I want to explore these myths using the office of Prophet/President.  The centrality of his position hierarchically, the significant role he plays in the faith of many members of the Church and also the infrequency of contact with the general membership make this an apt example.

These myths come in many varieties.  There are stories about the Holy of Holies, about paintings of the Saviour and about mantle experiences. Now all of these may well be true, in whole or in part, or they may be completely fabricated. I am not concerned with their truth claims, rather I think that what is essential in the dynamic of these stories is the way that they become transferable between Prophets.

It is possible to trace a number of these stories (or variants of them) through many leaders, especially prophets, of the Church. This does not add to their fallacious nature rather it serves to reinforce what Bushman noted, which is that the office is endowed with charismatic gifts and not the person. Therefore it is probable, even expected, that these charismatic gifts are manifest by diverse men who hold the same office.

For example, the ‘This is the Place’ myth is re-cycled in England regularly but in a context far removed from Utah. Instead this myth focuses on the construction of the Preston Temple. Simply stated, a number sites were discussed but one site had a number of people who always resisted building permission. Yet, President Hinckley had asked for a Temple to built in Preston and when he saw the different sites he said… Yes, you guessed it. Then, though there were problems, the Temple went ahead. I am sure other similar stories abound.

My point is this, the process of re-cycling and repeating these mythic stories is one mechanism for maintaining the dynamism of a charismatic office, specifically the Prophet, in a Church where the general membership is so far removed from the individual. This is not to say that miraculous things do not happen, but these stories play an important sociological role in reinforcing this key notion that is rooted so firmly to the earliest days of the Church. These Mormon myths serve as a form of transferable charisma for an otherwise distant office.

“Priests are thus challenged to proclaim the Gospel by employing the latest generation of audiovisual resources — images, videos, animated features, blogs, Web sites — which, alongside traditional means, can open up broad new vistas for dialogue, evangelization and catechesis,” he said.

Apparently, the Pope is even on Facebook.  So, I had to check and see if Pres Monson is there too.  Well, there are some pages on him, but I don’t think he’s officially there.  Perhaps he is, but his 234 fans are quite a bit behind the Pope’s 87,429.

So, it looks like the Catholic  Church is ahead of the Mormons on Facebook, but the blog advice is more than 2 years behind us.  The Newsroom at LDS.org has Elder Ballard’s talk from Dec 15, 2007

Most of you already know that if you have access to the Internet you can start a blog in minutes and begin sharing what you know to be true.  You can download videos from Church and other appropriate sites, including Newsroom at LDS.org, and send them to your friends.  You can write to media sites on the Internet that report on the Church, and voice your views as to the accuracy of the reports.

Did you ever think you’d hear these octogenarians telling us to embrace Facebook and Blogs???  How much of an impact do you think blogs are having on them?

Air Force Acadamy at Utah football game 10/24/2009

In the paper edition of the Deseret News, President Monson was “honored as the distinguished University of Utah fan of the game.”  Pres Monson’s attendance may have been a deciding factor–the Utes won 23-16 in Overtime over the Air Force Falcons.  Meanwhile, BYU suffered a loss without Pres Monson, getting crushed 38-7 at home in Provo to TCU (Texas Christian University.)

I recently learned that the University of Utah was designated as “the School of the Prophets” by Brigham Young, according to a Deseret News article from Dec 2, 1867. 

Back in July, the University of Utah football team signed a player out of California by the name of Joseph Smith.  I joked that with his signing, and President Hinckley and President Monson’s status as alums of the U, that it was the “School of the Prophets.”  (Joseph Smith had originally set up a School of the Prophets to teach the LDS leadership back in the Nauvoo days.)  Well, it turns out that it’s no joke, and comes straight from the mouth of none other than Brigham Young!

I just finished Forgotten Kingdom, and I want to quote from page 261.

School of the Prophets

To implement a unified move in this direction, Brigham Young on December 2, 1867, resurrected an organization from an earlier period of his church’s history.  He announced that day before an assembly of Mormon leaders that the University of Deseret, parent of the University of Utah, would be reorganized and “hence, it may properly be called the ‘School of the Prophets.’” [Deseret News, December 2, 1867.  While Young considered School of the Prophets to be the proper name and role of the University of Deseret, the institution's existing name remained the same.  In 1872 the larger School of the Prophets was dissolved due to a lack of attendance and the inability of many to keep its affairs secret.]  Since it was founded in 1850, the university had seen few students but served primarily to publish and distribute the Deseret Alphabet.

