Religion

“Things Won Are Done; Joy’s Soul Lies In Doing”

by

This is part of the General Conference Odyssey.

In The Happiness Hypothesis, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt writes,

Richard Davidson, the psychologist who brought us affective style and the approach circuits of the front left cortex, writes about two types of positive affect. The first he calls “pre-goal attainment positive affect,” which is the pleasurable feeling you get as you make progress toward a goal. The second is called “post-goal attainment positive affect,” which Davidson says arises once you have achieved something you want. You experience this latter feeling as contentment, as a short-lived feeling of release when the left prefrontal cortex reduces its activity after a goal has been achieved. In other words, when it comes to goal pursuit, it really is the journey that counts, not the destination. Set for yourself any goal you want. Most of the pleasure will be had along the way, with every step that takes you closer. Th e final moment of success is often no more thrilling than the relief of taking off a heavy backpack at the end of a long hike. If you went on the hike only to feel that pleasure, you are a fool. People sometimes do just this. They work hard at a task and expect some special euphoria at the end. But when they achieve success and find only moderate and short-lived pleasure, they ask (as the singer Peggy Lee once did): Is that all there is? They devalue their accomplishments as a striving after wind. We can call this “the progress principle”: Pleasure comes more from making progress toward goals than from achieving them. Shakespeare captured it perfectly: “Things won are done; joy’s soul lies in the doing” (pgs. 83-84).

I was reminded of this while reading John H. Vandenberg’s October 1972 talk. In it he explains that the Church “extends the invitation to all who so desire to partake of the power of the gospel, which will lift an individual out of oblivion and, in so doing, will give a feeling of satisfaction and happiness not to be found elsewhere. It provides the sources of control for self-improvement, a stable character, and a truly successful life.” In Vandenberg’s eyes, the gospel is about–to borrow Haidt’s term–progress: “It is highly doubtful that there is even one soul upon the earth, regardless of station or age, who does not have ample room for personal growth and improvement. Quoting the words of one of the Lord’s prophets: “If we are no better tomorrow than we are today, we are not very useful.” (David O. McKay, Pathways to Happiness [Bookcraft, 1957], p. 292.)” This fits with Joseph Smith’s original vision of the divine:

Being versus Becoming, Process versus Perfection, Creation, Time, and Eternity…The Great Chain of Being–unchallenged paradigm of a static, orderly, and harmonious universe–was buried beneath the emergent model of chaos, flux, radical transformation, and conflict…If there was one prevailing sense in which Joseph Smith was a child of his age, it was in the avidity with which he reflected this dynamic, fundamentally Romantic view of the world, an orientation that suffused his cosmology, his human anthropology, and even his doctrine of deity.[ref]Terryl Givens, Wrestling the Angel, 52.[/ref]

For Vandenberg, the concept of repentance is “the very essence of change; it embodies the powerful principle of obedience to God’s law and discipline of self. When applied to our lives, it provides a cleansing joy which surges through us.” This doesn’t say, “And when you finally get to the end, you’ll feel joy.” But the constant state of improvement–of “small wins“–brings happiness:

In these principles we find the unfailing power to change. As to the effective use of our leisure time, we have, in the gospel, unnumbered opportunities. As one acquires knowledge of the gospel principles and pursues his course, he can successfully apply those principles to his individual circumstances, whether his position be one of great or meager possessions; whether it be early in life, during his economic production period, or in retirement. The gospel is meant to temper life and to bring it into true balance and fruition…The individual power is attested to in this scripture: “Verily I say, men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness; For the power is in them, wherein they are agents unto themselves. And inasmuch as men do good they shall in nowise lose their reward.” (D&C 58:27–28.)

Mormons need to remember that it’s about the journey: not the achievement of some static perfection.

“Peace Be Unto You”

by

This is part of the General Conference Odyssey.

I’ve been slowly working through a couple books on scripture, theology, and peace with the hope that the insights gleaned from them will blossom into a future publication. One book focuses on the New Testament, while the other relies specifically on Mormon scripture and tradition: Covenant of Peace: The Missing Peace in New Testament Theology and Ethics and War & Peace in Our Time: Mormon Perspectives. New Testament scholar and Covenant of Peace author Willard Swartley argues that the themes of kingdom of God, gospel, and peace are interwoven throughout the New Testament. In summary, he finds:

  1. The over-arching emphasis of Scripture presents God as Peacemaker who is also the Divine Warrior fighting against evil to establish and maintain peace and justice. God’s people are called to trust in God for the divine victory, and are not to take vengeance and judgment into their own hands…

  2. Jesus comes as divine warrior to overcome and defeat the powers of evil…Exorcisms and healings play a major role in his ministry, to announce the breaking in of God’s reign.

