Grant Hardy, in his new book Understanding the Book of Mormon, wants to uncouple the problems of historicity and literary merit. He brackets the first, setting aside the apologetic debates that have dominated Book of Mormon studies over the past four decades. Instead, he turns his attention to the content of the book, and in particular to its peculiar stylistic qualities—and on this matter if he is no apologist he is nevertheless a bit apologetic, conceding the book’s literary deficiencies but pleading on its behalf that, to borrow a Twainism, the Book of Mormon is “better than it sounds” (273).

Hardy seeks to rehabilitate the literary reputation of the Book of Mormon by drawing attention to what he calls its “organizing principle”: “the fact that it presents itself as the work of narrators with distinct voices and perspectives” (268). Because the Book of Mormon is structured as the product of three discrete narrative voices—Nephi’s, Mormon’s and Moroni’s—and because, according to its own internal claims, the three narrative voices work with a variety earlier sources, the text is always inhabited by at least two minds, Joseph’s and, say, Mormon’s, and often by three or even four. This textual complexity offers an entrée for a kind of literary analysis that moves beyond the manifest deficiencies of the book’s prose style.

As an interpretive strategy, his approach is shown to be stunningly fruitful—though I suspect that a reader as intelligent, attentive and sensitive as Hardy could fruitfully read the back of a cereal box. Hardy devotes a section of the book to each of the Book of Mormon’s three primary narrators, and in so doing he provides a roughly chronological and nearly comprehensive sustained reading of the text. It is a tour de force and I am tempted to call it virtuosic, though occasionally the breadth achievement is obscured by the thick texture of his very close reading.

But if Hardy has an ambitious exegetical aim—and that bell rings on every page—he also has an important social objective. He offers not only a new reading of the Book of Mormon, but a new way of reading the Book of Mormon—that is, he offers a new discourse that he hopes will charter a new kind of inquiry undertaken by readers of all tribes. As Hardy puts it, he seeks to demonstrate “a mode of literary analysis by which all readers, regardless of their prior religious commitments … can discuss the book in useful and accurate ways” (xvii). He seeks, in short, to establish a new interpretive community, blessedly free from the entrenched allegiances that distort other discussions of the Book of Mormon.

For Hardy’s bracketing of the historical question is neither caprice nor cowardice, as it often is in defensive treatments of the Book of Mormon, but rather a legitimate sequel to his hermeneutic approach. Hardy enters the text by way of the motivations, personalities, and perceptions of its narrators, and therein lies his justification for avoiding, at least temporarily, the historical questions and the epistemological commitments they entail. Whether one regards the Book of Mormon as 19th-century folk pulp or as the authentic translation of an ancient document, one can attend to the text’s self-presentation as the work of three narrators—Nephi, Mormon and Moroni or “Nephi”, “Mormon” and “Moroni”—and thus read the text narratologically. “After all,” Hardy reminds us, “narrative is a mode of communication employed by both historians and novelists” (xvi).

In Hardy’s discursive theory, then, the subjectivity of the narrators offers a kind of haven from historicity. Whereas archaeological or rhetorical readings of the Book of Mormon lead directly into a thicket of assumptions—none of them externally verifiable, and thus none available to non-believers—about the book’s historical context, Hardy sees the question of narrative subjectivity as a route around those thorny patches. “Imagining [Nephi, Mormon and Moroni] as having life experiences and independent minds does not necessarily mean that one accepts their historicity,” he argues (xvii). One can engage with the substance of the text on its own terms by accepting the book’s narrative device, whether one sees that device as a tool of fiction or of historiography.

I’m sympathetic to Hardy’s desire to defer the ultimate questions in order to create an epistemological space for encountering the Book of Mormon on its own terms. And he’s hit upon an innovative and absorbing method for doing so. But in the final analysis, I’m not persuaded that the category of narrative subjectivity can do the work he asks of it. The narrative mind can work as a neutral rendezvous for devout and skeptical readers only if one holds human subjectivity constant over time, assuming that narrators of all times and places share the same foundations of consciousness and perception.

