134:2

Thoughts on the 4th of July

2011-07-10T18:46:00.000-07:00

“The possibility of coherent community action is diminished today by the deep mutual suspicions and antagonisms among various groups in our national life.

"As these antagonisms become more intense, the pathology is much the same. . . . The ingredients are, first, a deep conviction on the part of the group as to its own limitless virtue or the overriding sanctity of its cause; second, grave doubts concerning the moral integrity of all others; third, a chronically aggrieved feeling that power has fallen into the hands of the unworthy (that is, the hands of others). . . .

"Political extremism involves two prime ingredients: An excessively simple diagnosis of the world's ills and a conviction that there are identifiable villains back of it all. . . . Blind belief in one's cause and a low view of the morality of other Americans--these seem mild failings. But they are the soil in which ranker weeds take root . . . terrorism, and the deep, destructive cleavages that paralyze a society.”

-Hugh B Brown quoting John Gardner. From an address given to the BYU student body on May 13, 1969, when Hugh B. Brown was First Counselor in the First Presidency of the Church of Jeusus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

“If I say to an American that the country he lives in is a fine one, aye he replies and there is not its equal in the world. If I applaud the freedom its inhabitants enjoy he answers ‘freedom is a fine thing but few nations are worthy of it.’ If I remark on the purity of morals that distinguishes the United State he declares ‘I can imagine that a stranger who has witnessed the corruption which prevails in other nations would be astonished at the difference.’ At length I leave him to a contemplation of himself. But he returns to the charge and does not desist until he has got me to repeat all I have been saying. It is impossible to conceive of a more troublesome and garrulous patriotism.

-Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1835

“[There] are…perils which can be understood only if we realize the ironic tendency of virtues to turn into vices when too complacently relied upon; and of power to become vexatious if the wisdom which directs it is trusted too confidently. The ironic elements in American history can be overcome, in short, only if American idealism comes to terms with the limits of all human striving, the fragmentariness of all human wisdom, the precariousness of all historic configurations of power, and the mixture of good and evil in all human virtue. America’s moral and spiritual success in relating itself creatively to a world community requires, not so much a guard against the gross vices, about which the idealists warn us, as a reorientation of the whole structure of our idealism. That idealism is too oblivious of the ironic perils to which human virtue, wisdom and power are subject. It is too certain that there is a straight path toward the goal of human happiness; too confident of the wisdom and idealism which prompt men and nations toward that goal; and too blind to the curious compounds of good and evil in which the actions of the best men and nations abound.

…

“A too confident sense of justice always leads to injustice…Genuine community, whether between men or nations, is not established merely through the realization that we need one another, though indeed we do. That realization alone may still allow the strong to use the lives of the weaker as instruments of their own self-realization. Genuine community is established only when the knowledge that we need one another is supplemented by the recognition that the “the other,” that other form of life, or that other unique community, is the limit beyond which our ambitions must not run and the boundary beyond which our life must not expand.

…

“In the present situation even the sanest of our statesmen have found it convenient to conform their policies to the public temper of fear and hatred which the most vulgar of our politicians have generated or exploited…Constant proof is required that the foe is hated with sufficient vigor. Unfortunately the only persuasive proof seems to be the disavowal of precisely those discriminating judgments which are so necessary for an effective conflict with the evil, which we are supposed to abhor. There is no simple triumph over this spirit of fear and hatred. It is certainly an achievement beyond the resources of a simple idealism. For naïve idealist are always so preoccupied with their own virtues that they have no residual awareness of the common characteristics in all human foibles and frailties and could not bear to be reminded that there is a hidden kinship between the vices of even the most vicious and the virtues of even the most upright.

…

“There is irony in the Biblical history as well as in Biblical admonitions. Christ is crucified by the priests of the purest religion of his day and by the minions of the justest, the Roman Law. The fanaticism of the priests is the fanaticism of all good men, who do not know that they are not as good as they esteem themselves. The complacence of Pilate represents the moral mediocrity of all communities, however just. They cannot distinguish between a criminal and the Savior because each violates the laws and customs which represent some minimal order, too low for the Savior and too high for the criminal.

…

“We…as all “God-fearing” men of all ages, are never safe against the temptation of claiming God too simply as the sanctifier of whatever we most fervently desire. Even the most “Christian” civilization and even the most pious church must be reminded that the true God can be know only where there is some awareness of a contradiction between divine and human purposes, even on the highest level of human aspirations.

…

“…[I]f we should perish, the ruthlessness of the foe would be only the secondary cause of the disaster. The primary cause would be that the strength of a giant nation was directed by eyes too blind to see all the hazards of the struggle; and the blindness would be induced not by some accident of nature or history but by hatred and vainglory.”

--Reinhold Niebuhr in The Irony Of American History, 1952

Theological Interlude 01: Imperfection and the Atonement

2011-03-13T18:37:00.000-07:00

Recently my mind has been in a more explicitly theological place rather that political (don’t worry I’ll get back to politics soon.) So, for the next little bit, I’m going to focus on more “spiritual” things (whatever that means.) These may not seem directly political or liberal, but it is these spiritual teachings that inform my values, including (and perhaps especially) my politics and my embrace of a liberal world view. If you want know why I’m liberal and what that means to me perhaps this and future ruminations may help.

Christ told Peter that “Satan hath desired to have you, that he may shift you as wheat.” The same can be said for any of us. Like the ancient farmers that sat and shifted the wheat to separate it from the chaff it is Satan’s goal to separate us from our Father in Heaven and the Love of Christ.

I worry that we underestimate the cleverness and the subtleness with which the Deceiver goes about his work of attempting to separate us from God.

In the Book of Mormon the Prophets Lehi and Nephi each had similar dreams. In their dreams they saw the Tree of Life and wanted all of their family to come and sit with them and eat the fruit that they found growing there. But as they looked for their family they saw that everything was covered with a mist of darkness and yet in that curious way of dreams they were able to discern a guiderail leading through the darkness to the Tree of Life. They also saw a terrible ravine with a dangerous river at the bottom, and, within shouting distance of the Tree, they saw a building which they described as “great and spacious.” They saw many people pushing forward in attempt to get to the Tree of Life, but they also saw many others push forward in an attempt to get to the building, which Nephi was told represents “the pride of the world.” Then they saw this building collapse destroying all that were in it.

Of course we need to stay clear of this “great and spacious building.” But one of the things that Satan wants us to forget is this: It doesn’t matter to him where we end up so long as it isn’t the Tree of Life. He doesn’t care if we end-up in his supposedly great and spacious building, drowned in the river, or just wandering aimlessly through the dark, any of those would suite him just as well. It is his goal to keep us from the Tree of Life which is the Love of God.

As a church community we are very good at understanding that sin can lead us way from the Love of God and to places that will ultimately prove, like the building in Lehi’s dream, to be without foundation. But we are not always so good at recognizing that there are other tricks that the deceiver uses to separate us from God.

It strikes me as both ironic and cleaver that for Satan to get maximum benefit from his great and spacious building he has to place it within shouting distance of the Tree of Life. And so it is with many of the more subtle tricks that he plays on us. Some of the deceits of Satan will only work against good, faithful members of the church. He twists our desire to reach the Tree of Life into a hyper-awareness of the “great and spacious building”, and thus we turn our efforts from seeking God to avoiding Satan. He makes us fear his “great and spacious building” so much that we let go the guiding words of the Lord and end up wandering lost in the dark, unable, to find the Love of God. He works hard to turn our righteousness into a snare and to use our understanding of the commandments against us to push us beyond the mark.

Although Satan has many such specialized lures in his tool kit I want to touch on just one. Remember, his goal is to separate us from God anyway he can. And so he works to get us to believe that we are unworthy of God’s love or his help. If he is successful in getting us to believe that because we are imperfect, or that because we have sinned, or are weak in some way, we are unworthy of the love of God, then he can prevented us from using the very tools that the Lord has provided for us to us heal from our shortcomings. If he can convince us that we are unworthy of the promptings of the Spirit of the Lord then we may not hear those promptings when we are buffeted by temptation and need them most. If he can convince us that our weakness disqualifies us from the Atonement, then he has denied us the only tool that can overcome that weakness.

During the time of the Apostle Paul there were many followers of God who believed that it was possible to “obey” their way into heaven. In fact, prior to his conversion Paul was one of these. But Paul learned that this is just not possible, we can not be righteous enough to be saved on our own merits. His letter to the Romans was written to help those that where struggling with this false belief understand the True doctrine of the Atonement. In chapter 3 verses 10 and 12 he quotes from the Old Testament when he says: “There is none righteous no not one…They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good no, not one.” And in verse 23: “…all have sinned and, come short of the Glory of God.” We cannot earn our way into heave by our own works of righteousness for as King Benjamin tells us in Mosiah “…[the Lord] doth require that ye should do as he hath commanded you; for which if ye do, he doth immediately bless you; and therefore he hath paid you. And ye are still indebted unto him and are and will be forever and ever; therefore of what have ye to boast?...Can ye say aught of yourselves? I answerer you Nay. Ye cannot say that ye are even as much as the dust of the earth.”

If God where to require us to be without sin before receiving the Holy Ghost, receiving revelation, or receiving forgiveness, then no one would feel the Spirit, receive revelation, or be forgiven. No one would be saved and nothing would ever have been able to be reveled. Satan’s attempt to get us to believe that our human weakness disqualifies us from the Spirit of the Lord is an effort to deprive us of the very tools we need to overcome, or transcend that weakness. He wants us to believe that we need to perfect ourselves before we can qualify for the blessings of heaven and then sits back and laughs as we fail at the impossible task that he has set before us.

Unlike Satan, the Lord doesn’t place before us impossible tasks. The Lord knows and understands the effects of the fall. He knows that we will fall short of the standards that he has set for us, and of the standards that we set for ourselves. He knows about the briars, thorns, and noxious weeds. And so he provided a way for us to transcend our struggles. He provided us with our Savior.

Satan wants us to believe that to qualify for the help of the Lord we need to be perfect, but the Lord teaches that to be perfect we first need his help. In other words we need his help now, before we are perfect, before we “repent,” before we change. It is the Atonement that allows us to change. This is what Paul was talking about in his letter to the Saints at Ephesus when he said: “But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: that in ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye saved through faith; and not of yourselves: it is the gift of God.”

Do we need to qualify for the Atonement? Of course, but we need to understand the qualifications as revealed by Lord. The Prophet Lehi in speaking to his son Jacob taught about qualifications and the Atonement this way: “Behold [Christ] offereth himself a as sacrifice for sin, to answer the ends of the law, unto all those who have a broken heart and a contrite spirit; and unto none else can the ends of the law be answered.”

In other words the Atonement of Christ becomes effective, not after we have fixed ourselves, but once we have shown a desire to do be fixed-even though we may lack the capacity or skills needed to make the corrections ourselves. When our desire is sincere, the power of the Atonement can cleanse us of sin and guilt and can help us through the process of healing. He can help us carry our loads and he can help us to grow and develop the skills we need in order to become increasingly like him. We do not have to do this alone, we don’t need to struggle by ourselves, or worry that we are not doing enough. Paul, in his second letter to the Corinthians, complained of a thorn in his flesh which he had begged the Lord to remove. The Lord responded, not by removing the thorn but by telling him: “My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.”

We don’t need mountains of faith to move mountains. As Alma taught the Zoramites, sometimes all we need to start is only a desire to believe, and by letting that desire work in us we can turn our hearts to Christ and he can heal us. The gospel of Mark tells of man who brought his son to Christ to be healed. The savior told him that if he believed then his son could be healed. “And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.” That was enough- the Savior healed his son.

Satan will do anything he can to separate us from God. He will miss-quote and miss-use the scriptures and teachings of the Prophets. Like the friends of Job sometimes the carriers of his messages of despair may be well intentioned, but misinformed people close to us, whose misguided attempts at comfort, add to, rather lighten our burdens.

Do not be deceived, Christ’s grace is sufficient for you. Embrace it now and then work with Christ to be healed. As long as you are moving toward him he will be with you however small your steps and however long it takes, until he has perfected you in and through his Grace.

Lessons from the Book of Job

2010-10-09T18:50:00.000-07:00

It is time for what is becoming my quarterly blog post. No politics this time, or at least not directly.

Until this last year I’ve always had a rather cartoonish understanding of the Book of Job. I knew it only superficially as the story of a man who became the object of a “wager” between God and Satan. Satan bet God that if Job were no longer blessed then he would abandon God. Satan caused all manner of terrible things to happen to Job but Job stayed faithful and was blessed. The End.

This version of the story teaches little more than “suck-it up and don’t complain.” And it only encompasses the fist two chapters and the last; it completely ignores the intervening 39 chapters. It also completely misses the point of the book.

Satan’s challenge to God was an effort to prove a common misuse of faith: He wanted to show that there is a simple correlation between blessings and righteousness; that “blessings” (prosperity, wealth, health, freedom from obstacles, and freedom from temptation) either cause righteousness or result from it in a simple way that is easily and readily accessible to the human mind.

The Book of Job is a refutation of this simple correlation. This doctrine is taught elsewhere, of course, such as in Christ’s Sermon on the Mount, where Christ teaches “[Your Father in heaven] causes his sun to rise on the evil and good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” (Matt 5:45) But nowhere is it taught more beautifully than in the Book of Job.

Taking Satan’s bait and biting into the idea of simple correlations can play out on every scale of the human experience, from within our own heart to international relations. And while it would be fun to blast the ignoramuses that exploit natural disasters to “prove” their own righteousness and the wickedness of whoever was effected (such as blaming hurricane Katrina on Gay Pride celebrations or the Haitian earthquake on a 200 year old pact with the devil), such obvious distortions are easily dismissed with a little thought and a nudge or two from the scriptures (for example Luke 13:1-5.) It is at the personal and interpersonal level where a correct understanding of the role of suffering and its relationship (or non-relationship) to righteousness can make or break the human spirit. It is here that we see these forces play out in the book of Job.

The first two chapters set up the story, we as readers see that the cause of Job’s suffering is not his wickedness; quite the opposite: it is because God knows of his righteousness that Job is chosen by the Lord to be his champion. This, however, is unknown to Job and the friends who come to comfort him. Job’s friends assume that his suffering is the result of some unconfessed sin, Job does not speculate on the cause of his suffering other than to rebut his friends and to maintain his righteousness.

The depths of the pain that Job is suffering can be felt in his words:

“Why did I not perish at birth, and die as I came from the womb? ...Or why was I not hidden in the ground like a stillborn child?”
(3:11,16)

“What strength do I have, that I should still hope? What prospects, that I should be patient? Do I have the strength of stone? Is my flesh Bronze? Do I have any power to help myself now that success has been driven from me?”
(6:11-13)

“I loath my very life; therefore I will give free rein to my complaint and speak out in the bitterness of my soul. I will say to God: Do not condemn me, but tell me what charges you have against me….Even if I am innocent, I cannot lift my head for I am full of shame and drowned in my affliction.”
(10:1-2,15)

Job’s friends come and try to comfort him. But they do not seek to comfort him as the Lord does, by sharing his burden, mourning with him, comforting him, or serving him. Instead they try to preach to him, quote scripture at him, and show him where he went wrong. They see his suffering as evidence of God’s displeasure with him, and his complaints as proof of his unrighteousness. As Job grows more insistent in proclaiming his righteousness and louder in his laments his friends grow increasingly blunt in their accusations. They tell him that all he needs to do is repent and pray harder and his suffering will go away (see, for example, 11:13-20.) They tell him to just walk away from his suffering and quit complaining (18:2-4.) They tell him that God is perfect and perfectly just therefore if Job is suffering it is because he deserves to suffer (34:5-12). But Job refuses to concede, he knows of no wickedness that he has done that would warrant such a punishment. He tells his friends that: “…as long as I have life within me, the breath of God in my nostrils, my lips will not speak wickedness, and my tongue will utter no deceit. I will never admit you are right; till I die, I will not deny my integrity. I will maintain my righteousness and never let go of it; my conscience will not reproach me as long as I live.” (27:3-6)

One of Job’s remarkable strengths is the way he maintains his integrity, even in the face of accusations from his friends who present “proof” that his suffering is the result of sin.

One of the more subtle ways that the deceiver attempts to separate us from God is to get us to believe that our life and the path it will take is completely know to us, and can be controlled by us through a simple set of rules and rituals. He would have us believe that salvation is through the law rather than Christ, he would have us believe that if we continue to suffer from the effects of sin or any other of the effects of the fall that it is because we have not prayed hard enough, that we have not purified ourselves enough. Like Job’s friends using Job’s own complaints as proof of his unworthiness, the father of lies tries to get us to believe that the temptations he places before us are proof that we are unworthy of the Love of Christ. He wants us to believe that faith in Christ will take away our struggles, sorrows and temptations, and that, if it doesn’t, either we have failed or Christ has. The truth is much more powerful, but less easily understood: it is that we must to come to Christ with a broken heart and contrite spirit (2 Nephi 2:7), have faith that Christ’s grace is sufficient for us, and understand that, while the Lord can give us strength to helps us with our problems, we live in a post-fall world: sometimes the cup will not pass but must be drunk to the dregs. (see 2 Corinthians 12:7-10)

We cannot even judge our own righteousness by the presence or absence of sin, pain, temptation, suffering, strength, knowledge or capacity, let alone that of any other soul. Those are not standards of righteousness; the only standard is this: Have we come to Christ with real intent, with a broken heart and contrite spirit covenanting to do good and follow his will with all the strength we have, however great or small that strength may be and any given moment? Do we have faith in the strength of Christ?

A Response to Comments

2010-06-08T22:24:00.000-07:00

So I’ll respond to the comments from my post below (who would have thought that a three word post would generate my most comments ever.)

Jeremy,

Ah, the fun of trying to defend off-the-cuff comments. Of course I do not believe that we live in a “pure” market economy (and thus I believe that we, technically, live in a “blended” one.) And though I’m loath to use Wikipedia as a source, I concur that we do have some “semi-socialist” programs. However, even Medicare is not government ownership of production; the government buys the services of private individuals to provide medical care (albeit at a mandated, below-market rate.) A better example of “socialism” by the US government is the Veterans Administration where the government actually owns the hospitals and employs the doctors; other examples include public schools and public libraries (socialism by the state or local governments, rather than the federal government.) However, I would submit that if the United States is not the most free market of any country in the world it is very, very close. A “pure” socialist economy is one in which all means of production are owned by the all the people and controlled by them through the government. The following quote is from the principles of socialism of the Socialist Party USA: “In a socialist system the people own and control the means of production and distribution through democratically controlled public agencies, cooperatives, or other collective groups.” Communism is an example of non-democratic socialism; the Socialist Party purports to be working toward democratic socialism. Saying that the US is not a “pure” market economy is a little like claiming that your tap water is not pure because it contains trace amounts of something other than H2O.

The attempts to redefine socialism to mean government regulation or government services is a political scare tactic used by the right wing and other anti-government forces to whip up fear of the government or political opponents by attempting to link them to the now defunct demon of communism (think the Union of Social Soviet Republic). Government regulation is not government ownership. To attempt equate them is an attempt to confuse the issue and the public. Labeling opponents as communist has been a favorite tactic of the right for at least fifty years (think the attacks on Martin Luther King Jr., Senator McCarthy’s hearings, or the John Birch Society’s claiming that President Eisenhower was a communist puppet.) With the collapse of worldwide communism it can no longer serve as a viable boogieman. But Socialism is still around and is being used in much the same way. Equating regulation with socialism is an attempt to confuse the public into fearing regulation and attack policies based on emotional sound bites rather than facts. That the right wing has been successful in propagating confusion is no excuse to accept it.

