As a budding scholar dealing with the literature of black Africa, I'd like to think I have some understanding of the risk I take in revealing some relevant elements of my identity here in this inaugural post:
I'm a white anglo-saxon protestant heterosexual male.
This is how I might identify myself if I believed in the categories all those adjectives represent as if they were prescriptive. I guess as a description, they're as accurate as anything, but one of them is entirely debatable: protestant. The point is that I feel a group solidarity with Christians, and more specifically with non-Catholics. My affiliation with the larger group of Christian as well as my distanciation from the sub-group Catholic is entirely doctrinally based--I have no biases against any given Christian sect other than the disagreements I have with them based on their interpretation of Scripture and the key doctrines found therein.
However, I'm also Mormon. Born and raised. Oh yeah, I had a period of "inactivity" in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but curiously that never included a serious doubt as to truths I knew I was rebelling against. Does that mean I'm the unquestioning robot minion of a sordid cult? Apparently to some: Frank Pastore from conservative Christian Townhall.com as one case in point. Frank's logical fallacies are almost too numerous to mention. But after disclaimers and denials of bigotry they mostly stem from the following single assertion:
"Most Christians and many Mormons do not know Mormon theology"
He then proceeds to cite notoriously hostile witnesses to prove his highly un-rigorous thesis that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (yes, and why NOT use the name they choose for themselves, long as it may be) is not a Christian religion, but rather a "cult of Christianity".
Did anyone note that I claimed never to have had a serious doubt about Gospel doctrines as taught in that church? I'm sure there are cultural Mormons out there who really are ignorant about beliefs they ignorantly defend. But in my case, I get the sense Frank Pastore would reject my understanding by seizing on the semantic slippage in the loaded religious term "doubt" and totally missing the meaning of "doubt" as not excluding the healthy skeptical critical thought that must accompany growth in knowledge. Making Mormons out to be unreflecting automatons is really just a way to comfort oneself or refuse to admit to oneself that one has shut down one's natural curiosity and willingness to cooperate in communication. Frank Pastore has quite obviously not seriously entertained the notion that there may be some integrity to the truths Mormons profess to be true. I'd even be perfectly fine with him not agreeing with some points. But to attempt to discredit the group itself for its doctrines without a bona fide investigation of those doctrines is nothing less than intellectual dishonesty.
Just because I never actively refused to believe the principles taught by my denomination, doesn't mean I blindly accept anything. I arrived at the beliefs I have by strictly scientific processes of factual and spiritual knowledge growth. And Frank can too. In fact I invite him to! (Although I doubt he'll read this invitation) In fact, I'm convinced that blind acceptance is not even desirable by God. Oh, of course there are situations where you just need to trust Him first, then you'll find out later, but I'm convinced that He does want us to find out sooner or later what His will is and why.
But that's for another post...
The central question in this post is how someone so much a part of every key identificatory indicator of "mainstream" as I am can feel such a great solidarity with that mainstream culture, and yet be so frequently targeted for rejection and marginalization by that cultural group. The label of cult is particularly egregious since it implies a top-down conspiracy to exploit massive amounts of otherwise innocent and harmless ignorants for nefarious purposes, and conjures the image of a prototypical charlatan of immense charismatic power as the leader. Anyone acquainted with leaders of the Church would find such a description ludicrous. Charismatic maybe, but exploitative? How? To what end? It's just plain illogical based on the evidence of their behavior ("By their fruits ye shall know them," Frank).
But even when the question of whether or not the Church is a cult is left out of the explicit instruction, the concentration of many "outsiders" on the "weirdness" of the faith is enough to invoke the question implicitly.
So let's take this and the next bunch of posts to have a serious discussion and inquiry into the biases and consequences of the recent media representation from PBS called The Mormons which purports to hold a balanced discussion of the doctrines and history of the Church.
