Padded Folding Chair

Happy Atheist

2010-09-27T23:14:00.000-07:00

There is an idea I that I hear often in church, in many forms. I heard it expressed very plainly today in Sunday School as we discussed the prophet Amos and what he called a “famine” in the land of hearing the Lord’s voice. As we talked about the Israelites having prophets and truth, and then falling away, a recurring theme came up which was this: You can’t have true happiness if you don’t have the Gospel.*

There are variations on this, like that your marriage can’t be as happy if its not in the temple, that LDS families are happier than other families, and that if someone decides to leave the church, then they are necessarily oppositional and bitter toward the church and its members from then on.

I raised my hand and mentioned my friend Greg the atheist who I have known since 1996 (I think) and with whom I spent a lot of time during my senior year of high school and my freshman year of college. We had many conversations about religion, atheism, morality, rationality, and the LDS church. Contrary to what I firmly believed would happen, Greg never came around to my way of thinking.

And here’s the thing: Greg is happy. He lives in Silicon Valley now with his wife and a dog and he works as a computer programmer. In fact, as my friends go, he strikes me as one who is particularly content. The main reason that I think he is content is that he isn’t constantly using facebook and twitter to express how utterly fantastic his life is. There you have it. Greg doesn’t have the Gospel in his life, but he is happy.

When I finished sharing this idea, there was a polite murmur of agreement. Then another person in the class raised her hand and said “sure, anyone can be happy, but when you have the gospel, you have joy”. Nice. In the words of my generation, I see what you did there. That’s just another trick to say Greg isn’t really happy, that if had the gospel in his life, he’d know what real happiness is, the poor soul.

Can I make a suggestion? Consider for a moment that an atheist finding joy** in his life does not necessarily invalidate the teachings of the church in one fell swoop. I know, things would be simpler (and conveniently self-serving) if we could say that only Latter-day Saints know true joy. If atheists can be happy too, then the world is more confusing. But its also more interesting and mysterious. That’s worth the tradeoff if you ask me.

*The “Gospel” has at least two meanings in the LDS world. The more basic one is that it’s the message of the New Testament: that salvation comes through Jesus Christ through Faith, Repentance, Baptism, and The Gift of the Holy Ghost. The other meaning refers specifically to the Mormon understanding of the New Testament message and along with it, everything else that Mormons believe (the Word of Wisdom, the organization of the church, going to the temple, etc.) When I mention “the Gospel” in this entry, I mean this second more specific definition.

**Real joy in every sense of the word, and maybe even moments of spiritual ecstasy.

Andrew Sullivan's take on the LDS Church's decision to support anti-discrimination measures against gays

2009-11-13T09:39:00.001-08:00

Link

2009-10-09T16:03:00.000-07:00

"When I was a boy, Cousin Jimmy Jamison got his privates shot off deer hunting," Salsifer said. "Nobody knew where the shot came from. There wasn't anybody around to help him and he bled to death."
"That's just as good," Frank said. "Who'd want to live without his privates?"
"Do you think he'll have them in the Celestial Kingdom?" Jeff asked.
"Sure he will," Raymond said. "How are you going to be gods and goddesses and create worlds without end and have spirit children forever and ever if you don't have your privates?"
"The righteous will have their equipment in the hereafter," Salsifer said. "But the sinful won't have any need for theirs. God will fix them just like you're fixing these here bull calves."
Frank had got a puny, shriveled up feeling in his pants. Nobody had ever told him about God castrating the wicked. It would be just like him to do it.

-Levi S. Peterson, The Backslider, p.94

Autumn

2009-10-05T07:54:00.000-07:00

2009-10-04T07:53:00.000-07:00

Imaginary Creatures

2009-10-03T07:45:00.000-07:00

2009-10-02T06:41:00.000-07:00

2009-09-30T06:57:00.000-07:00

snake presidency

2009-09-29T15:06:00.000-07:00

stake presidency

2009-09-28T14:27:00.000-07:00

Why Psychology is suddenly becoming useful as well as interesting

2009-09-14T11:30:00.000-07:00

This video will probably prove to be the most interesting thing to happen to me this week.

Last time I applied for grad schools I wondered if I was really that interested in psychology. (I didn't get in by the way.) This time around I can hardly stand the thought of having to wait another year to start, and not just because the job market walked from Wall Street to the East River* and jumped in last year.

It's 23 minutes long, but if you watch the first minute, you won't mind.

*a surprisingly short walk, it turns out. Only about a half mile according to google maps.

Journey (Parts 8 & 9)

2009-09-04T10:15:00.000-07:00

8. I don’t know.

Even though up I have given six (plus one, after this digression) convincing reasons how I got to where I am, I really can’t say whether these things were the cures or whether they were just indicators that something else had done the trick. It might be an entirely chemical thing that happened to fix itself somehow. Maybe God sorted it out. I really don’t know for sure, but there is probably some truth to both. Anyone who has experienced depression knows that there is some kind of feedback loop going on. I wish I could say I know for sure how I got out of it, but I can't be sure

9. I never really did overcome my depression.

On the day that my therapist told me that I could schedule another appointment if I wanted, but that in his opinion weekly sessions were no longer necessary, I told him that I still felt down sometimes. He gave a weird analogy about how when you pee, you can never quite get all of it out. (My least favorite thing about that therapist was the number of strange and often perverted metaphors he would come up with.)

So while I left his office feeling happy that he had basically labeled me as “CURED”, I was nervous about how easily the depression might return. And it did return. After that day, I would sometimes get sad for several days and feel like I was kidding myself if I thought that it was just regular sadness and not part of a larger condition. And that has never stopped. I still get down for days at a time sometimes and don’t know how to lift myself out of it. But it’s ok, and here’s why. For one thing, it doesn’t last as long and it is not as hopelessly intense. I don’t know when this change started taking place (or when it finished, or if it has finished). I just know that now, and for the past few years, it has been far better.

A psychologist might make a case for me having “overcome” depression, but I think it would be more accurate to say that I learned to manage it rather than get rid of it.
Since that session, I have resumed treatment twice but it has never lasted for more than about five weeks. One of the times was after a break-up when he told me, in effect: You broke up with a girl. It sucks. Its not depression. You don’t need to be seeing me unless it lasts for several months. It did last several months. Then it stopped slowly.

It might well return someday. If it does, I hope I can keep some perspective. It would be easy to see all of the time since I walked into my first session as wasted. After all, if I had learned anything, why would my depression have returned? But hopefully I would realize that in the intervening years that I was happy at times, neutral at others, that I had had lots of experiences and made some memories. Maybe I had even added some worldly accomplishments to my resume. Here’s an added bonus: I think it can give us more compassion than we would have otherwise had.

The fact is it could very easily return. I foresee at least two very stressful things in my future: A real career and my own family. It would be stupid for me to think that the pressure of maintaining either, let alone both, would not have the power to stir up clinical depression again. I worry about that quite a bit, actually. I guess I’ll find out. And I do want to find out.

TR Brooks

A Journey (Part 7)

2009-09-03T16:14:00.000-07:00

7. I conformed.

This might be the most individual thing of all about my experience with therapy. My therapist once hypnotized me. He said that he was doing this in order to turn off all of my thoughts except for the portion of my brain that was causing my depression. His plan was to then talk to just that part of the brain (not the rest of it), and ask it what it wanted in order to quit making me miserable.

Besides the numerous assumptions that one must make to think this treatment would work, it all sounded weird to me, but I was intrigued, and not about to turn down some kind of radical treatment. Plus it kind of played into my appreciation for science fiction.

He put me into a trance and eventually addressed this one little part of my brain. He asked it to manifest itself so that he would know if it was listening. While I was wondering what he meant by “manifest” itself, I suddenly felt my fingers start twitching uncontrollably as though they’d been electrified. It was frightening, and I panicked, and felt myself breathing quickly and my eyes opening until he reassured me. “It’s okay”, he said. “Relax. This is what we want.”

