There are a few reasons for this. If I went into all of them, I would end up wasting lots of space here, but the short answer is, their record labels don’t take kindly to them yapping about religion all the time, and the Mormon community doesn’t seem incredibly interested in financially supporting music that emotionally challenges them. I could lament this last bit, too, but that’s not my intention in this series.

I’ve decided to write a series highlighting, one at a time, the Top 10 LDS musicians I’ve encountered all around the world. This isn’t meant to be all-inclusive of course, I might end up having more than just 10, and I make no claims to objectivity. These are just my all-time favorites. Each one is unique and special. I’m proud to say that these musicians would be in my playlist even if they weren’t LDS, and that’s the great thing about these people.  So now, without further ado…

Roxy Rawson

Just a few months after I created Linescratchers and started promoting it, I got an interesting email suggesting that I interview a British violinist, singer, and songwriter named Roxy Rawson. The email was adorned with lavish praise and, of course, written by Roxy’s mother. Now, my own mother thinks my music is really good, proving that sometimes familial ties overcome a person’s rationality and good sense, but lo and behold, when I did a Google search of Roxy’s music I was astonished beyond all measure.

“I started to find my own way to express myself… rather than rendering homage to other peoples’ music… not that that is not a worthy pursuit in music, I think I was looking for my own way. That seemed more important at the time… I don’t think I would have started to write my music in the way it is now, unless I had started on some journey of shedding things I learnt before in my training…” – Roxy Rawson, interview with Linescratchers

Of course, when you ask her, Roxy gives credit where credit is due, but her music really is out-of-the-ordinary in very good ways. She has the most delightful bouncing, yipping vocal style, punctuated with unorthodox pizzicato violin strumming (a very talented violinist, she often eschews the use of her bow and prefers plucking the violin in front of her like a guitar). Her songs are each hand-crafted, with tiny flourishes and quirks to reward the careful listener. And her lyrics are curious word-paintings, with light-hearted references to culture and philosophy, the latter of which she has studied extensively.

“I think yes, a lot of what I write is about escape from earthly things… or wrestling with earthly things and the non-sensicalness? Of life… Often things feel absurd to me…” – Roxy Rawson, interview with Linescratchers

In short, Roxy’s music is a breath of fresh air to anyone who grows weary of factory-made popular music nowadays. I admit, for this reason, her music is not for everyone. Still, Roxy has made enough of an impression to be signed to Ambiguous Records, an independent music label in London, and her uniqueness is attested to by the fact that on her Ambiguous profile page, the only “related artist” they came up with was… Roxy Rawson. Her EP, Changing Things was released by this label in May of last year, and every track is singular and memorable, including “Riddle It” and “Philanthropy.” Here is a short TV performance.

Roxy has spent her life in England, and thus hasn’t spent much time touring the United States. She was able to play a couple shows in New York City last September, and pictures of that trip can be seen on her MySpace. Apparently her live shows are quite a treat. I expect quite a bit more out of Roxy. She’s really only scratched the surface of what appears to be quite a well of talent.

To find out more about Roxy or her music, you can visit her MySpace, her page at Ambiguous Records, or her interview at Linescratchers.

P.S. – Roxy’s mom is super smart and nice

Now, a year later, I still think that Elder Bednar was wrong. Facebook has and will permanently improve every aspect of our social lives. I wrote the following paper to illustrate why.

In the late hours of October 23, 2003, slowly getting drunk after being rejected by a girl, a Harvard undergraduate and computer programmer named Mark Zuckerberg was hit by a sudden cruel bout of inspiration. He was looking through a photographic directory (called a “facebook”) of his dormitory, and noted on his blog that some of the photos were so “horrendous,” that he was tempted “to put some of these faces next to pictures of farm animals and have people vote on which is more attractive.” Hours later, he had successfully created a website, abandoning the farm animals idea, but instead comparing Harvard students with each other using hacked photographs and information. Just a few hours later, and after 22,000 page views, Harvard officials had traced the source of the website and shut it down, citing privacy concerns. Now, with more than 1000 employees and over 400 million active users, according to Facebook Factsheet, Facebook.com carries underneath its stark blue banner a markedly different statement of purpose: “Facebook helps you connect and share with the people in your life.”

Many have voiced concerns over the use of online social networking tools, such as Elder Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. He has called online presences “digital distractions, diversions, and detours” that could lead to difficulties in marriage, or a decrease in eternal, meaningful friendships. I can’t help but think that anyone who has a problem with Facebook merely doesn’t know enough about it.

If Facebook were a country, it would be the third-largest by population, just under China and India, and Facebook is now offered in 70 languages. Around 200 million users will log on to Facebook in any given day, and of these, 35 million will update their statuses. More than 3 billion photos are uploaded to Facebook each month. By October 2007, Time magazine’s Bill Tancer reported that, among 18- to 24-year-olds, social networking was the most-accessed type of web site on the Internet, outranking email, search engines, and pornography. In fact, Tancer quips that, statistically, it seems that when online social networking use goes up, pornography use goes down. What could appeal to young people more than the institutionalized voyeurism offered by online pornography? Perhaps Mark Zuckerberg said it best, quoted in Rolling Stone: “People are more voyeuristic than what I would have thought.”

But Facebook is not just a tool for prying into our friends’ lives. Facebook offers ingenious and simple solutions to many of the problems that plague our youth today. Previous to online social networking services, people had to make friends through personal, non-digital interaction. This was often painstaking, emotionally taxing, and slow. In order to learn another person’s interests and favorite activities, one had to have arduous conversations, feigning interest and engagement until the relevant information could be obtained. Human beings were needlessly confusing and multi-faceted. Facebook offers a better way. On each Facebook user’s page is an “Info” page. There, the user lists their personal characteristics, including interests and activities. Popular ones include “sports,” “music,” and “reading.” Mine says “songwriting.” I can easily go through my friends list and find other people interested in songwriting. Finding kindred spirits is easier and simpler thanks to Facebook.

Finding people with similar interests is one thing, discovering a person’s sexual orientation was even worse. It was socially demanding, and sometimes had to be done through roundabout means. This often led to embarrassment and offense. It required tip-toeing around the issue, carefully gauging a person’s affiliation through indirect personal queries. People went years without even declaring their orientation, deciding rather to personally cultivate and incubate those feelings for long periods of time. In the meantime, their casual acquaintances were left scratching their heads and wishing that the issue could be settled, so that judgment could no longer be withheld. However, on a person’s Facebook Info page, there is a section where he or she can publicly state whether they are interested in women, men, or both. Mine says “Interested in: women.”

Similarly, religious affiliation was once seen as a private dimension of one’s personality, and thus it was socially unacceptable to attain this information without grueling theological and philosophical discourse. It was not uncommon to have to hear a person’s entire life story and reasons for believing, in order to arrive at their religious affiliation. These traits were once very personal, carefully guarded, and sacred. Often, religion was left out of discussions altogether, for fear that one might be invited to a church service, Bar Mitzvah, or mosque, or that a controversial issue might be ignited in conversation. With Facebook, the process is streamlined, and the risk of controversial discourse is eliminated. Just check their Info box. Mine says “Latter-day Saint.”

Thus, important evaluations about a person’s character can be made with the click of your mouse. No longer must a person withhold appraisal until a clearer picture of their friend is obtained. It is now easier than ever to avoid the people you disagree with, and reduce complex social interactions.

In the past, people often found themselves longing for information about long-lost friends. Conversations about the past included references to characteristics and traits of their old friends, questions as to their whereabouts, and wishing that one could talk to them again, punctuated with sighing ruminations on how time flies. With online social networking, one can easily find out what these people had for breakfast this morning (and every morning). Each Facebook user has a white box on their front page that reads, “What’s on your mind?” One may type in their current whereabouts, opinion on the weather, or recent activities in what is called a “status update.” Below this box are the status updates of many of one’s closest friends. Some examples on my front page from my friends include, “meh,” “Babysitin [sic] my little nephews ,” “irritated…..,” and “oh life!!!” My own status says, “Does anyone want to come with my Arabic class to eat Mediterranean tonight?”

You might notice that these status updates seem simplistic and reductionist. This is by design. Many social interactions that existed previous to Facebook were seeped in over-stimulating meaning. Much time and effort were wasted by young people trying to understand and connect with each other. Young people’s hearts and minds caught fire as they participated in these exchanges. Should we really be over-stimulating our young people? Facebook offers a superior form of interaction through its “poke” function. Poke is a harmless, meaningless, effortless interaction, which undoubtedly leads to little misunderstanding, anger, friendship, or violence amongst our youth. On a person’s page, there is an option to poke them. Poke serves no function; Facebook merely informs that person that they have been poked. They then have the option to poke back.

Therefore, conflict is avoided through personal detachment. And when conflict cannot be avoided, it requires relatively little effort. Consider the following. In previous social interactions, confronting someone with a personal conflict or problem was a difficult task requiring great courage. One had to organize thoughts, plan a confrontation, and meet face-to-face with the object of their problem in order to work out a resolution. With online social networking, sending an angry email requires only the click of a button, and no face-to-face dialogue. People no longer need long nights of sleep to temper their emotions; one can now easily send a confrontational diatribe at 3 a.m., before rationality and a night’s sleep dull one’s emotions. And what if one receives an email like this from a friend? They are easily unfriended, or, in other words, removed from one’s friends list.

You see, before online social networking, “friend” was a poorly-defined term. Making friends required gaining the trust of others, sincerity and earnestness in one’s interactions, and perhaps several months of kindness before the title “friend” could be conferred upon another. Online social networking offers an instantaneous, digital, text-based solution to problem of friendship: redefinition and demarcation. Friends can be added through mutual interests, close proximity of location, or other friends. One could easily add or unfriend everyone from his or her high school. For instance, take Paul, the bassist from my last band, and friend-of-a-friend. Is Paul my friend, or isn’t he? It’s easy to tell: about four months ago he unfriended me.

This might have offended me, but I have 614 other friends. I can easily compare my prestige and popularity to other people on my friends list by contrasting the number of friends I have to the number of friends they have. Facebook’s statistics page says that the average person has 130 friends. Boy, am I glad I’m not that guy. However, embarrassingly, my wife has a significantly greater number than me: 943.

One might think that Facebook enhances friendships, relationships, and acquaintances. I would go one step further. Facebook replaces them with something even better: simple, streamlined friendship units. We are all now units on an interacting yet efficient grid. According to Facebook’s statistics page, the average unit spends almost an hour a day on Facebook. In this time, units read information on their friends’ walls, look through their activities, interests, and pictures, play games, join groups with others that have similar interests, and post links to other web pages. Units often check their Facebook pages several times during the day, and Facebook is now even offered on iPhones and other hand-held wireless devices, giving units the ability to check their Facebook pages everywhere they go, all day long, whether they are at church, class, or a friend’s wedding. There are more than 100 million mobile Facebook units, and according to Facebook Factsheet, they are statistically 50% more active on Facebook than non-mobile units. Perhaps one day, all people will carry Facebook with them, thus inextricably bonding us with our new virtual identities.

It should be plain now how Facebook transcended its cruel and dehumanizing beginnings in Mark Zuckerberg’s dorm room, and grew to be the most popular online social networking service. Elder Bednar is simply blind to the New Truth: Facebook is defining us, shaping us, and reducing us. May our now archaic system of human-to-human non-electronic social interactions stay where it belongs: the Stone Age.

My interest in the near-death experience began a few years ago as I, with great interest, poured over the subject of consciousness and alterations thereof. Consciousness in itself is an amazing mystery, and sometimes it seems that we’re no closer to explaining it now than we were when Descartes sat befuddled at his desk.  However, the mystery of the NDE struck me as even more interesting, as it seems to incorporate elements of philosophy, theology, and spirituality.

What is an NDE?

A near-death experience is generally characterized as a striking alteration of consciousness associated with a subject being near death.  These experiences range from out-of-body experiences, or OBEs (the sensation of being out of one’s own body, often floating above one’s self), seeing a light at the end of a tunnel, seeing religious figures or family members, even to seeing future or past events in history. Experiencers often receive meaningful information in the NDE, sometimes they see and hear things that seem inexplicable (such as veridical information about events happening simultaneously with their death) and the vast majority view their experience as positive.

How prevalent are NDEs?

It’s hard to pin down an exact estimate (NDE experiencers often don’t share their stories for many years, and reluctantly share them with researchers), but research has suggested that 4-15% of Americans have had an NDE (anywhere from around 12 million to around 45 million people).  A large study in the Netherlands, interviewing those who had experienced cardiac arrest, found that 18% reported at least one common aspect of an NDE.

What are some common characteristics of NDEs?

Raymond Moody, the first psychologist to scientifically study the NDE, published his best-selling Life After Life in 1975.  He found that NDEs were curious in that many of them shared very common elements:

Later, researchers such as Kenneth Ring, Bruce Greyson, and George Ritchie expanded on Moody’s work in subsequent studies and books.  The scientific world was reluctant to accept the NDE, often based on the subjective nature of the experience, and its philosophical and metaphysical implications.  However, the field has grown considerably, and as the number of people who have experienced NDEs grows, science is finding it harder and harder to ignore.

Is the NDE a biological or physical phenomenon?

Well, this is where things get tricky.  Again, science has been reluctant to study the NDE.  When Moody wrote Life After Life, NDEs were filed strictly in the same cabinet as UFO abductions and Bigfoot sightings.  Feeling in the public is mixed, but it does seem that everyone knows someone who knows someone who has had an NDE.  And let’s not pick on the scientists too much:  it’s hard to make testable predictions based on subjective experience.  The mind has been known to do strange things under stress, and is also known to be notoriously unreliable in terms of understanding objective reality.  Human beings are known to hallucinate from time to time, we dream in unreal worlds every night, and when under the influence of certain chemicals we see things that don’t seem to be there for anyone else.  There are indeed materialistic interpretations of the NDE:

1. The NDE is like a dream, a fantasy created by the brain.  People see what an NDE is “supposed” to be like on television and during times of great stress, it retreats into this fantasy world.
2. The NDE is caused by a release of a certain chemical in the brain.
3. The NDE is caused by a lack of oxygen in the brain.
4. The NDE is caused by the brain, from some unknown process.
5. NDEs are fabrications from people who just want to make money.

This last option is a major concern, as there have been people in recent years who have capitalized on their NDE.  Notably, we may have heard of Betty Eadie, whose book Embraced By The Light was a #1 New York Times bestseller.  Certainly there are men and women who have made quite a bit of money by reporting NDEs!  However, even more overwhelming are those who do not make any money off their experience, and often find themselves ostracized, ridiculed, or dismissed for relating their experiences to their faith groups or family.

So are NDEs the result of something biological?  From the International Association for Near-Death Studies (emphasis added):

In a scientific age, it is only natural that people want to understand the biological or psychological origins of experience, and a variety of neurological and chemical explanations have been proposed as the cause of NDEs: lack of oxygen, excess of carbon dioxide, seizure activity in the temporal lobe, the effect of drugs such as DMT or ketamine, hallucination, psychological avoidance of death, normal shutting down of brain activity, and a dozen or more other possibilities.

No scientific explanation so far has satisfactorily accounted for all aspects of NDEs or their effects. For example, numerous patients who were being clinically monitored and were known to be well oxygenated have later reported having an NDE during that time; drugs are not a factor in all NDEs; the characteristics of sleep disorders and NDEs are not identical. Hallucinations are highly individual and produce confusion and hazy memories, exactly the opposite characteristics of near-death experiences, which tend to share characteristics and be remembered vividly for decades as being “realer than real.” For every medical cause that has been put forward, there are reasons the NDE researchers say, “Not quite right.”

