is nearly continuous, and the oceans are empty strengths and weaknesses. But Card does not use this view from overfishing. The only choice left to humanity is to as an excuse to subjugate women. In several works, he advo - travel back in time and change history so that centuries of cates increased respect and dignity for women. In the environmental exploitation will be averted. Eugene England Homecoming series, for example, the seers who hear from the observed that “Card, echoing his mentor , radi - Oversoul are almost all women. When advanced technology cally challenges our . . . Mormon anti-environmentalism by allows the protagonist Nafai to see into the hearts of others, letting a future scientist describe the world we seem hell- he weeps as he realizes how much pain the women have felt bent on producing.” 60 when their husbands have treated them as something less Card of course should not be mistaken for the kind of than full friends and partners. 53 Similarly, when in radical environmentalist one might find hugging trees or Pastwatch , a character from the future travels back in time to lobbying for the Kyoto Protocols. In his non-fiction writ - set himself up as a sort of high priest to the Mexican Indians, ings, he has made his disdain for that sort of environmen -

MARCH 2011 PAGE 57 52-59_smith_card:a_chandler_kafka 2/13/2011 8:57 pm page 58

SUNSTONE

talism perfectly clear. He is rather an environmentally-con - Mormon foster families and from the larger Mormon com - scious pragmatis t— someone who believes that global munity is that he learns to disdain Mormons and never to be warming is more a good thing than a bad thing, but who also open or vulnerable with them. 65 recognizes that the earth’s stores of natural resources are In all of these respects, Card’s fiction functions as an in - quickly running out and that if we continue to live as we are dictment. Because this critique is embedded within fictional living now, there will be nothing left for future genera - narratives, however, readers often are not aware of just how tions. 61 While Card’s environmentalism may be more muted radically they are being challenged. They are entertained than that found in some sectors of the political left, it is con - and called to repentance at the same time. siderably more liberal than one might expect of the average American Mormon. One practical measure he has advocated ADD A caveat in closing: I do not know that Card is that the government adopt regulation to make most new would accept the three roles in which I have cast him housing developments “car-free, or at least pedestrian- and here—missionary, apologist, and reformer. Much less, 62 I bicycle-friendly.” I suspect, would he accept the larger role I have assigned A final respect in which Card seems to be calling for him of prophetic mythmaker and successor to Joseph change in the LDS Church is in its legalism and self-right - Smith. But then, Jonah denied his prophetic calling, too, eousness. In his novelette A War of Gifts , Card creates a and look what that got him . However much Card may Puritanical, hypocritical Christian sect that the reader is deny it, and however much those who disapprove of his meant to find highly disagreeable. Oddly enough, Card politics may dislike it, I am convinced that his fiction places some fairly enlightened and even Mormon doc - does function in the ways I have outlined. Certainly it has trines on these cultists’ lips. They teach, for example, that functioned in these ways for me. The focus on moral sac - women deserve respect because they suffer to bring rifice in Ender’s Game and Treason has given me a deep ap - into the world; that ministers should be unpaid and preciation for LDS teachings concerning the significance should work to earn their living; that discipline is impor - of Gethsemane. The powerful theodicy presented in The tant for children’s souls; and even that Genesis was simply Worthing Saga was my first exposure to the philosophical the best could do in explaining Darwinian evolu - power of LDS teaching. The exploration of Book of tion to a pre-scientific culture. Yet by placing these doc - Mormon characters’ motives in the Homecoming series has trines on hypocrites’ lips, Card is not polemicizing against impressed upon me the potential richness of the scrip - the content of the teaching. Rather, he approves the doc - tural narrative. The pragmatic environmentalism of trines but rejects the way they are flaunted in order to Pastwatch has moved me to take more seriously the im - prove the superior holiness of the community. Card em - perative of sustainable living. In all these ways and others phasizes the sin of the community when he has his pro - of which I’m not even aware, Card’s fiction has moved and tagonist proudly clarify that the cultists are “Puritans,” shaped and changed me. Although I have never passed not “fundamentalists.” 63 through the waters of baptism, as I participate in Card’s The echoes of LDS doctrine that we hear in some of the Mormon myths, I feel that I am in some small way a part Puritans’ teachings may be intended to signal that Card of the Mormon communit y— and it is a part of me. wants Mormons to see themselves reflected in this fictional sect. Possibly his polemic is directed against self-righteous - NOTES ness and hypocrisy specifically within the Mormon commu - nity. Certainly when we are told that the protagonist’s un - 1. Karen Armstrong, The Battle for God: A History of Fundamentalism (New York: Random House, 2001), xi–xviii. happy mother “always smiled when she knew people were 2. Marek Oziewicz, One Earth, One People: The Mythopoeic Fantasy Series looking . . . to show that the pure Christian life made one of Ursula K. Leguin, Lloyd Alexander, Madeleine L’Engle and Orson Scott Card , happy,” the scene recalls a common complaint against edited by Donald E. Palumbo and C. W. Sullivan, III, Critical Explorations in Mormon culture. 64 Science Fiction and Fantasy (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2008), 9. In Folk of the Fringe we find a similar indictment of 3. See Members of the Mormon Transhumanist Association, Mormon self-righteousness, here directed against Mormons’ “Transfiguration: Parallels and Complements between Mormonism and unfair ostracism of Gentiles. The narrative says of one char - Transhumanism,” SUNSTONE 145 (March 2007): 25–39. acter, 4. See D. Michael Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View , re - vised and enlarged edition (: , 1998). 5. Orson Scott Card, “Answer to Question Submitted by Phil Rose,” Sometimes Deaver wondered what would have hap - http://www.hatrack.com/research/questions/q0003.shtml ( accessed 29 August 2010). pened if just once, some bishop had kept on being 6. Ibid. friendly even after Deaver told him he’d never get 7. Orson Scott Card, “The Porcelain Salamander,” in and Other Stories (New York: Dial, 1981), 232–43; Michael R. Collings, baptized. If maybe he might’ve felt different about In the Image of God: Theme, Characterization, and Landscape in the Fiction of Mormons if ever their friendship turned out to be Orson Scott Card , ed. Marshall Tymn, Contributions to the Study of Science Fiction real. But it never happened. and Fantasy (New York: Greenwood, 1990), 80–81. 8. Orson Scott Card, Hart’s Hope (New York: Orb, 1983), 291–95; Collings, In the Image of God , 86–87. The tragic result of this character’s alienation from his

