http://mormontimes.com/studies_doctrine/research_discoveries/?id=11607

I was intrigued by this story. John L. Sorenson has lots of books in print. He’s never had a problem finding a publisher before.

If the book is all he says it is, why isn’t Deseret Book jumping on it? Why isn’t the Neal A. Maxwell Institute publishing it?

I’m really curious.

I guess, from the point of view of a pre-millenialist believer, it’s all good news.  Things are getting really bad, and only the return of Jesus Christ can fix all of it.  The worse things get, the closer we are to the eschaton.  Fabulous!  Bring it on!

Mormonism, I think, takes a different view.  It avoids changing bad news into good news.  Instead, it presents the Gospel as life-affirming and an eminently practical way to live one’s life.

My question: Are there aspects of Mormonism that aren’t, in the end, “good news”?  Are there some aspects you’d change, not because you just don’t like them, but because they contribute nothing toward the ultimate message of good news for all people?

Mormonism is unique among America’s religions in that it travels along two paths simultaneously, and each path is buttressed by a belief in historicity.

The first path is that of the historicity of the Book of Mormon.  So much is invested in Nephi and Lehi being real people, and the migrations actually happening.  Mormon children learn to speak and sing of these heroes as they would of documented historical characters.

The second path is that of the historicity of the founding of the Church.  Yes, Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, Emma Hale, etc., existed in history.  And yes, they left a living legacy for the rest of us to enjoy.  But how much of the reported history of the Church is dressed up in myth and legend?  How reliable are the official histories of the Church?

These dual tensions are likely to take their toll on anyone living on the fringes of belief, and may impact those who are beginning to ask questions.

I have become convinced (at least for now) that the following observations are true:

1.  Although these are separate and distinct tracks, it would be a mistake to think that the weakening of one track will have no effect on the other.  Once you figure out that Lehi did not exist in history, for example, the rest of the Church’s foundation begins to collapse, including any study of Mormon origins.

2.  In order for the Church to maintain its stance re: historicity, it must therefore continue to support both lines of thought.  It cannot permit weakening on either front, lest the entire structure collapse.

3.  And therefore the Church has no choice but to continue its emphasis on obedience and loyalty.  Anything short of this can only create doubt and questioning.

I think other institutions can tolerate dissent because they don’t have such an investment in historicity.  Mormonism has two tracks, making the job doubly difficult.

Do I read this situation correctly?

http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/forum_commentary/index.html

Here is a fellow who struggled with his Roman Catholic church’s treatment of the sex-abuse scandals, and finally left the communion, going to Eastern Orthodoxy.

A point he makes — he acknowledges problems in Orthodoxy, too, but the need for the institution of the church is greater than his need to uncover all of his church’s flaws.

I wonder if we all should stop criticizing people who insist that every flaw in Mormonism needs to be paraded in public, and instead acknowledge that, for many people, the institution fulfills an important role in their lives.

Several thoughts occur to me.

First, in light of the public relations nightmare engendered by the recent Prop. 8 dust-up, it would seem that the Church, and thus BYU, would want to blunt some of the criticism and put their words of understanding and tolerance into action. Allowing this display would have put some meat on the claim that they don’t hate gays, they just disapprove of homosexual behavior. Instead, this precipitous action seems to put their whole argument to the side, saying in actions what they’re not saying in words. How exactly do you feel about gays? Aren’t there gays at BYU? Don’t they deserve the same respect and dignity as straight students? It’s hard to fathom.

But there’s a second line of thought here, and I welcome your thoughts on this. Parents send their students to BYU and other Mormon-owned schools, in part, because they want to provide a “safe” environment for them. Secular universities are seen as hotbeds of anti-religious sentiment, and are to be avoided, if possible. BYU is “safe” precisely because it is governed by men who share their values. It seems to me that, when BYU is faced by situations such as the current one, they should stop, take a breath, and ask the question, “Does this action, this display, make our students less safe? Are they put in some kind of danger if we allow this to happen?”

This is exactly what they would think if their priorities were centered in the needs of the students. Instead, it seems that BYU follows a Church-driven agenda — a desire to please the higher authorities and cater to their agendas — rather than a plan to serve the student body in the best way possible.

Just a moment’s thought will convince most that the photographic display threatened nobody. No student would be less “safe” by the display of these head shots. No straight student would be tempted to become gay. It would, instead, reflect a kind of tolerance that the Church, and BYU, should be teaching.

Sigh. I guess the powers-that-be think that the Lord’s University is made safer by teaching INtolerance. I’m not sure the Lord would agree.