Then he asked this little part of my brain what was wrong in my life to cause the suffering. There was no answer. Eventually the therapist brought me out of the trance and asked me if I had learned anything. Particularly he wanted to know if I had had any thoughts come to my mind when he asked his question.

I had. Just one thought. I had thought “to be normal”. The therapist seemed disappointed, and I realized he had understood this answer differently than I had. He thought “normal” meant “not depressed”, but I actually meant “normal”.

You see, in high school and now into college, I had been a bit of a non-conformist (don’t we all like to think so?). I wore weird clothes (not clothes my parents thought were weird, but clothes that have never really been in style). Example: purple corduroys with a black and white flowered Hawaiian shirt. A brown wool driving cap. A maroon double-knit polyester shirt. And I never wore jeans. Ever. Because everyone else wore jeans. Crap like that. People seemed to respect my individuality so I kept it up. I tried to do everything in a way that was unique, no matter how time honored and obviously sensible the conventional way was.

But I guess I got tired of it long before anyone else. It had become a compulsion rather than an exercise in creativity. And I guess some part of me was sick of it.
People tell me I haven’t changed a lot, but I think I have. I wear jeans all the time now. I try to dress nice and look good. I try to not stand out too much. The nice thing is, I still kind of do stand out once in a while, but it is not an obsession any more.

I don’t know how large a role this played in helping me manage my depression, but it taught me several important things. First, that there are processes going on in my mind that, while difficult to discover sometimes, are valuable to explore through meditation and talking to others. Second, that its ok to be mediocre. Actually, I believe “ok” is the definition of “mediocre”. And being mediocre is certainly preferable to being sad.

Since then I have been hypnotized several more times, and have actually gotten better at staying in a trance (it does take some practice). It has given me more respect and awe for the human mind and I think it has been therapeutic even when it wasn’t intended to be.

A Journey (Part 6)

2009-09-01T11:00:00.000-07:00

6. Self-help books
It takes a certain degree of humility to read a self-help book. I was always able to tell myself that as a psychology student, my interest was academic. That was a lie.

Here are all that I can remember reading:

-The Knight in Rusty Armor by Robert Fischer

This one is very short, and I have read it many times. It has become a personal classic of mine. It is very funny and insightful. It is an easy book to hate because it is a bit simplistic about some things. But I highly recommend it.

-The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis

Not really a self-help book, but it gave me the same feeling as one. Sad, very uplifting and highly recommended. This is C.S. Lewis’s vision of heaven and hell, and the chasm that divides them, and the bridge that crosses that chasm. Highly recommended.

-Leadership and Self-Deception by The Arbinger Institute

This one is slightly boring and quite badly written. But if you’re someone who sometimes has difficulty absorbing abstract principles, maybe its for you. I don’t really like it, but lots of smart, respectable people that I have talked to got a lot out of it. It is about how to see people as people rather than as objects.

-If You Meet The Buddha on the Road, Kill Him: The Pilgrimage of Modern Psychotherapy Patients

I found this book in my mom's house. I think it was popular back in the seventies but I quite liked it. It is about freedom and moral autonomy. It is also about depression and happiness. Another major theme is the importance of telling one's "story". A person's story is a myth. i.e., It is not the accuracy of the events that is important but rather what they mean to the person and to the listener. In this way, the value of the story is to be found in its telling, and to try to hide it is unnatural and unhealthy (see #4).

-The Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman

I am not sure whether to recommend this one or not. It is written as a biography, but a good portion of it seems made up. The best thing to take away from it, I think, is the fact that the main character took years and years of discipline, study, and meditation to bring peace into his life.

Who knows how much these books helped me. At the very least they were interesting. When you’re absorbed in a book, it’s difficult to be depressed in that moment.

A Journey (Part 5)

2009-08-31T11:00:00.000-07:00

5. I gave up on happiness. Or, I found something different and started calling it happiness.

I remember, while going through therapy, that one of my biggest concerns was that now that my childhood days were over, that I would never be happy, in the carefree, completely lost in the moment, without any self-consciousness sort of way. It was like the magic in the world had vanished. Or that every single magic trick had now been explained to me.

Here’s the crappy thing: It has never returned. I really think that it is gone forever. But there are still pleasant emotions. I like laughing, even if it is when I am having a bad day. It seems like every good emotion has some bitterness mixed into it now. I guess that’s kind of sad, but sometimes there is still more sweet than bitter. And then sometimes bitter things can be sweet, like a sad movie that can make me cry but still be beautiful. Or when I know I am seeing a friend for the last time because he or she is moving, and it hurts, but I know that it hurts because of all of the good memories with that person.

I used to like eating spoonfuls of pure white sugar when I was kid, but now I think that is gross. There needs to be something else mixed in. Some of my favorite drinks are Ginger Beer, which is sweet but burns my throat as it goes down. Bitter Lemon, which I have to drink slowly because of its bitterness, but which I keep on drinking, and unsweetened herbal tea, which is completely bland unless I concentrate on all of the different weak flavors in it. I didn’t used to like any of these drinks. Sadly, I no longer like pure white sugar.

A Journey (Part 4)

2009-08-30T11:00:00.000-07:00

4. Other people.

This is a more recent development. Although I have always liked performing for or competing with others, I think it was on my mission that I started to realize how interesting other people can be. Since returning home I have been more talkative, but initially only with superficial topics.

While my sister and I were both experiencing the different emotions associated with dating, we started talking more deeply with each other. My brother was all but left out of these discussions because he married his high school girlfriend. Then, through spending time with some close friends and some new friends, I started talking to them about serious things. When I was twenty two I finally had what one might call an exclusive relationship for the first time ever. I realized how difficult it could be to communicate with someone that I was dating.

And it continued to be difficult. I felt like the only serious conversation I could have with a girl was the breakup one, with an occasional serious moment in more casual conversations. Eventually I dated this one very unique girl who just told me absolutely every thought that she was having. It was disarming and the only thing I could do in return was spill some of my secret thoughts back at her. I realized that you can say some really personal things and people are generally supportive. The only disadvantage is it tends to move things along faster than they might have otherwise, and you end up breaking up sooner. At least I think so, because she and I didn’t last too long.

Anyway, while I still have trouble sharing my grief with other people sometimes, I do it much more often than I used to, and rather than see it as being “needy” (which I guess it kind of is), I see it as necessary and I try to be available for others when they need someone to spend the time and energy needed to listen to them.

I cannot express how important I think it is to talk to and be with and understand other people. When my parents split up, I remember feeling like I was going to throw up if I didn’t talk about it.

I found help in unlikely places. One friend who I had always seen as obtuse and difficult to talk to at times, when he heard what had happened, in a matter of seconds, transformed into someone who listened and understood. It was the first serious conversation I had had with him, and I never expected him to suddenly be so open.

Then another friend, who I had known much longer and talked with much more, was the opposite. I was on a trip with him in a foreign country and couldn’t talk to anyone else. But when I brought it up he seemed to shut off and got very uncomfortable. He became silent, didn’t look at me, and didn’t ask any clarification or follow-up questions. It was disappointing and a little embarrassing. The difference between these two friends was that the first one had experienced his own parents’ divorce and the other one could not even imagine such an event. So I think it is important to seek out those who have been through similar challenges. They will understand.

Part 5

A Journey (Part 3)

2009-08-29T11:00:00.001-07:00

3. “Life is hard”.

Everyone knows that life is hard, but I think it was important for me to recognize the difference between “Life is hard” and “My life is hard”. The first statement links our difficulty and hardships with those of others as part of the human condition. It gives meaning to the suffering and creates compassion in us. The second alienates, sets us apart, and reinforces the incorrect thought that since our suffering is unique or worse than other people’s, that we don’t fit in with them.