Right off the bat, in their prologue I note the following:
1. The church embraced polygamy. What does embrace mean? Is it too apologetic of me to note that a very small percentage (I've read as low as 3%) of the membership ever contracted a "plural marriage". Those 3% of members were almost exclusively leaders. You may rightly point to that as more evidence of how abusive the system may have been to those of lesser authority and to women in particular, however, if you were to entertain a more balanced suspension of bias against authority figures, you might allow the same fact more as evidence that only those that could handle greater responsibilities and could bring larger families into a fruitful, beneficial harmony for the individuals involved ever participated. In any case, it rather distorts the picture to claim that the church embraced polygamy in that sense. Maybe PBS just meant the church embraced the doctrine of polygamy. Again, that hardly represents a balanced picture of the facts. Even Joseph Smith, who claims to have received the revelation authorizing the practice of polygamy and who eventually had plural wives himself, is recorded as having "sat" on the revelation for many years. I think it would be accurate to claim that the church accepted the doctrine, and the practice, but it is not easily imaginable that the common members, especially the women, embraced, encouraged, or otherwise even felt sympathetically toward polygamy for themselves. In every human society I know of where polygamy is practiced there are attendant problems, and frequent abuses of power and privilege. But even in black Africa where the tradition makes it fairly common, the numbers of women who actually seek polygamous relationships are predictably low, and the numbers of men seeking them are not a whole lot higher. For the record, I am personally wholly against the practice, and am glad the for the application of the doctrine to be well gone for over a century now. It is unquestionable, however, that the practice was historically validated in the Old Testament, and therefore I will not apologize for a belief that polygamy was at one time commanded by God, and therefore is based on true doctrine in some way. I have not yet fully grappled with the subject in my mind enough to comment further upon what about it is true and right. Maybe in another post...
2. Joseph Smith is the alpha and omega of the religion. I can certainly understand an outsider, or "non-member" explaining the story of the religion as being founded by Joseph Smith. For those who truly want to understand the religion, insiders have an immense respect for the man, believe him to have been a Prophet along the lines of Moses, Elijah, Isaiah, etc. (although comparisons to Mohammed are a little unfair in the key and central point of the doctrine of the divinity of Christ), but NOT as the founder of the religion. Christ is the founder of the religion of Christianity, and Christians understand the history of the religion to have taught the same doctrines from the first man. Mormon doctrine holds the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to be the restoration of the true Church of Jesus Christ which had been lost during a long period of apostasy. In that sense, Joseph Smith is no more a founder of the Church than Isaac Newton was the founder of gravity. However, I do understand how a secularized version of the facts (leaving no room for beliefs internal to the belief system) might conceive of Smith as a founder. Even then, I find the highly meaning-charged, evocative, and sacred name of the Beloved of the Most High, even our Redeemer the "Alpha and Omega" Himself, being applied to this mere mortal, esteemed as he may be, to be offensive and insidious in its application. You'll correct me if I'm reading too much into this, but I can hardly restrain the cynical part of me that sees this as a deliberate obfuscation of Mormon attitudes toward their own prophet to those who are unaware of those attitudes, and an equally deliberate but even more pernicious attempt to stoke the righteous indignation of those who would recognize this misapplication of the title of the Savoir to a man as blasphemous. It's insidious because if Mormons really did apply that title others would be completely right to see blasphemy in it. We don't. We worship Christ as the Alpha and Omega, and don't worship Joseph Smith at all.
3. A descendant of Brigham Young (with apparently no other authority to speak as an expert on the role of early church leaders such as Joseph Smith and Brigham Young or on others' attitudes towards them) depicts early church leaders as being interesting because they didn't do things "by the book". Of course it would be ignorance to claim that Joseph Smith did things according to the conventions of the times. However, I've always had a problem with this common mis-characterization of mainstream anything as uninteresting and non-noteworthy. The question should be less are they playing by the book and more whose book are they playing by. He may not have played by the rules of the common (often contradictory) interpretations of the Bible, for example, but Joseph Smith did play by the rules of God's book. Even those of you on the outside reading this can admit that truth if you expand your definition of God's book to include the rules Smith claimed to have received as revelations from Him. At least he was consistent with himself. This isn't a huge beef with the program per se, but rather a nagging issue I have seen come up again and again. People who go by the book most certainly do make history, and the important kind at that--they raise their children right!