Here’s the irony.  At its heart, Prop 8 wasn’t about gay marriage at all.  It was about how we understand the role of government in deciding how churches can deal with their members.  By passing Prop 8, the churches, who should value their independence from civil authority, have invited the “arm of flesh” into their chapels and said, “Yes, YOU, the government, can now decide who can marry and who can’t.”

How in the hell can Mormons, of all people, with their history of persecution and problems with the government, possibly support this intrusion of state into church affairs?  And the Baptists!  Don’t they have a tradition of independence and separation from government?  Something bad has happened along the way, and it’s time religionists wake up and see that their silly, knee-jerk reactions to issues like gay marriage are, on a macro level, threatening the very institutions they’re trying to preserve.

Alas, vox populi has become pox populi.  And, in the end, there may very well be a pox on all our houses.  As for me and my house, we will serve a rational approach to the issue.

There is a certain madness in this year’s trip.  Something inside of me desperately wants to move from San Diego to Salt Lake City.  I will be looking seriously at housing opportunities.  My friends all think I’ve gone crazy.  How can I leave paradise for life behind the Zion Curtain?

Here’s the odd thing — it’s the closest I can come to a “testimony” about anything.  I feel as if this is really supposed to happen.  I have no idea how.  How do I move hundreds of books and everything else that would need to come with me?  How can I find housing that will fulfill my needs?  I have no idea.

But somehow I feel that there is an undeniable urge in me to relocate and spend my waning years in the shadow of the Temple.

Now, here’s the question: will I live in the shadow of the Temple, or of the Church Office Building?  Quite different phenomena, you know.  I can’t go into the Temple, but I can go into the Church Office Building.  But I have no desire to go into the COB again — been there, done that.  Eaten in the employee cafeteria, visited several offices.  And, frankly, I don’t much want to go into the Temple, either.

So what do I want?  Damned if I know.

What is it about Mormonism, and Mormons, that makes me want to live in the thick of things?  The logic behind it escapes me.  Maybe some of you who live in Mormon-land can explain it.

The Future of Mormon History, March 20, 2008, Claremont Claudia L. Bushman
It is a pleasure to have this opportunity to consider the future of the writing of Mormon History. It is a field with much exciting development, and for someone who has watched it for a long time, the future is very promising. What will happen in the future? Here is the view in my crystal ball.

First, we will have more and more published documents that will become more and more available. Our model here is the Joseph Smith Papers on which a large stable of editors is working night and day. You have here before you two of the gentlemen very much involved in getting those papers into print. The first of thirty or so volumes is close to going to the printer, and the manuscripts should soon be working themselves through the pipeline to provide two or three volumes a year. Amazing. And many many thanks to Larry Miller whose generous donation has made this excrutiatingly careful operation financially possible.

The Church Historian’s press, and we have here the new associate Church historian, has been created to publish the Smith papers and will be used for that and other projects. The next may be the Brigham Young papers, the publication of which will extend beyond all our lifetimes. The Church Historian’s press will turn out a steady stream of high quality documentary collections. I hear that the large collection of Relief Society foundational documents which have been some years in the editing, may well be published by this new press.

And speaking of women’s documents I see the same movement of providing documents just as they are in the Utah State University Press series of the Life Writings of Frontier Women. John Alley is now in the tenth fat volume of this open ended series, making the very interesting papers of many well and little known women available.

I would also note the huge number of documents that the Church has put onto discs and the series of documents that the BYU Library has made available online. Many of these are searchable as well as being shown in their original form. Carefully edited documents are springing forth in ever greater number.

The huge banks of genealogical materials online will be manipulated to answer new questions.

So what are the implications of all this primary material becoming immediately available.

1. Research will mean less searching and more thinking, interpretation, and analysis. When materials are plentiful, people will ask new questions.
2. I hope that future historians can say goodbye to that awful box, the microfilm machine.
The awful 4 x 6 cards historians once filled out by the yard are already history. With a computer and online documents a paperless research project becomes possible.

The second development I would note is related to programs of Mormon studies at secular colleges and universities, such as Claremont. Because we have schools like Claremont, there will be additional knowledge and interest by scholars in wider comparative works, asking Mormon questions of other religions and bringing together scholars from many traditions to discuss matters of deep importance. Most of the topics of a growing number of courses available at a growing number of schools will not be confined to Wasatch front Mormonism, LDS Christianity, or even North American religion. The papers written for those classes and by those students will be increasingly expanded in scope as LDS religion is considered in a broader context.
So what are the Implications here.
1. The end to tunnel history as we practice it, that is Mormon movements without considering the neighborhood or beliefs of the people around the Saints.
2. The end of the stereotype of the noble suffering pioneer, more on the social conditions that conspired to get him across the ocean and the plains.
3. The end of the Mormon of victim, the privileged position we have been able to maintain so long as we did not pay any attention to other people’s interests.
4. The growing awareness of others of Mormon history and the including it in more discussions in churches and university classes.
5. The growing interaction between LDS historians, teachers, and churchpeople with those of other denominations.

