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.)
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
A response to comments
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.
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.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
One Small Step…
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.
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.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
A response to comments
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.
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.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
The Tripartite Dilemma
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
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
Saturday, September 26, 2009
On Faith: The Parable of Quartus
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.
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
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.
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.
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