A few days ago, after the new policies were leaked but before the First Presidency clarified them, I posted a list of possible consequences of the policies here. This post reproduces my list, crossing out those scenarios no longer possible in light of the First Presidency letter. I also made some updates (in bold print). Then I add some general thoughts at the end.
Consequences, Intended or Otherwise
UPDATE: this post was written before the First Presidency clarified the new policies. Please see this post, which repeats everything in this post but updates it and provides some concluding thoughts. — I’m thinking about the implications–doctrinal and practical and cultural–of the recent policy changes.
A Member of the Church
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints flared into life as an audacious venture, a scandal, an insult and an invitation to the Christian age. To the believing mind, the Mormon church is charged with keeping the flame of God’s authority alight for the world through the winds of secular modernity. But even without that lens of faith, Mormonism is something distinctly risky, brazen, and peculiar. It casually straddles the chasm between ancient and modern, old world and new, without concern and without a net. It yokes together competing claims to authority, forcing them to pull together despite the constant danger of one devouring the other. It makes people, it makes kin, and it makes communities, and it sends this trinity spinning out into space to collide and throw sparks far enough to light the universe. It reads literally, it flatly refuses, it tosses out whatever ain’t nobody got time for; it hordes, it collects sentimentally, it strings together in flights of fancy. It reads from a hat, it meticulously translates, and it improvises. It builds skyscrapers, and it razes the block in a single blow. It exposes its faithful to danger and pain time and again; it resists and it refuses and it rebels. But it gives, too, with a generosity matched only by the expanse of its sacred cosmos across time and space. Its course has been anything but smooth. Over its history it has veered and…
Reading Nephi – 7:6-22
Here again we get a narrative, and in the perceptible foil of a competitor narrative. Once again, Nephi works hard to discredit Laman & Lemuel, and here we can see clearly what their major point is: returning to Jerusalem. It’s easy to imagine a New World experience decades into the future, in the wake of hardships that rival or surpass the hardship of the 8 years in the wilderness—infant mortality, disease, lack of food, the general hardship of coping with an entirely unfamiliar ecosystem, together with whatever struggles they might have had with their native neighbors. It’s easy to imagine competitor narratives to Nephi’s rule that focus on the illegitimacy of leaving Jerusalem—that comparative Utopia still very present in Lehite memory. It’s easy to imagine a public unconvinced either by the claims of Jerusalem’s destruction or unconvinced that becoming a vassal state would’ve been overall worse than what they suffered in the exodus and settlement of the Americas. Such a narrative might make a great deal of a pivotal moment when a majority or near majority attempted to return. The major points of Nephi’s narrative—preservation and deliverance in the wake of scrappy, faithful obedience to God’s commands—coincide with the major elements of criticism. There’s plenty of room within the text itself to craft a plausible counter-narrative to Nephi’s claims. Here’s some possibilities: At this point, Laman and Lemuel must have felt a little desperate. It is no longer a matter…
Linguistics and belief
I don’t want to write about gay marriage. So let’s talk about linguistics first. We acquire language in childhood through a long process of listening to and eventually reading the language output of competent speakers of English (or whatever languages prevail in the communities where we grow up). As we are exposed to countless examples of language, we start to build up an internal model of English. We hypothesize about the rules of English and use our hypotheses to generate English statements unlike any we have heard before in response to new situations. Over time, as our hypotheses are confirmed or falsified, we modify the internal set of rules by which we determine what is and is not a well-formed English utterance. We can’t directly observe the mental structures of language. It’s entirely possible, even likely, that each of us has a somewhat different internal model of English. Even if we had the same set of grammar rules, we might prioritize them in a slightly different order. So there will be some statements that I think are grammatically correct according to my sense of English grammar, while you find them defective according to your internal model, and vice-versa. I suspect that religious beliefs, including Mormonism, work in a similar way. Over years of listening, reading, and observing, we build up an internal representation of Mormonism by which we classify statements or behaviors as either well-formed or defective with respect to…
My petition for a bill of…
The law that God gave to ancient Israel was pretty clear and unambiguous: divorce isn’t part of the program. Then the people sued Moses for a bill of divorcement. I have no idea what that conversation between Moses and God was like. Maybe it had parallels to the one where Moses talked God out of destroying the Israelites and starting over. Whatever the conversation, God granted the petition and gave Moses that bill of divorcement. Then came Jesus of Nazareth. Divorce was a normal part of society in his day (even if not anything like divorce in our day). And Jesus spoke out in straightforward and unambiguous terms. Divorce was granted because of the people’s unrighteousness. Because they weren’t willing to keep the higher law. But together Moses and God had realized it was better for our people overall to grant the bill. I personally believe in that original law, reiterated by Christ. I believe that divorce is not part of the Eternal Plan. But I’m incredibly grateful for the fact that our Church is not struggling with this in the same way that the Catholic Church is currently struggling with it. I think we are able to better fulfill the goals of this dispensation and in our personal families not only because we universally grant this exception to the Eternal Law as we understand it, but also because we don’t think we need to look down on or alienate or…
