This headline stopped me in my tracks: “The case for Book of Mormon socialism.” Wait a minute, I thought, that’s got to be a mistake. After all, Mitt Romney’s a Mormon and he’s opposed to socialism. Orrin Hatch, seriously conservative Mormon Senator, called health care reform the “Socialized Health Care for All Act of 2009.” Glenn Beck practically foams at the mouth when he says the word “socialism.” Utah legislator Charles Buttars lumped “social and political democracy” in with socialism.

But I was wrong–the headline was no mistake.

Troy Williams’ essay is a cogent look at the historical and theological roots of Mormon efforts to care for members of the community and provide for the less fortunate. Williams admonishes Mormon political conservatives for their devotion to the “unquestioned virtue of unregulated capitalism.”

Still convinced that Williams’ view of Mormonism had to be an anomaly, I did some more research. The Pew Foundation has a fascinating transcript online from a presentation by Columbia Professor Emeritus of History Richard Bushman, “Mormonism and Politics: Are They Compatible?” In it he details the transformation of Mormonism from a radical faith to a conservative one. Turns out Joseph Smith, and to a lesser extent, Brigham Young, pushed for the development of settlements of believers that would be welcoming of diverse faiths. Ideally people would live close to their neighbors in towns where they would participate in communal activities such as meals and related chores. Their farms would be on the outskirts and farmers would commute to their land.

Of course, when you think about it, Mormonism rose from the liberal religious trends in the early 19th century that also influenced abolitionism, transcendentalism, early feminism, and led to the founding of schools such as Oberlin College where all of these ideas merged and developed.

Joseph Smith wrote, “they did have all things in common — and there were no poor among them.” I can’t find any evidence of Beck, Buttars, Hatch, or Romney supporting that idea. I did find plenty of the opposite.

Rep. Buttars, on a radio show, accused the Alpine School District, near Salt Lake City, of wanting to “incarcerate” their students (a host corrected the word as “enculturate”), a criticism of part of the district’s mission statement, “Enculturating the Young into a Social and Political Democracy.” The mission, to him, smacked of socialism. Seems Mr. Buttars wants to do away with busing for high school students and with local school boards (whom he accused of being dominated by union members). Oh, and he wants to eliminate 12th grade to save money.

Mitt Romney is on the record as being in favor of further reducing taxes on corporations and vetoing funding for programs to combat homelessness and other social welfare plans. Of course Romney supported the Massachusetts health care reform program, a decision he defends as a “the ultimate conservative approach,” “Pay your own way, but no more free ride.”

Glenn Beck? Suffice it to say that Beck opposes anything that he labels as socialism. On his list is the “conservative” Massachusetts healthcare plan that Beck labels as socialist and renders Romney unfit to be president.

Here’s the thing: this is not a “Mormon” problem. It’s also not a “Catholic” problem or an “Evangelical” one. It’s everyone’s problem in American politics and, to some extent, society itself. It’s a given that, even though there is no official litmus test for political office in the US, there is a strong unofficial one. What if a candidate goes to the “wrong” church? What if he/she goes to one with the wrong beliefs about the wrong god? Or listens to the wrong messages from the wrong preacher? Or, worse still, in many people’s eyes, does not seem to be a believer in anything?

We are struggling with this paradigm: how to resolve differences between what religion teaches us and what secular education and life teach us? How to resolve the demands of faith in higher powers and faith in leaders and active citizens? Someone suggested that I try putting the issues into a matrix—I’m not sure that it fully contains the issues I’m grappling with (I probably need some sort of Star Trek 3D multilevel chess board, but those are frightfully hard to design in a 2D environment):

Adherence to faith Active rejection of selective learning that does not support religious beliefs and or active ignorance of religious beliefs that conflict with secular beliefs while professing adherence to a particular faith. Adherence to religious beliefs resulting rejection of or ignorance of other learning that could challenge those beliefs. Rejection of a set of religious beliefs that conflict with or negate learning and experience that calls those beliefs into question. May result in the rejection of religion or the adoption of another form of religion. Reconciliation of religious beliefs to secular learning and experience, often around a distinction between principles or morals that should be upheld and myths that it is safe to reject. Resistance to challenges

The kettle is black–it is flawed, imperfect, a creation of humans trying to make something useful. I know because I am a black pot–an adherent of a flawed, imperfect, human creation. Many of us are all called to systems of belief that ask us to live up to higher standards—sometimes higher standards than we can ever attain, even through constant and diligent struggle. People of faith, whether Mormon, Muslim, Jewish, Catholic, Evangelical, or any other organized, disorganized, or unorganized belief system have to make decisions every day about actions that will support or violate their ideals.

The problem we all face is in choosing how to best uphold our beliefs when they conflict. For leaders–elected or self-appointed–how they negotiate the territory where their beliefs and the beliefs and expectations of their various constituents collide is contested territory. Understanding that conflict, and how individuals such as Romney, Beck, Buttars, and others of all faiths reach and reconcile their decisions will provide us with valuable insight about their character that will allow us to decide whether or not we want them in positions of authority or power.