“Heart of Africa” is a feature film set in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country consistently misrepresented. We will show it in its dignity and beauty. The film is based on experiences of missionaries there, both African and Anglo. One of the missionaries is a Congolese former revolutionary and another a young man from Idaho who has heretofore not seen black people. Aime Mbuyi, who was a revolutionary before he became a missionary, has provided the screenwriter with full descriptions of the revolutionary meetings, including the songs sung at the boarding school where the revolutionaries lived.
The film will be bi-continental, much of it filmed in South Africa using the “Out of Africa” production team, with portions shot in Kinshasa, DR-Congo. Our director is one of the best in the nation, Sterling Van Wagenen.
The initial goal of the Kickstarter is $30,000, but they can do a lot more if they raise the funds.
At the $400,000. level, we can move into filming beyond the preliminary and do full principal photography. With another $100,000–making a total of $500,000–we can do editing and post-production, and we can integrate the music as well. (Music will be one of the most compelling aspects of the film.) Were we to raise $1.8 million, we could not only complete the film but move into wide distribution.
That’s a long way to go, but this is a project that is well worth supporting. The faster we help them get to $30,000 the better shot they have of getting to the higher goals, and the early days of a Kickstarter campaign can be the most crucial. Check it out and if–like me–you think that this is a story worth supporting then lend a hand. Backer levels start at $5. Here’s the link again.
I ran across a particularly instructive apparent Biblical contradiction while I was reading Mark the other day. Jesus’ disciples have just gleaned[ref]gleaning means “to gather grain or other material that is left after the main crop has been gathered”[/ref] on the Sabbath, which is unlawful according to the Pharisees. Jesus responds to the Pharisees:
“Have you never read what David did, when he was in need and was hungry, he and those who were with him: 26 how he entered the house of God, when Abi′athar was high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those who were with him?”
But we have a problem here. Abi’athar wasn’t the high priest during this episode of the Old Testament. His father Ahim’elech was. Abi’athar was present during this episode, but as a priest under his father. Jesus seems to have misremembered history, or possibly Mark (the recorder of this Gospel) or Peter (the traditional source of this Gospel) made a mistake.
A quick note before I launch into analyzing this passage. The first and most important goal of exegesis is understanding what the author meant, not resolving difficulties or attempting to harmonize the Gospels with each other or the Bible as a whole. An explanation that is logically coherent can still fail utterly because it doesn’t mesh with the speaker or author’s historical background and, most importantly, why the speaker or author would word a passage a certain way.
Anyways, the first layer to peel back is the actual Greek. In particular, translating the word ‘when’ here is tricky because ‘when’ in English conveys a more precise timing than the Greek word used (ἐπὶ). An equally valid translation renders the word “in the days of”, as attested to by other translations and ancient Greek sources.
Now speaking generally, Jesus has a reason for mentioning Abi’athar over his father Ahim’elech. According to the commentary from the Second Catholic Edition RSV New Testament:
Jesus probably mentioned Abiathar instead of Ahimelech to post a warning for the Pharisees. Abiathar is infamous in OT history as the last high priest of his line, who was banished from Jerusalem and the priesthood for opposing Solomon, the son of David and the heir of his kingdom (1 Kings 2:26-27). He thus represents the end of an older order that passes away with the coming of David’s royal successor. As Jesus compares himself and the disciples with David and his men, he likewise draws the Pharisees into the story by casting them as figures like Abiathar….Jesus’ allusion to this OT tradition was a subtle yet strategic way to caution the Pharisees against their antagonism to his ministry.
I read many other explanations online (here and here), but I find this explanation the most compelling because, in accordance with the criteria above, it actually provides a reason for why Jesus would speak this way. This manner of interpretation then fits in well with general scholarly understanding of the Gospels: If Jesus said something and the Evangelists mention it in their gospels, those words are mentioned for a reason. The Evangelists mention non-essential actions of Jesus (Like Jesus doodling in the sand), but his quotes are chosen more carefully.