  3. In Jesus’ combat against and the victory over evil, his disciples are called not to fear, but to believe, have faith…

  4. Jesus refuses easy identification with Jewish expectations of the Messiah (Mark 8:29-33) because those hopes violated God’s way for the victory to be won. Jesus denounces the domination system with its redeemer myth that lives by violence. Instead, Jesus identifies himself with the Danielic “Son of humanity” and indirectly with the Isaiah “servant” traditions, in which victory comes through suffering. Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem on a donkey shows him as king of peace, based on humility and trust in God.

  5. Jesus includes “the enemy” in his circle of ministry: the marginalized Jews, the Samaritans, and the Gentiles. This incarnates his teaching: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.” Love of the enemy and nonretaliation are cardinal teachings of the gospel. So also is confrontation of and expulsion of demonic spirits–God’s kingdom against Satan’s kingdom…

  6. Luke provides us with twin themes in his travel narrative in which peace and justice are Jesus’ gifts through his ministry, on the one hand, and presuppose, on the other, this onslaught against and victory over Satan and the demonic powers…

  7. The Pauline teaching on the powers is a gospel proclamation of the theological meaning of Jesus’ ministry…[Walter] Wink is correct that the method of Christ’s defeat of the powers is the nonviolence of the cross…[ref]Willard M. Swartley, Covenant of Peace: The Missing Peace in New Testament Theology and Ethics (Grand Rapid: Eerdmans, 2006), 51-52.[/ref]

     

In his essay “A Non-Violent Reading of the Book of Mormon,” Joshua Madson writes,

A rough outline of the Book of Mormon history would consist of the following acts: (1) Creation of Lehites, (2) Fall of Lehites and their division, (3) Nephite and Lamanite conflict, (4) Jesus and Zion, (5) Apocalypse. These acts form parts of a larger narrative–and although there are “multiple smaller narratives, some of them pulling this way and that within the larger one, sometimes even seemingly in opposite directions” within this grand narrative, this is to be expected and only a problem if we shrink the grand narrative from its full implications. Therefore, justifications for violence taken from teachings and actions in the third act of the Book of Mormon should not trump the corrective teachings of Jesus in Act 4 and the results of continuing to live as if he never came in Act 5. It is not to Captain Moroni, for example, that we should look for our views on war but to the larger narrative and subsequent acts, especially as they resolve or explain the problem of violence…When read in this manner, the Book of Mormon presents a strong critique of violence as a solution to conflict. It presents us with a thousand-year case study and addresses the question: how should we respond to our enemies? Ultimately it presents us with two options: we can either imitate Christ in loving our enemies and seek at-one-ment with them, or we can resort to violence, which leads to individual and communal annihilation.[ref]Madson, “A Non-Violent Reading of the Book of Mormon,” in War & Peace in Our Time: Mormon Perspectives, ed. Patrick Q. Mason, J. David Pulsipher, Richard L. Bushman (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2012), 15-16.[/ref]

I was reminded of these books when I read the talks by Eldred G. Smith and John H. Vandenberg in the April 1972 Conference. Mining through several quotations of Jesus, Elder Smith states,

How is it that we have not discovered the secret of peace when we have been looking for it all through the ages? I’ll tell you. We are looking for someone to create it for us—to bring it to us. Edna St. Vincent Millay said: “There is no peace on earth today, save the peace in the heart at home with God. … No man can be at peace with his neighbor who is not at peace with himself. …” (“Conversations at Midnight,” Collected Poems, Harper & Row, Copyright 1937 and 1964.)

Have you experienced that peace within you because you helped your neighbor rake his lawn or mow his lawn? Have you felt that peace within because you helped your neighbor pick his fruit or harvest his crops? Have you witnessed that peace within because you shoveled the snow off your neighbor’s walks? Have you felt that peace which came because you helped someone solve a problem and get a new lease on life? Have you “cheered up the sad, and made someone feel glad”?

