{"id":1364,"date":"2007-10-10T14:30:39","date_gmt":"2007-10-10T14:30:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/2007\/10\/house-md-meets-a-mormon.html"},"modified":"2007-10-10T14:30:39","modified_gmt":"2007-10-10T14:30:39","slug":"house-md-meets-a-mormon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/10\/house-md-meets-a-mormon.html","title":{"rendered":"Dr. House Meets a Mormon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"hughlauriehousesm.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/import\/hughlauriehousesm.jpg\" width=\"258\" height=\"320\" style=\"float:left;margin: 5px\">Everyone\u2019s favorite cantankerous, pill-popping physician has taken on organized religion, faith healing and has even aimed his sarcasm at atheists. And while House had to deal with Chase\u2019s ontological\/theological struggles and Cameron\u2019s ethical quandaries, he\u2019s never had to deal with one of his Fellows actually being religious. Until now.<br \/>\nAt the end of last season, House\u2019s fired Chase, and the other two Fellows Cameron and Foreman left as well. So now he\u2019s on the hunt for a few more good men and women. Labeling them with just numbers, he whittles the group down through wit and whimsy, resulting in a humorous Broadway try-out atmosphere.<br \/>\nNumber 18, a tall African-American male who has no compunction about being assigned to wash House\u2019s car, turns out to be a member of the Church of Latter-Day Saints. (Although only referred to by number on the show, the show\u2019s website states that his name is Jeffrey Cole.)<br \/>\n\u201cYou a Mormon? You\u2019re wearing a ring from Brigham Young,\u201d observes House. \u201cOr did your folks just do the lawn?\u201d he presses on, referring to the LDS Church\u2019s restriction of ordination to men of African descent until 1978. Number 18 responds that \u201cThe Church has a very progressive attitude toward racial equality.\u201d And so begins a wonderful new sparring partnership.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><br \/>\nHouse needs Number 18 as a control for an unconventional test to be done on a woman\u2019s liver \u2013 downing shots of tequila. The patient is in competition to become an astronaut and will not allow any invasive procedures that might leave scars or records.<br \/>\n18 balks at going against his beliefs, but House eventually convinces him to do the test by quoting scripture and asking if 18 would pull an ass out of a pit on the Sabbath. That sneaky House.<br \/>\nAs the two throw back shots with the patient, House inquires about the Mormon \u201cmagic underwear\u201d and wonders why 18\u2019s religious beliefs were suddenly less important than the dreams of the patient.<br \/>\n\u201cLDS doesn\u2019t try to dictate every detail of our lives,\u201d he says. \u201cWhen a situation isn\u2019t clear we\u2019re encouraged to make our own decisions.\u201d Plus, he says, House made a good argument.<br \/>\nA stunned House notes that, \u201cRational argument doesn\u2019t usually work on religious people. Otherwise there would be no religious people.\u201d<br \/>\nThe joy of House is that the persnickety physician takes as good as he gets. The writers don\u2019t shy away from giving his co-stars dynamic dialogue. The religious characters are not stereotypical or straw men, simply there so the protagonist can look witty and wise. Plus, I don\u2019t recall a main Mormon character on television since the \u201cSouth Park\u201d &#8220;All About the Mormons&#8221; episode.<br \/>\nI\u2019m hoping to see more of the witty repartee between House and Number 18 and tonight\u2019s episode promises plenty of fodder as House aims to explore that murky area between life and death \u2026 himself.<br \/>\nHouse airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. on FOX.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Everyone\u2019s favorite cantankerous, pill-popping physician has taken on organized religion, faith healing and has even aimed his sarcasm at atheists. And while House had to deal with Chase\u2019s ontological\/theological struggles and Cameron\u2019s ethical quandaries, he\u2019s never had to deal with one of his Fellows actually being religious. Until now. At the end of last season,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-television"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Dr. House Meets a Mormon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/10\/house-md-meets-a-mormon.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Dr. House Meets a Mormon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Everyone\u2019s favorite cantankerous, pill-popping physician has taken on organized religion, faith healing and has even aimed his sarcasm at atheists. And while House had to deal with Chase\u2019s ontological\/theological struggles and Cameron\u2019s ethical quandaries, he\u2019s never had to deal with one of his Fellows actually being religious. Until now. At the end of last season,&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/10\/house-md-meets-a-mormon.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Idol Chatter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-10-10T14:30:39+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/files\/import\/hughlauriehousesm.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Ellen Leventry\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Dr. House Meets a Mormon","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/10\/house-md-meets-a-mormon.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Dr. House Meets a Mormon","og_description":"Everyone\u2019s favorite cantankerous, pill-popping physician has taken on organized religion, faith healing and has even aimed his sarcasm at atheists. And while House had to deal with Chase\u2019s ontological\/theological struggles and Cameron\u2019s ethical quandaries, he\u2019s never had to deal with one of his Fellows actually being religious. Until now. At the end of last season,&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/10\/house-md-meets-a-mormon.html","og_site_name":"Idol Chatter","article_published_time":"2007-10-10T14:30:39+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/files\/import\/hughlauriehousesm.jpg"}],"author":"Ellen Leventry","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/10\/house-md-meets-a-mormon.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/10\/house-md-meets-a-mormon.html","name":"Dr. House Meets a Mormon","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/10\/house-md-meets-a-mormon.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/10\/house-md-meets-a-mormon.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/files\/import\/hughlauriehousesm.jpg","datePublished":"2007-10-10T14:30:39+00:00","dateModified":"2007-10-10T14:30:39+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/ac2cc34c973f7c4501ffd019f291d317"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/10\/house-md-meets-a-mormon.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/10\/house-md-meets-a-mormon.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/10\/house-md-meets-a-mormon.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/files\/import\/hughlauriehousesm.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/files\/import\/hughlauriehousesm.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/10\/house-md-meets-a-mormon.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Dr. House Meets a Mormon"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/","name":"Idol Chatter","description":"Beliefnet Entertainment blog, TV blog, Movie blog, Religion in entertainment blog","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/ac2cc34c973f7c4501ffd019f291d317","name":"Ellen Leventry","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/566\/566a295a5a07deb0916671d2cb28e023x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/566\/566a295a5a07deb0916671d2cb28e023x96.jpg","caption":"Ellen Leventry"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/author\/eleventry"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1364\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}