Spiritual Optometry

You know what? I've got a pathbreaking insight that is going to shake up the discipline of the social sciences forever...

Life is tough.

But if you think that was revolutionary, try this one on for size...

Life is wonderful.

Let's face it: at the end of the day, all of us are going through similar experiences through one venue or another. As the widow of Charles Lindbergh noted (I'm paraphrasing out of blatant laziness in my desire to research): if suffering created wisdom, then all the world would be wise. Yet we know that the world...indeed, even our next door neighbor might not be particularly wise.

This is the beauty of the gospel--it grants us the privilege of living the deliberate life. A life sharpened by emotions, dulled by pleasure, and fulfilled by love. The gospel invites us to laugh, mourn, and cry (out of both joy and pain). To use C.S. Lewis' tired analogy about how the gospel is like the sun (he doesn't believe in it b/c he sees it but because he by it he sees everything else), the gospel gives us a divinely inspired narrative. Why so much emphasis on "the plan," after all...we all know that there's madness in the world far beyond what we Americans can comprehend beyond the token CNN news clip?

Because the existence of "the plan" isn't the point--many of those have been offered. It's the wonderful duality of the plan that so blesses us: we aren't just a class of the created order to fulfill the whims of a distant sovereign, we aren't just another stage in life's scheme only to be winnowed off as weak link. We have the impertinence to maintain that there's more to life than simply praising a distant Logos (which is what all of Christianity basically does, even if they don't realize it) or than trying to out-Darwin our neighbor after we convince ourselves that we are the "fittest" meant to survive economically, etc. In such circumstances, yes, life pretty much sucks...especially if you're the one being Darwin-ed. We can convince ourselves that such things are "reality," but then again, Zion is a "reality." Reality can be a democratic experience...

In other words, the beauty of life does, even in a gospel sense, depend on the eye of the beholder...the question remains as to how often we go to our spiritual optometrists...

Random Insight

So you know how guys and girls make so many sweeping statements about how one or the other gender reacts? Perhaps some of them might be based in reality...but methinks that most of the time we do it to protect ourselves...that way, we feel safe in exposing this most sensitive part of who we are...whether guys describe girls in a sweepingly negative way (protecting themselves against a past wound by creating the feminine "other) or guys describe themselves in neutral or positive ways (protecting themselves against transperancy by trying to make themselves look mainstream."

Next time you hear someone say "Guys think..." or "Girls think..."--listen carefully...they're sharing very sensitive information...

A Story to Tell: The Encroaching Fear of Nothingness or How Mormons have a Lock on the Market of Meaning

Having made my share of snide remarks about the sloppy use of vocab, analogies, and their obsessions with suffering, etc. within Latter Day Saint grassroots culture, I have to say this: most of them are ultimately fighting the greatest enemy: nothingness...meaninglessness. I believe the gospel is adaptable...even moldable to the greatest problems of the day. In Joseph Smith's time, outright athiesm simlpy was not en vogue...certainly, new theories that would provide the intellectual stimulus for nihlism (in an eternal sense) were beginning to surface (Marxism, Darwinism--both biological and social, etc.). At the time, it was most important to carve out a place in the free market of religions, an already crowded market place at that. This would explain the more aggressive proseltying tactics (let's face it: our ancestors loved to Bible thump).

Few people really believe the Bible that much these days (see this Harris Poll for stats on this...only 1/3)--the traditional foundations of Christianity in America are not what they once were. Where they can be found, I am not sure. But what is taking its place? The once authoritative voice for orthodox Christianity is no longer sturdy...what happens when individuals get slammed with life, death, marriage, divorce, etc.? Given the traditional foundation's absence, believers are left with nothing but their own personal whims. And this works for many...they can (unconsciouly), comfortably believe in their whims within the framework of the absurdly subjective culture of deconstructionism...true, their beliefs can be torn to shreds, but so can everyone else's, they say...why can't we all just get along and let ourselves live in our own faith (which really means, our own "delusion)? This, my friends, is not faith...it's preference. Faith is not much of a faith if you don't believe it to be transportable to others. If you believe the eternal cosmos exist only in your mind, I regret to inform you that your cosmos are not much of a cosmos.