Part 4

A Journey (Part 2)

2009-08-28T11:00:00.000-07:00

2. I started noticing progress.

When I compare today to my lowest points of being depressed, the difference is stark. Back then I felt like the world was empty and that while I had every opportunity I could want, pursuing any of those opportunities would inevitably lead to boredom and more depression.

When I am sad nowadays there is a sting of depression in it, because it reminds me of all of the large amount of my life that I have spent sad or depressed. Since that is all I can remember, it becomes overrepresented in my mind, and it seems like I am sad much more of the time than I really am. This still happens whenever I get down for longer than a few hours, and I think, “why is life so hard?”

Even in those ruts, though, I can recognize the difference between now and years ago. I have tried, but cannot pinpoint when I was first able to recognize this, which makes me believe even more that not only was it a gradual process rather than an event, but also that recognizing it as such is an important part of the process itself.

Part 3

A Journey (Part 1)

2009-08-27T11:00:00.000-07:00

Recently I told a friend that I had been treated for depression and she asked, "How did you overcome it?"

I gave her a rather inaccurate answer. I said that I had gotten tired of worrying about everything, so I stopped. Over the next few days I realized the answer I had given was wrong, or at the very least grossly incomplete. I told her about my mistake and realized that I couldn't really give an easy answer to her question.

Over the last two days, I have been thinking about the answer and doing my best to write it down. What resulted is the next eight (at least) posts that you will read on this blog, and they are more of a reflection on the question than an answer. As you will see, I don't really know the answer; all I have are suspicions. So here we go.

"How did you overcome your depression?"

1. I got tired of thinking about it.
What I meant when I said this originally was that I slowly got more and more sick of asking myself if I was happy or not. It consumed so much of my time and energy that I sort of started to do it less and less. I think that a great source of my depression was the fact that I would worry and feel guilty about the fact that I could be depressed when I had everything in life going for me. Eventually when I was depressed I would just let myself sit there and be depressed, and I think that helped the guilt go away.
When I gave this as a reason, my friend replied: “So it just lifted.”
I guess, but it happened over a period of months and, I suppose, years. I wouldn’t say that it just lifted, but rather that it very slowly and imperceptibly dissipated. Mostly anyway.

Part 2

Church Scholars

2009-02-15T14:25:00.000-08:00

What do yall think of this?

I walked into church late to see that a high councilman and his wife were the speakers this week. She had her head down and was reading off a sheet of paper in a monotone voice quickly but not very fluidly. I noticed she was getting a bit tripped up on some of the long sentences she was using and that she was mispronouncing some of her words ("transdescended" instead of transcended). I thought that it would be odd for her to write a talk using words that she didn't really know, and it occurred to me that maybe she didn't write it. I jotted down some distinctive phrases so I could search for her source later. It turned out it was this article from Gerald Lund from a 1990 Ensign. As soon as she read the last word off her page, she closed in Jesus' name and said Amen.

Then her husband spoke. He told this story as true (which it isn't). He used it as a way to introduce the theme of his talk, which was the importance of choices. Then he began doing the same thing his wife had done, reading with his head down and using words like "portended" and "grappled". A search of his phrases showed it was from this 1998 ensign article by Elder Oaks. He then closed with a story from his own life about how his decision to go scuba diving on Sunday while on vacation resulted in his eardrum being ruptured, and that now he lives with constant ringing and a small of fraction of hearing capacity in that ear all because he didn't honor the Sabbath. He gave his testimony and then closed.

The first Ensign article was read in its entirety. The second one was not.

Since I didn't hear the beginning of the sister's talk, I can't be sure whether she cited Gerald Lund. The fact that she didn't say anything after makes me wonder whether she said anything before. From what I saw, it seemed like the whole talk was passed off (maybe not on purpose) as her own words.

I don't remember the husband cited his source either. It's possible that he did and that I missed it. But I don't think he did.

Now. So many questions.

1. Isn't this strange?
2. Should I do anything? (I'm not planning on it.)
3. Assuming I knew for a fact that they didn't cite anything (which I don't), should I do anything?
4. How often do you think this happens by mistake?
5. On purpose?
6. Why do old people think they can read email forwards over the pulpit, and why hasn't the First Presidency done something about it? (I'm serious!)

I'm quite embarrassed that I spent almost a whole sacrament meeting amassing criticism and evidence of plagiarism, but as it turns out, I listened more intently to these talks than I usually do, and from what I saw, than the Bishop did today. Maybe God commanded the speaker to plagiarize in order to get me to pay attention for once.

Well there go all of our best Evangelical jokes

2009-01-27T07:53:00.000-08:00

You're not Getting Fatter

2008-11-11T20:24:00.000-08:00

I was always taught in Sunday School that feeling the Spirit of God is like a "burning in the bosom" or, less frequently, a "swelling". Bosom is a funny word for at least two reasons, and one of those is the way that it's spelled.

Anyway, here is how Alma explained it:

behold, it will begin to swell within your breasts; and when you feel these swelling motions, ye will begin to say within yourselves—It must needs be that this is a good seed, or that the word is good, for it beginneth to enlarge my soul;
Alma 32:28

Well, the wikipedia entry for "Positive Psychology" has something similar to say:

Elevation

After several years of researching disgust, University of Virginia professor Jonathan Haidt and others studied its opposite, and the term "elevation" was coined. Elevation is a moral emotion and is pleasant. It involves a desire to act morally and do "good"; as an emotion it has a basis in biology, and can sometimes be characterized by a feeling of expansion in the chest or a tingling feeling on the skin.

Despite a regular barrage of compelling scientific evidence that refutes things like the Book of Genesis, as a Mormon, I am taught to expect science to eventually come into further and further harmony with the scriptures and the things the Church teaches. So why is it so unsettling (although thrilling) when this actually happens?

Regis

2008-11-06T14:37:00.000-08:00

If you had any sense, you would quit reading this blog and read this much funnier one.

Think of every time you've cringed in a church meeting. It's a lot like that. Oh, and it looks like a new apostle cat has been called.

In My Father's House, There are Many Podiums

2008-10-31T11:12:00.000-07:00

I would just post a link, but then you wouldn't follow it, and wouldn't read this article:

from http://www.timesandseasons.org/?p=3130

Alternate Voices

by Nate Oman

One of the more interesting pieces that I have read on Mormon intellectual life is Armand Mauss’s essay “Alternate Voices,”Sunstone April 1990. The article was written in response to a General Conference sermon by Elder Oaks of the same name. (Also worth reading here.) Brother Mauss’s article in its entirety is reproduced here with the kind permission of Sustone and Brother Mauss.

“Alternate Voices: The Calling and its Implications”

By Armand L. Mauss

In recent Sunstone symposia and LDS discussion groups, much attention has focused on Elder Dallin Oaks’s remarks about “alternate voices” in general conference last year. I would guess that most of the Saints had no idea who or what he was referring to. Even among the participants in the “unsponsored” literature and discussion groups, there has been no clear consensus about the meaning or the implications of what Elder Oaks said. Some have found it ominous or at least condescending; some have seen it as a harmless, matter-of-fact clarification of leadership attitudes. Some have even taken encouragement from the fact that it was not more specific and constraining. For me the conference address and ensuing discussion have provided the occasion for reflection upon the past twenty-five years of my own intellectual activity in the Mormon arena.

Historical Perspective

To begin with, an historical perspective seems helpful. We have always had “alternate voices” in the Church. I am not referring to apostates (nor was Elder Oaks, I believe) but to certain loyal and thoughtful saints of independent mind who would occasionally question conventional doctrine or policy–and do so publicly. Before about 1940, such public discussions frequently took place in official Church magazines and even among the general authorities themselves. For evidence of this contention, one has only to consult early issues of the Improvement Era, Contributor, and Juvenile Instructor, or to review the careers of figures like B.H. Roberts. Even the LDS Institute program once provided a forum for discussion and sometimes honest disagreement among the devout and intellectually cultivated scholars so often found in the ranks of the Institute faculty in those early days.