Further, despite reports that scientists have been able to induce NDEs through the use of drugs or electrical stimulation to the brain, none of the reports has been altogether convincing. The reports have been based on a partial similarity to a limited aspect of NDE, or they have involved very few people—sometimes only a single individual—in an experiment that does not really replicate a full NDE, or the aftereffects do not coincide with those of a true NDE. After decades of investigation, researcher and psychiatrist Bruce Greyson, MD, has reported, “No one physiological or psychological model by itself explains all the common features of NDE.”*

Thousands of documented NDEs challenge mainstream Western thinking and belief systems. Expectations about an afterlife may be challenged, and some people abruptly develop radically new interests and abilities after an NDE. One subject of debate is whether consciousness (mind) resides exclusively in the physical brain. For example, many people who have had an NDE accurately report events that occurred around their bodies when they were unconscious or even clinically dead—in at least one case, when clinical monitoring clearly showed no brain activity. Some NDEs have revealed family secrets, such as the existence of a never-mentioned sibling.  According to the prevailing belief system of industrialized societies, these things are scientifically impossible.

It seems that finding an explanation for all NDEs is difficult. Pim van Lommel presents a thorough examination of the various medical theories of NDEs, and why none of them quite fully explains the NDE, here.

What is the effect of NDEs on experiencers?

An interesting fact about NDEs is that they tend to be transformative and positive for the experiencer. Though there is often a period of depression immediately following the NDE (often due to the contrast between the feelings of joy in an NDE and the monotony and cruelty of daily life), NDE experiencers tend to be much better off in the long run:

There is one common element in all near-death experiences: they transform the people who have them. In my twenty years of intense exposure to NDErs, I have yet to find one who hasn’t had a very deep and positive transformation as a result of his experience. – Raymond A. Moody, M.D.

There are after-effects generally associated with NDEs, including, but not limited to, decreased fear of death, increased charity and spirituality, increased curiosity and philosophical outlook, and an increased sense of meaning and purpose in one’s own life. These effects are not positively correlated with hallucinations, dreams, or intoxication.

What do you think, Arthur?

After reading many accounts of near-death experiencing, I’m convinced that they are authentic (though subjective) experiences.  For me, this is the most important part of NDE research:  NDE experiencers are overwhelmingly convinced that their experiences were real. To almost all NDE experiencers, they didn’t see a vision of their dead parents, they saw their dead parents. They didn’t have a hallucination of Christ, they didn’t have an open vision of Christ, they saw Christ. The NDE challenges a reductionistic, materialistic world-view so convincingly, that it’s almost comical reading the accounts themselves and the scientific attempts to explain them.  You don’t have to take my word for it, there are huge databases online filled with literally thousands of self-reported NDE accounts.  Some meaningful quotes from the NDERF database:

“Reality” seemed so unreal and boring compared to what I had just experienced and I was disappointed to be back. – Marta G.

I knew during the experience that is real, I knew directly after, I know now and will always know. – Veronica W.

I know it was real. The feeling of being in the light is like nothing that could be recreated – Robert L.

I have never had a dream that was so vivid so I can’t believe it was a dream it was like a dream only 1000 times more real than life itself. – Linda G.

I cannot explain it actually, but I know I really went there and saw Jesus I know. I know, I know. Period. I know. – Linda K.

If NDEs are authentic experiences, what does this mean for Mormonism?

This question continues to fascinate me.  The NDE can be threatening to some Latter-day Saints, when information retrieved from “beyond the veil” seems on its face to contradict LDS teachings.  Often NDE experiencers report that God “didn’t care” what Church they associated with, that there is “no sin,” that human souls reincarnate, or that all religions are equal in God’s eyes.

A quick search of NDERF’s database of NDEs turns up some interesting quotes about the LDS Church and Mormonism, from first-hand NDE accounts.

What was the best and worst part of your experience? The best was talking with our Lord Jesus Christ and finding out truths that the ancient theologians conveniently forgot to put into the scriptures. I also know and it was confirmed to me the missing points could be found in three books that have never been revised or changed. They have only been translated once and revealed only once. Those three books are: The Book of Mormon, The Pearl of Great Price and The Doctrine and Covenants. – William S.

I became a Mormon in 1998, but left that Church again in 2003. The Mormon Missionaries told me that I was sent to “Spirit Prison” how they call it, because I was not a Mormon at the time of my death and that the only way to avoid another frightening death would be to become a Mormon myself. So I did. I worked in the Mormon Temple to “save the dead”, because they told me that I could help those other trapped spirits out of that world and I could help them to get to heaven by spending time in the Mormon Temple and doing the ordinances for them. I believed them and worked as an Ordinance Worker in the Temple for 2 full years (amongst elderly people – I was 23). I now feel like they used my NDE to put pressure on me to join their Church. I am glad I am no longer part of it. I am now just spiritual and free. – Dominique S.

I told some of my friends that were Mormon. They believed that I was probably hallucinating. After that, I have told no one until now. – Beth L.

My parents, in Utah, who were temple workers, a temple for the Mormon church, had my name written on the prayer list of names prayed for by those attending the temple that day for all the temples in the western United States that day. Prayer is a tangible force, a power for good here on this earth! Many people ask me what was the 1st thing I thought or felt when I came out of my coma, about 3 weeks after the accident. What I felt, was the incredible feeling of power by being thought of by many and them praying for my recovery to God. I could feel his love and compassion for me, and I believe this communication led to my incredible experience with Christ in that heavenly garden. I now no longer hope that there is heaven and that Christ’s life experience and atonement are real, Now I know! – Derry B.

Many Latter-day Saints have experienced an NDE themselves, and were able to reconcile LDS theology with their NDE.  Betty Eadie speaks at firesides about her experience, and remains a faithful Latter-day Saint (though she has de-emphasized at times her religious affiliation when telling others of her experience). Many have drawn links between “classical” NDEs and early Mormon Visions. Lee Nelson has released a series of books called Beyond the Veil, that feature many Latter-day Saint NDE accounts. Even FARMS has published at least one article comparing NDEs and visions in the Book of Mormon.

When I was a missionary, I tracted into a young Hispanic woman who, in broken English, immediately insisted that we listen to her own account of her near-death experience. I remember with embarrassment, because, though I listened as politely as I could, in my mind I casually dismissed her story as a hallucination, because her Evangelical interpretation of the experience seemed to contradict the LDS Gospel that I was trying to teach her. I feel ashamed now that I could be so callously dismissive of what I now think could have been a genuine experience with Diety. Maybe this just makes me human.

But as for me, now, the NDE is a a fascinating part of my faith.  The more I read about NDEs, the more convinced I am that they might actually represent an authentic experience. Of course, I’ve never experienced one myself, and due to the traumatic circumstances that seem to trigger them, perhaps I don’t want one, either. Materialistic attempts at explaining the causes of NDEs seem to fall very short, especially considering how ferociously the experiencers seem to defend the reality of their experience. But even if the NDE turns out to be a completely physical phenomenon, isn’t it strange that natural selection has provided a mechanism whereby millions of people see lucid, immensely joyful, loving visions of Jesus, deceased family members, other religious figures, God, or angels as they die? Makes you think, doesn’t it?

Intrigued, I tried to track down what happened to him, and came across Death to the World, and let me tell you, I was floored.  Death to the World is a ‘zine, created by Justin Marler and other monks, that was passed out in the ’90s at punk shows all over the country.  It targeted the punk subculture, but it was all about Jesus Christ and the saints of the Orthodox Church.  It was recently resurrected and continues to have an online presence.  The artwork is simply stunning, and quite different from what Latter-day Saints may be used to, but I thought it was simply beautiful.  After reading a few articles I knew I’d have to interview someone about it, and I was honored and blessed to receive that interview this week from John Valadez, a writer for Death to the World.

John’s response was beautiful and insightful.  He highlights a perspective on life and Christ that I found to be very new and refreshing.  Since John was generous enough to bear his testimony as a member of another faith, please remember respect and courtesy in your comments.

Tell us a little about how Death to the World got started.  Is Justin Marler (Asbestos Death, Sleep) still involved?

Death to the World was started by some punk converts to the Eastern Orthodox faith who became monks in a monastery in Northern California. They started the publication to reach out to old friends that were still engulfed by the punk scene. Yes, one of these first people was Justin Marler from Sleep, but he is not a main editor anymore. We still send him zines and he is working with us to re-print the book “Youth of the Apocalypse” which was first printed during the first few years of Death to the World’s existence.

In your opinion, what are the main challenges facing our youth in the 21st century?

As our Father Seraphim Rose once said, “Our abnormal life today can be characterized as spoiled, pampered. From infancy today’s child is treated, as a general rule, like a little god or goddess in the family: his whims are catered to, his desires fulfilled; he is surrounded by toys, amusements, comforts; he is not trained and brought up according to strict principles of Christian behavior, but left to develop whichever way his desires incline” (The Orthodox World View). We are the ME generation, narcissists. We live in a fantasy world, a Disneyworld, from youth we are very rarely directed towards the seriousness of life and what the world demands of our souls. Thus, when we grow up, we are plagued by the same desire to surround ourselves with as many distractions and gizmos as we can. Life in the 19^th century was drastically different. Today, instead of the flickering flame of a prayer candle that once used to illuminate our homes, it is the television that gives off its un-illuminating light. Our values are no longer dictated by the words of Christ or the lives of His Saints, they are regurgitated through this glowing television set. Living rooms used to be set up for conversation about God and each other, now look what we have done! Our living rooms surround the television set! Where has it got us?! Children walk around with their heads glued to cell phones; earphones playing loud music would rather be found in their ears than a serious conversation. Where has this all gotten us? We who are so superior to the ancients because of our “advancements?” We have forgotten holiness; we have stopped striving for wisdom. Many souls today live off of the electric shock that comes off of our computers, not by virtue or purity. Sex crimes, murder, suicide, etc. run through the streets today like a pack of wild dogs, consuming many, some that we personally know. Our whole society and the way it is structured is a challenge to the youth of today. A monk in the first centuries of Christendom once asked his elder, “Will Christians in the last times be able to raise the dead or perform miracles like us?” The elder answered him, “It will be a greater work for them to even be Christians in those times.” These are the times we are living in; the society we live in is very much anti-Christian, forcing us to look like strange religious radicals, sometimes even to Christians of our day. As Saint Anthony, an ancient monk once said, “A time is coming when people will go mad and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him, saying, ‘You are mad, you are not like us.’”

Many view the punk subculture, and those lost to drugs, self-defeating behavior, or nihilism, as “lost causes.”  You obviously disagree.  Why?

No one is a lost cause. As Saint Elizabeth the New Martyr once said, “The image of God can be overshadowed, but never destroyed.” Sometimes these subcultures build a strong rebellion in a person, but the only problem is that they don’t know where to direct it. They know the world is bad, but the rebellion they have is directed politically or sometimes in self-harming ways. Death to the World tries to direct this rebellion against the world in a healthy way, we quote Saint Isaac of Syria (6^th c.) inside of every issue, “‘The world’ is the general name for all passions […] See for which of these passions you are alive. Then you will know how far you are alive to the world, and how far you are dead to it.” By this, DTTW propagates the more you die to your desires and the more you cut off your self-will, the more you “rebel” and reject the world. Thus, it becomes not merely a physical struggle, but develops into a spiritual and inward struggle.

Why do you use the phrase “The Last True Rebellion?”

Subcultures today are filled with young people wanting to fight for the truth through rebellion against this world. The punk subculture is a rebellion, but it is false rebellion that if one follows it to its end will lead to complete nihilism and despair. These rebellions within subcultures can be effective, but the truth they are fighting for is usually not the truth as we know it, Truth as a person, Jesus Christ. Unlike the rebellions of this world, death to the world is a rebellion without a dead end and the acceptance of something real, something otherworldly. This is why it is “The Last True Rebellion” because it is the only true one.

Death to the World has often featured articles about martyrs and saints in the Orthodox faith.  Why do stories about martyrs seem to resonate with your audience?

The souls of people today that are trying to seek the Truth are suffocated by our fake plastic society. Television programs, billboards, movies, etc., more often than not have no good solid real people to look up to. Our society is not only surrounded by, but also bombarded by the fake everyday. It seems sad to say, but some of us don’t even have parents who we can look up to. The saints and martyrs relate to us on a level that some of us feel that no other person we know can. By their lives, they bring to us the reality of life, the reality of what it means to follow Christ in a true manner, without compromise. The brutal deaths of Saints Justin, Ignatius, George, Panteleimon, and other great Christians during the first centuries hold some of the most amazing stories of steadfast faith a person can ever read. The lives of Saints John of San Francisco, Nikolai of Zhica, Herman of Alaska, Raphael of Brooklyn, and other American Saints or those who lived during our times, reveal to us how God has not left His Church even in these dark times. In the Orthodox experience, the Saints are real, alive, and intercede for us standing before the throne of Christ. They bring heaven close to us through their prayers and worship before our Creator in Heaven. They are the “lovers of truth” who have completely sacrificed everything and anything earthly, dedicating their lives to the Ultimate Truth, which is seen in the incarnate Christ Himself. Thus, by seeing these very real and radical lives and their testaments to life beyond the grave, people see that our “rebellion” is not fake, but very real.

The Orthodox faith has a rich tradition of having beautiful artwork and icons.  How do you incorporate that tradition into your publication?

Iconography has been with the Church since the very beginning. According to tradition, the Apostle Luke first painted Christ and His Mother on a plank of wood taken from the table in the Virgin Mary’s home where Christ ate with her. It has been proclaimed throughout the centuries that the icon is like a window into heaven, revealing the world to come. For two thousand years, the Orthodox have always placed great emphasis on worshiping God with our whole being, with all our senses, and the icon is a visual representation of theology for us. In one icon, a person can see all of salvation; the renewal of human nature, the promise and radiance of heaven, the exaltation of humility, etc. The icon intrigues people because it is a form of art that is holy, it comes from an apostolic tradition and it moves people souls. Within our publication we use many depictions of icons and they resonate in people’s hearts, there is something about them that catch people’s eyes. Saint John of Damascus spoke that icons were the Gospel to the illiterate. It is very true, for although a person can read, their soul can be illiterate to spiritual things and icons really do communicate the Gospel to them.

Many churches (Protestant, Catholic, etc.) offer outreaches to young people using music.  What makes your approach different?  How does your unique perspective on Christ appeal to your readers?

The Orthodox Church is the oldest Christian Church, historically tracing its roots to the Apostles. It has existed before both Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, being blessed by Christ Himself, the Apostles being the first Orthodox Christians. One can point the Orthodox Church’s origins to the time of Christ, but it would be more proper to say that it has always existed, as we exclaim that our Faith has “established the universe” (Orthodox Synodikon). We say this because our Church has a direct link to the Apostles and therefore directly to the Old Testament all the way back to the foundation of the world. We understand that, through God’s love for us, salvation for man has been a process since that foundation, being ultimately revealed in Christ’s incarnation through the Mother of God, all His works on earth, and through His voluntary death, tomb, and resurrection. The Traditions of the Orthodox are very deep and have not changed since the beginnings of Christianity, keeping in line with Saint Paul’s words when he said, “…stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle” (2 Thess. 2:15). The deep understanding of man and what it means to be transfigured through Christ have flowered abundantly throughout the centuries in rich monastic communities and has given the Church a very thick and dense sense of what it means to be a Christian in this world. Unfortunately, the richness of the faith has near been lost in the west through the breaking away and degradation of Roman Catholicism and the near radical rebellion of the Protestant Church and its too many descendants. Orthodoxy incubated and flourished in the East, preserving the teachings of Christ and continuing to celebrate the most ancient form of Christian services, the Divine Liturgy which can be traced back to the Apostles James himself, the brother of Christ. I think that this is what makes us stand out, what makes us unique to our audience. There are too many churches today that sway with the times, which change year to year depending on the culture surrounding them because they think it will bring more people in. People see that Orthodoxy is not like that, she does not change with the world around her because she is too deeply focused on the life of the age to come, ever being engulfed by and directed to heaven. People who see the fakeness in this world want Orthodoxy because they see it as a refuge that will always be preserved and firm among the ever crumbling world around them.

All in all, do you feel that Death to the World has been successful in bringing young people to Christ?