This interpretation also has an added point to commend it: Jesus begins his story with a massive insult towards the Pharisees in saying “Have you never read…” The Pharisees, being learned Jewish men, would be incensed at the implication that they haven’t read the Jewish Scriptures. So he begins his story with a massive internet-worthy insult towards the Pharisees, and ends it with a not-so-veiled warning towards that same group. We thus have coherence of tone. We also have a case of Jesus being sassy, which for the record is more common than people seem to expect of Jesus meek and mild.
I hope this walkthrough was instructive. I don’t claim to have expertise in exegesis, but I figured an amateur with the backing of scholars isn’t too much presumption. Mostly, I wanted to show how even seemingly blatant Biblical errors can make sense without straining credulity given a little research. Overall, that’s the attitude I try to take towards all scriptures, even ones I don’t consider inspired (The Qur’an, The Book of Mormon, etc.). If they don’t make sense, I first need to check that I’m not the one who is missing something.
Last week the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints held a rare public press conference. The topic was gay rights, and Jonathan Rauch described the main idea this way:
[Mormon leaders] made a startling offer to gay and lesbian America: If you will support reasonable religious-liberty exemptions for us, we will support expanded civil-rights protections for you.
So, what should we make of this? For his part, Rauch (who is gay) advocates giving the Church the benefit of the doubt and viewing the offer as a genuine olive branch. However, he concedes that “it could be a trap.” Brooke P. Hunter is not nearly as conciliatory in her piece: How the Mormons Punked the Press. She described the press conference as “mostly about defending Mormons’ right to discriminate.” She said “the new Mormon position is like that candy with a razor blade inside” and added
Today’s press conference took place in a twilight zone where parents are in danger of being jailed for teaching their kids about Jesus, and where believers can’t “share their views openly in the public square.” Oh, please. Show me the Mormons who have been jailed for sharing their views. There are none. And if you can point to one instance of the government preventing good Mormons from practicing their religion in their homes, we’ll eat our hat.
Let me make two observations. First, although Hunter doesn’t seem aware of this fact, her position constitutes a drastic reduction in the scope of religious liberty. First, because she envisions no protection for religious liberty outside of the strictly private sphere. Second, because she is contemptuous of the idea of religious liberty as religious. For instance, she decries Mormons for wanting “special privileges and special rights for churches and for religious people.” Well yes, in order to be religious liberty it has to be liberty specifically for (i.e. specially for) religion and religious considerations.[ref]Atheist and agnostic principles can be included as well by broadening the scope to include freedom of conscience.[/ref] Whatever Hunter has in mind when she talks about religious liberty, it seems to have very little do to with our historic appreciation for the special role religion has to play in the public sphere. This attitude, especially as it seems to be both widespread and innocent of any awareness of its own novel and revolutionary character, goes a long way towards vindicating the fears of religious people.
Second, I think the most logical way to take the Church’s position is the straightforward one. I do not think the bargain is merely political or expedient. I think, and this is born out by other changes in Church policy and teaching I outlined here, that the gay rights debate has forced Mormons (and the religious community as a whole) to do a better job of separating between principled religious doctrines of sexual morality and social convention. It is possible, and for a Christian it is necessary, to commit oneself to loving gay people (and bisexual, and transgender, etc.) in a way that affirms the unique dignity of every human being as in the image of God and also the religious principles that Christians believe lead to human flourishing. Does this break down to the old “hate the sin, love the sinner” trope? In short: yes. And it’s a distinction the world may find curious but that is at the heart of the Christian faith.
In short, I think Mormonism has come to an awareness that fighting against discrimination of the LGBT community is more than politically expedient: it is the right thing to do. The LGBT community should be protected from discrimination in housing, employment, and so on. I do not believe, and so far neither does the Church, that this extends to same-sex marriage, however, which is seen not as equal access to a common institution but as the redefinition of an institution. Even if you think that last bit makes no sense, and I know that many people do, my general message is just that I think Mormons (and a lot of the religious community) have been humbled by the past couple of decades and have come to a deeper understanding of how to live as Christians. That, I believe, is also what led to last week’s press conference.