His point?:

A key to peace, then, is service. Christ said: “But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant.” (Matt. 23:11.)…The Lord has said: “For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.” (Moses 1:39.) Is this not the ultimate of service? To become as God is, then, we must eliminate enmity, greed, and selfishness, and all our efforts must be in service to others. The Lord said: “… he who doeth the works of righteousness shall receive his reward, even peace in this world, and eternal life in the world to come.” (D&C 59:23.)

He concludes:

If each person would have peace within his soul, then there would be peace in the family. If there is peace in each family, then there is peace in the nation. If there is peace in the nations, there is peace in the world. Let us not just sing, “Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me,” but let us mean it. Make it my goal—your goal. When the Savior comes again—and he will come—he will bring peace only as we will accept and follow his teachings of service to others and eliminate enmity and unrighteousness…His kingdom is already here on earth and is growing rapidly to prepare for his coming. Yes, he shall surely come and bring peace to the earth, but only as we are willing to follow his teachings. This is his work, and his kingdom, which is the only way to world peace and eternal peace.

Elder Vandenberg in turn teaches that “paths of avarice, ambition, envy, anger, and pride” lead us away from peace. “Surely the greatest enemy of peace is selfishness and with it the desire to pile up treasures on earth.” Sadly, “an encyclopedia shows that during the period from 1496 B.C. to A.D. 1861 there were 227 years of peace compared with 3,130 years of war. Ambition, either privately or collectively, gives little hope for the achievement of peace.” Yet, Vandenberg has little faith in achieving peace by “making a sign or by writing words on fences. It must come first and most completely to the individual through his own efforts in keeping the commandments of our Lord and Savior, for God made all men to enjoy such peace.” Drawing on 4 Nephi (part of Act 4 mentioned above), he finds that “there is no quicker way to enjoy inner peace than by serving one another.” The Nephite Zion society was “a marvelous period of time when this peace did indeed banish avarice, ambition, envy, anger, and pride from men’s hearts.”

Peace begins with us. And it comes from imitating Christ.

Other Noteworthy Quotes & Insights

Bernard P. Brockbank:

Knowing God does not solve life’s problems, but gives purpose and strength to master them. Jesus, with his knowledge of his Heavenly Father, still had his problems to meet and to work out.

Sterling W. Sill:

He recognizes the importance of reading and intellectual stimulation:

Over the door of the library in the ancient city of Thebes, an Egyptian king once carved an inscription that said: “Medicine for the Soul.” Like all thoughtful people, this wise ruler understood that if the mental, spiritual, and emotional health of his people was to be properly cared for, it must be constantly nourished. And because ideas, ideals, and ambitions can be most effectively supplied through books, this great king had provided an ample literary storehouse as a place where his people could get the necessary help for thinking good ideas, building up proper attitudes, vitalizing their faith, motivating their ambitions, and increasing their righteousness, that they might help themselves to save their souls…One of the most effective cures for all of our present-day problems is found in the literary remedy that comes from thinking uplifting thoughts and living the great principles of the gospel. The science of writing has probably made books our greatest invention. Writing is preserved speech; it is potential ambition. By effective study we can acquire knowledge, build faith, and develop an enthusiasm that will lead us to any desired accomplishment…Someone has pointed out that books are among life’s most precious possessions. They are the most remarkable creation of man. Nothing else that man builds ever lasts. Monuments fall, civilizations perish, but books continue. The perusal of a great book is as it were an interview with the noblest men of past ages who have written it.

Of course, this includes the scriptures:

Our present state of malnutrition is not because of any famine for bread nor a thirst for water, but it is for the hearing and the obeying of the word of the Lord. That is, our many soul-deaths do not occur because a remedy is not available; it is only because we are failing to take that medicine which has already been provided and has already proven its effectiveness…Our present most urgent needs are that we should read more and understand more and think more and do more and be more and live more. Jesus emphasized his own mission by saying, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10.) We must not allow the holy scriptures to sit on our shelves unopened while we continue to starve to death spiritually because we fail to practice those great success laws on which the eternal exaltation of our souls depends.

The Peace of Knowing God

by

Peaceful Farm

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey.

With our 21st week of posting, we’ve come to the end of our third General Conference. Which means we have approximately 700 more weeks to go. We didn’t call it the General Conference Odyssey for nothing!

