In this Mormon Matters episode, host Dan Wotherspoon and panelists Joanna Brooks, Kristine Haglund, and Boyd Petersen discuss this list and various issues it raises, but then launch into a both serious and fun examination of the oftentimes uncomfortable relationship that Mormonism has had with its intellectuals. Among the topics they hash out are what makes someone an intellectual, why being “learned” is often seen with suspicion and denounced by certain church leaders and members, what positive roles do intellectuals play within the LDS tradition, and what advice might the panelists give to those with an intellectual temperament who find themselves struggling for a comfortable home within Mormonism? It’s a great discussion that raises issues faced by many of this podcast’s listeners. We hope you’ll listen and then join in the discussion below!

Additional reading listeners might enjoy:

Leonard J. Arrington’s 1969 article, “The Intellectual Tradition of the Latter-day Saints,” in which the list first appeared

Follow-up article in 1993 by Stan Larson in which he reports on the results of a new survey

Blog thread at LDSWave discussing eminent women intellectuals

Armand L. Mauss essay with ideas for successfully navigating a fulfilling and engaged life within Mormonism as an “alternate voice” (with his suggestions just as easily a fit for “intellectuals”)

Social Networks Are How Humanity Works

As a community, the church is like all other social networks; there are people you like, people you dismiss, people you trust, people who irritate you, and so forth.  Ideas pass from person to person, both good ideas (healthy habits, positive attitudes) and bad ideas (unhealthy habits, negative attitudes).  The benefits of belonging have a lot to do with the people who surround you.  If the social contacts are beneficial, membership is valuable.  If the social contacts are not beneficial, membership can be detrimental (this is one reason prisons are bad social networks if we hope to rehabilitate criminals).

Dirty Little Secret:  Not every social network is beneficial to every person.

Rule #1:  Recognize that it’s a social network.  Choose to be in it.

Weak vs. Strong Connections

Social networks include strong connections (in Facebook, your “friends”) and weak connections (“your friends’ friends” and their friends).  Strong connections create your social norms – they tend to be most influential on your idealogies, views and habits.  But weak connections are also valuable – it’s how we typically meet our spouses or find a new job.  Also, as information flows through our social network (via influential people), we can become susceptible to ideas and habits that originated through weak connections.

Dirty Little Secret:  People often take a passive stance with their relationships.  They may not scrutinize the sources of information (norms) that come to them.  Or they may not make good choices about strong vs. weak connections.

Rule #2:  Choose your strong relationships carefully (and be mindful of the influences of their strong relationships), and use your weak relationships to add to your network.

How Ideas Pass Through a Social Network – Why God has ”Hand”

According to the book, you accept new ideas from people in your network that you admire, people you view as successful or educated.  The people who are influential to you are the ones you consider your closest “friends.”  The people you influence are the ones who view you as their closest “friends.”  Influence flows through social networks, from those perceived to be successful, educated, or wise to those who aspire to be like them.

In an episode of Seinfeld, George laments that he doesn’t have “hand” in the relationship with his girlfriend.  The one with “hand” is the one who is more influential on the other; the one without “hand” is the one who hopes to gain most from the association.  The one with “hand” has all the power and can take the relationship or leave it.

This is like the hierarchy of intelligences described by Joseph Smith in Abraham 3:19 -

• when “there are two spirits, one being more intelligent than the other; there shall be another more intelligent than they; I am the Lord thy God, I am more intelligent than they all.“  So, influence flows from the most intelligent to less intelligent spirits.

So God has the potential for the most influence among all intelligences.  But if you don’t know God, you just have to deal with the smartest mortal people you can find, be they authors, spouses, family members, prophets, talk show hosts or drinking buddies.

Dirty Little Secret:  People sometimes think friendships are equal or that advice from friends is all good since they have your interests at heart.  It’s not all good.

Rule #3:  Understand and define your position in your social network and in your relationships (who has “hand” with you; with whom do you have “hand”?).  IOW, don’t take advice from stupid people or from people who are taking advice from stupid people.

Social Epidemics

Ideas move from person to person through a social network.  These might be useful, productive ideas (“smoking is bad for you,”) or bad, unproductive or unhealthy ideas (“fried food dipped in lard is delicious”).  Likewise, within the church, various doctrinal interpretations operate like social epidemics.  An interpretation is introduced by someone, and that idea spreads if people view it as 1) credible on its own merits, 2) coming from a reliable source, and 3) not contradicted by a better sourced, more convincing argument.   BTW, rejecting bad ideas increases your influence over time as does embracing good ideas.  Look at what has happened to smoker populations over the last 30 years for an example of this.

Dirty Little Secret:  You are always vulnerable to the ideas and social norms of your network, especially if you are unaware that you are.

Rule #4:  Pay attention to how ideas flow in your network; accept the best ideas from the best sources.