I’m sure that we could find exceptions, but my observation is that most uses of the word socialism to describe Obama, the Health Care Bill, Democrats, or Liberals are attacks intended to be derogatory made by the right wing. I highly doubt Obama would consider himself a socialist, or the healthcare bill socialist. The aims of the Democratic Party are not socialist and even most liberals are not socialist (though it may be possible to argue that most socialists are liberals or at least left-wing.)

As I’ve said before on this blog if we are going to have real intelligent discussions about issues we need to abandon attempts to use words or catchphrases that are deliberately calculated to ramp up fear and diminish trust. We need to focus on facts, not fear. Labeling the health care bill as socialist was a deliberate attempt by some (which was then picked up by less knowledgeable others) to increase fear and loathing for the bill and those that support it.

Healthcare

2010-03-22T12:27:00.000-07:00

Yes. We. Can.

Is the world more wicked now than it once was?

2009-12-31T09:57:00.000-08:00

Is the world more wicked now than it once was? I think I may just about have set off a riot in Sunday School when I suggested that it is not. CS Lewis once said something to the effect that the theological questions that we struggle with the most will turn out, once we have a better perspective, to make as much sense as asking “What color is a mile?” or “What does yellow smell like?” That is, they are questions that can’t be answered because they are based on irrational premises. I believe that inquiring into relative wickedness across time is one of these. In fact, the Preacher counsels against such questions: “Do not say, ‘Why were the old days better than these?’ For it is not wise to ask such questions.” (Ecclesiastes 7:10)

There are several things that disturb me when people begin complaining that current times are so much worse than the good old days. I’m not so bothered by the idea that the current times have an abundance of evil; that is obvious. What bothers me is the premise that the times past did not have an abundance of evil, or were somehow less evil that the current times. Emerson said, “Behind us, as we go, all things assume pleasing forms, as clouds do afar off. Not only things familiar and stale, but even the tragic and terrible, are comely, as they take their place in the pictures of memory. The river-bank, the weed at the water-side, the old house, the foolish person, – however neglected in the passing, – have a grace in the past. ” There are several reasons for this. One is that our memories of things past fade, and those things that do stand out in our memories tend to be the good things. Another is that troubles (or evils) never look as big once they have been conquered as they do during the battle; it is always the unsolved problem that looms largest. Yet another reason is that there are many things that we now consider evil that once were never talked about, or were not considered evil at all. Take for example various forms of child abuse. There are actions that we now consider abusive that were once commonplace, and others that were never talked about that we now take proactive measures to prevent. Because these actions were either common or hidden they don’t stand out in our collective memory. Now that we are better at recognizing these evils of course we will see them more— it is not the “quantity” of evil that has changed but our capacity to recognize it.

The next disturbing aspect to inquiries about increasing amounts of evil is the assumption that evil is measurable. How do you measure evil, and (for another day) how do you even define evil? Do we measure evil by the number of sins committed, or the “size” of the sins; some combination of both, or some other way altogether? How much foul language equals a murder? How much fornication equals a lynching? How many insincere compliments equal an unjust war? I think that inquiries into relative evil are unanswerable and ultimately pointless. It is the evil that is before us that must concern us not how it compares to times past.

The third problem is that comparing evil across time focuses us on others, but not in a good way. There are, of course, ways in we which should be focused on others, but attempting to gauge others’ righteousness with our memory or dreams of the past isn’t one of them. Engaging in pointing out the evil of others and comparing it to some standard (either the past or some other standard) is pointing out the sawdust in someone else’s eye while ignoring the plank in our own (Matthew 7:3-5). It is our own sins that we need to be worried about, not those of others, past or present, and it is our own separation from God that should be our concern, and not how the Gross National Righteousness Index stacks up to historical trends.

Lastly, the question is ultimately pointless. How the evil of today compares to that of yesteryear is totally and absolutely irrelevant to my salvation, or anyone else’s. One of the great doctrines of Mormon theology is what it teaches concerning the Justice of God. The 2nd Article of Faith teaches us that each individual is responsible for their own transgressions. As moral agents, each of us is responsible for our own actions and how we respond to the actions of those around us. We are taught that individuals who did not have a legitimate opportunity to accept the gospel in this life will be found acceptable before God, if they would have received the gospel while in life (D&C 137:7) The same principle needs to hold true in reverse: we cannot be permitted into the Kingdom of God if the only thing that kept us from sin was luck of circumstance. In other words, if we would have sinned given the opportunity, but were never given the opportunity, we are damned, just as if the only thing that prevented us from increasing in righteousness was being born in a time and place where the gospel was unavailable. To have righteousness judged on any principle other than our own actions, governed by whatever light we currently possess, is to make salvation dependant on luck, or worse: on the actions of others. If the world is more wicked today than it was 50 years ago I will be judged by how I relate to the world as it currently exists. To say that the state of the righteousness in the rest of the world impacts our chances (either negatively or positively) for salvation is to accuse God of allowing the actions of others to determine our salvation. If we assume that the forces of evil are stronger today, that they slow our progress to God more now than they did in the past, then smaller gains become more significant. Like the widow offering her last mite, it is more important that we do our best, whatever the circumstance we find ourselves in, than what our best is; the Lord will then make up whatever remaining distance is required. We each have our own unique strength and our own unique weakness. We are each presented with a unique set of problems; our judgment will be based only on how we respond to our problems with the tools we have. If other tools were available to people of other times that allowed them to respond differently to their problems they will be judged on how they used their tools—we will be judged on how we use our tools. If the circumstances that we face today are different from the past then we will be held to account for how we respond to our circumstances and not compared to people in the past living with different circumstances. People of times past hold no special advantage over people of today when it comes to righteousness. The complaint that “these times are more wicked” is a complaint that God is unjust and that we have been placed at a disadvantage because of the behavior of others. It walks hand in hand with the false belief that God will hold us guilty by association, or that we can somehow be “contaminated” by associating with those whose beliefs and actions are different from our own. In short, it expresses a fear that we will be punished for the sins of others.

The world is constantly changing—in one generation the danger may be ignorance; in another, apathy; in another, fanaticism. I would choose no other day to live than ours. Given the choice between public acceptance of gay marriage and lynchings, I’ll take gay marriage. If I have the choice between a world full of hate and rejection of others and one that is so loving and accepting that we end up accepting and loving some things that we should not, I’ll take an excess of love. If the choice is between government-, culture-, or society-mandated righteousness and freedom I’ll choose freedom even when freedom means that some people will be wicked.

We need to spend our time trying to understand how to navigate the world, not complaining about how it isn’t the way we wish it was.

A response to comments

2009-11-22T10:58:00.000-08:00

First of all no need to apologize; it’s the nature of blogs (and email and texts, etc.) to make people sound harsher than they are. I really don’t get offended very easily; negative comments mostly make me curious as to why other people don’t think I’m as smart as I think I am. I’m obviously the most brilliant person alive, if only the rest of the world would realize it and hand me the reins of power. (Or the rains of power, I’ll take whatever, I’m not fussy.)

Let me respond to your comments one at a time:

You said “I don't think that anyone is arguing that gay people want marriage rights so that they can bring down the institution of marriage from the inside out…” Actually there are some people who believe exactly this. Most Church members are not this extreme, but some are. And there are some non-LDS groups that we were allied with that do believe this view, or similar ones (i.e. there is a great gay conspiracy attempting to trick us all to hell, or other such nonsense.) When we make common cause with groups like that sometimes we are assumed to agree with all of their viewpoints and this obscures our message. It also allows some of their ideas to bleed into ours.

“I think when people use the word "destroy" it means more along the lines of making marriage less sacred.” This is still the same argument, only said in a nicer way. The underlying assumption is that gay people are inferior and they would spoil marriage (“make it less sacred.”) The point isn’t to learn to use nicer words, but to actually talk about, and understand the issues in a way that the gay community would accept as fair. Offensive attitudes are still offensive even when they are delivered with kind words.

“I think both sides need to understand that, while their are extreme fringes, most people on either side are just good people, trying to make sense of their world, and make decisions that will make the world a better place for them and their kids.” I agree, but even good people can have bigoted attitudes. Nowadays we like to think of racists as pure evil, but the fact of the matter is that 50 years ago there were a lot of good, honest, nice people who really in their heart of hearts didn’t believe that black people were as good (clean, wholesome, intelligent, etc.) as whites and thought it entirely unfair that black people couldn’t stay in their own specially designated black zones. They believed that desegregation was a violation their rights because they should have a right not to be in the same stores, or share restrooms with people they thought of as dirty or inferior. They really believed that giving blacks equal rights threatened their rights. Just because someone is trying to do what they think is best doesn’t mean they are doing what’s best, and that is why it is so important to deal with people on the basis of respect and equality rather than on the assumption of their inferiority or unworthiness.

“For some people that means marriage as Christian religion has traditionally defined it- between a man and a woman.” I addressed this form of the argument in my original post. If I were to look up marriage in the dictionary we would all think it strange if it said “Marriage= between a man and a woman.” Such a definition doesn’t make sense. Marriage does not mean “between a man and a woman.” Marriage is what is between them, or in other words it is a type of relationship. If we focus on defining the type of relationship that marriage is, and the role that it should play in society then who can enter into such a relationship will flow from that definition naturally. I also believe that from a public attempt to create such a definition would flow other types of relationships that are beneficial to society, and thus would be worth giving official recognition to. As would the recognition that it is the relationship that is sacred, not the word “marriage”. This would also leave the question of rights denied, or religious beliefs threatened, out of the issue.

I believe that the debate on marriage should not be about who should marry (and especially not about who we deem “worthy” to marry), but what marriage is, and its role in society. These issues go way beyond the issues of gay marriage and begin to incorporate the much larger issues and problems facing marriage that the current debate is obscuring (casual divorce, poverty, marriage-like cohabitation, unrealistic expectations, adultery, selfishness, etc.)

A response to comments

2009-11-18T22:14:00.000-08:00

Last things first: I’m not sure where I’m being smug. (Unless it is the fact that I feel strongly that I’m right ;-) ) And where is the line between thoughtful evaluation and judgmental anyway? I surely don’t know. I do try to be fair, but still give honest expression to what I see and how I fell about it.

Next question: “Does "the other side" recognize our arguments in terms we recognize as accurate, fair, and respectful?”

Answer: That should not be relevant to our behavior. Poor behavior on the part of those we disagree with is no excuse for poor behavior on our part. I could do a whole post on this, but I think that what you’ll find is that most of the time what we think of as “the poor behavior” of others is, in fact, due to misunderstanding and not malicious intent, and that assuming malicious intent only contributes to the problem.

Which ties into your first question: What does this even mean to “acknowledge the arguments on the other side in terms that they would recognize and accept as accurate, fair, and respectful?”

Headway on this problem (or any other problem, really) can only be based on relationships founded on trust, love and respect (see D&C 121:41-42) not accusatory rhetoric. If “the other side” feels like they are misunderstood or constantly being maligned, that trust will not be able to develop and as a result our ability to impact events will be greatly reduced or even reversed. Example: There are those within the Church who have said that the goal of gay-rights groups’ attempts to legalize gay marriage is an effort to destroy marriage. When you think about it, such an argument is silly, but also extremely offensive. First: it accuses gay activists of lying (because what they are saying explicitly is that they want to be married, not that they want to destroy marriage.) Next: it accuses the activists of pursuing destructive goals rather than constructive goals, and while I cannot say I’ve heard from every gay-rights activist, I haven’t heard any that would classify their goals as an effort to destroy the very institution they want so badly to join. But worst of all: it carries with it an assumed point of view that homosexuals are so toxic that their very presence in the institution of marriage would destroy it. Can you imagine being told time and again that you are so toxic that you mere presence is destructive? That you are so evil that something you believe to be beautiful, wonderful, and valuable would be destroyed by your proximity, and not only would it be ruined for you but that you would ruin it for everyone else? Would you trust someone who told you things like that? Would you listen to anything they had to say? You would have to ignore them just to keep you self-respect intact. And if you think that gay community doesn’t hear those unstated messages you need to listen closer – they hear it loud and clear. The same thing can hold true when members assume or accuse gay people of devaluing marriage or otherwise having nefarious intentions. I could go on, but learning to see this is the type of thing that I mean when I say we need to recognize our bigotry.

Until we as an organization can come to truly understand that what gay community is attempting is something that they see as constructive (whether or not we agree with it), communicate that understanding, and then deal with the issue (and the people) on that basis we will not only be ineffective; in the long run we will be counterproductive.

One Small Step…

2009-11-15T21:32:00.000-08:00

I literally leapt from my seat with joy when I surfed over to the Church’s web site this week and read that the Church was coming out in favor of a civil rights law protecting homosexuals against discrimination. While we still have a long way to go, it filled my heart with joy to see us taking the fist steps down the path toward more Christ like concern for our fellow men.

In my initial post on Gay marriage I gave the church a C+ for the way in which they were addressing the issue. A part of the reason for the low grade was the failure of the Church to directly repudiate the bigotry that was being carried out under the banner of marriage defense. In the general “battle” to protect marriage the Church had aligned itself with some groups that had more far-reaching and bigoted goals than the protection of marriage (and some of these goals have begun to bleed though and color church members’ thoughts and actions), also some members of the Church were using the Church’s stand against gay marriage as a justification for denying homosexuals other basic rights and legal protections (take as an example the repeated inability of the Utah Legislature to pass a workable hate crimes bill because the supporters insist on including sexual orientation as one of the categories against which a hate crime can be committed.) Even though the Church had specifically stated that they were “not opposed” to extending basic (non-marriage) rights to homosexuals, this message wasn’t loud enough to be heard over much of the bigotry on the right.

Last week that changed. Although I first heard the news on the Church’s web site, it was on the front page of The Oregonian, and reported in the New York Times (also here) as well. The Church’s official public relations spokesperson, speaking on behalf of the Church, explicitly stated the Church’s support for a measure before the Salt Lake City Council granting civil rights protection for homosexuals in housing and employment. While this was presented as being in harmony with earlier statements (and in a sense it was), it represents a radical change. The Church went from being “not opposed” to being in “in support of,” and not just abstractly “in support”; they took active steps to support the civil rights of homosexuals in the face of opposition from groups with whom they were previously allied.

While I still think that we have a long way to go as a church when it comes to gay rights issues and learning to see homosexuals as our brothers and sisters, this is a very welcome step in the right direction. It tells the critics on the far left and the extremists on the far right that we actually do mean what we say and that the position on gay marriage isn’t part of a larger agenda to marginalize homosexuals. Hopefully both the statement itself and the language in the statement will serve as reminder to Church members that bigoted words and ideas are not part of the Gospel of Christ.

If this represents an actual change in position leading to a real sustained effort (as a recent follow-up statement by Elder Holland indicates), in my mind this would move the church from a C+ to B-. Among other things, we still need to admit that there are bigots in our own ranks and address them. We need to help people to understand what bigotry is, why it is dangerous and how to recognize it. We need to learn to acknowledge the arguments on the other side in terms that they would recognize and accept as accurate, fair, and respectful. We need to address our arguments using independently verifiable, universally acceptable, objective data and not pick and choose among studies (we can’t ignore the ones we don’t like and blindly generalize from those we do.) And we can refuse to align ourselves with people and groups using this issue to further agendas of bigotry.

A response to comments

2009-10-17T22:08:00.000-07:00

First a mea culpa- I was posting on another blog about Gay Marriage and rather than try and cram my thought into a response section I referenced my post here, so if that is why you’re here I’m flattered. But my wife told me that I really should have linked directly to the post, not just my blog. Sorry guys my bad. It is right here.

Russ- It sounds to me like you are understanding point perfectly. When my understanding of a commandment conflicts with my understanding of Justice, Justice wins. But this is really a fairly simplistic way to explain it. It isn’t so much that I would expect my understanding of a Justice to allow me to just ignore commandments. As I see it what really happens is that I use my understanding of Justice to help me understand how the commandment is intended to be applied. Let me use an example that I’ve used in church before. There are several scriptures that say things along the lines of “Spare the rod, spoil the child.” I’m not sure that that is an exact quote, but something along those lines. When my wife was working at a school she was given a copy of a book called “No Greater Joy.” Basically, it advocated, based on the scripture above, and others, beating your children (it even gave suggestions as to which kinds of sticks worked best.) I would suspect that the authors of this book would say that beating children doesn’t violate the attributes of God. Because if God is Just and he commands you to beat your children then beating your children is Just. Beating children in my mind violates several of the attributes of God (Justice, Compassion, Teaching, etc.) Therefore the commandment is not to be interpreted literally, what it means is teach your children discipline, God’s attributes let me know that this is to be done in the best way we know how. Maybe back in the day when the Old Testament was being written the best way that anyone new to teach discipline was beating, so when whoever wrote those scriptures wrote them he was directing the people of his time to follow what God wanted (discipline) in the best way he knew how (beating.) But now we know that beating isn’t the most effective way to teach discipline so we teach it in other ways. What it is that “lets” us interpret the commandments in this way (rather then following them literally as the authors of the book suggest) is that, as Joseph Smith taught in Lectures on Faith, we first have a correct understanding of the attributes of God.

The mental construct of a conflict that I used in my original post was to help illustrate my point. Of course if we see a problem we should seek study further, and to refine our understanding of both the attributes of God and his commandments. If we pursue a path based on developing and understand of Gods attributes, then we can take that and develop an understanding of the commandments that he has given. By developing a better understanding of his attributes we develop a better understanding of his commandments. But if we pursue a path that that put obedience to the commandments first, without checking them against the attributes, in the hope that by obeying the commandments we’ll then understand the attributes there is no check – if we get a commandment wrong there is nothing to stop us from living it anyway.

I know that because I am human I make mistakes and there will be times, as you say, when I misunderstand the attributes and so end up living a commandment in a way that God did not intend. You are right I err on the side of assuming that my understanding of Justice is correct. Because we can’t go through life without making mistakes I think that it is just as important to choose the types of mistakes we’re going to make. Would I rather fail at obedience or justice, would I rather be too much mercy or not enough?

Anonymous,

I think you are making my point exactly. Let us run thought the step by step logic using the Spanish inquisition as our example. If I have what I’m calling a conservative approach, I read the scriptures and find a record of God telling people to destroy those not of the faith. Now I know that God is Just so I tell my self, it is Just of me to destroy people not of the faith, and off I run to chop off heads, or burn Jews or whatever. But if instead I understand that God is Just and I read those same scriptures, I can then know that they do not give me permission to run around chopping off heads. It is our understanding of the attributes of God that helps keep us from over generalizing. Putting the attributes in the prime position doesn’t invalidate the commandments, it helps us to understand and apply them correctly. Like you said it is not the commandment that is wrong it is the application.

The Tripartite Dilemma

2009-10-11T20:24:00.000-07:00

There are three components to the dilemma. Three statements, not all of which can be true at the same time. If we want to discuss them in an abstract way they can be stated like this: God is X. God has commanded Y. Y is contrary to X. Obviously at least one of these statements is false. I believe that how we resolve this conundrum is one of the key differences between a religious liberal and a religious conservative. But to really understand this we need to fill in the variables.