With depression, sadness, and uneasiness plaguing our society and the people around us, the outlook of the Orthodox on suffering is one of the key things that DTTW relates to people.  The ancient Christians and monks of the past viewed struggles and sufferings as a means to put our flesh into subjection, to learn to carry our cross without complaint, all too ultimately relate to our suffering Christ. As our society casually sweeps the suffering, the poor, and the destitute under the rug and out of the sight of the “civilized,” Orthodoxy reaches out to them and relates a suffering God to them, not a God wrapped up in a pretty American box with a bow on top. We like to speak of things how they are, life should not be sugar coated. Both joy and suffering should be acknowledged as part of our journey toward salvation. Suffering is a part of our life that should be embraced by us more often, not ran away from, but unfortunately we who have grown up in a very comfortable and relaxed society have a very hard time with this and it is to our own detriment. Saint Dorotheus of Gaza once said that when God cast men out of the garden He looked at them and said to Himself with sadness, “he [man] does not know how to be happy; if he does not have a hard time he will be totally lost, if he does not know what sorrow is, he will not learn what rest is […]” (Practical Teaching on the Christian Life). Therefore, suffering is given to us out of God’s love, that we might remember our fall and cultivate within ourselves a deeper love for the Heavenly Kingdom. When suffering teenagers and young adults see the lives of these Saints and Orthodox people who bare their sufferings with joy, it gives them hope and courage to embrace and conquer their struggles. The human heart is very complex and cannot be remedied by distraction and prescription medication, it needs something more, something that man and this world cannot give. When suffering people come to us, it always humbles us to see that these people in sorrow are sometimes closer to our Christ than we are. As we sing to God in a service called the Akathist of Thanksgiving, “Thou descendest to the bed of the sufferer and his heart communeth with Thee. Thou kindlest the soul with peace at the time of sorrow and suffering. Thou sendest unexpected help. Thou art the comforter. Thou art all-knowing love. To Thee I sing: Alleluia!”

What would you say to our readers (mostly Latter-day Saints) who are worried about raising their children in Christ in this generation?

Bring your children up in truth. The world around them will give them many contradictions and false teachings, help and explain these things to them. Cultivate within them purity and love towards their Creator. Be a family, eat together, pray together, unite your souls, your home should be a small chapel. Be direct rather than vague about such things as sex, drugs, etc. so that they know what these things are and what their consequences are, not only on the body but more importantly on the soul. Help them to embrace suffering and do not pamper them, it will build endurance and attention towards the soul instead of distracting them on temporal things. Above all, they need to seek out any truth they can in able to survive in our anti-Christ like society—make them to be lovers of Truth. There is an excellent book on this called, “Raising them Right” by Saint Theophan the Recluse who once said that out of all holy works, the upbringing of children is the holiest. Some of his writings can he found here also:

http://www.innerlightproductions.com/thoughts/aug0600.htm

Where can interested readers find out more about Death to the World or the Orthodox church?

Info on DTTW can be seen our website, www.deathtotheworld.com and information about the Orthodox Faith can be found on www.orthodoxinfo.com, www.stherman.com, or www.ancientfaith.com.

I told him that I did.  With some effort, I tried to explain redshift and galaxies and the Second Law of Thermodynamics as best as I could, but he didn’t buy any of it.  To him, the Big Bang was some smart-ass scientist’s attempt at replacing God with some natural mechanism.

The Big Bang didn’t create the Universe.  God did.

*  *  *  *

My friend said to me “I think the weather’s trippy.” And I said “No man, it’s not the weather that’s trippy. Perhaps it is the way that we perceive it that is indeed trippy.” Then I thought, “man, I should have just said ‘yeah’.” – Mitch Hedberg

In my life, I have been afflicted with great anxiety concerning the welfare of my soul.  Anyone who is sensitive to issues and questions of the soul can probably empathize with me.  When I look around me at my existence, I’m struck at how patently absurd it seems to be.  Sometimes I get completely immersed in my thoughts, and my wife, seeing my furrowed brow and look of deep concern, asks me what I’m thinking.  The majority of time, I am thinking something along the lines of

how strange it is that I exist.  How strange it is that there is only one thing in the Universe with the property of “I” and it happened to be this body on this planet at this time in this Universe.  If I take my senses at face value, “I” seemed to come into existence in 1984 and I assume it will seem to go out of existence sometime in the future.  I might ask, “How did ‘I’ come to exist?” and another might reply, “When your mother and father conceived you, at some point when your brain was developed enough, your consciousness came into being.”  To which I would reply, “But mothers and fathers conceive all the time, and yet the only collection of atoms out of which the property ‘I’ has emerged is the one I currently perceive.”

That’s when I say to my wife, “Oh nothing.”

In one particularly trying time in my life, due to a compounding of external stresses too personal and numerous to relate here, my anxiety crossed the border from the existential kind to the clinical kind, and I realized I needed to see a doctor about it.  I was prescribed medication and relaxation techniques, and most of the worried, tearful, and sleepless nights disappeared.  However, the underlying cause persisted.  I believe in God, I have great faith in the Book of Mormon, of course, but what if I’m wrong? What if my perception can’t be trusted?  What if everything I’ve been taught is a lie?

It was at this time that I discovered a man who helped me regain the faith I had in God, and I owe a debt to him that I can’t really repay.  I imagine it would be to his slight chagrin.  His name is William Lane Craig, Christian apologist.

Anyone familiar with Craig would notice the classical literary irony in the situation.  Craig’s triumphant Kalam Cosmological Argument for God’s existence rests on the idea of creation ex nihilo, which Mormon cosmology roundly rejects.  Yet it was the simple premises of Craig’s argument that gave me a glimmer of hope when I couldn’t find anything else to grasp onto.  It reads thus:

1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause.

2. The Universe began to exist.

3. Therefore, the Universe has a cause.

I am very thankful that my mother didn’t recoup the costs of her college textbooks by selling them, because as a child I was fascinated by her college astronomy textbook.  I still have that textbook, and it sits meekly next to my own relatively massive college astronomy textbooks.  It was written before I was born (out of respect for my mother I won’t explicitly say when), and it went over three competing theories regarding the birth and eventual fate of the Universe.  Even then, you could see that the Big Bang model was starting to edge out the now wildly unfashionable Steady State model.

The most popular cosmological model is the Big Bang model.  It says that 10 to 20 billion years ago, the universe violently exploded into being in an event called the Big Bang.

Before the Big Bang, all of the matter and radiation of our present universe were packed together in the primeval fireball – an extremely hot dense state from which the universe rapidly expanded.  The Big Bang was the start of time and space.

In the future, the original hydrogen will finally be used up in stars.  Then the stars and galaxies will all stop shining.  The universe which began with a fiery Big Bang will fade into darkness with a cold “whimper” if it continues to expand indefinitely[1].

I still remember the awe and reverence I had for such an event, if true.  What an explosion!  In my little child mind, I could almost envision space beginning to exist, but the idea of time beginning to exist seemed completely beyond my capacity for understanding.  It still is.  My mother’s astronomy textbook continued by explaining the other two theories.  First, that the Universe oscillates.  That is, eventually, gravity will overcome all the galaxies and stars in the Universe, and will eventually pull everything back to a singularity, and the process repeats itself.  Lastly, it presented the Steady State model.  Pay careful attention to the last paragraph.

The Steady State model says that the universe does not evolve or change in time.  There was no beginning in the past and there will be no end in the future.  Past, present, future – the universe is the same forever.

Most astronomers dislike the Steady State model because it contradicts basic observations.  It says that new hydrogen is continuously created without explaining where the new hydrogen comes from.  Such creation violates a basic law of physics – the law of conservation of energy – which states that the total energy in an isolated system always remains the same.  Energy cannot be created or destroyed, although transformations may occur within the system.

Those astronomers who favor the Steady State model like it because of its philosophical appeal.  It defines a universe that always existed in the past and will always exist in the future.

That’s quite remarkable, isn’t it?  Some astronomers – acolytes of the scientific method and disciples of pure reason – favored an outdated model that contradicts basic observations because of its philosophical appeal?  Since when is science so blindly dogmatic?  Insert canned laughter here.

The fact remains.  Many astronomers, philosophers, and scientists rejected the idea of the Big Bang out of hand based on philosophical and theological grounds.  They saw it as an attempt to inject a creation event into cosmology.  The matter wasn’t helped by the fact that Georges Lemaître, the astronomer who first proposed that the Universe was expanding and therefore was once all in the exact same point, was a Catholic priest.  Fred Hoyle, who coined the term “Big Bang” pejoratively on a radio program in 1949, believed that the idea that the Universe was created directly implies the existence of a Creator[2].  He found the Steady State model much less troubling, and kept believing it long after it went out of vogue, like wearing a powder-blue leisure suit to Times Square New Year’s Eve Party, 1999.

Indeed, the idea of an Absolute Beginning certainly raises one question in the minds of everyone who hears about it.  What caused the Big Bang?  What happened before the Big Bang really isn’t explained by the theory, nor can it be.  Time began at the Big Bang, thus it’s meaningless to speculate what preceded it.  Stephen Hawking responds to the question of what preceded the Big Bang by rhetorically asking, “What is north of the North Pole?”  Unsatisfying, isn’t it?  In fact, there are many scientific theories that attempt to explain what happened before the Big Bang, but due to entropy and the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, an Absolute Beginning seems inescapable.  According to P. C. W. Davies, the Universe must have begun to exist at a finite time ago and is in the process of winding down[3].

The evidence for the Big Bang seems insurmountable nowadays.  I’m probably a member of the first generation who has been taught in class that the Big Bang is an almost certainty.  If the Big Bang didn’t really happen, then not only are we wrong about some things in science, a massive overhaul of everything we’ve done in the last 300 years would be required.  As time goes on this seems less and less likely, and the longer we go without finding good evidence against an Absolute Beginning, the stronger I feel that the case for a Prime Mover gets.

This is why my conversation with my Elder friend who didn’t accept the Big Bang was so curious to me.  First, how could he reject the Big Bang in the face of so much scientific evidence?  In fairness, I suppose I’m familiar with Christians rejecting scientific evidence that appears threatening.  We need look no further than our friend Charles Darwin for that.  Yet that leads me to my second objection.  Why reject scientific evidence that seems to be in our favor?  Whose side are you on anyway?

I’ve thought about this quite a bit since then and I’ve got a couple possible explanations.

1. Many Christians automatically reject the Big Bang based merely on the fact that it’s a scientific explanation of the Universe’s creation.  Science is the opponent of faith and must therefore be treated with suspicion and doubt immediately.

2. My Mormon Elder friend rejected it because he feels that it implies creation ex nihilo (out of nothing), which is rejected by Mormon cosmology.

Is belief in the Big Bang incompatible with LDS cosmology?  Indeed, William Lane Craig has brilliantly attacked the Mormon conception of God for this reason in the recent Christian apologetic work The New Mormon Challenge, prompting Blake Ostler to brilliantly respond by defending the Mormon conception of God.  Joseph Smith taught that the elements were eternal, that the Universe was not created ex nihilo, and that our spirits or intelligences are co-eternal with God.  There was no beginning – time is an eternal round.  One could possibly argue that matter may exist eternally, and its temporality is a property that was given to it by God at the moment of Creation, thus explaining “time’s arrow” and increasing entropy in the Universe, but I’m not a scientist.  I’m not a philosopher.  I’m not the smartest guy in the world, nor am I the most clever.  I’m not the first person to struggle with these thoughts, and I certainly won’t be the last (especially if my kids inherit my existential genes).  So if I were to claim that I can work out which of these two viewpoints is right, I would be lying.  I’m not sure I have that capability.

But for some reason I find great comfort in the idea of the Big Bang.  I still consider it with childlike awe, and firmly believe that God put that awe into me for a reason.  Whenever there is a waver in my faith, God points His glowing finger towards that singularity.  Science tells us that a finite amount of time ago, the Universe came into being, and it came into being with an amazing complexity.  The more I study the way the Universe works, the more I stand in wonder at its grandeur and beauty.  Non-locality, quantum mechanics, higher dimensions, biology, star formation.  It’s a gorgeous place we live in, the Universe.  Whether the Big Bang was a creation ex nihilo or a creation out of pre-existing materials, I am still led to believe that the Universe as we know it began to exist a finite time ago, with all its life-sustaining complexity.  And it is this Beginning that I worship.

Think about it.  If God doesn’t exist, then the Big Bang is indistinguishable from God.  It is the event that caused all things that I know, love, experience, feel, and see.  My personality, my religion, my country, my planet, and my galaxy were encoded in the Big Bang event, because it was that event that started a chain of events that led to those things.  Change enough of the variables in that event, and not only would I not have existed, but a life-permitting Universe would never have emerged.  I owe my existence to that event.

1. Moche, Dinah L. Astronomy: A Self-Teaching Guide. 3rd Edition.  New York: John Wiley and Sons.  1987.

2. Quentin Smith, A Big Bang Cosmological Argument For God’s Nonexistence. Faith and Philosophy. April 1992 (Volume 9, No. 2, pp. 217–237)

3. P.C.W. Davies, The Physics of Time Asymmetry (London: Surrey University Press, 1974), p. 104.

Then I remembered that I’m married, so who cares if I look like a geek?  What, are they not going to go out with me?  I like being married for this and many other reasons.

But today I had another “oh, great” moment when I found the following headline:  “Video shows chicks ground up alive at egg hatchery“.  The quite disturbing (to me) video in question can be found here.  Great!  So not only are companies committing cruel acts towards animals, I’ve been contributing to this ever since I was born!

It’s not like I didn’t know that the animal harvesting business is cruel.  If you don’t believe me, a quick Google search of “meat industry cruelty” will convince you very quickly.  I remember once I boycotted Kentucky Fried Chicken for probably over a year due to the fact that some of their practices led to poor treatment of chickens, overcrowding, etc.  I’m in Kentucky, remember!  Avoiding KFC in Kentucky is like trying to avoid getting hit by raindrops in Portland.  However, a couple months ago my co-worker brought in a bucket of the Colonel’s Original Recipe and I just couldn’t resist.  It was just so good.

So I’m part of the problem, I suppose.  As I watched this video of these cute little helpless chicks being ground up alive, my mind pondered a few things.

First of all, isn’t it strange that this strikes me as “wrong”?  On Earth, Nature is incredibly cruel.  Lions must hunt down sick, weak gazelles, chase them down and bite them in the neck till they suffocate and die.  Polar bears have to eat baby seals.  That’s just the way Nature works, so why does it strike me as cruel?  It strengthened the idea, to me, that there’s something inside us that isn’t “of this world,” or else why would cruelty register at all?

Secondly, the practices at the egg hatcheries make sense, on paper.  Male chicks have little value to the industry.  They don’t grow big or fast enough to sell as food (I can think of a few starving countries in this world that would love a shipment of thousands of free male chickens, but that’s another matter), and they don’t lay eggs.  The hatcheries just do what has to be done.  Grinding them alive is a lot more humane than other ways to kill them.

Still, it bothers me.  I can’t help but admit that it bothers me, and there’s something inside that just wonders if what we’re doing is right.  Unfortunately, I can’t get around the fact that, by eating eggs, I’m condoning those practices as well.  What is the solution?  Should I stop eating eggs?  Should I go vegetarian?

Then I remembered a little something I read once.  It goes like this:

12 Yea, flesh also of beasts and of the fowls of the air, I, the Lord, have ordained for the use of man with thanksgiving; nevertheless they are to be used sparingly;
13 And it is pleasing unto me that they should not be used, only in times of winter, or of cold, or famine.
14 All grain is ordained for the use of man and of beasts, to be the staff of life, not only for man but for the beasts of the field, and the fowls of heaven, and all wild animals that run or creep on the earth;
15 And these hath God made for the use of man only in times of famine and excess of hunger.

Umm, what if we all actually lived the Word of Wisdom?

Now don’t get me wrong, people.  I’m a burger-eating, kebab-loving American just like the next guy.  I wouldn’t consider myself “liberal” and I didn’t vote for Obama.  Before you label me as some kind of Communist, tree-hugging, pinko, PETA spy planted to infiltrate the Mormon blogging community, consider some facts.