The Sunday afternoon session of the April 1972 General Conference further solidified my impression that the Sunday sessions are where it’s at. This session had some pretty consistent themes as well, with talks like Peace and Whence Cometh Our Peace? along with Knowing God.

In his talk (Peace), Elder Eldred G. Smith asked, “How is it that we have not discovered the secret of peace when we have been looking for it all through the ages?” And then he answered: “I’ll tell you. We are looking for someone to create it for us—to bring it to us.” We can’t just receive peace. We have to make peace. How? Elder Smith makes one practical suggestion: “Peace… comes from service.” In a time of virtual activism—banging at keyboards for justice—this is a more timely reminder than ever.[ref]They don’t call it “slacktivism” for nothing.[/ref]

Then, in Elder John H. Vandenberg’s talk (Whence Cometh Our Peace?), there is this simple but important observation: “Just as running madly after worldly things does not bring peace, neither does sitting idly by.” The peace we seek as Mormons is not a peace of enlightened contemplation, but of active engagement. Of work.[ref]That’s something Walker will like.[/ref]

And then, tying the two together, is Elder Bernard P. Braockbank’s talk: Knowing God, who said, “Many believe that there is a God, many say that they know there is a God, but many do not act like they know God.” He put the emphasis on “know,” saying: “There is a great difference in believing or knowing that there is a God and in knowing God.”  But I am also struck by the transition from the first two statements using the verbs “believe” and know” and the last one, using the verb “act.” There is something about knowing God that ties it inseparably to behavior.

I don’t invest a huge amount of time in trying to formalize my theology, but I do have the belief that all truths are part of one great whole and the hope that one day I will see it. Things we thought were different will turn out to be intimately connected. One such pair consists of love and understanding, which Mormons intuitively believe are intertwined. (No one wrote about this more eloquently than Orson Scott Card.) Another may turn out to be belief and action. It’s possible that true belief in goodness requires us, over time, to be good. The affinity for light and truth in our heart and mind, combined with a sense of integrity, mean that eventually we must seek to bring our own actions into conformity with that light and with that truth.

I’m not sure. As I said: I don’t put a lot of stock in my own theological innovations or speculations. But I catch glimpses now and then of a leviathan just beneath the surface, a vast and intimate construct, that make me happy and optimistic about the destination that lies at the end of the road of discipleship.

—

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

The Bonobo and the Atheist: An Interview with Frans de Waal

by

This is part of the DR Book Collection.

I was at the zoo recently with my wife, my sister-in-law, her husband, and their baby. As we looked at the bonobos and observed their eerily human behavior, I made the comment that I needed to read primatologist Frans de Waal’s book The Bonobo and the Atheist: In Search of Humanism Among the Primates. Morality, de Waal argues, is bottom-up. Behaviors we label as “moral”–such as empathy or fairness–are grounded in our evolutionary development. Morality arises from the emotions and social rules that can be found in other primates. The book made Nathaniel’s best of 2015 list. And I happen to agree with one of his criticisms:

Merely because you can show how a thing arises through evolution doesn’t get you out of this problem. You could explain how humans came to have the ability to reason objectively, but that wouldn’t mean that logic and math were suddenly subjective. It would just prove that somehow evolution managed to get us in touch with non-contingent, objective reason. Same idea here: you can explain how humans came to behave morally or even to understand and think about morality, but it’s a colossal mistake to think that, in so doing, you have proved that morality is “constructed” or in any way subjective any more than reason or logic are. (For fun: let someone try to reason you out of the position that reason is objective. See how that works? It’s a non-starter.)

Even if the philosophy is lacking, the science is fascinating. You can see a Big Think interview with de Waal below.

The Most Decisive Time is Always Now

by

God Who Weeps Cover - Smaller

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey.

This was a great session, and right off the bat I was struck by this statement in President Harold B. Lee’s A Time of Decision:

I believe it is an illusion to say that this is the most critical, decisive time. Write it upon the hearts of all of us that every dispensation has been just as decisive, and likewise that every year has been the most decisive year and time for ourselves, for this nation, and for the world. This is our day and time when honorable men must be brought forward to meet the tremendous challenges before us.

I pulled a few more quotes from that talk that almost make a mini-talk of their own:

There has ever been, and ever will be, a conflict between the forces of truth and error; between the forces of righteousness and the forces of evil; between the dominion of Satan and the dominion under the banner of our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ… The greatest weapons that can be forged against any false philosophy are the positive teachings of the gospel of Jesus Christ… The great danger in any society is apathy and a failure to be alert to the issues of the day, when applied to principles or to the election of public officials.