Let us fill them in thus: God is just (any attribute of God would fit here, Merciful, Loving, etc.) God has commanded genocide (1 Samuel 15:3). Genocide is unjust.

There are a vast number of ways to resolve this type of conflict, but I believe that they can all fall into three basic categories: the atheist resolution, the liberal resolution, the conservative resolution.

The atheist resolution is this: if God has commanded genocide and genocide is unjust then God is not Just, therefore God is not God (or God does not exist), this is a fascinating argument for another time and nowhere near as simple as it sounds from this brief description. I’ve made my choice, God exists. What I really want to explore is the liberal and conservative resolutions.

The conservative resolution is this: God is Just, God commanded genocide, and therefore genocide is just. In other words Justice is defined as being God’s will, so whatever God wills becomes Just because God wills it, or alternately in a less harsh interpretation God would never command anything that was unjust, therefore when it appears that he has commanded something unjust we in our error-prone human ways simple don’t understand or don’t have all facts and when we do we will see that God was right to command as he did and therefore we should follow what he has said without further question. One simplistic way to think of it is that God outranks justice and can tell justice to be whatever he determines it to be. Conservatives worship obedience, and conformity to God’s word. The conservative view puts the commandments of God in a primary position, and the attributes of God in a secondary position. Obey the commandments and you will be just. The commandments limit Justice.

The liberal resolution is this: God is just, Genocide is unjust, and therefore God did not command genocide. In other words God is defined as being Just, so whatever is Just is God’s will. Therefore when there is a conflict between what we believe is God’s word and what we believe is Justice, Justice wins. In our error-prone human ways we are apt to misunderstand or even occasionally willfully distort God’s words for our own ends. To use the mental simplification from above Justice outranks God, God is God because he Just. The liberal view puts the attributes of God in the primary position. Be just and you will keep the commandments. Justice limits the commandments.

What do I mean by limits the commandments? By limits I mean that no commandment can be understood in a way that would violate Justice. So if there are 10 ways a commandment could be understood, and 4 are unjust I throw those interpretations out. I use my understanding of the attributes of God in order to help me understand what he means by his commandments. Contra wise some people advocate using the commandments to understand the attributes of God. Often these people will claim not to interpret at all; they just follow what God says. In reality they are interpreting too, choices are being made about how best to live the commandments and what they mean, but without rooting that interpretation in something larger than the words themselves the interpretations can quickly start to violate the true fundamentals (justice, mercy, love, hope) In the extreme this unanchored “Good is what God says it is” has been used to justify things like the Spanish Inquisition. This attitude it is what is at work when religious today people use the words of God to justify religious intolerance of Muslims (or when extremists of any faith use the words of their God to just bigotry), or dehumanizing attitudes toward homosexuals.

The liberal reasoning makes conservatives very uncomfortable- it sounds as if one is trying to replace God’s Justice with one’s own, and this seems to be the height of arrogance. It can appear that we are placing our own view of what is right above that of God’s. In essence the liberal view is that we understand the principle of Justice better than we understand God’s word. What conservatives do not appear to understand is that the conservative approach is just as arrogant, their underlying assumption is that their understanding of God’s words trumps their understanding of Justice.

We were watching a movie that briefly featured Gandhi, I don’t know if this quote is actually from him or was from the writers of the script but it lays out the problem nicely. It was something like this “For too many years we have believed that God is Truth, when we should have believed that Truth is God.” This same thing could be said of Justice, Mercy, Hope, Love or any of God’s other characteristics.

Without an understanding of the underlying structure-the true goodness of God- and the way that that structure informs and lights the commandments, we cannot understand the commandments properly. It is not possible to work backwards and still get the right answer. We can’t say that because God commanded something it is Just, because we could be misunderstanding the commandment.

This world is an imperfect place, and so it is possible that we will make mistakes. There will be times that we misunderstand what justice really is. They question is what kind of mistakes do we want to make? Not- how can I make no mistakes? We stand before the judgment seat of God would we rather be saying: “Forgive me I tried to be just, I didn’t think that what I was asked to do was just, I was wrong and I’m sorry.” or “Forgive me I knew that what I was being asked to do was unjust but I did it anyway because that’s what I thought you wanted.” As for me I’d rather try and be just (or merciful, or full of charity) and fail occasionally on obedience, than succeed on obedience and fail on justic

On Faith: The Parable of Quartus

2009-09-26T21:51:00.000-07:00

There once was an old man who had four servants, whom he wished to reward before his death. So he gathered the servants around him and told them of a great treasure that he had placed in a keep in a far country. He had the servants pack his belongings and lift him into his chair. As they journeyed he told them of the wondrous things he had in store and the measures he had taken to protect them. He told them of jewels and gold, silver and pearls, and of great collections of books, all the wisdom amassed since the world began. He told them of the walls and pits, obstacles and traps, and wild beasts that surrounded his storehouse. Some he had placed to keep his treasure safe, others had been placed by his enemies to prevent anyone from reaching the treasure; still others, because of the harshness of the land, existed naturally.

Soon the party crested a hill, and spread out in the valley below them they could see a large wall stretching east and west from horizon to horizon and behind it a dark forest, and far off, almost to the northern horizon, they saw the keep where the Master had stored his treasure.

As they journeyed down into the valley they quickly lost sight of the keep. Then they lost sight of the forest as the wall began to fill their view. For days they traveled, and the wall continued to grown in their vision. As they approached the base of the wall, the top became lost in haze above them. Soon they came to the single gate, the height of a man and just wide enough for one person to pass through.

“Now my servants, we have come to a place where I can go no further. From here you must travel alone. It will take three days’ journey to pass through the wall, and inside the wall the trees have grown so tall and so thick that most often it will be too dark to see. I give each of you a gift: I have traveled these paths many times in my younger days and so I can guide you, if you will let me. If you need my direction just ask and the wind will carry your words to me and it will carry my words back to you. As you pass through this gate continue in the same direction and the keep will be directly ahead”

The first servant entered through the gate. As he walked the way began to grow dark and as it grew dark the servant began to be afraid, and as his fear grew he slowed down. The more fear he felt the slower he walked until finally he stopped altogether.

“What is this place? I’ve not even made it through the wall and already it is too dark to see. I will be killed by something I cannot see before I can even begin the journey. The old man is crazy, nothing is worth this.” And he turned around and left.

When he reached the others he told them of his conclusions and tried to talk the other servants out of making the journey. But they refused and the first servant left.

The second servant listened to the words of the first and said to the Master:

“I trust you – I know that you love us and so would never send us some place that could cause us harm.” And he began his journey down the tunnel to the forest. After a time he too began to be afraid. As he journeyed through the dark he thought about calling to his Master, but decided that the Master’s instruction had been given: “Continue down the tunnel and straight on to your reward.” The darkness must a test, he decided and so, to avoid the unnerving sensation of walking in the dark while unable to see, he closed his eyes, faced his goal, and ran. He left the tunnel at a jog, with his eyes tightly shut. As he ran he became more and more confident. The more confident he became the tighter he squeezed his eyes shut and the faster he ran until he was running faster than he ever had, when, without notice, he ran off the edge of a pit and he was crushed on the rocks below.

The Master and the other two waited for many months for the second servant, but he didn’t return, and the Master said that he had never called. And so they presumed that he would not return.

The third servant began his journey down the tunnel. He too was unnerved by the dark and closed his eyes, but unlike the second servant he was carful to keep his hand on the tunnel wall. After days of travel he felt the tunnel end on each side of him. It was still too dark to see so he called to his Master to ask for direction. Faintly, faintly on the wind came the Master’s reply. And the second servant took one step forward. He called for is Master and again the reply, and one more step. Call, reply, step, call, reply, step. For days and weeks this went on: prior to each step the servant would check with the Master and do exactly what the Master had told him to do. He made it further and further into the forest, much further that the second servant. He avoided obstacles, scaled walls and was directed around pitfalls and traps. But soon he began to hear another faint voice on the wind. At first it told him the same things that his Master was telling him, so similar were the voices that servant could not tell them apart. Soon one of voices began to get a little louder and other voice began to fade, and the servant found that when he listened to the louder voice the way was easier and when he listened to the fainter voice the way was difficult. “I am getting better and discerning my Master’s voice.” he told himself. And so he began to follow the louder voice and as he did it became easier and easier to hear, and his confidence increased, and the path became easier and easier to follow. Until the loud voice led the servant into a den of lions where he was torn to pieces.

The fourth servant began his journey down the tunnel. He too was discomforted by the dark, but unlike the other servants he kept his eyes open. He too kept his hand on the tunnel wall; he too called to his Master when the tunnel opened up. But his question was different. Instead of asking his Master which way to go, he asked him how to make a light.

Epilogue:

The Master provided an answer, and so the fourth servant stopped for many days and fashioned a light as his Master directed him. This light let him see his way through the forest. The fourth servant’s trek was still difficult. He still encountered the counterfeit voice that attempted to lead him into danger, but when the attempts came, because the servant had his eyes open and had light to see, the counterfeit was never able to fool him for long. At times he found himself in new situations, facing obstacles he had not encountered before, at these times he would call for his Master and ask for tools rather than step by step instructions. Then he carried these tools him for the next time he encountered a similar obstacle. And as he went on the light allowed him to see similarities between obstacles before him and those he confronted in the past and he was able to use the tools he had fashioned in the past or, if he needed to, would request instructions to forge new tools. Because he had a light he was able to make better time and was more alert for the most difficult problems. Occasionally he would come to the top of a rise and find himself in a clearing from which he could, for a moment, catch a glimpse of his goal. But most often he trudged through the dark guided only by his light, his past experience, and the voice of his Master carried softly on the breeze. Until after many months of travel he walked into a clearing to find himself standing at the foot of the keep that contained the treasure his Master had promised.

A response to comments

2009-09-26T21:47:00.000-07:00

First why respond as a new post? Because it is fun that way, also it is a good way to keep the discussion at the top of the page so to speak.

Unsurprisingly there were a number of comments on my Gay Marriage post. Hopefully I can address some of them here.

First several of you cautioned me to show tolerance even to intolerant Church members. I could not agree more. Everyone has weaknesses and one of the great things about being in a large organization is that we are exposed to others’ weaknesses and strengths. Intolerance is definitely a weakness (and it just happens to be one of very few that drives me up the wall.) Tolerance however is one of those principles that must be handled with care, it should never be confused with condoning bad behavior, nor should it be a reason for staying silent in the face of destructive behavior. What it means is that disagreements should be handled with respect for, and charity towards, those you are in disagreement with, not silence. Tolerance of the intolerant means that I accept that they are children of God, as I am, and are in need of the atonement of Christ, as I am, and that they are deserving of my love. It does not mean that intolerance masquerading as righteousness should remain unchallenged or unnamed.

Several of you recommended that I read the interview with Elder Oaks and Elder Wickman. I have several times, in fact I linked to it in my post and it was one of my main sources of information on the Church’s position on gay marriage. This interview I think address the easy to moderately difficult questions about the Church’s position on homosexual behavior in general (this was a pleasant surprise to me because I expected an interview of Church officials by a Church reporter to only ask the easy questions.) The discussion on gay marriage is several years old at least (the first time I saw it was when the amendment to the U.S. Constitution was proposed.) The interview really only states the belief that accepting gay marriage is a threat to the institution of marriage because it would redefine it (an argument that mostly leads nowhere because the real question isn’t should we redefine marriage but is the new definition better or worse than the old one.) Its main contribution is that it defines the threat as against the institution, not individual marriages. It is in the statement on Prop 8 that the Church more clearly explains why it believes such a redefinition is a problem. And I believe that the reason laid out in the post accurately reflects that position. (If you still think otherwise please let me know what the other reasons are, I really would like to know.)

The interview with Elder Oaks and Elder Wickman I believe was intended primarily as a statement of religious belief, not policy. That is not true for the statement on Prop 8. That statement is an argument made in an attempt to change public policy. And as such it would have been more effective had it been addressed to a wider audience or helped give Church members the tools to talk to a wider audience. The statement was written in such a way that it sounded like an attempt to show the rightness of the Church’s position, but because of the way it mixed the religious and secular reasoning it could not be used in any attempt to persuade a fence-sitter or someone who was in disagreement. It could only reinforce the beliefs of those who already agreed with it. In other words, I could not send it to someone who was not already a Mormon and did not already believe in the Church's teachings and position to that statement and expect them to come away convinced.

This ties into the comment made by Anonymous at 7:06. I have no problem combining secular reasoning with religious belief— in fact I think that it is vital! The point I was making when I talked about the intermingling of the two making the statement useless was not that intermingling was wrong or that the Church was wrong to do it. The point was that it made the statement unusable as a tool to promote public policy. If we want to impact national (or state policy) it cannot be based on religious reasons- that would cause the state to become an instrument of religious enforcement. It can only be based on universally demonstrable truths. Take smoking as an example. If the only reason that we can give for not smoking is that God said not to do it, then those who believe can use that belief to govern their own behavior, but they cannot use it as reason to have the government force people who do not believe to change their behavior. If, on the other hand, we can do an objective study and show that secondhand smoke increases other people’s risk for lung cancer then we can make a strong case for banning smoking in public places. The same holds true for gay marriage. If the only reason for homosexuals not to marry is that God said not to, that is insufficient grounds for using the government to prevent them from marrying. If, on the other hand, it can be objectively shown that gay marriage would be harmful to society (not very likely) or that unique recognition of heterosexual marriage would benefit society (much more likely) then that would be sufficient grounds on which to base public policy.

Carrie: about Elder Wickman’s statement. Your question brings along with it a lot of assumptions. First, doctrinally what he is saying is an interpolation (and a very logical one) from our current state of knowledge about the pre- and post- earth life, it is not revelation. As far as I can recall, nowhere in scripture is this taught. There have been other times in the history of the church when ideas were taught that were then overturned as new revelation came forward. One that relates specifically to the pre-mortal life was the teaching that people of African decent were fence sitters in the war in heaven (they refused to support Christ, but didn’t join with Satan either) and thus withholding the priesthood from them was justified. This teaching has now been specifically condemned as false by Elder Holland. Similar situations can be found regarding other doctrines, such as polygamy or the changing of the temple ceremonies. My point is that there is always the possibility that the Lord could provide us with additional knowledge that would overturn earlier assumptions, just like what has happened in the past. Also, let’s be clear in what I was saying, I was not declaring that someone who engages in homosexual behavior will be in one of the lower levels of the Celestial Kingdom, only that that is one possible way that I can see that God could allow for homosexual marriage, without needing to overturn the idea that a continuation of posterity in the next life requires men and women working together in an eternal marriage. I’m sure there are other ways and I’m sure that if that’s the way He’s going God’s already got it all figured out.

John and Pamela: I think you have touched on one of the great (and not entirely unjustified) fears of the religious right with this issue. There are some gay rights activists who are attempting to use the government to force changes in religious doctrine. Just because someone is on the political left does not make them a liberal.

Anonymous at 7:33: Thank you so much for taking the time to read my blog, and for leaving comments! (I’m not being sarcastic, I really am glad you took the time to read!) I have seen many members of the Church with similar beliefs about the incompatibility of Mormonism, Liberalism and Democratic politics. In fact that is one of the reasons why I decided to start this blog. In my experience the belief that Liberalism and Mormonism are incompatible stems from one of several things: a misunderstanding of Mormon teachings, belief and doctrine, or a misunderstanding of Liberalism, or some combination of these. One of my goals is to help correct those misunderstandings. Because you are anonymous I can’t really speak to your level of understanding of Mormonism, as to your understanding of liberalism- let me use an analogy.

I assume that at some point you have stumbled across descriptions of our church and faith made by enemies of Mormonism. Not just people who are ignorant, but people whose goal it is to tear down the Church and our people. They tell outright lies, and they twist the truth so hard it turns into a lie. Such statements aren’t really all that dangerous to those who know the truth; we see them for what they are. Imagine, however, that all you had ever heard about the Church had either been filtered by or explained by its enemies. What would your opinion of the Church be then? If all I knew about the Church came from its enemies I surely would think it was a terrible organization and I’d want nothing to do with it. The same holds true for political discourse. So many people have gotten their entire understanding of liberalism from the conservative media, people like Limbaugh, Beck, and Savage. These people make millions by making conservatives angry at liberals. If you’re not angry they’re not getting their ratings. People like this are a very bad place to get information about what liberals believe. If all I knew about liberalism was from these sources I would not believe that it was compatible with Mormon belief. Fortunately, for conservatives, these guys have just about talked themselves to the point where their silliness is almost universally apparent (death camps for the elderly, from Democrats the defenders of the defenseless and the authors of Medicare? How much more ridiculous can you get?) Hopefully for conservatives real leaders will start to emerge soon. My point is that if all you’ve ever heard about Liberals and Democrats is from people like this or has been explained to you or framed for you by people like this then you don’t actually have any real idea what it is we believe.

I hope that you will take the time to browse back through some of my older posts (I did several posts that dealt with liberalism on a general level rather then on an issue specific level.) Also helpful would be to read about Harry Reid (Democratic Senator from Nevada, Senate Majority Leader and active Church member.) He said that he believed that it was easier to reconcile Democratic values with Church teachings then Republican ones. President James E. Faust (former member of the First Presidency) was a Democrat and served in the Kennedy administration. Elder Marlin K. Jensen (a current member of the Quorum of the Seventy) is also a Democrat. In fact “On April 22, 1998, Jensen was sent by the First Presidency to give an interview with the Salt Lake Tribune in reaction to a recent First Presidency statement and to explicitly state that someone could be a devout Mormon and a member of the Democratic Party.” (from the Wikipedia article on Elder Jensen and footnoted to a transcript of the interview) Further back in the past Elder Marion G. Romney (former member of the First Presidency) served in the Utah state legislature as a Democrat.

I’m with Harry Reid; I think it is much easier to combine Mormon beliefs with Democratic liberal beliefs then with Republican conservative ones. Although I would be thrilled if I was able to convince some people of the value of Liberalism, I’d be quite satisfied with increasing their level of understanding of the issues and helping them to see that despite what Rush Limbaugh and his cronies say Liberalism is not a synonym for evil.

Anonymous at 7:06: I addressed the main body of your comment above. As for the PS, I would be careful about arbitrarily placing limits on God. From what I can tell the only limits on God are those imposed universally by Justice, Mercy, and Love. I would recommend taking a little time to study the history of polygamy in the Church. Remember than many people define marriage as only between ONE man and ONE woman and thus marriage to a second women while still married to the first is not valid and thus adulterous. Adultery is exactly what Joseph Smith was accused of by his detractors. In essence, the Lord allowed for a time what many people believe was adultery.

The Gay Marriage Post

2009-07-12T19:08:00.000-07:00

I’ve been working on this post over the course of many months (like six), and so if there is anyone who happens to track such things this is NOT in response to any one event, person, e-mail, blog post, sacrament meeting talk, newspaper article, or any other world event. I understand that there are some who read this that will disagree strongly with my point of view; that’s fine with me. Also nothing in what I have said below should be interpreted as a personal attack on any individual.