Reading Nephi – 7:1-5
Sometimes I feel like I deeply understand the tight integration of extended family, covenant, and connection to God—a trinity that is indeed one in substance. And sometimes, as here, it feels so exotic. I feel like I stand in between worlds. One cannot live today without having these three analyzed as fully distinct. The rhetoric at church tends to place them in complimentary relationship—Zion is when we can get these three together. But reading Nephi it seems like something different. None of the three make any sense without all three. The point of enlisting Ishmael’s family is to raise up seed to God, as is the point of life and religion. God’s commands are issued and heeded not as a matter of sovereign authority exercising its whims, but as a covenantal relationship. The terms of the covenant are kept as God prepares a way for deliverance and as God’s children take advantage of that deliverance to raise up seed within the covenantal fold. God delivers in order to have a people, and offers that people a promised land. Here is another Exodus, another Genesis, a new dispensation. And the central pillar of this dispensation is a God covenanting with and for a family. Here too we begin another parallel. We’ll repeat the return to Jerusalem to secure an indispensable variable that will allow this covenant to obtain: another family. There is no salvation either in this world or in the…
Recently uncovered texting conversation from 1600 BC
Shem: Oh great. Moses just posted a new policy. Mannassah: More animals we can’t eat? S: Nope, it says we wander in the desert until we are all dead.
Reading Nephi – 6
This was a chapter break in the original edition (end of Chapter Two), but I’m not terribly impressed with whoever’s editorial decision that was. This is clearly not a break. Nephi’s switched from discussing his father’s reading of the Plates of Brass to discussing his own writing—but it’s not meant to be a substantive shift; rather, it’s mean to draw a continuity. I don’t know that Nephi’s being audacious in the same way that you or I (or a General Authority for that matter) might be being audacious if we declared our writings scripture. But he is being audacious in the sense that he sees himself as continuing the record. There are the Plates of Brass, there is the Book of Lehi, and here are Nephi’s writings, and they all fall into the same category. Being the new caretakers of this record, the obligation is clearly to continue it. And this sense of things continues, even amongst later record keepers who knew themselves to be unrighteous. And what ought one expect to be written in a record such as this? We’ve already seen that a major understanding of the Plates of Brass—and here Nephi obliquely informs us that Lehi took it up as well—is the recounting of one’s genealogy. Scripture is like a covenant—temporally extended, and something in which we ourselves our situated; and giving us an understanding of that situating is a major purpose for having scripture. I lament…
The Handbook Changes from the Institutional Perspective
My default setting when digesting controversial news about the Church is defensive. I’m just emotionally-mentally-psychologically-whatever wired to identify with the institution, its leadership, its interests, and the status quo, at least at first. So I’ve been trying to think this thing through from the point of view of Church leadership. Obviously I’m not privy to any official insight whatsoever, and these are just my own ideas thought through the institutional perspective. Consider every possible caveat covered here. I see at least two possible rationales, from Church leadership’s point of view, for the changes in policy with regard to gay couples and their children. The first is that, now that the legal battles are settled, leaders felt the need to standardize the Church’s handling of gay marriages. Not a lot of scriptural guidance there, so they settle on plural marriage as the model and precedent. Gay marriage is analogous to polygamy inasmuch as it represents a positive departure from (rather than simply a malfunction of, as in divorce or single parenthood) the Church’s sanctioned form of marriage and family formation, and thus it would make sense to group them under the same set of policies. This kind of thinking is categorical and locally consistent in the way that correlation likes. I have two objections to this line of thought: the first that our rather draconian treatment of plural marriage stems from the difficult historical events surrounding the end of the practice, and from the Church’s…
Changing of the Guard at Dialogue
Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought gets a new editor every five or six years, and that time is now upon us. As a subscriber and supporter, I wanted to get a sense of where the incoming editor, Boyd Jay Petersen, is going to take the journal, so I bought a copy of his Dead Wood and Rushing Water: Essays on Mormon Faith, Culture, and Family (Greg Kofford Books, 2013) to get the lowdown. After all, Kristine is a hard act to follow. After reading the book, I am optimistic. To offer a few comments, I will highlight one essay from each of the three sections in the book.