A couple of weeks ago J. Max Wilson[ref]He blogs at Sixteen Small Stones[/ref] put out a request for popular music with Biblical references for a playlist he was building. Finding religious themes in popular music is a passion of mine, so I went a little nuts with some off-the-cuff recommendations on his Facebook wall. But I didn’t stop there. I went and dug up my old MS Word doc where I’d been collecting music for a variety of related playlists that–taken together–I like to call the Ragged Chorus of Faith. Since not all the songs qualify for Wilson’s criteria[ref]He’s looking for explicitly Biblical references, and some of mine are more indirect religious themes.[/ref] and since I thought it might be of general interest, I decided to turn it into a post.
Let me explain the title really quick, however. I love me some conventional religious music. I have been a huge, huge fan of The Tallis Scholars ever since my parents took me one of their performances when I was a kid, and their rendition of Miserere mei, Deus is (just as an example) breathtaking.[ref]Listen here.[/ref] But, in some ways, I almost feel unworthy of the harmony and the beauty of their music. It doesn’t feel broken. And, most of the time, I do. An additional consideration is that I worry listening to an exquisite piece like this rendition of Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing on a daily basis might desensitize me to the beauty. I needed music that turned my thoughts to God, but that was more workmanlike. More durable. Closer to my lived experience today and not a hope for transcendence tomorrow.
That’s what first attracted me to screamo. Screaming is what human beings do when we’ve lost control, when we’re overwhelmed, and when we’re on the point of exhaustion. And all of that is also a part of the religious life. I would never say it’s a great part, but for me over the last decade or so it has certainly felt like the most relevant part. I feel weak and small and with my head barely above the waves. And so I take great comfort in music that expresses the raw, jagged edge of a broken and injured soul desperately aware of their need to be saved. Thus: ragged.
It’s ragged in another sense as well. You might notice as you go through the list that a lot of the songs embrace philosophies or theologies that contradict each other and contradict what I believe in. I know. And several of them are not religious at all and are (for all I know) written by people who would be irritated to find out their music was being included on a faithful playlist. I know that, too. I just happen to think that life isn’t a theology exam. I’m sure I don’t have it all right myself, and I’m not looking for that kind of perfection in anyone else either. This isn’t a harmonious playlist in terms of style, genre, ideology, religion, philosophy, or anything. That’s OK. I’m looking for beauty and encouragement and truth wherever I can find it, and–in that sense–I’m just not picky.
As for chorus? Well, I started out with a realization that in addition to the majestic control and talent of The Tallis Scholars, the raw pathos of Dusin Kensrue‘s screaming was another way of approaching spirituality. And, once I recognized two ways, I started to see more. I’ve got everything from bluegress to hip-hop and from obscure to world-famous bands in this line-up. More and more I like the idea of a symphonic approach to the Kingdom of God. We have different strengths and weaknesses, insights and perspectives. The best way to contribute to the Kingdom of God is to find out where we fit. An orchestra is powerful not just because of how many players it has, but because of the diversity. Strings and brass, percussion and woodwinds. It takes a chorus. And this is what mine sounds like. So far.
Give a listen to the ones that look interesting to you, and let me know in the comments of any suggestions you have to add. (I may make some edits myself from time to time when I remember old songs I love or find new ones to add.)
Faith and Belief
These songs are about faith in terms of belief and knowledge, which makes it different from the fidelity aspect of faith that I emphasize on my Discipleship playlist (a little further down).
“I Believe” by Dustin Kensrue on Please Come Home
And all the answers that I find, only take me so far down the line. The tracks always give out yeah it’s a leap from the lions mouth.
“King Without a Crown” by Matisyahu on Youth
With these, demons surround all around to bring me down to negativity But I believe, yes I believe, I said I believe I’ll stand on my own two feet Won’t be brought down on one knee Fight with all of my might and get these demons to flee Hashem’s rays fire blaze burn bright and I believe Hashem’s rays fire blaze burn bright and I believe
“Bling (Confessions Of A King)” by The Killers on Sam’s Town
The lyrics to this song are not entirely clear[ref]Not to me, at least.[/ref], but from interviews you can learn that this is the story of Brandon Flower’s father’s conversion to Mormonism.[ref]”‘Bling (Confession of a King)’ is the victorious story of Flowers’ dad forswearing – overnight – alcoholism and Catholicism to become a Mormon when Brandon was five.” – from The Guardian.[/ref]
It ain’t hard to hold, When it shines like gold, You’ll remember me.
