{"id":39706,"date":"2020-02-14T10:33:12","date_gmt":"2020-02-14T15:33:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=39706"},"modified":"2020-02-14T10:34:39","modified_gmt":"2020-02-14T15:34:39","slug":"the-fourth-age-of-the-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2020\/02\/the-fourth-age-of-the-church\/","title":{"rendered":"The Fourth Age of the Church?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I happened to run into my friend Sam a couple of days ago in the food line at Costco, and his first words were, \u201cI\u2019ve been diligently reading your posts on Times and Seasons<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThanks,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI only said I\u2019ve been reading them. I didn\u2019t say I liked them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo you didn\u2019t like them?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, some of them have been . . . interesting. But you\u2019re dodging and dancing around the elephant in the room.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat would be quite a feat,\u201d I said. \u201cBut what do you mean? What elephant?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe elephant,\u201d Sam said obscurely, \u201cis the prevailing paradigm. It isn\u2019t viable anymore. And what you can\u2019t bring yourself to say is that we need to be prepared to enter into the Fourth Age of the Church.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, that sounds pretty portentous, but you\u2019ll have to explain. What is \u2018the prevailing paradigm\u2019? And the Fourth Age? I suppose the first three were, maybe, the primitive church of the Apostles; and then the medieval church . . . .\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, no,\u201d Sam interrupted. \u201cI\u2019m not talking about Christianity in general. I\u2019m talking about our<\/em> Church. The Mormon Church. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.\u201d<\/p>\n

We reached the front of the line, paid for our hotdogs, then sat down together at one of those metal picnicky tables.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo understand what I mean,\u201d Sam continued, \u201cyou need to remember the idea of paradigm shifts. Some dominant model or theory or conception\u2013 some paradigm\u2013 works for a long time. But then it comes under severe pressure. For a while, for a generation or more maybe, its defenders try to patch it up, make small corrections. Hold the fort. Keep their fingers in the holes in the dikes. (Pardon the mixed metaphors.) This works for a while. But then more holes keep appearing, and there aren\u2019t enough fingers, or the holes become too big for the fingers, and . . .<\/p>\n

\u201cI get the idea,\u201d I said. \u201cI\u2019ve read Kuhn.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, the point is that the old dike just can\u2019t hold, and so a new fort has to be erected. It will use the materials of the old fort, will look a lot like the old paradigm in some ways. But it will also be fundamentally different. Some of the same terms will still be used, but they will acquire new meanings.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd it\u2019s a painful process. These paradigm shifts have to happen, but they can be wrenching. Some people who can\u2019t make the shift\u2013 who think \u2018This<\/em> isn\u2019t the fort we know and love\u2019\u2013 will always get left behind. That\u2019s why we need to be prepared . . . .\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI understand. Like I said, I\u2019ve read Kuhn. But you began by saying, about the three ages–\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, the Church up to now has gone through three main phases. Three paradigms, separated by two paradigm shifts. The first age was a short one, maybe too short to count as its own age; but it was the phase of the restoration of simple, primitive Christianity. That\u2019s what the first Mormons thought they were signing onto.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo the Book of Mormon was\u2013 is– a thoroughly Christian book. It\u2019s ironic that some evangelicals say we\u2019re not Christians because we believe in the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon is actually more Christian than the Bible. Doctrines that took early Christians centuries to work out, like the Trinity and the Incarnation, are already there explicitly set forth in the Book of Mormon.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the first age\u2013 the age of the primitive Christian Church\u2013 passed into a second age: the age of the radical or iconoclastic Church. The key new components\u2013 the radical components– were the United Order and the ideas we associate with the King Follett Discourse and, above all, polygamy. That was a difficult transition for some people. Founders like Oliver Cowdery and David Whitmer refused to go there.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe radical Church had to move away from the settled United States in order to have the space to practice its radicalism. And all things considered, the Church flourished. But then the pressures built up\u2013 all of the laws and raids against polygamy, mainly. We resisted, heroically. And then things broke, and we renounced polygamy, and entered into the third age. The age of the bourgeois Church, you might call it\u2013 I\u2019m no Marxist; I don\u2019t mean that as a pejorative term– or the \u2018traditional values\u2019 Church.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe became more American than Uncle Sam. This was a huge change\u2013 what had before been essential and non-negotiable was suddenly now forbidden– and again, some people couldn\u2019t accept that. But you can see that the shift was necessary: without it, the whole Church would be like those people in southern Utah.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOkay, I can see how you could interpret our history in that way. It\u2019s a pretty standard interpretation, really. Oversimplified, but I understand that these schemes and categories are always oversimplified. But why do you think a fourth age is coming?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause it has to. The pressures are getting to be too great, and something will have to give.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat pressures?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo kinds of pressures, really. At least two, one coming from the outside, and the other from the inside, so to speak; and together they put put us into a sort of intolerable squeeze.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe outside pressure has to do with the situation of the world. Up until now we\u2019ve lived in what was essentially a Christian world. Not that people lived up to the ideals of Christianity, of course. But Christianity supplied the accepted framework.\u00a0 It was the standard, told us how things were supposed to be.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow all that has changed. Christianity is under siege from a new leviathan. I shouldn\u2019t have to explain this to you; it\u2019s what your book City Christians and Pagans<\/em>, or whatever it\u2019s called, is all about. I think you might have picked a better term than \u2018paganism,\u2019 by the way. But your basic point is correct.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis change means that we need to transform our relations to the world, and to the rest of Christianity. Within a Christian world, we naturally viewed the other Christian churches as rivals. In a Pagans vs. Christians world, what we need is solidarity. We need the other Christians, and they need us. (Heaven knows that a lot of them are flailing worse than we are.) But again, you already know this. You\u2019ve been writing about this in your blog posts.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRight. But you said there were two kinds of pressures. What\u2019s the second kind?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe second kind is more focused on us specifically. I\u2019m referring to a whole barrage of fundamental challenges to what we\u2019ve treated as the basics of our religion. Challenges to our scriptures\u2013 the Book of Mormon, the Book of Abraham. Challenges to basic notions of revelation. Not the fact<\/em> of revelation\u2013 we could never give that up– but the process and nature<\/em> of it.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo far we\u2019ve responded to these challenges in the ways the defenders of a paradigm always do\u2013 by bracketing or ignoring difficulties, or by making small adjustments and admissions. And patchwork apologetics. Instead of \u2018translating\u2019 the Book of Abraham, we now say, Joseph used the scrolls as a \u2018catalyst\u2019 to receive revelation. That sort of thing.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, don\u2019t misunderstand me: there\u2019s nothing wrong with these measures. And some of the apologetics are impressive, and illuminating. Overall, though, these are fingers in the dike. Stopgap measures. And measures that can work only on the already committed. You can ask committed, faithful members to bracket their suspicions, or \u2018doubt their doubts,\u2019 and concentrate instead on what they know and believe. Concentrate on the positive. This makes very good sense. People know that the Church is helping them live godly, fulfilling lives. Why should they sacrifice that just because they can\u2019t come up with a satisfying explanation for the Book of Abraham?<\/p>\n