Who knew?

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.

President Barack Obama met with President Monson on Monday in the Oval Office, thanking  President Monson for a thorough history of the first family.

President  Monson presented Obama with details of his family’s genealogy during their first face-to-face meeting. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat who is Mormon, helped arrange the meeting and joined it.

“I’m grateful for the genealogical records that they brought with them and am looking forward to reading through the materials with my daughters,” Obama said in a statement after the meeting. “It’s something our family will treasure for years to come.”

Mormon leaders traditionally meet with new presidents and share with them records from the Salt Lake City-based church’s extensive genealogical records.

“President Obama’s heritage is rich with examples of leadership, sacrifice and service,” Monson said in a statement. “We were very pleased to research his family history and are honored to present it to him today.”

The five leather-bound books detail Obama’s family history for several generations. Parts of that history were already known, such as his ties to former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney. The two are eighth cousins.

Obama is a descendent of Mareen Duvall. The French Huguenot’s son married the granddaughter of a Richard Cheney, who arrived in Maryland in the late 1650s from England.

Thoughts Questions?

Notes

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_of_Barack_Obama

2. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/20/AR2009072002068.html

I always got a kick out of the signs in the student body section proclaiming, “The Prophet is a Ute!”  After all, so many Mormons proclaim that BYU is the “Lord’s University”, that it was really nice to point out that President Hinckley is an alum of the University of Utah.  The cool thing is that the signs can stay up, because President Monson is also an alum of the U, (though he did get an MBA from BYU, so I guess both schools can claim him.)  Anyway, I was quite amused to hear on the radio yesterday, that Joseph Smith has officially decided to attend the University of Utah.  You can verify the info right here!  If BYU is the Lord’s University, it seems that Utah is the School of the Prophets!

Here are a few responses from various different individuals to this quote from this weekend’s General Conference:

• “It’s not as if you’re going to hear that and say “Right. I guess I don’t have doubts.” It seems more likely that people will hear that and say “Right. I guess I don’t have faith.”"
• “Plenty of seemingly incompatible thoughts/emotions coexist in the same mind at the same time without dispelling each other. It’s like saying “being faithful in marriage means never having desires for another woman/man” when the truth is faithfulness in marriage is about staying committed in spite of those desires.”
• “If Joseph Smith hadn’t doubted a whole bunch of things would we even have the LDS Church?”
• “One popular ZEN proverb reads, “Where there is great doubt, there will be great awakening; small doubt, small awakening; no doubt, no awakening.” It’s refreshing and uplifting to think about doubt as a positive catalyst for reflection and self-discovery, rather than a weakness to be risen above.”
• “If faith means enough hope to act even though one is not absolutely certain of the result, the opposite is enough despair or discouragement that we become paralyzed from acting. If one calls that despair or discouragement “doubt”, then I agree that doubt is the opposite of faith.  However, I personally see doubt as uncertainty, recognizing the possibility that what we hope for or believe is not true. For me, that is an inherent component of faith. Without that uncertainty or doubt, I do not think faith exists (because it would be knowledge or certainty).”
• “I’ve heard plenty of Church leaders admit to feeling doubts, and Joseph Smith seemed full of them. But quotes like this do set-up a certain mindset among the “faithful” that they should never entertain doubt, or else. The sad thing here is that this state-of-mind is temporary at best, and can often lead to complete loss of faith. But some GC talks seem more designed to rally than educate, which explains stuff like this.”
• “What was most striking about Mother Theresa was the juxtaposition of faith and doubt in her life. She had such faith, yet such doubt at the same time. I think it’s totally bogus to pit faith and doubt against each other as opposites. They aren’t competitors, they’re collaborators – they encourage each other. Faith exists because of doubt, and doubt because of faith. IMO, faith without doubt is smug arrogance. Show me someone who has no doubt, and I’ll show you someone who has no faith.”
• “Pope Benedict referred to Mother Thesesa’s doubts as the “silence of God,” and said that all true believers must learn to deal with the silence of God which inevitably come to all of us.”
• “Elder Holland said Jesus needed to experience something like doubt. Joseph Smith certainly did–see the first verses of section 121. And the book of Job is full of doubts and anguish (although, in the condensed version we skip from Job’s refusal to condemn God and go straight to the restoration of his prior blessing, and we overlook his struggles and anguish and anger expressed in the intervening chapters).”
• “If faith is a spiritual gift, then only some will receive it. I’m paraphrasing, but the scripture says some will have the give of faith and some will have the gift to believe those with faith and some will have other gifts. And yet then we are told it is a sin if we don’t have this gift?”
• “When church leaders are asking for us to have faith in God, they really mean have faith in what they tell you about God and what the scriptures say about God, but neither are God, they are just ideas.”