This is the real enemy...the fear of nihlism...and we do whatever it takes to avoid it...ranging from fly fishing to hiking to mass-attending to (in its more horrific forms) drinking cyanide-laced Kool-Aid. And, my friends, Mormons have a lock on that market...no one else can better tell us of "the plan." True, most will make some token gesture: "I know God has a plan for me." Why the plan exists, though, they don't know. Why did God create man? They don't know...non-Mormon theologians essentially say that he created us for his own good pleasure (which requires that God take pleasure in suffering...awkward). We suggest that God created us to become like him. Indeed, those outside the faith think it blasphemy, think it against God's nature for him to have peers. We, on the other hand, insist that God's nature require that he have peers. For most, the plan comes down to "God created us, worship him...period." That's not very encouraging for people who are looking a cancer patient or refugee in the eye.

In other words, friends, we don't just have a message to share...we have a story to tell.

Invisible Bullets

Methinks that I cling to intellectualism...maybe I'm just bitter because all the religious people seem happier than I do...

Well, now my friends I'm feeling like it's "Big Question/Sweeping Statement" time...yes, I speak of those "big ideas" that tend to be absurdly abstract, horrifically vague, and almost hopelessly Ivory Towerish...

But then again, who is better equipped to handle such questions than a faithful, thinking Latter Day Saint? Who else has the beautifully practical wisdom of Boyd K. Packer: "It has always been my feeling that the doctrines of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are not vague, nor mysterious, nor elusive. Rather, the gospel is what we do in our everyday lives, or, perhaps I ought to say, the gospel is what we ought to do." Meanwhile, Elder Neal A. Maxwell graces us with such provocative ruminations about almost every known philosophical question, ranging from faith and intellect, agency and omniscience, government, politics, and more. Our intellectual tools are well-equipped to such a task...

Stephen Greenblatt wrote a remarkable piece entitled "Invisible Bullets" some years ago. In the piece, he recounts a Thomas Harriott's visit to the Virginia colony of the New World and his first contact with the Algonquin tribes. Through an examination of Harriott's own account of the visit, Greenblatt posits a model through which cultural supremacy is gathered and maintained. Greenblatt starts with a discussion of athiesm in the early 17th-century, noting Machiavelli's comments that religion was the most effect form of civic discipline, that Moses was simply a learned magician, and that, as Christopher Marlowe noted, Harriott could do better than Moses at fooling dupes into buying into the act. Finally, Greenblatt discusses how Harriott depicts his interactions with and superiority over the Algonquin tribes. What does it come to, Greenblatt asks: technological superiority of the same brand as Moses over the Hebrew. How is it then that Harriott is able to talk of such notions that are so utterly subversive to his own conception of God? Here is where Greenblatt's model comes, and where it gets interesting for faithful Later Day Saints.

Greenblatt maintains that when an individual encounters a notion subversive to their own views, they engage in a three-step process: test, reorder, and explain. In so doing, we place the encounter at a sufficient distance from our core values, thus protecting ourselves from their subversive influences. By distancing ourselves, we contain the potential harm. Nevertheless, Greenblatt insists, attaining such a safe distance requires including the subversive elements in one's dialogue first. When Harriott discusses such foreign notions as aristocratic birth and demonology, we are not affected. We contain the effects these subversive notions have on us by distancing ourselves through place and time.

We also see this also in romantic comedies, in soap operas, and war films where a romantically involved couple hurl stinging insults yet are expected to get together in the end, where a terminally ill lover expresses her eternal romance. We see this when we read a story about a drug-dealer who meets the Mormon missionaries and then goes to prison later drugs later ("they planted a seed"). When someone loses a loved one to an accident, we talk about "the plan," about "experience," and about the refining capacity of suffering. Containment is our way of holding off meaninglessness, even as the book or movie jerks us through "our own constantly shifting allegiences."