“Stare at the Sun” by Thrice on The Artist in the Ambulance
I’ll stare straight into the sun And I won’t close my eyes Till I understand or go blind
Love (as in Charity)
“For Miles” by Thrice on Vheissu
The opening lyrics of this song definitely make it a good contender for the Hope playlist, but once I realized that the title “For Miles” was a reference to Matthew 5:41 this song became my favorite song about love.
41 And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.
As the song says, “one day, all our scars will disappear, like the stars at dawn,” but until then:
as long as we live, every scar is a bridge to someone’s broken heart We must see that every scar is a bridge, and as long as we live We must open up these wounds
There is a way to find meaning in our own suffering, and that way is love.
“Sigh No More” by Mumford and Sons on Sigh No More
Love that will not betray you, dismay or enslave you. It will set you free. Be more like the man you were made to be.
Tell the World by Lecrae featuring Mali Music on Gravity
I ain’t love you first, but you first loved me
In my heart I cursed you, but you set me free
I gave you no reason to give me new seasons, to give new life, new breathing
But you hung there bleedin’, and ya’ died for my lies and my cheatin’, my lust and my greed, (and Lord!)
What is a man that you mindful of him?
“Loyal to No One” by Dropkick Murphys on The Meanest of Times
This one, on the other hand, is the story of what happens in a life without love.
You said we die alone.
In this case you were right.
“I Will Follow You Into the Dark” by Death Cab for Cutie on Plans
A lot of the bands that I choose are overtly religious. Others, like the very Irish Dropkick Murphys, at least have that as part of their culture. Death Cab for Cutie? Not so much, as far as I can tell, but I still like this song. It lacks hope, but it’s got a great sense of love; a love that is greater than self.
If there’s no one beside you
When your soul embarks
Then I’ll follow you into the dark
“Forgiveness” by Collective Soul on Disciplined Breakdown
I believe that the album title, “Disciplined Breakdown” is about the process of having our heart broken in the sense of Psalm 51:
17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.
If I’m right[ref]And I vaguely recall reading an interview back in the day that suggested they had been reading the Bible a lot as they were writing these tracks.[/ref], then this is a great and very Biblical concept album.
So I wash away stains of yesterday Then tempt myself with love’s display
“Believe” by Yellowcard on Ocean Avenue
This was Yellowcard’s tribute song for the 9/11 attack. I was serving my mission in Hungary in September 2001, and so I missed out on the spirit of national grief and unity that everyone at home felt. For me, listening to this song after I got home was one of the first times I understood some of the significance of what had happened. It’s a terrific tribute to the first responders who died that day, and a testament to the love they had and the love we have for them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6eXIQ3f8Zw
Let it all go, the life that you know, just to bring it down alive And you still came back for me
“Life of a Salesman” by Yellowcard on Ocean Avenue
The title of this track is not subtle but, just in case anyone misses it, it’s a rejection / riff on the famous Arthur Miller play about a clueless and inept father: Death of a Salesman. I don’t mean to knock the play, but a main plot point in the play is that the father cheats on his wife and thereby completely obliterates his son’s faith in him. “Life of a Salesman” goes the other way, and it’s a great song about the love between father and son. That’s a love I feel towards my dad and towards my kids, and one I hope that they can always feel towards me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgyNUEXNPLM
Father I will always be (always be) That same boy that stood by the sea And watched you tower over me (over me) Now I’m older I want to be the same as you
“Just Like You” by Lecrae on Rehab
This is a really, really powerful follow up to Yellowcard’s “Life of a Salesman.” It’s that autobiographical story of Lecrae’s life without a father and, in his absence, the longing for an ultimate father figure. It takes the idea of love between fathers and sons and makes it about love between us and God.