In many ways, the Church was like one big family during its first century or so. This was especially true of the general authorities, who constituted a rather small circle of relatives and boyhood friends. Their families shared impeccable pioneer credentials and intimate knowledge of each other. When Orson Pratt disagreed publicly with Brigham Young about doctrine, they had been through too much together for Brother Brigham, even as president, to question basic loyalty and commitment of Brother Orson. When B.H. Roberts and the young Joseph Fielding Smith disagreed publicly about evolution, neither risked suspicions of heresy, apostasy, or disloyalty to the Brethren. When Heber J. Grant as president of the Church disagreed publicly with Apostle Reed Smoot over the League of Nations, it probably never occurred to President Grant to question Elder Smoot’s loyalty after their shared travail in 1903. Even when J. Golden Kimball regularly embarrassed some of his colleagues, they knew, after all, that he was “Hber’s boy.” His rock-solid Mormon heritage was more important than his idiosyncrasies in assessing his reliability.

It is a different church today for reasons that are quite understandable. As in any organization, rapid growth and complexity have brought increasing reliance on centralization and standardization (now called “correlation”). Some of the general authorities might still be related to each other, but not nearly so many and certainly not so closely. Recruitment to their ranks comes increasingly from outside the founding families and even from outside North America. Some of the recruits to general authority rank have come up through the Church civil service bureaucracy (especially the Church Education System, C.E.S.) where they have had opportunities to demonstrate their loyalty, but not by questioning “the Brethren,” to be sure.

The fact is that the presiding brethren are simply not in a position to know each other (especially the Seventy) as intimately as they once did, so they cannot afford to be as tolerant of disagreements, especially open disagreements, even among themselves, as they once were. Their relationships (except the few that are lifelong) are less familial in nature and more bureaucratic. They cannot predict or control as confidently as they once could where such disagreements will end or what the implications will be. The George P. Lee case is a particularly painful illustration of the difficulty that the Church leaders face today in truly knowing and understanding each other’s thoughts and feelings intimately. Nor can they know the ordinary Saints as well as their predecessors could; they cannot visit the wards and stakes with any appreciable frequency.

In such a situation, disagreements and serious questions within the ranks (either of the leadership or of the Church as a whole) can no longer be readily contained or managed by resort to family bonds, shared biographies, or mutual reliance on well-known ultimate commitments. Nor can the leadership enjoy the luxury of indulging their individual opinions and disagreements in public. The confidence of the membership and of the local leadership in the general authorities can no longer depend even partly upon a personal awareness of the hearts, minds, backgrounds, or individual charisma of those brethren. That confidence must now rely upon their formal ecclesiastical roles and callings as “prophets, seers, and revelators.”

The spectacle of public disagreements among these distant prophets, on any subject, carries the risk of undermining grassroots confidence in their instructions on any other subject. Thus, such disagreements as they have (which, I do not doubt, are many and vigorous) must be carried out entirely behind closed doors and settled ultimately by top-down directives. Necessary as all that might be in a modern church so “correlated” and so conscious of public relations, it gives the largely false appearance of a monolithic and intellectually homogeneous leadership. To the extent that such homogeneity seems necessary, we cannot expect today’s Church leadership to recruit ( at any level) the independent intellectuals and scholars of the kind we once saw in Elders B.H. Roberts, John A. Widtsoe, James E. Talmage, or Joseph F. Merrill. Different skills, talents, and training are needed for today’s corporate Church leadership.

The Modern Division of Labor

Today’s “alternate voices” are found no longer among the general authorities but instead among an amorphous and informal body of independent scholars and intellectuals. While sometimes called a “community,” and including many close friends of long standing, this body is probably too large, too dispersed, and too diverse to qualify as a real community. It is tied together mainly through the reading and writing of a common literature published in various “unsponsored” books and articles, and through participation in such gatherings as those of the Mormon History Association and the Sunstone Symposium. The religious beliefs and intellectual commitments of its members cover a broad spectrum. Its numbers include LDS and RLDS members, non-members, devout believers, doubters, and apostates; but in my experience the great majority are active, loyal, and committed Latter-day Saints who are willing to tolerate diversity and ambiguity in the quest for truth, intellectual integrity, and fuller understanding.

This collection of “alternate voices” has an important part to play in the life of the Church and of each ward, even when it is worrisome to leaders. Many feel direct spiritual calls to offer their “alternate voices” on occasion. Such calls are clearly implied in Doctrine and Covenants 58:26-28, especially in the passage about being “anxiously engaged in a good cause . . . of their own free will.” It is important to emphasize, though, that these are not Church calls, which can come only through priesthood leadership. We must never confuse our personal spiritual gifts, talents, and calls (whether of an intellectual or any other kind) with callings in Church leadership. We should feel free, in a candid but respectful and constructive spirit, to offer our ideas and suggestions to Church leaders from the greatest to the least, whether they ask us for them or not, for that is what we are called to do. Yet we must never aspire to displace those leaders, to undermine their influence and authority, or in any wa to interfere with the exercise of their callings and responsibilities as they understand them.

Such a de facto and tacit separation of responsibilities between Church leaders and “alternate voices” actually works out quite well in practice, as long as there are not excesses on either side (as there sometimes are). The leaders of the Church, including the prophet and president, neither seek nor receive revelation in a vacuum. It is implicit in Doctrine and Covenants 9:7-9 that divine inspiration and revelation come primarily in response to well-considered proposals that we take to the Lord. I think that this is as true for the prophet as for the rest of us. I have always appreciated the care and precision in President Kimball’s announcement of the dramatic 1978 revelation on extending the priesthood, where he explicitly spoke of having received confirmation of a policy decision.

Where do Church leaders get the ideas for the proposals that they take to the Lord in search of their revelatory confirmations? We must assume that they get their ideas from many sources, both within and without the Church. Some ideas no doubt come to them from the Saints and leaders in the rank and file; some from “pilot projects” started on local initiative; some from sponsored research; some perhaps from the business world; some even from their wives and children. The “alternate voices” of LDS intellectuals simply add, in a unique way, to the supply of ideas available to Church leaders as they undertake to formulate proposals to take to the Lord. That is an important function for these “alternate voices” and is perhaps the main mission to which they are called. I have had plenty of reasons to believe that our leaders often consider these “alternate voices,” and that their proposals to the Lord are sometimes informed by what they read and hear from these sources as well as from others.

I, for one, appreciate this de facto “division of labor” between Church leaders and “alternate voices.” Such a distinction is blurred in some of our sister Christian churches which maintain “house intellectuals” hired and salaried primarily to insure that official Church doctrines, policies, and pronouncements are based on extensive scholarly research and made intellectually palatable to the world. To the extent that “alternate voices” depend for their livelihood and professional recognition primarily on Church largesse, they run a constant risk of being muted, moderated, and compromised by organizational imperatives and internal political pressures. (I hasten to add that they do not always succumb to such pressures, as we can see from the number of outstanding “alternate voices” that somehow manage to maintain distinguished and independent careers at BYU; but they are often uncomfortable). While many Mormon intellectuals might enjoy the luxury of basking a little more often in the celestial warmth of offcial approbation, they are far better off maintaining their separate callings and their intellectual independence.

The Church leaders, for their part, also benefit from this separation. For one thing, they need not feel obliged to evaluate and respond to every idea, proposal, or criticism coming from among the “alternate voices.” These are not products that they have paid for, and they need not make “use” of them in order to get their “money’s worth” from an investment in professional services (as they might feel obliged to do, say, in the case of the professional consultants whom they occasionally hire). Second, the Church leaders cannot be held accountable for any of the public writings or speeches of “alternate voices” as they might be for the public utterances of “house intellectuals” (and as they once were for the dissident voices publicly expressed from their own ranks).

