The New Ward

My husband and I moved recently (again), only this time, our move put us just barely into the boundaries of a new ward. Today was our first visit to said ward. Below are the highlights of our visit:
The Building
As we approached our destination and the building came into sight, I kind of double-checked the directions to make sure we were in the right place. Why? Because the building is . . . kind of nice. I’m no architect, but it looked like a more expensive building than most of the LDS chapels I’ve seen—on both the inside and the out. The exterior was made of some kind of white stone with a serviceable spire, and the pews in the chapel had Deseret beehives and other artwork carved into the sides. It had a different layout and seemed more spacious, and it had something I’d never seen in an LDS chapel before: a “Reverence Training Room” attached to the chapel. It’s a soundproof room with a window into the chapel where parents can take their noisy children and still hear and view the meeting. I thought this was awesome! The Presbyterian church I attended in high school had a room like this called the “Rock-a-Bye Room.” I wish every church had them. So we did our usual routine, making our daughter sit in the chapel for the Sacrament, then retreated to the “Reverence Training Room.”
Sunday School
Some time ago, I made the decision to not attend Gospel Doctrine classes during New Testament and Old Testament years. I feel like Latter-day Saints do a lot of eisegesis on the Bible in their Sunday school classes, reading LDS doctrine and ideas into the text instead of letting the text speak for itself, and it drives me crazy. [1] I also don’t really enjoy the large size of most Gospel Doctrine classes and prefer the smaller sizes of other classes when they’re offered. So I decided I would always attend Gospel Essentials or whatever other smaller class is offered.
Today I went to Gospel Essentials, and it took some time for other class members to arrive, so the teacher was able to introduce herself and talk with me a bit before class. Even my husband initially took off to check out Gospel Doctrine, so I was on my own. The teacher wanted to know why I didn’t want to attend Gospel Doctrine, and I tried to launch into a version of the explanation I just went through in the paragraph above. I kind of wish that I hadn’t, because I’m sure it was a great way to make her nervous about today’s lesson on Chapter 10: Scriptures, but I didn’t know what else to say.
My husband returned to me not long after the class started (he said that he missed me—aaaawww), and the teacher taught what I thought was a good basic lesson about the four LDS Standard Works. She was polite and thoughtful and encouraged commentary and discussion from class members. At one point the class was discussing why the church uses the KJV, and there were some comments towards modern translations that were a little on the cynical side, so I raised my hand to comment. I pointed out that there are still plenty of people in the world speaking languages and dialects that the Bible hasn’t even been translated into, and others only have one or two translations to choose from. I said that the LDS church does not create its own translations of the Bible, so whenever it gets around to sending missionaries to these countries, it will use the translations created by other Christian missionaries and translation societies—modern or otherwise. I said that I think English speakers are a little spoiled by having so many different translations to choose from, and that no one should be too hard on modern-day translation work because of its necessity in bringing the Bible to regions of the world where it’s never been.
I enjoyed the class. Sure, I could have chosen to be offended at some of the things that were said about modern-day translation, but I wasn’t, and my hope is that it turned into a learning experience and a productive discussion for everyone.
Familiar Names, Familiar Faces
When we arrived for Sacrament meeting, my husband immediately ran into a woman he had known from the dance program back at BYU, so we sat behind them during the time we were in the meeting hall. He was excited to see a familiar face. Unfortunately, she’s only there a few more weeks for her husband’s internship, but it was nice nonetheless.
Before we even arrived at all though, the last name of the bishop (as displayed when we looked up the ward on Mormon.org) caught my eye: Haglund. “I wonder if he’s related toKristine,” I told my husband. Sure enough, turns out he’s her uncle. So, my husband’s new bishop is the uncle of the editor of Dialogue journal and one my favorite LDS people. Awesome. He joked to me that she used to be “his niece,” but now he’s “her uncle” since she’s the famous one. Heh.
“Perverted Modesty” Not In Play
Modesty has been up to bat in the Bloggernacle lately. Last month there was Julie M. Smith’s post at T&S, and just recently Tracy M at BCC knocked the ball out of the park with “Perverting Modesty.” [2] During the discussion at BCC, Kristine pointed out a recent article in Friendmagazine geared at teaching four year-olds that showing their shoulders is not “modest.” Later, Kristine very poignantly commented:
David, I don’t have a problem with boundary markers, either, UNTIL THEY START SEXUALIZING 4-YEAR-OLD GIRLS. It may be that society sexualizes women, even very young women, but with some exceptions on the margins (little tyke beauty pageants, Abercrombie (spit) & Fitch (spit)), American culture generally waits at least until menarche to start making girls fearfully aware of men’s gaze. This is an area where Mormons have inexplicably outdone the world in wickedness.
