Church activity

There has been some discussion in the Bloggernacle about orthopraxy and orthodoxy, with some claiming that right practice is more important in the Church than is right belief, and some claiming the opposite. I ran across some interesting facts in the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, in the entry titled “Activity in the Church” that seem relevant:

When Latter-day Saints speak of being "active in the Church," they have reference to observing a full religious lifestyle of attendance, devotion, service, and learning. As one measure of their rate of activity, 48 percent of adult Latter-day Saints in the United States in 1989 reported that they attended church services weekly, compared to 38 percent of adult members in other denominations.

As far as I know, this figure hasn't changed much since 1989. The last figure I recall hearing was either 45% or 50%. Outside the United States, that measure of activity tends to be lower. I've heard that in South America it ranges around 25%; during my mission in Italy I would estimate it at around 30% or so.

General surveys show that even though private religious practice is strongly encouraged by the Church, only 67 percent of active adult Latter-day Saints pray daily, compared to 83 percent in other denominations; and 41 percent reported reading the scriptures daily or several times a week, compared to 52 percent in other denominations (Research Division; cf. National Opinion Research Center; Princeton Religion Research Center).

Note that this paragraph is comparing active Latter-day Saints with active members of other denominations. These are private practices, rather than public ones, which could make for some interesting speculation about how we, as a church, differ in our approach to private vs. public practices.

Anecdotally, I would guess that maybe half of “active” Latter-day Saints are full tithe payers, and fewer are temple recommend holders. So, out of a Church membership of 11 million people, I would guess that, once we count out all the baptized children who are not old enough for a temple recommend yet, as well as single sisters who are typically not encouraged to get a temple recommend until marriage or mission, there are perhaps 500,000 temple recommend holders.

My guess is that most of the active participants in the Bloggernacle fall into this category, and I think this affects our perception of the question of whether orthodoxy or orthopraxy is more important in the Church. The statistics on Church activity are low enough that I'm sure general Church leaders are more concerned about that than about orthodoxy outside of very basic doctrines. However, among members who are already highly active in the Church, orthodoxy may rise in importance. This might help explain why John H.'s experience with the (active) members of the Church may be different from the emphasis of the Brethren.

Sick, sick, sick

I'm finally on the mend after two weeks of the worst sinus infection I've ever had. Not only did it wipe me out physically, but made it difficult to think very clearly, too. The physical and the mental are closely tied. With my improving health, I'll be back to regular blogging soon.

As Sisters In Zion

Our congregational rest hymn in sacrament meeting yesterday was As Sisters In Zion. I was up front, interpreting for a Deaf member, so I got a great view of the congregation. Quite a few people, especially men, were having really hard time keeping a straight face. (This included the bishopric, who seemed to be surprised that we were singing it for a rest hymn.)

It made me wonder whether the women feel as awkward singing hymns that use exclusively male language.

American vs. Mormon religious identity

I just finished reading Kathleen Flake's The Politics of American Religious Identity: The Seating of Senator Reed Smoot, Mormon Apostle. It is an excellent, insightful discussion of the importance of the Reed Smoot hearings for the development of the limits of American religious pluralism, as well as the redefinition of Mormon identity within those limits. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in the clear shift from 19th- to 20th-century Mormonism.

I would sum up Flake's argument this way: The real threat of 19th-century Mormonism was not polgyamy per se; polygamy was only the prime indicator of a rival governmental system (the Kingdom of God) set above the government of the nation. The resolution of this threat was the capitulation of Mormonism, which subordinated itself to the U.S. government in order to preserve its existence. The vehicle for this change was the 1903-1907 Reed Smoot hearings. Flake persuasively argues that the LDS Church, forced to give up the Kingdom and its marriage system, had to redefine itself, and did so by emphasizing Joseph Smith's First Vision and pre-Nauvoo Mormonism.

(Of course, the Church never distanced itself from Nauvoo Mormonism to the extent that the RLDS (now Community of Christ) did; I think the perpetuation of the temple ceremonies would have made such a significant shift impossible.)

Flake records that President Joseph F. Smith (sans plural wives) took a group of Church leaders back east and raised the obelisk monument to Joseph Smith at his birthplace of Sharon, Vermont. According to Flake, this was the first Church historical monument outside Utah. The group then followed some of the trail of Church history. Flake notes that while the group detoured somewhat to take in Kirtland-era sites, they did not visit any post-Kirtland sites. She sees this as an indication of the de-emphasis of Nauvoo Mormonism. I wonder, having just noticed some discussion of the Church's return to Nauvoo in the Bloggernacle (see also here), whether this return has theological significance. It doesn't seem so, given President Hinckley's apparent desire to emphasize commonalities with other Christian denominations, but I wonder...

Has Mormonism abandoned the establishment of the Kingdom of God for good, or is it just in abeyance, waiting for the time to be ripe?

BYU-Nauvoo/Iowa?