In sum, Church leaders can get on with the daily business of running a large and complex world organization, with all the pragmatic compromises and adjustments implied in that enterprise, but without having to deal with constant interruptions from internal intellectuals intensely concerned with ideas but lacking either experience or responsibility in practical affairs. My experience in academia convinces me that (with occasional sterling exceptions) intellectuals as a class suffer from a trained incapacity for successful administration. I know exactly what William F. Buckley means when he says that he would rather be governed by the first 500 people in the Boston telephone book than by the Harvard faculty! By all means, let us foster complete freedom of expression, even in the Church, for all kinds of “alternate voices” (academics or not); but let “idea-people” do what they do best–offer creative ideas and informed critiques of the status quo–and leave the practical affairs of Church governance to thosewho bear the awesome responsibility for it!

Those of us who would take seriously and conscientiously the calling of “alternate voices,” however, must be prepared to accept the implications of so doing, whether we would be listeners or speakers in such a challenging enterprise. Even as listeners we are responsible for the evaluation of what we hear. Intelligent evaluation, especially in spiritual matters, is not possible without a considerable personal investment in studying, both widely and deeply, in prayer and in meditation. The hearer (or reader) of “alternative voices” who is not willing to do all this is only a dabbler and is far better off sticking with the Standard Works and the correlated lesson manuals.

People who read Sunstone and other “alternate” sources mainly to make mischief (and I know a few) are intellectual adolescents. They are searching less for understanding than for cheap shots at traditional shibboleths, or for juicy and scandalous tidbits about Church leaders past and present. I have one more caveat (with apologies to Dante!) for those who would be conscientious listeners of “alternate voices”: Abandon certainty all ye who enter herein! Never again will you enjoy the immunity to doubt and ambiguity that went with your previous life. But then the ability to live with perpetual ambiguity is also a trait that distinguishes adults from adolescents.

Decalogue for Dissenters

My remarks in this final section are directed mainly to those who would undertake to join the ranks of “alternate voices” as speakers, not just as listeners. These include, I hasten to add, not only academics or other professional intellectuals but anyone who would aspire to be efficacious in offering alternative ideas or counsel to the saints and their leaders at any level, whether in the pages of Dialogue and SUNSTONE, in ward council, priesthood quorums, Relief Society, or Sunday School.

I would like to share ten principles that I have learned, sometimes painfully in the breach, during the past twenty-five years from my own efforts to offer an effective “alternate voice” at various forums and occasions. As a rhetorical devise, I will use the imperative tone appropriate for a decalogue; I apologize in advance if the tone also seems imperious in places. Also, since my efforts have taken place in the context of an ultimate commitment to the LDS faith, some of the following principles will be less applicable to those who don’t share that commitment.

1. Seek constantly to build a strong personal relationship with the Lord as the main source and basis for your own confidence in the alternate voice you are offering. We often have to do without the Church’s approval, but we need the assurance of the Lord’s.

2. Do your homework before you speak up. We must be sure that our knowledge of the scriptures, of history, and of other relevant data on a given matter will bear up well under scrutiny and under efforts at rebuttal. Otherwise, our offerings will be exposed as unreliable, we will lose credibility as intellectual leaders or teachers, and we will be suspected even by our sympathizers as mere malcontents. No one expects infallibility, but we must know whereof we speak, especially if we espouse an unpopular or untraditional idea.

3. Relinquish any and all aspirations (or even expectations) for leadership callings in the Church. Actually, that is wonderfully liberating. In any case, stake and ward leaders, to say nothing of general authorities, rarely call people to powerful positions who are suspected of too much “independent thinking.” To be sure, the ranks of “alternate voices” have provided occasional examples of bishops, stake presidents, and Relief Society leaders, showing that there may be some happy exceptions to this generalization, but don’t count on that. If you have a career in C.E.S. or in any other Church bureaucracy, don’t expect approval or promotion to accompany your identification as an “alternate voice.”

4. Endure graciously the overt disapproval of “significant others,” including family members, but never respond in kind. Lifelong friends and old missionary companions may sever (or reduce) friendship ties when they learn that you are one of”those.” They simply cannot understand what your “problem” is. If such reactions prove especially crucial in your case (e.g., if your marriage is threatened), you will have some tough choices to make.

5. Pay your “dues” as a member of the Church. Pay your tithing, make clear your willingness to serve wherever called, and do your best to get your children on missions. Try as hard as anyone to “keep the commandments.” You still probably won’t get much Church recognition, but you will win over a few who once looked on you with suspicion. More important, you will make it difficult for your critics to dismiss you as an apostate, for all will see that “thy faithfulness is stronger than the cords of death” (D&C 121:44).

6. Be humble, generous, and good natured in tolerating ideas that you find aversive in other Church members, no matter how “reactionary.” As “alternate voices,” we cannot complain when we are ignored or misunderstood if we respond with contempt toward those whose ideas we deplore. Besides, if we have any hope of educating them, we have to start where they are and treat them with love and tolerance. No one is won over by being put down, especially in public. Whether in our writing or in our exchanges during Sunday School classes, we must try to be gracious as well as candid (difficult though it be on occasion) and always remember to show forth afterward “an increase of love toward him whom thou has reproved, lest he esteem thee to be his enemy” (D&C 121:43).

7. Show some empathy and appreciation for Church leaders, male and female, from the general level down to the local ward and branch. Anyone who has ever held a responsible leadership position knows how heavy the burdens of office can be, especially in callings like bishop, Relief Society president, and stake president (to say nothing of apostle), in which the decisions made can affect countless numbers of people for good or ill. We may privately deplore the poor judgment, the unrighteous dominion, the insensitivity, and even the outright ignorance of some leaders. Yet, after all, they are, like us, simple mortals doing their best according to their lights. Some of them sacrifice a great deal for no apparent benefit, and all are entitled to our support, and occasionally our praise, whenever these can reasonably be given. When they do something outrageously wrong, they need our sympathy even more. “There but for the grace of God . . . ” etc.

8. Do not say or do anything to undermine the influence or legitimacy of Church leaders at any level. They have their callings and prerogatives, and we should not step forth to “steady the ark” by publicly offering our alternative leadership. Please don’t misunderstand: I am not advocating silent submission in the face of official stupidity. There is much that we can do without playing the role of usurper. When we write for publication, let us by all means criticize policies, practices, or interpretations of doctrine; but let us not personalize our criticisms with ad hominem attacks. They are not only discourteous and condescending, but quite unnecessary. (They can also get you “ex-ed.”)

We should feel free, though, to seek private interviews and/or correspondence with Church leaders, including our own bishops, in which we can offer, in a spirit of love and humility, our constructive criticisms and suggestions. If these are ignored, then at least we have exercised our callings as “alternate voices,” and we have done so without sowing seeds of contention. We are not responsible for how a given leader carries out his or her stewardship. Yet we are not powerless, which leads to the next principle.

9. Take advantage of legitimate opportunities to express your “alternate voices” and to exercise your free agency in “alternate” ways within the LDS church and culture. We must never lapse into a posture in which we just sit and gripe. If we find the correlated lesson manuals to be thin fare, it is up to us as teachers to enrich them with relevant supplementary material (including some “alternate voices”). If we are not teachers, then at least we are obligated as class members to speak up knowledgeably and enrich the class, not simply boycott it.

If we find a general intellectual famine at Church, then we are free to start study groups of our own to supplement the Church fare for those who feel the need. Some of our more conservative leaders may not like such unsponsored study groups, but they have no right to forbid them, and they seldom try (but don’t forget principles 2, 3, and 4). In short, even if we are not bishops or general authorities, and even if we are ignored by those who are, there is much constructive that we can do with our “alternate voices”: “For the power is in them, wherein they are agents unto themselves. And inasmuch as they do good they shall in nowise lose their reward” (D&C 58:28).