Let’s assume that eggs are included in “the flesh of beasts and fowls of the air.”  Americans love meat.  Americans love eggs.  We can’t even get through a meal without one or the other.  Vegetarian sections of menus at restaurants are basically footnotes, and every big family meal needs a pot roast or a turkey or a ham, and as a result, we live in a culture that relies on meat.  This means the model of having a family farm, where you grow up with the animals and slaughter the fatted calf only during times of great celebration, is no longer viable as an option.

Think about the family farm.  Each meat eater must take care of the animals on the farm and slaughter them personally.  Each animal is rationed, fed, sheltered, and generally taken care of until it is necessary to eat.  Perhaps I’m wrong, but I imagine this model fosters a more compassionate relationship with the animals that are slaughtered.  For instance, most Americans would be revolted at the prospect of eating a family pet (say, a dog for instance).  Why?  Well, dogs are family, and you don’t eat family.  A familial relationship with an animal creates a reverence for that animal’s life.

In our current society most people don’t even associate the meat they eat with livestock, and they certainly don’t know how to slaughter an animal themselves.  This creates a disconnection between people and the animals they eat.  Due to the quantity of animals we eat, we now have to treat animals literally like items on an assembly line.  The Lord said “it is pleasing unto me that they [animals] should not be used” except during certain times like famine.  Christ even said that one sparrow doesn’t fall to the ground without God noticing (Matt. 10:29).

If we again assume that unnecessary animal suffering is displeasing to God, well, He already gave us a solution, didn’t he?  It’s in Section 89 of the Doctrine and Covenants, quoted above.

And yet, when you ask a Latter-day Saint what the Word of Wisdom is, a disproportionately large amount of time is spent on whether decaffeinated coffee is okay, or whether hot chocolate and iced tea are “hot drinks,” or about tannic acid or prescription medication or medicinal marijuana, or whether we can drink Mountain Dew daily.  What about the direct consequences of animal suffering?  What if eating meat sparingly was explicitly part of the temple recommend questions?  Imagine if the For the Strength of Youth pamphlet mentioned, “The Word of Wisdom is not just about tobacco and alcohol.  Eating meat and eggs sparingly reduces overcrowding at egg hatcheries and cattle farms, which cause animals, which God gave us and commanded us to be good stewards over, to suffer from stress, pain, anxiety, and fatigue.”  Not to mention that the cattle and pig industries cause pollution of our air and water, but that’s a different post altogether.

I don’t think I’ll become a vegetarian anytime soon, and I’m not necessarily even making the argument that eating meat is fundamentally wrong.  Yet, the article and video were eye-opening, to me.  From now on, I’m going to drastically cut my meat and eggs intake, partly because of the effect it has on the environment, and the quality of life of the livestock and chickens we use, but also out of obedience to my Heavenly Father.

What if I cut down my meat consumption to perhaps one meal a day?  I usually have cereal for breakfast, but I eat meat for lunch and dinner.  If I cut out meat from one of those meals, I’d be roughly cutting my meat consumption in half.  It’s a place to start, anyway.  Perhaps soon, down the road a bit, I could cut out a little more meat than that.  I’m not expecting myself to make a huge, drastic lifestyle change right away, but think of the good that can be done if we all just cut down our meat consumption in half.

We are always looking for magical, new ways to change the World we live in for the better, yet we’re quite blind sometimes to living by what has already been revealed.  The Word of Wisdom was given almost 200 years ago.  It’s about time I start living it.

I’ve always enjoyed books about world religions, especially the obscure and forgotten, but I was expecting something rather bland, or apologetic, or dismissive.  I was pleasantly surprised.  This one was actually very unbiased, concise, and interesting.  It didn’t break any new ground, necessarily, except that it offered interesting comparisons and contrasts with other major world religions.

I found that book packed in an anonymous box last week and decided to give it another read.  As I read about Guru Nanak I was struck by one tiny thing: how comparatively little we really know about him or his life.  How can anyone believe in a prophet whose life we can’t relentlessly scrutinize?

I’m not going to go into detail about his life here.  A quick appeal to Wikipedia will take care of the information you need to get started, I guess, but let me get to the thrust of this post.  How do we test the fruits of a prophet we know so little about?  As I read, my mind went over the prophet I feel I know so well, Joseph Smith, and I was impressed by how we scrutinize his life for tiny details.  Every scrap of information about his life has been scoured by historians, theologians, apologists, and lay-people, for clues as to whether he is a true prophet, and yet no-one to date has really been able to come to a consensus.  Was he a charlatan?  A saint?  A prophet?  A nut?

Right around the time of Christopher Columbus, northern India was embroiled, as it is now, in a theological struggle between Hindu and Muslim.  To be fair, Guru Nanak does have a few interesting sources about his life (all written after his death), but for the most part, we know little about him compared to Joseph Smith.  The people he lived with in the north of India spent their entire lives agonizing and struggling over their age-old question: which religion is right, Hinduism or Islam?  No doubt many people prayed mightily towards Heaven asking for divine guidance.  Is Hinduism worth dying for?  Was Mohamed really a true prophet?  That struggle was personified in Guru Nanak, whose simple initial revelation, “There is neither Hindu nor Muslim,” must have jarred most of his listeners.  “Neither Hindu nor Muslim?” they must have asked themselves.  “What else is there?”

I felt moved with immense compassion as I read about this struggle, especially in light of the invasion of India by the Moguls.  Here was a whole civilization, turned over by wars and religious strife, foreign to Americans, who lived and died struggling with the great questions of the soul, and here was a prophet among them, Guru Nanak, who offered peace, and eschewed outward ordinances in favor of clean living and always remembering God in your heart.

How can I possibly determine whether Guru Nanak is a true prophet if I have so little information about him?  Where are all the documents?  Stanford hasn’t done any word imprint studies on his writings, his mother never wrote a Biography of his life.  There are definitely no Sikhs here in Lexington repeatedly bearing testimony to me, “I know that Guru Nanak was a true prophet.”  Not to say there isn’t any information about him (and, to be fair, there are some Sikhs here in Lexington, if you seek them out, pun intended) but it seems quite lean compared to what we have about Joseph Smith.

Let us swing back a few thousand years and move a few hundred miles to the West to Iran, where we find the cradle of  another world religion, that of Zoroastrianism.  One could easily argue that Zoroastrianism is the grandfather of all monotheistic faiths.  They have been around for thousands of years, though their numbers have dwindled in the last couple centuries.  Want to approach Zoroastrianism objectively, and test the fruits of Zoroaster (Zarathustra)?  What do we know about him?  Well, a quick survey of historians will reveal that he probably lived sometime between 6000 BC and 100 BC.  That’s right, we can nail down his life to a 5900-year period.  Recently, the number has settled right around 1100 to 1000 BC, but how on God’s Green Earth are we supposed to find out if Zoroaster was a true prophet if we can’t even agree on the millennium in which he lived?

And where did Zoroaster live in this period of time?  I’ll quote Wikipedia this time:

Yasna 9 & 17 cite the Ditya River in Airyanem Vaējah (Middle Persian Ērān Wēj) as Zoroaster’s home and the scene of his first appearance. Nowhere in the Avesta (both Old and Younger portions) is there a mention of the Achaemenids or of any West Iranian tribes such as the Medes, Persians, or even Parthians.

However, in Yasna 59.18, the zaraθuštrotema, or supreme head of the Zoroastrian priesthood, is said to reside in ‘Ragha’. In the ninth to twelfth century Middle Persian texts of Zoroastrian tradition, this ‘Ragha’ – along with many other places – appear as locations in Western Iran. While Medea does not figure at all in the Avesta (the westernmost location noted in scripture is Arachosia), the Būndahišn, or “Primordial Creation,” (20.32 and 24.15) puts Ragha in Medea (medieval Rai). However, in Avestan, Ragha is simply a toponym meaning “plain, hillside.”

Apart from these indications in Middle Persian sources which are open to interpretations, there are a number of other sources. The Greek and Latin sources are divided on the birth place of Zarathustra. There are many Greek accounts of Zarathustra, referred usually as Persian or Perso-Median Zoroaster. Moreover they have the suggestion that there has been more than one Zoroaster. On the other hand in post-Islamic sources Shahrastani (1086-1153) an Iranian writer originally from Shahristān, present-day Turkmenistan, proposed that Zoroaster’s father was from Atropatene (also in Medea) and his mother was from Rai. Coming from a reputed scholar of religions, this was a serious blow for the various regions who all claimed that Zoroaster originated from their homelands, some of which then decided that Zoroaster must then have then been buried in their regions or composed his Gathas there or preached there. Also Arabic sources of the same period and the same region of historical Persia consider Azerbaijan as the birth place of Zarathustra.

By the late twentieth century the consensus among some scholars had settled on an origin in Eastern Iran and/or Central Asia (to include present-day Afghanistan): Gnoli proposed Sistan (though in a much wider scope than the present-day province) as the homeland of Zoroastrianism; Frye voted for Bactria and Chorasmia; Khlopin suggests the Tedzen Delta in present-day Turkmenistan. Sarianidi considered the BMAC region as “the native land of the Zoroastrians and, probably, of Zoroaster himself.” Boyce includes the steppes of the former Soviet republics. The medieval “from Media” hypothesis is no longer taken seriously, and Zaehner has even suggested that this was a Magi-mediated issue to garner legitimacy, but this has been likewise rejected by Gershevitch and others.

So we know where he lived, give or take a thousand miles, and we know what time period, give or take a few thousand years.  And by the way, there may have been more than one Zoroaster.

Again I ask, how do we know a true prophet?  The Bible says a few things, but let’s focus on one:

Matthew 7:15-20

15 Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
16 Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
17 Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth devil fruit.
18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
19 Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.
20 Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

So my question is, how do we test the fruits of these prophets? Not only these prophets, but anyone who has claimed revelation in the past.  What about Mani, who led the people now known as Manicheans, who expanded upon what he saw as truths in Christianity and Zoroastrianism? What of Confucius, whose followers led thousands in Ancient China (all bureaucrats in the government were well-versed in Confucian texts). Do we know as much about Mo Tzu, whose teachings were seen as a real competitor to Confucianism early in its history, as we do about Sidney Rigdon or John Taylor or Thomas S. Monson?

A few possibilities come immediately to mind, some conclusions that easily could be made by the modern reader.

1. We don’t need to test their fruits. Zoroaster was a prophet who lived thousands of years ago, to a people who lived thousands of years ago. These people don’t pertain to us. We know the truth, and we can just forget about these guys.  Besides, if they were so right, where are they now?

Forgive me, but doesn’t this seem like an arrogant conclusion? To dismiss an honest, sincere group of people because of distance or difference seems quite wrong, at least to my heart, especially in the case of Zoroaster, whose religion has endured longer than any other monotheistic religion, and that historians even date to before Judaism (many historians believe that it was actually the Babylonian exile, and the Jews’ exposure to Zoroastrian thought, that really ironed out their concepts of Heaven and Hell, God and the Devil, etc.).  If time is any indication of truth, it’s arguably on their side, not ours.

2. We can automatically dismiss anyone who didn’t teach about Christ.

Fair enough, if you believe Christ really was the Son of God, which I do, for the record. However, how many of Basava’s followers knew about Christ or His teachings? Guru Nanak’s world was divided into Hindus and Muslims, and the wars between them. Christ, to them, was some obscure prophet, mentioned in the Qur’an, or maybe a Bodhisattva, but not really someone whom the average person knew about. Furthermore, is it useless for a prophet to teach about loving one another in a land where Christ’s name is not mentioned? Is a prophet not “true” if he teaches that we should cease our murders and contentions and try our best to live a holy, charitable life?

3. We can dismiss them because we don’t have any useful information about their lives, like we do about Joseph Smith. We simply can’t test their fruits, and thus we can see that God doesn’t want us to know about them. If God wanted us to know about them, information about them would have fallen into our (or Joseph Smith’s) hands.

Pleading ignorance?  Really? “We don’t need to know something because we don’t know something.” This may be precisely the reason why most people in the world don’t know who Jesus Christ really is. “If God wanted me, here in Urumqi (or Jakarta or Chongking or Tokyo or anywhere else not predominantly Christian), to know about Jesus Christ, God would have sent that information here, but He hasn’t.”

4. We can dismiss any religion whose followers are a tiny group compared to the whole. For instance, why study the teachings of Alevi Muslims if they are such a minority in the world, even amongst the Muslim world?

For the record, there are probably more Alevi Muslims in the world as there are Latter-day Saints, and the Alevi are a tiny minority compared to the Muslim World as a whole. Secondly, when has truth been determined by the majority? And what was the result?

5. The particulars of a prophet’s life aren’t important, what matters is the fruits we see in the followers.

Take quantum mechanics as some sort of analogy here.  By the 1800s, Newtonian Physics had pretty much permeated all of the scientific community.  Edmund Halley’s orbital prediction of what is now called Halley’s Comet was regarded as an ultimate triumph of Newtonian Physics, and the philosophers finally concluded that if one could know the starting positions of all the atoms and matter in the Universe, one could calculate all of history over billions of years.  However, when we really started to dissect the atom, Newton’s ideas broke down on the quantum level.  We discovered entanglement and particle spin and all sorts of new, amazing, sometimes counter-intuitive facts about how things work on a tiny scale.  Yet, to this day, we haven’t seemed to reconcile Quantum Mechanics with the Universe on a large scale, and the search for a Unified Theory is one of the most interesting searches in physics.

So the resulting Universe we see has emergent properties that seem (we’re still working on this) different than the properties on the Quantum level. Are prophets the same way? Does the whole of a religion have emergent properties that aren’t explained by the life of a single person who founded it? Can we test the “truth” of a religion by these emergent fruits, ignoring what the prophet did?

This seems a bit more plausible, considering there are so many prophets we don’t have information about. Except, is that really what we’re taught in the Church? Furthermore, what if the religion died out many years ago, so we can’t necessarily see the fruits of it now?

6. We can test a prophet by the book they brought forth. If we ask if the book is true, then we can know if the prophet is true. No book? Then see #3.

Does that mean that if you can’t read, then you’ll never know? Does that mean all the prophets in history who didn’t have a book are not true? Literacy is truth, and illiteracy is damnation? What about the Christians in the Middle Ages who didn’t have access to the Bible because the Bible was restricted to the clergy? Were they doomed, never having a true testimony?

7. Those prophets taught some truth, we know that from Latter-day revelation. Therefore, we can just accept that they taught some truths, but reading about them, knowing about them, or studying their teachings is unnecessary. All truth is contained in this Church.

This is pretty much what our Church teaches us, right? Certain prophets had access to the Light of Christ at certain times in history, and did much good, but we really needn’t concern ourselves with the particulars. I can’t help but thinking this is still being overly dismissive of other teachings, other cultures, and other people. Shouldn’t we search diligently for truth wherever it can be found? Joseph Smith seemed to snatch up truth wherever he saw it, whether it be in the rituals of the Masons or papyri he thought belonged to Abraham. This has led me to #8, which is closest to what I consider to be the truth.

8. The truth is complicated.

The older I get, the closer #8 seems to reality.  However, I thank God that I’m in a religion right now that can tie the Human Family together in a way that accepts and appreciates truths everywhere and anywhen.  In the darkest times at night, and on Sundays when I listen to what’s taught from the pulpit, and when I travel and see people of all different colors and faiths and nationalities, and when I read history books full of brave men and women who sacrificed their lives for their faith, even faiths much different than my own, I don’t have to accept on blind faith the conclusion that the majority of my family (the Human Race) is damned for Eternity for not knowing the name of Christ.  There isn’t a privileged time or place for personal salvation.

And this is very comforting to me.

In Logic, we learn that it is a fallacy to use something to verify itself. Let me give you an example from my Logic textbook from class (I’m not making this up):

The Book of Mormon is true because it was written by Joseph Smith. Joseph Smith wrote the truth because he was divinely inspired. We know that Joseph Smith was divinely inspired because the Book of Mormon says that he was, and the Book of Mormon is true.

Let me add that I don’t go to BYU, this is a secular class at a secular university. I thought it was quite amusing to find something like that in my textbook. So, never mind the example, it should be obvious that this is circular reasoning. We can’t use the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith to verify each other. We need a confirmation from an independent source, such as the Holy Ghost in this case. Can you imagine what our life would be like if we just believed anything that claimed to be true?

