In keeping with my renewed every-other-week schedule at T&S, I posted some speculations about theology and gender at Times and Seasons yesterday: “A woman is a woman no matter what, but manhood can be lost.” The article is about as popular as you’d expect, which is to say: not very.
I am reasonably certain that the rise of gender and sexuality politics in our culture is an opportunity for theological and cultural growth, but also that neither of the prevailing political attitudes are capable of revealing the lessons that are there to be learned. Social liberals are too committed to a view of human nature that is too shallow and superficial to do anyone any good. (In this, I’m basically echoing Pinker’s critique in The Blank Slate.) Social conservatives, I think, are doing a good job of holding onto important traditions that are necessary for a healthy society, but are also too willing to veer towards fearfulness that leads to bigotry on the one hand and prevents consideration of new explanations for why these traditions are important on the other.
This article is just another example of me trying to extricate myself a bit from this morass–without abandoning positions I think are important–and reach for new understandings of old truths.
One of the most famous phrases in Mormon scriptures comes from Lehi’s farewell message to his son Jacob[ref]I called this Jacob’s sermon when I first wrote it. Oops. Fixed after a commenter pointed out the error.[/ref] in the Second Book of Nephi: “For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things.” The entire verse reads:
For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so, my firstborn in the wilderness, righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility.[ref]2 Nephi 2:11[/ref]
As I was compiling my notes from my read-through of Steven Pinker’s The Blank Slate, I came across this really stunning echo of that concept. It’s a long quote, but definitely worth the read:
Donald Symons has argued that we have genetic conflicts to thank for the fact that we have feelings toward other people at all. Consciousness is a manifestation of the neural computations necessary to figure out how to get the rare and unpredictable things we need. We feel hunger, savor food, and have a pallet for countless fascinating tastes because food was hard to get during most of our evolutionary history. We don’t normally feel longing, delight, or fascination regarding oxygen, even though it is crucial for survival, because it was never hard to obtain. We just breathe.
The same may be true of conflicts over kin, mates, and friends. I mentioned that if a couple were guaranteed to be faithful, to favor each other over there kin, and to die at the same time, their genetic interest would be identical, wrapped up in their common children. One can even imagine a species in which every couple was marooned on an island for life and their offspring dispersed at maturity, never to return. Since the genetic interests of the two mates are identical, one might at first think that evolution would endow them with a blissful perfection of sexual, romantic, and companionate love.
But Symons argues, nothing of the sort would happen. The relationship between the mates would evolve to be like the relationship among the cells of a single body, whose genetic interests are also identical. Heart cells and lung cells don’t have to fall in love to get along in perfect harmony. Likewise, the couples in the species would have sex only for the purpose of procreation (why waste energy?), and sex would bring no more pleasure than the rest of reproductive physiology such as the release of hormones or the formation of the gametes:
There would be no falling in love, because there would be no alternative mates to choose among, and falling in love would be a huge waste. You would literally love your mate as yourself, but that’s the point: you don’t really love yourself, except metaphorically; you are yourself. The two of you would be as far as evolution is concerned, one flesh, and your relationship would be governed by mindless physiology… You might feel pain if you observed your mate cut herself, but all the feelings we have about our mates that make relationship so wonderful when it is working well (and so painful when it is not) would never evolve. Even if a species had them when they took up this way of life, they would be selected out as surely as the eyes of a cave-dwelling fish are selected out, because they would be all cost and no benefit.
The same is true for emotions towards family and friends: the richness and intensity of the feelings in our minds are proof of the preciousness and fragility of those bonds in life. In short, without the possibility of suffering, what we would have is not harmonious bliss, but rather, no consciousness at all.
The idea that our capacity to experience love is tied to the imperfections in our relationships, to their fragility and capacity to fail, is profound.
Aerial view of Zaatari camp for Syrian refugees in Jordan (Wikipedia).
I’ve been following a lot of the stories about the refugee crisis in Europe. Obviously it’s a very different situation from the American debates over illegal immigration, but some important parallels have shaped my views on both issues.