When I dressed my five year-old daughter for church this morning, I selected a white-and-blue sundress that was, indeed, sleeveless. I’d have probably dressed her the same regardless, but today, the conversation from BCC was on my mind, and I wasn’t going to change my standards just because someone at Friend magazine wishes I would.
As usual, no one said a word to us about our daughter’s lack of sleeves—and this time, I noticed quite a few other little girls wearing sleeveless dresses. In fact, one was wearing the exact same dress as our daughter, except hers was pink where our daughter’s was blue. The dress is over a year old, so this was kind of a funny coincidence, and I soon learned that this was the daughter of one of the counselors in the bishopric. It’s a relief and a blessing to see so many active LDS families who are definitely not sexualizing their very-little girls by teaching them that sleeveless attire = immodesty.
Conclusion
Finally, everyone we talked to was super-friendly and welcoming. I let a few people know about my non-LDS status as needed (ward clerk, Primary leaders, Sunday school teacher) and they were all cool about it. I also spent some time talking with the Primary President and teachers about how to handle our daughter in their classes given her special needs, and letting them know she would only be there every other week due to our interfaith family arrangements.
Oh, and I admit it: I skipped Relief Society in favor of a hot chocolate and chicken pita with hummus at Starbucks.
We’ll miss the old ward, but we’re very much looking forward to this one.
————–
NOTES
[1] Before anyone says it: yes, Protestants and Christians in general do it, too. Mostly we read the Old Testament through the lens of the New Testament instead of trying to understand the Old Testament on its own, and if a Jew hated this and chose not to attend our Old Testament classes because of it, I would understand. There are also other ways in which we impose Protestant beliefs on the text instead of trying to draw out the meaning of the text. However, most pastors and a good number of Protestant Sunday school teachers have at least some background in exegesis, so I don’t think the problem is so widespread. Then again, I fully recognize this could be my own bias talking and I simply like our eisegesis better than LDS eisegesis.
[2] Seriously, if you’re only going to read one blog post this week, stop reading this one and go read Tracy M’s. It’s that good.

Comments

The New Ward — 37 Comments

  1. Is that Paul Haglund? He’s a really good guy. Sounds like you landed in a top notch ward; congratulations!
    (My experience is that people who are proactive about explaining their interfaith situations will find them respected. If Paul doesn’t want people proselyting you, he just needs to make that clear, and people will fall into line. Not explaining your preferences is a mistake. So I’m glad to see you were upfront with people about your situation and your needs and preferences.)
  2. I’m glad you had a generally positive experience at your new ward.
    FWIW, if you had attended my ward today, I think you would have liked the Gospel Doctrine class (even though I’m no longer a co-teacher). It was small (as ours usually are, but more so in summer), and the lesson was the one on the Garden of Gethsemane. We talked mostly about the Atonement (without specifically tying it to the garden event) and the blessings that come from it; I thought it was a pretty good lesson and even would have even been appreciated by Protestants had they been in attendance.
    Also FWIW, when I taught the class, I consciously tried to avoid eisegesis; a common approach for me was to ask the class to look at the passage in its context and try to imagine how its original readers might have understood it. If there was a case where Mormons might understand a passage differently (not really all that often), sometimes I might explain how other Christians would view it (and in most cases, I believe we’re both right).
    Best wishes with that new ward!
  4. Sounds like a great ward! I’m jealous of the nice building.
    Regarding modesty, I agree with Tracy that modesty is about so much more than covering one’s body, and I think church members and leaders often have an anti-female bias in applying standards of modesty.
    However, I don’t think that teaching my (as yet non-existent) 4-year old daughter to cover her shoulders, or buying her clothing that does cover her shoulders without explaining my reasoning, is automatically sexualizing her. Modesty can be taught even to 4-year olds in the context of the Plan of Salvation in a non-sexual way, without resorting to “boys will not be able to control their thoughts.”
    Parenthetically, I also believe in teaching children about the plan of salvation from a very early age, and when the time does come to teach them about sexulaity, it is best done in the context of the plan of salvation.
  5. My husband and I moved recently (again)
    Did you play the big box labeled “sex toys” trick on the moving helpers again? ;)
    My BIL’s father was an Architect for the LDS Church for a number of years. I think he felt some of the Chapels were a little too “plain vanilla”. He was definitely irked by some of the newer (at that time) Temples.
    …it had something I’d never seen in an LDS chapel before: a “Reverence Training Room”
    Ah, they used to call them cry rooms. They kind of went away in new LDS buildings in the mid 1960′s.
    I let a few people know about my non-LDS status as needed
    Expect a visit from the Missionaries, then. Tee hee. Maybe you could ask them some ultra bizarre, hard to answer question when they come.