10. Endure to the end. The calling of “alternate voice” is too important for us to allow ourselves either to be intimidated by the exercise of unrighteous dominion or to be silenced by our own fatigue. “And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not” (Galatians 6:9; D&C 64:33). I have seen many a rich harvest in people’s lives from seeds planted by “alternate voices,” and I hope to live to see many more.

Though I have often failed to comply with all ten of these principles, I have learned from my failures as well as from my successes that the likelihood of influence and efficacy for “alternate voices” depends heavily upon compliance with those principles. They also add up to a personal philosophy that has yielded me a great deal of inner peace in my years of coping with the predicament so common among “alternate voices”: commitment to the religion but a feeling of marginality in the Church. That is my testimony.

An Epilogue: According to Brother Mauss, shortly after this article appeared in April 1990, he recieved an short unsolicited letter from Elder Oaks. The letter was extremely short — three lines — but it complimented Brother Mauss on his piece and approved of it’s interpretation of Elder Oaks’s conference address. The original of the letter is now housed in the correspondence file for 1990 of the Armand Mauss Papers deposited in the Utah State Historical Society.

2008-10-25T17:04:00.000-07:00

"Christian art? Art is art, painting is painting, music is music, a story is a story. If it's bad art, it's bad religion, no matter how pious the subject. If it's good art--and there the questions start coming, questions it would be simpler to evade.

-Madeline L'Engle
Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art,
ch. 1

Three Grand Keys (by English)

2008-10-15T22:54:00.001-07:00

View full size for explanation.

English's blog.

2008-10-09T09:02:00.000-07:00

Lolcat by Brian.

Facing Facebook, part 4

2008-10-04T08:11:00.000-07:00

Guy in England replies:

Sorry about the lateness of response. I have been super busy as of late.

On the face of it, yes Masons do in a roundabout way claim that they protect the ways of King Solomons temple. However, taking things from a New Testament point of view, this is not necessarily needed.
You write something very interesting, '...among other things'. Now I think the 'things' you have not mentioned are of HUGE importance to the practice of Mormons and how and why I do not believe it to be: a) a fuller, deeper, more complete version of the Gospel as spelled out by Christ Jesus. b) Believe it divinely inspired by God.

First off, regardless of whether you have met masons who are 'pleasant enough' does not mean your common practices sound. As you may know, some of the symbolism of the masons is to be frank quite occultic. Looking at what Joseph Smith (who was a high up freemason) incorporated into your temple buildings is nothing short of praise and declaration to his apparent Christianity sitting side by side with Egyptian and other satanic belief. For example, the temple you fellas have in Salt Lake City is full to the brim of what is widely accepted as heathen symbols. For example you the all-seeing eye (which you Americans have on your dollar notes). This is known as the Egyptian God, Eye of Horus, and his father Osiris. I.e 'the creator'. This is recognised by the satanists as the eye of Lucifer. Why on earth would a supposed Christian sect have this on a building so holy that only about 1 in 10 Mormons are eligible or choose to go?

Further to this, on that same temple you have the ursa major, the big dipper. A seven starred contellation, known by the Egyptians as the Dragon of the seven stars, further known to the 'Dragon of the Seven Stars', later known as the Seven Headed Beast. This may look familiar to you as what is said in Revelations. The Seven Headed Beast being the enemy of the church of God.

You have inverted pentagrams- this is the symbol of Satan.the upside down pentagram relates to the sinister goat, known by occultists as a manifestation of the devil.

Also, something that has similarities to satanists, Mormons and masons alike... The secret handshake. You probably won't make much of this but I do not remember reading anything about this in the Bible. But do you not think this is more than a coincidence that this is now introduced into your cult as a means of getting into heaven. Is it not the case you need a handshake to get into heaven or something. (Or have I got that completely wrong?)

Also when Smith was killed, he was found with an accultist talisman. Need I say anymore!!

If this man is meant to be the mouthpiece and prophet of God, a man meant to be trusted to deliver the world the new Gospel, then I am flabbergasted to say the least!! If it is the case that the wonderful Lord God sent a prophet to us who was a superstitious, occultist, dark arts practicing, satan-leaning, pagan worshipping then I really do despair!! That being the case, rather God is somebody that is really akin to satanic dogmatism and is in a sense polytheistic, OR Joseph smith isn't a prophet, and he is just some fella who tells tall tales about the God of the bible.

Mate, the onus is on you to really dig deep into the rudiments of what you believe. However, if you are content with what you follow, and you want to continue to feel unchallenged then stay where you are. Remember though, Jesus calls you to trust Him and come out from that boat. I really don't want you to go in a corner and harden your defences and in essence be really 'anti-Louie', just use your head, be sensible and do not rely on that 'burning in your bosom' (that I have read so much about'.

What I would say is read up on freemasonry yourself. You will see it is not as cool/Biblical as you may first think. I mean c'mon, why would a so called Christian association have so much symbolism relating to Satanism and Egyptian ancient beliefs and polytheism? I think the answer is obvious. And why on earth would your ceremonies need to be secret?

I think the most blatant thing the mormons do during their temple endowment (if that is the right word) is they play out the part of the devil and I think Adam and Eve. Then they mock putting on the apron that relates to what the Devil does!! Unbelievable.

When I said 'odd' it was fitting into the context of what I was saying. I didn't write it as a question btw.

Also, I'm better than calling what you believe odd. To emphasise this point, I am from a Charismatic church, (Pentecostal to be precise) in the north of England. Therefore, I know the meaning of being different to the what the norm may be.

TR replies:

Before we go further into this, I just want to ask that if you have any questions about specific temple practices or symbology that you send them to me in a private message. We don't like publishing them or discussing them publicly for several reasons, one of which is that it ALWAYS gets misinterpreted and causes misunderstanding. The other reason is that some of what you mentioned is not true or is only half-true, and I can't exactly set the record straight without saying even more details of the temple ceremony.

Also, before I offer another perspective on this, I want to thank you again for asking me. Since Mormons (including me) are unwilling to share many details of the temple, a curious person will always find another source, and that source is usually an anti-Mormon one. I hope you won't take offense to me saying this, but a lot of what you said sounds like the sort of thing I used to read in anti-Mormon literature that was published by many Christian churches in Scotland while I was a missionary there. I'm glad to have this opportunity to refute what people have said to misrepresent the temple ceremonies.

Another word about the Masons. That they are "pleasant enough" is an understatement. The Masonic Lodge of Salt Lake City runs and operates the Salt Lake Shriner's Hospital, which is a hospital that treats burns and bone diseases for children free of charge. Thousands of children have been helped there for free, and they are a non-profit organization, not a business. To say they are Satanic is misguided at best. "By their fruits ye shall know them". Looking at the fruits of the Masons here, I see them as an exclusive and eccentric but extremely charitable group that God smiles upon. I don't buy this Satanic cult propaganda. The first requirement of becoming a mason is belief in God or Deity. And to say they are unaware that they are Satanists unfair and ignorant, in my opinion.

There is a lot of content in your post. I can't tell which things you want responses to, but I will do my best.

"Among other things"

What I meant by this was beyond being keepers of Solomon's temple rites, they are a fraternal organization that get together to eat dinner, talk, have barbecues, and do other things that friends or clubs do together. And as I mentioned, they are also a non-profit charitable organization who have blessed the lives of millions of children throughout the country and provided an example of what it means to be compassionate Christians. As to whether protecting Solomon's Temple's rites is needed, I will not argue this point. I believe it was needed. You don't. Fair enough?

"Playing the devil"

What is wrong with depicting the devil? One of the most beloved paintings in Christian art is of Christ overcoming Satan:

http://www.valtorta.org/images/denyingsatan.jpe
which depicts the devil! Was Bloch a Satan worshipper because he depicted the devil? Of course not.

A word that I heard a lot in your response was "Satanic" or similar words. I will try to address what you have said about many of the symbols being Satanic.