Indeed, the Book of Mormon itself should be a horrendously subversive document to our sensibilities...an entire people essentially destroying themselves through pride, vainglory, and their own depravity? Yet Mormon/Moroni go through the same process as Harriott: they test (see Mormon chpts. 6 when Mormon faces cold reality about his people's agency: "Oh ye fair ones, how could ye have departed from the ways of the Lord"), they record (compare Greenblatt's description: "the moments in which we hear voices that seem to dwell realms apart" from the power structure to Moroni's "I speak unto you as though ye were present"--"you" meaning the only hope for writing the BOM") and explaining ("For the purpose of convincing Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ"). Wherein there was once madness, now there is sense.

How can we adopt this to our own purposes? After all, this might sound like academic mumbo-jumbo, but we do it all the time. Is it good? Is it bad? Stay tuned.

Retraction

I offer an addendum to the post: "Exaggeration: A Gospel Necessity." I have been sufficiently rebutted by the following scripture coupled with this talk: Mosiah 4:15 and Elder Callister's masterwork on the necessity for refinement in the celestial kingdom.

The first: it's simple...when you're sober, you are precise, cool, even-handed. No hyperbole necessary. Plus, this completely contradicts the sense of balance that pervades teachings about the gospel ("see that you do these things in wisdom and in order").

The second...we must ask the question of how careful the Lord is when using language. Does he use hyperbole, metaphor, and sometimes deconstructible analogies when describing gospel principles? Yes, sometimes. However, such teachings were openly considered to be inferior to the purer stuff given to the apostles (see Matthew 13).

Point being, while exaggeration might be employed, it is definitely not the celestial modus operandi...

Ruminations

So last night Arthur I had a tangled web of a conversation...teeming with ideas, tangents, tidbits, and outliers. Sorting it out would not only burden the reader with seemingly mindless meanderings of a couple o' wannabe ivory towerniks, it would also be assuming that the words of a couple good ole' boys are actually fit to print! Presumptuous indeed!

That said, here was a major theme that directed the ebb and flow of our conversation. What is a construct? Generally, it is considered a set of ideas or practices that exists within particularized circumstances in history or contemporary society: femininity, dancing, sports. All of these practices carry with them certain values, norms, boundaries that must not be crossed if one wants to engage in that society. Most often, the assumption behind discussing such things is that constructs must be "deconstructed"--we point out cases where images of femininity have changed, where "church ball" (typically seen as a time where men can exercise their masculinity in good brotherly associations) becomes a barroom brawl (sans alcohol). We look at how dancing amongst the early Saints and dancing among modern Saints are radically different from each other(my ancestors would drop their mouths in horro at seeing a BYU dance competition). So if such things are constructs where not all parts of it are directly expressions of a gospel principle (which they obviously are, otherwise, there would have been no change), then what are we to make of it when the Prophet asks us to do things that have no obvious relationship to gospel principles: women wearing one pair of earrings, men (at least when Harold B. Lee was prophet--though the "statue of limitations" on revelation, as Arthur noted, is still fuzzy) being clean-shaven, etc. Is it possible to accept the "realities" (I use "reality" because most postmodern theorists would cry foul that I even dare admit to pure truth) of social, gender, and national constructions while stay holding true to the teachings of the prophets concerning family and society?

In other words, is there such a thing as a heaven-sent construct? When we hear that women are naturally more nurturing, must we sweat over defending ourselves against social theorists who insist that such ideas are simply invented so society (feminists read: "men") can prevent women from infiltrating the positions of power? Given that the "natural" argument is the generalized one and ultimately unprovable, we thus find ourselves at a disadvantage with the feminists...all they have to do is point out the exception. Could we not entertain the notion that the question of "natural" nurturing is an ex post facto explanation along the lines of those propagated about why blacks did not receive the priesthood?