Call for Applications: Summer Seminar in Mormon Theology
The Third Annual Summer Seminar on Mormon Theology “A Preparatory Redemption: Reading Alma 12–13” Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, California June 1–June 15, 2016 Sponsored by the Mormon Theology Seminar in partnership with The Laura F. Willes Center for Book of Mormon Studies and The Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship In the summer of 2016, the Mormon Theology Seminar, in partnership with the Laura F. Willes Center for Book of Mormon Studies and the Neal A. Maxwell Institute at Brigham Young University, will sponsor a seminar for graduate students and faculty devoted to reading Alma 12–13. The seminar will be hosted by Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California, from June 1 through June 15, 2016. Travel arrangements, housing, and a $1000 stipend will be provided for admitted participants. The seminar will be led by Adam Miller and Joseph Spencer, directors of the Mormon Theology Seminar, with assistance from Brian Hauglid, director of the Laura F. Willes Center for Book of Mormon Studies.
Reading Nephi – 5:10-22
I’m first struck by what a joy this must’ve been for Lehi. At this point, he’s as committed as he could be, completely immersed in living the life of a prophet that he feels he’s been called to. Of course, it’s a serious question whether or to what extent he’d been exposed to scripture prior to this point. We see here that he was obviously familiar with the fact that there were five books of Moses, and the story of Joseph of Egypt was known to him (as was, of course, the story of Moses that Nephi used earlier). But clearly he had no copy of the scriptures himself—no one did back then. There were only communal copies, and it’s not clear that Laban would’ve been any more liberal with the plates back when Lehi was a normal merchant of Jerusalem than he was when Laman went to speak to him (for that matter, it’s not at all clear that Lehi was interested in the scriptures prior to his hearing many prophets out preaching to the people). But having committed himself to this life and this path, seeing himself (however humble or vain he might have been) as one of the prophets, he now, probably for the first time in his life, had the opportunity to sit and read the scriptures. What possible parallel do we have? I can imagine a woman in the DRC who leaves her tribal homeland,…
Truth and Access
This month, I’ll be presenting a paper on the JST at a conference. I’m going to outline the use of the JST in Mark and then suggest that the moves that the JST makes could and should be adopted by LDS biblical scholars. One section of the paper argues that the JST–indeed, all revelation–is not inerrant. Joseph’s use (and nonuse) of the JST later in his ministry suggest that he did not take the JST as a perfected form of scripture.