I wanna be like you in every way, So if I gotta die every day Unworthy sacrifice But the least I can do is give the most of me ‘Cause being just like you is what I’m supposed to be
“Snow” by Ryan Shupe & The Rubberband on Simplify
I can’t find a video for this song, unfortunately.[ref]Sadly, they also declined to play it when they opened up for audience suggestions at their show in Williamsburg a couple of weeks back. Blamed it on the new bassist for not learning it.[/ref] It’s a great song about God sending a blanket of snow on the day that one of his prophets died. It’s a poignant song about God’s love for His servants. You can find it on Spotify, however, on their 2011 album Simplify. (I originally heard it, and found out about the band for the first time, on the God’s Army soundtrack.)
No, it wasn’t a lightning storm ripping leaves and limbs off of trees. And it wasn’t a massive earthquake, the earth buckling from beneath. Because he wasn’t quite that sad, and he wasn’t quite that mad, but his messenger died yesterday and he wanted us to know.
“Beggars” by Thrice on Beggars
This song makes me think irresistibly of King Benjamin’s sermon in Mosiah 2:
25 And now I ask, can ye say aught of yourselves? I answer you, Nay. Ye cannot say that ye are even as much as the dust of the earth; yet ye were created of the dust of the earth; but behold, it belongeth to him who created you. 26 And I, even I, whom ye call your king, am no better than ye yourselves are; for I am also of the dust. And ye behold that I am old, and am about to yield up this mortal frame to its mother earth.
King Benjamin’s point is that we depend utterly on the grace of God and therefore ought to show the same grace to our brothers and sisters. As He loves us, we should them.
Can you see now that everything’s grace after all? If there’s one thing I know in this life: we are beggars all.
Hope
It is easy for me to believe in ideals like kindness, forgiveness, and sacrifice for others. That is obviously not to say it is easy for me to live according to those ideals, but their goodness and the beauty seems self-evident even when I fall short. What it much less obvious and easy to believe, however, is that somehow God will actually one day reconcile this world and its pain and injustice and hatred with those ideals. I do not see how it can be done. And so there’s always a temptation to reduce the Gospel to symbolism. To nice stories that embellish good principles but that, in the end, are just wishful thinking or gestures towards a promise we will never see fulfilled. This is why hope matters to me so much. Because hope is what gets me from a tragic view of a world eternally and miserably short of the beauty and peace to the idea that one day we’ll actually see beauty and peace realized on Earth. What I hope for is that it’s all real, and so the songs here are just the songs that speak most unabashedly of God’s existence and the message of Jesus. That makes it a bluegrass-heavy portion of the playlist.
“Shouting on the Hills of Glory” by Ralph Stanley on Clinch Mountain Country Music
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zg-uaVzb9QI
Oh what a blessed reunion When we’re together over yonder There’ll be shouting on the hills of God
“When I Wake To Sleep No More” by Ralph Stanley on Clinch Mountain Country Music
Leaving behind all troubles and trials
Bound for the city up on high
When I wake up (when I wake up)
To sleep no more (to sleep no more)
“Weary Saints” by Dustin Kensrue on Please Come Home
Time will cease to stalk us Death will be undone We’ll shine with the light of A thousand blazing suns.
“Do You Want To Live In Glory” by The Lonesome River Band on Talkin’ To Myself
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAepajiUOEs
From this world of pain and sorrow To that golden promised land There are goals for tomorrow I know God can hold my hand
Discipleship
This playlist includes songs about faith in the sense of fidelity. It’s about trying to follow God instead of the world, about being on the outside, and about sacrifice. It’s very heavy on Thrice, but if that’s not your thing there’s some Pink Floyd and Mumford and Sons as well. These are the songs that I actually listen to the most, by the way, because it’s what I usually feel the most need for: encouragement to keep pushing as hard as I can every day to try harder than the day before to do and to be the things that I want to be as a follower of Christ.
“Divine Intervention” by Lecrae (featuring J.R.) on Rehab
The inversion of the meaning of the phrase “this is my moment” is profound. Instead of meaning “this is about me,” in this song the phrase means “this is my sacrifice to you.” It’s incredible. No one can preach it like Lecrae and his crew preach it.