Believe it or not, discourse and consensus might be possible between secular academicians and Latter Day Saints. What think y'all?

Conference and Living-ness: The absolute relevance of the prophets to our day

General conference was fantabulous...President Monson made a very interesting plea at the end of his Sunday morning session: come back. In any context, it would be a very nice gesture of Christian fellowhsip. In this context, it is that and more...President Hunter used very similar language when he became the prophet in 1994. What does this similarity of language tell us?

Incidentally, not long before President Hunter became the prophet, there had been a highly publicized series of excommunications against LDS academics--the (in)famous D. Michael Quinn being among them. President Hunter, like President Monson, implored those that harbored ill-will, those that were hurt or afraid, that they should come back and let the Church dry their tears. Incidentally, we have faced some measure of these same events recently. With the publication of Richard Bushman's biography, the forthcoming publication on the Mountain Meadows Massacre, and the general airing out of the Church's differences from mainstream Christianity, it is significant that President Monson extended his call to the "critic and to the transgressor."

And finally, when we're told to follow the living prophets...what does that mean precisely? I kind find volumes of writings from prophets of the recent past...indeed, I can find talks from apostles who spoke when Kimball, Benson, and Hunter were propherts. Therefore, how do we view those words? How valid are they to today's issues? How about when we quote J. Reuben Clark, Neal A. Maxwell, Brigham Young, or Heber J. Grant?

And for those who want some interesting, official insight into what makes doctrine as such, check out the newsroom.lds.org...do a search for "Approaching Mormon Doctrine"...interesting stuff there...

Response to Arthur (that might be interesting for others to hear)

And sadly, I know the naivete of my own position. If I were writing a church manual on how to handle scholarship within a gospel context, I would almost certainly write something different. It would emphasize, simply put, the importance of developing a truth-seeking edge and intellectual rigor. It would not attempt to give many answers--it would focus on how to engage in "faithful questioning." And I would include Hugh B. Brown's classic talk, "An Eternal Question: Freedom of the Mind."

But you are right: when I hear an instructor say that s/he's going to give some "historical context," my stomach normally begins to turn a little. And you are also right about the reasons why they do not teach missionaries church history...I believe it is because 1) most people don't care about history that much and 2) what I call my "fat man" metaphor. Inconvenient history (polygamy, polyandry, MMM, etc.) makes for excess fat on the body of the church...but we don't burn it off by simply denying its existence. We exercise, we work, we lift weights so that our own body's processes can overpower these semi-natural obstacles. If you looked at my 14-year old photo, you would say I was a fat kid...and I still don't like that photo. But the reality is that I was still Russ--and I'm not ashamed of that Russ. He just had some things to learn--some things were keeping him back from being what he could be. Now I'm Russ in (slightly) better form, both socially and physically.

Before we can come to this realization, however, we must recognize that there really is fat...and that seeing the fat for what it is does not constitute heresy. My (slightly megalomanaical) attempt here is to shift the intellectual center of gravity within the grassroots culture of the Church (these days, the upper-echelons, at least collectively, are very much in favor of intellectual pursuits in a frank manner, so I understand).

And all, right here, on (www.russell-stevenson.blogspot.com)...

Thoughts on Pursuing Scholarship in the Church

It's official: scholars, especially those in the humanities/social sciences, are the whipping boys for the grassroots of the church. I've blogged on this before, but it was a while ago, so hey why not?

I just extend a call to all of my bloggers who have ever been faced with a theoretical, historical, or philosophical question concerning doctrine or church history...FIND THE ANSWERS! I just had an opportunity to talk with a future pastor last night...wonderful experience. Good man and a helping soul...but sure enough, I began talking w/him about politics, religion, and (the good Mormon politico that I am) Mitt Romney. His first response: "I don't THINK Romney's a polygamist" (emphasis his)...