I was especially interested that apathy–as opposed to something like overt sinfulness–was the “greatest danger in any society,” second only to ignorance (and possibly because it leads to ignorance of “the issues of the day.”) I am guessing that, if President Lee were to assess the landscape of our own culture–he would add distraction to go alongside apathy.

There were some parts from Elder Marion D. Hanks’ talk (Joy Through Christ) that also really stuck out to me (both quotations from others):

“God exists in the world. He exists wherever men let him in. Perhaps it is only humble men, men in search of him, men with a great need for him, who really let him in. And God comes to such men not only because of their great need for him, but also because of his great need for them as his allies in the divine task of creating a better world, a better human society, a real kingdom of God.” (P. A. Christensen.)

“You know always in your heart that you need God more than anything else. But do you not know too that God needs you … in the fullness of His eternity He needs you?” (Martin Buber)

These comments emphasize something worth explaining in a little more detail. Up until the 19th century–when the Restoration took place–one of the core tenets of Christianity was the idea that God is impassable. What that means is that He cannot be affected by humans. Nothing we do can impact Him. Accordingly, He would not care when we suffer, and even mercy would be a question of the action of mercy rather than the feeling of compassion. Today, Christianity has more or less completely rejected this tenet, but it was the default for more than 1,000 years.

This doctrine–the idea of a perfectly remote, unempathic God–was one of the first wrongs to be set right during the Restoration. First, there was the Parable of the Vineyard in the Book of Mormon, in which “the Lord of the vineyard wept, and said unto the servant: What could I have done more for my vineyard?” Later, of course, came the story of Enoch’s witness of God’s tears: “The God of heaven looked upon the residue of the people, and he wept; and Enoch bore record of it, saying: How is it that the heavens weep, and shed forth their tears as the rain upon the mountains?”

Since then, the idea has become so common place that people do not realize how strange and how revolutionary the truths restored through Joseph Smith were. When we consider the implications carefully, however, when we think that there is a Heavenly Father who cares about us and our lives, the implications are still profound.

—

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

You Are Not Special

by

This is part of the General Conference Odyssey.

You are not special.  You are not exceptional.

That is what high school teacher David McCullough, Jr. (son of the historian of the same name) told the Wellesley High graduating class of 2012. He continued:

Yes, you’ve been pampered, cosseted, doted upon, helmeted, bubble-wrapped.  Yes, capable adults with other things to do have held you, kissed you, fed you, wiped your mouth, wiped your bottom, trained you, taught you, tutored you, coached you, listened to you, counseled you, encouraged you, consoled you and encouraged you again.  You’ve been nudged, cajoled, wheedled and implored.  You’ve been feted and fawned over and called sweetie pie.  Yes, you have.  And, certainly, we’ve been to your games, your plays, your recitals, your science fairs.  Absolutely, smiles ignite when you walk into a room, and hundreds gasp with delight at your every tweet.  Why, maybe you’ve even had your picture in the Townsman!  And now you’ve conquered high school… and, indisputably, here we all have gathered for you, the pride and joy of this fine community, the first to emerge from that magnificent new building…

But do not get the idea you’re anything special.  Because you’re not.

The speech went viral and deservedly so. You can watch the whole speech below.

Now, consider the words of Harold B. Lee in the April 1972 General Conference:

This year is again a most important year of decision for our day. Some have even said that this is the most critical period in the history of this nation and of the world. I believe it is an illusion to say that this is the most critical, decisive time. 

That’s right: an illusion. To top it all off, this was in reference to the election year. Timely, especially since every U.S. election seems to be on the precipice of the Millennium in the American Mormon mind. But I think the illusion is broader than that. This goes to the heart of modern triumphalism and narcissism that gives rise to feelings of entitlement or ridiculous false doctrines like the youth today being generals in the war in heaven. Jesus’ apostles thought he was coming back in their lifetime. So did the early Mormons. And so do many today. This probably has less to do with religious devotion and more to do with–to borrow from McCullough–“our unspoken but not so subtle Darwinian competition with one another–which springs, I think, from our fear of our own insignificance, a subset of our dread of mortality…” We have to be the special generation.