It has been the work of nearly a century of continental philosophy to vex precisely this notion of the autonomous, self-contained, transhistorical subject—but one need not quote Nietzsche, Althusser and Bourdieu to recognize that two narrative minds separated by twenty-five centuries will bring to the text a different set of perspectives, concerns, sensibilities, motivations, personalities and perceptions. Thus even a narratological analysis implies some assumption of historicity—and indeed to the extent that “Nephi,” “Mormon” and “Moroni” speak to contemporary readers as legible, coherent personalities, and Hardy brilliantly demonstrates that they do, one must reluctantly (or triumphantly) recognize a modern context at some level. One need only compare the laconic narrative voice of the Hebrew bible with the over-determined narrative personalities at work in the Book of Mormon to sense the difference.

As an example of Hardy’s narrative subject problem, consider the comparison he suggests between the narrative development of Mormon and the development of the implied narrator Benengali in Don Quixote. Hardy introduces the comparison to highlight the depth of Mormon’s indirect characterization in the Book of Mormon, which is striking when placed against the relatively incoherent, undeveloped personality of Cervantes’s Benengali. Hardy concludes:

The Book of Mormon may not be as much fun to read as Don Quixote, but at least in this one respect, it is more thoroughly composed. However readers may conceptualize Mormon, part of the interest of the book is observing the way he interacts with and shapes his material.

Hardy is indisputably right in both judgments here, but he doesn’t pursue the implications of the comparison. If Don Quixote fails to exhibit for the modern reader a coherent and developed narrative subjectivity, this is most likely not an artistic failing of Cervantes but rather an artifact of the history of the narrative genre. When Benengali was conceived in the early modern dawn of print culture, the romance had not yet become the novel, the author had not yet entirely separated from the narrator, and indeed the human being had not yet become the modern subject comfortably at home in its fully-furnished mental interior. Thus to interpret a narrative voice as coherent, undeveloped, deliberate or whatever is necessarily to make certain assumptions about what it means to be a human subject — assumptions that are inescapably historical in nature.

This is not to say that Hardy’s exegetical project is illegitimate, but rather that his social project will probably fail. Narrative subjectivity will probably not be the analytical charter for a tolerant new interpretive community around the Book of Mormon. But Hardy’s work remains a landmark achievement, one that I salute and from which I have personally learned much. For my part, I continue to find Hardy’s Reader’s Edition of the Book of Mormon to be his most significant work, which is to take nothing away from the intelligence of his readings in Understanding the Book of Mormon. But the lucidity and openness of the page in the Reader’s Edition has opened the text to me in little short of a revelation. Thank you, Brother Hardy.

Originally appeared under a different title and in a somewhat shorter form at Patheos.com.

We’re pleased to share an interview with Stephen Frandsen here, and we invite readers to add their own experiences with or impressions of Duck Beach in the comments. The filmmakers are actively seeking further participants who are willing to share their stories, and they will be pleased to respond to questions in the comments here.  Finally, please do consider donating to the project via kickstarter, a unique online instrument for grassroots funding of interesting and worthwhile projects  — of which we expect you will fully agree this is one!  (Stay tuned after the interview for a bonus extra: “One Way Ticket,” a charming documentary short made by Stephen that follows one man’s journey through online dating to a surprise twist ending.)

The title of this post isn’t a snark; it’s an open question, about which I am genuinely curious. (I’m also giving a presentation on this topic next week at the Midwest Sunstone/Restoration Studies conference, so my ulterior motive is a fishing expedition for anecdotes from the Collected Saints of the Bloggernacle.)

Though “Homemaking” and “Enrichment” are officially terms of the past in the Relief Society today, it seems to me that those ideas–the idea that we need to develop skills and a knowledge base that will make us (I suppose I should say “women” rather than “us” if I wanted to be brutally honest, but I don’t want to bring gender roles into the question at this point) better, more responsible and capable, homemakers–continue to lurk around Relief Society, and indeed the church as whole. So my question, which is really two-fold. First, in your Relief Society (or, just to be ridiculous and throw all caution to the wind, in your elders quorum or high priest) meetings, do you frequently, or even just occasionally, learn about actual, practical, usable homemaking skills and resources? And second, if your answer is no, is it because not many skills and resources are taught that are genuinely relevant to your home existence needs, or because you’re bored by or find unhelpful the way such skills are taught, or some other reason?

I await any thoughts you may have. And thanks.