After we discussed this example in class (no one knew I was LDS), I began to think about this and approached my teacher after class. I asked him, “Let me ask you something, how do we know that Logic is true except through a logical process? And how do we know human reasoning is true except through human reasoning?” He told me that I wasn’t the first person to think of this, and there is a field called Meta-Logic that tries to understand why we use Logic, but the fact of the matter is, Logic is just the best we can conceive of given our brains, and all we really have to go on.

Which basically means that we can’t really say that we know anything, except maybe that we ourselves exist (cogito ergo sum). Christian theologian William Lane Craig, in his debate against atheist Peter Atkins, argues that in order to believe Science, there are just some things that we have to assume are true despite the fact that we can’t prove them to be true, such as that other minds exist, that the speed of light is constant, that the Universe didn’t appear five minutes ago with the appearance of age, etc. We may say that we can derive strong inferences about the Universe based on the evidence we experience in what we think is our memories.

But the obvious conclusion, one that hardly needs proving, is that human reasoning is flawed.

Then again, our minds are pretty amazing at the same time. In fact, there are lots of things a human mind can do that a computer or an animal’s brain can’t do, such as contemplate its own existence. So can we rely on our own thoughts or not?

When I came to my revelation outlined in the last post, I was praying for an answer, sort of, but really I was just thinking. In hindsight, I think that most answers I get from God come from this type of activity. In a way, one could say that I wasn’t necessarily having a conversation with God, nor was I asking for an answer, but I was trying to align my thoughts with God’s thoughts, at least momentarily. Or, in other words, I was trying to think how God thinks for a short amount of time, so I could see the purpose and answer to my nagging question. Now, I don’t have the capacity of thinking as the Lord does. For that, I would need God’s mind, which I don’t have. I have a man’s mind. And yet, as I thought, I was trying to see the Universe as God sees it.

The “Classical” Model of Revelation as taught by the LDS Church could be built in several ways. I will represent it thus:

Dilemma -> Study -> Ask -> Revelation -> Act -> Confirmation

Or, in other words, we encounter a dilemma, we study the issue out in our minds, we ask God to give us an answer, he gives us revelation, we act on that revelation, and then He reveals to us a confirmation through the Holy Ghost that we did the right thing.

In “real life” however, things aren’t quite so perfect. Sometimes we ask and we get no revelation whatsoever, then we have to act on our own accord, when suddenly God confirms to us that we made the right decision. Sometimes we receive revelation out of the blue, telling us to do something or solve a problem we didn’t know existed. The different elements of the revelation model can happen out of order or not at all. I received my answer as I was studying, before I had really asked God a question.

Perhaps it was because, for a small moment, God allowed me to think as He thinks.

Isaiah says it quite elegantly in Isaiah 55:7-9.

7 Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.
9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Of course, we don’t have the capacity for thought that the Lord has. Any type of revelation I receive is like a two-dimensional shadow of a three-dimensional object. Most would find my “answer” to my previous question (music) to be completely unsatisfactory, and I would say to them that this is because it is one possible shadow of the three-dimensional object of the question, and that a different shadow would be more satisfactory to them. That’s why it’s personal revelation.

But it’s kind of interesting to think that perhaps I got a small, two-dimensional glimpse of something bigger. So that will be my goal as I pray now. Perhaps prayer does not always have to be a rote, rehearsed, structured thing. Perhaps the studying and meditating is just as important, and as we try our best to align our thoughts with God’s thoughts, or at least force our thoughts through the lens of God, we will be given more glimpses of what he sees.

Don’t just think. GodThink.

I should copyright that.

As I type, I can see that the desk in front of me has width, length, and depth.  I can perceive all three dimensions simultaneously.  People like Steven Hawking insist that time is a dimension also.  And yet, while the first three dimensions are easily and immediately perceived by my mind, time has a completely different quality.

I cannot travel to my birth, nor can I perceive my death.  For some reason, I’m trapped in the “present.”  Once I have measured an amount of time, it has vanished forever.  I cannot go back and measure and re-measure the same second over and over again, and I cannot perceive something in the future at all.  Upon closer inspection, even the present is an illusion, for it has no duration, right?

My wife tells me sometimes that I think too much, and this might be evidence for that.  However, as I made these observations, I kept asking to myself, “Why is it so?  Why can I not perceive time as I perceive space?”

I wrote to some of my smarter friends and they offered what they hoped would be advice, but their answers ended up being tautologies; namely, time is a dimension unlike the other dimensions because it has qualities that are different than the other dimensions.  Still the question troubled me.  Why is it so?  It seems that we’re speeding through life, unable to really stop and view cause and effect simultaneously.  In my mind, it would make more “sense” if time were ever-present and we could view possible causes and effects simultaneously.  Interestingly, it is often said in religious circles (not just LDS) that God possesses this capability. More on this in a moment.

I then turned to Philosophy, and it seems these questions have been asked before.  Let’s turn to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

The very expression ‘the perception of time’ invites objection. Insofar as time is something different from events, we do not perceive time as such, but changes or events in time. But, arguably, we do not perceive events only, but also their temporal relations. So, just as it is natural to say that we perceive spatial distances and other relations between objects (I see the dragonfly as hovering above the surface of the water), it seems natural to talk of perceiving one event following another (the thunderclap as following the flash of lightening), though even here there is a difficulty. For what we perceive, we perceive as present—as going on right now. Can we perceive a relation between two events without also perceiving the events themselves? If not, then it seems we perceive both events as present, in which case we must perceive them as simultaneous, and so not as successive after all. There is then a paradox in the notion of perceiving an event as occurring after another, though one that perhaps admits of a straightforward solution. When we perceive B as coming after A, we have, surely, ceased to perceive A. In which case, A is merely an item in our memory. Now if we wanted to construe ‘perceive’ narrowly, excluding any element of memory, then we would have to say that we do not, after all, perceive B as following A.

Okaaaaay.  This is the point where I usually say something like, “Well, crap.”  Because it means that people much smarter than me have thought about this and they haven’t really come to a conclusion either.

After reading all this, I think I can tell what you’re thinking.  “Arthur, what’s the freakin point here?  Why are you dragging us through this?  This is MormonMatters, not PhilosophyMatters.”  Well, I’m of the opinion that the implications and solutions of any problem are theological in nature, theology being the framework through which we choose to view the world.  I’m not the first to think of this theologically anyway.  The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy points us to St. Augustine’s Confessions. After reading a bit of his section on Time, I became hooked.

11.11.13

Who speak thus, do not yet understand Thee, O Wisdom of God, Light of souls, understand not yet how the things be made, which by Thee, and in Thee are made: yet they strive to comprehend things eternal, whilst their heart fluttereth between the motions of things past and to come, and is still unstable. Who shall hold it, and fix it, that it be settled awhile, and awhile catch the glory of that everfixed Eternity, and compare it with the times which are never fixed, and see that it cannot be compared; and that a long time cannot become long, but out of many motions passing by, which cannot be prolonged altogether; but that in the Eternal nothing passeth, but the whole is present; whereas no time is all at once present: and that all time past, is driven on by time to come, and all to come followeth upon the past; and all past and to come, is created, and flows out of that which is ever present? Who shall hold the heart of man, that it may stand still, and see how eternity ever still-standing, neither past nor to come, uttereth the times past and to come? Can my hand do this, or the hand of my mouth by speech bring about a thing so great?

11.13.16

Nor dost Thou by time, precede time: else shouldest Thou not precede all times. But Thou precedest all things past, by the sublimity of an ever-present eternity; and surpassest all future because they are future, and when they come, they shall be past; but Thou art the Same, and Thy years fail not. Thy years neither come nor go; whereas ours both come and go, that they all may come. Thy years stand together, because they do stand; nor are departing thrust out by coming years, for they pass not away; but ours shall all be, when they shall no more be. Thy years are one day; and Thy day is not daily, but To-day, seeing Thy To-day gives not place unto to-morrow, for neither doth it replace yesterday. Thy To-day, is Eternity; therefore didst Thou beget The Coeternal, to whom Thou saidst, This day have I begotten Thee. Thou hast made all things; and before all times Thou art: neither in any time was time not.

11.14.17

At no time then hadst Thou not made any thing, because time itself Thou madest. And no times are coeternal with Thee, because Thou abidest; but if they abode, they should not be times. For what is time? Who can readily and briefly explain this? Who can even in thought comprehend it, so as to utter a word about it? But what in discourse do we mention more familiarly and knowingly, than time? And, we understand, when we speak of it; we understand also, when we hear it spoken of by another. What then is time? If no one asks me, I know: if I wish to explain it to one that asketh, I know not: yet I say boldly that I know, that if nothing passed away, time past were not; and if nothing were coming, a time to come were not; and if nothing were, time present were not. Those two times then, past and to come, how are they, seeing the past now is not, and that to come is not yet? But the present, should it always be present, and never pass into time past, verily it should not be time, but eternity. If time present (if it is to be time) only cometh into existence, because it passeth into time past, how can we say that either this is, whose cause of being is, that it shall not be; so, namely, that we cannot truly say that time is, but because it is tending not to be?

11.15.18

And yet we say, “a long time” and “a short time”; still, only of time past or to come. A long time past (for example) we call an hundred years since; and a long time to come, an hundred years hence. But a short time past, we call (suppose) often days since; and a short time to come, often days hence. But in what sense is that long or short, which is not? For the past, is not now; and the future, is not yet. Let us not then say, “it is long”; but of the past, “it hath been long”; and of the future, “it will be long.” O my Lord, my Light, shall not here also Thy Truth mock at man? For that past time which was long, was it long when it was now past, or when it was yet present? For then might it be long, when there was, what could be long; but when past, it was no longer; wherefore neither could that be long, which was not at all. Let us not then say, “time past hath been long”: for we shall not find, what hath been long, seeing that since it was past, it is no more, but let us say, “that present time was long”; because, when it was present, it was long. For it had not yet passed away, so as not to be; and therefore there was, what could be long; but after it was past, that ceased also to be long, which ceased to be.

St. Augustine seemed to believe that time is only a function of our Universe, and that God is not bound by the limits of perception that seem to bind us. To God, he said, the past, the present, and the future are one.

Mind you, Augustine’s perception of God was different than the LDS perception. To Latter-day Saints, God is not the formless entity that Augustine worshipped, with no parts and no body. To Augustine, God was simply unknowable. However, we’re still left with my original problem. Whether God experiences time or not, we do. I am again left with the question, why do we experience time the way we do?

I prayed quite a bit for the answer yesterday and today and as I drove to class this morning I received what I believed was an answer. I understand that what I believe to be revelation was given only to me and therefore it is personal revelation, and I’m almost hesitant to share it. However, the information contained therein is not apocalyptic nor is it controversial. The answer I received is music.

People who know me well know that this is pretty much my answer for everything, so give me a minute to explain.

My father once told a story about singing at a temple dedication when I was younger. I believe it was the St. Louis Temple, but that’s irrelevant. He said that as he was singing one part of a four-part chorus with the choir, in his mind he got a small, brief glimpse of the motion of the Universe. He saw the planets revolving around the Sun, the Sun moving in space in an arm of the galaxy. All the order that was in the spacing and duration of the notes he sang and the frequency and dynamics of each note in relation to every other note somehow related to the order in the Universe.

One might recall the words of Alma in his response to the skeptical Korihor in Alma 30, verse 44:

44 But Alma said unto him: Thou hast had signs enough; will ye tempt your God? Will ye say, Show unto me a sign, when ye have the testimony of all these thy brethren, and also all the holy prophets? The scriptures are laid before thee, yea, and all things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and call things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator.

My father’s revelation was not unlike mine. We’ve been given a glimpse of a “slice” of the Universe. We perceive time not as a whole but as a fleeting thing that is gone as soon as we measure it. Why is it so? What I believe to be God’s answer to me was, look at music. It only “works” because we perceive time as it is, for music is an art form that uses time as its medium. A song has a duration, we cannot perceive it all at once, like we would a painting. Music uses time itself as a canvas.

This may not necessarily be The Answer, but it answers the question sufficiently for me, at this time. We experience Time in this way because it has the potential for beauty, and thus it can give us joy. Is not this the reason for our existence? And if we perceived time all at once, could we experience the joy in the rhythmic pulsation of a heartbeat or a sonata? I submit to you that music in its current form would be meaningless without our limited perception of time. Perhaps if we become more like God, we could experience time as He does, if it truly is drastically different than how we experience it (I’m not 100% convinced, but the Scriptures give some insights there).

You may now wonder what this has to do with my model of prayer that I mentioned in the very first paragraph. As soon as I received my “answer” about one facet of the Universe’s nature, I wondered about the process that I used to find my answer. My observations about this process will be outlined in Time and Art, Part 2.

Late one night in the middle of it all, I considered my roommate. He was a friend of mine and also the Elders Quorum President. It came to my mind to ask him for a blessing, using consecrated oil. I desperately wanted to be healed from this chain of horrible sicknesses, and the prayer in my heart went something like this: “Lord, I know when I get blessings for these things, they usually don’t work, and I might be selfish to ask. But could you just do me a solid this one time? People got healed constantly of much worse than this in the Scriptures. I’m not testing you, I think. I just want to get better.” My roommate then administered the blessing, and, much to my dismay and anger, it didn’t work.

Let me pause for a moment to say that I have a strong testimony in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I’ve testified time and time again that Joseph Smith is a prophet and that the Book of Mormon is true and comes from God. So it’s moments like this that give me pause. I was a little irritated that the Lord wouldn’t just heal my illness. It had gone on too long, I had missed so many days of work, I had spent a lot of money on doctors and even antibiotics for the sinus infection, and I still wasn’t healed. I was having trouble sleeping, and, during the time I had the throat infection, I couldn’t eat solid food, so I was losing weight. It was all awful. I was doing everything I could in my life, I wasn’t guilty of any grievous sins, so why couldn’t the Lord just throw me a freakin’ bone and heal my illness just once? He healed all kinds of people in the Bible, why wouldn’t he heal me? What’s the point of Priesthood blessings if they don’t work?

In my feverish, angry mind, I went over some possibilities, in this order:

1. Maybe my roommate didn’t do it right? He performed both parts of the blessing, maybe I should have gotten two people to do it?
2. Maybe I simply don’t have the faith to be healed.
3. Maybe blessings are pointless rituals.
4. Maybe we don’t really have the Priesthood like we think we do.
5. Jesus healed many people over His ministry. What happened? Shouldn’t we be able to identify His church based on the miracles that occur?
6. Is this really His church?
7. Will the Universe really end someday in a Big Crunch and take us all with it? How can God stop it?

At this point, needless to say, I wasn’t thinking very clearly, so instead of trying to answer these questions that night, in my frenzied state, I decided to just take some Ny-Quil (sweet, precious Ny-Quil) and go to sleep.

Two weeks later, I woke up and went to work just like any other day. I brushed my teeth like any other day. I ate my morning Pop-Tart (brown sugar and cinnamon, which is the best flavor ever) just like any other day. As the dry pastry went down my throat I remembered for an instant that two weeks previously I couldn’t have eaten such a dry food because it would have been too painful, and it was at that moment that I realized I had been symptom-free for at least three days.

I offered up a prayer to the Lord and thanked Him for my health. With a more complete fullness of joy and gratitude than I’d had for months, I told Him that I was thankful that I felt better, thankful that I could go to work without being faint and queasy from lack of solid food, thankful that I could eat my dry little Pop-Tart for breakfast. I felt so good. In hindsight, let me say that it would have been very unusual for me to offer up a prayer such as this before I got sick, and that’s where the lesson for me was.

The purpose of my blessing at this time was to consecrate my illness unto the Lord. There are so many difficulties in this life, and for me, illness is a difficulty because I hate being sick. As a singer, and as a person who relies on food to stay not dead, I hate it when my throat hurts. I hate congestion, I hate having a fever, I hate aches and pains, I hate not getting a good night’s rest. But this time, asking for a blessing in the middle of my illness caused my thoughts to turn towards the Lord, even if they were confused and angry. It was like fasting, but instead of a fast from food it was a fast from health, and when I returned to full health, my heart was bursting with gratitude.