What do you think?  Does doubt drive out faith?  Or is faith without doubt smug arrogance?  Is doubt an essential part of faith development?  Is some doubt bad (paralyzing doubt) and some good (energizing doubt)?  Is doubt the same as “the silence of God” that Mother Theresa, Joseph Smith, Jesus, and Job all experienced?  Do you view doubt as a complement to faith or the enemy of faith?  Is there a “war on doubt” in the church?

Discuss.

It’s tough to guess when Pres. Monson has only extended one apostolic calling thus far.  To get past this sample size of one, I expanded the field to include all apostles called since Monson has been in the First Presidency.  He wasn’t in charge in most of these situations, but I assumed he was involved to some extent as he counseled with then Presidents Benson, Hunter and Hinckley.

Since Pres. Monson joined the FP in November 1985, nine apostles have been called to the Quorum of the Twelve (Q12).  I reviewed their pre-apostolic resumes to see if I could identify common factors that may have led to their selection.  Presumably Pres. Monson will use a similar thought process as he considers the next apostle.

AGE

It’s tough to draw a compelling histogram with a sample size of 9, but I didn’t let that stop me:

• 5 of the last 9 apostles were clustered together in the center, aged between 59 and 63 when called.
• 2 of the 9 were younger than the norm:  Holland (53) and Bednar (52).
• 2 of the 9 were older than the norm:  Wirthlin (69) and Cook (67)
• Beyond these nine I found that new apostles are seldom called once they reach the age of 70; it has happened only 5 times in the history of the Church, and the most recent, Hugh B. Brown, was over 50 years ago.

Based on recent history, it appears that the “target range” for apostolic callings is in the late 50s or early 60s.  Pres. Monson’s first pick was right in the target range, age 63 (Christofferson).

EXPERIENCE

The last 9 apostles came from 3 different pools:

• 5 of the 9 were called directly from the Presidency of the Seventy (P70), which makes sense organizationally.
• 2 of the 9 served in the First Quorum of Seventy (1Q70), but served in the Presiding Bishopric (PB) rather than the P70.
• 2 of the 9 were current or former presidents of Church-owned universities.  E. Holland had also subsequently served in the 1Q70, but not the P70.  E. Bednar had only served as an Area Authority/Area Seventy in addition to his time as president of BYU-Idaho.  I found it interesting that these 2 had such different paths to the Q12 because I had already considered them outliers based on their age when called.

Any discussion of potential apostles should obviously begin with the current P70, and possibly consider former members of the P70.  Service in the PB and leading a Church university are also potential paths to the Q12.  True to these patterns, E. Christofferson was serving in the P70 when called one year ago.

LENGTH OF SERVICE

I was surprised to find little correlation to length of service in the P70 and an apostolic calling.  Of the 5 who served in the P70, the time they spent there varied widely from 5 weeks (Wirthlin) to 10 years (Christofferson).  Others served 2 months, 2 years, and 5 years.

More interesting is the correlation between total time served in the 70 (any quorum), PB, as university president, or Assistant to the 12.  8 of the 9 newly called apostles had at least 10 years combined service in these groups.  Only Bednar (always the outlier) fell short of this mark.  His combined service in the 5Q70 and Pres. of BYU-Idaho totaled only 9.5 years.

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION APOSTLE?

When E. Cook was called in 2007, he and Pres. Eyring (new member of FP) held a press conference.  One of the first questions centered around the calling of yet another American as a high-ranking leader in a global Church.  Apparently they were expecting something different, perhaps because E. Uchtdorf had been called (along with Bednar) to fill one of the last vacancies.

Does the Church worry about apostolic demographics?  Probably not, but a new apostle from a country besides the U.S. is somehow exciting.  It seems to validate the growth of the global Church, and I’m sure it will happen again eventually.

PREDICTIONS

Based on all these criteria, I identified the 9 individuals I see as the most likely candidates for the open spot in the 12.  Any of these men could be selected to join the Q12, and there are doubtless others who are well-qualified.  My picks are divided into 3 tiers:

TIER ONE

Claudio R. M. Costa. Currently serving in the P70 and his age (60) is about perfect.  Served in the 70 for 15 years, with 20 months of that in the P70.  I gave him bonus points for being Brazilian and his work as a professional diamond cutter (totally irrelevant but more interesting than just another attorney, businessman or Church employee).