Adam has planned a series of posts on George Handley’s recently-released book Home Waters: A Year of Recompenses on the Provo River. Miller on Handley is sure to be a feast of poetry. Welcome Adam!

photo via flickr/jessicafm

Today I, with millions of other home cooks around the country, will be getting frisky in the kitchen with all manner of saturated fats and simple carbohydrates as I beget a table full of gorgeous harvest pies. I make pie once a year, the day before Thanksgiving; the rest of the year I prefer my saturated fats and simple carbohydrates in other forms. But at about 4:00 on Thanksgiving Day, surrounded by a riot of dirty dishes and family, there’s nothing in this world or out of it that tastes better.

Social scientists would call my Thanksgiving palate a “framing effect”.  The framing effect is an important concept in economics and psychology, describing the way in which the presentation of an object or idea in different contexts will change people’s decision-making.  By swapping out one emotional frame for another—Thanksgiving Day for Easter, say—we change our perception of the object or opportunity at hand, even though it remains objectively constant. Pie is pie, after all.  Thus an egg presented to tasters as “free-range” and “organic” will taste better than the same egg served, say, as part of a blind taste test.

Technically speaking, the framing effect is a cognitive bias. Framing distorts our perception of reality, and it can be manipulated to produce irrational decisions. Despite this potential for abuse, though, I want to speak up in defense of the humble framing effect, especially at this Thanksgiving season.  While it’s occasionally in our interest to recognize and critically question the frames that shape our perception, the truth is that framing is ubiquitous to the human way of being in the world—it’s a fundamental operation of  the human mind, a central mode of human communication, and a central feature of our emotional lives.

Framing is also faith’s modus operandi in the lives of believers.  Faith frames our perception of everything from the events of world history to our most intimate identity. By imbuing the events and states of our lives—birth, death, sex, illness, social status, desire, despair, joy—with a moral meaning of cosmic significance, faith works at the deepest level of perception to shape our attitudes and decisions.  Thus rationalists are absolutely right when they point out that faith introduces a colossal bias into believers’ experience of the world. But they are wrong if they suppose that they are somehow immune to framing effects themselves.  The question to ask  is whether the framing effects of faith ultimately contribute to human flourishing  and the flourishing of our communities.

When it comes to gratitude, especially, I think faith can be an expansive, humane frame through which to experience the world.  Everybody appreciates the natural beauty of the autumn season. But a believer perceives not only the pleasing visual stimulus but also the emotional pleasure of receiving a gift: a caring creator God carefully prepared the visual feast as a gift of love for his children. The perfect face of a child becomes even more precious to a parent who believes that she is a priceless soul, a gift and stewardship from God. Faith can even transform suffering and tragedy into an occasion of gratitude: an omnipotent, loving Heavenly Father compassionately designed a custom-made opportunity for growth, delivered together with a promise of the spiritual resources to overcome pain and grief.  That’s the alchemy of faith at work, folks, transforming dross into gold with the power of the frame.

This is not to say that atheists and agnostics have no capacity for gratitude: certainly a naturalistic worldview supplies its own framing effects, many of which are indeed conducive to gratitude and human flourishing.  Nor is to suggest that faith’s framing effects are always positive: certainly a faith-based worldview can lead to parochialism and solipsism, as well as gratitude and hope. Nevertheless, I count the framing effect of gratitude among the gifts of faith to the individual and to society at large.

I’ll be grateful for my frames this Thanksgiving—especially the one around the sweet potato pie. Happy Thanksgiving, all!

photo courtesy of wikimedia commons

Bruce Feiler’s daughter was just five when she pitched him a question right to the gut of religious experience:  “Daddy, if I speak to God, will he listen?”

Feiler writes books on the Bible and God for a living, so he’d presumably given the question some thought. Nevertheless he had no good answer ready for his daughter. So he did what any loving parent would do:  answered the question with an inartful dodge, and then wrote about it in the New York Times style section.

How do we answer our children’s questions about God, he asked, when we are ourselves doubtful, confused, or otherwise conflicted?

Feiler solicited comments on the matter from a formerly-Catholic agnostic playwright, a formerly-Episcopalian agnostic New Testament scholar, and a popular Conservative rabbi in Los Angeles.  It’s not hard to guess the direction their responses took.  Among the educated elite readership of the NYT, a kind of ritualistic doubt partners with a set of tolerant gestures as the yin and yang of the new virtue, and self-disclosure at all times and in all things and in all places is the great personal imperative. No surprise, then, that Feiler’s panel urged conflicted parents to share their uncertainty with their children, even to validate their children’s own budding doubt.  To project an air of certainty when one harbors internal ambiguity is hypocritical, dishonest, and worst of all inauthentic.   “I believe deeply in the power of paradox and contradiction,” said the formerly-Catholic agnostic playwright.