I do not believe that most opposition to illegal immigration in the United States is born out of bigotry or hatred. It comes from fear. It comes from security fears (we don’t know who is coming across the border), and it comes from cultural fears (we don’t know how the influx of illegal immigrants–people who are poorer, less educated, and speak a different language–will change our culture and nation).
These fears are often exaggerated. Take the fact that Korans and prayer rugs are allegedly being found along the border.[ref]Politifact has the details if this is new to you.[/ref] This is one of those things that may sound vaguely ominous, but only until you actually start to think about it. First of all: why would terrorists sneaking into the country carry prayer rugs and Korans in the first place? That doesn’t seem very sneaky. Second, why would they then discard these items right along the border? Not only is that not sneaky, but it’s also just nonsensical. The whole thing is rather silly, upon farther reflection.[ref]I’m not even going to address the problem with drawing a straight line between “Muslim” and “terrorist,” but only because I think it’s sufficiently obvious without me pointing it out.[/ref]
But underneath the paranoia there is the reality that we have a porous border with a violent and sometimes unstable neighbor on the other side of it. That is a risk. So is the risk of large groups of immigrants deciding not to integrate. Although, on that latter piece, you have to think that being constantly threatened with mass deportation might play a pretty big role in the failure of integration, right?
Still, eight or ten years ago you would have found me talking about securing the border first and then mumbling about the importance of law and order. It took some fairly strong statements from the leaders of my Church to get me to change my stance on the issue.[ref]You can read about those statements in a couple of posts by Michael Austin at the blog By Common Consent here and here.[/ref] Once I did, however, I came to see my prior position as being one of fear by default. When in doubt: go with fear.
That happens to be the subject of a new essay by Marilynne Robinson, author of the incredibly powerful novel Gilead[ref]I also read Home, but for me it did not have the same magic.[/ref]. Her piece in the New York Review of Books is titled simply: Fear.
“America, she begins, “is a Christian country.”
Now, I have to take a brief digression to point out that this statement is indeed shocking from any publication with “New York” in the title, but Robinson quickly allays liberal concerns:
This is true in a number of senses. Most people, if asked, will identify themselves as Christian, which may mean only that they aren’t something else. Non-Christians will say America is Christian, meaning that they feel somewhat apart from the majority culture. There are a large number of demographic Christians in North America because of our history of immigration from countries that are or were also Christian. We are identified in the world at large with this religion because some of us espouse it not only publicly but also vociferously. As a consequence, we carry a considerable responsibility for its good name in the world, though we seem not much inclined to consider the implications of this fact. If we did, some of us might think a little longer about associating the precious Lord with ignorance, intolerance, and belligerent nationalism.
Now, as much as I’m tempted to be cynical about only being allowed to suggest that America is a Christian nation in the context of condemning America, the fact is that Robinson is right. We do default to fear, and we have at least since 9/11. [ref]Well, she’s right about what really matters. Her piece ends up being about gun control, and I disagree with pretty much all of it.[/ref] Here she states why this is such a problem in the context of Christianity:
My thesis is always the same, and it is very simply stated, though it has two parts: first, contemporary America is full of fear. And second, fear is not a Christian habit of mind.
Robinson manages to avoid quoting the obvious verse, but I cannot. “God did not give us a spirit of cowardice,” writes Paul, “but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.”[ref]2 Timothy 1:7, NRSV[/ref]
Here’s the thing: it’s always easy to act like the good guy when you’re the one who has everything to lose. The dynamic is simple: whoever is on top is predisposed to oppose change and support the status quo because they already have it good.[ref]In an earlier version of the post, I had the logic of this sentence backwards. Thanks to commenter Chris Kimball for pointing that out.[/ref] This is a universal tendency of human nature, and it explains everything from every day fights between older (bigger) and younger (smaller) siblings to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In that case, just to show how this works, Israel tends to behave much more responsibly, has rule of law, has protections in place for Arab citizens, and even has a strong domestic peace movement while Hamas indiscriminately launches rockets from school yards. It is easy to attribute the difference between the two to culture or religion, but the reality is that power is the simple, universal explanation for much of it. When you are on top, you care about stability and reputation and order. That means it is easy to talk, debate, deliberate, and do all of the other things that we associated with civilization. When you are on bottom, you care less about stability and reputation and more about fulfilling base needs. From that perspective change, chaos, and disorder look much more attractive.