The Mormon grapevine is alive and well. I have heard a rumor that a new BYU campus is being started in Keokuk, Iowa, not far from Nauvoo. BYU has a Semester at Nauvoo program at the Joseph Smith Academy, but my rumor source says that construction has already started on a very large campus -- large enough for a full-size university.

Take it for what it's worth, as it is just a rumor. But if it turns out to be true, remember you saw it here first.

Harder to repent?

We believe in repentance in the spirit world, but, so as not to give people motivation to procrastinate their repentance, we teach that it's a lot harder to repent there than it is here. So you'd better take advantage of the easier opportunity now.

On the other hand, I often hear sentiments to the effect of “We'll be so different in the next life, so we won't struggle so much with envy or all the things that our fallen condition make so hard for us.”

So, which is it? Easier or harder to change now? Is there going to be a miraculous change wrought upon us that will erase our weakness, or are we going to have to keep working on our character, even after this life?

Twenty points for guessing which way I lean. ;-)

Meaning of death?

Well, since we have the meaning of life nailed down, let's talk about the meaning of death.

In the Western world, death was, until recently (and still is in the developing world) a very common thing for people to experience -- not themselves, but the death of loved ones. Many pioneers lost children, spouses, siblings -- and far more frequently than I or most of the people I know do today.

I wonder how this affects the meaning of death for us. Is it more feared when experienced more frequently, or less? Does one become more callous toward it when experienced more frequently, or more sensitive to it? Does it have a different moral standing; for example, is capital punishment viewed differently when death is more prevalent than when it is less prevalent? War? Other killing (cf. Nephi and Laban, or Old Testament accounts)? Is there a difference in whether death is regarded as “natural?”

I suspect that there are differences between the meaning of death for me and its meaning for my pioneer ancestors, and I wonder how this affects our views on the restoration of the gospel.

Mormonism and America

This past weekend, we took a trip to Nauvoo for a “mini family reunion.” While we weren't able to spend a lot of time in Nauvoo itself, there were a few things that made a significant impression on me.

The Nauvoo temple is, by far, my favorite temple. I love the rich architectural symbolism and wish it were more prevalent in the newer temples. The effort and craftsmanship that went into the rebuilding is remarkable. One interesting tidbit:

The murals in the ordinance rooms are strikingly North American in character. Animals include deer, elk, beavers, cougars, and bison. I was reminded of Joseph Smith's teaching that the Garden of Eden was in Missouri. However global the Church may be today, it certainly started out very America-centered, and retains much of that America-centeredness. As the City of Joseph pageant pointed out, we believe that America is a chosen land.

This explicit North America-centeredness (the New Jerusalem to be built on the American continent) seems to me to raise some questions with regard to the limited Mesoamerican interpretation of the location of Book of Mormon events. I'm not sure these ideas are mutually exclusive, but there may be some conflicts, at least with historic interpretations of events.

As noted in the many Bloggernacle discussions of Zelph (here, here, and here), Joseph Smith apparently believed that the Book of Mormon events took place on the North American continent.

It appears that Joseph was equally willing to make connections to Biblical events, as he located the Garden of Eden and the places where Adam offered sacrifices in Missouri, at and near Adam-Ondi-Ahman. This is also where Doctrine & Covenants 116 indicates Adam will return.

While the Mesoamerican placement of the Book of Mormon reduces the central place of North America in Mormonism, the Doctrine & Covenants and other teachings of Joseph Smith broaden it. Even apart from its American “character” in terms of thematic emphasis, Mormonism is clearly an American religion.

More on Dennett on Freedom

I mentioned in an earlier post that I had recently finished reading Daniel Dennett's Freedom Evolves. The philosophy blog “Papers on Agency and Related Issues” has a collection of papers given at an APA symposium on Dennett's book, including critiques of Dennett and his response.

Good from evil

In Dialogue 36:3, Janice Allred argues that punishment is evil (and therefore the scriptures attributing punishment to God are incorrect). She discusses common defenses of punishment:

Defenses of punishment argue that although inflicting pain is generally wrong, punishment serves a higher purpose which justifies this infliction of pain. This argument is a form of the argument that the end justifies the means. Is it possible to do something good by doing evil? Do not the means determine the end? Can evil be overcome by evil? If defenders of punishment maintain that the good ends accomplished by punishment can be accomplished in no other way, they are defending a view of reality which holds that evil is necessary to bring about good.

(Dialogue 36:3, p. 14)

Setting aside the issue of punishment itself, I've been thinking about this question: Is it possible to do something good by doing evil? Some of the classic scenarios may call this into question; e.g., do you lie to the Gestapo about hiding Jews in your attic? If lying is unequivocally evil, then it seems that we would say that we can bring about good (saving a life) by doing evil (lying).

And Allred herself actually gives an example just three pages later (p. 17):

We act from desire. Our desire seems good to us. Sometimes a person needs to sin in order to manifest desire that is not good -- in order to learn, to have the possibility of repentance. Only the agent can decide what he should do, which is not to say that whatever he chooses is good or right, but it may be necessary for his growth.