I do sympathize with Mr. Feiler’s dilemma, despite my snarky tone here. I too wonder how I should respond when my children ask me a question on which I have little clarity myself, and it happens with some frequency.  I’m not comfortable voicing a straight-ahead Sunday school answer as if it represented my own conviction.  But unlike Mr. Feiler and friends, I’m not especially enthusiastic about the “power of paradox and contradiction” to shape children’s moral universe.

I suspect that paradox and contradiction—and doubt and uncertainty and ambiguity and the whole extended family—are stimulating spiritual states for those who otherwise enjoy a high degree of autonomy, security and certainty in their day-to-day lives. I enjoy a fine paradox and a bit of contradiction myself; after all, I am a part of that educated, affluent NYT readership.  But for children and others who live with some degree of dependence and uncertainty, I don’t know that contradiction offers the balm or backbone they seek.

What I generally do in a situation like the one described is offer some version of “Well, let’s see what the scriptures say about that.”  That is, I try to offer an answer to the question asked, but I predicate the authority of that answer not on my own personal conviction but on the scriptural text.  By turning to scripture, I avoid a situation in which I must either hypocritically profess a certainty I don’t possess or offer a pablum of hedging qualification. (I know, of course, that my children will assume that I am certain that the scriptural answer offered is true—so yes, there is still a layer of hypocrisy in my strategy.)

That’s not to say that I avoid all contradiction altogether. The scriptures rarely offer any straightforward interpretive answer to any question, no matter how basic—-therein lies much of the religious history of the West in the last 600 years.  So I will often point out that the scriptures offer several approaches to a question, and in our family scripture study I am trying to teach them a kind of elementary exegesis, paying attention to context, voice and rhetoric. And as they mature into teenagers and young adults, I expect that my strategy will change somewhat.

Is mine the best approach? To this question I heartily join Mr. Feiler in professing uncertainty. I don’t know. Certainly there may still come some reckoning wherein my children realize that I had my doubts about Santa all along. If I’ve done my job well enough, I hope, they won’t resent that, and they’ll have the moral framework and intellectual tools to launch their own spiritual inquiry.

I’d love to learn from you, though. How do you handle those discussions?

photo credit: Paul

In debates over controversial religious issues, one often encounters a certain kind of argument from history, a sort of “once upon a time” argument. Once upon a time, it’s argued, the Church considered a given practice or belief, from witchcraft to usury to the heliocentric cosmos, to be immoral, unbiblical or otherwise forbidden.  The particular practice or belief in question varies, but the structure of the argument and its implication are nearly always the same: the Church once considered such-and-such to be evil, but now it doesn’t; thus by means of a progressive trope of enlightenment, the argument proceeds, the Church should also de-stigmatize and embrace the controversial topic at hand. (Often, it should be noted, these arguments are made with a great deal of care and nuance and insight.)

In one sense, I’m sympathetic to this argument. I share the view that knowledge of and from God is a profoundly historical and historicized knowledge—and it that sense, it is a profoundly christological knowledge as well, as Christ is God embedded in human history.  And I agree with the suggestion that any human understanding of the cosmic order, including our own, is biased and provisional. Doctrines, even doctrines that seem to be central, can change, have changed, will change.

But the argument from history can’t do much more conceptual work than that. And it raises its own questions about the relationship of the Church (speaking broadly, as Christianity, or narrowly, as Mormonism) to society at large. In particular, one wonders why, if the Church is God’s instrument of enlightenment on the earth, it is so often a follower, not a leader, in human history. After all, in each of the examples above, science or economics or politics “got there first”—that is, staked out what was to ultimately become the generally accepted moral wisdom. The Church eventually got on board, but not without some delay and resistance. Is the Church merely a retrograde cultural parasite on a fundamental moral relativism?

