{"id":51461,"date":"2025-11-07T04:51:58","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T11:51:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=51461"},"modified":"2025-11-07T09:02:01","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T16:02:01","slug":"steadying-the-ark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2025\/11\/steadying-the-ark\/","title":{"rendered":"Steadying the Ark"},"content":{"rendered":"

Okay, now I\u2019m thinking of a few posts related to the topic of \u201cfaithfully disagreeing\u201d in the church, or those who\u2019ve disagreed with certain policies (the race ban being a salient example) but who saw themselves as wanting to be faithful to and to remain in the church. Such a tendency has been given different names like \u201cfaithful dissent,\u201d and probably others, but I\u2019ve been thinking about another metaphor I want to try out: steadying the ark.<\/p>\n


\nThe phrase comes from 2 Samuel 6 when God kills Uzzah for \u201cputting forth his hand to the ark of God, and took hold of it; for the oxen shook it.\u201d In our church [FN 1], we\u2019ve turned this story into the importance of following church leaders. Leading the church is the leaders\u2019 job, and to suggest changes or differences, we say, is to \u201csteady the ark,\u201d the same sin that got Uzzah struck dead.<\/p>\n

In some upcoming posts, I\u2019m thinking about arguing the opposite position: trying to protect the ark was a good thing, that God striking someone dead for doing such a thing is contrary to how most of us see God, and that I think this story most likely did not actually happen. But my bigger point will be questioning the claim of it ALWAYS being wrong for lay members to provide opinions on changes to church practices and policies.<\/p>\n

Years ago, I picked my daughter up from early morning seminary and she reported being appalled at the Uzzah story. \u201cHe was trying to do a good and helpful thing and God struck him dead!?\u201d I referred to talking with my daughter about issues with the Old Testament in this blog post<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I see the story as a more archaic view that humans had of God in the past of taboos and a wrathful God, but one I see as rather different than how Jesus portrays God, in my opinion. I talked a while back about historicity and other problems<\/a> with the Old Testament, so I view \u00a0the Uzzah story as a product of the culture, and that\u2019s okay. No, I don\u2019t think that God really smote Uzzah dead for steadying the ark.<\/p>\n

Turning the story into a metaphor claiming that making suggestions about church policies is bad really seems like a stretch to me. It doesn\u2019t look to me that the Uzzah story is about that at all. But again, my bigger point is to present the opposite of the claim that making suggestions is bad. I agree with my daughter that Uzzah steadying the ark was a good thing, and the archaic notion of God killing someone for such an act doesn\u2019t fit with our religious sentiments.<\/p>\n

In a few upcoming posts, I want to turn the metaphor on its head: like my daughter said, I will be arguing that metaphorically steadying in the ark, or a conscientious layperson piping up to give a helpful nudge here and there, CAN be a good thing.<\/p>\n

By this I don\u2019t mean all criticism of the church, and I do think there\u2019s a difference between outspoken critics and what I will propose here as an \u201cark steadier,\u201d or a faithful member pointing out a problem. I don\u2019t mean to place a moral difference between the two, but a typological one in terms of church commitment and intent. No doubt the line can be blurry so I don\u2019t give any absolute distinctions, but I will point to a few examples of what I see as people playing the devout role as ark steadiers in church history. I do think there have been faithful members who\u2019ve made legitimate suggestions for changes in an attempt to protect the church like Uzzah sought to protect the ark.<\/p>\n

FN 1 I\u2019m not sure about other Christian thinkers and traditions\u2019 use of the phrase. When I put the phrase into Google, mostly Mormon references came up, but not only Mormon ones.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Okay, now I\u2019m thinking of a few posts related to the topic of \u201cfaithfully disagreeing\u201d in the church, or those who\u2019ve disagreed with certain policies (the race ban being a salient example) but who saw themselves as wanting to be faithful to and to remain in the church. Such a tendency has been given different names like \u201cfaithful dissent,\u201d and probably others, but I\u2019ve been thinking about another metaphor I want to try out: steadying the ark.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10406,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latter-day-saint-thought"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51461","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\/10406"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51461"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51790,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51461\/revisions\/51790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}