Yet, Lee then makes the most incredible point:

Write it upon the hearts of all of us that every dispensation has been just as decisive, and likewise that every year has been the most decisive year and time for ourselves, for this nation, and for the world. This is our day and time when honorable men must be brought forward to meet the tremendous challenges before us (bold mine).

Why is this?:

Today we are constantly hearing from the unenlightened and misguided, who demand what they call free agency, by which they apparently mean, as evidenced by their conduct, that they have their agency to do as they please or to exercise their own self-will to determine what is law and order, what is right and wrong, or what is honor and virtue. These are frightening expressions when you reflect upon what I have just quoted from the revealed word of God. A moment’s reflection will help you to see that when one sets himself up to make his own rules and presumes to know no law but his own, he is but echoing the plan of Satan, who sought to ascend to God’s throne, as it were, in being the judge of all that rules mankind and the world.[ref]Several early Mormons and Church leaders interpreted the plan of Satan as one that did not force right action, but alleviated the consequences of all actions. See Terryl Givens, Wrestling the Angel: The Foundations of Mormon Thought: Cosmos, God, Humanity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), 130-135.[/ref]

Choices always have to be made. Morality always has to be shaped. And this comes through the nitty-gritty, the mundane, the everyday, the common. This comes through nurturing relationships and being present enough (i.e., not looking forward to the Millennium or looking back to compare post-Restoration generations to those of the supposed Dark Ages) to actually do something worthwhile. As McCullough explains,

The fulfilling life, the distinctive life, the relevant life, is an achievement, not something that will fall into your lap because you’re a nice person or mommy ordered it from the caterer…Now, before you dash off and get your YOLO tattoo, let me point out the illogic of that trendy little expression–because you can and should live not merely once, but every day of your life.  Rather than You Only Live Once, it should be You Live Only Once… but because YLOO doesn’t have the same ring, we shrug and decide it doesn’t matter.

None of this day-seizing, though, this YLOOing, should be interpreted as license for self-indulgence.  Like accolades ought to be, the fulfilled life is a consequence, a gratifying byproduct.  It’s what happens when you’re thinking about more important things.  Climb the mountain not to plant your flag, but to embrace the challenge, enjoy the air and behold the view.  Climb it so you can see the world, not so the world can see you.  Go to Paris to be in Paris, not to cross it off your list and congratulate yourself for being worldly.  Exercise free will and creative, independent thought not for the satisfactions they will bring you, but for the good they will do others, the rest of the 6.8 billion–and those who will follow them.  And then you too will discover the great and curious truth of the human experience is that selflessness is the best thing you can do for yourself.  The sweetest joys of life, then, come only with the recognition that you’re not special.

Because everyone is.

The Importance of Religious Literacy

by

In today’s political climate, I often hear some pretty ridiculous things about religion. From liberal atheists to Republican Presidential candidates (here’s looking at you Trump and Cruz), the ignorance abounds. The video below is an excellent reminder as to why religious literacy is important. Check it out.

Brigham Young: A Lecture by John G. Turner

by

This is part of the DR Book Collection.

In her review of Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet by GMU historian John G. Turner, Julie Smith writes,

I suspect that John G. Turner’s Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet will be the definitive biography of Brigham Young for the next few decades.  Overall, this is a good thing.

But it may also be a troubling thing, at least for some people. I wholeheartedly recommended the recent Joseph Smith, David O. McKay, and Spencer W. Kimball biographies to all members of the Church.  Sure, they are a little less sanitized than we are used to, but the picture in each one of those works is of a prophet of God who had some flaws, with far more emphasis on the “prophet” part than on the “flawed” part.

This book?  Not so much.  I have serious reservations about recommending it to the average church member; if you need your prophet to be larger than life, or even just better than the average bear, this book is not for you.  I think there is a substantial risk that people raised on hagiographic, presentist images of prophets would have their testimonies rocked, if not shattered, by this book.

…So, here’s the Readers’ Digest version of my review:  this book is a real treat, but it might completely destroy your testimony if you can’t handle a fallible, bawdy, often mistaken, sometimes mean, and generally weird prophet.

