{"id":13908,"date":"2012-10-24T00:01:23","date_gmt":"2012-10-24T07:01:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dvan.org\/?p=13908"},"modified":"2018-10-14T22:01:40","modified_gmt":"2018-10-15T05:01:40","slug":"body-of-christ-confessions-of-a-vietnamese-mormon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dvan.org\/2012\/10\/body-of-christ-confessions-of-a-vietnamese-mormon\/","title":{"rendered":"Khanh Ho: Confessions of a Vietnamese Mormon"},"content":{"rendered":"
Khanh Ho is a featured columnist interested in documenting all things forgotten: \u00a0the mental dust bunnies underneath the bookshelf of the mind. \u00a0This essay is part of a series that explores the author’s religious background in the context of a larger conversation about spirituality\u2014cultural, institutional, personal– in the diaspora.<\/em><\/p>\n [before we begin: like diaCRITICS? why not subscribe? see the options to the right, via feedburner, email, and networked blogs]<\/em><\/p>\n The body of Christ came at a steeply reduced price from the Weber\u2019s Bread Outlet–a cinder block shack that stood next to the train tracks, the municipal auto impound and the Bally\u2019s gym. No doubt, the many loaves that went into the making of His body each Sunday morning represented an irresistible deal, especially when taken in quantity. And this most probably would have appealed to my fellow Mormons: a plain, homespun people who still clung hard to the frugality of their pioneer heritage.<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n I often catch folks off guard\u2014I can stop a conversation in its tracks–when I let fall, quite casually, that I was raised up a Mormon. \u201cAnd technically, I still am one,\u201d I\u2019ll add gratuitously, stringing along whomever has been ensnared in my verbiage with a riddle only a Latter Day Saint can un-entwine (hint: many Mormons are still counted on the church rolls, even if they no longer consider themselves part of the religion). Most think I\u2019m making some kind of attempt at a joke\u2014yanking their chain. I can\u2019t say I begrudge them this feeling. Neither can I say that I am much hurt by their disbelief. To be fair, if you trotted me out into a room full of strangers and played \u201cspot the Mormon\u201d (a game that, coincidentally, all Mormons, as a self-styled minority group, love), those who are uninitiated would be hard-pressed to lay bets on someone with my lips, my nose, my eyes. After all, I certainly don\u2019t bear any resemblance to the stereotypical vision of the Mormon\u2014the caricature you might see in that Tony Award Winning Musical The Book of Mormon, Elder Price: fair-haired and blue-eyed and earnestly white.<\/p>\n