    I said that the LDS church does not create its own translations of the Bible, so whenever it gets around to sending missionaries to these countries, it will use the translations created by other Christian missionaries and translation societies—modern or otherwise.
    That’s a good point. What if LDS Missionaries open a mission in a place where the only Bible Translation is something modern, like the Living Bible, for instance? I just throw that one out, because a few fellow Missionaries in Georgia hated *some* of the non KJV Bibles out there. Nothing personal about the Living Bible version, folks.
    …geared at teaching four year-olds that showing their shoulders is not “modest.”
    So, do we get girls training bras at that age as well to prevent any nipple showing? And, just that caution about shoulders showing for girls? Is it OK for boys? If you base that on the Temple Garments, the female version show more shoulder than the male version. Yet, I do see that some of the shorts that both boy and girls wear day to day are way above the knee.
    Where do it end?
  6. I hate moving, especially fitting into a new ward! I’ve been in this one for 3 years, and FINALLY sort of fit in. Good luck with all that.
    As for the sleeveless stuff, my ward (in Utah) has a lot of the nursery and younger primary girls wearing sleeveless dresses to church. It’s HARD to find things with sleeves. I choose to dress MY daughter (and my son for that matter) in clothing with sleeves. I just don’t want the fight of why some things without sleeves are modest and some aren’t. Besides, I think my kids are cute in sleeves. I really don’t care what your kid wears as long as it’s not covered in peanut-butter, which could kill my daughter.
  7. #1 Kevin ~ Yup, that’s the one.
    I try not to make too big of a deal about my non-LDS status to my husband’s ward members. These days I’m pretty casual about it, and let them figure it out on their own. I hope that they don’t send missionaries over for proselyting purposes, but I won’t be offended if they do.
    #2 Eric ~ I certainly believe I’d have enjoyed the GD class you taught, and I’m sure I would have liked the one you described that took place yesterday. I’m sure there are plenty that I wouldn’t take issue with. As a general rule though, I think I’m less likely to flip into cynical, critical mode if I avoid GD, and that’s how I’d like to keep it.
    #4 Tomchik & #6 Amber ~ I’m not bothered when parents dress their children in clothes with sleeves. I’m only bothered when they teach their very-young girls that sleeveless clothing is immodest. I don’t think a four year-old should be fretting about whether or not her clothing is “modest” any more than she should be fretting about whether she looks “sexy.”
    If parents want their kids to wear clothes with sleeves, I’d say just buy them clothes with sleeves and leave it at that. Little kids have very little say in their own wardrobes and aren’t likely to be adding sleeveless attire into it without Mom & Dad knowing. The little girl in the Friend story shouldn’t have been self-conscious about whether her dress had sleeves, and Mom should have simply said, “Oh, and look at this nice red t-shirt! See how well it will match?” No need to fill their heads with talk about modest and immodest clothing at that age.
  8. Our building is the stake center that was built in the 70s. (If I recall correctly, Kevin used to go to this building back in the day!) There is a “Mothers’ Room” for nursing… down the hall and around a corner, close to the Relief Society room. I believe there are speakers to pipe in the microphone from the chapel, but it doesn’t work very well, and the room isn’t very useful for crying children. Which is all a very long, roundabout way of saying that I am uber-jealous of your new chapel!
    Glad to hear that you and Paul have found a pleasant new LDS family. I hope that Gretch and I will be as fortunate when (if) we move from this area.
  9. The Friend piece about sleeveless=immodest dress is being noticed at fMh. Even the TBM there are taken back by that article. Bobby Pin Natalie summed it up good:
    “OK, so how did the mom teach Hannah to wear sleeves? By telling her that she needs them so she isn’t seen as a sexual object? Or so boys will go on missions because they didn’t see her arms?
    That’s what I can’t stand. The “walking pornogrphy” lesson. Really? Because if shoulders turn you on, what the heck are you going to do when you see cleavage?”
  10. I think there is a lot of wisdom in your GD approach and I love the way you spun the modern translation controversy.
  12. That must be an old building you’ve got there. People used to be free to make them nicer. I suppose it’s better that they’re all equally ugly now. :) But a Reverence Training Room would be verrah nice. Except I’m afraid that in our ward there are so many children that the chapel would become the RTR and anyone who wanted peace and quiet would have to go into a soundproof room.
  13. We do have a pair of Mother’s Room to allow nursing. But the old Cry rooms allowed those in them to see and hearing the speaker. And, Mother’s Rooms are a bit of a morality hazard at Mutual and Dances, since couples can go in them & lock the door. Yikes.