If you want change, then you’re always going to be working against the interests of the powerful and comfortable. Always. This means that if you are one of the powerful and comfortable, you cannot work for positive change in the world without going against your own interests to at least some degree. If you are among the powerful and the comfortable, you cannot work for a better world without working for a world that is–for you, at least in the short-run–more risky.
This has powerful implications for Americans and especially for American Christians because–as much as our internal debates about social justice focus on incremental differences in privilege between different Americans–the reality is that all Americans are privileged relative to the rest of the world. We are, by any feasible international standard, the powerful and the comfortable. And that means that we if we are not willing to accept risks and face our fears, that we will never be able to be a force for good on the global scale. If fear is our guiding star, then we risk obstructing progress towards a brighter future.
This might be part of the reason Christ–who was so concerned with the treatment of society’s poor and vulnerable–was so opposed to fear. He knew that fear is the ingredient that turns otherwise decent people into passive oppressors. It’s not enough to be benign. You have to be actively engaged in facing your fears and in making sacrifices or you will remain part of the problem.
So that is the attitude that I think we need to apply not only in our policies dealing with illegal immigration here in the United States, but also with respect to the historical refugee crisis spreading from the Middle East into Europe right now.
Although the situations are certainly not identical, we’ve got essentially the same two fears at work. First, there is the fear that terrorists will slip in among the refugees.”The jihadists [ISIS] hope to flood the north African state with militiamen from Syria and Iraq,” says an article from the Telegraph, “who will then sail across the Mediterranean posing as migrants… The fighters would then run amok in southern European cities and also try to attack maritime shipping.”
Second there’s the fear that–even without any intentional aggression–the culture and infrastructure of Western democracies will be overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of incoming immigrants. Thus Buchanan adds numbers upon numbers in contemplating the potential horde that could sweep into Europe:
For the scores of thousands of Syrians in the Balkans, Hungary, Austria and Germany are only the first wave. Behind them in Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan are 4 million refugees from the Syrian civil war. Seeing the success of the first wave, they are now on the move.
Behind them are 2 million Alawites and 2 million Christians who will be fleeing Syria when the Bashar Assad regime falls… Now the Iraqis, who live in a country the prospects for whose reunification and peace are receding, have begun to move… When the Americans leave Afghanistan and the Taliban take their revenge, more Afghans will be fleeing west… Africa has a billion people, a number that will double by 2050, and double again to 4 billion by 2100. Are those billions of Africans going to endure lives of poverty under ruthless, incompetent, corrupt and tyrannical regimes, if Europe’s door remains wide open?[ref]You can tell he’s stretching by the dates involved. What does the projected population of Africa in the year 2100 have to do with a short-term crisis in Syria happening today?[/ref]
A lot of those whose hearts have been broken by the horrible images of the crisis have an instant reaction to shout down these fears. And yes: a lot of them are overblown, again. Of course ISIS is going to say that they have plans to send in elite terrorist squads with the refugees because they are interested in stoking the fires of suspicion, violence, and hatred. But why should we believe ther threats? The reality is that this is not a new problem and modern countries have methods for screening large refugee populations.
There is also validity to the second fear. Breitbart describes the influx of 25,000 migrants on the Greek island of Lesbos (population 85,000) as a “war zone” due to intense clashes between Syrian and Afghan migrants. Other coverage is less colorful, but still mentions the tension between middle-class Syrians (apt to take selfies with their smartphones when they arrive) and the much more destitute Afghan refugees. The International Business Times reports that “Greek authorities have sent troops and riot police” to Lesbos after “locals are alleged to have thrown a petrol bomb at refugees and fights have broken out between migrants from Syria and Afghanistan.” As with the instability with American migrants, however, a lot of this may be due to the conditions surrounding their arrival. The countries involved (like Greece in this case, or Hungary as another example) do not have the resources to handle this number of refugees and, in any case, are just an inconvenient way station as the refugees flock farther north and west to reach Germany, Scandinavia, or the UK. With planning and resources, a lot of the tension that leads to violence could be abated.