_____________________

The whole gay marriage debate seems a bit strange to me. It is almost like we missed a step along the way somewhere. Like most of the “great” debates of the day, each side seems to be plugging its ears and shouting at each other rather than actually sitting down and thinking though the issue. This is clearest in the way the “traditional” marriage supporters talk about the issue. They say, “Marriage is defined as between a Man and a Woman.” Okay…that sounds nice, the problem is that it is only half a definition, and without the other half the whole debate floats away to a strange never-never land. The real debate needs to begin not with who can marry, but what marriage is. Who can marry is completely irrelevant until we have an understanding of what it is they are doing and the impact that it has on society. In other words: if marriage is to be only between a man and a woman, what is it that is between them? As I see it there are three main facets of marriage that are relevant to the discussion before us. They are: marriage as a personal relationship, marriage as a legally recognized union, and marriage as a facilitator of biological reproduction.

Marriage as a personal relationship

One way to define marriage is as a lifelong relationship between two individuals entered into for mutual support and companionship on the basis of love and respect, and which assumes the partners have exclusive sexual access to one another. I think that most modern Americans would agree with this definition of marriage.*

The above definition is completely independent of government, society, or what the neighbors say or think. Without intruding into the personal lives of its citizens to a degree that most Americans would find appalling there is nothing that government can (or should) do to stop such relationships from forming between any individuals whatsoever, gay or straight. Everyone in this country should have the right to pursue happiness wherever they think they can find it, so long as one individual’s pursuit does not unreasonably interfere with anyone else’s, and surely your relationships and living arrangements have no real direct impact on me at all. We all have this right regardless of whether or not others think that the path we are pursuing is moral or not or whether it conforms to their belief systems or not. This means that if two men want to live together in a long term, mutually supportive relationship, change their last names, exchange rings and throw a party to celebrate the official start to their new lives together, that is completely their business and not anyone else’s, regardless of whether or not others think such a relationship is a good idea.

The trouble is that while the personal aspect element of marriage is important, left standing by itself it is incomplete.

Marriage as a legally recognized union

If marriage is purely a personal relationship, why should the government be involved in marriage at all? In fact, I have heard it suggested by people on both sides of the issue that the government should just get out of the business of marriage altogether and the whole issue would then just go away. Marriage would then become a purely private affair with no legal ramifications at all. I suppose individuals could then write their own contracts regarding things such as distribution of property and other such issues normally assumed in a marriage relationship.

I do not think that this is a good idea. Currently marriage has a larger role in society than just official recognition of a relationship between individuals, though that relationship is at the root of it. Stable monogamous relationships provide society with a myriad of benefits, everything from lessening the spread of disease, to home health care, to increasing worker productivity, to reducing anti-social behavior, to fostering a commitment to the stability of the community. In other words individual marriages benefit society as a whole, not just the individual members of society who are married. Therefore society has a stake in marriage, its success, and the roles it plays.

By formally recognizing such relationships we can encourage them, and we can provide individuals in such relationships benefits that are designed to strengthen, maintain, or otherwise assist such relationships. For example providing hospital visitation rights reinforces (among other things) the role of the spouse as primary caregiver, the responsibility that they have for their partner, and clearly identifies (hopefully) an individual who is responsible for the health of the patient.

Formal recognition of private relationships is an important tool that society can use for its betterment. The benefits above are independent of the genders of the persons involved in the relationship. If both heterosexual and homosexual relationships provide society with these benefits then both types of relationships should be officially recognized.

Questions still remain: “Do either homo- or heterosexual relationships benefit society in a way that the other does not?” and “If such a difference is found is the benefit large enough to merit distinct recognition?”

Marriage as a facilitator of biological reproduction

While there may be many disagreements as to what constitutes the best environment for raising children I believe that there would be almost universal agreement on the importance of long-term family stability as a vital part of the mix. With the assumption of sexual access as part of marriage, good marriages become an optimum place for the birth and raising of children. A relationship that has the positive interpersonal characteristics enumerated above and has the capacity to extend that stability and love to the joint biological offspring of the participants is a unique benefit of most heterosexual marriages. The only (constitutionally legitimate) difference that I can see between a heterosexual relationship and a homosexual one is the potential for the partners to reproduce together. Is this biological difference a strong enough reason to provide heterosexual relationships with unique recognition? What about heterosexual relationships where the individuals choose not to have children, or are unable to? Should these relationships be recognized with the same status as fertile relationships? What about adoption, which allows those in infertile relationships to raise children?

There have been studies done to determine how having homosexual parents impacts children. It is these studies that have lead the American Psychological Association (see also here) to conclude that having a homosexual parent is not detrimental to child development, and thus that arguments against homosexual marriage based on concern for child development are unfounded. In other words (to debunk a few of the more hatful lies of those who oppose gay marriage out of ignorance and /or bigotry) children of gay parents are no more likely to be abused than children of straight parents, are just as likely to develop socially accepted understandings of gender roles, and while they are slightly more likely to report having experimented with homosexuality they are no more likely to self-identify as homosexual than children of straight parents.

To my mind, while these studies are sufficient to show bigots for what they are, they are not asking quite the right questions. The studies that I looked at, at least, focused mostly on the sexuality and sexual development of children and additionally they focused almost exclusively on the biological children of homosexual parents. This most often meant that the children had lesbian mothers or gay fathers who were separated from the child’s other biological parent, and thus for the purposes of the studies the legitimate comparison group would be the children of divorced parents or single parents. And while no one would argue that single parents or divorced parents cannot be excellent parents, it is clear that both divorce and single parenting have a negative impact on children.

Does biology matter? I’m not a social scientist, but I would suspect that this is a question that can be answered through the right kind of research. Does being raised by both biological parents provide any advantage to a child? I hypothesize that, when other factors are equal, it does. Many traits, from personality types to health conditions, are passed genetically from one generation to the next, and along with these genetic traits can come the family traditions that can direct, control, and explain them in positive ways, or provide other coping strategies.

Appropriate future studies should focus on the adopted children of homosexual couples and compare them with both the adopted children of straight couples and the biological children of straight couples, and then measure them not only on the direct impact of sexual or gender identity development, but on all aspects of child development. This would help to confirm or detract from the earlier studies, and help to establish the relative importance of biological parents. My hypothesis is that little difference would be found between the two groups of adopted children, but that there would be clear differences between adopted children and biological children. This is not because I believe that adopted parents are not good parents (in fact, given what it takes to be approved to become an adoptive parent I believe that they are much more likely to be better parents in terms of skills, financial and emotional stability, desire for children, and willingness to appreciate the chance to parent.) But being given up for adoption can have an impact on the child, independent of anything their adoptive parents can do. Some children are able to see their adoption as a positive, as “someone wanted me badly enough to work hard to find me.” Unfortunately, others have a hard time getting past the idea that someone didn’t want them and gave them away (however legitimate the reasons).

It is for this reason that I believe that in an ideal world children would all be born into homes where both biological parents are in the same stable, committed, long term relationship (marriage) and are willing and able to take care of them. I understand, however, that as long as we are living in an imperfect world this will not be the case, and so I salute adoptive parents and their children. But my point remains; I believe that biology, in terms of parenting, matters.

All of this strengthens the idea that society has a legitimate interest in recognizing and promoting long term, stable, healthy, relationships that are capable of producing biological offspring.

The “threat” posed by eliminating any distinction between heterosexual marriage and homosexual marriage is not that any individual relationship would be weakened, it is the fact that such a definition would define marriage purely in terms of the participants’ relationship to each other, thus leaving out the role that marriage has traditionally played of providing official recognition of a legitimate means of biological reproduction. (note the difference between the traditional role of marriage and traditional marriage.) When the Church says that acceptance of gay marriage is a threat to “traditional” marriage, this is the threat that they are talking about: the threat that biological reproduction has either been reduced in importance or defined out of marriage altogether. Or, in other words, the threat is that marriage moves one step closer to being seen as purely an interpersonal relationship with less and less of a larger social purpose.

The question arises, how do we maintain a hold on the ideal while accepting that it is not possible in every condition or for every person?

If we accept that reproduction is an important role for marriage and that officially refusing to recognize that the capacity for reproduction is, in fact, a loss to society, we need to ask what it would take to prevent that loss from occurring and if we are willing to pay that price. The way the debate appears to be going now is that the cost seems to be reducing the gay and lesbian members of our society to second class citizens, undeserving of the same rights and freedoms as their straight neighbors. Many in the “traditional” marriage camps seem all too willing to accept this, some with regret and, unfortunately, some with relish. Is this an issue worth hating your neighbor over, or stirring up hatred, or strife? I don’t think so.

Proposition 8 and other “Protect” Marriage Initiatives

This brings us to a specific instance of the debate, the Proposition 8 debate in California, one of the very few instances where the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has actively played a role in a political campaign.

There are few things in life that make me truly, deeply angry, to the point of being furious. One of the worst is when individuals or groups use religion as a cover for bigotry, hatred, meanness, or violence. Only one thing makes me angrier – when the people doing this are members of my own religion. It is completely and utterly inexcusable. It is for this reason that I have had such a hard time writing this post; the things that I have seen and heard from some of my fellow Church members have been appalling. While I think that some comments are based on ignorance, to me that is no excuse; for members of the human race, and especially for those that claim to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, ignorance is no excuse for intolerance, bigotry or meanness.

The Church

If I had to give the official Salt Lake City-based Church organization a grade on how they did entering into this debate (based primarily on this statement and this one on the Church’s web site) I’d give them a C+. They avoided bigoted and untrue attacks on those who opposed their position, they spent the time to address the issue in a nuanced way, and they stated that they were not trying to interfere with existing homosexual relationships or rights, and that they were not opposed the rights then granted to homosexual couples elsewhere in California law (including civil unions, a statement that Utah gay rights groups are hoping to leverage to get those same rights for same-sex couples in Utah.) They reminded members to speak their positions with love and respect for those they disagree with and they expressed their respect. And they tried to present the position as pro-marriage rather than anti-gay.

There were, however, several problems with the statement. One was the complete intermingling of secular reasoning and LDS theology. This (at least to me) made the statement unusable as a tool to promote public policy. If your main basis for supporting a position is “because God said so,” that is fine for governing personal behavior and the behavior of fellow believers, but it doesn’t fly for promoting policy. The reason is that all it takes is for someone to say, “No, he doesn’t,” and you’re in the business of using the government to enforce religious belief or dictate religious doctrine, clearly a violation of the constitution. Additionally, because of the way that religious doctrine was intermingled throughout the statement I believe that attempting to use it as a tool for persuading someone who didn’t already agree with the doctrine would be futile.

The next problem was one of omission: while the statement did express respect for those with differing opinions and asked Church members to do the same, it seemed evident (to me anyway) that this was not said clearly enough, nor defined well enough (more on that below.) To me this was the greatest failing of the statement. They could have clearly condemned the use of misinformation and lies in the pursuit of their objective. I deeply wish that more time and effort had gone into explaining what respectful conversation meant and that specific examples of bigotry had been raised and repudiated. For example the Church could have raised the falsity that homosexuals are more likely to be pedophiles or abusive and then clearly stated that this was not true and that for Church members to play a part in the creation or spreading of such scurrilous lies would be diminishing for both the individual and the Church. They could have called on Church members to get to know their gay neighbors better, not for the purpose of conversion or to change their minds on the issue, but just to increase the amount of good will and good faith the country. In short I believe that they should have recognized the amount of bigotry and ignorance in the Church, the tendency for people to hear what they want rather than what is said, and recognized that some people would use the Church and its position to excuse their own bigotry.

My last concern was that there was some (though not much compared to some other statements/ emails that I’ve read) use of fear of homosexuality as a motivator. This was evident in the using of the Catholic Charities of Boston’s cessation of adoption services (in response to Gay rights lawsuits which required placing children with homosexual couples) to motivate participation. While concerns about those that will attempt to force the Church or its members to participate in activities that they feel violate their beliefs is legitimate, the ignorant and bigoted have seized on the few examples and exploded into a state of irrational panic. Take for example the case of the Catholic Charities in Boston. They did voluntarily remove themselves from the adoption business in response to a lawsuit that they lost which would have required them to place children with gay couples (the issue at stake being should the government be able to force someone to violate their religious beliefs, a great question for another time.) However, the Catholic Charities only went to court once, even though they certainly had grounds for appeal based on the constitutional guarantee of freedom of religion. Many groups that supported them were disappointed that they chose to capitulate rather than pursue such an appeal. The ability and limits of government to control and regulate religious groups is certainly a question that could benefit from a look by the Supreme Court. Additionally, no other Catholic Charities in Massachusetts have closed or stopped facilitating adoptions, nor have they begun placing children with gay couples in violation of their religious beliefs. Another example is what if (God forbid) the courts should require that gay couples should be aloud to live in married student housing at BYU. My response is, so what? How many gay couples do you really think there are that would want to go to BYU let alone live in the married student housing (I’m suspecting very few, bordering on none.) But let’s imagine that there was such a couple. What would happen? There are several possibilities: 1) They would come to get to know their neighbors and their neighbors would get to know them and everyone would learn that we’re not really that different and that we should all love and respect one another even when we disagree, and they would leave the school with a positive view of the Church and its members. In other words it would give Church members the opportunity to practice what they preach. 2) They would experience the hatred and bigotry that many in the gay community have come to associate with religion and leave the school with a negative view of the Church and its members. In other words it would show Church members as hypocrites. Either way it would be positive, even in the second instance, because then we would learn where we need to focus our efforts in order to become more Christ like.

My last concern is not with the statement itself but with the Church’s implicate endorsement of resolving the issue though a ballot initiative in the first place. The issues involved are numerous and nuanced – they will require great care and the development of long-term relationships and understanding to resolve. Trying to resolve them through the ballot initiative process to amend a state constitution is like trying to perform brain surgery with a baseball bat. It just isn’t the right tool for the job, and could very well cause more problems then it solves.

Church Member Response

I don’t live in California, so I can’t say that I have a lot of direct experience with how members of the Church there responded. I have talked to, heard from, seen email from, seen blog posts by, etc. Church members here and around the country and based on my observations I would (with a few exceptions) give Church members somewhere between a C and a C- for their responses to Prop 8.

Too many missed, misunderstood, or ignored altogether the requests of the Church to treat those we disagree with with respect. Many were clearly anti-gay, or homophobic, and were using the cover of the Church’s position to justify their bigotry. I remember talking to one individual who said (in essence) that if the Church wants us to say something and reminds us that we are a respectful people then however we say it it is automatically, by definition, respectful (kind of like the Nixon defense “if the president does it, it’s legal.”) And I saw in words and actions of many others this same attitude. I saw fear mongering, incomplete and twisted representation of facts, and pride and glory taken in what were framed as “strong” comments, but were actually hurtful or rude. Vile rumors and hearsay was passed around with no effort at verifying truthfulness. Excitement was found at the prospect of taking action that would obviously hurt others (“only” emotionally, fortunately; I have not heard that Church members participated in any violent or destructive protests.) I saw no effort to reach out to others and little effort taken to be respectful. I saw Church members excuse this behavior by saying, “well, the other side is doing it too,” as if the meanness of others (and there was meanness on the gay-rights side) somehow absolves you of your obligation to follow Christ’s teachings. I read the comments of one prominent Church member, who I believe should have known better, where he accused those he was attempting to debate with of lying because they did not agree with him.

Whenever I wonder how it is that people like the Pharisees and Sadducees could have risen to such prominence at the time of the New Testament, or how people that claim to be followers of Christ could consent to and participate in some of the worst autocracies of our time, I only have to see the words spoken by some of my fellow Church members to see them fearing deviance and valuing conformity more than love and respect for others and their agency. I see them starting down a path that could, if followed to its extreme end, lead them to crucify their Savior, rejecting Him because He preaches love for individuals above ritual, doctrinal purity, and societal conformance.

Mormon Theological Possibilities for the Recognition and Acceptance of Same-Sex relationships

(A note to those who worry about such things: This is not an attempt to dictate doctrine to the Church or its leaders. I speak only for myself and claim no authority to change Church doctrine, nor am I attempting to claim that my statements below are Church doctrine. Like everything else on this blog the speculations below represent only my own personal opinions.)

I believe that the best course for society with regards to the gay marriage question is to recognize gay unions, and give homosexuals clear access to equal civil rights, while at the same time recognizing the unique role of heterosexual marriage. But that doesn’t change the fact that as a point of Mormon religious doctrine homosexuality is still condemned. Is it possible that that could ever change? I would like to think so. After decades of officially denying priesthood equality and semi-officially backing it up with doctoral teachings and justifications the Church was able to reverse course and allow black members to be full participants. There are still traces of lingering racism, but we are moving further and further from that.

It is important to note that the Church, right now, recognizes many different types of marriages, some very different from the “traditional” marriage model. To understand the significance of these it is important to understand the Church doctrine of eternal marriage. This is the belief that marriages that have been blessed by the right people and in the right place (currently temples) do not end at death but continue forever. This implies that marriages that took place 150 years ago are still valid, still in existence and still recognized by God and, inferentially, by the Church. In the early days of the Church a variety of relationships were recognized, and thus are presumably still recognized. (Meaning that those that were authorized and performed historically are still recognized, not that members could enter in to some of the relationships below today and still expect recognition.) This includes the following types of relationships:

 Temple Marriage – the highest form of marriage, marriage for eternity
 Civil Marriage – recognized by the Church (i.e. the Church does not consider those in a civil marriage living in adultery) but not considered equal to temple marriage, nor is it considered still in effect after the death of either of the spouses.
 Polygamy (no longer practiced) – Clearly a part of Mormon history. Authorized marriages performed before the practice was officially discontinued sometime between 1891 and the first decade of the 1900’s are still considered valid.
 Polyandry (the marriage of a woman to more than one man, no longer practiced) – much rarer in Church history, although there are a several recorded instances in the Nauvoo period of the Church.
 Serial polygamy (current practice) – Currently the Church doctrine (as I understand it) is that when a man’s wife dies, he can remarry and be married for eternity to another women; thus in eternity he will be married to two (or more, I suppose) women. While officially the same belief does not hold true for women whose husbands die (the typical reply I’ve heard is that “God will work it out”) I suspect that given the existence of polyandry in Church history that polyandry, too, will exist in eternity
 Marriage for eternity only (no longer practiced) – at times in the early history of the Church marriages were preformed for “eternity” only. That is, the spouses would not be married during their lifetimes, but would only be married in eternity.
 Other sealings (no longer practiced) – The Church also practiced so-called “adoptive” sealings, in which adult members were sealed to other members in non-marriage “parental” relationships. From what I have seen in my research this was conducted so that members would be adopted into the families of the Church leaders. Thus a person could be sealed to Brigham Young as his son, and would be counted among his family in eternity even though his parents might be alive and well (I have no idea how this was expected to work out if the son was also sealed to his birth parents, but I think that they also were then connected into the prophet’s family; a fascinating tangent, we’re so boring and conventional nowadays.)

Another Church doctrine that provides us with an entry point is the very unique Mormon understanding of the afterlife. Unlike traditional Christianity, Mormons do not believe the standard Heaven/Hell duality. Instead we believe there is a continuum of glory or reward, and each person will be assigned to a place on the continuum based on the way in which they’ve lived their life and the extent to which they have accepted Christ and His teachings. Mormon scripture divides this continuum up into three categories (called kingdoms), the worst of which is to be so wonderful as to surpass all understanding. The highest level (the Celestial) Mormons typically equate with the more standard Christian Heaven. This highest level is further sub-divided into three more parts. Entry into the highest of these is possible only for married couples (presumably the work that goes on there is possible only by the combination of male and female working together.) This leaves us with the result that we have two levels in heaven that do not require marriage between men and women for entry. Interestingly enough Mormon doctrine is utterly silent regarding the two additional levels, what they mean, and who goes there.

