Meet Parson Thwackum

Costa Rica's first temple — According to some extreme critics, the San José Costa Rica Temple is intended to extract revenue from the people of that country so as to line the pockets of the Church’s plutocratic leadership in Utah.
(Photograph from LDS Media Library)

I’ve had several people write to me lately, insisting that Islam isn’t actually a religion at all. It’s really, they say, a totalitarian political ideology masquerading as a religion.

When I’m told such things, I immediately think of those who deny that my church — my “so-called church,” they would say — is really a religion. Rather, they say, it’s a business — “LD$ Inc.” — run for the financial benefit of its greedy and power-hungry leaders. We who loyally “pay, pray, and obey” are merely “sheeple,” “Mor(m)ons,” and, in many cases, “Utards.” It’s all about malls and farms and land-holdings, not about anything spiritual. Even our temples, they allege, are merely “profit centers,” intended as tools to induce us dupes to fork over our tithes.

But, when I’m told such things, I’m also reminded of Parson Thwackum in Henry Fielding’s classic 1749 novel The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling:

“When I mention religion,” declares Parson Thwackum, “I mean the Christian religion; and not only the Christian religion, but the Protestant religion; and not only the Protestant religion, but the Church of England.”