In other words: there’s no reason to panic but there is also no reason to believe that there is no risk at all. There is a risk. Of course there is. We–the United States and also Western and Northern Europe–are rich. We’re on top of the pile these days. For us, any major change is more likely to be threatening than not. But if we want to do good in the world, then taking risks is part of the job description.
I believe we should–as Westerners in general and as Americans in particular–be much more willing to open our hearts and borders and homes to refugees and also to migrants because it is the kind of risk that Christ would want us to take. We should not be reckless and we should not be irresponsible, but we should also not be afraid to take chances to do what ought to be done.
And here are just a few closing thoughts.
First, some have pointed out that rich Arab countries (like Saudi Arabia) are not doing very much at all to assist. Others argue that these nations are often very tiny (think Kuwait or Bahrain) and that even the big ones like Saudi Arabia do not have a habitable space. Both views are correct. There is probably no way that they can take in huge numbers of refugees, but they absolutely should take in some and–in addition–they should absolutely donate significant resources to the European nations who can absorb larger numbers of people.
Second, even if we accept large numbers of refugees, there are still going to be horrible long-term losses from this mass movement of people. Think of the communities–some of which have existed for thousands of years–which may never recover. How will small groups who have preserved their language and culture and religion and identity survive when they are transplanted to new nations and, quite possibly, split up across continents? We should not only react to the short-run crisis, but also do our best to plan for the long-run repercussions.
Third, as long as we’ve decided to help (and we should help!), we ought to do so with as much love and generosity as we can. The Book of Mormon teaches:
For behold, if a man being evil giveth a gift, he doeth itgrudgingly; wherefore it is counted unto him the same as if he had retained the gift; wherefore he is counted evil before God.[ref]Moroni 7:8[/ref]
If we’re willing to follow this proscription, then there is room for hope and optimism as a light at the end of this tunnel. There is room to believe that–if we are willing to be vulnerable–we may begin to heal the rift that has widened between Christian and Muslim, between East and West, and undercut the darkness and the hatred and the violence that has caused this crisis. God works in mysterious ways, but you only get to see the hidden beauty if you’re willing to be a part of it, I think. So let’s go ahead and take this chance, and do all we can to welcome those who so desperately need our help.
There’s an interesting article over at First Things: The Death of the Parish. David T. Koyzis is fundamentally right about the importance of not being free to pick-and-choose your congregation. The alternative–which most of us are living today–means that we cannot avoid a consumerist approach to our worship as we pick-and-chose a congregation that fits what we’re looking for. That meets our needs.
Of course, as a Mormon, I’m coming at this from the opposite side of the coin. Mormons–who do drive cars just as much as anybody else–do not pick and choose their congregation. With almost no exceptions, we go to the ward (congregation) we are assigned to based on our address. In fact, back when I was growing up in Richmond, I went to three or four different wards in two different physical buildings (sometimes multiple congregations share meetinghouses) based on how the church redrew the geographical boundaries of the congregations. It was always jarring and often unpopular to split and recombine congregations, but we all went where we were told to go to.
Only in later years did I come to realize how important this was. Not being able to choose who you rub shoulders with every Sunday is a big and important part of why Mormon congregations feel like family: you’re stuck with people. So you sort of have to learn to love them, or at least live with them, just to make life bearable.
Now it is not quite right to blame the automobile as such for this defective ecclesiology. After all, it is our use of the automobile that lies ultimately at its origin. Yet no technology is neutral. The automobile has exacerbated the individualistic tendencies already at work in our culture, empowering individuals to treat even so central a community as the church as a mere extension of their personal tastes.