Here is my moment, here is my lifetime
All that I have I will give to You
In this moment, ’cause nothing really matters at all
Everything that this heart longs for other than You I will let die
Take all that I am ’cause nothing really matters right now
This is my moment
“Image of the Invisible” by Thrice on Vheissu
Though all the world may hate us, we are named Though shadow overtake us, we are known
“Children of the Light” by Lecrae (featuring Sonny Sandoval and Dillavou) on Rehab
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLsEIepN8yQ
We are children of the light Royal rulers of the day Saints, no prisoners of the night Trust and love will lead the way We are free
“The Artist in the Ambulance” by Thrice on The Artist in the Ambulance
…I know that there’s a difference between sleight of hand, and giving everything you have. There’s a line drawn in the sand, I’m working up the will to cross it.
I still wonder, at the end of this song, if the artist in the ambulance is a reference to the singer or the one who saved the singer.
Fuego by Lecrae featuring KB and Suzy Rock on Gravity
I’m on and this little light I got Imma let it shine til the day I drop Heart quit pumping only way I stop Til then I’m a light post on your block
“Identity Crisis” by Thrice on Identity Crisis
I’ll walk into the flame A calculated risk to further bless your name So strike me deep and true And in your strength I will live and die, both unto you
“Like Moths to Flame” by Thrice on Vheissu
This video is based on footage from Passion of the Christ. It may not be easy to watch.
and then I met your eyes, and I remember everything and something in me dies, the night that I betrayed my king
“Paul” by Haun’s Mill on Haun’s Mill
This song was written and is performed by my mission buddy Nord Anderson and his band Haun’s Mill. Yes, thatHaun’s Mill. They are rocking a Decemberists vibe, and it is clearly working for them. They are running a Kickstarter at the moment. You should check it out and listen to more of their songs (with better recording quality!).
Today I was awakened, was lost but now am found
“Wish You Were Here” by Pink Floyd on Wish You Were Here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NavVfpp-1L4
And did you exchange A walk on part in the war For a lead role in a cage?
If that doesn’t resonate immediately, consider Isaiah 5:20-25, and especially just verse 20:
Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
I use this song every time I teach that chapter of Isaiah in Sunday School.
“The Cave” by Mumford and Sons on Sigh No More
The video here is a bit silly, but I still love the lyrics.
And I’ll find strength in pain And I will change my ways I’ll know my name as it’s called again
Yearning for Home
For as long as I can remember, I’ve always had a sense that this world is not my home. That I came from somewhere else, and that I’m headed somewhere else. It turns out that’s not an uncommon feeling: the yearning for a home we cannot remember. The songs on this playlist all share that yearning: a painful flipside to the Hope playlist from earlier on. After Discipleship, these are the songs that I listen to the most.
“In Exile” by Thrice on Beggars
I am a pilgrim – a voyager; I won’t rest until my lips touch the shore – Of the land that I’ve been longing for as long as I’ve lived, Where there’ll be no pain or tears anymore.
“Come All You Weary” by Thrice on The Alchemy Index: Volume 4 (Earth)
This one, because it depicts the ministry of Jesus, could fit in the Hope playlist, but the emphasis is clearly on the weariness and longing of His followers both in the lyrics and in the music.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzNSaxZqw24
Come all you weary Come gather round near me Find rest for your souls
“The Melting Point of Wax” by Thrice on The Artist in the Ambulance
Since there’es a lot of Thrice on these playlists, I went with an acoustic version this time.
“There’s no promise of safety with these secondhand wings.”
“Some Will Seek Forgiveness, Others Escape” by Underoath on They’re Only Chasing Safety
Although most of the screamo on this playlist come from Thrice, the best single example of the genre as it relates to Christianity actually comes from the band Underoath. It won’t sound like screamo at first. It starts very soft and gentle, but the sense of pain and loss and disappointment builds and builds quietly until the screaming crescendo of yearning. If there’s any one song where a scream makes sense, it is this song. It’s one of the most powerful songs on the entire playlist. I know not everyone will enjoy the song, but I don’t think there’s a single one of us alive on this planet who haven’t felt this way at some point.