I don’t think it is.  It may be that the Church stands in a particular position relative to broader society, functioning not as the driver of history but instead as its interpreter. Thus as society at large moves in response to technological and economic shifts, the Church will also move in relation to those social trends but will continue to do the same important—eternal, godly— interpretive work: this is a kind of moral relativism, yes, but one that fixes the Church in relation to human experience and in that sense is not merely drifting along the tide of history.

One way we might understand the Church’s interpretive role is to provide myths and practices, suited to the current social structure, that establish the greatest possible degree of relatedness, obligation and shared welfare among individuals. This is certainly the case in our own communal- and kinship-focused religious tradition, and it’s fundamental to the broad swath of Christian traditions, as well. Under this principle, the Church will not be a leader in social change, as structural change is nearly always socially wrenching and, at least in the short term, destructive of the established social fabric of institutions and trust relationships. But once society reaches a kind of tipping point, in which the new order has incorporated a majority of the populace, it then becomes the Church’s work to provide a new set of practices, meanings, and motivations that will establish new ways of relating, new kinds of obligation, and new ways of entwining individuals’ welfare.

But there are limits to the flexibility of the Church’s myth and practice. The Church not only works to bring individuals into relationships of trusting obligation in the present, but it must also negotiate the present’s relationship and obligation to the past.  Thus a successful innovation in myth or practice will build a bridge of continuity with the past, preserving key narratives and saving interpretations of key texts. This work takes time, and it requires generational collaboration. But this patient, incremental work brings the Church intact through the turbulence of social and global change, prepared to continue its role for and in history.

First let me say that I understood Elder Packer’s talk to take up implicitly but very clearly the question of the origins of homosexual desire. Others interpret it differently, but that was how I heard it at delivery, and that is still how I understand the published version. Elder Packer suggests that the provenance of homosexuality matters, very much, and that sexual identity matters, very much, in the Mormon understanding of human nature and destiny.

In this sense, Elder Packer’s real challenge is not directed at gay men and women, or even at gay rights activists, but at the proponents of the newer, apparently softer compromise position on gay issues that we have seen emerging, slowly, in official church discourse. I’m referring here to statements like Elder Oaks’s and Elder Wickman’s interview with Public Affairs, in which there is an acceptance of the possibility that some gay men and women have an inborn orientation toward the same sex, but an assertion that the origin of that orientation is irrelevant to the moral question.  There is also an assurance that homosexual desire is not, in itself, an obstacle to salvation, and that sexual identity need not be a defining human characteristic.

Contra these positions, Elder Packer denies the possibility of a “preset” gay orientation, asserts the importance of knowing the origin of homosexuality, and strongly argues that sexual identity is not “incidental” but is the “very key” to human destiny and salvation. And given his theology, how could he do otherwise?  The talk cites 2 Nephi 2 four times, more than any other chapter of scripture, and rightly so: 2 Nephi 2 is foundational to Mormon notions of creation, agency, and salvation.  Here’s part of verse 27:

Wherefore, men are  free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil.

If this is your theological substrate, as it is surely Elder Packer’s, how could you ever accept the possibility that God allows some of his children to be born not free according to the flesh but rather physiologically “preset” away from the very epicenter of Mormon godliness, namely the capacity for heterosexual desire, love, coupling and procreation flowing from that coupling? That he does not give all things expedient but indeed withholds from some of his children the central attribute expedient for exaltation?   2 Nephi 2 makes a hash of the compromise position, and the question asks itself: Why would our Heavenly Father do that to anyone?*

It’s a real problem, one that strikes very close to the heart of a theistic creation. To be sure, it’s only a problem if one holds constant the Mormon theology of sex. And of course homosexuality is not the only aspect of human experience to pose profound problems of theodicy. But for Mormons especially, it’s an important one, and it won’t be going away. To paraphrase the old saw: You can have inborn homosexuality, a Mormon theology of sex, or a loving creator God. Pick two.

*Please understand me here: I’m not arguing personally for Elder Packer’s position, but trying to understand its implications. I’d rather not have comments excoriating me personally (I stipulate from the outset that I deserve excoriation), or focusing on the science of sexuality. I’d rather see discussion of the theological issue.

photo credit Rasmus Thomsen

In October a young kid’s fancy swiftly turns to thoughts of treats. With four young kids in our home, you can guess what’s on our minds lately. At our house we celebrate a thoroughly domesticated Halloween, with no concerns about satanism or sugar, just plenty of candy corn and friendly ghosts and homely, homemade costumes. And trick-or-treating. But this year the calendar plays a trick on us: Halloween falls on a Sunday.