Am I denying that miraculous healings occur? Absolutely not. But God decided not to heal me during this illness, and that’s why I think that sometimes God gives men the Priesthood, the power to act in God’s name, in order to consecrate illness unto Him. To make our illness and affliction holy.

What if we looked at every hardship in this way? What if we saw every blessing of comfort, strength, and healing as a consecration of our hardships, that we might be open to the lessons God wishes to bestow upon us? Most importantly, and on the flip side of all of this, how do we avoid the strange but very possible temptation of taking too much glory in our affliction?

So, first tell us how you’re involved with Feel Good Music.
A: Growing up in Philly I learned to love music, all kinds. The one thing that is missing in today’s music genres is clean messages. Music that depicts life and real problems/emotions stands out. It moves you. I grew up with Young Sim and his vision for Feel Good Music inspired me.

Have you gotten calls for any other interviews yet?
A: I interviewed with Fox News (Channel 13) right after the incident but nothing else.

Explain what happened for the readers back home.
A: I was in American Fork and heard a shout. I looked up and a police officer was chasing a guy across the street into my parking lot towards me. I ran and headed him off, grabbed him and locked his arms behind him. After putting him on the ground I held him there till the police officer caught up and put the cuffs on him. 25 seconds later police cars from every direction crashed the scene with mean weapons and armor and things. I didn’t even know that there had been a man-hunt underway until later.

So this guy was armed and dangerous, and the cops were chasing him for miles, and you just stepped in and held him down?
A: That’s pretty much it. I had no idea that he was a fugitive. Just [that], if the cop was chasing him, he probably had a reason.

Have lots of people been congratulating you? Is it weird?
A: Yea, its been strange, humbling. I don’t think that I did something that anyone else wouldn’t do if they had been placed in the same situation. In the moment is was just the logical thing to do. In retrospect it was meaningful but I still don’t deserve praise.

My friend wanted me to ask you if you had eaten your Wheaties that morning.
A: Ha. No, I think I went without breakfast. Wish I had!

What is your future with Feel Good Music?
A: I believe Feel Good Music is going to revolutionize the face of music. It has a fresh vision and pure motivation behind it. That is something that I think people can connect with, really feel. Powerful lyrics with hot beats, it’s fun. As far as my future with Feel Good Music, I hope to be a part of it as it goes forward. Right now I am acting as the Promotor looking for venues to exhibit the music. That’s what it’s all about anyway. Call me!

I told Simeon that this isn’t just Feel Good, it’s DO Good. How has your faith influenced this and the other decisions in your life to do good?
A: That is so true. Yea Sim! God has given us all our abilities and he grants us the time we have. If we don’t use those abilities for good it is a waste. What we do with that time is our decision and it only makes sense that we take every opportunity. If we only live for ourselves we will live a very shallow and cold existence. My faith definitely pushes me to be be accountable for what I do with my time and how I help those around me. Talking does nothing, it’s about action. We all have to look out for each other cause if not us, then who?

Thanks for your work with Sim and your service to your community!
A: Hey, thanks a lot.

Reprinted with permission (from myself) from Linescratchers

One thing that hit me like a ton of bricks in the middle of a religion class at BYU was this:  I don’t know who the Holy Ghost is.  Even my religion instructor admitted ignorance on the subject, though speculation abounded.

The identity of our Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, is a big deal to us, so much so that it is one of the defining characteristics of our faith.  The first Article of Faith asserts the separate identities of the members of the Godhead, turning 1700 or so years of theological history on its head.  From the Bible Dictionary, under the entry for God:

We learn from the revelations that have been given that there are three separate persons in the Godhead: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. From latter-day revelation we learn that the Father and the Son have tangible bodies of flesh and bone, and that the Holy Ghost is a personage of spirit without flesh and bone (D&C 130: 22-23).

Fair enough.  So in the scriptures we learn about Heavenly Father:

1. He is our Father in a very literal sense.
2. He has a physical body (hands, arms, legs, eyes, etc.).
3. We worship Him.
4. We pray to Him.
5. He is a God.

Similarly, Jesus Christ is very similar to His Father.

1. He is our spiritual brother.
2. He obtained a physical body during His time in mortality on Earth.
3. We worship Him.
4. We pray in His name.
5. We do ordinances in His name.
6. He is a God.

The Holy Ghost is a “personage of spirit.”  We can conclude from this and a couple other passages in the scriptures that a personage of spirit looks like a man, but has no physical body.

To illustrate our ignorance, and the relative scarcity of information on the subject, I took the liberty of interviewing myself about the Holy Ghost:

1. Is the Holy Ghost our spirit brother? A: Umm.  I would guess so?  I think?

2. Is the Holy Ghost a “God”? A: He’s in the Godhead, right?  So I would have to go with Yes.  I think.

3. Do we worship the Holy Ghost? A: Not really.  It’s not the Church of the Holy Ghost.  We don’t pray in the name of the Holy Ghost.  We definitely use the Holy Ghost.  He’s our constant companion.  But we don’t worship Him.  If I prayed to the Holy Ghost, I would definitely feel like I’m doing it wrong.  So the answer is no, probably.

4. Will the Holy Ghost obtain a body? A: That would only be fair, right?  I have no idea.  Maybe?

5. So that means the Holy Ghost is inferior to God or Jesus? A: That doesn’t sound right.  Maybe?  It would seem so.

6. Is there only one Holy Ghost? A: Probably?

7. Why don’t we know anything about the Holy Ghost? A: Good question.

See what I’m getting at here?

Now, before this turns into another “Unbridled Speculation” thread, let me say that I’m not necessarily looking for the answers to these questions, per se.  What I’m really wondering is, why do we know so little about the Holy Ghost, his identity, his relationship to the other members of the Godhead, etc. compared to Christ and His Father?  Or if the information’s out there, why don’t I know it, even in light of me being a 25-year-old member who has served a full-time mission and has studied the scriptures pretty darn well for my whole life?  Is his/her/its identity so irrelevant that we simply don’t need to know?  So the Holy Ghost’s identity is just majorly de-emphasized in our curriculum?  And yet the Holy Ghost’s function is fundamental to our theology, our search for truth, people joining the Church, finding out its truthfulness, etc.  Take the following things into account:

1. The Holy Ghost is our constant companion.  We don’t know the identity of this being that is supposedly with us always?  Not only that, but the Holy Ghost “dwells within us!”  How comfortable are you with the idea of a being you don’t know living inside you?  Is this figurative or literal?

2. The Holy Ghost is essential for salvation, in a roundabout way.  We must have a testimony of Jesus Christ in order to be saved, and the only way to truly have a testimony of Christ is through the Spirit.  Yet we don’t know what the Holy Ghost actually is?

So why the mystery?

For me, I’ve found that if, for some reason, I discovered that if the Church isn’t true, I probably would join another faith.  Why?

Though it’s not very chic these days to say so, I love religion AND organized religion.  I believe that there is a power in organization that simply can’t be found in a loosely-knit group of believers, and this is due to a recent visit to another faith that I will describe below.  I think organized religion brings people together and makes it easier to send relief when an emergency happens.  I don’t think I can believe in a “do-it-yourself” religion where you just completely pick and choose what beliefs to have.  That’s why I feel that if I found out the Church isn’t true, I’d definitely go SOMEWHERE.  I’ve also spent a great deal of my life studying other religions and faiths because I love to know how other people think and feel.  This has led me to compile a list of possible places to go if I were to discover that the LDS faith were not the true faith.

Feel free to make your own list here!  My favorite religions, in no particular order, that I would consider joining if I left Mormonism.

1. Islam

My parents have always been very supportive of my learning about other faiths, and my mom encouraged me to learn about Islam.  I love the simplicity and beauty of Islam.  I like the idea of Islam because they don’t claim to know who God is or what he looks like or what our purpose is here.  The idea is that we just obey Allah, we will be blessed and have peace.  In fact, the word Islam means “submission,” and the root of the word (SLM) in the language family has ties to the concept of “peace” (think “salem” in Hebrew).  I like the mandatory prayers.  Though repetitive, I love how they are required to take time out of their days and offer a peaceful tribute to Allah.  These prayers give the faithful the time to focus their thoughts on God.  It’s like a Sabbath moment, three times or more a day.  Fasting during Ramadan seems like it would be a great way to be thankful for the food God has given us.

If I found out the LDS Church isn’t true, I would be tempted to try Islam.  It would be my way of letting go and just trying to do what God asks me to do.  I admit, I do not like the organization of Islam.  The lack of any centralized authority means there are fundamentalists and extremists that put a violent spin on the Qur’an, and have become terrorists and murderers.  I would have a hard time dealing with these members of my own faith, as I consider myself to be peaceful and pacifistic.  Would I join the Sunni or Shi’ite sect?  Actually, I would probably join the Alevi.  I love the peaceful and accepting attitude of the Alevi in Turkey.  Though not “mainstream” Islam, they are a peaceful group of 10 million and as part of their beliefs, they believe that we should not judge others on their beliefs.  I love their ideas of trying to “perfect” yourself.  There is no Original Sin and our consciousness is perfect, therefore we search through our lives to understand and embrace this perfect consciousness.

2. Eastern Orthodoxy

I have often said that if the Book of Mormon weren’t true, I’d have a hard time believing in Jesus of Nazareth.  It was the Book of Mormon that led me to believe in the Bible.  I wish we had books written by Jesus, or at least copies of the books about him from the original authors.  The idea that we only have copies of copies leaves me a bit queasy as far as evidence goes.  That having been said, if I wanted to stick with Christianity, I’d go for Eastern Orthodoxy.

I remember on my mission I got in quite a few “bashes.”  This wasn’t because I sought them out, of course, but because I was in West Texas, and there were many preachers and pastors out there who were attracted to us, just so they could argue.  Most of the time I feel like I did a great job of holding my own (thank you very much) but the only time I got floored, schooled, and beaten up in a bash was with a priest from an Orthodox Church.  His knowledge of early Christianity amazed me.  At the end of our “discussion,” I could have easily found myself saying, “Almost thou persuadest me to be an Eastern Orthodoxian.”  Or whatever they’re called.

I loved the idea of authority coming from the Apostles themselves.  The Orthodox Church seemed to be everything I loved in the Catholic Church without a couple of the annoying things that bother me about Catholicism (a more open canon, no pope, all Bishops are equal, less of the Church leadership is celibate, a “different” or more fluid idea of the Trinity).  To me, Orthodoxy seems like a purer, more mystical form of Christianity.  To find out more about Orthodoxy, read this excellent recent MormonMatters post.

3. Baha’i

Russell and I recently visited the service of a local Baha’i congregation.  It was small and it was in a local “Commonality House” that can be rented by whatever groups wish to attend.  I loved Baha’i because, while I was there, I truly felt loved and appreciated.  The whole idea of Baha’i is the unity and brotherhood of man.  They accept the teachings of Christ, Moses, Mohammed, and most other holy men.  However, they also accept the teachings of Bahá’u'lláh, a prophet of the 19th Century in Persia.  I love this religion because of how included I felt.  There was no dogma to speak of, just love for one another.  If any group truly demonstrates Christlike love for one another, I found it here at the Baha’i church.  The amazing thing I found is that when my Baha’i friends came to visit me at the LDS church, they were amazingly good at interfaith discourse.  They participated in lessons, they understood what was taught, and they were well-liked and loved by the people they met.  They’re truly an amazing group of people to say the least.

However, the advantages of this Church, I believe are also the disadvantages.  Russ and I have been putting off a full write-up of the Baha’i faith, but the thing I noticed overwhelmingly is that the faith had no teeth.  There were few rules, the congregation was encouraged to be themselves, attend other churches, and find what’s right for them, and search for truths everywhere.  I almost got the feeling I could be Baha’i and Mormon at the same time.  The few “rules” that they DID have seemed to only be suggestions.  A faith that doesn’t require any sacrifices and didn’t really teach a “way to live” seems impotent, at least to me.  If there were a natural disaster in town, I’d much rather trust the Catholic Charities than the Baha’i, unfortunately.  I loved all my friends from the Baha’i church, though, and would love to visit them all again sometime.

4. The Community of Christ

Ah, good old familiarity.  If I wanted to join a church and still have Nephi and Moroni and Joseph and Emma, I’d join the Community of Christ.  If somehow (I’m not sure how, but if somehow) the LDS Church were proven untrue in a way that still left the possibility open for Joseph Smith to be a prophet, I’d definitely visit the Community of Christ.  I love the Community of Christ because I’d still have Nephi the First (one of my personal faves), and I’d still be able to believe in Priesthood and Prophets.  The Community of Christ would give me a chance, not only to believe in these things, but explore them in new and interesting ways, because they are much more free-wheeling than the LDS Church.  They tend to place much of the search for truth in the hands of the believers.  This is easy to like, for me.  However, for the purposes of this discussion, I think choosing the Community of Christ might be cheating a little.

There are many other faiths I like to read about, but I’ll leave the rest of the discussion to you.

If the LDS Church weren’t true, and you DID have to join another Church, where would YOU go?

This is not the point of my post here, though. I recently had a conversation with my fiancee about Rastafarianism, mentioning that Rastas believe that Jesus Christ was black. I admitted that, though I personally don’t see much evidence for that, I did concede that Jesus probably looked very different than what most Mormons envision.

A lot of new Mormon art depicts a very clean, good-looking Christ. There is “beauty, that we may desire him.” Here’s an example from a very popular artist among Latter-day Saints, Simon Dewey:

I’ve always preferred the depictions of Christ done by Harry Anderson. They seemed marginally more authentic to me than the newer, “shinier” depictions of a Christ who had, apparently, full access to conditioner, a washing machine, a toothbrush, a nice hairbrush, etc.

However, even Anderson’s paintings have a “familiar” feel to them. Most portrayals of Christ that I see in our meetinghouses follow the same general pattern: Christ is medium-to-tall height, has a generally thinnish build, very Caucasian-looking, has a full head of long hair, a beard. He has a long face, a long, thin nose (what you’d call a “Roman” nose), robes and sandals. He is generally a handsome man.

I’ve always mused to myself on the possibilities of what Christ truly looked like. Could he have been short? Prematurely bald? Could he have been missing teeth? Could he have looked more like George Costanza from Seinfeld?

Furthermore, Christ is generally portrayed as Caucasian in our artwork, but we know he was a Jew. I’ve almost thought numerous times that the only one of Christ’s Twelve Apostles in paintings that looks “Jewish” (according to the stereotype generally pushed in the American media) is Judas Iscariot, who can be seen cruelly and evilly clutching his money bag. Interesting. So was Christ white? Did he look “Jewish”? Did he look like an Arab? How jarring would it be to the average, white, Mormon American to see a (hypothetical) photograph of Christ in mortality that looked like he could be Osama bin Laden’s brother?

We only have passing clues in the scriptures as to what he looked like in mortality, and a couple interesting details about the post-mortal Christ from Joseph Smith. There is, of course, a famous “Mormon Urban Legend” about the accuracy of this piece of artwork:

This depiction of Christ is rather racially ambiguous. He has a slightly darker (ruddy?) complexion and hair that could “go either way.” It’s an interesting depiction to say the least, especially considering the debunked mythology surrounding its supposed accuracy.

However, I’ve found that I can forgive the white bread, homogenous view of Christ in our artwork for a couple reasons.

I’ve gleaned from a few sources on the Internet some diverse pictures of Christ. Images of Christ painted by black artists and displayed in predominantly black churches may be black. Here is an example I actually found quite touching, called Black Jesus Blesses the Children, by Joe Cauchi:

I love how the Black Jesus in this picture looks so determined, and he has a definite look of determination as he blesses the children. It’s as if he’s searching the distance for danger as he embraces them. The protection portrayed in this image is just as real to me, and represents the Christ I know, as tangibly as any “white” picture I’ve seen. I want Christ to protect me like he’s protecting these children.