But there’s a flipside to this. If I didn’t have a car–if I was very limited in where I could go to Church–I would possibly not be able to visit a Mormon congregation. Not that I have anything against worshiping with other denominations from time to time (I have done so, and always enjoyed it), but for me and for most Mormons living in suburban America, the car is an enabler of our commitment to a particular faith tradition rather than some kind of individualistic corrosive. So, perhaps, it’s not the car that is really the problem here.
This is especially apparent when you consider Koyzis’ proposed solutions:
However, what if every new church building were to forgo the ubiquitous parking lot in the interest of restoring a normative ecclesiology? Might it force the churches to reach out to their own neighborhoods? Might it compel people to re-embrace the parish model, attending the church to which they can most easily walk?
Not only is the proposed solution untenable–many churches are only accessible by car for all practical purposes–but I just can’t imagine it even beginning to work. The totally unworkable nature of the cure highlights the fact that the ailment itself has been misdiagnosed.[ref]I’m not even going to go into the consequences of self-driving cars in the next 10-20 years on the automobile’s place in American culture.[/ref]
Christian denominations in America are weakening, and it is a problem. But cars are not the issue.
There’s a slightly deeper issue at play, which none of the news or reporters that I’ve seen has addressed. That is the observation that for “Christians opposed to marriage” (my term), the reasons–including scriptures and arguments about what’s best for children or ‘family’–ought to sound as loudly with respect to divorce. And yet in many voices divorce seems to get a pass.
This is a legitimate point, and it’s worth more of a reply than I gave in the comments at the time. So, what explains the discrepancy between Christian opposition to same-sex marriage (which seems loud and absolute) and Christian opposition to divorce (which seems quiet and muddled)?
1. People are selfish hypocrites sometimes, and this includes Christians. Divorce is something that a lot of heterosexuals have participated in and/or may expect to participate in at some future time. So it effects them in a way that gay marriage simply doesn’t. Therefore opposition to divorce is seen as either limiting their future options or condemning their past actions, and so they are more likely to accept it than same-sex marriage which they can safely depend on never impacting them directly.
2. According to Christian sexual ethics, divorce (or something like it, e.g. separation, annulment) is morally acceptable and even beneficial and necessary in a small but regular and persistent set of cases (e.g. in cases of abuse). But, by the same code of ethics, same-sex behavior is not routinely acceptable, even in a minority of cases. So you can’t attribute all the discrepancy between opposition to divorce and opposition to gay-marriage to selfish-hypocrisy, because some of the difference is actually intrinsic to the underlying Christian philosophy. Of course, I don’t expect any same-sex marriage supporters to accept that this is correct, but at least it is consistent.
3. Christians have been more opposed to divorce than I think the general public is aware. This is simply because conflict draws attention. When Christians oppose divorce and try to strengthen marriage they are, for the most part, not really arguing with anyone. There is no broad, popular movement that celebrates divorce or infidelity or walking out on your family. As a result, Christian opposition to these things tends to fly under the radar and go unnoticed. But it is there. In fact, that’s what made me think of this post. Thrice, which is my favorite band, has not one but two tracks on their fairwell album Anthology that address this issue directly. Here’s one of them, “The Weight.”
The other is “Promises.” Both of them are full-throated condemnations of modern sexual morality, including not only infidelity but serial monogamy, which is generally accepted through most of American culture.