  14. The part about the Church not doing its own Bible translations is mainly true, but not 100%. The Spanish version currently used is based on an early 20th century version of the Reina-Valera (predominant Protestant) translation, with careful updates and edits by the Church’s own people. As I understand it, this is because that version is out of copyright, while later versions are not. I’m not aware of the Church venturing into any other Bible translations or editing thereof.
  15. The Spanish version currently used is based on an early 20th century version of the Reina-Valera (predominant Protestant) translation, with careful updates and edits by the Church’s own people.
    That’s not really “translation” though, is it?
  16. Alan ~ Amending and updating an existing translation isn’t exactly what I’m talking about. What I mean is that the church has never gathered a panel of people with knowledge in Hebrew and/or Greek and another foreign language and made a new translation of the Bible into that foreign language.
    Maybe the new LDS Reina-Valera had some input and updates from Spanish scholars with knowledge of Hebrew or Greek; I wouldn’t know. But even if it did, that’s not the same thing as creating a new translation of the Bible in Spanish from the extant Hebrew and Greek MSS.
    The LDS church has never done that for Spanish or any other language. It has been completely dependent on the efforts of other Christian scholars and missionaries in that regard.
  17. Kullervo– the latest Spanish version used by the Mormons is based on Reina-Valera 1909. Nevertheless, it has SIGNIFICANT problems. The 1960 version is much more faithful to the Greek, using terms such as “hades” and “agape.”
    John 1:1 is also a real mess, with its butchering of the verbs.
    So how was it “translated?”
    Here’s how they decided on what was the proper text:
    “Translations and revisions were scrutinized by priesthood leaders and their wives — some 200 total in 10 different countries — to compare differences in regional language usage and to arr…ive at a Spanish text acceptable to all.”
    No thought to bring in a linguist. It is a vile, emasculated version of the Bible and one of the reasons I decided to leave the Church. (And yes, I actually know the head “translator.” He has little Biblical knowledge in the classical sense.)
  19. The Church’s current in-house-produced Spanish Bible (which is based on the RVR-1909, as the RVR-1960 is copyrighted, and the copyright holder would not give the church permission or license to print an LDS edition with LDS footnotes, index, etc.) is still pretty new, less than 2 years old, and I bet it hasn’t filtered out into general use yet among Spanish speaking members.
    So I’m guessing that the RVR-1960 is what most Spanish-speaking saints are using and taking to church on Sunday.
    The first iteration of anything the church (or any organization) designs is bound to have bugs, and will have improvements on subsequent versions. The church’s web site has gone through 2 major revamps since its introduction.
    Most non-English translations of the Book of Mormon have also gone through at least one revision, including the Spanish. Many first edition non-English BoM translations also had “issues”. The Spanish did, and I hear the French did also. I’ve seen new (as in updated) Chinese, Korean, and various African language editions come out within the last 4 years.
    Even the first English edition, and a few subsequent English editions of the Book of Mormon had issues. Joseph didn’t dictate any punctuation, and Oliver didn’t write any in his manuscript. John Gilbert, the typesetter for Egbert Grandin’s printing operation, did all the punctuation, but it was not reviewed by the prophet Joseph until after the final printing. As Joseph became more literate, he made corrections to mistakes made by Oliver and Gilbert. But many mistakes crept back in when a reprint in England was done from a previous un-corrected edition; then that British reprint got reprinted back in the states, etc.
    Joseph was the prophet. Scribe Oliver, John Gilbert and subsequent typesetters of reprint editions, were not.
    If the LDS Spanish Bible were to be translated by President Monson using Urim and Thummim, I’m sure it would be better, but it was translated by a committee of people who weren’t prophets. So let’s give them a break.
    As the translation division in the church’s curriculum department gets feedback, I’m sure future editions will improve, like the church web site has improved, and the various foreign language translations of the Book of Mormon have improved.
  20. Bookslinger, the new LDS version has filtered out into general use. My old Bishop chided me for using the RVR-1960 version and DEMANDED that I only use the new bastardized Mormon version.
    Curiously, the extended JST section included in the English version is mysteriously missing in Spanish. I wonder if the Mormons are now trying to move away from the idea that Joseph Smith wrote himself into the Bible in Genesis Chapter 50. (BTW– there is absolutely NO version of the Old Testment in any of its primitive forms that would support Smith’s adding of those extra verses. It’s called be a megalomaniac.)
  21. Just Me: Your (former) bishop needs some slack and forgiveness just like Oliver Cowdery and John Gilbert (Grandin’s typesetter).
    There are a lot of stakes and wards and branches outside of our experience. I know the saints in latin america are very poor, so I’m not going to suppose that they all bought new bibles in the last two years. Maybe they all, or most, did; but I doubt it.
