Orson Scott Card is capable of mind-bending brilliance: The novel “Ender’s Game” was a classic of late twentieth century science fiction. And though not as beloved as the original, the other entries in the trilogy “Ender’s Shadow” and “Shadow of the Hegemon” took a nuanced and adult look at the after-effects of Ender’s actions.
Aside from Ender, however, Card’s writing is wildly erratic to a degree that makes me wonder if he wrote his magnum opus by complete accident. He’s been known to incorporate aspects of Mormon theology into his novels, and a greater crime still, he’s responsible for making Iron Man unreadable (something I hardly thought possible) in Ultimate Iron Man, retconning Tony Stark’s origin story with muddled kid-genius trope and moralistically preaching the dangers of drinking even a single drop of alcohol. Of course he did: he’s Mormon. He’d preach the same about Caffeine in comic books if he could. As talented as Card can be, all too often he unsubtly imposes his religion into his writing, to the detriment of the story.
With his marked intellectual laziness, it’s unsurprising that he doesn’t exactly grasp the greater nuances of sectarian arguments against Mormonism or the intersection between religious and non-religious life in America. When he argues that his religious beliefs can coexist alongside christianist protestantism, as he does as part of a debate at Beliefnet
You don’t want your kids to join the Mormon Church; well, I don’t want mine to join the Baptist Church, either. That’s because you think you’re right about your religion, and I think I’m right about mine.But I would rather vote for a believing Baptist who lives up to his faith than for a Mormon who doesn’t take his religion seriously or keep the commandments he’s been taught.
he fails to acknowledge fundamentalism views Mormonism as inherently false doctrine. They view his (and Mitt Romney’s) beliefs with open contempt, examples of which are too numerous to count since Romney announced his presidential ambitions. It is sheer ludicrousness to pander and cozy up to the type of people that would drive their kind underground if only they could finally completely abolish the separation between church and state.
We Mormons don’t agree with you on many vital points of doctrine. But I hope we all agree with each other about this: In a time when a vigorous atheist movement is trying to exclude religious people from participating in American public life unless they promise never to mention or think about their religion while in office, why are we arguing with each other?
“Don’t fight with us! We could unite and destroy atheism!” Card urges, the thinking being that anyone with faith is better than the “vigorous” loosely knit community who have come to the conclusion Yahweh does not exist. Does the faith of other theistic religions have the same value? And since when do atheists in America have political power?
Nothing quite so endears me to a science-fiction author like a loathing for cultures unlike his own and religious thinking that poisons his talents.