The Assurance of Love
About a week ago, I came across an interesting quote from a talk President Hinckley gave during the October 1981 General Conference (Faith: The Essence of True Religion). He quoted a journalist who had recently given a speech during which the journalist had said that “Certitude is the enemy of religion.” (I’d be fascinated to see the full text of this journalist’s remarks, or even just learn his name.) President Hinckley’s response is challenging for someone like me. After all, I started out blogging at Times and Seasons with a series of posts about epistemic humility. (1, 2, 3, 4) I do not believe uncertainty is a worthy end in itself, but I do believe that accepting the limits of our ability to know is an essential aspect of healthy faith because it enables us to grow and change. A belief that is certain is cemented. This is a good thing when you’re right, but a bad thing when you’re wrong. And—since it’s just as hard to know when we’re right about being right as about anything else—we should pour that concrete sparingly and with care. This ambivalent attitude towards uncertainty is what makes this talk a challenge for me. In the talk, which President Hinckley says is the result of “much reflection,” he praises certainty wholeheartedly, beginning that section of his remarks by saying that “Certitude, which I define as complete and total assurance, is not the enemy of…
Reading Nephi – 5:1-9
Here is a poignant scene. Reunions are an important trope in all stories, because they’re an important element in all of our lives. As Mormonism’s grand cosmological narrative makes clear, our very life is about separation from our parents and working toward an eventual reunion—after we’ve made our (usually very messy) journey and acted in faith to do the things that we’ve been commanded to do. Verse one gives us a nice twist, however. It’s not that the brothers have completed their quest and come home like every other Odysseus. Rather, they’ve completed their quest and having done so returned to the wilderness. The Book of Mormon is indeed, as Jacob who was born in the wilderness will later state, a story of strangers wandering in the wilderness. Grant Hardy offers a compelling argument that this scene is a matter of artful obfuscation. Nephi distracts his readers from his murder and what was surely an awkward reunion—one can almost hear the irony, imagining Nephi declaring that he has accomplished the commandments of the Lord—by throwing his poor mother under the bus and making the reunion about her own struggles and faithful reconciliation. It’s also hard not to see this as adding insult to injury, given that this is the one time Nephi focuses on a woman’s experience or quotes her (one of three named women). While I agree that Sariah’s experience is being exploited here, I see it as political…
Reading Nephi – 4:20-38
Zoram is another critical element of this narrative. Once again, we learn later in the Book of Mormon that there was controversy concerning Zoram’s departure from Jerusalem and joining Lehi’s expedition—enough controversy to eventually fuel a serious political movement and secession (Alma 31-35). It’s another instance of Nephi portraying himself as heroic, faithful and possessed of a liberal spirit. One certainly hopes that Lehi’s later blessing of Zoram corroborates Nephi’s account—but Zoram’s joining the Lehite project is another oddity. Why does Zoram join them so readily? He was from the lower classes, perhaps made naturally compliant on account of his life circumstances. He might well have felt compelled or lacking better alternatives. I suspect that this is where Nephi’s murder is revealed. I imagine a terrified Zoram asking what Nephi (who is “large in stature,” and this time the description is obviously physical—he’s just physically restrained Zoram from fleeing) what he did with his master Laban and how he had gotten Laban’s clothes and sword. Nephi’s brothers surely had the same question. Facing the question, and aware of how conspicuous his wearing of Laban’s clothing was, and particularly given the dramatic nature of the night’s events and the effects this would’ve had upon an exhausted young Nephi, it’s plausible that he straightforwardly confessed. It’s easy to picture Zoram, physically restrained by the “large in stature” Nephi, who has just explained to the group that he murdered Laban, feeling like he…
Panel on Mormon Apologetics
Reading Nephi – 4:3-19 (part II)
So is this my contemporary sensibilities, my modern moral compass set in a fantastically different, less physically grueling and brutal world that recoils from Nephi’s terrifying justification? Undoubtedly—although that in itself certainly makes it no less right. But the text itself and Nephi’s manner of disclosing and addressing this event offers evidence that something was rotten in Nephi’s Denmark.