To my mind, given the vast array of marriages (some very nontraditional) already recognized, the already existing belief in several “unknown” levels of heaven, and the Mormon belief that God will continue to teach His children about His ways, there is plenty of room for theological recognition of homosexual relationships, even without a radical change in doctrine.

For comparison, the shift in Church policy regarding allowing members of African decent full participation required the overturning of a vast amount of folklore and tradition. The denial was based on traditional beliefs (some of which have yet to die out completely, despite official instruction to put a stop to them) that justified the practice based on scriptural teachings. As was the case when the Church abandoned polygamy, social pressure was brought to bear on the Church, which set off a chain of events that led to what at the time appeared to be a radical change in Church doctrine, but in retrospect was clearly the right thing to do.

I don’t believe that it would be beneficial for Church members to lobby their leaders for such a change. In fact I would suspect that such an effort would backfire. However, we can go over their heads and take the case straight to God. I certainly would not expect a radical change anytime soon, but we can pray, hope, and trust in the Lord and his power to make all thinks right.

However life ends up working out, we can be absolutely certain that we respect the thoughts, feelings, rights, and beliefs of others.

__________________________

*Though to call it “traditional” seems a bit of a stretch to me, it is only in our fairly recent history that love, or the physical attraction that often accompanies it, have had a significant part to play in the selection of a spouse. Traditionally things such as family connections, wealth, dowries, or the acquisition of other property were much more important. Nor was the relationship mutually supportive in the way we would think of it today. Women were often poorly treated, it was considered within a man’s rights to beat his wife, and at times women were assumed to be the equivalent of her husband’s property. We have moved beyond such things, to the betterment of society. In a debate with as much riding on it as this we need to be clear. And clearly the terminology “traditional marriage” is not clear.

Response to comments

2009-07-12T18:41:00.000-07:00

Okay guys on the gun control thing, I’m not really that shallow. The sound bite “logic” was mostly tongue in cheek, and deliberately over simplified and exaggerated. The gun control/gun right is one of the debates that I actually care about least. My main objection to guns is the underlying assumption that violence, or the threat of violence, is good or necessary as a solution to societal problems. The point being that if we value life we should question all violence and value all life.

Points to Ponder

2009-03-02T21:09:00.000-08:00

Right-wing gun rights advocates (or at least some of those I’ve spoken with or read) claim that guns are needed to defend their home and property from violent intruders. In other words, they claim that a human life (that of the intruder) is worth LESS than their property (say, a DVD player.)

The right wing also claims that a human life is worth MORE the right of a woman to control access to her body.

The only logical conclusion is that the right wing believes that a woman’s right to control access to her person is worth LESS than a DVD player.

What are your values?

Gay Marriage, some sanity finally

2009-02-22T17:50:00.002-08:00

This isn't my post on this issue but I found this as I was posting the post below. It is worth the read, and moves the conversation in the right direction. See the link here.

Science and Religion

2009-02-22T17:25:00.000-08:00

For those of you waiting for the blog entry on gay marriage, it’s on the way. In the meantime here is an entry that I had written some time ago. Before I could post it to my blog my wife suggested that I submit it to the Ensign. Haven’t heard back (and now that I’m rereading it I can’t say I’m that surprised) so now I’m going to post it here.

I think that it is finally time for me to come out of the closet. I believe in the Theory of Evolution.

Earlier drafts of this article included numerous direct references to the Theory of Evolution. These were removed at the suggestion of some of my reviewers in the hope that it would make publication more likely. Even though addressing evolution was the primary reason for the article, the principles also apply to other “contradictions” between faith and science, such as DNA evidence (or the lack thereof) for a historical reading of the Book of Mormon.

Now that I’m rereading this the flow seems kind of stilted in places. I think that those are places that I really had to force myself to be PC. Anyway, enjoy!

(Note that unlike other posts, because of my attempt to publish this I’ve written it more directly to Church members. For those of you who are not members of our church…well I’m sure you’ll figure it out.)

[so when I first posted this the footnote links worked, now they don't go figure]

...

Science and Religion

What is the proper relationship between science and religion? Can they work together? Do they contradict each other, and is it a problem if they do? Many people seem to believe that they do contradict one another and thus that belief in one necessarily excludes belief in the other. As members of the Church we have access to the additional light and knowledge brought by the Restoration. The truths of the Resorted Gospel can help us to understand the role that science plays in bringing forth and understanding truth. It can also help us to understand the underlying cause of what, to some, seem to be irreconcilable contradictions, and give us the tools we need to overcome those apparent contradictions.

In an October 1938 Improvement Era article entitled “What is the Attitude of the Church Toward Science?” the Church issued this statement:

The Church, the custodian of the Gospel on earth, looks with full favor upon the attempts of men to search out the facts and laws of nature. It believes that men of science, seekers after truth, are often assisted by the spirit of the Lord in such researches, indeed, whenever they appeal to the Lord for help. It holds further that every scientific discovery may be incorporated into the Gospel, and that, therefore, there can be no conflict between true religion and correct science. The Church teaches that the laws of nature are but the immutable laws of the Creator of the universe.
…
Likewise, the Church holds the methods and means used by science to discover truth to be legitimate. Indeed, all instruments and means developed for the exploration of nature are welcomed…[1]

Joseph F. Smith taught:

We believe in all truth, no matter to what subject it may refer. No sect or religious denomination in the world possesses a single principle of truth that we do not accept or that we will reject. We are willing to receive truth, from whatever source it may come; for truth will stand, truth will endure. ... True science is that system of reasoning which brings to the fore the simple, plain truth.[2]

He went on to teach:

The laws known to man as the "laws of nature," through which the earth and all things on it are governed, as well as the laws which prevail throughout the entire universe, through which heavenly bodies are controlled and to which they are obedient in all things, are all circumscribed and included in the gospel. Every natural law or scientific principle that man has truly discovered, but which was always known to God, is a part of the gospel truth. There never was and never will be any conflict between truth revealed by the Lord to his servants, the prophets, and truth revealed by him to the scientist, who makes his discoveries through his research and study.[3]

It is my observation that many faithful Christians of other denominations hold the view that science and religion are incompatible. It appears to me that this stems, at least in part, from four religious doctrines: 1) God created the world from nothing, 2) the Creation took place over the course of 144 hrs (6 days), 3) that this 6-day creation process began 6,000 years ago and 4) God is unbounded by law. All of these ideas conflict with the state of science today. And each of these doctrines conflict with Gospel teaching[4]. Brigham Young expressed a belief that some religions’ inability to accommodate scientific knowledge was causing problems for people.[5] As members of the Church we need to take care that we do not allow ourselves to follow down the paths that incorrect teachings will lead.

There are, however, some Church members that still object to science. Some feel threatened by, or are uncomfortable with, one scientific theory in particular, others Satan in his craftiness has caused to generalize their discomfort, which has led them to discredit, devalue, or dismiss science as a whole. A close look at the doctrines of the Church, however, will bring us the reassurance that fears of incompatibility are unfounded.

There are several doctrines of the Church that can help to calm fears and relieve discomfort cased by the apparent contradiction between science and the Gospel. While these doctrines are intertwined, they may be broken out as follows: the Lord’s standard of truth, the promise of continuing revelation and eternal progression, and the awesome power of humility and faith. For the sake of clarity the implications of each of these will be reviewed independently, but hopefully their interconnectedness will become apparent.

The Lord’s Standard of Truth

Science and religion are both concerned with Truth. Both seek to find and teach it. So it can be distressing when it appears that they contradict one another. What is the ultimate standard that should be used in determining the truthfulness of any particular idea? According to the Doctrine and Covenants, “…truth is knowledge of things as they are, as they were, and as they are to come; and whatsoever is more or less than this is the spirit of that wicked one who was a liar from the beginning.” (D&C 93:24-25) In other words, the test of truth is, “Does the conception accurately depict the way things are, were, or will be?” If so then it is true; if not then it is false. This standard bases the truthfulness of an idea on the accuracy with which it conforms to reality For example, Einstein developed a theory that made certain predictions about the way that gravity would impact the path of light, and he suggested observations that could be made to confirm his theory. Several years later the observations were made and Einstein’s theory was shown to be a more accurate description of gravity that the prevailing theory of the day.

Unfortunately, some have been deceived into using a different standard of truth. Their standard seems to be, “Do the things that I’m hearing confirm what I already believe?” To use one’s own understanding as a standard of truth is an example of the sin of pride. The Deceiver flatters individuals into believing that they already posses a perfect understanding. He tricks us into believing one or both of the following: that we have a correct understanding of the science, or that our beliefs (understanding of Gospel teachings) are perfect.

How can believing that our understanding of the Gospel is perfect be a problem? First, and most troubling, assuming that the we are already in position of the totality of truth can lead us to deny the truth of anything new, and thus progression or growth becomes impossible. Those who are thus deceived assume that they have all the truth already and don’t need any more. Second, making the mental processes of an individual the standard against which truth is judged makes truth subjective and accessible only to the one doing the judging. And third it places truth at the mercy of the whims, frailties and blindness of the individual doing the judging.

The errors of using any individual’s knowledge as standards of truth are further exposed by the next set of doctrines.

The Promise of Continuing Revelation and Eternal Progression

The Prophet Joseph Smith said the following (emphasis added):

When you climb up a ladder, you begin at the bottom, and ascend step by step, until you arrive at the top; and so it is with the principles of the Gospel—you must begin with the first, and go on until you learn all the principles of exaltation. But it will be a great while after you have passed through the veil before you will have learned them. It is not all to be comprehended in this world; it will be a great work to learn our salvation and exaltation even beyond the grave. [6]

The 9th article of faith says the following (emphasis added):

We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.

Brigham Young taught:

I want to say that we are for the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth; we are pursuing the path of truth, and by and by we expect to possess a great deal more than we do now; but to say that we shall ever possess all truth, I pause, I do not know when. We receive light and truth from the fountain of light and truth, but I am not at liberty to say and do not know that we shall ever see the time when we shall possess all truth. But we will receive truth from any source, wherever we can obtain it.[7]

Scientific knowledge also progresses. Each discovery or improved understanding either builds on or overturns the ones that came before. There are very few ideas or theories that will not be improved upon, have detail filled in, or be completely overturned in the future. For example, the mechanical physics of Newton appeared to be absolute truth, and all that was needed to explain all of the physical properties of the universe, and they are still very useful. However, as science continued to progress and more and better observations were made, it became apparent that Newton’s laws were not adequate to explain what was being seen. The work of Einstein and the follow-on work by many others have lead to quantum mechanics, which more accurately describes the workings of the universe than Newton’s laws.

The doctrine of eternal progression highlighted in Joseph Smith’s statement that “… it will be a great work to learn our salvation and exaltation even beyond the grave.” and the obvious nature of scientific progression point to another fundamental flaw in the way Satan has attempted to get Church members to reject the truth of science. The first flaw was highlighted above; he tries to trick us into believing that we have a perfect understanding of both science and gospel doctrine at the point of the apparent conflict. The second flaw is that, even if we grant that we have a correct understanding of the current state of both, according to both the gospel and the principles of scientific reasoning our understanding is incomplete.

So in the worst case we are worried that our misunderstanding of a partially revealed doctrine is conflicting with our inaccurate understanding of incomplete scientific theories. And best case is that we have a condition where the current state of revealed religion and the current state of science appear to lead to differing conclusions. This leads us to the next set of doctrines, Humility and Faith.

The Awesome Power of Humility and Faith

After all of this we may still be left with what appear to be irreconcilable differences between the teachings of the gospel and a few aspects of some scientific theories. This is where the real power of humility and faith come in.

Humility in this context is a proper understanding of the limitations of both our own mental capacity, and the incompleteness of science and revelation. Humility allows us to drop the false pride of broad statements of absolute knowledge. Humility allows us to know the true limits of our knowledge. It takes a lot of humility to say “I don’t know” or “I don’t understand” and even more to say “Maybe I understand much less than I thought I did.”

This type of humility can be found in the Book of Moses. Moses sees a vision of the creations of God, including all of the stars and planets. After which he responds, ‘Now, for this cause I know that man is nothing, which thing I never had supposed.” [8]

When the brilliant theoretical physicist Albert Einstein was asked if he believed in God, his answer showed an example of true humility:

I’m not an atheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws.[9]

In the Book of Mormon the Prophet Alma addresses the relationship between knowledge and faith. He asks that those listening to him try an experiment. They should plant the word of God in their hearts, and then if it begins to enlarge their soul or enlighten their understanding their knowledge will be perfect, but only in knowing that the word is good. He then goes on to say “…after you have tasted this light is your knowledge perfect? ...nay neither must you lay aside your faith for ye have only exercised your faith to plant the seed that ye might…know if the seed was good.” [10] In other words we may have knowledge that the word is good, but that doesn’t mean that we automatically have a complete understanding of all of the workings of God.

Humility allows us to recognize the limits of our knowledge, and faith allows us to be comfortable with those limits. Humility allows us to say, “I don’t know.” Faith allows us to add to the end of that sentence, “but someday I will.”

Joseph Smith taught that faith is a principle of power. [11] Nowhere is that clearer than when it is combined with humility go give us the sentence “I don’t know, but someday I will.” Children are the perfect example of this type of faith and humility; they have no problem holding all sorts of contradictory ideas, because they don’t live with the delusion that they are all-knowing.

This combination of faith and humility is what allows us to hold ideas in our minds that by the light we currently posses seem contradictory. It is what allows us to simultaneously pursue knowledge by “learning and also by faith.”[12] It allows us the confidence that someday, somehow, all truth, both religious and scientific, will be circumscribed into one great whole. It allows the faithful scientist to not only study, but defend and further theories that at present appear to contradict gospel doctrines, because she knows that her work is a stepping stone bringing us closer to that day when our understanding will be complete. It gives us the assurance that through further scientific discovery and future revelation, eventually the courses of science and gospel doctrine will converge. It frees the scientist to pursue wherever the science leads her without wasting time trying to force-fit current scientific data to reconcile with incomplete revelation, because she knows that one day, someway, faithfully following the path of truth will lead to the ultimate truth. It also frees the scientist to continue to believe in religious ideas and teaching that, for the moment, appear to conflict with her science for the same reason, because one day she knows that the conflict will be resolved.

In our impatience to see all conflict resolved today, and our desire to have all knowledge and all answers right now, we can forget that the Lord is the source of all knowledge and that all will come to be known in His time, not ours. Apparent contradictions between the Gospel and science should not trouble us; indeed given where we are on the path to eternal life they should be expected. Our impatient demanding of all answers now reminds me at times of my children, who, ten hours into a twelve-hour car trip decided that they’d been in the car too long and wanted to turn around and go home. It is only by going forward through the wilderness of apparent conflict and incompatibility that we can reach the promised land of resolution and reconciliation.

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[1] Evidences and Reconciliations . ..., Improvement Era, 1938, Vol. Xxxi. October, 1938. No. 10.

[2] Joseph F. Smith, Gospel Doctrine: Selections from the Sermons and Writings of Joseph F. Smith, compiled by John A. Widtsoe [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1939],. 1, 6.

[3] Ibid. 86.

[4] See below for instances when each of these doctrines has been disputed by modern day revelation:

God created the earth from nothing:

The Prophet Joseph Smith taught “Now, the word create came from the word baurau which does not mean to create out of nothing; it means to organize; the same as a man would organize materials and build a ship.” Joseph Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, selected and arranged by Joseph Fielding Smith [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1976], 350.

Creation took place over the course of 144 hrs:

Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, 26 vols. [London: Latter-day Saints' Book Depot, 1854-1886], 14: 116 - 117.

See for example the creation story as related to Abraham in Abr chapter 4 where Abraham refers to the periods of creation as “times” rather than days. Also from the encyclopedia of Mormonism: “On the basis of the above passage, which clearly excludes the possibility of earthly twenty-four-hour days being the "days" or "times" of creation, some Latter-day Saint commentators have argued for one-thousand-year periods as the "times" of creation as well as the "time" of Adam's earthly life after the fall; others have argued for indefinite periods of time, as long as it would take to accomplish the work involved. Abraham's account does contain the interesting passage, in connection with the "organizing" of the lights in the "expanse" of heaven, "The Gods watched those things which they had ordered until they obeyed" (Abr. 4:14-18).”
(Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 1-4 vols., edited by Daniel H. Ludlow (New York: Macmillan, 1992), 342.)

See also John A. Widtsoe, Evidences and Reconciliations [Salt Lake City: Improvement Era], 146-149, and Henry Eyring, "The Gospel and the Age of the Earth," Improvement Era 68 (July 1965): 608-9, 626, 628

This 6 day creation process began 6,000 years ago:

That this is a false doctrine can be extrapolated from the preceding statement. If the creation process took any amount of time over the six days claimed then it must have begun further in the past than 6,000 years. See also Brigham Young as sited above.

God is unbounded by law:

Alma 42:13, D&C 82:10

Joseph Fielding Smith stated:
“This is an age when faith and the power of God should be greatly increased, but to the contrary it is diminished and men boast in their own strength; yet we see every day of our lives, the greatest of miracles. The flying of the airplane, the voice on the radio, the picture on the screen and television. There are thousands of miracles performed today, wonders that would astound our grandfathers could they suddenly see them. These miracles are as great as turning water into wine, raising the dead or anything else. A miracle is not, as many believe, the setting aside or overruling natural laws. Every miracle performed in Biblical days or now, is done on natural principles and in obedience to natural law. The healing of the sick, the raising of the dead, giving eyesight to the blind, whatever it may be that is done by the power of God, is in accordance with natural law. Because we do not understand how it is done, does not argue for the impossibility of it. Our Father in heaven knows many laws that are hidden from us. Man today has learned of many laws that our grandfathers did not understand. It is small business for the critics to condemn the miracles in scriptures as though all the laws of God have been revealed, and there could be no powers which they do not understand. “
( Joseph Fielding Smith, Man, His Origin and Destiny [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1954], 484 - 485.)

See also:
Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 2d ed. [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1966], 433.

Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, 3 vols., edited by Bruce R. McConkie [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1954-1956], 2: 27.

Elder Orson F. Whitney., Conference Report, April 1911, Second Day—Morning Session 50 – 51
Orson F. Whitney, Saturday Night Thoughts [Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1921], 271

Spencer W. Kimball, The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, edited by Edward L. Kimball [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1982], 500.

An excellent summary of the LDS view of divine law can be found in: Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 1-4 vols., edited by Daniel H. Ludlow (New York: Macmillan, 1992), 810.

[5] “I am not astonished that infidelity prevails to a great extent among the inhabitants of the earth, for the religious teachers of the people advance many ideas and notions for truth which are in opposition to and contradict facts demonstrated by science, and which are generally understood…In these respects we differ from the Christian world, for our religion will not clash with or contradict the facts of science in any particular.” Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, 26 vols. [London: Latter-day Saints' Book Depot, 1854-1886], 14: 116 - 117.

[6] Joseph Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, selected and arranged by Joseph Fielding Smith [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1976], 348.

[7] Journal of Discourses, 26 vols. [London: Latter-day Saints' Book Depot, 1854-1886], 14: 197 - 198.

[8] Moses 1:10

[9] Cited in: Walter Isaacson, Einstein: His Life and Universe [New York City: Simon & Schuster, 2007], 386.

[10] Alma 32:35-36

[11] Lectures on Faith [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1985], 1:13.

[12] D&C 88:118

Is Abortion Murder?