Images of Christ painted by Asian artists may have Asian skin-tone and characteristics. Here is a Chinese example from the 1800s:

I think many people and artists might tell you that this is more for comfort and familiarity rather than an attempt at being historically accurate. So it would make sense for a white artist living in a white culture (like Utah, or in a broader sense, Mormonism) to depict Christ as a being who would “fit in.”

It is also useful for artists to have a common language for images such as Christ, and it is not useful to have images of Christ that are difficult to identify. If an artist wishes to paint Christ, say, teaching a group of people, how can he communicate without words the identity of the Teacher in his painting? There were many teachers in the scriptures: Paul, Ammon, Elijah, Enoch, etc., so a painting of a man with his mouth open, teaching other people by itself may not clearly identify the Teacher. It’s useful to be able to look at a new painting and say, “Hey, it’s a picture of Christ.”

Therefore, to me, the image of Christ is, of course, a symbol. It is a symbol in the same way that a Cross is a symbol, or the Angel Moroni is a symbol. It is one of the many pictures that we use in our religious language to communicate ideas, and it’s a useful one. However, as the Church grows, we will continue to adapt to new symbols and new images.

So, questions.

The LDS faith is now moving to many new countries across the world, and is being embraced by many ethnicities and cultures, nationalities and skin colors. Will we one day see Latino Christs in our temples? Asian Christs? Black Christs? If we admit that our image of Christ is just a symbol, would we allow a painting of a black Christ in an African temple? What about the Logan Temple?

Do we marginalize minorities in the Church by portraying a white Christ?

Is it “wrong” to portray a Christ that is probably historically inaccurate?

However, the themes of secret societies run through Mormon canon in a very real and concrete way.  This year I considered Secret Combinations as I taught my Gospel Doctrine class.  We’re taught that what is included in the Book of Mormon is information that Mormon included because he knew we’d need it.  It pertains to us, they say.  I’ve always been one of the more skeptical people I know, only believing things after I’ve studied it out or seen it with my own eyes.  I’ve always considered the idea of Secret Combinations to be enough to roll my eyes at, but this year’s study of the Book of Mormon made me reconsider the role of Secret Combinations in our society.  At the risk of men in sunglasses and trenchcoats appearing on my doorstep tomorrow, what do you think Secret Combinations are nowadays?  Is the concept of Secret Combinations irrelevant today?

A quick study online has shown that there have been attempts to identify Secret Combinations before.  Even Wikipedia has an entry for Secret Combinations.  Here is an excerpt:

During the Cold War, LDS Apostle Ezra Taft Benson repeatedly described Communism as a secret combination. Apostle Bruce R. McConkie claimed that “[r]eliable modern reports describe their existence among gangsters, as part of the governments of communist countries, in some labor organizations, and even in some religious groups.” LDS Apostle M. Russell Ballard described secret combinations as including “gangs, drug cartels, and organized crime families. … They have secret signs and code words. They participate in secret rites and initiation ceremonies. Among their purposes are to ‘murder, and plunder, and steal, and commit whoredoms and all manner of wickedness, contrary to the laws of their country and also the laws of their God.’” LDS President Gordon B. Hinckley compared modern terrorists to the “Gadianton robbers, a vicious, oath-bound, and secret organization bent on evil and destruction.”

So is Communism, which now causes much less of a stir in this world nowadays, what Mormon warned us against in the Book of Mormon?  Gang warfare?  Or is it modern-day terrorism or Al-Qaeda?  Is it some organization that we don’t know about?  To make things even creepier, have we yet to see the Gadianton Robbers of today?

Most of the singers sounded as if they were talking down to Primary children.

You know what I mean: that smiley, condescending tone that used to be heard, not just in Primary, but in Relief Society meetings as well. For many years, it was the oh-so-special accent of LDS women in public discourse.

(I think it ended the first time Sheri Dew spoke in general conference. It’s as if LDS women heard her and thought: “Oh, now we can talk like grownups.”)

That tone of voice did not translate very well to singing — it undercut the credibility of every word they sang. We called them “smile singers” and never played the CDs again.

I had noticed something else as well. Most of them had song after song that was intended to bear their testimony or teach a doctrine. They were trying to say something important. But there was no attention to the art of diction.

There are words that are weak or even ridiculous when sung, rhymes that make the listener wince — and, with all the fervor of their hearts, they used them regularly, arousing something between pity and embarrassment.

But I could understand it — these young Mormon singers were inventing a new genre, and had neither precedents nor standards.

I remember serving my mission from ’04 to ’06 and being exposed for the first time to so-called “LDS music,” featured on EFY albums, and being astonished beyond all measure. Growing up in an area of the world with very few Latter-day Saints, I was unfamiliar with this particular genre, and it was like a bucket of ice water over my head. Or rather, it was like a mixture of ice water and the LDS equivalent of David Lee Roth doing bluegrass covers of Van Halen songs (quite a bit of, “Wait, is this for real?”).

The thing that really irked me, though, was that when I pointed out the obvious deficiencies in the lyrics and structures of these songs, all the other missionaries completely failed to see what I was talking about. It suddenly made sense to me why Yellowcard and Dashboard Confessional were so popular in Utah.

And it wasn’t that they were saying the wrong things. It was just that they were saying the right things in such a banal and unchallenging way that absolutely no responsibility was left with the listener to understand what the singer was saying. It was as if the lyrics to these songs were being copied out of Primary children’s books, in order to appeal to the “weak” and “weakest” of listeners. Is this really what we’re trying to do with our music? I found that the real sincerity, and the place where real LDS members were saying real things (and by real I mean unpolished interactions of LDS theology and thought with… real life) was in “secular” music written by LDS musicians. Bands like Low and Good Morning Passenger and artists like Young Sim. This is why I started Linescratchers (shameless self-promotion), to interview and promote LDS musicians who exist in the “real world.”

That isn’t to say I’ve given up on LDS music, because I haven’t. I think it will take some work and some great innovation for new LDS musicians to 1) “break” the current LDS Music World and somehow convince the Powers That Be that there is merit in more challenging works, that there is responsibility on the part of the promoters of our music, and that there is money to be made in it as well, 2) challenge themselves by introducing into their music the diction and articulation of the greatest of English poetry, literature, and lyrics, and 3) risk writing music like this before current LDS listeners have the capacity to process it. It will take a few years for the gears to get turning.

And I also don’t wish to sound condescending, so forgive me if, in my overzealousness, I cross that line. I don’t wish to implicitly state that LDS listeners aren’t capable of comprehending finer language in music, but I have to admit, I’m not sure they’re used to it. It will take a few years for the Renaissance to occur because listeners must be exposed to a higher art form, understand why they need it, and then understand it. This is not easy for any population or culture. But I think we’re long overdue for it and there is a generation of musicians ready for the challenge, and if we do pursue this course, the finer lyricists and poets won’t be so ready to “escape” LDS Music World just yet.

When I was a teenager I suffered from an almost crippling depression. It kept me from developing meaningful and balanced relationships with people (though I had many good friends) and it caused me to be very angry with God at times. There was a scripture that pierced me to the heart in the same way that Joseph Smith describes being pierced by James’ admonition to ask of God for wisdom, and it was Christ’s plea to His father, “My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” I remember walking in the cold through my neighborhood at night, looking up at the stars and saying quietly, “Why hast thou forsaken me?” to whomever would listen.

That scripture didn’t make sense to me. I felt that way sometimes. I felt that God had abandoned me, or forsaken me, and I didn’t know why. It bothered me, and so I periodically would ask people to explain to me the purpose of that scripture. Usually they’d rehash the same answer that everyone else did: “Christ had to feel everything that we feel, so He had to feel loneliness.” This answer made me mad. It completely didn’t help me, and I felt that all these Mormons were just robots, programmed to say “Christ had to feel everything that we feel, so He had to feel loneliness” when asked about that scripture. Now and then someone would reference Skousen’s work on the Atonement and this gave me a different perspective on the matter, but didn’t satisfy me. The question was never really answered to my satisfaction and it was very frustrating. And so years passed without me ever knowing what I had to gain from Christ’s plea.

Last year, I raised my hand in Institute after we studied Christ’s last moments on the cross, and I asked my Institute teacher what the meaning of that scripture was. This is an Institute teacher that I loved and respected greatly (and still love and respect), and his answer was, in effect, “Christ had to feel everything that we feel, so he had to feel loneliness.” In frustration, I sank in my chair, silent. After class I talked to my teacher and told him that I’ve been vexed by that scripture for a long time, and perhaps it’s something I’m just going to have to ask God when I meet him. The issue was closed for a time and I stopped thinking about it.

Months passed, and I have slowly learned how to live without depression crippling me. I feel less angry and I find meaning in more of my life. These lessons were not learned easily. It took hard work, tears, and little packages from God throughout the years of my life.

Two weeks ago I attended a fireside in Louisville, Kentucky, featuring Elder Richard G. Scott. My mind raced the whole time. At the beginning of the fireside, I met with my sister who delivered to me a small, black box with a diamond ring that came from my grandfather. He knew I’m not a rich man, and I was planning on asking a beautiful young lady to marry me soon. I sat in a chair on the stand (I was in the choir) with this diamond ring in my pocket, wondering if this was the right decision for me. Skeptically I looked at the back of Elder Scott’s head.

I knew Elder Scott is an apostle, and I respected that, but I came to the meeting with a sour attitude.  I was certain that there was nothing he could say that I hadn’t heard before. I needed real answers. I didn’t want any of the watered-down, useless stuff I hear so often in church, stuff like, “Christ had to feel everything that we feel, so he had to feel loneliness.” I’ve been so frustrated with answers like that and didn’t expect to hear anything more useful. I knew that if I wanted real answers it was up to me.

Elder Scott spent the first 30 minutes of his presentation trying to get his laptop projector to work. I mused on the idea that everything he was trying to do with his Photoshop program and expensive projector, he could have done with a chalkboard, and a chalkboard is much cheaper and the learning curve is quite a bit more manageable than a laptop as well, and why are we always inventing things that are suppose to improve our life but end up being complicated and difficult versions of what we already have that break and go obsolete faster?  I sank deeper in my chair. Elder Scott then said a few things about revelation and opened the floor to questions.

Again my cynicism was reinforced.  When you allow the regular folk to ask whatever questions they want, what you’re going to get is a lot of lousy questions that waste everybody’s time.  I sat through a few of those and fiddled with my thumbs a bit.

It was then that Elder Scott taught me something that left an incredible impression on me, and probably will till the day I die, because he answered the question that had troubled me for ten years.  Someone asked him, “What can you teach us about the Atonement?”  I sighed quietly to myself.

Elder Scott began to speak on Christ’s Atonement, and then completely out of the blue, he referenced Christ’s last few sentences on the cross.  He told us that Christ said, “Why hast thou forsaken me?” because God had withdrawn from him, and God had withdrawn from him as an expression of trust.

Suddenly it all made sense. My teenage depression made sense. My hurt, my pain, my trials all made sense. Christ taught that He did nothing of Himself, but only did as He was commanded of God. It was like a father, holding the handlebars of his child’s bike, teaching him how to ride. Without getting into the particulars of how closely God managed Christ’s works throughout His life, I saw this father pushing his child on a bike, and at the last moment letting go, trusting that the child would continue pedaling.  God didn’t just let go, he stepped away from the bike. God was showing us that He trusts Jesus, and if God trusts Jesus, then we can, too.

This was the answer that I’ve always been looking for, and it’s led me to consider much of what has been said in the Bloggernacle and by those who feel disillusioned by the Church.  I’ve felt disillusioned by the Church now and then.  I’ve felt forgotten by God and I’ve felt insignificant.  I felt that I didn’t have a place, or that I’m too “different.”  Sometimes God lets go of the handlebars, but I kept pedaling, and so that’s my advice to those who feel the same way.  Keep pedaling.  It means He trusts you.  So many feel God letting go and simply stop pedaling and fall over.  I’ve thought about the words of my Uncle John as he pondered the people he has seen struggle with the Church: so many who “trade down” once they leave, never finding the same happiness again. I can’t speak for everyone but in my life there was value in just pedaling when God lets go.

When Elder Scott finished and bore his testimony of Christ I knew what I needed to do. Last Wednesday I asked a beautiful, wonderful, and nurturing young woman to marry me. But I also saw Christ. Not in a literal sense, but in that chapel, in my mind’s eye, Christ became a real figure to me. A real being that could have been standing at the pulpit in Elder Scott’s place. I saw Him walking with His apostles, and I saw Him teaching them. And here was an apostle in every sense of the word standing before me, doing what apostles are called to do: tell us that Christ is real. He lives. He wants us to be happy. He died for us.

Being an apostle meant so much to me that day, and more to me now. Thank God for apostles and their service to us.

However, I’ve stumbled upon artists that don’t really fit either way.  Mark Hansen has quite an online presence, and his music is a mix.  It sounds like classic rock, or just mainstream rock, but the themes are more heavily LDS.  However, it doesn’t really fit in to the average LDS CD either.  My guess is that in the future we will see more of these artists in the future as well.

Mark has agreed to an online interview to discuss the LDS music scene, his own music, and the future of LDS music.  Special thanks to Mark for the trouble!

AH: So first of all, how did you get started with music?  Was it your family or did you start yourself?

MH: My family is very involved in music. My parents raised us on classical music, and each of us kids learned an orchestral instrument starting in elementary school. I played the ‘cello. I played it, in fact, all the way up through early college. I picked up the guitar in high school. Actually, I did a little bit of guitar in elementary school, too, but didn’t really do much with it. I started off on bass. I saved up my money and got one, and an amp, but my folks weren’t too eager. I got this used strat copy from a friend and started learning whatever songs my friends would teach me. “Bastille Day” by Rush was the first song I learned, and it all went downhill from there!

I still love classical music. There was a time when I was going to school for a music theory/composition major. The idea was to get a degree and go do film scores. Life changes things, you know…

AH: Your music, while not necessarily praise music or EFY-type music, does have a bit of a “ministry” feel due to its uplifting and motivational themes, so you don’t necessarily “fit in” with traditional LDS music OR with totally secular music.  Do you feel excluded from either of those, or included in both?

MH: I am an anomaly, caught between two worlds. The traditional LDS marketing establishment doesn’t really know what to do with me, and the mainstream music world is just too stinking big to notice. I definitely feel that there’s a market for LDS rock (as well as other alternative styles), but we’re kind of at a standstill. The main LDS marketing systems (like Deseret Book) don’t target the alternative audiences, so they can’t reach them, and the audiences don’t think it exists, so they’re not really out looking for it. It’s an uphill battle to let the fans know you’re there.

That’s the real reason that I turned to the ‘net for my main connection to my audience. I do a few live performances each year, but not really a whopping lot. I’m not out touring, for example. But people are downloading my songs off the ‘net and signing up for my mailing list constantly, so they’re finding the songs and listening. I hang out on LDS groups in places like myspace and twitter, that helps a lot.

AH: Do you feel that there is enough of an LDS market to really make a difference?  Do you feel like your audiences “get” what you’re trying to do?

MH: It’s really taken me a long time to figure out, myself, what I’m trying to do, so I don’t really expect anyone else out there to do it, either!

It’s very true that the LDS market is small. In the contemporary Christian Music world, there are artists of every style and genre, and the market is much bigger. I love listening to a lot of that music. I long for the day when the LDS music world has as much depth and breadth as that. It may come, but it will take time.

When you consider that the vast majority of church members around the world don’t even know that most LDS music even exists, it’s hard to get it in their ears and capture their attention. It’s a real uphill battle.

AH: Do you have any favorite experiences with your music making a difference to people?  Any people you’ve significantly impacted?

MH: Occasionally, I get emails telling me about how this song or that song touched someone, or how excited someone is to hear rock with an uplifting message. I don’t know that I’ve really changed anyone’s life, but I like to think I’ve helped some folks. On the site, on the fans page (http://markhansenmusic.com/custformnew272611.html), there are a few comments that show some impact, and I love reading those.

I like to think that I’ve had a big impact on me, and often it seems that when I’m writing a song the message is something that Heavenly Father wants ME to learn, moreso than teaching.

It’s also a really satisfying thing to hear my kids sing my songs. That really makes me feel good.