Neil L. Anderson. Currently serving in the P70, plus he’s on the young end of the target range (57).  He has served in the 70 for 16 years, and he and E. Rasband have the highest tenure in the P70 (nearing 4 years, although this hasn’t necessarily mattered in the past).  Bonus points (from me) for speaking French, Spanish and Portuguese, and I liked his last conference address.

Jay E. Jensen.  After 17 years in the 70, he has the odd distinction of being both the junior member of the P70 (8 months tenure) and the senior member of the P70 (67 years old).  That puts him out of the target range, but I can’t shake him specifically because he was just put in the P70.  Years ago, E. Wirthlin was called to the P70 and served only 5 weeks before joining the 12.  More recently, E. Cook spent only 2 months in the P70 before becoming an apostle.  In both cases, the same President who put them in the P70 moved them rapidly into the Q12.  Could Jensen be ticketed for a similar path?  My wife (Sister Hall?) gives him bonus points for looking like Pres. Faust around the eyes.

TIER TWO

Cecil O. Samuelson.  Has served 14 years in the 70, including a term in the P70 (although not currently) and several years as President of BYU.  He climbs this high on the list (despite being a little older than the apparent target at 67) because of the BYU job.  It worked for Oaks, Holland, Eyring, and Bednar.

Marlin K. Jensen.  Leading the field as far as GA tenure goes, Jensen has logged 20 years in the 70, including 3 years of past service in the P70.  At 66, he’s a little older than the target, but tenure gets him this high.

TIER THREE

Ronald A. Rasband, Steven E. Snow, Walter F. Gonzalez, and L. Whitney Clayton:  The rest of the current P70 are all in their upper 50s but haven’t been around for quite 10 years (9 for Rasband, 8 for the others).  For that reason alone they drop to Tier 3.  More apostles have been called over 65 (see Tier 2) than have been called with less than 10 years of service (as defined above).

Still, they are on the list and could be called.

THE REST

I briefly considered several others, including Dennis B. Neuenschwander (former P70, 18 yrs in 70, but at 69 years old, less likely), Keith B. McMullin (only member of PB under age 70), and Glenn L. Pace (former PB who at 69 probably won’t reunite with Hales and Eyring as apostles).  Bruce C. Hafen is also a former Ricks/BYU-Idaho president currently in the 1Q70, but not the P70.

All others in previous P70s, Presiding Bishopric or presidents of universities are either over age 70 or have been given emeritus status.

To wrap it all up, I find it interesting that although all of these men have led the third highest quorum in the Church, our interaction with them is fairly limited.  They speak every three or four conferences, and you might see them once in a lifetime at your Stake or Regional Conference, but they aren’t nearly as well known as the 12.  All that will soon change for someone.

Is there a dark horse I have missed?  Have any of their conference talks or other messages been particularly meaningful to you?  Who do you think will fill the empty seat?

Today, February 3, 2009 is the 1-year anniversary of the calling of President Thomas S. Monson as the 16th President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  What has happened in the Church during that period?  Has there been any major changes, events, revelations?

 LDS Church News has a specific page devoted to the first year of President Monson’s leadership as President of the Church. For that reason, I invite you to look through it as I will not repeat what was written. Also, the Salt Lake Tribune has an article by Peggy Fletcher Stack entitled, “LDS leader’s first year: Observers say Monson barely budged from the Hinckley plan“

In summary, President Monson dedicated 5 temples, announced 10 new Temples, presided over two General Conferences, and spoke in an number of other meetings. But, no new policies were established, no major revelations were received and the growth of the Church is steady.

However, the one of the most controversial things the Church as ever gotten involved with occurred on his watch; the fight in California over Proposition 8.  To some, it was a stunning encroachment on civil liberties and a wrong-headed involvement of the Church in political affairs. To others, it was nothing more than the Church defending traditional marriage and engaging in a coalition with other like-minded organizations.  The fact the Church seemed better organized, its people more engaged with time and money is beside the point.

I personally will not forget the address President Monson gave on Sunday Morning during April Conference. His first official address (he spoke in the Priesthood session) as President. While on one hand it was vintage Monson, there was, for me, a detectable difference. He was now the Lord’s Prophet on the earth.  And he can wiggle his ears too! 