The ongoing and increasing dialogue between Mormons and others in periodicals, blogs, and newsmedia that opens LDS ideas to quick, easy, and frank discussion. Conferences serve this function in a more measured time frame.
Implications here.
1. A quicker dispersal of news. A greater sense of openness and debate.
2. Multiple outlets for statements and discussion. The recognition of emerging thinkers.
3. The encouragement for many to write who had not previously done so.
4. Rents in the veils of secrecy.

I will now engage in my speculative wishful thinking.

There will be greater interest in writing about lesser known individuals and groups. The light of the gospel will follow the plain man or woman rather than the prophet or star, illuminating new meanings and areas of Mormondom.
Implications here
1. A decentering of church focus to a broader field.
2. More research opportunities
3. More understanding of what the church was really like.

The availability and simplicity of recording experience on film will lead to working out that standard Sunday School allegory, when one’s life is filmed in its completeness. Every act will be recorded for future judgement by the angels above us who are silent notes taking. The same angels will set up booths on earth where the films are viewed and the subjects are interviewed about the completeness of their repentance. The films will then be edited in accordance with their reformed lives.
Implications here.
1. Men and women will be able to judge in advance their approval ratings and know to what kingdom they will be dispatched. They will then have the choice of heading to their heavenly level or volunteering to be reincarnated as small creatures.
2. This process will provide occupation for the multitudes of film makers who will never make films in Hollywood.

Everyone will write and publish at least one book. There will be a greater interest in writing personal scriptures. Mormons will see more value in writing their own stories, in observing the institution changing around them, and in comparing that to other times and places. They will write narratives of adventure, war service, religious enlightenment, miraculous experiences, and the indoctrinization of the young. The familiar genres will be continued: missionary journals, collections of letters, ancestor stories, and personal memoirs. Some housewives will relate how they have turned their housekeeping systems into science. Other housewives will organize collectives to share babysitting and cooking so that they will be able to write the Gothic romances of their fantasies. The Shakespeares and Dantes of Mormondom will arrive on the scene, welcomed and emulated. The bright young intellectual lawyers and businessmen who cannot leave Mormon history alone, will explore new systems of thought. Fiction, poetry, and belles-lettres will flower as never before.
Implications here
1. Despite a great past of personal writing in the past, there will be an even greater flowering of personal writing in the future, which because of the technical advantages of our age, can immediately be printed and bound for distribution to friends and family.
2. Complaints about how hard it is to write on the plates will be no more.
3. Each story will be placed in the context of time, of history, of other religious traditions, and other worlds. The great connections will be made as never before. While each small story shows like a diamond, it will be in the company of millions of twinkling diamonds in the black night sky
4. A new cave will be blasted in the Wasatch Mountains and all these documents will be collected there. A stone will seal them up for millenia to come. There through heavenly alchemy, our little journals and looseleaf binders will metamorphose into golden plates.

Women will cease to leave their monuments in bounteous feasts to be daily destroyed, in sewn goods to be worn out by lively families, or in icing sugar on ornamental cakes. They will follow the admonition given to Emma Smith, and their time will be given to writing and to learning much. They will each be given a golden pencil at birth to record their thoughts and experiences.
Implications here
1. Generations of wise women will arise.
2. No one will die unrecorded.

In short, a new world will be opened to us and everything will be possible.

First,  a word about race, Mormonism, and America.  Like it or not, race is still an issue in almost everything we do.  We can’t seem to break free of it.

Ferraro said, in effect, that if Obama were white, he wouldn’t be where he is in the race.  Consider the possibility that: a) she’s right, and b) the Bible says that “the fool uttereth all his [or her] mind.”

The evidence that she may be right might be summed up in two words: John Edwards.  Both fine orators, both on target on most issues, Edwards with more experience.  But Obama is still in the race, and Edwards isn’t.

I don’t know if this topic can be discussed dispassionately, but I’d love to hear your comments on this issue.  We all agree that people of color are woefully under-represented among the General Authorities.  They’ve had 30 years to find competent people to fill these posts.  Nationally, could Obama be benefiting by being a mold-breaker?  Hillary is also breaking the mold, by the way.

Your thoughts on this are solicited.