    As far as Joseph “writing himself into” the O.T., I suppose you’re referring to the JST chapter 50 of Genesis, and the seer named Joseph whose father would also be named Joseph, and that the currently extant MSS don’t contain that.
    That’s a non-sequitur. Joseph Smith claimed to have written his emendations of the Bible by revelation, not by proprosing merely better renditions of the extant manuscripts.
    I’m sure Moses was called megalomaniacal too, claiming to speak for God, telling hundred of thousands, or millions of people what to do.
    And he was called a liar, because he first said he was taking them to the promised land, and then he postponed it 40 years after the people rebelled against actually going in.
    The crux is whether Joseph Smith was a prophet or not. If he was a true prophet, then he did have the right to say that errors had crept into the existing copies of the biblical manuscripts. If he was a prophet, then he wasn’t limited or bound by previous human errors involved in the copying and transmission of the biblical manuscripts.
    If you’re such a scholar, you know that no originals exist, and only copies of copies; many generations removed for the OT, and at least 2 generations removed, 3 for most, of the NT mss. There is also no documented chain-of-possession. The Old Testament itself tells of long apostate periods in which corrupt priests had ample opportunity to make intentional changes.
    The books of Kings and Chronicles explain there were times when the books of Moses were lost and had to be discovered again.
    I’m sorry that the short-comings of the church’s translation efforts have affected your testimony or willingness to stay with the church.
    In my case, it was the short-comings of the church’s missionary department and missionary program that triggered me leaving the church in the 1980′s. (I eventually came back in 2002.)
    But I’ve since realized that the church has had shortcomings ever since the beginning. Church members screwed up in Kirtland and got kicked out. The original 11 witnesses of the BoM plates left the church. Out of the original set of apostles in 1835, only Brigham Young, Heber Kimball, and David Patten did not “lift up the heel” against Joseph Smith and receive some sort of church discipline. The saints screwed up in Missouri, many times over, and got kicked out. The saints pissed off the people of Illinois and got kicked out again.
    The leaders of the Martin and Willie handcart companies screwed up. John D. Lee screwed up. Gordon B. Hinckley screwed up, buying forged documents for the church.
    But none of those screw-ups mean that the church is false or that Joseph Smith (and Gordon B. Hinckley) wasn’t a prophet.
    Look at the Bible.
    Adam and Eve screwed up, disobeying the command about eating that fruit. They screwed up and raised a murderer for a son.
    Moses killed an Egyptian. Aaron and Miriam screwed up by complaining and were punished with leprosy. Aaron screwed up and made an idol, the golden calf. Moses engaged in nepotism, killing thousands of other idol worshippers, but spared Aaron his brother, even though he was the one who made the calf.
    Moses screwed up at the waters of Meribah (struck the rock instead of speaking to it) and was forbidden to enter the promised land because of it.
    The prophet David screwed up, big time.
    Solomon screwed up, marrying non-Israelites, tolerating idol-worship, and failing to raise up a righteous son to take his place.
    And on and on in the OT.
    In the NT, Peter denied Christ. Paul was a murderer of saints. Paul and Peter had arguments. Paul and Barnabas had a falling out.
    The churches that Paul wrote to kept screwing up and needed constant correction.
    So basically from Genesis to Revelation, the “true church” and the “true believers” kept screwing up every once in a while.
    I’ve finally concluded that the modern church, true as it is, is still susceptible to screw-ups. But I’ve tried to stop blaming it on God, and I try to realize that it’s the imperfect nature of men.
    Eventually, the problems with the punctuation errors, and Oliver’s scribal errors, and Oliver’s copying errors when making the printer’s MS, and Gilbert’s typesetting errors in the Book of Mormon were worked out.
    Eventually, the church finally improved those things I didn’t like about the missionary system back in the 80′s.
    Eventually, the problems with the LDS edition of the Spanish Bible will be worked out. I don’t think anyone asked you to pretend it was perfect. But it’s just the best that imperfect people could at the time.
    I’ve come to believe that if I want God and men to be patient with me and tolerant of my shortcomings, then I better be patient with others, and tolerant of their shortcomings.
    And in the meantime, those who are tolerant of an imperfect church help it grow and improve, while they grow and improve themselves.
    Those who leave church because it isn’t perfect, like I did, eventually realize that the church as an organization, and the people in it as individuals, moved forward, passed them by, and eventually overcame the very problems that were being complained about.
    I hope you don’t learn the hard way, like I did, about those scriptures that say “with what judgement ye judge….” and “with what measure ye mete….”
  22. Re Jewish Reading of Old Testament,
    A Rabbinic Jew is going to read the Hebrew Bible through the lens of the Mishnah, Midrashim, and Talmud. In that sense they are doing the same thing as Christians (and Mormons).