Or how about Fight the New Drug? The anti-pornography organization “presents itself as a non-religious and non-legislative organization”[ref]Wikipedia[/ref]. That’s not at all dishonest–the group has no religious or political dogma or goals, but it is a marketing tactic to have a broad-based appeal. The fact remains that all four founders of the group are Mormon.[ref]LDS Living[/ref]
Then, as I mentioned in the comments at the time, there’s also covenant marriage:
Covenant marriage is a legally distinct kind of marriage in three states (Arizona, Arkansas, and Louisiana) of the United States, in which the marrying spouses agree to obtain pre-marital counseling and accept more limited grounds for later seeking divorce.[ref]Wikipedia[/ref]
This is a pretty direct attempt to mitigate the effects of no-fault divorce and, while it is not become at all common even in the states where it has been enacted, it illustrates a Christianity that is working to bolster traditional views of sexual morality in the public sphere.[ref]Whether or not you think that is a good idea is a separate issue, which I’m sure will be addressed many times at Difficult Run in the future.[/ref]
The reality is that the Christian fight to defend and bolster marriage is only visible when it conflicts with the mainstream of society, and it is visible in direct proportion to the extent of that conflict. When Christians sing about fidelity and marriage, basically no one notices. I’d wager that a lot of fans of Thrice don’t even know what Dustin Kensrue is singing about. When Christians campaign in ways that are indirectly opposed to social trends, such as fighting for abstinence-only or abstinence-first sex education–they are seen as obnoxious, backwards meddlers. But it’s not exactly headline news. And when Christians find themselves in a fight with an organized, dedicated, savvy coalition such as the gay-marriage campaign, then they are seen as bigots and it absolutely does become headline news.
In other words, a lot of the impression that Christians mysteriously decide to care about marriage just in time to oppose same-sex marriage is a function of the fact that no one notices what they are doing the rest of the time.
Now, a couple of closing caveats / clarifications. I’ve said “Christians” a lot, but traditional Muslim and Jewish traditions also oppose same-sex marriage. So do a small number of atheists and agnostics, including some homosexuals. But the focus here was on Christians, so that’s what I emphasized. There’s also some ambiguity around the term “Christian.” Is everyone who is born and raised as a Christian really a Christian? I don’t want to get into the business of being a gatekeeper and judging who is “good enough” to be Christian. That’s misguided, counterproductive, and distasteful. But it is worth noting that, when you see polls that show the extent to which individual Catholic opinion differs from Catholic teachings, a lot of that has to do with the interplay between religious conviction and sheer social-cultural inertia.
As long as religious belief is the default, and for the time being it still is in most of America, being an atheist is going to be a much more meaningful descriptor than being a Christian for the simple reason that–by and large–atheists are people who choose to be atheists. The same can’t be said of Christians, since the category embraces both people who consciously choose to be Christian but also people who haven’t really given it much thought and just happened to be born into a Christian family (to, quite possibly, parents who also haven’t given it much thought).
This is important, because it means that you should not be surprised when a minority of Christians actually get out there and support Christian beliefs. That’s not because Christians are more hypocritical than other groups. It’s because, as the dominant religious group in the US, the category includes a lot more “by default” members than other groups. That’s just something to keep in mind.
After a long break, I’m officially restarting my regular posting at Times and Seasons. My first post is now up: Do Mormons Have a Duty to Vote? It’s an analysis / rebuttal of Jason Brennan’s argument that there is no civic duty to vote from a specifically Mormon perspective. Also: Donald Trump. I will follow that up with a more general response to Brennan’s argument here at Difficult Run in the next few weeks.
Now that I’m posting again, expect to see me posting at T&S every other Monday–usually in the morning.
ALSO!
We neglected to announce this, but Walker Wright has started a guest blogger series at Times and Seasons as well. I announced the series last week, and then he posted his first piece: Data, Doctrines, & Doubts: Improving Gospel Instruction.[ref]The gif for this post comes from that post, because Walker is the master of gifs.[/ref] It’s a great piece–based on a talk he gave at a recent Stake General Priesthood meeting–and you should read it. Seriously, if you only read one of these two T&S pieces today, read Walker’s. Then, if you have time, read mine too.
The Friend is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints monthly magazine for children. Since I have kids, I should probably subscribe, but I’m a bad Mormon so I don’t. Which means I didn’t see this wonderful story until I came across it online: Prayers and Cathedrals. It’s a beautiful little story about a Mormon family visiting an Anglican cathedral to participate in Evensong. Told from the perspective of a child, it points out differences between Mormon and Anglican worship styles, but strongly emphasizes commonality, love, and unity.