A Letter to Glenn Beck

February 29, 2008

Dear Mr. Beck:

First, let me tell you that I am not a regular viewer of your program. My politics is to the left of yours, and so I naturally gravitate toward other broadcasters. You make no bones about being a conservative. I appreciate this openness.

From time to time I find myself interested in what you’re saying. Even when I disagree with you, I find you energetic and filled with a certainty that is sometimes lacking in the political discourse these days.

A few days ago, you had a discussion about universal health insurance. The substance of your view was that you, and other healthy Americans, should not be responsible for helping those who, through their own fault, have become ill.

I was struck by this viewpoint. I know that you have come from a background of addiction, and have become a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. My mind went back to something that King Benjamin said in the book of Mosiah. Here is the citation from Timothy Wilson’s excellent paraphrase of the Book of Mormon:

“Help those who need your help, and give your substance to those who need it. Do not turn away those who ask for your help, saying, ‘This foolish man has brought on his own misery. I will not relieve his misery by giving him food or money. He deserves to suffer for his own mistakes.’

“Anyone who does this has great need to repent. Otherwise, he or she will spiritually perish forever, having no place in God’s kingdom.

“For we’re all beggars! We all depend upon the same Being, even God, for everything we have….food, clothing and all our prosperity.

“Today you’ve been calling on His name, begging for a remission of your sins. And have you begged in vain? No, for God has poured out His Spirit upon you, and you could not even speak because your hearts were filled with so much joy.

“God, the one on whom you depend for your lives, and for everything you have and are, gives you what you ask for, if you ask in faith for what is right, believing you will receive it. So how much more should you give your substance to those who are in need!

“If you judge and condemn those who ask you for substance just to survive, then you will be condemned for holding it back. For what you think is yours is really God’s, including your life.

“Yet while under this condemnation, do you ask God’s forgiveness or change your ways? If not, you are cursed, for your substance will perish with you.”

My question, Mr. Beck, is this: how do you reconcile your views on helping the poor and the sick with the plain teachings of the holy book of your adopted religion? Do you not fear the Lord’s condemnation when you speak as you do? Can you not see the contradiction, the offense of your views, in light of the progressive and, frankly, liberal views of the Book of Mormon?

So much has been said in Mormon circles about the “Sealed Portion” of the Book of Mormon. I have come to think that perhaps each reader has his or her own, personal “Sealed Portion” of the published book — those thoughts that are clearly the mind of the Lord, but which are not consistent with one’s political or economic views.

In the end, we’re all called upon to account for our thoughts and deeds. I know that we all come to our religious belief from a personal, individual point of view, and that we process the thoughts of our faiths through the lens of experience. But sometimes the words of the Scripture are just too plain to be missed. King Benjamin, and, indeed, the prophets of the Bible, are unanimous: do not withhold help from those who ask.

Indeed, we’re all beggars. I hope and pray that you can find it in yourself to “unseal” those portions of the Book of Mormon that the world so desperately needs to hear.

Jeffrey Needle
566 Naples St. #229
Chula Vista, CA 91911

Pres. Hinckley, in his efforts to put the best face on the Church, had been criticized for some of his public comments. His thoughts on eternal progression, for example, raised quite a howl. I remember thinking at the time that, if I were in his position, speaking to a national audience on, say, Larry King Live, I likely would also have been hard put to come up with a good answer. (Of course, I’m not a prophet…<grin>)

Instead of being critical, I prefer to think of these events as part of what may be the deconstruction of Mormonism — the reduction of a unique faith to another nearly-evangelical religious group. Of course, this will never be the whole story — Mormonism will always stand alone in its unique expression of religious thought. You can’t distance yourself from the genius of Joseph Smith without suffering some identity crisis.

But the recent changes to the introduction to the Book of Mormon are, I fear, yet another effort to move the Church toward center, and require less of its members in terms of radical belief and practice.

What think ye? How far do you think the Church will go in its efforts to achieve acceptability in the Christian community? And how far do you think the new Pres. Monson will go in furthering this deconstruction?

Your thoughts are welcome.

Imagine my surprise when I learned that Martin Luther King Jr. died at the age of 39! This Monday is a holiday celebrating Dr. King. Another young man lost his life at about the same age — Joseph Smith, Jr.  Both had a dream, both were either loved or hated by the people.  Both based their beliefs in religion.  Both died martyrs.

My question: would Dr. King be welcomed into the Mormon church today? They may want him to keep quiet about his feelings of unrest.  And how far has Mormonism come in its well-known problems with race? Has Mormonism become the race-neutral welcoming place that it should have been from the beginning?

I plan to post once a week, with a new column on The Continuing Crisis.  I do look forward to seeing many of you here, commenting, criticizing, etc.

Best.