2008-12-14T13:46:00.000-08:00

As I was reviewing some of my older posts I noticed that someone had made an additional comment on my post about abortion. Dan commented on the question of abortion being equivalent to murder. As he also pointed out that was not the point of that post. The point of that post was to show that the argument of the pro-life movement (that abortion should be illegal) is not required in order to be in harmony the current position of the LDS church. There are many reasons why someone could believe that abortion should be illegal; equating it with murder is only one. And as I will to show below it is not a very good one.

Is abortion murder?

This is one of the standard arguments used by the far right in their attempts to eliminate access to abortion. It is an almost purely emotional argument, one that sounds good as a bumper sticker or a sound bite and one that collapses under any level of careful scrutiny. And it is one that, for members of the church, skirts perilously close to false doctrine. In an issue such as this it is vital that we not be lead astray by emotional, but indefensible, arguments.

Mormonism provides us with two main arguments against equating murder and abortion.

If we are to equate abortion with murder we need to first understand what murder is. For the purpose of this discussion we can call it the willful destruction of innocent human life. Mormon doctrine (see D&C 88:15 and Moses 3:7) defines the soul as the union of the physical body and the spirit. Implicitly, death is the permanent separation of the body and the spirit. Therefore, for abortion to be murder it must cause the permanent separation of the spirit from the body.

The Mormon doctrine of the pre-existence is a belief that every person who has ever lived, or will ever live, lived before they were born (or conceived) in “heaven” with God as the father of our spirits. This doctrine, relatively unique in Christian theology, implies that life does not begin at conception and that a vital part of what makes a person a unique individual is not involved with the physical container, or body, at all. Therefore, unlike fundamentalist Christian theology, the moment of conception is not the moment of the creation of human life. Human life begins when the spirit and the body are connected into a soul, the destruction of which would constitute murder.

While I personally have heard anecdotal evidence that would suggest that this does not occur until sometime after conception, the only way (according to Mormon doctrine) that we could know when a body and a spirit unite to become a soul would be by revelation to a prophet and president of the church. The existence of biological indicators such as a functioning heart or rudimentary brain waves cannot be taken as definite indicators that a spirit and body have been permanently united. They only imply that the physical vessel that the spirit will inhabit is beginning its biological functions.

As far as I can determine (and if anyone can find any additional information I would be grateful) Brigham Young made one of the only statements regarding when the spirit and body are united, and then only in passing (others have also referred to this statement):

The disposition, the will, the spirit, when it comes from heaven and enters the tabernacle, is as pure as an angel. The spirit from the eternal worlds enters the tabernacle at the time of what is termed quickening, [the time that the mother can begin to feel the movement of the fetus or about the start of the second trimester] and forgets all it formerly knew.
(Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 26 vols. [London: Latter-Day Saints Book Depot, 1854-1886], 6:333)

This by itself is certainly not definitive, but it points out that to assume that life begins at conception is to venture beyond revealed doctrine.

The second argument against equating abortion with murder comes from the church’s statement on abortion, reproduced here on 12/13/08:

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believes in the sanctity of human life. Therefore, the Church opposes elective abortion for personal or social convenience, and counsels its members not to submit to, perform, encourage, pay for, or arrange for such abortions.

The Church allows for possible exceptions for its members when:

• Pregnancy results from rape or incest, or

• A competent physician determines that the life or health of the mother is in serious jeopardy, or

• A competent physician determines that the fetus has severe defects that will not allow the baby to survive beyond birth.

The Church teaches its members that even these rare exceptions do not justify abortion automatically. Abortion is a most serious matter and should be considered only after the persons involved have consulted with their local church leaders and feel through personal prayer that their decision is correct.

The Church has not favored or opposed legislative proposals or public demonstrations concerning abortion.

[I’m indebted to Ronald Dworkin for the structure of the following arguments. While he considers the question of abortion as murder from a constitutional perspective, the form of the arguments are at least as compelling when applied to the above statement by the Church.]

The essential problem with equating abortion with murder and the position of the church on abortion is one of integrity. If we are to consider that abortion is murder then we must treat it as such with all that this implies. The best way too clearly see the results of treating abortion as murder is to replace the term abortion with the idea of a mother killing her newborn, which is indisputably murder. The idea being that if abortion is murder then it should be treated the same way the murder of an infant would be. Below are the results of taking the abortion as murder argument and applying it to the Church’s statement. It will quickly become clear that such an argument cannot stand.

The Church allows that an abortion may be preformed when the “Pregnancy results from rape or incest.” The idea that you could kill a day old infant because her conception was the result of her mother’s rape is truly horrifying, yet if we equate abortion with murder that is what this statement would mean.
The Church allows for an abortion if “A competent physician determines that the life or health of the mother is in serious jeopardy.” If we equate abortion with murder then we are saying that the Church allows for the murder of an innocent to save the life of another. Applying this concept with integrity would be the equivalent of allowing a mother to kill her child to harvest his organs if that was what was required to save her life. Again a horrifying idea.
The third exception is when “A competent physician determines that the fetus has severe defects that will not allow the baby to survive beyond birth.” Can we image that the Church would countenance killing a child merely because she is terminally ill and her life will end in a few months anyway? Of course not.
The Church states that these exceptions should only be used after revelation, from God to the mother. If we accept that abortion is murder then we are saying that a woman can receive revelation from God to murder her children.

Not only is it clear that the Church does not consider abortion the equivalent of murder, but to declare it as such is to accuse the Church of approving murder.

I believe that the reason that people are drawn to the idea of equating abortion with murder is because it is a clear, shocking, and simple statement on the value of a fetus. Such a position values a fetus as the equivalent of a newborn child. And unfortunately the pro-choice movement has done to little in their arguments to address the value of a fetus; this void has left the fundamentalists with the only statement of value that is easily understood, and gives them the standing to imply that to not value a fetus as equivalent to a newborn is to not value it at all. Such an argument is both absurd, and contrary to the stated position of the Church. I believe that we can still value even the potential for life incredibly highly without the need to equate its destruction with murder.

Yes, Yes, I know

2008-12-04T19:08:00.001-08:00

To the three of you who read my blog, yes I know I haven’t posted in a while, sorry. I’m sure you’ve all been running to the computer every ten minutes for the last three months just to check and see if I posted. I had another entry ready to go, but my wife suggested that I tone down the sarcasm and submit it to the Ensign. Who knows maybe they’ll even publish it. If I don’t hear from them eventually I’ll publish it here.

Thanks for your comments to my last post. I’ve got that book you recommend on my list of things to read, thanks for the suggestion!

The Other Price of Freedom

2008-08-03T19:57:00.000-07:00

First, to quickly get a monkey off my back, environmentalism is not contrary to Mormon doctrine. In fact, it is most definitely in harmony with the gospel teachings about respect, responsibly, and stewardship. But that’s enough of responding to comments made in Sunday School.

The issue today is the cost of freedom. We honor those who have fought and died for our freedom, and indeed it is their sacrifice that has made our freedoms possible. Those who willingly risked their lives in the defense of worthy causes deserve our honor, respect, and gratitude; they have made the ultimate down payment for our liberty. Unfortunately, there are many now who are unwilling to honor that sacrifice by keeping up on the installments. Freedom once bought always comes with a continuing price. That price is the misuse of freedom. This leads many to call for the restriction, or even rejection of freedom.

Let us take our freedom of speech as an example. Our freedom of speech is a constitutionally guaranteed right of self expression. It allows me to express my ideas and others to express theirs. Thus society allows us, as individuals, to judge these differing ideas based on their merits. This system shows a profound trust in us as individual moral agents. We are trusted that we will hear and examine ideas critically and reject those that we find unfit. This responsibility is an individual one; no power is given to the government to intervene to censor ideas that it finds dangerous or abhorrent; each of us must decide for ourselves what it is that we approve or disapprove of and then take upon ourselves the job of controlling our consumption.

The down payment for freedom of speech was made with the blood of our fathers in the revolution, but there are further costs to society that must be paid. For example expressions of racism, sexism, bigotry, and pornography are all misuses of freedom of speech. They do significant damage to our society. That damage is the other price of freedom. There are some who are unwilling to pay this price, who claim that the cost is too high the damage too great, that we use the power of the government to silence these types of expression. However, that we find a particular message abhorrent cannot be used to justify censorship. To quote Ronald Dworkin in his book Freedom’s Law: The Moral Reading of the American Constitution, (italics mine) “…We must not endorse the principle that opinion may be banned when those in power are persuaded that it is false and that some group would be deeply and understandably wounded by its publication…Every blasphemy law, every book-burning, every witch hunt of the right or left, has been defended on the same ground: that it protects fundamental values from desecration. Beware principles you can trust only in the hands of people who think as you do.” He goes on to say”…I know that decent people are impatient with abstract principles when they see hoodlums with pseudo-swastikas pretending that the most monumental, cold-blooded genocide ever was the invention of its victims. The hoodlums remind us of what we often forget: the high, sometimes nearly unbearable, cost of freedom. But freedom is important enough even for sacrifices that really hurt. People who love it should give no hostage to its enemies…even in the face of the violent provocations design[ed] to tempt us.”
Does all of this mean that we should do nothing in the face evils, such as racism? Of course not. Our constitution doesn’t just protect the right of others to teach hatred. We to have a responsibility to make our voice heard to show bigotry, sexism, racism and other degrading speech for what they are. In fact, the best defense against the creeping darkness of ignorance is the dissemination of the light of truth.

Confirm Thy Soul

2008-07-06T16:31:00.000-07:00

America the Beautiful. It’s one of the few American patriotic hymns in the Mormon Hymn book. And it’s one of my favorite; every time I sing the line “confirm thy soul in self-control; thy liberty in law” I can’t help but wonder “what does the religious right think about those words?”

A clearer or more succinct summary of liberalism has never been written. It is not the role of government to dictate to its citizens any particular moral/religious philosophy (no matter how loudly the holders of any particular philosophy claim that theirs is superior to all others.) The law should be used to create a landscape of liberty, where every individual can use their freedom to the maximum extent possible (i.e. everyone should be permitted to do anything they want as long as it doesn’t impact someone else’s freedom to do what they want.) Moral control should be (and I would argue can only be) self-control. It is only when an individual has the freedom to not follow a moral code, but uses their freedom to follow a moral code that they are being moral. In other words, I’m only moral when I have the freedom to be immoral, but exercise my freedom not to be. When so called moral behavior is required by law, individuals lose their freedom to be truly moral. Not to mention it is only by allowing others to live by their own moral codes that we can expect them to let us live by ours.

From abortion to homosexuality, it seems like the conservative approach to all of the so called “moral” issues is to take their idea of what is moral and then use the force of law to require everyone else to live their lives in accordance with it. Not exactly confirming your soul with self-control, now is it?

And what about confirming your liberty in law? The Bush administration’s willingness to circumvent the constitution system of check and balances, ignore our freedoms from unreasonable search and seizure, deny habeas corpus, and disregard restraints on cruel and unusual punishment show that even constitutional guarantees can be imperiled when the public is willing to trade their birthright of liberty for the potage of security. It seems to me that the conservatives have it backwards – trying to confirm the soul with law, and leaving liberty to the tenuous self-control of those in power.

Politics from the Pulpit

2008-06-29T18:35:00.000-07:00

It’s the fourth of July so its time once again for the “Lets show how patriotic we are by damning liberals” talks in sacrament meeting (actually in my ward today we had a special patriotic themed 3rd hour, it wasn’t any where near as bad as talks/lessons that I’ve heard in the past, the first talk was totally fine it just focused on the history of the constitution.) On a more general note is not uncommon for me to hear members of the church equate patriotism, or even righteousness with conservatism or Republican ideals. It is unfortunate that some Mormons are either so unaware of what Democrats and liberals believe, or so befuddled by the right wing echo chamber that they are unable to distinguish between church doctrine and the political world view espoused by the conservative movement. Let me use examples from actual talks I have heard over the pulpit.

The speakers spoke of the evil of people who expected the government to do everything for them, of the danger of political correctness and the peril of an open mind (“Your brain might fall out.” Yes, that a fairly exact rendition). They sound like quotes from some conservative radio talk show host. While I believe that the speakers (many of whom I have a great deal of respect for) are genuinely expressing what they believe to be true, what they manage to show is that their understanding of the issues is one sided and derived from biased sources. These accusations are fairly typical of the things that conservatives accuse the liberals of, and typical of the way in which some (not many, but some) conservative Church members try and out-flank the requirements of the Church to not engage in political promotion when acting in an official Church capacity (such as teaching, speaking, etc.) Let’s look at each of them.

1) Liberals believe that we should turn our power, money, and will over to the government who will then feed, cloth and house us— alleviating the need for us to work for ourselves, and we are entitled to have the government provide for us. Or, in a related argument, liberals believe that the government should do things for us, rather than being self reliant.

I tried to debunk the false idea of self reliance in my last post so refer to that for issues relating to self reliance specifically.

The root of these arguments, I believe, are totally different conceptions of what our government is and the role it should play in society. The conservative view (as near as I can figure it out) is that the government is an outside force that exercises power over us. We may be able to influence it or direct it, but fundamentally it is an entity distinct from society, and as such it should be limited, and not come in and “do things” for people that they ought to be doing themselves, nor should it be spending the people’s money when they can figure out how to spend it themselves. If this is your view of government, of course the idea of a state-run housing project would be an unacceptable use of government power; people, when they can, should take care of themselves without outside assistance.

What, unfortunately, seems not to be understood by conservatives is that this is not how liberals see the government. Liberals see the government as a part of society not distinct from it. The actions that the government takes are our actions, it is the means by which the entire adult population is able to come together and say, “What do we, as a nation, want to work together to accomplish? What can we accomplish by working together that we could not when working as individuals?” In other words because the government is us, we use it as a tool to accomplish goals that we have all agreed on as important, such a providing health care, or housing, or whatever else we believe we can accomplish more easily by working together. We are not asking some outside entity to provide something to us that we are unwilling to work for; we are mobilizing the community to work together to meet our common needs.

2) Liberals and Democrats are presented as not being willing to call evil evil, or using political correctness to cloak evil in a veil to somehow make it more respectable or acceptable to society, and thus further our desire to cover the world with the evil of. . . whatever liberal position the speaker happens to disagree with.

The fact of the matter is political correctness is of course now terribly politically incorrect, both liberals and conservatives accuse each other of being politically correct whenever they think the other side is using terms that lessen offensive labeling that’s been assigned to the topic or person in question (ie in calling torture enhanced interrogation I would consider Republicans trying to be politically correct so as to make an evil more palatable). Political correctness emerged from an understanding that everyone is different and has differing values and that everyone, even those we disagree with, ought to be treated with respect. This purpose, of course, has quickly fallen away in the caustic atmosphere of present day politics. To often the mockery or denunciation of political correctness is only a justification for rudeness, used to cover ignorance of the issues, or a refusal to engage in a real discussion of them. In short the use of neutral language helps focus the discussion on the issues at hand rather than on the irrational or emotional arguments.

3) Liberals are often accused of being open-minded (open-mindedness being defined by the conservative accusator as “being without morals, willing to accept everything as equally desirable or acceptable”).

The danger of an open mind is one that seems to be especially fearful to conservatives. The most common argument against open-mindedness being that those who are open-minded accept anything that is presented to them, and don’t evaluate it in any way. In other words, an open mind is equated with an empty mind. It doesn’t take much more than the clear statement of that definition to see the ridiculousness of it, or the silliness of applying such a definition to liberals. Take for example the liberal distrust of big business; clearly we are not blindly accepting in that instance. True open-mindedness is not the blind acceptance of everything. It is a willingness to evaluate new ideas and people biased on their merits, rather then on tradition, custom, stereotypes, or other ways of pre-judging. To be open-minded isn’t to be empty-headed, it is to be humble and acknowledge that one’s own understanding is limited and that, with the addition of new information, old ways and ideas may need to be reexamined, and tradition or traditional ways of doing things may need to be replaced by new ways. The importance of tradition and its place in society is one of the defining characteristics of conservatism, and the lower priority given to tradition by liberals and progressives is one of the ways the movements differ.

In conclusion, it is not so much that these specific issues were raised that bothers me. It is the ignorance that they reveal about what liberals believe, the way in which the language of the political right is used in gospel discussion, and the way the ideology of the right is miss-presented as gospel doctrine that concerns me. We need to acknowledge the extent to which our views of the world (including gospel teachings) are informed by our political views. And if we are going to respect the church’s politically neutral stance we can’t use the pulpit for de facto political posturing.

The Self Reliance Myth

2008-06-22T22:02:00.000-07:00

Okay, so it’s been a while since my last post. My blog hasn’t gone less-active. I’ve had some troubles at work that have taken all of my mental willpower (such as it is), so my weekends have revolved around empting my head as much as possible, rather than any sort of deep thinking.

***

One of the greatest ironies of the so called Christian Right has to be the adoption by some Christians of the callous attitudes of the right wing towards the poor. Caring for the poor is one of the fundamental responsibilities of the followers of Christ (Matt 25:34-46), and the idea that the behavior of the poor (ie their “refusal” to work) somehow relieves the rest of us of our responsibility to extend our hand to them is specifically condemned in the Book of Mormon (Mosiah 4:17-18.) The idea that poverty is a personal failing is a tool that the “haves” use to justify their unwillingness to help the “have nots”. After all, if it’s their own fault they’re in the mess they’re in then I don’t have to do anything to help get them out. Can you image going before the Judgment Seat knowing full well the sins you have committed, knowing that you cannot pay for them yourself and having Christ say “You got yourself into this mess, you get yourself out of it” (Matt 7:2)? Wasn’t that the whole point of the atonement? For Christ to help us out of our self-created messes?

If you sat though some of the Sunday School lessons that I have you could easily be forgiven for thinking that self reliance is both the penultimate achievement of any individual, and that every person born is instantly fully capable of complete self reliance. Thus anyone not fully self reliant from the get-go is clearly somehow less worthy or undeserving; that not being totally self reliant is a grievous sin. Both of these ideas are false. Self reliance is a necessary prerequisite for the service of others, not a final condition; if we are not strong enough to carry our own burdens we can’t carry any of the burdens of others. Nor is everyone equally capable in all things – can the mentally slow child of a drug addicted 14-year-old single mother really be expected to pick themselves up by their own boots straps on the day they turn 18? Does that person, turning 18, atomically learn that hard work will bring rewards and knocking off liquor stores won’t, especially when all they’ve ever seen their entire life is people sitting around complaining, committing petty crimes and going in and out of jail? Who would teach a child like that how to work, or even that work has rewards?

The fact of the matter is that none of us is truly self reliant in the sense of not being dependant on others. How many people do you know that grow all of their own food, make all of their own clothes from cotton they picked and sheep they raised, who drive cars they built from ore they mined on roads they paved, who, when they’re sick, perform open heart surgery on themselves? Our society is one of specialization and we are better for it. I can trade my skill as a carpenter for money which I then trade with you for your skill as a surgeon. This means that my self reliance takes on another form. Self reliance in a modern society is the capacity to contribute to that society in a way that can be traded for the necessities of life.

If I become “successful” in this society it is easy to claim that I am self made. That my successes are as the result of my own hard work, and if others work hard like me they will be successful too. Such an attitude takes for granted all of the hard work by others that goes into making an individual successful. Things such as good schooling, a stable home life, proper nutrition, health and access to good healthcare, being taught the value of delayed gratification, student loans, and safe neighborhoods, are all multipliers of individual handwork. Neglect, abuse, indifference, racism, bigotry, sexism, and ignorance all work to camouflage the tools required for success in a society such as ours. Responsibly and hard work are skills, and their use requires practice and a belief that eventually they will bring reward. Practice and belief are not inherited, or in-born, they are learned and thus require a teacher.