There are many positions on which century the Book of Mormon originated in, but most seem to fall into two general camps: the book was largely produced in the fifth century by Moroni, or in the nineteenth century by Joseph Smith.

There is a third view: the text was largely produced in the 20^th century by committees of LDS Church employees.

Let me explain: when I say production, I mean the process of presenting, formatting, editing, shaping, and summarizing which goes along with creating a readable document for mass consumption. When I first read portions of the original and printer’s manuscripts of the Book of Mormon, I was struck by how differently the text read than the smooth twentieth century edition I was raised with.

The 1981 edition of the Book of Mormon was presided over by a committee of apostles including Thomas Monson (presumably for his professional background in printing) and Bruce McConkie and Boyd Packer (presumably for their doctrinal expertise). It is believed that the chapter summaries found in this edition of the Book of Mormon were written either solely or primarily by McConkie.

The 1981 edition is also the edition which has been most read by Mormons and non-Mormons, especially since President Benson’s push to flood the earth (or at least, thrift store bookshelves) with the Book of Mormon. Not many of us have the 1920 edition at hand or earlier versions. I remember my surprise when I compared my 1981 version’s rendition of “pure and delightsome” to refer to the Lamanites in 2 Nephi to my mom’s pre-1981 version of the same verse which read “white and delightsome.” Some twenty-odd major textual changes of this type were made to the 1981 edition, apparently by preferring the original manuscript to the printer’s.

Do you think a heavily edited production of the text (edited for spelling, grammar, punctuation, chapter summaries which highlight points of doctrine important to the editors, ) enhances respect for the text, and therefore increases the believability of, claims for historicity of the events depicted in the Book of Mormon? Or does it detract from the claims of historicity by seeming too clean, too “produced”?

]]> http://mormonmatters.org/2008/09/23/the-book-of-mormon-a-20th-century-text/feed/ 16 http://mormonmatters.org/2008/07/24/for-pioneer-day-a-prophet-of-peace/ http://mormonmatters.org/2008/07/24/for-pioneer-day-a-prophet-of-peace/#comments Thu, 24 Jul 2008 11:30:09 +0000 John Nilsson http://mormonmatters.org/?p=744 Prophet of Peace

This is why I love President Monson! He has the common touch and appears to love people.

If you watch the video linked above, you will see the news piece on Salt Lake TV. At the very end, President Monson ends the informal report by flashing a peace sign, saying “Peace!” and chuckling. I was completely enamored of him once again.

So watch him in the Pioneer Day parade and enjoy!

If you want to comment, feel free:

Would President Hinckley have flashed a peace sign?

Is this a subtle pro-Obama signal from our revered ecclesiastical leader?

Are Mormons just stuck in the 1960s?

A gerontocracy is a form of oligarchical rule in which an entity is ruled by leaders who are significantly older than most of the adult population.

Some examples of political gerontocracies:

• In the Soviet Union, gerontocracy was the rule of thumb from the 1970s until March 1985, when a dynamic, young, ambitious leadership headed by Mikhail Gorbachev took power.
• Iran and other theocracies often promote gerontocracy for their highest ruling offices, but parliamentary members must be under age 75 as a balance (keeping that youth vote?).
• India’s Tamil Nadu state is ruled by an octogenarian oligarchy.
• Within the U.S. Senate, the oldest senators are typically assigned to chair committees; some later run for president.
• Catholicism.  Due to the high number of aging Cardinals, Pope Paul VI removed the right for Cardinals to vote for a new Pope once they reach the age of 80.
• Wikipedia cites LDS as a Gerontocracy:  “On the other hand, gerontocracy may emerge in an institution not initially known for it.  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was founded by Joseph Smith, Jr., a 24-year-old man [sic], who in 1835 constituted the first Quorum of the Twelve Apostles with members ranging in age from 23 to 35.”  You may recall these were not all winners. “Once it was established that succession to the church presidency derived from longest tenure in an office held for life, the hierarchy aged markedly, and with the growth of the church the age at which officials were named to the highest bodies continued to rise. Six church presidents have held office past the age of 90, and until his death in 2008 the church was actively led by Gordon B. Hinckley, a man who remembered the day his father replaced the family horse-wagon with a Ford Model T.^“

So, is Mormonism a Gerontocracy?  The tradition of promoting the longest-serving member of the Quorum goes back to 1847, when Brigham Young replaced Mormonism’s founder, Joseph Smith Jr., as the prophet. Such a method predisposes the Mormon Church to continually select men who have already lived long lives, leading some critics (and Larry King who is sort of a fanboy) of the church to refer to its leadership as a “gerontocracy.” Monson is 80, and the next most senior apostle, Boyd K. Packer, is 83.