The book truly is incredible, doing for Brigham Young what Richard Bushman did for Joseph Smith. However, I agree with Julie that “the main weakness of this book” is the fact that “you are not left with any reason as to why people would have made the enormous sacrifices that were part of believing that Brigham Young was a prophet.” To fill in these gaps, here are the reported words of Turner from my friend Carl Cranney on Young’s appeal:

Why did people follow Brigham? He admitted to me and the others in the study group a few weeks ago that he felt he could have handled this question better. He pointed out three things, specifically, that Brigham had done before he became the de facto church president, and later actual church president, that garnered him a lot of good will from the members. First, many of the church members were from the British Isles, and Brigham had led the British mission. So many members of the church had fond memories of him as the leader of the missionaries that brought them into the church. Second, he finished the Nauvoo temple and endowed thousands of Mormons before they abandoned the city. The sheer amount of man-hours this took would have staggered anybody but the firmest believer. Brigham Young was a believer, and it showed to the people that he worked tirelessly for in the temple. Third, he was the “American Moses” who dragged a despondent group of church members from their Nauvoo the Beautiful to the middle of nowheresville, Mexico, to create a civilization literally out nothing in a sparsely-populated desert wilderness. He worked hard to preserve the church and to get its members to safety. So, after doing these three things he had garnered a lot of support and a lot of good will from the members.

Despite this oversight, the book is fantastic and the go-to biography of Brigham Young.

Check out John Turner’s lecture on the bio at Benchmark Books below:

Remembering the Stranger

by

This is part of the General Conference Odyssey.

Perhaps the best irony about the GOP candidates’ rhetoric against the refugees is that it technically, according to the Bible, makes them Sodomites.

This was my friend Stephen Smoot‘s Facebook status a while back, referring to Ezekiel 16:49-50: “Behold this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty and did an abomination before me. So I removed them, when I saw it” (ESV). I was reminded of this with the launch of the Church’s new relief effort “I Was a Stranger.”

This is in the wake of the Church’s statement following Trump’s anti-Muslim remarks and the Utah governor’s acceptance of Syrian refugees. I’ve posted before about increasing immigration, seeing that it is one of the greatest anti-poverty tools available. The gospel of Jesus Christ should challenge our nationalistic and often racist attitudes. The 1972 address by (ironically)[ref]I say “ironically” because it was Lee who blocked the lifting of the priesthood ban back in 1969.[/ref] Harold B. Lee touches on this very theme:

One thing more I should like to state. We are having come into the Church now many people of various nationalities. We in the Church must remember that we have a history of persecution, discrimination against our civil rights, and our constitutional privileges being withheld from us. These who are members of the Church, regardless of their color, their national origin, are members of the church and kingdom of God. Some of them have told us that they are being shunned. There are snide remarks. We are withdrawing ourselves from them in some cases.

Now we must extend the hand of fellowship to men everywhere, and to all who are truly converted and who wish to join the Church and partake of the many rewarding opportunities to be found therein. To those who may not now have the priesthood, we pray that the blessings of Jesus Christ may be given to them to the full extent that it is possible for us to give them. Meanwhile, we ask the Church members to strive to emulate the example of our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, who gave us the new commandment that we should love one another. I wish we could remember that.

As do I.

The Position of the Church

by
Sunset Family
Image by Flickr user photon_de. https://www.flickr.com/photos/photon_de/3302350307

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey.

These days, there are many people who believe that the Church’s emphasis on family is something new and misguided, but I have long thought that—at a level even deeper than teaching or doctrine—the Church has long expressed a reality that family is primary and Church is secondary. What is this deeper level? Well, one way of looking that the Church is as modern day Sadducees: keepers of the temple. And what is the point of the temple? To seal families together.

In many ways that’s the most fundamental mission of the Church: to knit the entire human family together in one extended act of reconciliation. The Atonement is the center of the Church—both in practice and in belief—and the emphasis on family is like the ripples emanating out from that central act, echoes of reconciliation expanding and flowing throughout humanity, restoring what is broken and making us whole again not just as individuals, but as a collective.

Among the talks I read for this week, there was a line in Elder Victor L. Brown’s talk (The Aaronic Priesthood – A Sure Foundation) that made me think I could be on to something. He wrote:

The position of the Church is to aid the parents and the family.

It’s not definitive enough to hang your hat on all by itself, but it’s certainly something to think about. The Church exists to serve the family, not the other way around. And by “family” I mean both senses of the word. I mean my family and your family, our individual little clans here on Earth. And by “family” I also mean: all of us.

We teach our children to sing “I Am a Child of God.” And we take it seriously. In our words, in our songs, but most importantly in our actions.

—

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