The whole point of a symbol is that it carries meaning to those who use the symbol. A swastika to a Buddhist means peace, whereas a swastika to a westerner means Nazism. When a Buddhist uses a swastika, does that mean he is secretly a Nazi? No. For one thing, the symbol belonged to Buddhism before it was borrowed by Hitler as a symbol for the Nazi party.

Likewise, many of the symbols we use have more than one meaning depending on whether it is being used by a Mormon, a Mason, or an Occultist. The number seven for example, is used many times in the New Testament. To the Hebrews, the number seven signified completeness or eternity. It is also the number of heads on a dragon, which represents Satan. At this point, I want to ask a rhetorical question: If God uses a symbol one way and Satan uses it another way, who do you think had it first? Clearly God did, because Satan always copies and perverts what God does, and God doesn't "borrow" anything from Satan.

The same thing goes for the all-seeing eye, the pentagram, Ursa Major, and the other symbols you mentioned. I won't go into all of them, but I just want to point out the significance of Ursa Major. Ursa Major is a constellation used by ancient and modern navigators in the Northern hemisphere to locate the North Star. If you line up the two stars farthest from the "handle" or "tail" of the constellation, they point right at the North Star, which is the only star in the sky that doesn't move throughout the night or throughout the year. It is the constant. It is the star by which navigators chart their course. Do you see where I am going with this? God and Jesus Christ are represented by the North Star because they are unchanging, and we chart our course through life by them. Ursa Major represents the temple because the temple points us to God. That's what we see when we look at Ursa Major, and the symbol holds no Satanic connotation for us whatsoever. If God sees it as a representation of the devil only, why did He put it in the sky?

All of the other things that you mentioned testify of Christ to me in one way or another, not the devil.

Egyptians:

Mormons don't believe that Egyptians are Satanists. We believe that they, like many other civilizations, had the complete Gospel at one time and lost it bit by bit until they were worshiping all sorts of gods. Side by side with their somewhat intact symbols (the all-seeing eye, etc.) was other things they had added on. I don't think its fair for you to say that Egyptian religious practice was satanic. The all-seeing eye was called "the eye of Horus" by the Egyptians. Just because they called their god something different than what you call yours does not make them Satanists.

You asked whether Mormons need handshakes to get into heaven. My answer is that this is another thing that is symbolic only and not to be taken literally.

I hope you don't mind if I quote you for the next part of my response. You said

"If it is the case that the wonderful Lord God sent a prophet to us who was a superstitious, occultist, dark arts practicing, satan-leaning, pagan worshipping then I really do despair!! That being the case, rather God is somebody that is really akin to satanic dogmatism and is in a sense polytheistic, OR Joseph smith isn't a prophet, and he is just some fella who tells tall tales about the God of the bible."

Which sounds like you are wanting me to try and convince you that Mormonism is true, which is not why I am participating in this conversation. If you want convincing, find those missionaries. I do want to answer your description of Joseph Smith though.

"Superstitious"

This is a word that people often use to make a person's personal beliefs seem less valid than their own. I would put the question back to you, Louie. How many people have called the your personal practice of prayer a "superstition"?

"Occultist"

The word "occult" means "hidden". Christ spoke often of mysteries and hidden things to be revealed. Besides that, "occult" also refers to Satanism, which is something I hopefully answered well enough earlier. Likewise with "Dark arts practicing, Satan leaning, pagan worshipping". This sounds like name-calling, which is something that really won't lead us to any further understanding of each others views.

Joseph's charm or talisman

Most LDS and non-LDS scholars now doubt the claim that Joseph carried a "Jupiter Talisman" and had it with him at the time of his death. However, if he did have one, it wouldn't surprise me for this reason: Joseph was 14 when he first told people that he had seen God. From then on he claimed visits by angels, access to ancient records and artifacts, revelations, visions, and all sorts of other similar things. He had no prejudices against folk religions and obscure religious practices, so God spoke to him from many directions. In his zeal to receive more truth from whatever source, Joseph looked for it from any source he could think of, including (as Joseph would be the first to admit) from things like charms, etc. In his writings, Joseph emphasizes prayer, meditation (or "pondering"), and righteous living as methods of receiving revelation, and in some cases, he writes about he was commanded not to continue using certain other methods of receiving revelation. Later in his life Joseph also studied ancient languages and writings. He was an explorer. He was not a perfect person, and not even a perfect theologian, but he did his best, and that is all that God requires, even from prophets. Mormons follow Joseph's example and look for truth on many fronts. We are encouraged to educate ourselves about other religions and cultures, and also about science and philosophy so that we can receive truth from whatever source God has seen fit to reveal it from. We do not practice folk religions or any of the other world religions, but we are not afraid of them either.

You said that you would despair if God sent a prophet such as Joseph Smith. My answer is, How do you feel about God sending no prophet at all? But again this is getting into the realm of me trying to convince you, which is not my job.

The Pentagram:

This is a quote from the wikipedia article "pentagram", which contains this section on the pentagram's recorded association with Christianity

quote:

"Christianity

The pentagram was used as a Christian symbol for the five senses,[10] and if the letters S, A, L, V, and S are inscribed in the points, it can be taken as a symbol of health (from Latin salus).[citation needed]

Medieval Christians believed it to symbolise the five wounds of Christ. The pentagram was believed to protect against witches and demons.[11]

The pentagram figured in a heavily symbolic Arthurian romance:[11] it appears on the shield of Sir Gawain in the 14th century poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. As the poet explains, the five points of the star each have five meanings: they represent the five senses, the five fingers, the five wounds of Christ,[12] the five joys that Mary had of Jesus (the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Resurrection, the Ascension, and the Assumption), and the five virtues of knighthood which Gawain hopes to embody: noble generosity, fellowship, purity, courtesy, and compassion.

Probably due to misinterpretation of symbols used by ceremonial magicians, it later became associated with Satanism and subsequently rejected by most of Christianity sometime in the twentieth century.[11]

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has traditionally used pentagrams and five-pointed stars in Temple architecture, particularly the Nauvoo Illinois Temple[13] and the Salt Lake Temple. These symbols derived from traditional morning star pentagrams that are no longer commonly used in mainstream Christianity.[14]"

end quote.

Thanks for your questions, and let me know if I missed any.

TR

Facing Facebook, part 3

2008-09-29T19:53:00.000-07:00

TR replies:

Having a relationship with Jesus Christ without the teachings of Joseph Smith:

I have never heard a Mormon say that it is impossible to have a relationship with Jesus Christ without the teachings of Joseph Smith, just as I have never heard an evangelical Christian say that it is impossible for a Jew to have a relationship with God without being Christian.

What Joseph Smith brought, according to us, is a restoration of things lost. This, of course, did not make everything that people already knew about Christ irrelevant. It just completed it, in our opinion. While I feel that you can and probably do have a relationship with Christ, I feel that the teachings of Joseph Smith give me a deeper understanding of his mission and what it means than I would have without those teachings. Beyond that, there are certain ordinances that we believe that Christ instituted, as well as the authority to perform those ordinances, that had been lost to the earth until they were restored through Joseph Smith.

Can a person go to heaven without Smith's teachings? Like I said in a different thread, we believe that while everyone will go to heaven, that those teachings and ordinances are necessary to prepare for the greatest gifts that God has to offer. Whether we receive the truths and ordinances in this life or the next one is not important, provided that we receive them. This means everyone has had or will have a chance to see those principles for what they are at least once and will have the ability to choose to follow them or not. If they choose not too, they will still receive some kind of heaven.

Mormons and Masons:

Mormonism claims to be the original Gospel of Jesus Christ as revealed to Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, John the Baptist, The Apostles, and every other Biblical prophet. One thing that Mormons believe was lost from the earth several times, including after the crucifixion, was temple worship (which is worship IN a temple, not worship OF a temple).

Freemasons claim to be, among other things, protectors of the rites of King Solomon's temple (the one in the Bible) as recorded by the temple's stone masons, and passed down to the Knights Templar and others. (If there are any Masons reading, please elaborate and/or correct me.)