Counter-examples:
- Faust in the First Presidency
- GBH in the First Presidency during ETB’s era
- Bednar (in the 12) is 55 years old.  A mere kid.
- Alvin Dyer in the First Presidency (was never even a member of the 12)

So what are the potential drawbacks of a Gerontocracy?

• Mental Deterioration.  The decreased faculties of the aged can potentially be a handicap in providing effective leadership.  Eventually, the mortal body shuts down, and occasionally the mind precedes it.
• “Out of Touch.”  Church members may feel the leadership are out of touch with their viewpoints, experiences, and needs, thereby leading them to marginalize their counsel.
• Resistance to Change.  The elderly may have a difficult time relating to a quickly changing world.  Some are not comfortable with technology.  Some have worldviews set in cultural standards of the past.
• Living in the Past.  It seems that everyone finds a certain era in their life they feel comfortable with and they never leave it (or quit buying new clothes after a certain era).  This seems to be human nature.  Fortunately for my kids, I’ve been mostly able to shake off the 80s.
• Ageism.  Gerontophobics will be scared off.  Ken Dychtwald identified seven assumptions of gerontophobia:
  • If young is good, then old is bad
  • If the young have it all, the old are losing it
  • If the young are creative, the old are dull
  • If the young are beautiful then the old are unattractive
  • If the young are stimulating, then the old are boring
  • If the young are full of passion, then the old are beyond caring
  • If the children are tomorrow, the old represent yesterday

Gerontocracy generally occurs as a phase in the development of an entity, rather than being part of it throughout its existence. Opposition to gerontocracy may cause weakening or elimination of this characteristic by instituting things like term limits or mandatory retirement ages (emeritus status).

And what are the positives of a Gerontocracy?

• Stability.  Gerontocracy’s stability is seen as its strength, which can be more appropriate for institutions that teach principles that do not vary over time.
• Resistance to Change.  Elderly leaders are more likely to allow change more slowly rather than reacting to the whims of time and trend.
• Respect for Elders.  Psychologically, it’s much easier to unquestioningly follow the commands of someone older than you. So the strict seniority-based promotion scale serves a practical purpose.
• Experience.  These leaders have got many more years of life experience than the rest of us.  With age, wisdom.
• Credibility by Imitation.  For millions of people, the Pope is the representative of God on earth.  Having a similarly-aged leader lends an air of “me too” credibility for those who are most comfortable with this image.
• God’s Really in Charge.  He can kill off potential leaders before their time, at least according to the “lower decks” scuttlebutt I have heard.  And God is the ultimate Geriatric!

So, what’s your opinion?  Is the church a Gerontocracy?  If so, why did it become one?  Will it always be one or is this a temporary condition?  How do others perceive this, both in and out of the church?  Do the positives outweigh the negatives?  Does the world really change all that much or is doctrinal stability more desirable?

Green Flake, the slave of James Madison Flake, a convert to the LDS Church, is baptized at the age of 15. Green remains a slave but is a faithful member of the church throughout his life. Samuel Chambers, a 13-year-old, is baptized in secret because he is a slave. Walker Lewis, a black man in Lowell, Mass., is ordained an to the office of an Elder in the Melchizedek Priesthood.

Walker Lewis, a black man, is ordained to the office of Elder.

1846
William McCary, a black man, is ordained to the office of Elder.

1847
Elijah Abel arrives in Utah. A carpenter by trade, he works on building the Salt Lake Temple. He and his wife Mary Ann manage the Farnham Hotel. Mary Ann Abel was Negro according to the 1850 Hamilton County, Ohio, census and the 1860 Utah census.

1851
Elijah Abel arrives in Utah, where he works on building the Salt Lake Temple. He and his wife Mary Ann manage the Farnham Hotel. The couple asks to be “sealed” in marriage in the temple, which Brigham Young refuses. Abel had already been through the Kirtland Temple for washings and anointings and he was already baptized for the dead in Nauvoo.

1853
Elijah asked to receive his endowment and was denied by Brigham Young.

1854
Brigham Young frees Green Flake.

1858
All black Melanesians (Fijians) are given the priesthood (blacks in the Philippines even earlier)

1860
Utah Census lists 59 blacks, 29 of them are listed as slaves.

1883
Elijah Able is still on Church records as a Seventy.

1884
Elijah Able in his 70s is sent on yet another mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He returns home early from his mission and dies in early December of 1884.