I'm a white anglo-saxon protestant heterosexual male.
This is how I might identify myself if I believed in the categories all those adjectives represent as if they were prescriptive. I guess as a description, they're as accurate as anything, but one of them is entirely debatable: protestant. The point is that I feel a group solidarity with Christians, and more specifically with non-Catholics. My affiliation with the larger group of Christian as well as my distanciation from the sub-group Catholic is entirely doctrinally based--I have no biases against any given Christian sect other than the disagreements I have with them based on their interpretation of Scripture and the key doctrines found therein.
However, I'm also Mormon. Born and raised. Oh yeah, I had a period of "inactivity" in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but curiously that never included a serious doubt as to truths I knew I was rebelling against. Does that mean I'm the unquestioning robot minion of a sordid cult? Apparently to some: Frank Pastore from conservative Christian Townhall.com as one case in point. Frank's logical fallacies are almost too numerous to mention. But after disclaimers and denials of bigotry they mostly stem from the following single assertion:
"Most Christians and many Mormons do not know Mormon theology"
He then proceeds to cite notoriously hostile witnesses to prove his highly un-rigorous thesis that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (yes, and why NOT use the name they choose for themselves, long as it may be) is not a Christian religion, but rather a "cult of Christianity".
Did anyone note that I claimed never to have had a serious doubt about Gospel doctrines as taught in that church? I'm sure there are cultural Mormons out there who really are ignorant about beliefs they ignorantly defend. But in my case, I get the sense Frank Pastore would reject my understanding by seizing on the semantic slippage in the loaded religious term "doubt" and totally missing the meaning of "doubt" as not excluding the healthy skeptical critical thought that must accompany growth in knowledge. Making Mormons out to be unreflecting automatons is really just a way to comfort oneself or refuse to admit to oneself that one has shut down one's natural curiosity and willingness to cooperate in communication. Frank Pastore has quite obviously not seriously entertained the notion that there may be some integrity to the truths Mormons profess to be true. I'd even be perfectly fine with him not agreeing with some points. But to attempt to discredit the group itself for its doctrines without a bona fide investigation of those doctrines is nothing less than intellectual dishonesty.
Just because I never actively refused to believe the principles taught by my denomination, doesn't mean I blindly accept anything. I arrived at the beliefs I have by strictly scientific processes of factual and spiritual knowledge growth. And Frank can too. In fact I invite him to! (Although I doubt he'll read this invitation) In fact, I'm convinced that blind acceptance is not even desirable by God. Oh, of course there are situations where you just need to trust Him first, then you'll find out later, but I'm convinced that He does want us to find out sooner or later what His will is and why.
But that's for another post...
The central question in this post is how someone so much a part of every key identificatory indicator of "mainstream" as I am can feel such a great solidarity with that mainstream culture, and yet be so frequently targeted for rejection and marginalization by that cultural group. The label of cult is particularly egregious since it implies a top-down conspiracy to exploit massive amounts of otherwise innocent and harmless ignorants for nefarious purposes, and conjures the image of a prototypical charlatan of immense charismatic power as the leader. Anyone acquainted with leaders of the Church would find such a description ludicrous. Charismatic maybe, but exploitative? How? To what end? It's just plain illogical based on the evidence of their behavior ("By their fruits ye shall know them," Frank).
But even when the question of whether or not the Church is a cult is left out of the explicit instruction, the concentration of many "outsiders" on the "weirdness" of the faith is enough to invoke the question implicitly.
So let's take this and the next bunch of posts to have a serious discussion and inquiry into the biases and consequences of the recent media representation from PBS called The Mormons which purports to hold a balanced discussion of the doctrines and history of the Church.