As a society and as individuals we have a responsibility clearly laid out to those who do not yet contribute to society in a meaningful way. Each of us should contribute to society to the maximum amount possible, regardless of what anyone else is doing. It is clearly frustrating when you feel like you are contributing more than your fair share, or that others are living off of your hard work. Clearly those in need of assistance have a responsibly to do what they know how to do to mitigate their condition. However, one individual’s neglect of their responsibilities is no excuse for neglecting our own.

As a society we have the responsibility to be our brother’s keeper. We can provide good education in safe schools for children and access to educational opportunities for adults. We can work to understand the complex causes of poverty and crime (I’ll give you a hint: saying, “It’s just because they’re lazy” doesn’t cut it). We can promote positive role-models. We can help strengthen families by providing social programs that encourage rather than discourage stable parenting partnerships. We can provide subsidized daycare so a single mother doesn’t have to work a second job to pay for daycare while she works the first. We can provide access to high quality health care for free so jobs are not lost due to illness. We can provide surrogate parents for children whose own parents are physically, mentally or emotionally absent. We can communicate to others that they are valuable and capable. All of these things require society to work together help those who struggle.

As individuals we also have responsibilities. First we need to be sure that we can carry our own burdens. But if we stop there we have only achieved selfish indulgence. We can reach out to others, not judge, and work to uplift. We can educate ourselves on the struggles of others and learn to view the world though their eyes. We can be more patient, and more helpful. We can understand how to put our own unique skill set at the service of others. We can reach out beyond our class, race, and religious comfort zones. We cannot blame the victim for their victimization, or the poor for their poverty. We cannot give into despair or cynicism. We cannot wait for others to act. If there is a problem in the world, and poverty is assuredly a problem, our response should be, “What can I do?” and not “What should they do?”

On Wealth (part one, take one)

2008-05-06T21:23:00.000-07:00

Okay, so when my wife proof read this she said it was almost incomprehensible. Clearly I need to clarify both my ideas and the presentation. I thought I would post it anyway, because the point of this blog is to be a place for me to refine my ideas. Let me know what you think.

***

If I were a conspiracy theorist, I’d call it a conspiracy. If I were a cynic I’d call it a lie. As I’m neither we’ll have to call it one of the greatest delusions/illusions of the American Dream. It seems to be believed by most of middle class America. The further up or down the ladder you go the fewer there are who believe it (though for very different reasons.) The delusion: that it is possible to become wealthy through hard work and/or ingenuity. Mormons are especially susceptible; given the theological history they share with the Protestant movement and its adjunct, the Protestant work ethic, combined with the narrative of the Book of Mormon, which can be understood as tying the economic success of a nation to the righteousness of its people.

First we will deal with the delusion itself, then some of the consequences of that delusion.

“Wealth is the result of hard work.” That statement without a doubt is true. It is the similar sounding “If a person is wealthy it is as the result of their hard work.” that is false. With very few exceptions (sports and movie stars, ironically) can anyone become wealth purely by being paid for what they, themselves, do.

There are several paths to wealth in our country: you can inherit it, you can start or personally own a business, or you can become wealthy as a result of investments (basically be a part-owner.) While some of these paths require hard work by the person who becomes wealthy (for example running and owning a business), they all require hard work by someone other than the person who becomes wealthy.

In the case of inheritance this should be easy to see; children typical have nothing to do in the creation of wealth by their parents.

How does a business owner make her wealth on the work of others? Let’s use a small burger franchise as an example. For the business to be considered successful there needs to be a profit. Profit is money that is left over after all the bills have been paid (including payroll.) So let’s imagine that, in addition to owning the burger joint, Jill also manages it. She balances the books, chooses promotions, deals with market, orders supplies etc. For this amount of work she is paid, and rightfully so – that is hard work. Out front is Jim. Jim flips the burgers, sweeps the floor and serves the customers. Again, for this work, Jim is paid. At the end of the month Jill sits down and pays the bills: the bank for the loan, the suppliers, landscapers, etc. She pays out payroll for herself and Jim. Any money left over at this point is called profit. Whose work created that profit? Clearly both Jill and Jim, but who typically keeps the profit? Jill. In other words Jill is not becoming wealthy based on her work alone, she is get wealthy because of Jim’s work too; the more employees the greater the effect.

The stock market exaggerates this. Lets imagine that I was ready to retire today, and that I had gotten my first paycheck 46 years ago (at the age of 19 in 1962), and I took that money and with it bought one share of stock in GE for $75 (check out Yahoo Finance for historical stock prices. Here the finance can get a little trickier for those that don’t understand stocks. To compare historical stock prices with today’s you need to account for splits. Basically, if the stock has been split and you owned one share worth $75 you would then own 2 shares worth $37.50 – or so the theory goes. GE’s stock has split multiple times since 1962. So in order to compare today’s prices with that $75 you need to use what is called the adjusted price, which accounts for the splits. The adjusted price for one share of GE stock on the 2nd of January 1962 was $0.20.) So my original investment increased 166.65 times (not percent) from $75 to $12,498.75. In other words I “made” $12,423.75, but I did nothing. I didn’t work, let alone work hard. If we leave aside market fluctuations induced by speculation (something it is reasonable to do given the long time frame) what gave me this increase in value was the fact that GE became a more valuable company. This is due to hard work, the hard work of the employees of GE. (Or, for the cynics, the laying off of those employees.)

In both of the above cases what is making an individual wealthy is, in part or in full, the hard work of someone other than themselves, and this only measures the hard work of individuals directly associated with the wealth. There is also a lot of other hard work that goes into the creation of this wealth: the work of the teachers at the public schools who educated the employees, the work of the police forces that help protect the property, the physical infrastructure of the nation that allows for the transportation of goods and energy, the system of laws and government that has created an environment stable enough for long term investment, environmental regulations require that natural resources be managed in such away so as to be continuously available from generation to generation, social safety nets that give people the freedom to take risks without the fear that if they fail their families will stave to death, bankruptcy laws that allow people to recover from mistakes and go on to make meaningful contributions to society rather than eternally crushing them with debt. In other words no one ever gets wealthy from their hard work alone.

So if we are able to free ourselves from the delusion that our own hard work has made us wealthy what does that mean? First of all it means that with wealth come responsibilities, such as duty to acknowledge the role of others in the wealth creation process, to facilitate that process for others, to create wealth in a way that is mutually enriching for everyone involved rather than exploitive, and to use the wealth in a way that benefits the society as a whole (see for example see the requirements in the Book of Mormon in Jacob 2:18-19.) Second, it means that the insidious corollary of the delusion, “If wealth is the result of hard work then poverty is the result of a lack of hard work” is false. This sort of logic is often used by conservatives to justify lack of support for social welfare programs (I’ve heard conservatives say that those on welfare are there simply because they are unwilling to work, as if jobs and the skills to work in them appear magically to everyone by virtue of being alive.) After all, if poverty as a result of personal failure (or “sin”) then it is easier to see some how foist off the idea that the poor deserve their poverty. The Book of Mormon debunks even this type of reasoning (see Mosiah 4:16-18) Third, this also debunks what I call the Self Reliance Myth, which is the belief that it is desirable or even possible to achieve success on the basis of one’s own labors. Each of these points will be the topic for upcoming essays.

The Constitution and the Sermon on the Mount

2008-04-19T08:35:00.000-07:00

It had been my plan to write this week on social responsibility. I had some great analogies, too, but after I read this article in the New York Times I decided that I needed to address another issue.

For those that won’t take the time to read the article let me summarize. As we are all aware, in Pres. Bush’s attempts at waging a “war on terror” (can you think of a more ironic term?) numerous prisoners have been taken. The trouble is, once you’ve taken prisoners, what do you do with them? The Bush administration has tried numerous approaches: rendition, Guantanamo Bay, etc. The linked article talks about another approach, similar to rendition: turning prisoners over to the government of Afghanistan, knowing full well that they will get a trial so bad that it wouldn’t pass muster in most third world counties. Many countries (including Great Britain) are refusing to prosecute these prisoners because of lack of evidence. In Afghanistan, these men are being sentenced to more than 20yrs in prison in trials lasting less than an hour (some as short as 10 minutes), with no witnesses (for the prosecution or defense), no chance to prepare or even present a defense and the only evidence is the accusations by the Americans that they are bad men. To call this a farce of justice would be an insult to farces. This is the kind of thing we were raised hearing was done by the communists of the Soviet Union, and that one of the reasons that we were better than them was because we had a justice system that required, among other things, a right to a fair trial.

This is just one more evidence of the Bush administration’s successful attempts to do an end run around the Constitution. Add this to the cynical attempts to redefine torture in such a way that actions (i.e. waterboarding) that the United States has prosecuted as war crimes and torture since the Spanish American War are suddenly not torture any more, thus letting Pres. Bush say, “the United States doesn’t torture,” and not technically be lying. Or the practice of extraordinary rendition, where a person is kidnapped off the streets and shipped with no trial to a country known to practice torture, who is then asked to “assist” in getting information from them. Or the claimed authority to declare a U.S. citizen an enemy combatant and thus refuse them access to the courts to challenge his detainment. Or the fiasco of Guantanamo Bay, holding people for years with out any way for them to contest their detention, and choosing Guantanamo precisely so they could claim that it is beyond the reach of the U.S. courts.

What is the Constitution? Is it a mere set of rules and regulations that we attempt to squirm around, squeezing through every little loophole we can find? Is it a list of highly specific and unrelated rights written by men a long time ago who couldn’t possibly have imagined the problems we face today, and thus at best is only applicable in the exact ways we imagine that they imagined? Or worse, is it simply irrelevant altogether – a quant anachronism from a kinder, simpler, time? When we find it inconvenient do we look for ways to avoid its requirements, simply taking the action it forbids in places beyond its reach?

Or is it a statement of our highest ideas of government, our aspirations, our hopes and dreams, our goals? Is it a coherent document where every part reinforces and informs every other? Should we spend our time looking for ways to live and express the ideals embodied in it in every action that we take, whether or not those actions are explicitly addressed? Should we be finding ways to understand its abstract principles and apply them to new problems? Is it an expression of values or only a short list of restriction on governmental authority, to be gotten around whenever we find them inconvenient?

In what is still one of the most radical sermons ever preached, the Sermon on the Mount, Christ taught “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 7:12) If we want to know how to treat prisoners that are captured we should first look to this scripture, and ask how would we want to be treated. Attempts to give a rational answer to this question, when confronted with the immediate prospect of having to follow though with the answer could skew our judgment. Fortunately, we don’t need to make calls like that under that kind of pressure. As a society we have taken the time to answer questions such as, “If I were accused of a crime how would I want to be treated?” It was the answer to this question that lead to many of the provisions of the Constitution (see for example the 5th and 6th amendments.) We have a justice system in-place based on a thoughtful and rational attempt to answer this question; the Military Code of Uniform Conduct is another such statement of values, as is the Geneva Convention. Should we be spending our time trying to wiggle out of these, or looking for ways to uphold them?

We cannot defend our Constitution by looking for ways to avoid its requirements, even if they are technically legal. When we participate, encourage, or are complicit in sham trials such as those used in Afghanistan we declare to the world that we do not believe in what the Constitution stands for. We cannot say “well that’s just the way they do it there,” especially when the people in question were held by the United States, are being prosecuted solely on the basis of U.S. acquisitions, were only turned over to Afghanistan because the evidence was too weak for even the military tribunals at Guantanamo, and are being prosecuted at our request. Like it or not you can’t be ethical, moral, just, or fair on a technicality. Remember the scripture “if you seek, you will find?” If we are looking for ways to avoid the obligations that the constitution places on us (such as is being done by the Bush administration) we will find them. But if we are looking for ways to uphold our principles we can find those too. It is a matter of what we choose to look for. Will we look for ways to do our duty, and show the commitment to justice, integrity, fairness, and human decency that the constitution demands of us, or will we look for ways to avoid that duty, to do whatever we feel we need to? Where should our focus be?

Abortion

2008-03-30T21:05:00.000-07:00

Can a Mormon belong to an organization that supports abortion rights? Are Mormons required to be Pro-Life? Is it possible for a Mormon to hold to the teachings of the Church and be Pro-Choice? All of these are different ways of asking the same question. I think the abortion issue is one of the biggest problems members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have with the Democratic Party. Isaiah teaches us to beware of those that call evil good and good evil. One of the ways that this happens is for us to take simple problems and make them complex, another is to take complex problems and over simplify them. Abortion is a very complex problem, and there is no simple solution. If you ever hear anyone say (regardless of which side of the issue they are on) that they have an easy answer— run away, fast. For this entry I will not give my personal opinion on abortion, partly because it is not fully formed yet, and partly because that’s not really the point. Today I mostly want to answer the question “Are Mormons required by their beliefs and/or church to be “Pro-Life?”

First I think it is important to clearly define what it means to be Pro-Life. In order to be Pro-Life you must hold all of the following opinions:

1) The decision about whether or not to have an abortion is a moral question.
2) Society has a large enough interest in the outcome of that decision to warrant a role in the decision making process.
3) It is proper for society to act though its senates or legislators to influence the outcome of that decision in favor of not having an abortion.
4) The final decision about whether a woman should have an abortion should be made by the government, rather than the woman herself.
5) The best way for the government to enforce that decision is to deny women legal access to abortion, and punish those who find a way to circumvent that denial of access.

Next we need to look at what the Church has said about abortion. Abortion is one of the very few political questions that the Church and its leaders have directly addressed. Because the leadership of the Church is made up of various individuals who may or may not have spoken about this topic over a number of years, and because even the views of a single individual may be refined over time, rather than look at the words of any one individual for the Church’s position, we should look to the most recently published official position. This, I believe, represents the consensus view of the Church leadership, and communicates to the members of the Church their direction on this issue. The following is a direct and complete quote from the Church’s web site quoted on 3/30/08, and can be found here:

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believes in the sanctity of human life. Therefore, the Church opposes elective abortion for personal or social convenience, and counsels its members not to submit to, perform, encourage, pay for, or arrange for such abortions.
The Church allows for possible exceptions for its members when:
• Pregnancy results from rape or incest, or
• A competent physician determines that the life or health of the mother is in serious jeopardy, or
• A competent physician determines that the fetus has severe defects that will not allow the baby to survive beyond birth.
The Church teaches its members that even these rare exceptions do not justify abortion automatically. Abortion is a most serious matter and should be considered only after the persons involved have consulted with their local church leaders and feel through personal prayer that their decision is correct.
The Church has not favored or opposed legislative proposals or public demonstrations concerning abortion.

Let’s compare this statement to the five opinions needed to be considered Pro-Life:

1) The decision about whether or not to have an abortion is a moral question.

Yes, the church clearly and forcefully proclaims that the decision whether or not to have an abortion is a moral decision.

2) Society has a large enough interest in the outcome of that decision to warrant a role in the decision making process.

The existence of a published opinion on abortion is a statement that the Church believes in the very least that it has a role to play in that decision making process. And by counseling its members “not…to, perform, encourage, pay for, or arrange” abortions I believe that it can be convincingly argued that the Church leadership holds that larger society also has a role, although the closing statement clearly places limits as to the types of involvement the Church is willing to support.

3) It is proper for society to act though its senates or legislators to influence the outcome of that decision in favor of not having an abortion.

Here is where the argument that the church requires its members to be Pro-Life breaks down. The closing sentence reads: “The Church has not favored or opposed legislative proposals or public demonstrations concerning abortion.” In other words the Church had the opportunity to call for legislative action on this issue and specifically rejected that opportunity.

4) The final decision about whether a woman should have an abortion should be made by the government, rather than the woman herself.

5) The best way for the government to enforce that decision is to deny women legal access to abortion, and punish those who find a way to circumvent that denial of access.

Again the Church leadership clearly made the conscious choice not to call for government action. In another entry I think it will be worth looking at the place that moral agency holds in Mormon theology and how that relates to the abortion question.

While it is clear that the Church strongly disapproves of abortion – in most cases – it is also clear that Church leaders had the opportunity to address the fundamental argument of the Pro-Life movement (namely that abortion should be prevented by force of law) and clearly decided to remain neutral on that issue. Again, let me be clear, the Church is not neutral on the morality of abortion, only on the legality.
So does the Church require that its members be Pro-Life? No. Can members of the Church be Pro-Choice? Yes, at least if their position is a position about who should be making the decision, and not about the morality of the abortion itself. Can a Church member be part of an organization that supports a women’s right to determine for herself whether or not she will follow the Church’s teachings? Absolutely.

A response to comments

2008-03-30T21:01:00.000-07:00

Thanks for the question about WW II, zacarrie. Based on the criteria I wrote about last time, was US involvement in WWII justifiable? The short answer is yes. However, we need to acknowledge the United State’s role in contributing to a situation where war could develop. As with any historical situation, it is impossible to speculate what might have been, but responsibility needs to be taken for the brutal terms forced on Germany at the end of WWI, and the ineffectiveness of the League of Nations, caused in-part by the US senate’s refusal to ratify its terms. Both of these contributed to an environment that allowed someone like Hitler come to power. As for the situation with Japan, there were other opportunities to avert war; prior to the attack at Pearl Harbor there was an ongoing negotiation with the Japanese government, which was being put under enormous pressure by several hostile US policies. There is evidence that FDR had worked out an agreement to be presented to the Japanese, which may have met some of their concerns. This was never presented, for reasons that are lost to us now.

Avoiding these missteps may or may not have averted war, we will never know. However, it is important to understand the way that WWII unfolded to see if our participation was merited. Points to consider:

1- The United States did not start the war. In both theaters the axis forces resorted to violence first. In other words, had the enemy not acted, had they not launched the ships, or put the tanks into action, there would have been no war.
2- The axis forces were actively attempting to conquer their enemies, and to become the political rulers of the conquered lands against the will of the citizens of those lands.
3- The enemy actually had the power to make these invasions stick. For example, had England not responded with violence, there was clear and convincing evidence that they would have been placed under Hitler’s rule.
4- It is true that the US had not been invaded by Hitler; however its territories had been violently attacked by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor. In the European theater, allies of the United States had been invaded and were in danger of collapse. I believe that aiding other countries in defense from invasion can possibly be used as one of the justifications of war. But only if careful consideration is given to the other conditions mentioned before, and it can’t stand alone as a sole justification.

A simple check for me is to boil it down to relationships with individuals. If I see someone in the act of trying to kill someone else, and the only way to prevent that murder is to kill the attacker, am I justified? I would argue yes. If you try and boil the justification for the Iraq war down in this way it would go something like this: The guy down the street has punched me in the nose and says he wants to kill me, and the guy across the street hates me. I know they hate each other, but they live on the same side of the street, so I’m going to kick down the door of the guy across the street and kill him before he gets any ideas. In our justice system I would rightly be charged with murder.

War

2008-03-16T18:39:00.000-07:00

The topic for today is war; specifically, where should the teachings and doctrine of Mormonism lead us when trying to understand the current situation in Iraq. And how can they inform a response to the call for action some on the right (such as Vice-President Cheney) are advocating towards Iran.