We observe the Sabbath in a fairly rigorous but, I hope, joyful and worshipful way: we commune at Church, and we rest, read, play, walk, bike, share food and music, and make occasional family expeditions during the rest of the day. We don’t shop, swim, sport, party, or work (beyond the necessities) on Sundays. This is a fairly arbitrary regimen, and other Christians surely draw their lines in different places, but that’s how the Sabbath visits our home. We want Sunday to be a day of joy for our children, but we also want it to arrive with a reverent presence.

So how does trick-or-treating fit in? On the one hand, it’s a lot like a party with costumes and candy and lots of raucous, secular fun. Some families in our ward have decided that they won’t trick-or-treat on the 31st, and are planning a substitute costume-and-candy activity on Saturday night. That’s a sabbatarian position I can respect.

But I think there’s a communitarian argument to be made in favor of Sunday trick-or-treating. If the Sabbath is a day set apart for the Lord’s work, then strengthening community ties of trust and friendship should be a priority. And when it comes to family-inclusive, community-building rituals, it’s hard to top trick-or-treating. Walk with the kids through the festive streets, exchange happy greetings with friends and acquaintances of all ages and backgrounds, visit the best annual Halloween displays on the block—and do it all in the embrace of a protected, set-apart time when the rules of daily life are suspended for a joyful period not unlike, dare I say, the Sabbath itself. Halloween is the most neighborly of all American holidays, transforming even the most backyard-oriented subdivision into a lively front-porch community, at least for a night.

So I’m not sure what we’ll do. Both positions recommend themselves to me—and in the end, of course, it’s not a decision of huge moral importance. But it does raise interesting questions about the meaning of Sabbath observance, and, beyond that, about the proper relation of Christian observance to the larger community. Comment on the larger issues,  by all means, but what I really want to know: will you trick-or-treat on the 31st?

This is not the Church’s first foray into environmental building and design. The Salt Lake Tribune reports:

Employing “green” technologies is not new to the LDS Church. Indeed, Tuesday’s news conference highlighted past earth-friendly efforts such as the geothermal plant built in the 1980s to power a California meetinghouse and the fact that rainwater has been collected since the 1950s at Pacific Island church buildings.

I suggested last week that the LDS Church hasn’t really developed a unique environmental vocabulary, and indeed the publicity surrounding the new meetinghouse is framed in terms of the larger Christian notion of stewardship. But the LDS do have a robust tradition of frugality and practicality, and this innovation fits comfortably into that history: the new meetinghouse is 30 percent more efficient than any existing model, and it will provide all its own electricity, saving about $6000 per year. The green prototype cost $1.64 more per square foot to construct than a standard meetinghouse, but that extra cost will be repaid through energy savings.

The Tribune also reports that the new meetinghouse features a change in the traditional chapel design: standard LDS chapels have pews arranged in horizontal rows, but the new meetinghouse will have pews arrayed in a fan shape to foster a more intimate connection among the congregation.

As encouraging as I find the environmental innovation, this architectural change is more intriguing. Most LDS meetinghouses are built to standardized specifications which have been described by one observer as “eminently practical, and largely hostile to both aesthetic sense and the articulation of a sacred space.”  Mormonism developed in the context of New England Puritanism, and it adopted the plain, unadorned style of Puritan meetinghouses even if it did not share the doctrinal ideas behind that austere aesthetic.  LDS meetinghouses are functional and comfortable, but, in contrast to LDS temples, are mostly devoid of stained glass, religious art, or icons. (There are notable exceptions, mostly in meetinghouses that were built in the 1930s and 1940s.  The building I attended as a child in Southern California features a large and lovely stained glass image of Christ behind the pulpit, together with scriptures from the New Testament.)

Solar-powered meetinghouse in Farmington, UT

As Church membership grew exponentially during the mid-twentieth century, it became prudent and practical to standardize building design, and in a culture as fiscally cautious as the LDS there was never a doubt as to the outcome of the battle between economics and aesthetics.  While the new meetinghouse appears largely similar in architectural sensibility to standard LDS buildings, the change in chapel layout suggests that more architectural innovation may be coming. Perhaps we are now in a new historical moment in which aesthetics and economics can happily cohabitate.