Mormon Myths

Last week at school, my son Parker (who is in 5^th grade) was talking to some friends about Halloween. One of the girls knew that Parker was a Mormon and was really surprised that Parker would be celebrating Halloween. Parker assured her that Mormons do indeed celebrate Halloween. She then started talking about some of the other things that Mormons supposedly can’t do. She said that Mormons aren’t allowed to eat meat, and Mormons aren’t allowed to drink soda.

That got me thinking about the many Mormon Myths that seem to continually circulate around. Some of these myths have been around for AGES! Mormons actually get a kick out of some of the myths that we hear. It would take too long to go through all of the myths, but I’ll mention a few.

A Few Mormon Myths:

*Mormons don’t celebrate Halloween-False. Here are my kids in their Halloween costumes this year. :)

*Mormons aren’t allowed to eat meat-False.

*Mormons aren’t allowed to drink soda-False. I think that this misunderstanding comes from the fact that many Mormons don’t drink caffeinated pop. We all know how addicting caffeinated drinks can be, and many Mormons choose not to drink caffeinated pop. However, there is no rule against drinking soda pop-caffeinated or not.

*Mormons practice polygamy-False. With all of the Mormon polygamy jokes that go around, it’s no wonder that people believe this. Here’s an example from Saturday Night Live:

“According to a new study, Mormon teenagers fare better than regular teenagers when it comes to staying out of trouble and doing well in school…Although, you would too if you had two Moms yelling at you.” (Saturday Night Live)

It’s actually a pretty funny joke. It made me laugh. However, the problem is that jokes like this encourage the false belief that we practice polygamy.

*Mormons aren’t Christian-False. Like I said, Mormons get a kick out of most of the ridiculous myths that go around about us. But this one hurts. Although many people will try to convince you otherwise, we are ABSOLUTELY Christian. Jesus Christ is the center of our religion. We use the King James Version of the Bible just as other Christian churches do. We believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of the world. It is only through Him that we can obtain salvation. There is much more that I could say about this subject, but I will leave that for another time.

The truth is that Mormons are much more mainstream than some people realize. No, we don’t drink alcohol or smoke, and we may have some beliefs that are different than other religions, but we’re not as different as some people believe.

This subject reminded me of a quote I once heard:

“Falsehood will travel the world, while Truth is just getting its boots on”