The Church has long emphasized it’s distinctiveness for a variety of reasons, including our missionary emphasis and–I think–a little bit of having a chip on our shoulder as a young faith with a relatively recent history of persecution that is still not taken very seriously by many older and more established denominations. I’m a big believer in distinctiveness. You can’t have real diversity or tolerance without distinctiveness. But I’m also a big believer in making friends and finding common ground with those who come from different perspectives. And so, for me, an article like this was both exciting and heartwarming. You should definitely give it a read.
Over at Worlds Without End, I’ve written a piece on the political and social context in which The Family: A Proclamation to the World was developed. Laura Compton at Rational Faiths has demonstrated that the LDS Church’s entanglements with same-sex marriage date back to the early 1990s and spawned the creation of the Family Proclamation. I agree that this is the origin of the Proclamation. However, I think there is more going on in the Proclamation itself and within the political climate that produced it than is typically realized. Discussions over welfare and family breakdown had increased in frequency and popularity throughout the mid-1980s and into the 1990s, leading up to welfare reform under President Clinton. For our readers who have an interest in our posts on marriage and family here at Difficult Run, Mormonism, or both, you might find my post interesting.
Brandon Flowers, Neon Trees, Imagine Dragons, Lindsey Stirling, and now another Mormon superstar: Kaskade. Or, as the Daily Beat puts it, The Straight Edge Mormon DJ Taking Over the World. As the article’s lede puts it:
Kaskade has been DJing dance parties for 20 years, and last year was the No. 8 highest-paid DJ in the world, raking in $17 million. But he isn’t like other DJs.
Why is he not like other DJs? Well, because he doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke, and is married with three kids. I’m not one of those who cares overly much about Mormon celebrities perfectly representing our faith (who can do that?), but I’m always happy to see someone willing to go public about their commitment to our basic ideals.
“I don’t party at all!” he says. “I don’t drink, I don’t smoke. I’m a bit of a freak that way because I’m completely different from what you would think. Look, you can’t put all electronic musicians or DJs or whatever you want to call us in one pot. A lot of these guys live in the night and party, but with me, I’m married and have three children. I have a life outside of this.”
Not that that’s all there is to him; the article goes into his years of struggle and honing his craft to build the career he has today:
I mention the booming business of EDM and what exactly the word “DJ” encompasses these days, since many of the so-called “world class DJs” of today are programmers who don’t actually know how to spin records.
“It’s a little insulting,” he says. “Right now, the landscape of what encompasses the word ‘DJ’ is so broad and vast now. You have guys like me who learned on vinyl, know the technique, and know what this really is. I witnessed the whole rise of it. I was friends with Frankie [Knuckles], and I was going to his weekly parties at Medusa’s when I was in high school in the mid-’80s.”
“It’s changed the landscape of what this is. The entry point used to be so much higher, and there was so much more respect for the art of DJing and what it was. We’ve lost some of that now.”
So, if you’re curious to check out some of his music, here’s the track that Buzzfeed featured in their article, “Let Me Disarm You.”
One of the most famous phrases in Mormon scriptures comes from Lehi’s farewell message to his son Jacob[ref]I called this Jacob’s sermon when I first wrote it. Oops. Fixed after a commenter pointed out the error.[/ref] in the Second Book of Nephi: “For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things.” The entire verse reads:
That happens to be the subject of a new essay by Marilynne Robinson, author of the incredibly powerful novel 
, but for me it did not have the same magic.[/ref]. Her piece in the New York Review of Books is titled simply: 
3. Christians have been more opposed to divorce than I think the general public is aware. This is simply because conflict draws attention. When Christians oppose divorce and try to strengthen marriage they are, for the most part, not really arguing with anyone. There is no broad, popular movement that celebrates divorce or infidelity or walking out on your family. As a result, Christian opposition to these things tends to fly under the radar and go unnoticed. But it is there. In fact, that’s what made me think of this post. Thrice, which is my favorite band, has not one but two tracks on their fairwell album 
After a long break, I’m officially restarting my regular posting at Times and Seasons. My first post is now up: 