I think there are two things at work here. First, there is the question of whether something evil (sinning) can bring about good (learning and repentance). But I think these examples may also challenge our views of whether something is good or evil. Going back to the classic example of lying to the Gestapo, sometimes I think this example leads us to say that lying is not unequivocally evil, but that in certain situations is actually good.

If this is correct, then it seems that to some extent, “a view of reality which holds that evil is necessary to bring about good” seems very defensible. These situations lead me to believe that sometimes the ends do justify the means.

Those who share Allred's view may not agree that the ends justify the means, even in this kind of scenario. But it seems to me that the alternative is to say that evil can bring about good (even if the evil is not justified by the good end).

And so, in the end, it seems very reasonable to me to say that something we might generally (or even universally) consider evil may be either justified by, or even necessary for, good ends. (And, if necessary, the question of justification seems moot.)

And so it does not seem unreasonable to me that we should be able to accept the attribution of punishment to God.

The arm of flesh

O Lord, I have trusted in thee, and I will trust in thee forever. I will not put my trust in the arm of flesh; for I know that cursed is he that putteth his trust in the arm of flesh. Yea, cursed is he that putteth his trust in man or maketh flesh his arm. (2 Nephi 4:34)

What is “the arm of flesh?” I have often heard people equate it with human reasoning. But in the context of most of the scriptures decrying the arm of flesh, it seems more closely aligned with depending on someone else rather than on God. For example (emphasis mine):

Thus saith the LORD; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD. (Jeremiah 17:5)

But how far does this extend? Surely not to those whom God has appointed as our leaders, right? I mean, if God has chosen them, surely we can trust them? Not according to JST Mark 9:40-48. Italics represent material that is added to or changed from the KJV:

[Editor's comment: Cutting off an offending hand or foot is compared to eliminating associations which may lead one astray. (compare Mark 9: 43-48)]

40 Therefore, if thy hand offend thee, cut it off; or if thy brother offend thee and confess not and forsake not, he shall be cut off. It is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands, to go into hell.

41 For it is better for thee to enter into life without thy brother, than for thee and thy brother to be cast into hell; into the fire that never shall be quenched, where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.

42 And again, if thy foot offend thee, cut it off; for he that is thy standard, by whom thou walkest, if he become a transgressor, he shall be cut off.

43 It is better for thee, to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell; into the fire that never shall be quenched.

44 Therefore, let every man stand or fall, by himself, and not for another; or not trusting another.

45 Seek unto my Father, and it shall be done in that very moment what ye shall ask, if ye ask in faith, believing that ye shall receive.

46 And if thine eye which seeth for thee, him that is appointed to watch over thee to show thee light, become a transgressor and offend thee, pluck him out.

47 It is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God, with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire.

48 For it is better that thyself should be saved, than to be cast into hell with thy brother, where their worm dieth not, and where the fire is not quenched.

This is a fascinating reworking of this passage that can be difficult to understand literally. And it is especially interesting that these verses caution against undue dependence upon those who are “appointed to watch over” us and those who are our standards. Strong language, spoken to the Twelve, who had already separated themselves from the Jewish leadership of the time.

This emphasizes the fallibilism inherent in Mormonism -- a fallibilism that many critics, as well as many members of the Church, do not acknowledge. And this isn't a trivial fallibilism, either; this is a fallibilism that has, potentially, very serious spiritual consequences: the danger of hell fire.

On the other hand, we do have those who are “appointed to ... show [us] light,” and have an obligation to “give heed” to their words (cf. D&C 21:4-5). How do we reconcile these things? Nephi instructs us (emphasis mine):

Cursed is he that putteth his trust in man, or maketh flesh his arm, or shall hearken unto the precepts of men, save their precepts shall be given by the power of the Holy Ghost. (2 Nephi 28:31)

Or, as J. Reuben Clark explained in his excellent talk, When Are the Writings and Sermons of Church Leaders Entitled to the Claim of Scripture?:

The question is, how shall we know when the things they have spoken were said as they were “moved upon by the Holy Ghost”? I have given some thought to this question, and the answer thereto, so far as I can determine, is: We can tell when the speakers are “moved upon by the Holy Ghost” only when we, ourselves, are “moved upon by the Holy Ghost.” In a way, this completely shifts the responsibility from them to us to determine when they so speak.

In the introduction to the Doctrine & Covenants (D&C 1), the Lord explains some of the purposes of the Restoration. In verses 19-20, we read:

The weak things of the world shall come forth and break down the mighty and strong ones, that man should not counsel his fellow man, neither trust in the arm of flesh—But that every man might speak in the name of God the Lord, even the Savior of the world; (D&C 1:19-20)

I believe this is made possible by the exercise of the gift of the Holy Ghost, which derives from the restored Melchizedek Priesthood. In this way, we can “let every man stand or fall, by himself, and not for another.”

Okay, break's over...

After a long hiatus, I'm back to blogging. I've updated my sidebar with new Bloggernacle links and an updated RPT Blog Club list. I've got a bunch of half-finished draft posts, so hopefully things will be back to normal -- well, as normal as I get, anyway...