Month: March 2016

On the Inevitability of Worship

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This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey.

I was very struck by Elder Bruce R. McConkie’s statement in How to Worship that “[God] has planted in our hearts an instinctive desire to worship, to seek salvation, to love and server a power or being greater than ourselves.” I imagine it’s a claim that would strike many as controversial, but it brought to mind quotes about the role of the sacred in the lives of atheists and agnostics.

First, there’s Jonathan Haidt (an atheist) citing Mircea Eliade’s concept of “crypto-religious” behavior in The Happiness Hypothesis. The argument is that secularists have

privileged places, qualitatively different from all others — a man’s birthplace, or the scenes of his first love, or certain places in the first foreign city he visited in his youth. Even for the most frankly nonreligious man, all these places still retain an exceptional, a unique quality; they are the “holy places” of his private universe, as if it were in such spots that he had received the revelation of a reality other than that in which he participates through his ordinary daily life.[ref]The Happiness Hypothesis, page 193[/ref]

According to Haidt, Eliade captured his feelings perfectly: “Even atheists have intimations of sacredness, particularly when in love or in nature.”[ref]The Happiness Hypothesis, page 193.[/ref]

Haidt and Eliade are from alone in making this observation. The Bonobo and the Atheist, Frans de Waal (also an atheist), describes how science can function as a religious pursuit:

Instead of turning to religion, the majority of us are agnostic or atheist. This shouldn’t be taken to mean that science answers questions of meaning and purpose, however. Even the scientists who recently confirmed the “God particle” knew that it was a far cry from confirming why we are on earth and even less whether or not God exists. No, the big difference for scientists is that the thirst for knowledge itself, the lifeblood of our profession, fills a spiritual void by religion in most other people. Like treasure hunters for whom the hunt is about as important as the treasurer itself, we feel great purpose in trying to pierce the veil of ignorance. We feel united in this effort, being part of a worldwide network. This means that we also enjoyed this other aspects of religion: a community of white-minded people. At a recent workshop, a retired astronomer teared up while discussing humanities place in the cosmos. He stopped talking for two minutes, causing his audience to become restless, before explaining that he had pursued this question since childhood. The site of images from billions of light-years ago still overwhelms him, making him realize how much we are connected with the universe. He wouldn’t call it a religious experience, but it sounded very much like it.[ref]The Bonobo and the Atheist, page 106[/ref]

If, as Eliade, Haidt, and Gleiser agree, there is a tendency towards the spiritual in all of us, then Elder McConkie’s second statement is also true:

The issue is not whether men shall worship, but who or what is to be the object of their devotions and how they shall go about paying the devotions to their chosen Most High.

Elder McConkie speaks fairly sternly about worshiping the wrong gods, and maybe a little too sternly. He says,

If a man worships a cow or a crocodile, he can gain any reward that cows and crocodiles happen to be passing out this season.

And also:

If he worships the laws of the universe or the forces of nature, no doubt the earth will continue to spin, the sun to shine, and the rains to fall on the just and on the unjust.

By contrast, however,

But if he worships the true and living God, in spirit and in truth, then God Almighty will pour out his Spirit upon him, and he will have power to raise the dead, move mountains, entertain angels, and walk in celestial streets.

I don’t disagree. I just think John Locke may add some perspective as well: “I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts.” In other words, what we really believe–and what we really worship–is not so much about names or beliefs as it is about action. Which is exactly what Elder McConkie goes on to articulate with his extensive–and vitally important–list of worship examples.

To the extent that we know love, we also know an aspect of God. To the extent that we act on that love, we worship Him. And this is true, even if we do not mean to do so. It’s not about the words you say. It’s about the life you live.

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.[ref]Matthew 7:21[/ref]

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Check out the other posts from the General Conference Odyssey this week and join our Facebook group to follow along!

Emulating the Great Exemplar

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This is part of the General Conference Odyssey.

In his book Born Believers, cognitive scientist Justin Barrett posits a cross-culturally developed natural religion. This natural predisposition should not be confused with theology, the latter being adaptive to culture according to Barrett. Natural religion is developed in the early stages of life and consists of several basic assumptions:[ref]See Barrett, Born Believers: The Science of Children’s Religious Belief (New York: Free Press, 2012), 137-138.[/ref]

  • Superhuman beings exist.
  • The natural world displays intentional design and purpose.
  • Superhuman beings possess superknowledge.
  • Superhuman beings are invisible or immortal, but within space and time.
  • Superhuman beings have character, good or bad.
  • Superhuman beings have free will and can interact with people.
  • Moral norms exist and are unchangeable.
  • Life after death.

Author Michael Shermer has referred to these predispositions patternicity and agenticity. He defines patternicity as “the tendency to find meaningful patterns in meaningless noise,” while agenticity is “the tendency to believe that the world is controlled by invisible intentional agents.” Shermer concludes, “We are natural-born supernaturalists.”[ref]See his book length treatment The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies–How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths (New York: Times Books, 2011).[/ref]

I was reminded of this while reading Bruce R. McConkie’s talk in the October 1971 General Conference. According to McConkie, God “has planted in our hearts an instinctive desire to worship, to seek salvation, to love and serve a power or being greater than ourselves. Worship is implicit in existence itself. The issue is not whether men shall worship, but who or what is to be the object of their devotions and how they shall go about paying their devotions to their chosen Most High…Thus our purpose is to worship the true and living God and to do it by the power of the Spirit and in the way he has ordained. The approved worship of the true God leads to salvation; devotions rendered to false gods and which are not founded on eternal truth carry no such assurance.”

While McConkie’s harsh tone regarding pretty much every other concept of God besides that found in Mormonism is grating, I think he saves it by getting to the title of his talk: “[T]rue and perfect worship consists in following in the steps of the Son of God; it consists in keeping the commandments and obeying the will of the Father to that degree that we advance from grace to grace until we are glorified in Christ as he is in his Father. It is far more than prayer and sermon and song. It is living and doing and obeying. It is emulating the life of the great Exemplar” (italics mine).

This emulation consists of preaching the kingdom of God, healing the sick. We are to “walk in the light,” “rise above carnal things…bridle our passions, and…overcome the world. It is to pay our tithes and offerings, to act as wise stewards in caring for those things which have been entrusted to our care, and to use our talents and means for the spreading of truth and the building up of his kingdom…To worship the Lord is to visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction and to keep ourselves unspotted from the world. It is to work on a welfare project, to administer to the sick, to go on a mission, to go home teaching, and to hold family home evening. To worship the Lord is to study the gospel, to treasure up light and truth, to ponder in our hearts the things of his kingdom, and to make them part of our lives.”

And much more.

He concludes, “True and perfect worship is in fact the supreme labor and purpose of man. God grant that we may write in our souls with a pen of fire the command of the Lord Jesus: “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve” (Luke 4:8); and may we in fact and with living reality worship the Father in spirit and in truth, thereby gaining peace in this life and eternal life in the world to come.”

McConkie has a tendency toward authoritarianism. However, this talk doesn’t really focus on obedience to authority or obedience for the sake of obedience. And though I have a slight aversion to lists, this strikes me more as a hearty display of Christian living. It is where our natural developments for supernatural belief and group association and cultural and religious instruction meet and come to full fruition. It’s where the rubber meets the road. McConkie’s talk is ultimately an exhortation to roll up our sleeves and get to work. There’s lots to be done.

And I totally dig it.