{"id":40231,"date":"2020-04-17T04:26:01","date_gmt":"2020-04-17T09:26:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=40231"},"modified":"2020-04-23T15:27:06","modified_gmt":"2020-04-23T20:27:06","slug":"seek-after-these-things","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2020\/04\/seek-after-these-things\/","title":{"rendered":"Seek After These Things"},"content":{"rendered":"

There is a part of me that is deeply drawn to the Christian religions that have existed for hundreds or thousands of years.\u00a0 Perhaps that comes from my fascination with history (particularly the Byzantine Empire), perhaps from beautiful experiences with choral music written by Christians from the Renaissance up through our own day.\u00a0 Perhaps some comes from spending the better part of a decade involved in the music ministry of a small Presbyterian Church in northern Utah. \u00a0And perhaps some comes from my fascination with theology and learning how different people have addressed the difficulties associated with the subject over the centuries. \u00a0Whatever the case, there is something in me that longs for the best that Christianity has to offer in transcending this world and bringing humankind into God\u2019s presence.<\/p>\n

Yet, on the other hand I feel cut off from that tradition because of my belief in the Great Apostasy. It is one of the ironies of our religion that we seek to be recognized as Christian while simultaneously dismissing Christian religions as apostate.\u00a0 It is also one of my personal<\/span> mental tensions to feel drawn to the past and to the best that other religions offer, but to feel unable to fully embrace those things at church without worrying about betraying my own community to some degree.<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps Joseph Smith felt something of that same tug-of-war.\u00a0 On the one hand, he believed that \u201c<mankind> did not come unto the Lord but that they had apostatised from the true and liveing faith and there was no society or denomination that built upon the gospel of Jesus Christ as recorded in the new testament,\u201d[1]<\/a> and that \u201cwe may look at the Christian world and see the apostacy there has been from the Apostolic platform.\u201d[2]<\/a>\u00a0 Yet, he also encouraged Latter Day Saints that: \u201cIf there is\u00a0any thing virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praise worthy we seek after these\u00a0things.\u201d[3]<\/a>\u00a0 As he stated on other occasions: \u201c[If the] Presbyterians [have] any truth. embrace that. [Same for the] Baptist. Methodist &c. get all the good in the world [and you will] come out a pure Mormon,\u201d[4]<\/a>\u00a0 and that \u201cthe Latter\u00a0Day Saints have no creed, but are ready to believe\u00a0all<\/u>\u00a0true<\/u>\u00a0principles<\/u>\u00a0that exist, as they are\u00a0made manifest from time to time.\u201d[5]<\/a>\u00a0 The Prophet Joseph Smith seemed to feel both torn to look for the best among other religions and to reject them as apostate at the same time.<\/p>\n

This same tension has surfaced again in the discussions about the new symbol for the Church.\u00a0 For example, in a discussion thread over at the Wheat and Tares blog<\/a>, one commenter said that: \u201cSo now I guess we say the Church\u2019s symbol is a Lutheran Jesus.\u00a0 There\u2019s some irony to introduce that on the same weekend as celebrating the First Vision.\u201d[6]<\/a>\u00a0 Another noted that \u201cthere\u2019s nothing uniquely Mormon about it as the Christus<\/em> is an iconic Danish Lutheran statue, not an LDS statue at all. \u2026 That\u2019s not great from a branding standpoint, but it reveals ideological purity.\u201d[7]<\/a>\u00a0 The author of the post joked in response that: \u201cMaybe we will adopt other Lutheran doctrines and practices in coming Conferences. Call it the Uchtdorf Initiative,\u201d which he said would be \u201ckind of like the Avengers Initiative.\u201d\u00a0 He added that \u201cthe Lutheran roots do present something of a conundrum.\u201d[8]<\/a>\u00a0 There is, in these words, concern about adopting a Lutheran statue as our symbol.<\/p>\n