PAGE 58 MARCH 2011 52-59_smith_card:a_chandler_kafka 2/13/2011 8:57 pm page 59

SUNSTONE

9. Orson Scott Card, Lost Boys (New York: Harper Collins, 1992), 441; (accessed 30 August 2010). Robert Bird, “Mormon Postmodernism: Worlds without End in Young’s 44. Card, The Worthing Saga , 157, 91, 99, 20 8–11. Salvador and Card’s Lost Boys,” Dialogue 32, no. 3 (1999): 58–62. 45. Orson Scott Card, The Call of Earth , Homecoming (New York: Tor, 10. Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game (New York: Tor, 1991), 289–97, 1993), 280. 319–24; Collings, In the Image of God , 129–31. 46. Card, Earthfall , 330; Card, Earthborn , 153, 85. 11. Orson Scott Card, Treason (New York: Orb, 1988), 250–68. 47. Card, Earthborn , 383, 87. 12. Orson Scott Card, “Orson Scott Card on the Passion of the Christ,” 48. Card, , 89. Meridian Magazine , http://www.ldsmag.com/arts/040302passion.html (accessed 49. One in fact appears to be deliberately modeled on a scene from 24 July 2010). the endowment. Ibid., 208–10. 13. GraceAnne A. DeCandido and Keith R. A. DeCandido, “Orson Scott 50. Ibid., 3 6–45, 8 0– 89, 199, 20 8–10, 14, 25–31. Card: According to This Science Fiction Writer, It Is Impossible to Tell a Story 51. Orson Scott Card, The Folk of the Fringe (West Bloomfield, Mich.: That Does Not Involve Moral Choices,” Publishers Weekly 237, no. 48 (30 Phantasia Press, 1989), 6 8– 86. November 1990): 54–55. 52. Ibid., 209. 14. Collings, In the Image of God , 142. 53. Card, The Ships of Earth , 339–40. 15. Orson Scott Card, Seventh Son, The Tales of Alvin Maker (New York: Tor, 54. Orson Scott Card, Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus 1987), 128–29; Eugene England, “ Pastwatch : The Redemption of Orson Scott (New York: Tor, 1996), 253–57. Card” (paper presented to the Life, the Universe, & Everything Symposium, 55. England, “ Pastwatch : The Redemption of Orson Scott Card”; Orson Provo, Utah, 28 February 1997), http://www.aml-online.org/Reviews/- Scott Card, Prentice Alvin , Tales of Alvin Maker (New York: Tor, 1989). Review.aspx?id=3106 (accessed 2 February 2011). 56. Orson Scott Card, Red Prophet, Tales of Alvin Maker (New York: Tor, 16. The same opposition occurs in the earlier Worthing Saga , though 1988). making and unmaking there do not have the same moral connotations Card 57. Card, The Folk of the Fringe , 4. gives them in Alvin Maker . Capitol’s unmaker Abner Doon is actually doing hu - 58. Card, Red Prophet , 36; Oziewicz, One Earth, One People , 19 8–223. manity a favor by destroying a dead and stagnant society in order to make way 59. Card, The Folk of the Fringe , 208. for new making. Orson Scott Card, The Worthing Saga (New York: Tor, 1990), 60. England, “ Pastwatch : The Redemption of Orson Scott Card”; Card, 37. Pastwatch , 23 4–40. 