1900
Elijah Abel’s son, Enoch Abel, is ordained an elder.

1902
Jane Manning James, a faithful black Mormon since the days of Joseph Smith Jr., is given a special temple sealing as a “servant” to Joseph Smith Jr. She continues to pursue her endowment.

1934
Elijah Abel’s grandson is ordained a priest; a year later, he advances to elder.

1949
First Presidency statement on blacks and priesthood states the ban “is not a matter of the declaration of a policy but of direct commandment from the Lord, on which is founded the doctrine of the church from the days of its organization.”

1962
A missionary tract, the Joseph Smith Story, found its way into the hands of a black religious leader in Ghana, Dr. A.F. Mensah. He converts several others, sets up a church congregation and corresponds with the Church missionary department.

1964
After reading the Book of Mormon, J.W.B. Johnson forms the first “Latter-day Saint” congregations in Ghana, Africa.

1969
Fourteen University of Wyoming football players wanted to wear armbands for their games with Brigham Young University as a protest against the ban on blacks. Other athletes also protested.

1970
LDS President David O. McKay tells the Salt Lake Tribune that “There is no doctrine in this church and there never was a doctrine in this church to the effect that the Negroes are under any kind of a divine curse.”

1971

Genesis Group, a support group for black Mormons, is organized in Salt Lake City under the direction of then LDS President Joseph Fielding Smith with apostles Gordon B. Hinckley (pictured, with Genesis co-founder Darius Gray), Thomas S. Monson and Boyd K. Packer as advisers.

1978 June 8th
President Spencer W. Kimball announces a divine revelation opening the priesthood to all worthy males regardless of race or lineage. is announced. The events leading up to it and the revelation itself are judged to be a true miracle.

Now the time before the ban lets look at what life has been like after the ban was lifted.

1978
LDS Apostle Bruce R. McConkie, who wrote in Mormon Doctrine that blacks would never get the priesthood, states that “we should forget everything that has been said in the past on this topic.”

1990
Helvecio Martins set apart as first black General Authority as a member of the Quorum of the Seventy — the first black Seventy since Elijah Abel.

2002
Robert Foster elected BYU student body president.

2006
LDS President Gordon B. Hinckley condemns racism during the all-male priesthood session of the church’s Annual General Conference.

Where were you when you heard the Priesthood Ban was lifted.

I don’t know where I was on June 8th 1978 when the ban was lifted. But I can tell you where I was June 8th 2008. I was in Elders Quorum reading Official Declaration—2 to the Elders of Israel.

Jamie Trwth
Latte Day Saints

1. Have you ever met President Monson and, if so, do you have any lasting impressions from that meeting? What’s he like in person?

While I never encountered President Hinckley up close and personal, I’ve encountered President Monson several times. At a wedding, he was kind and complimentary toward my toddler son, who was just learning to walk. In a business setting, however, he can be more gruff and bossy. When I picked up some photos from him at his office one time, he frowned at me and warned me not to let the rain ruin the photos, without giving me any of the warm fuzzies of his pulpit persona. When I worked at the Ensign magazine, he was probably the highest-maintenance General Authority in terms of approving material, making requests, and so forth.

I find it refreshing how President Monson seems to enjoy pop culture. I once saw him eating junk food at the Disney Ice Capades at the Delta Center. My good friend who is his nephew informed me that President Monson maintains a collection of James Bond movies at his vacation home in Midway, Utah. And he quoted the movies Field of Dreams and Home Alone in his general conference talks, thus making those movies part of Mormon scripture.

On the other hand, he doesn’t always take teasing well. At a wedding reception, he and his wife were sitting alone at a table, and my parents decided to sit next to them. “You scared everyone away,” my dad quipped, but President Monson just frowned and looked away.

2. When you think back on President Monson as a speaker, what stands out about his style? Are there themes that you associate with him?

President Monson always seems to have a story about helping a widow or some other person in need. He also draws upon a seemingly endless supply of charming, folksy anecdotes from his childhood. I think in recent years he’s gotten more loose and funny in his talks, often telling fairly uproarious stories that can be quite entertaining. In fact, sometimes his style is a bit hammy. He’s the Hallmark card of general authorities, fairly sentimental and appealing to the lowest common denominator, widely beloved by both young and old but also a little cheesy for some. I find him an interesting mix of ego and compassion.