\u201cEven so, bracketing and looking away can only go so far. And you can\u2019t ask an investigator\u2013 an informed investigator, that is– to do those things. Because she doesn\u2019t have the preexisting commitment that provides the motivation for these measures. So you can\u2019t just tell an investigator: \u2018Don\u2019t worry that the Book of Abraham was nothing like what Joseph said it was.\u2019 Because she is going to think, \u2018Hmm. That seems like a big problem for you, and you don\u2019t seem to have a very satisfying answer.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd so you would expect the Church\u2019s growth to slow down a lot, especially among more informed people. And it has.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe upshot,\u201d said Sam, \u201cis that unless the Church is to stagnate in some sort of cultural ghetto, changes will be necessary. Not just patchwork changes. A new paradigm. A fourth age.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe new paradigm will have a lot of continuity with the old ones. We\u2019ll still believe in restoration, and revelation, and priesthood. But some of these things may come to have quite different meanings. In the way that \u2018gather to Zion\u2019 at one time meant \u2018Leave your homes and come to Utah\u2019 but later came to mean almost the exact opposite: \u2018Stay where you are and perfect yourselves there.\u2019 I tell you: it\u2019s going to be hard for a lot of people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd what will new paradigm look like?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cAh, that\u2019s not for me to say,\u201d Sam answered. \u201cI don\u2019t know, and who cares what I think anyway? I do have a few ideas. But the changes will have to come through the leaders, with the assistance of inspiration or revelation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI can agree with that,\u201d I said. \u201cStill, I\u2019d be interested in what your ideas are.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSome other time,\u201d Sam said, crumpling up his now empty soda cup. \u201cMy wife is going to be wondering where I am, and this is probably enough for one conversation anyway. But, you know, I think your wife invited us over for dinner next week. Maybe we can talk then.\u201d<\/p>\n

For myself, I\u2019m not at all sure that we are on the verge of any paradigm shift or \u201cFourth Age.\u201d Seriously, could that happen? And people can live with doubts and dissonance; that\u2019s pretty much the human condition. Still, if Sam has anything interesting to say about what this \u201cnew paradigm\u201d will entail, I may let you know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I happened to run into my friend Sam a couple of days ago in the food line at Costco, and his first words were, \u201cI\u2019ve been diligently reading your posts on Times and Seasons.\u201d \u201cThanks,\u201d I said. \u201cI only said I\u2019ve been reading them. I didn\u2019t say I liked them.\u201d \u201cSo you didn\u2019t like them?\u201d \u201cWell, some of them have been . . . interesting. But you\u2019re dodging and dancing around the elephant in the room.\u201d \u201cThat would be quite a feat,\u201d I said. \u201cBut what do you mean? What elephant?\u201d \u201cThe elephant,\u201d Sam said obscurely, \u201cis the prevailing paradigm. It isn\u2019t viable anymore. And what you can\u2019t bring yourself to say is that we need to be prepared to enter into the Fourth Age of the Church.\u201d \u201cWell, that sounds pretty portentous, but you\u2019ll have to explain. What is \u2018the prevailing paradigm\u2019? And the Fourth Age? I suppose the first three were, maybe, the primitive church of the Apostles; and then the medieval church . . . .\u201d \u201cNo, no,\u201d Sam interrupted. \u201cI\u2019m not talking about Christianity in general. I\u2019m talking about our Church. The Mormon Church. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.\u201d We reached the front […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":134,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-politics"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/134"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39706"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39706\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39719,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39706\/revisions\/39719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}