  23. Bookslinger, thanks for your thoughts. I contend Joseph Smith was never a prophet of God. Using the Deuteronomy 13 challenge, I discovered I couldn’t trust him. If you read Christ’s works in the synoptic gospels and also Hebrews 1:1-2, it’s ridiculous to have the mantle of a prophet under the New Covenant. Yes, I believe in prophecy but not prophets with exclusive authority. Believing as such is a direct denial of Christ, who died on the cross so that man could commune directly with Him without having to go through blood sacrifice and a yearly encounter with God inside the Levitical temple. Adding prophets back into the mixture post-atonement makes little sense at all. If that is God’s plan, God is a hypocrite and deserves NOT to be worshiped for His inability to make up his mind.
  24. Just Me: You’re in good company among the Protestants with that no priests/prophets needed doctrine. If I understand the history correctly, that construct was first advanced to justify the Protestant split from the Catholic church. In other words, it was first an “anti-Catholic” construct before it was used as a counter or rejoinder to Mormonism.
    I don’t know if it was first put forth by Luther, was contemporary to him, or came later. As Jack is the religious historian, maybe she can shed some light on that if she’s reading these comments.
  25. Hard to argue with Hebrews 1:1-2, Luke 16:16. Nowhere in the Patristical history of the primitive (and subsequent formation of the Catholic Church) is there ever a reference for a need for the office of a Prophet. Prophecy as a gift of the Spirit was very much a part of their writings, but nowhere does anyone in the early Church talk of the expediency for the mantle.
    Also, why do we see in Malachi that there would be no prophet until John the Baptist?
    Mormonism makes NO sense to me. Yes, I appreciate the people, but the theology is strikingly inconsistent.
  26. Just Me: of course Mormonism appears inconsistent when it and the Bible are looked at through the Protestant lens, which you have chosen to do. If your Biblical exegesis is correct, then you’re correct about mormonism.
    (I don’t like to argue against scripture, but I -love- to argue against someone’s -interpretation- of scripture. :)
    Not everyone can be a Biblical scholar, so if a non-scholar is going to use Biblical exegesis to determine which church’s doctrine is true, then one has to choose a biblical scholar (or a school of biblical scholarship) to follow or trust. Then, the question is how one goes about choosing which scholars to follow, which in turn also requires a degree of scholarly decision making. It then becomes circular, or iterative; as in finding a methodology for finding a methodology for finding a theology.
    Since the vast majority of the human race is not amenable to those levels of abstract scholarship, I’ve concluded that spiritual truth-seeking should be conducted on a more basic and universal or more “common denominator” level. To whit: exactly what Mormon missionaries teach about how to find the truth for oneself. And I suppose you know the next step in my reasoning, so I won’t belabor the pont.
  27. Bookslinger: What if what the missionaries teach were NOT true? The First Vision was changed 7 times, and was not even published until 1842. The restoration of the priesthood was not included in the Book of Commandments, nor was even mentioned until late 1834. As David Whitmer contended, revelations were also changed.
    If the Bible is not the last word and measuring stick on which a man can decide what is truth, then I submit that either God is a trickster and a huckster and does not exist.
  28. Not everyone can be a Biblical scholar, so if a non-scholar is going to use Biblical exegesis to determine which church’s doctrine is true, then one has to choose a biblical scholar (or a school of biblical scholarship) to follow or trust. Then, the question is how one goes about choosing which scholars to follow, which in turn also requires a degree of scholarly decision making. It then becomes circular, or iterative; as in finding a methodology for finding a methodology for finding a theology.
    Since the vast majority of the human race is not amenable to those levels of abstract scholarship, I’ve concluded that spiritual truth-seeking should be conducted on a more basic and universal or more “common denominator” level. To whit: exactly what Mormon missionaries teach about how to find the truth for oneself. And I suppose you know the next step in my reasoning, so I won’t belabor the pont.
    But you don’t escape the problem that way–the circular/iterative problem is just as present. By accepting what the missionaries say about how to “find the truth for oneself,” you’re accepting their truth-claims about how to evaluate their truth-claims at face value. Ostensibly, you need a methodology to evaluate their methodology, and a methodology to evaluate that methodology as well.
    The distinction that you try to draw, i.e., that evaluating scholars requires an iterative set of methodologies all of which themselves must be scholarly, does not necessarily follow. Nor does it follow that the iterative methodologies for evaluating the missionaries’ “common sense” approach may or must all be “common sense” methodologies.