3. President Monson is beloved for his stories. Do you have a favorite story that you’ve heard him tell?

For some reason, the story that stands out most in my mind is the one he told at general conference in 2002 about his son’s water snake, because it was such an entertainingly bizarre story that didn’t make any apparent gospel point:

“…an event occurred in my life with our youngest son, Clark.

Clark has always liked animals, birds, reptiles—anything that is alive. Sometimes that resulted in a little chaos in our home. One day in his boyhood he came home from Provo Canyon with a water snake, which he named Herman.

Right off the bat Herman got lost. Sister Monson found him in the silverware drawer. Water snakes have a way of being where you least expect them. Well, Clark moved Herman to the bathtub, put a plug in the drain, put a little water in, and had a sign taped to the back of the tub which read, “Don’t use this tub. It belongs to Herman.” So we had to use the other bathroom while Herman occupied that sequestered place.

But then one day, to our amazement, Herman disappeared. His name should have been Houdini. He was gone! So the next day Sister Monson cleaned up the tub and prepared it for normal use.

Several days went by. One evening I decided it was time to take a leisurely bath; so I filled the tub with a lot of warm water, and then I peacefully lay down in the tub for a few moments of relaxation. I was lying there just pondering, when the soapy water reached the level of the overflow drain and began to flow through it. Can you imagine my surprise when, with my eyes focused on that drain, Herman came swimming out, right for my face? I yelled out to my wife, “Frances! Here comes Herman!”

Well, Herman was captured again, put in a foolproof box, and we made a little excursion to Vivian Park in Provo Canyon and there released Herman into the beautiful waters of the South Fork Creek. Herman was never again to be seen by us.”

4. Do you have a favorite story that you’ve heard told about him?

Here’s a little story I love that shows his practical, frugal side: Someone I know once saw President Monson pull into the driveway of his Midway vacation home, mow the lawn in his white shirtsleeves, and then get back into his car and speed away, presumably back down to church headquarters in Salt Lake.

5. As a leader, what do you expect from President Monson? What things, if any, do you think he’ll approach differently than President Hinckley did?

I think that following President Hinckley as prophet must be every bit as challenging as succeeding LaVell Edwards as BYU football coach. I expect that he’ll largely stay the course established by President Hinckley—after all, President Monson helped set that course too, as a long-time member of the First Presidency.

I remember that in the years right after President Hinckley became prophet, it seemed like he made an exciting announcement at every general conference, such as small temples and the Perpetual Education Fund, but gradually these announcements tapered off. It would be fun if President Monson stirred things up like that again for a few years, but I don’t expect any major shakeups.

6. In the same way that President Hinckley emphasized temples and retention of converts, are there church programs that you think President Monson will be focused on?

He’s very big on service, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he focuses more on welfare and humanitarian assistance. I believe he’s also big on building bridges to other faiths and communities, so I expect to see more overtures along those lines. With his compassion and concern for the needy, he will be an ideal president if we enter a period of prolonged economic difficulty and large numbers of people need extra aid. In fact, I find the timing of President Hinckley’s exit interesting, as we appear to now be entering a new difficult phase that perhaps President Monson has been groomed to help see us through.

7. President Hinckley was noted for his openness with the media. What do you think will be some of the defining aspects of President Monson’s public persona?

I don’t think he’s as comfortable or effective speaking directly with the media as President Hinckley was, judging by the simplistic answers he gave to reporters at the press release announcing his presidency. I expect that his public role will be more along the lines of an example than a Hinckley-esque spokesman, with many opportunities to participate in charities and community outreach efforts. I predict he will come across more as a public doer of good works than as a public communicator.

8. President Monson was asked at his initial news conference about whether he had a message for people who are on the outs, so to speak, with the church, and his response was that the church needs those people and would like them to come back. Do you think those people will feel than anything has changed? Will anyone respond to that invitation?

I think disaffected Mormons largely see the Monson presidency as less tolerant of alternative viewpoints than the Hinckley presidency. President Monson has a more conservative, lowbrow persona than President Hinckley did. He’s certainly not as polarizing as President Packer would be, but I think he’s viewed as less intellectual and culturally enlightened than President Hinckley was. I see President Monson as reaffirming the status quo and the lowest common denominator rather than taking any fresh, frank approach on addressing issues and nuances that alienate people from the Church.

—Check out some provocative, unconventional, yet ultimately faith-affirming Mormon books at ZarahemlaBooks.com and/or check out my personal blog.