As such, it would be expected that Mormon temple ceremonies would have some similarities to some Masonic temple ceremonies.

If you find Masons "chilling", then I don't know what to tell you. Every mason I have met has been pleasant enough.

Mormonism as a corruption of true Christianity:

I could just as easily say that I think Mormonism IS true Christianity, and that everything else is a variation, but that wouldn't get us anywhere. I'm really not here to sell you on the idea my religion being better than your religion.

Mormonism as an "odd" religion:

Mormonism is an odd religion. Just as the Israelites were considered odd by the Babylonians, Christ's followers were considered odd by everyone in ancient Jerusalem, and Protestants were considered odd by Catholics in medieval Europe. Groups are always odd when they're outnumbered.

Facing Facebook part 2

2008-09-23T13:20:00.002-07:00

Guy in England replies:

Thing is, I just cannot reconcile what Mormons teach. Even if we go into the book of mormon itself, we come across text that has a certain air of superiority of whites. Okay, fair enough, if you (plural) don't teach that anymore, that's fine and dandy. However, just because half way through the 20th century onwards, your organisation has wanted to align itself more with mainstream protestantism doesn't make it right. I am not saying what I am saying to be an arse, because trust me, we have loads of American mormons trying to convert here in the UK, and through that I have went to several meetings with them when they were trying to convert me. I have read all the stuff, and in a way it scared me.It scared me because first off I am a Bible believing Christian; I'm apparently not in true relationship with Christ because I don't believe the claim of Joseph. I mean if we look at that 2 Nephi 5:21, the verse that makes mormons and Christians alike squirm, then we see that fundementally, what the 'golden plates' said were bloody awful. It reads, 'And the Lord had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity. For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, that they had become like unto a flint; wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them.'Man this is bad. Maybe this is an example of the zeitgeist of the early 1800s, but Brooks, this is not 'cool'. This is with no shadow of a doubt elitist and down right racist. Not to mention the symbols you people use. I have seen it for myself. The dependence you guys have on Masonic practise and teachings is quite chilling. Look, I am not trying to be nasty or anything, it is just that I worry about this, frankly odd religion, which is nothing more than a corruption of Christianity.You also say that it is not your responsibility to apologise for Young. Mate, I think it is. If he is a supposed apostle/living saint of God, if he was at one point the prime human on the face of the earth, being in the capacity the mouth piece for God- you cannot, as a mormon be so willy-nilly about what he says. For what he says and does and has written by him is of great importance to the people who believe in this farce.

TR replies:

First of all, I don't take any offense to what you wrote. You raise some good points.

I'll respond to the things about Masonry, etc. later, but for now I'll just address what we were already talking about.

I'll admit that the passage in Nephi makes me cringe every time I read it, and I am not even black, so I imagine the it sounds even worse to you. The only way that makes sense in my own mind is that it was a totally isolated incident which in no way relates to race today. For one thing, this is the only way to make sense of later passages in the Book of Helaman wherein the Lamanites were righteous while the Nephites were wicked, but there was no change in skin color when that happened. The righteous ones were darker and the wicked ones were whiter.You said that the Mormon church changed its practices to be more aligned with mainstream protestantism. Maybe so, but that's not really the way I look at it. I think they stopped teaching it because they realized it was wrong, both doctrinally and morally.

The Church itself never made this whole thing established doctrine. Having a publishing company compile something Brigham Young probably said about interracial marriage into a book and publish it after he was dead is not the same as the Mormon Church, as an organization, officially declaring it as doctrine. I think of it as a personal belief of Brigham Young, and as such I do not feel responsible, or even entitled, to apologize for it.

Furthermore, I do not even understand what he was saying. Brigham Young was from the Eastern US where he no doubt met many blacks and whites who had had children with blacks. He must have known that they do not drop dead as soon as they "mix their seed". Although the language is unambiguous, it still doesn't make sense at all to me, and I still am not quite sure what Young was getting at. It is a very weird quote.I believe Brigham Young was a prophet, but also a human who learned throughout his life and taught many true things but probably let his own opinion slip out once in a while. Paul the Apostle did not instantly know every single thing about Christ as soon as he saw him. It took him time to learn, just like it takes all of us time to learn. And I think there is a reason why that particular discourse by Brigham Young has never been published by the Church, but by others.

I agree that I should not be "willy-nilly" about what he and other prophets have said. Everything I read by him I ponder to discover what it is I should learn from it. What I learned from that quote and others like it is that he is human, and while he is appointed as leader of the church by God, he still has the capacity for errors. That' why the LDS church emphasizes individual prayer and individual revelation.

All that said, I have met racist members of my church and they embarrass quite a bit. I think a lot of it is geographic as well. We are still kind of isolated here in Utah, and while Utah is becoming more diverse, it is still one of the whitest states in the USA.

I want to address your other points later on. If I read right, they were:

-Having a relationship with Jesus Christ without the teachings of Joseph Smith
-Mormons and Masons
-Mormonism as an "odd" religion.

Facing Facebook, part 1

2008-09-22T02:03:00.001-07:00

An "apologist", of course, is someone who defends or reconciles, not someone who apologizes. Gordon B. Hinckley was one, and so am I in some of my finer moments. Here is a transcript of an online dialogue I had with some guy in England via Facebook.

Guy in England says:
I got this from researching into mormonism, I obtained a copy of the Journal of Discourses, written by the 2nd "prophet" of your "church"It basically talks of those of African descent, (btw, do you still teach the mark of Cain in relation to blacks?)Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 10 v 110:'Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain [the seed of Cain being blacks], the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so. The nations of the earth have transgressed every law that God has given, they have changed the ordinances and broken every covenant made with the fathers, and they are like a hungry man that dreameth that he eateth, and he awaketh and behold he is empty.'How do you justify this? This is not a cool teaching is it?It really scuppers what you replied to me, i.e., '[it] is wrong and in no way do i believe that God would do that.' So rather you are Mormon, and believe mormon teachings, or you dismiss the racist teachings of the 2nd president,"prophet" of Mormonism, and therefore nullify the teachings all together...

TR replies:
Thanks for bringing this topic up. It causes no end of misunderstanding.First of all I want to say thanks for going into actual Mormon literature to discover what Mormons believe rather than believing every rumour that gets passed around without checking into it. That said, I would advise giving much more weight to what the current church president is teaching now than what was written 150 years ago. It is probably true that Brigham Young taught that, however, Mormons give more credence to some texts than to others.The Bible, The Book of Mormon, The Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price are the only thing accepted as scripture. The Church does publish official statements as well, but those are usually things to do with policy and practice and not with doctrine. Brigham Young's Journal of Discourses is not a church publication. It is a collection by others of his sermons and writings.Brigham Young may well have believed and even taught some strange things about blacks, but the thing about Cain is definitely not an official church doctrine, even if there are some backwoods type Mormons who still believe it.Anyway, I don't think it is my responsibility to defend or apologize for what Brigham Young said 150 years ago. Isn't it enough that nobody teaches it now?In my own mind, I can do this without having to "nullify the teachings all together". I don't believe in a perfect, infallible, or always correct prophet, but rather one who is led by inspiration from God despite making mistakes.So to answer your question, no. This is not a cool teaching.

--end--

Part 2 to be posted on Wednesday, Sept. 24 2008

Welcome

2008-09-22T01:47:00.000-07:00

This is a new blog about Mormonism and Mormon thought. Sort of. Basically I feel like Swirly Patterns is too lighthearted for some of the things I would like to write about.

I thought of a bunch of different titles for this blog which would express what it is, of which only three were seriously considered:

1. Blog and Maygog
2. Ask Some Mormon Guy
3. The Foyer

Anyway, I guess this blog will be an example of itself and opted for a very ambiguous title (as I am prone to do) so that it can be whatever it turns into.

Thanks for reading.