AH: You’ve made quite an online presence for yourself.  It seems that everywhere I surf, whether it be Yahoo! groups or MySpace or elsewhere on the World Wide Web you seem to make yourself known.  Have you found success using the Internet as a tool to reach out to people?

MH: The only really consistent success I’ve had is over the internet. My various songs currently get a total of about 750 to 1000 downloads a month (available at http://markhansenmusic.com/custformnew329907.html). I’ve really enjoyed interacting with people on the web and via email and twitter, etc… I get emails, like fan mail, from all over the world.

When I first started, I thought the key was to do lots of performances, but it’s tough to get into wards and stakes for youth activities.

The challenge with the ‘net is that you get out there and try and make yourself known, but not many people know that alternative styles exist in LDS music, so they’re not out there looking for it. I have to actively get where they are. And even though the LDS online community is growing, it’s still a relatively small percentage of church members.

The other cool thing about the ‘net is that, while it takes a lot of time and effort to get the word out, you can do it for little or no cost up front. The few times I’ve done paid advertising, for example, it hasn’t really paid off for me. It’s the blogs, the forums, the myspace pages, etc… that are bringing the people to my music, more than anything else.

AH: What, in your opinion, is the state of LDS music today?

MH: It’s in a bit of a slump right now. A few years ago, I predicted a renaissance, because I suddenly saw a lot of people exploring a lot of different sounds and ideas that were much more interesting than the “soft Sunday sounds” that I’d been used to in LDS music. But it seems like each time I go into a Deseret Book, there are fewer new LDS CD’s in the racks.

On the other hand, if you’re willing to dig through the ‘net and explore, there’s a lot of indie LDS music goin’ on that’s really exciting. As surprising as it might sound, for example, LDS rap is probably more active right now than LDS rock. I even found an LDS goth artist once!*

AH: Where do you see your music going in the future, and where do you see LDS music going?  Should we expect more musicians writing and performing music like yours in the upcoming years?

MH: I’d really love to see LDS music in the full broad range of styles. Yes, I’d love to hear more rock and especially good heavy stuff. But that’s just me being selfish. I love to listen to that, and there isn’t that much available. But I’d also love to see more LDS soul, R&B, techno, dance pop, country, orchestral, jazz, punk, everything really. We have musicians in all styles in the church, so we need to be creating art in all styles.

Check out more Mark Hansen at http://markhansenmusic.com/ !

*I believe Mark is talking about Anthony Mather of Tactical Sekt, but I could be wrong.

I remember when I was younger I often, for some reason, considered the case of Pontius Pilate.  I remember reading about him and perceiving him as a helpless, unwitting player in Christ’s death.  I saw him as innocent, washing his hands of the blood of Christ, wanting to help but not having the power to stem the relentless tide of the throngs of angry people wishing to put the Savior to death.  I remember one time in particular when I was very young, probably eleven or twelve, praying on my knees to ask God not to judge Pilate harshly.  It hadn’t entered my heart that I was not the first person to do this over the last couple thousand years.  I just felt closely connected to the story, and from what I read I saw him as mostly innocent.

Into my deconstructive teenage years, I read a bit more about Pilate’s life and realized that a great deal of evidence points to the idea that he may have been a cruel man, as many Roman leaders were, and that his life was anything but exemplary.  Christ was probably one of many men that Pilate sent to their death.  I saw myself as naive and almost embarrassed for thinking he was innocent.  Sometimes I think we get a strange kind of pleasure out of character deconstruction, especially historical figures, as Russ may tell you from his grad school history studies.

Yet popular opinion is as it usually is:  divided.  It’s a subject that has been explored countless times in countless places.  Certain Ethiopian Orthodox churches venerated Pilate as a saint.  Medieval European plays show him as a bureaucrat or a demon.  There are non-canonized writings that add much to the Pilate story, good and bad.

For me, I’ve found myself doing what many do:  projecting my own self onto a vacuum of evidence.  When something in history seems to have no answers, people tend to fill the void with their own agendas, and I’m no exception.  And thus we see that in some cases, when we judge the morality of others, we are actually looking at ourselves.  “Our people” I’ve noticed have somewhat of a love affair with judging the morality of those not within our stewardship (Richard Dutcher!  Brother Marriott!  Kirby Heyborne!  Emma Smith!).

In my life I have stopped wondering about the morality of others so much anymore, yet I still think of him now and then.  Thoughts on Poor Pontius Pilate?

It is in the early stages at the moment but I’m looking forward to seeing great things from it. If you’re looking for a more articulate extension of some of the thoughts and ideas I’ve expressed here, check out the following article, called Toward a Mormon Renaissance by James Goldberg:

http://mormonartist.net/issue-1/essay/

For myself, I’d like to relate a story that shows how, to me anyway, lyrics can be scripture. I am incredibly compelled by the story of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a book by Douglas Adams. Without going into full detail, he gives a fictional and humorous account of the creation of the Earth, and how it is merely a gigantic computer so complex that life itself on it is part of the hardware, and it was built to discover, in short, the meaning of life.

If I look at my own life, in many ways I believe that it’s true. We are counseled that if we go to the temple or the scriptures with deep questions, we can “plug” those questions in and the output will be the correct answer, through revelation. I’ve found that life, itself, can be our “computer.” This world was built by Christ, with complexities we can’t even fathom, and I’ve found that when I look to the Earth and my own surroundings with deep questions, life sometimes spits the answer right back at me and I know that God is taking care of me.

A few months ago I interviewed a friend who goes by the stage name Young Sim when he raps, and I’ve been interested in his music as of late. He is a courageous young man who served in the same mission as me, and I was always inspired by his musical tenacity, but it was a line in one of his songs that stuck with me. Almost as an aside at the end of his song “Respect Me,” Sim mentions “you’re gonna be before that judgment bar by yourself, and you’re gonna be in that pine box by yourself.” The first time I heard that line, maybe six months ago, I filed it away in my mind.

Since then, it seems that every major life decision I’ve made has been influenced by those lines. Every time I begin to worry what other people think of me, whether they think my decisions are right, I think of those lines. They lead me to think that I have to do what I think is right, no matter what anyone else thinks. When it comes down to it, my agency is my own. I am the master of my own fate, and at the end, I will give an accounting of my actions, good and bad, to my Savior and to my God. I won’t be able to blame anyone else or point fingers at that time. It’s between me and God.

I’ve been so thankful to my friend Sim for including those lines in his song because they have inspired me to make the right decisions. I hope to continue to use them.

I firmly believe that others can use their lives as Scripture just as I use these lines as Scripture. Some people find their inspiration in sports, or paintings. Some people are interested in microbiology or even mathematics, and they find answers in these things, and they find God in these things. Life, the Universe, and Everything, it seems, can be Scripture if seen in the right light.

To read Arthur’s interview with Young Sim click here.  For more information on his music, click here.

“All soldiers
They’re all gonna die
And all the little babies
They’re all gonna die
All the poets
And all the liars
And all you pretty people
You’re all gonna die” (Low, 2007)

The chilling opening words to Low’s most recent album, Drums and Guns, somehow had a remarkable effect on me.  Low has progressed a great deal since their inception in the early ’90s and this album is particularly moving.  It is a themed album; an anti-war album.

As many of you know, Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker of Low are practicing members of the Church (Alan being a BYU graduate, Mimi a convert).  One of my interests is the way that art plays off testimony in the Church, and I admit, most of the time I’m left wanting.  Drums and Guns was such a pleasant surprise for me.  Alan and Mimi have taken their experiences, testimonies, and desires and crafted an album that is anti-war.  In today’s political climate one would assume the album, released in 2007, is an anti-Iraq War album, but this does not seem to be the case, necessarily.  It seems to truly be two members of the LDS Church being obedient to the Doctrine and Covenants in renouncing war and proclaiming peace.

I explained to my mom the concept for the album.  “It’s an anti-war album, Mom.”

And she looked at me and said, “It’s so easy and popular to be anti-war when you’re a musician, isn’t it?”  I’ll let you parse that one yourself, but for the most part, it’s true.  Musicians since the Sixties have been renouncing war and proclaiming peace for various reasons, sometimes because it’s the trendy thing to do, and sometimes through a heartfelt desire to change the world somehow.  War is a common theme in music, from Dylan’s “Blowing in the Wind” to CCR’s “Fortunate Son”, to Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs”, and the other end of the spectrum, Alice Cooper’s admission that he was pro-Vietnam.  It was in part these songs and artists that influenced the popular opinion of the war, for good or bad.

Musicians understand that they have the ability (and some would say responsibility) to influence popular opinion.  Some musicians have taken this to great lengths, such as U2′s Bono, who has been outspoken on numerous causes such as poverty, homelessness, and hunger.

I searched my memory and realized that, with Drums and Guns, this is one of the first times (if not THE first time) I’ve heard LDS musicians take a stance on anything in their art.  Where are our outspoken LDS artists, musicians, and filmmakers?  I concede that there are a few possible explanations:

1) I just haven’t been paying close enough attention.  This may be the case, but I would say that I probably pay much more attention than the average member to things of an artistic nature, so if there are politically active LDS artists out there…

2) …perhaps they just don’t have the outlets they need to get their message to me.  This seems rather unlikely, as well.  They have their art.

3) Fear.  There is an inherent risk in voicing opinions, and struggling LDS artists with families don’t feel like they can afford taking risks.

Unfortunately, the last option is 4) LDS artists aren’t making statements like this, and aren’t concerned with issues such as war.  If this is the case, then Mormon art, like Mormon hairstyles*, is indeed 40 years behind the rest of the world.

And yet it leads me to wonder about the progress of our Church.  There are some that criticize the Church (from within and without) for being provincial, non-progressive.  Could it be so due to the lack of progressive art in our community?

Or do we take a more Marxist view (thanks Russ) and assume that Mormon art merely reflects the culture it is created in?  That art is not in itself causative?  This debate has raged for centuries.

When will we as a people of rising prominence in this world start making artistic stances to change the world?  When will we take advantage of our position?  Alternatively, am I just missing something?

Either way, for a beautiful yet jarring picture of war and its emotional elements, try Drums and Guns by Low.

*cheap shot

For my soul delighteth in plainness; for after this manner doth the Lord God work among the children of men. For the Lord God giveth light unto the understanding; for he speaketh unto men according to their language, unto their understanding.

When I was a teenager, I had an angry, liberal, bisexual friend whom I loved. Not in a romantic sense, but in a sense that I truly understood her. She was incredibly creative and I wanted her to be successful in her musical and artistic endeavors. We once had a conversation that completely surprised me. She had seemed so anti-religion for as long as I had known her, so when she told me the following, I was completely shocked: “When I saw Tori Amos in concert for the first time, Arthur, I swear I felt something that I never have before. I think I believe in God now… when I saw Tori Amos I somehow knew that there must be a God out there somewhere.”

I told this to my cousin, who is a complete musical snob, and he just made a face as if he had just bitten into a rotten piece of fruit. “Tori Amos? Blechhh.”

And yet, I identify so closely with what my friend had said, and I knew that she had stumbled upon revelation through what seemed like an unlikely source. The ardent atheist had a complete turnaround based on what she’d heard that night. I had a similar experience growing up. It seemed that music taught me that we are somehow divine, because natural selection can’t really explain art to me. Music can make me weep, and I have a hard time getting a strict anti-God Darwinist to explain that one to me satisfactorily.

And so a week ago I sent out a invitation on Facebook, inviting everyone I know to a show I’d be attending: King’s X in Cincinnati. I’d been waiting almost 10 years to see them live. They are one of my favorite living bands and I knew that the experience would be beautiful and blessed, and I wanted to share it with my friends. I got some “maybes” and some excuses, but one response really threw me for a loop. “I’d love to go, Arthur, but I just can’t rationalize these things anymore.” Whaa? My heart caught in my chest and I realized through context that because the show was on Sunday, I was encouraging my LDS friends to do something that they would probably consider to be breaking the Sabbath.

So I sheepishly withdrew my invitation. I was embarrassed. I kind of live my own life and I don’t worry if other people think my lifestyle doesn’t click with theirs, but the idea that I’m “leading others astray” does make me feel bad, I admit.

I went through the week wondering what people thought of me. Do they think I’m some sort of heathen? I asked myself. Am I never going to get a date again in this little branch?

I got to the concert last night and weaseled my way to the front of the stage (this is a fine art if you ask me). My heart pounded in my chest and you could have seen my smile a half mile away. I had been waiting so long to see these guys, they had been my inspiration for so long. Doug Pinnick, the bassist and lead singer (along with Ty Tabor, the other guitarist) had been a poster child for the Christian rock movements of the late ’80s and early ’90s, but Doug came out of the closet in the mid-’90s and was promptly shunned by his Christian constituency. Some of the bitterness of that experience comes out in his music. I wonder about his spirituality nowadays. His lyrics from their latest album seem somewhat telling: “And if you feel what you think is true/if you found peace deep inside of you/if your faith made a mountain move for you/then don’t forget to pray for me.” But this day he smiled and looked out at the crowd, told them how happy he was to see us all on the front row, singing along with his songs.

Then, during his song “Over My Head,” the music quieted down and Doug spoke to the crowd. To paraphrase him, he said this:

This song was written about my grandmother. She was a religious woman. When I was young sometimes I would hear her praying down the hall. She would speak to the Lord, and I’d hear her say: “Thank you Lord. I hear music. Lord, I hear music over my head. What are you trying to tell me, Lord?” Do you feel it deep down in your soul?

At that moment I had the most undeniable feeling in my chest. A feeling that what Doug was saying meant something. He spoke to me. I knew there was a God. I knew He loved me. I knew that this was all a gift from Him, and He spoke to me through what I was hearing. I understood again what my friend was talking about years ago. My testimony of God’s love grew so much that day, and I even prayed at that moment to thank God. To thank Him for the Book of Mormon, for a family that seems to be on the right track. I thanked Him for Joseph Smith and his courage. I thanked Him for sending me the Gospel. And I prayed for Doug.

After the show, the guys in the band went down to the merch booth to sign autographs and I got them to sign my guitar. Right after Doug signed it, he just looked at me and gave me the biggest smile, eyes bright with understanding. And he stuck out his hand to me and I shook it.

I’ll never forget that moment.

I find myself more interested in matters of emotion, art, and music, then, and one point in particular has caught my attention at various times in my life.  That is, the relationship of the Church to sadness.  I had a crash course once I hit my teenage years (as many of those inclined towards the artistic things of life are) in sadness, and honestly, the Church didn’t seem to help.  I saw a huge grey swath between the concepts of The Spirit, depression, joy, sin, and righteousness.  Depression recently has found some attention in Church publications, but I found that there are still, just as there were when I was young, remnants of the idea out there that somehow depression is always caused by sin and righteous living always leads to joy, or the idea that if you are happy, this must come from the Spirit.  It seemed that, in the LDS world, we can tend to have quite a “perfection” complex, and sadness is seen as imperfection.  We can’t let anyone see our imperfections!  Why can’t we just be perfect like the Stake President’s family?  Yet any psychologist will tell you that repression of sadness (and none of us are immune to this at some point in our lives) leads to strange manifestations in other places in one’s life.  It was difficult for my young teenage mind to really center on one concept or the other (emotion vs. the Spirit), and it was especially troubling when I actually found catharsis in sad songs.

Luckily I’ve found in recent times that there are LDS artists who are focusing on, not praise music, or what you’d typically find on EFY CDs, but worldly forms of music:  rap, punk, heavy metal, folk, the list goes on.  It is LDS music that I’m interested in, but not necessarily “LDS Music.”  I’m more interested in musicians who happen to be LDS, whose faith seeps out from the seams of their work, rather than those who place the faith before the art.  In defense of sad songs, I’ve found that, rather than suppress our sadness, we learn about it, admit it to ourselves, and only then can we “fix” it.  This is what the artist does:  she holds a mirror to herself, paints a self-portrait, warts and all, and then shows the result to the listener, who finds relief in the discovery that they are not alone.  Thus Christlike bonds are formed between human beings.  No pretending to be perfect here.