Right off the bat, in their prologue I note the following:
1. The church embraced polygamy. What does embrace mean? Is it too apologetic of me to note that a very small percentage (I've read as low as 3%) of the membership ever contracted a "plural marriage". Those 3% of members were almost exclusively leaders. You may rightly point to that as more evidence of how abusive the system may have been to those of lesser authority and to women in particular, however, if you were to entertain a more balanced suspension of bias against authority figures, you might allow the same fact more as evidence that only those that could handle greater responsibilities and could bring larger families into a fruitful, beneficial harmony for the individuals involved ever participated. In any case, it rather distorts the picture to claim that the church embraced polygamy in that sense. Maybe PBS just meant the church embraced the doctrine of polygamy. Again, that hardly represents a balanced picture of the facts. Even Joseph Smith, who claims to have received the revelation authorizing the practice of polygamy and who eventually had plural wives himself, is recorded as having "sat" on the revelation for many years. I think it would be accurate to claim that the church accepted the doctrine, and the practice, but it is not easily imaginable that the common members, especially the women, embraced, encouraged, or otherwise even felt sympathetically toward polygamy for themselves. In every human society I know of where polygamy is practiced there are attendant problems, and frequent abuses of power and privilege. But even in black Africa where the tradition makes it fairly common, the numbers of women who actually seek polygamous relationships are predictably low, and the numbers of men seeking them are not a whole lot higher. For the record, I am personally wholly against the practice, and am glad the for the application of the doctrine to be well gone for over a century now. It is unquestionable, however, that the practice was historically validated in the Old Testament, and therefore I will not apologize for a belief that polygamy was at one time commanded by God, and therefore is based on true doctrine in some way. I have not yet fully grappled with the subject in my mind enough to comment further upon what about it is true and right. Maybe in another post...
2. Joseph Smith is the alpha and omega of the religion. I can certainly understand an outsider, or "non-member" explaining the story of the religion as being founded by Joseph Smith. For those who truly want to understand the religion, insiders have an immense respect for the man, believe him to have been a Prophet along the lines of Moses, Elijah, Isaiah, etc. (although comparisons to Mohammed are a little unfair in the key and central point of the doctrine of the divinity of Christ), but NOT as the founder of the religion. Christ is the founder of the religion of Christianity, and Christians understand the history of the religion to have taught the same doctrines from the first man. Mormon doctrine holds the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to be the restoration of the true Church of Jesus Christ which had been lost during a long period of apostasy. In that sense, Joseph Smith is no more a founder of the Church than Isaac Newton was the founder of gravity. However, I do understand how a secularized version of the facts (leaving no room for beliefs internal to the belief system) might conceive of Smith as a founder. Even then, I find the highly meaning-charged, evocative, and sacred name of the Beloved of the Most High, even our Redeemer the "Alpha and Omega" Himself, being applied to this mere mortal, esteemed as he may be, to be offensive and insidious in its application. You'll correct me if I'm reading too much into this, but I can hardly restrain the cynical part of me that sees this as a deliberate obfuscation of Mormon attitudes toward their own prophet to those who are unaware of those attitudes, and an equally deliberate but even more pernicious attempt to stoke the righteous indignation of those who would recognize this misapplication of the title of the Savoir to a man as blasphemous. It's insidious because if Mormons really did apply that title others would be completely right to see blasphemy in it. We don't. We worship Christ as the Alpha and Omega, and don't worship Joseph Smith at all.
3. A descendant of Brigham Young (with apparently no other authority to speak as an expert on the role of early church leaders such as Joseph Smith and Brigham Young or on others' attitudes towards them) depicts early church leaders as being interesting because they didn't do things "by the book". Of course it would be ignorance to claim that Joseph Smith did things according to the conventions of the times. However, I've always had a problem with this common mis-characterization of mainstream anything as uninteresting and non-noteworthy. The question should be less are they playing by the book and more whose book are they playing by. He may not have played by the rules of the common (often contradictory) interpretations of the Bible, for example, but Joseph Smith did play by the rules of God's book. Even those of you on the outside reading this can admit that truth if you expand your definition of God's book to include the rules Smith claimed to have received as revelations from Him. At least he was consistent with himself. This isn't a huge beef with the program per se, but rather a nagging issue I have seen come up again and again. People who go by the book most certainly do make history, and the important kind at that--they raise their children right!
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