Four Types of People in Communities

There are four different personalities that emerge in all societies: collaborators, freeloaders, punishers and loners.  This pattern recurs whenever societies form:

1. Individual loners live in relative isolation or small family groups.
2. Individuals learn that they can achieve more in collaboration.
3. Some individuals in the system (free-loaders) decide they can reap the rewards of the group without participating.
4. Some individuals resent the freeloaders and self-designate as punishers to control the behaviors that are counterproductive to the society’s greater good (at least in their view).

What might these types look like in a church setting?

• Loners.  These folks don’t really participate or interact much, so they are socially neutral.  They may be peripherally associated with the ward (Jack Mormons) or they may attend regularly.  They are more like visitors than members; they give nothing to and take nothing from the organization.
• Collaborators are the “norm” or the “majority.”  These are your average people who try to help others, accept help from them, and wish the community well as an insider.  They both give to and take from the organization.
• Freeloaders may be perpetual takers but not givers.  This could be in the form of taking things like church welfare, member contributions of time to the organization, individual service from others, or spiritual edification without putting equal or greater amounts of the same (service, money, ideas, spirituality) back into the community over time.
• Punishers  are out to define and protect the boundaries of the organization.  They want to say who is in and who is out.  If they are influential, they can convince others to “unfriend” you or to “friend” you.   They want to punish and get rid of the free-loaders.
  • Sometimes they go too far and start to “punish” those who aren’t free-loaders overall, but who are going through a rough period in which they need more than they can contribute.
  • They may also target loners if they mis-assess them as free-loaders due to their low contribution.

Dirty Little Secret:  We need punishers like we need antibodies.  But antibodies unchecked lead to excessive allergies, rejecting things that are not harmful or even that are good.

Rule #5:  Give as much or more than you get.  Don’t freeload.  Ignore punishers if you can, and stay the heck off their radar.  If you get there somehow, make it clear you are not a freeloader.

Can You “Friend” God?

The book posits that “friending” God is actually an effective way to create a broader social network because suddenly all of humanity is the friend of a friend (other believers) or the friend of a friend of a friend (anyone who knows another believer).  It all depends on who you consider to be “God’s friends,” which varies.  Some Christians would say all Christians are “God’s friends,” (although many exclude the types of Christians they don’t like such as Mormons).  IOW, belonging to a religion (friending God) does increase your social network instantly and substantially, and to some extent, you can define how it does that.

Dirty Little Secret:  God may not be a respecter of persons, but religious cultures are, and so is your social network.

Rule #6:  To maximize your religious social network, you have to friend God.  This can be as simple as viewing everyone as connected and being filled with love toward all humanity.

Friending God puts you in a theoretical sibling relationship with all of humanity.  In reality, the connections created are mostly “weak” ones (not direct friends), but they do carry the social benefits of weak connections:  links to 1) prospective spouses, 2) job opportunities, and 3) new ideas (good and bad) that pass through chains of influence to you.

Likewise, ”unfriending God” has some of the immediate disadvantages – you suddenly erase your weak connections, isolating yourself from those benefits of the community.  Similarly, a relationship with God is like a relationship with anyone else, except that it’s even more one-sided and subject to personal interpretation (although all relationships are like this to an extent).

Unfortunately, marriages sometimes fail when people mistake a weak connection (through their mutual “friend” God) for a strong connection.  Strong connections take personal investment and time to develop.

Dirty Little Secret:  Strong connections require admiration and influence.  And in a marriage, it has to be a two-way street.

Rule #7:  Bear in mind the difference between a strong tie to God (if you even have that) and a weak tie through God to another person.  Building strong ties takes work.  Marriages require strong ties with influence in both directions (not too much “hand” on one side or the other).

Are any of these tips helpful to you?  Do you disagree with any?  How does the church work for you as a social network?  Do these models help?  Discuss.

The beginning of the lesson talks about Joseph’s re-translation of the Bible (the JST) that resulted in clarifying passages and words throughout the Bible, the Book of Moses, the expansion of Matthew 24, and several “spin-off” revelations as Joseph asked for further enlightenment about different principles, including D&C 74, 76, 77, 86 and 91.  From the Book of Moses:

“For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.”  Moses:  1:37, 39

The “Plan of Salvation” as we have it today resulted from JS’s efforts to restore “plain and precious” parts of the scriptures that would more clearly explain what happened before we were born, what happens after we die, and why we are here on the earth.  Some components that were restored or clarified by JS:

• That we existed before birth in a pre-mortal world with God & Jesus.  Exactly what this looked like is still up for grabs, though.  Did we live in families?  In BYU-approved housing?  Was there a dress code?
• That there was a plan, and we all sanctioned it.  Even those who have never voted in a single election apparently weighed in on this one.
• That Satan had an alternate plan that was rejected, resulting in his being cast out.  I always wonder if we had debates or if we vacillated at all; or were we just so dang smart we immediately saw through that “bad” plan?
• That matter is eternal; that God “organized” rather than “created” the earth.  That we are eternal in nature, without beginning or end.  This puts us on much more equal footing with God than in other faiths, and is considered blasphemous to some.  Yet, as a Mormon, I have to say this is one aspect of our religion that totally ROCKS!
• That obtaining a body, gaining knowledge and growing in faith are the purpose of life on earth.  This is a Mormon way of putting it; the Protestant version is that we believe our works save us rather than grace.  It is through grace we are saved; it is through our progression we increase our ability to withstand glory (God’s and our own).
• That beings with bodies are more powerful than beings of Spirit only.  The body is not a corruption that defiles us; it glorifies us and is a part of the soul.  This is again, a very unique teaching of Mormonism.  The body is not just a hollow husk that we gratefully discard at death; it is essential to our progress, and it is more glorious and powerful than spirit alone.
• That each of us has moral agency and will be held responsible for our choices of good or evil; that those choices affect our ability to receive and channel spiritual light.  We are constantly in motion, either progressing or digressing.  This idea that it’s not really possible to stand still is probably true, but a little disturbing.  Life is long.
• That our eternal reward is not pass/fail, but is based on the degree of glory we have attained through enlightenment, faith, increasing our intelligence, and becoming like Christ and our father in Heaven.  Another aspect of Mormonism that I find very appealing; we are not “God’s pets,” but His children.

Q:  Are there other specific aspects of the plan of salvation and the purpose of life that we know because of revelations to the Prophet Joseph Smith that I missed?

Q:  Which of these do you find most compelling, enlightening and helpful?  Are there any you don’t care for or find helpful?

Q:  Do you like our plan of salvation more or less than those proposed by other religions (e.g. Hinduism, Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism)?  What do you like and not like?

Eternal Intelligences

“Intelligence is eternal and exists upon a self-existent principle. It is a spirit from age to age and there is no creation about it. All the minds and spirits that God ever sent into the world are susceptible of enlargement.  God himself, finding he was in the midst of spirits and glory, because he was more intelligent, saw proper to institute laws whereby the rest could have a privilege to advance like himself. The relationship we have with God places us in a situation to advance in knowledge. He has power to institute laws to instruct the weaker intelligences, that they may be exalted with himself, so that they might have one glory upon another, and all that knowledge, power, glory, and intelligence, which is requisite in order to save them in the world of spirits.”  (1844)

Q: How does this influence the way we understand our own nature?  How does this influence how we should treat other people?

Q:  Are you one of the stronger or weaker intelligences?  How do you know?  When you meet a weaker intelligence, do you think “I am so awesome!”?  Do you think that’s what happens when a stronger intelligence meets you?

Bodies Rule!

“The design of God before the foundation of the world was that we should take tabernacles [bodies], that through faithfulness we should overcome and thereby obtain a resurrection from the dead, in this wise obtaining glory, honor, power, and dominion.”  (1843)

“We came to this earth that we might have a body and present it pure before God in the celestial kingdom. The great principle of happiness consists in having a body. The devil has no body, and herein is his punishment. He is pleased when he can obtain the tabernacle of man, and when cast out by the Savior he asked to go into the herd of swine, showing that he would prefer a swine’s body to having none. All beings who have bodies have power over those who have not.”  (undated, JS quoted by William Clayton)

Q:  How does this knowledge affect the way we should care for our bodies?  How is this unique perspective different from other religions?  From secular views?

Q:  How can we strengthen the connection between our bodies and spirits to make our bodies receptacles of light?

You Wish The Devil Made You Do It

“President Joseph Smith … observed that Satan was generally blamed for the evils which we did, but if he was the cause of all our wickedness, men could not be condemned. The devil could not compel mankind to do evil; all was voluntary. Those who resisted the Spirit of God, would be liable to be led into temptation, and then the association of heaven would be withdrawn from those who refused to be made partakers of such great glory. God would not exert any compulsory means, and the devil could not; and such ideas as were entertained [on these subjects] by many were absurd.”  (1841, paraphrased in Times & Seasons)

“Satan cannot seduce us by his enticements unless we in our hearts consent and yield. Our organization is such that we can resist the devil; if we were not organized so, we would not be free agents.”  (1841, JS quoted by William P. McIntire)

Q:  Does this view marginalize Satan’s influence because we are really the ones who are free agents and responsible for our actions?  Would you rather you could blame Satan for your shortcomings?

Q:  Does Satan like his job or does he think it totally blows but he’s just putting on a happy face for the minions?  Does he get burned out?  Is he just watching the millennial clock?

For the teachers out there, good luck!  For the rest of you, discuss.