    At the end of the day, Evaluation is always problematic0–that’s why it’s the highest level of critical thinking. No matter what you’re evaluating or how, your evaluation is in some way or another going to rest on fuzzy assumptions of some kind or another. While I believe you can and should try to minimize those as appropriate, you’re just fooling yourself if you think you can make an end run around them.
  29. If the Bible is not the last word and measuring stick on which a man can decide what is truth, then I submit that either God is a trickster and a huckster and does not exist.
    That’s total nonsense. It does not follow.
  30. kullervo, you’re correct about iterative methodologies. my point is that eventually, we all have to “choose a side” about who to believe and what team’s set of postulates to accept as givens.
    what i tried to imply, was that “Just Me” had essentially chosen a side whose biblical interpretation he would follow.
    the point i was implying about the missionary “just pray about it yourself” construct is thatt you don’t have to be a scholar or blindly rely on scholars , or chose a team or “side” of biblical scholars to exercise that construct. If one receives an answer to prayer, and realizes its an answer to prayer, then one doesn’t have to rely onhuman reasoning or salesmanship or argument in order to choose a side .
    if we rely soley on being sold or convinced by some person, then a better salesman or “convincer” is eventually goin to come along and persuade us to something different.
    i believe scholarly argument merely creates space for faith, it can’t create faith. same thing with conversion. a conversion effectuated by argument can be undone with a better argument/salesman. conversion by revelation is harder to undo.
  31. If I understand the history correctly, that construct was first advanced to justify the Protestant split from the Catholic church. In other words, it was first an “anti-Catholic” construct before it was used as a counter or rejoinder to Mormonism.
    Sort of. Remember there were 3 breaks that occurred in Protestantism.
    Catholic claim -> They have an apostolic authority, an unbroken chain of people authorized going from Jesus to Peter to …. current priest. (called apostolic succession)
    Anglican Church came from priests they agreed with the Catholics on the apostolic claim, they claim to also have it. Catholics disagree arguing that an excommunicated bishops cannot validly ordain and thus the chain was broken in the generation after the break.
    Radical Reformers claimed that it was completely unneeded. That there was no magical property passed on via. laying of hands and there was no magical property occurring what happens spiritually comes from obedience to God. In essence there are no sacraments only ordinances (I’m using ordinance here in the Protestant sense)
    Middle position was Luther’s personal position as well as the Methodist position. Generally those churches have a “we have it, but we don’t needed”. In some sense they argue the order comes down from the apostles, the order has succession not the individuals. Thus if a fully ordained priest joins a heretical church he doesn’t carry his sacramental authority with him, and conversely that even if the chain is broken for an individual it is maintained for the order.
    Mormons AFAICT maintain the position that it must individually passed on (per Catholics & Anglicans) but that it was lost.
    As an aside I’m not doing the Eastern Catholic view since this is a Protestant vs. Mormon issue.
  32. Just me –
    Prophecy as a gift of the Spirit was very much a part of their writings, but nowhere does anyone in the early Church talk of the expediency for the mantle.
    Of course they do. It was an argument that had a lot of impact all throughout Asia minor. The gospel of John has a lot of references to the notion that after Jesus will come a paráklētos ( examples Gospel of John (14:16, 14:26, 15:26, 16:7) ) a spiritual comforter, bringing new revelations to complete the pairing. The idea being another being was needed, lesser than Jesus but who has the same relationship to the Holy Spirit (remember this was pre-trinitarian) that Jesus has to the father as a reflection on earth. Montanism was modalistic. Montanism which held this views was huge in the 2nd century and into the 3rd.
    Where you really see a debate if you only want to look at Catholic scholars, is whether Montanism was heretical or not. The arguments made by Catholics at the time was that because the revelations of Montanus, Priscilla and Maximilla were not heretical that the movement was tolerable. What was important is there was no denial at the time that Jesus had ruled out prophecy. Rather they just didn’t happen to believe Montanus was one, because … well what it essentially amount to is he had the wrong kind of family, a bad education and iffy ethnicity.
    And of course right after Montanus comes Mani who was restoring the corrupted teachings of Adam, Zoroaster, Buddha and Jesus. The idea being that the original teachings were lost by a corrupt priesthood and could only be restored by prophetic revelation (might sound familiar). His religion spreads from Rome to India, and rivals the size of the Catholic church. If you define Christianity as followers of Jesus, rather than followers of the church… They preserved a lot of the early Christian literature we have like Acts of Thomas that the church never adopted. The Catholics by their own admission didn’t completely wipe it out until the 12th century. And Islam had a terrible time dealing with it, as well.