Reading Nephi – 4:3-19 (part I)
Once again, reading these difficult passages, I see something prodigious in Nephi, something my soul longs after. At the same time, however, my soul recoils, and chapter four is the realization of the danger inherent in Nephi’s faithful outlook. I want to think that Nephi’s mistake was youthful inexperience—faith and zeal untempered by the wisdom and moral constraint of realizing that every human one confronts is a child of Heavenly Parents and a brother or sister [see comment 1]. Contextualizing our lives within the scriptures seems so right. This is how I want to read them—this is how I want to live. This is what I hope I’m doing as I read and write my thoughts, weaving myself into a temporally extended web, binding myself within the covenants that I have made, which are the covenants of God with his people in former and latter times, which binds me to the mothers and fathers who’ve gone before. With Nephi, I want to not only declare but experience (as he experienced) that profound Passover motto: The Lord is able to deliver us, Even as our ancestors; And to destroy [insert obstacle] Even as he destroyed the Egyptians. But now, here, I can’t even chant this refrain in the way that Nephi does. I cannot make my obstacle a human to be destroyed as God destroyed the Egyptians. The Passover story is a horrific story. It’s not just one man that perishes…
Reading Nephi – 3:31-4:3
They misplaced the chapter break. We’ve reached a hard spot in the Book of Mormon for me—perhaps the hardest spot in Nephi’s record. The text in chapter four challenges me on multiple fronts every time I read it. I hope that my wrestling with it is fruitful and faithful, but often it’s merely implacable. One thing that I can see clearly is that we here get Nephi’s commentary on the nature of miracles and the way they interact with human reason and trust. All of us have Laman and Lemuel within us. Analyzing the variables of our life, we simply cannot see a solution to a given problem—there is no plausible way out of whatever bind we find ourselves in. Laban has twice now sent his henchman to threaten Laman. The reality of Laban’s ability to kill him is obviously quite firmly in the forefront of Laman’s mind—encounters with those who are perfectly comfortable using violence to coerce others is bound to have that sort of effect. This isn’t a game anymore, this isn’t perseverance or faith or optimism; this is now suicidal—Laban wants to kill us. Laban’s perfectly capable of killing us. I don’t walk on water, and the water doesn’t part for me. Yes, I’ve read that God’s performed water miracles in the past, but I have no experience with such things. My experience with water is that when I step into I sink, and should I try…
How Technology is Changing the Church
At checkout on a recent visit to my favorite SLC bookstore, I was rewarded with a free book: After 150 Years: The Latter-day Saints in Sesquicentennial Perspective (Charles Redd Center for Western Studies, 1983). Loyalty has its perks. A bit dated at 32 years, but this chapter caught my eye: “Testimony and Technology,” by LDS historian James B. Allen. What he didn’t see coming: The Internet.
Reading Nephi – 3:15-30
There really is something terribly compelling about Nephi. It’s hard not to be won over by his absolute commitment and tenacity. I want to bracket all my inevitable reading of an older political authority justifying the legitimacy of his reign, countering his opposition’s narratives concerning crucial events at the genesis. Instead, I want here to simply let myself be taken in by a youth who displays this unyielding faith and optimism. It strikes me that this is precisely the attitude and commitment that brings about change. How—in the context of ancient Holy Land Jerusalem—can God transplant a faithful family, a family whose faith is rooted in the framework of their people’s having obtained a promised land and established a House of God? It would seem that either God would need a family whose faith was secondary, thin, perhaps non-existent (i.e., they weren’t all that faithfully Jewish and so weren’t committed to the Holy Land); or else God would have to give up on the idea of transplanting them. But here’s a third option: find someone like Nephi who will hold to what he’s been given in revelation and jump into the abyss. Assuming he doesn’t die—that is, assuming Providence—a new land of promise is indeed a possibility. Looking at Nephi’s persuasive rhetoric, I can’t help but notice the difference between the explanation we get here for why the plates are needed and the explanation given when Nephi quoted Lehi. A…
Every Scar is a Bridge to Someone’s Broken Heart
Perhaps we literally need to feel our own pain in order to feel the pain of others. From a scientific perspective: The ability to feel the pain of others is based on neurobiological processes which underlie pain experience in oneself. Using innovative methods, an international research team headed by psychologist Claus Lamm from the University of Vienna could show that a reduction of self-experienced pain leads to a reduction in empathy for pain in others as well. From an aesthetic perspective (I realize screamo is not everyone’s idea of a pleasant Monday morning. Lyrics are below the video clip): I know one day, all our scars will disappear, like the stars at dawn All of our pain will fade away when morning comes And on that day when we look backwards we will see that everything is changed And all of our trials will be as milestones on the way But as long as we live, every scar is a bridge to someone’s broken heart And there’s no greater love, than that one shed his blood for his friends From a scriptural perspective: And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people. And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he…