Perhaps it’s the side of me that feels drawn to embrace older Christian traditions, but I don\u2019t feel like the Lutheran origins of the statue is problematic for Latter-day Saints.\u00a0 I recognize there is some irony in claiming that we are part of “the only true and living\u00a0church<\/span> upon the face of the whole earth, with which … the Lord [is] well pleased” (D&C 1:30)<\/span> and then looking abroad for icons to use for our church.\u00a0 As mentioned above, however, Joseph Smith encouraged Latter-day Saints to seek after things that are \u201cvirtuous, lovely, or of good report or praise worthy\u201d and to \u201cget all the good in the world.\u201d\u00a0 President Brigham Young also expressed that \u201cwe believe in all good.\u00a0 If you can find a truth in heaven, earth or hell, it belongs to our doctrine.\u00a0 We believe it; it is ours; we claim it.\u201d[9]<\/a>\u00a0 If we accept these statements as true, then Dave B.\u2019s suggestion of learning at the feet of Lutheranism (the \u201cUchtdorf Initiative\u201d) is not so farfetched (at least in theory).\u00a0 For one example, the Church has (in part due to Elder Uchtdorf) already begun embracing some of the Liturgical calendar in recent years, including the Light the World campaign for Advent and the Hear Him campaign for Holy Week.[10]<\/a> \u00a0Moving beyond embracing truths, however, these statements could be applied to art as well.\u00a0 As President Young said elsewhere: \u201cAll that is good, lovely, and praiseworthy belongs to this Church and Kingdom.\u201d[11]<\/a>\u00a0 With that in mind, Christian artwork that is good, lovely, and praiseworthy can and should be adopted for use in the Church, whatever its origins.<\/p>\n

Church leaders seem to have felt that this was the case when they procured a copy of Bertel Thorvaldsen\u2019s Christus <\/em>and have continued to feel so since that time.\u00a0 As the 19th<\/sup> century Latter-day Saint George Reynolds expressed, it is \u201ca very dignified example of the conventional idea of the appearance of the Redeemer when he tabernacled in the flesh.\u201d[12]<\/a>\u00a0 More recently, Elder M. Russell Ballard stated that: \u201cThis stunning work of art captures the loving, benevolent spirit of the resurrected Lord, His arms outstretched, kindly beckoning all to come unto Him.\u201d[13]<\/a> \u00a0With those statements in mind, the statue certainly falls within the bounds of Joseph Smith\u2019s and Brigham Young\u2019s calls to seek after lovely or praiseworthy things. When architect George Cannon Young began designing a new Bureau of Information at Temple Square in the 1950s, Elder Richard L. Evans complained that \u201cthe world thinks we are not Christian \u2026 they see no evidence of Christ on this square.\u201d[14]<\/a> \u00a0Elder Stephen L. Richards, who had seen both the original statue and copies of it, obtained a replica of the Christus <\/em>statue and donating it to the Church in hopes that it would become \u201cone of the outstanding points of interest on our Temple Square.\u201d[15]<\/a>\u00a0 The statue was placed in the North Visitor\u2019s Center in the early or mid-1960s, while a second copy was used to great success at the Mormon Pavilion of the 1964-1965 New York World\u2019s Fair, showing that the \u201cpavilion is centered around Jesus Christ and the Holy Scriptures.\u201d\u00a0 Since then, tens of millions of people have seen copies of the statue at Latter-day Saint visitor centers and temple grounds around the world.\u00a0 The Church\u2019s ongoing use of the statue has been so prominent that it has become recognizable to some non-Mormons as being associated with the Church, even through it is an iconic Lutheran statue with replicas around the world.[16]<\/a>\u00a0 Despite its Lutheran origins, the statue has become one of the Church\u2019s most effective tools for convincing the world that we believe in Jesus the Christ.<\/p>\n

Thus, I do not think that it\u2019s a problem to adopt artwork or styles of Lutheran (or other faiths) as parts of our symbol.\u00a0 Thorvaldsen\u2019s Christus <\/em>has been used so extensively by the Church during the last half century that it has become, at least in part, identified with our religion.\u00a0 In a way, that makes the statue one of the few Christ-centered symbol readily available for branding purposes that is already associated with the Church.\u00a0 Early Latter-day Saint leaders also expressed a desire to embracing all that is good in the world as part of our religion, and the dignified and stunning Christus <\/em>statue falls under that category. \u00a0Finally, the statue stands as a symbol of our efforts to lay claim to our Christian heritage and as an olive branch extended to all Christianity, acknowledging the common ground we share despite our claims to being the one true religion.<\/p>\n

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Possible Questions for Discussion:<\/strong><\/p>\n