    So yes there were debates about the necessity of prophecy in the early church
  33. the point i was implying about the missionary “just pray about it yourself” construct is thatt you don’t have to be a scholar or blindly rely on scholars , or chose a team or “side” of biblical scholars to exercise that construct. If one receives an answer to prayer, and realizes its an answer to prayer, then one doesn’t have to rely onhuman reasoning or salesmanship or argument in order to choose a side .
    if we rely soley on being sold or convinced by some person, then a better salesman or “convincer” is eventually goin to come along and persuade us to something different.
    And I am saying, the whole way-to-truth that the missionaries teach is not somehow self-evident or built on solid logic. You have to first accept that Moroni’s challenge is a valid way to determine truth, which is just you relying on the missionaries’ word that it’s a valid methodology.
  34. After Christ’s ascension, the apostles were considered “prophets” by the early church. Whether the law of circumcision was to be kept was debated (and decided) by a council of the apostles, so the doctrinal authority is clearly implied. Acts 15:32 “And Judas and Silas, being prophets themselves, exhorted the brethren with many words….”
  35. Kullervo, 2 rejoinders:
    1) Moroni’s challenge, the “pray to see if it’s true” construct, carries its own test or validation within it. One does not need to accept that Moroni’s challenge is a valid methodology _prior_ to experimenting with it. It’s a very low-cost experiment.
    The discovery of whether it’s a valid methodology can be made in the test itself. Granted, not everyone gets an answer (which is another topic), so the construct is not universally applicable. But in the LDS paradigm, I suppose that those who get an answer and those whom the Lord wants in the church, are pretty much the same set. IE, if one doesn’t get an answer, then essentially, the missionaries shouldn’t baptize that person.
    2) The “pray to see if it’s true” is very subjective and internal, not objective, which takes it out of the realm of relying on external human influence. It takes the decision-making out of the sales-job/argument/convincing paradigm of choosing a side.
    As I understand it, the gospel of Christ (not the particular LDS story, but the generally accepted biblical account) has always been subjective. It never was intended to be objectively “proven.” And as I understand faith, that is what faith is about, it’s subjective, not amenable to objective proof. If it were, it wouldn’t be faith.
    Therefore those who seek spiritual truth using only external, objective, scholarly methods won’t find it. And in as much as those methods are amenable to discovering truth, they have to take a backseat to faith in the spiritual realm.
    In regard to Moroni’s challenge, the optimum desired result is that those who do get an answer (albeit subjective) to their prayer, can then say “No, the missionaries didn’t convince me of anything. I prayed about it, and God told me it was true.”
    The popular counter to this is “But how do you know that what you felt/thought/heard was an answer from God, and not just your own mind playing tricks on you, or subtle brain-washing by the missionaries?” Again, the answer is: you get to decide for yourself; that is subjective too.
    This internal-ness and subjectivity is a completely different paradigm than the arguments, proselyting and apologetics of every Abrahamic religion I’m aware of.
    The goal of LDS missionaries (I hope) is not to sell people on LDS doctrine, nor to convince people to join the church, it’s to convince them to pray about the doctrine and pray about joining the church. Getting people to pray and further investigate is the only “sales job” that missionaries should be doing.
  36. The popular counter to this is “But how do you know that what you felt/thought/heard was an answer from God, and not just your own mind playing tricks on you, or subtle brain-washing by the missionaries?” Again, the answer is: you get to decide for yourself; that is subjective too.
    The Moroni challenge isn’t going to work for people who want an objective standard. But that’s the realm of classical apologetics. The old fashioned restored church claim works amazing well for Mormonism.
    As an aside the authors give an example of where Mormonism becomes non-understandable , which I found interesting. The claim to be the only restored church is viewed very negatively. Quite simply the vast majority of people are unable to even understand the claim that Mormons are making. Slightly rephrasing to this triple:
    1) Christ organized a church.
    2) Men changed it.
    3) It has been brought back.
    Brings to light the vast majority of Christians are not rejecting #3 but rather have never considered #1 before. Once the position is understand 48% agree immediately with point #1. Of that 48%, 74% agree with point #2 immediately. And that probably corresponds to a all but a few percent of non-Catholics, And then from there 1/2 the people that agree to points #1 and #2 are willing to consider the Mormon claim for #3. Once this is understood as 3 separate claims:
    17% — Maybe Mormons are right
    36% — Mormons are probably wrong
    29% — Mormons are definitely wrong
    18% — No opinion
    Without the need for anything more than a 3 paragraph explanation.
    (from my data on anti-Mormonism thread).
    Also from the same thread, Mormons have much lower negatives than evangelicals. I’m pretty skeptical and I think the restorationist claims are historically defensible, if you push back the Hugh Nibley type dates. Mormon materialism holds up well.
Categories:

Related Post:



0 коментарі:

Post a Comment

ClobberBlog | Mormonism, Evangelical Christianity