17. Orson Scott Card, , The Tales of Alvin Maker (New York: 61. Orson Scott Card, “Global Warming: Fighting Off the Ice Age,” The Tor, 2003), 359. Ornery American , 6 March 2005, http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2005- 18. Orson Scott Card, “Statement of Beliefs,” http://www.hatrack.com/re - 03-06-1.html (accessed 2 February 2011). search/beliefs.shtml (accessed 29 August 2010). 62. Orson Scott Card, “Oi l— Past the Peak,” The Ornery American , 6 May 19. Orson Scott Card, “Homosexual ‘Marriage’ and Civilization,” The 2007, http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2007-05-06-1.html (accessed 2 Ornery American , 15 February 2004, http://www.ornery.org/essays/war - February 2011). watch/2004-02-15-1.html (accessed 2 February 2011). 63. Orson Scott Card, A War of Gifts: An Ender Story (New York: Tor, 2007), 20. Orson Scott Card, “The Hypocrites of Homosexuality,” SUNSTONE 76 20, 24, 38, 4 0–41. (1990): 45. 64. Ibid., 13. 21. Orson Scott Card, The Ships of Earth, Homecoming (New York: Tor, 65. Card, The Folk of the Fringe , 127. 1994), 138–42, 46–47, 219, 25. 22. Ibid., 106, 18; Orson Scott Card, Earthborn, Homecoming (New York: Tor, 1995), 260. 23. Card, Treason , 273–74. 24. Orson Scott Card, Speaker for the Dead , revised edition, (New York: Tor, 1991), 365–69; Collings, In the Image of God , 58. It may be significant that in order to enter the final stage of life, they must go through a crucifixion of sorts, which is reminiscent of the LDS folk-doctrine that before we are made gods, we will serve as saviors on other worlds. 25. Orson Scott Card, Xenocide (New York: Tor, 1991), 38–53, 326–32. 26. Orson Scott Card, “The Book of Mormon: Artifact or Artifice,” in A Storyteller in Zion: Essays and Speeches (Salt Lake City: , 1993), 13–14. 27. Ibid.; Card, The Ships of Earth , 46–54. 28. Card, The Ships of Earth , 205–08, 20–24, 39–45. 29. Orson Scott Card, The Memory of Earth, Homecoming (New York: Tor, 1992), 309. 30. Ibid., 311–20. 31. Card, “The Book of Mormon: Artifact or Artifice,” 25. 32. Card, The Ships of Earth , 21, 66. 33. Card, Earthborn , xi–x, 20; compare John L. Sorenson, An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: , 1985), 3 8–42. 34. Card, Earthborn , 11, 61, 102, 134. 35. Ibid., 13 8–40. 36. Orson Scott Card, Earthfall, Homecoming (New York: Tor, 1995), 165–86. 37. Card, “The Book of Mormon: Artifact or Artifice,” 31–33. 38. See Matthew Roper, “Nephi’s Neighbors: Book of Mormon Peoples and Pre-Columbian Populations,” FARMS Review 15, no. 2 (2003): 91–128. 39. Card, The Memory of Earth , 36. 40. Card, Earthfall , 319. www.forthosewhowonder.com 41. Card, “The Book of Mormon: Artifact or Artifice,” 22–23. 42. Card, Seventh Son , 64. FREE DOWNLOADS! 43. Russell Anderson, “The 1826 Trial of Joseph Smith,” FAIR , $7 • LDS Bookstores • ISBN 1-883992-06-0 http://www.fairlds.org/ FAIR _Conferences/2002_1826_Trial_of_Joseph_Smith.html

MARCH 2011 PAGE 59