What does Mormonism teach about war? The book Mormon Doctrine, ironically, is not actually an official publication of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saint, despite having been written by Bruce R. McConkie, later called to be in Quorum of Twelve Apostles for the church (the twelve apostles is the second highest governing body in the church. The first edition of the book was published in 1958; Elder McConkie was called to his office in 1972.) Nonetheless it does provide a good summary of Mormon thought on a wide variety of subjects. So it makes sense to start an investigation of war with the words of this esteemed church leader (the italics are mine):

War is probably the most satanic and evil state of affairs that can or does exist on earth. It is organized and systematic murder, with rapine, robbery, sex immorality and every other evil as a natural attendant. War is of the devil; it is born of lust. (James 4:1)…

…Words are incapable of expressing the human depravity that has accompanied war in every age, but the era of time known as the last days [i.e. the current era] is the one in which the most extensive and wicked of all wars have been and will be fought…

…all wars are in their nature evil…

…Self-defense is as justifiable where war is concerned as where one man seeks to take the life of another… Righteous men are entitled, expected, and obligated to defend themselves; they must engage in battle when there is no other way to preserve their rights and freedoms and to protect their families, homes, [and] land…

It is evident from the above quotation that war is a great evil, one that can only be justified in the most extreme of circumstances. As Elder McConkie puts it “…when there is no other way to preserve their rights and freedoms and to protect their families, homes, [and] land…” If we are going to justify entering into “…the most satanic and evil state of affairs that can exist…” we should only do so with the utmost of caution, and skepticism; and only after thoughtful debate and deliberation to ensure that appropriate objective criteria are met.

It has been suggested by some that we turn to the Book of Mormon for guidance on what these appropriate criteria are. After all, many chapters of the Book of Mormon are about war. What does it have to say about when a war may be justifiable? The first evidence is negative evidence; never in the whole of the Book of Mormon can there be found a single instance of any group, who is identified as righteous, launching a war or invading enemy territory even when they had clear and compelling evidence that they where about to be attacked. For example, Alma 47 and 48: in these chapters servants of the enemy defect, bringing word of a political change; the old king has been murdered and has been replaced by a man who has promised to use his power to wage war. Even in these circumstances, no pre-emptive strike is launched; no sorties are sent into enemy lands. The country is mobilized and defenses are prepared but no attack is launched upon the enemy until an actual invasion is underway. And at no time does the battle ever shift to the point that enemy lands are attacked, let alone invaded or conquered.

According to the Book of Mormon there are several conditions, all of which must be met, to justify war:

1- Life and land and rights must be threatened by an enemy that wishes to take them away by forcible subjection (Alma 43:9-10, 43:46-47.)

2- The enemy must actually have the power to follow through on their threat to deprive the conquered of their rights, land, and life. (Alma 43:14, Alma 48:4)

3- War should be in defense against invaders. In a part of The Book of Mormon, later than that discussed above, the people are under threat, not from another nation, but from a secret band of robbers, very analogues to the situation that the United Stated finds itself in with the terrorists. The people were demanding that they go out into the wilderness and take the fight to the enemy. The response is instructive: “The Lord forbid; for if we should go up against them the Lord would deliver us into their hands; therefore we will prepare ourselves in the center of our lands, and we will gather all our armies together, and will wait till they shall come against us; therefore as the Lord liveth, if we do this he will deliver them into our hands.” (3 Nephi 3:21 see also vs. 20 italics mine)

David O. McKay, head of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints from 1951-1970, in his 1967 book entitled Secrets of a Happy Life, discussed conditions that could be used to justify war. He said the following (italics mine):

[A condition for war] is not a real or fancied insult given by one nation to another. When this occurs proper reparation may be made by mutual understanding, apology, or by arbitration.

Neither is there justifiable cause found in a desire or even a need for territorial expansion. The taking of territory implies the subjugation of the weak by the strong.

Nor is war justified in an attempt to enforce a new order of government, or even to impel others to a particular form of worship, however better the government or eternally true the principles of the enforced religion may be.

In short, Mormon theology teaches that war should never be waged, except as an extreme last resort, after all other possible remedies have been thoroughly exhausted, and only then against an enemy in the act of invasion. War may be thrust upon us, but we should never seek it out, never make the fist attack, never consider it as a tool by which to achieve policy objectives, and never enter into it hastily or when motivated by fear, anger, or a desire for revenge. The Iraq war was preemptive, launched in fear, backed by inadequate intelligence and based on a flawed ideology, clearly not justifiable. But that is a topic for another day.

A response to comments

2008-03-16T18:37:00.000-07:00

Thanks for your comments everyone! I’m actually quite flattered that anyone would take the time to read through these entries, let alone take the time to respond. I actually want to write at least one entry on government welfare, and the difference between safety nets and spider-webs, but that will be for another day. For now my response to the concerns about a welfare system will be limited to this: from the Book of Mormon – Mosiah 4:16-26, and Jacob 2 (up to vs 21, but especially 17-19), and from the Bible – James 2:14-17, and Romans 15:1-3.

What is a liberal? (part 3-Fraternity)

2008-03-09T21:44:00.000-07:00

In my first essay I laid out three central facets of liberalism – Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. However, the term fraternity doesn’t quite cover the exact concept that I’m using it to represent. Perhaps, after reading this essay, someone can find an English word (or any other language for that matter) that works better; if you do, please let me know.

Fraternity is the idea that all of humanity belongs to one family, that what happens to any one individual impacts all of us. It is the genuine concern for the health, safety, and general well being of all people. It is a concept taught by every world religion (including Mormonism.) The only people in Western society that I’ve heard actively argue against it are regarded as extremist (neo-Nazis, etc.) It is a minimum requirement of Western civilization that lip service must be given to the ideas of inclusiveness and caring.

So if fraternity is so universal, why include it as a distinctively liberal trait?

Liberal and conservative thought each hold many of the same principles, but it is not only that someone says a particular concept is important that tells you how that concept will affect their actions; you have to understand how they value it relative to other concepts. For example many liberals value tradition, stability, and security, and many conservatives value fraternity – but which way do you go when tradition, stability, and security, can only be achieved by reduction of fraternity? How quick are we to devalue the humanity of others? In the interest of contrast let’s take some of the more extreme examples. If we as a nation had seen the people of Iraq as equally valuable and “worthy” of life would we have been as quick to invade on such scant intelligence? Would we have been able to shrug off the mounting civilian death toll for as long as we have if those civilians had been in Los Angeles rather than Baghdad? Do we feel as bad about the deaths of children the world over from preventable illnesses as we do about the deaths on 9/11? Which would be a greater benefit to the world, ridding it of terrorists (which kill typically kill by the dozen, hundreds if they get lucky, and very rarely managed to get into the thousands) or ridding it of malaria (which impacts 300-500 million and kills 1 million a year and can stunt the mental and physical growth of survivors)? The total cost of the Iraq war has been estimated as high as 2.7 Trillion dollars, and is currently costing 12 Billion a month; the cost of one full course of treatment for malaria – 50 cents. When we love our neighbors as ourselves we are committed to seeking the welfare of all people and to valuing their welfare as highly as our own. Love and concern for the well being of others should supersede just about every other consideration and always be paramount in governing our actions.

Without a doubt, concern for the welfare of others is (or should be) fundamental to Mormon theology. In fact, in the Book of Mormon, concern for the welfare of others is listed, among other things, as a prerequisite for baptism: “…as ye are desirous to come into the fold of God…and are willing to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light; yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort…what have you against being baptized?” (Mosiah 18:8-10) Indeed the Bible (which Mormons also hold to be scripture) teaches that the entire point of all the scripture can be summed up in the commandment to love (Romans 13:10, Galatians 5:14), and that followers of Christ should be identified by their love for others (John 13:34-35.) A command is even given to love your enemies (Matthew 5:44-47) and that that love is not some vague sort of abstract wish that your enemies will “see the light” and become as righteous a you are; it is actively working for their benefit (Matthew 5:40-41, 1 Corinthians 13:4-8, Luke 10:27-37)
Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity together are the three main facets of liberalism. They are the highest ideals of a liberal society and inform an approach to the regulation of societal interaction that I believe is a required foundation for a free society. In my coming essays I will refer back to, and expound on each of these ideals frequently in an effort to show both the benefits they bring to society, and that it is not only possible to be a liberal and a Mormon, but that I believe that it is inevitable.

What is a liberal? (part 2-equality)

2008-03-02T20:51:00.000-08:00

Equality is, perhaps one of the most elusive qualities in modern thought. Almost all argue for it, or claim to be advancing its cause, but there seems to be very little agreement as to what equality actually means. In his magnum opus, From Dawn to Decadence, the historian Jacques Barzun argues: “In arithmetic equality is a simple idea; once grasped, never unsure. In society it is complex and elusive. Thinkers who argue from a state of nature find it easy to say that all are born free and equal; but that is only because in that imagined state there are no standards to measure people by and at birth no talents to compare.” He concludes his arguments a few paragraphs later:

There is but one conclusion: human beings are unmeasurable. It follows
that equality is a social assumption independent of fact. It is made for
the sake of civil peace, of approximating justice, and of bolstering
self-respect. It prevents servility, lessens arrogant oppression, and
reduces envy—just a little. Equality begins at home, where members of the
family enjoy the same privileges and guests receive equal hospitality without
taking a test or showing credentials. Business, government, and the
professions assume equality for identical reasons: all junior clerks, all second
lieutenants, earn so much. In other situation, as in sports and the
rearing of children, equivalence based on age, weight handicap, or other
standard, is computed so as to equalize chances. That is as far as the
principle can stretch.

It is obvious that not everyone is “equal” in their various talents. It would be absurd, for example, to wish that everyone in the country had a statistically equal chance at becoming president. What would our government be like if our president was chosen by lottery? We are all much better served by allowing those with the better ideas, talents, skills and popular support compete for the job. Clearly if equality is going to have meaning in society it is necessary to recast the broad-brush approach to equality.

If we are going to argue that equality is important to free society, then we need to address Mr. Barzun’s objection regarding a lack of standards. By what standard can we rationally say that equality has meaning for society? The answer, in fact, is found in Mr. Barzun’s initial objection. At birth everyone is the same, that is to say, in a free society no person should, by accident of birth, be disqualified from full membership and participation in society- thus all are equal. A unique feature of Mormon theology supports this idea– the refutation of original sin by the Mormon conception of the cleansing power of Jesus Christ. The impact of this is stated in the Book of Mormon (2 Nephi 2:26.) This extends to racial, gender, ethnic, and religious lines–“. . . he inviteth them all to come unto him and partake of his goodness; and he denieth none that come unto him, black and white, bond and free, male and female; and he remembereth the heathen; and all are alike unto God . . .” (2 Nephi 2:26 emphasis added)

To fully avoid Mr. Barzun’s more sweeping argument, we must speak specifically of political equality. Political equality is not an individual’s possession of the same amount of some trait when compared to others, but society’s lack of a trait, namely the assignation of value, position, or reward to individuals based on criterion other than merit (those arising from circumstances of birth or other uncontrollable events.) Therefore political equality is not a measurement where everyone measures the same against some standard. Equality is society’s lack of irrelevant standards imposed at birth. Conceiving of equality as lack of unmerited judgment is also reinforced by, and itself reinforces, the idea of individuals as moral agents. For example if we cannot use race as a measuring stick then we must use some other measurement; one that reflects on the merits of the situation for which measurement is required. If a black man is applying for a position as professor of law, it should be his law credentials that are under review, not his race. Merit can be developed, or not, by individuals exercising their moral agency. We cannot assume that some people, by virtue of birth, are more worthy to participate in public discourse than others.

To this point it seems as if liberals and most conservatives would have very little to disagree about, (there still is an unfortunate wing of the conservative movement that does indeed believe that race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, or national original are significant justification for denial of full participation in society.) The disagreement seems to be one of what factors present at birth deserve consideration, and what consideration should be given. For example, does the principle of equality mean that the children of a billionaire and a welfare mom are inherently equal, and therefore no special advantage should be given to one or the other (is income irrelevant)? Or does it mean that the poverty of the mother should not deny the poor child an education equal in quality to that of the one born into wealth? In other words, should a brilliant poor child be denied the best education by accident of birth, while the spoiled rich child attends all the best schools? And what should the rest of society do about it? The liberal answer would be that the circumstances of the mother should not bear on the child’s furtherance, and that society has a responsibility, by virtue of its commitment to equality, to help the child overcome the disadvantages over which she had no control. Thus allowing her ideas and contributions to be judged against those of the billionaire child on merit alone, uninfluenced by factors extraneous to those ideas. It is liberals’ belief that equality is an aspiration, a goal that society is continually working toward, that distinguishes it from conservative views which hold that equality is an achieved fact, or an inherent characteristic of our society.

This will bring us to our third quality, fraternity.

What is a liberal? (part 1)

2008-02-24T21:15:00.000-08:00

If we are going to have a discussion on Mormonism and Liberalism, it is imperative that we first start with an understanding of what liberalism actually is. It has been my unfortunate experience that within the Mormon culture liberalism is vastly misunderstood. It seems to me that some even go so far as to make liberal and evil synonyms. I can only assume that such beliefs arise out of ignorance of liberal ideals and philosophies– reinforced in part by the superficial, syntactical resemblance of right wing ideologies, such as those preached by Pat Robertson and James Dobson, to Church teachings. To allow our opinions or understanding about any set of ideas, let alone ideas so fundamental to Western civilization as liberalism, to be formed by the avowed enemies of those ideas is as ridiculous as asking the Sanhedrin at the time of Christ to explain his teachings and mission. The result is ridiculous at best.

Asking “What is liberalism?” is a lot like asking “What is love?” Ask a thousand people and you will get a thousand different answers. So in trying to define liberalism, I’m not going to look for some large consensus view of what it means (even though the illiberalness of doing so would create an irony almost too delicious to pass up.) I will explain what Liberalism means to me.

The word liberal quite obviously shares a root with the word liberty. And it is the idea of liberty that is at the very core of what I call liberalism. Another central idea is, of course, equality. And the last idea is fraternity (being a liberal, I feel compelled to point out that this is fraternity in the gender-neutral sense of all belonging to a common family with a common purpose, and concern about the lives, happiness, and dreams of others.) These three ideas are clearly not mutually exclusive; they inform and enrich each other. They form a coherent whole such that if any one of them were lacking the rest would lose both their meaning and their power to form a rational ethical system.

Liberty is the idea that every individual is a complete moral agent, capable of forming moral values and acting in a moral way, and that each individual is therefore responsible for the consequences of his or her actions. This idea is taught with clarity in the Book of Mormon in 2 Nephi 2:26-27 “… [the children of men are] free forever, knowing good from evil; to act for themselves and not to be acted upon…And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life…or to choose captivity and death…” The concept of the moral agency of individuals is a central teaching of Mormon theology. The creation story of Mormonism starts long before that of mainstream Christianity. It begins in heaven where two plans are proposed, one that would allow mankind to come to earth with moral agency, and one that would not. The plan for moral agency was championed by Jesus Christ, the other by Satan who “sought to destroy the agency of man.” (Moses 4:3) Indeed Mormon theology not only teaches that the constitution was inspirited (the 3/5 clause notwithstanding), but that it was inspired explicitly to allow individuals to act in accordance with their moral agency. In the Mormon scripture the Doctrine and Covenants it reads, “…the laws and constitution of the people, which I have suffered to be established, and should be maintained for the rights and protection of all flesh, according to just and holy principles; that every man may act in doctrine and principle pertaining to the futurity, according to the moral agency which I have given unto him, that every man may be accountable for his own sins in the day of judgment.” (D&C 101:77-78 emphasis added)

The implications of liberty are, of course, profound; especially the implications for government and other societal interactions. If we understand that it is the existence of moral agency that makes all ethical and moral behavior possible (2 Nephi 2:16, Moroni 7:6-8), we understand that it should be violated as little as possible. It is the role of the government to help ensure that everyone’s moral agency is respected (equality, from the list above) and the government should only intervene to limit the agency of its citizens in those instances where the agency of one individual violates the agency of another. A perfect example relates to laws prohibiting rape, in which one person’s agency regarding sexual behavior violates another person’s agency to control access to their person. A government should not allow the agency of the rapist to compromise the agency of the victim. However, in the case of mutually consensual sexual relationships, no one’s agency is being violated; each individual has the right to determine the value of their sexual activity for themselves. It would not be appropriate for society (even by rule of the majority) to compel compliance with a standard of sexual behavior that the individuals involved reject. It would be understandable for various religious followers to object at this point; after all, God has clearly declared that the value of sexual relations is such that they should only take place between men and women, legally married. However, whether or not God has forbidden some act is not relevant to the question of whether or not society should violate the agency of its participants in order to prevent them from acting contrary to His words. A society is justified in violating agency only to prevent a greater violation of agency. It is equally important to remember that just because society is not justified in restricting agency does not mean that the behavior itself is justified, moral, ethical, or in keeping within any sort of religious doctrine, it only means that the behavior does not violate anyone’s agency.

Introduction

2008-02-24T20:44:00.000-08:00

I’m starting this blog for three unrelated and completely selfish reasons; the first is to give me place to attempt to cohere my thoughts on the relationship between Mormon theology and Liberal philosophy. I’ve found that putting things into writing allows me to fully form and flesh out my ideas and beliefs and gives me a chance to see their weakness and flaws. The second is to show off my reasoning and open my thought to comments by anyone who stumbles across my postings. And the third is to stick it to all the ignoramuses and bigots who insist on confusing liberalism with the church of Satan.

I have no idea how often I’ll write. I fully expect my views and thoughts to change and mature as I do. I have no desire to be consistent, only coherent. Although I try to be accurate and fair, I am here giving fair warning that I make no claim to be unbiased. I find much of conservative thought rife with bigotry, racism, jingoism and other forms of intolerance, and I plan to attack those evils any way I can (without violating my commitment to honesty.) I also love to use hyperbole, because it helps to highlight contrasts that otherwise might be missed.

One of the struggles in any form of communication is attempting to get the ideas that are in one’s own head into the mind of another. As groups separate and become isolated from each other variations form in their languages, making communication difficult. The self-imposed isolation of Mormon culture has let Mormons drift away from contemporary society in the language and constructs typically used in examining questions of ethics and morality. The question in writing a blog such as this is do I use the Mormon language, or common American English? For ease of reading I will use American English, and then work to provide translations into Mormon when necessary for greater clarity. Occasionally the differences may become the subjects of essays in themselves (for example, sometime I would love to write an essay called “Pride is Not a Swear Word”, on the meaning of pride and the particularly silly way members of the church have misinterpreted Pres. Benson’s masterful sermon on the subject.) By the Mormon language I mean not only Mormon jargon, but particular mental constructs such as the idea of stewardship. Care must also be taken, because there are those whose language bears a superficial, syntactical resemblance to Church language. These wolves in sheep’s clothing have managed to fool many church members into thinking as they do. We should not be fooled into the belief that just because someone uses words with which we are familiar that they share our ideals. Nor should we fall for the erroneous idea that because the words that are used to express a thought are different from our words that the underlying ideas are incompatible with our own.

Liberalism is a broad set of philosophies, ideas, and life approach. It informs our values, and the moral frame through which we view the world, our place in it and the place of others. The purpose of this blog will be to explore these ideas and their relationship to Mormon theology.

(and yes, for all of you who read this, I am planning on addressing every religious conservative’s favorite topics: abortion and gay rights)