Now I could have said that we don't practice that anymore, such things are things of the past. Next question (even if unspoken): why did you practice it AT ALL? Well, there's answer #1): there were more women than men, etc. etc. blah blah (which is not supported by the evidence but whatever you like...) and #2) well, that's just what was commanded by God. Neither of these answers (even though the latter is correct) make for good discourse...too many atrocities have been justified using similar rationales.

Fortunately, I was equipped for such a question...I knew it would come up at some point so I immersed myself in the more controversial aspects of the practice (though I'm FAR, FAR from knowing everything)...I was equipped to give him a decent answer in language that accurately reflected our morality, our faith in our fathers' morality, and our willingness to stomach how our fathers' viewed marital systems. If I had not immersed myself in this information, I would be left saying: "Well, we just don't do that anymore." And that, I've found, generally leaves more questions than answers...

My friends...it is for this reason that we MUST NOT be afraid of our history...we can have zeal AND knowledge simultaneously. And there are great resources that can provide us with INTELLECTUALLY RESPECTABLE answers to the stickiest of questions. In this age of publicity, we must be willing to engage the public questions of the day--polygamy, the Mountain Meadows Massacre. The Church has even invested a mountain of money in publishing Joseph Smith's papers in their entirety just to demonstrate this spirit of willingness to engage the public. We, as good Latter Day Saints, must do no less.

Now THIS, mein amigos, is fascinating stuff...

Willpower...why don't we do what we want to do sometimes?

This study suggests that when we expend our willpower on one task, we might lose it in another. Common sense, but it's sometimes nice to see it in print. So if you're spending all your willpower in not eating chocolate, don't expect to have a iron will in studying for your examinations. If you're in a draining relationship that requires willpower to maintain, don't be surprised to see other goals experience a slowdown as well.

Just some thoughts as I imbibe in some early Christian history (Pliny the Younger was a punk).

Mother Theresa, Mormonism, and Faith: "I look, and do not see; listen and do not hear"

Another day in the ivory tower...yeah, anybody who tells you that academia is free-wheeling, undogmatic study in search of truth is a dirty liar, woefully mistaken. In fact, they probably haven't set foot in a grad. seminar. There is a culture, even a sacred culture, that is sanctified in ways at least as rigid as any Christian doctrinal system...in many ways, more so. AKA...any talk of religion being doctrinaire while academia is the all-seeing eye of truth...well, pots loves calling kettles...ahem...

So a recent revelation: Mother Theresa faced a spiritual crisis for the vast majority of her life. As she herself noted, even as she was teaching about the love of God, she could not feel it...indeed, she doubted God's very existence. Her cheery demeanor was a front, "a mask" or a "cloak that covers everything." She worried at what seemed to be a chain of unanswered prayers: "The more I want him--the less I am wanted." Even more, she wondered at her purpose in even laboring: "What do I labor for? If there be no God, there can be no soul--if there is no soul then Jesus--you also are not true"). Theresa, it might be said by some (though not by me), was living a double life.

While this talk does not inherently equate athiestic temptations, it is heady stuff for those of the faith--any faith. It poses piercing questions about ourselves, how we see God and revelation. One acquaintance suggested that Theresa faced this anguish because "she was not baptized into the Mormon church." While I am an enormous proponent of missionary work and baptisms, I would suggest that this stance questions the stance taken by the First Presidency: individuals outside the faith can be afforded portions (some greater, others lesser) of the Spirit. Think of this: MOther Theresa was one of the great humanitarians of our time (alongside Herbert Hoover--another post) and faced gnawing doubts about the existence of God. With our supposed "testimonies," how much good do we do? Theresa managed to do better with her few bits of truth than I do with its fulness. If Latter Day Saints are to make any claim to greater light and truth, we (and really, I) must do better.