Hey unloving, I will love you.
“Please Come Home” by Dustin Kensrue on Please Come Home
This song doesn’t really need a clarification: it’s a retelling or the story of the Prodigal Son.
Don’t you know son that I love you And I don’t care where you’ve been Yes and i’ll be right here waiting, ’til you come around the bend
“God of Wine” by Third Eye Blind on Third Eye Blind
This is another one of those songs that isn’t really overtly religious, but I don’t think there’s any doubt that it fits on the list playlist.
The God of wine comes crashing Through the headlights of a car That took you farther than You thought you’d ever want to go We can’t get back again You can’t get back again
“Go Back” by SweetHaven on SweetHaven
This is a song that was featured on The RM, a ridiculous Mormon comedy about a return missionary that I had the misfortune of watching right after my (rather traumatic) mission where the humor mostly passed me by and the whole thing just triggered flashbacks. This song was good, though.
You’ve been runnin’ hard You can’t find your place And the memories won’t erase
“There is a Light That Never Goes Out” by The Smiths on The Queen is Dead
This is another one that might not seem obvious at first, but the sense of longing and theme of death (which means my wife refuses to let me listen to this song in the car) definitely fit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRtW1MAZ32M
And if a ten-ton truck Kills the both of us To die by your side Well, the pleasure – the privilege is mine Oh, there is a light and it never goes out
“Roll Away Your Stone” by Mumford and Sons on Sigh No More
It seems that all my bridges have been burned But you say, “That’s exactly how this grace thing works” It’s not the long walk home that will change this heart But the welcome I receive with every start
“Wayfaring Stranger” by Eva Cassidy on Songbird
This is an 19th century folk/gospel song with a lot of variations. I really like Eva Cassidy’s.
I’m going there to see my father I’m going there no more to roam I’m only going over Jordan I’m only going over home
“Blanket of Ghosts” by Dustin Kensrue on Please Come Home
Wake me when it’s spring time in heaven and the tears are all wiped from my face. Wake me when it’s spring time in heaven When I’m strong enough to walk in that place
“Setting Sail, Coming Home” by Darren Korb on Bastion Soundtrack
This track comes from the soundtrack to one of my favorite video games of all time, Bastion.
Lie on my back, Clouds are making way for me I’m coming home, sweet home I see your star, You left it burning for me; Mother, I’m here
New Testament scholar, Jesus Seminar fellow, and liberal theologian Marcus Borg passed away this last month. He authored many books[ref]For example, see his Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary (New York: HarperOne, 2006); The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus’ Final Days in Jerusalem (New York: HarperCollins, 2006) w/ John Dominic Crossan; The First Christmas: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus’s Birth (New York: HarperOne, 2007) w/ John Dominic Crossan; The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions (New York: HarperCollins, 1999) w/ N.T. Wright.[/ref] and studies. A number of thoughtful, admiring posts have been written in his memory. While I don’t always share Borg’s interpretations,[ref]I think his preferred anti-imperial, even post-colonial view of the New Testament ignores the explanatory power of its Second Temple Jewish theological context, including its apocalyptic literature. For criticisms of this fairly new imperial approach, see Jesus Is Lord, Caesar Is Not: Evaluating Empire in New Testament Studies, ed. Scot McKnight, Joseph B. Modica (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2013).[/ref] his strong emphasis on the political nature of Jesus’ ministry can be a much-needed breath of fresh air in the midst of today’s hyper-individualized, over-spiritualized Christianity.[ref]I’ve quoted him in a sacrament talk before to make this point.[/ref] For example, he explains that the cross in the first century “represented execution by the empire; only the empire crucified, and then for only one crime: denial of imperial authority…It meant risking imperial retribution.” By the time Mark’s gospel was written, first-century Christians saw the cross as “the ‘way’…the path of personal transformation.”[ref]Borg, Crossan, The Last Week, 28.[/ref] Though talk of redemption and the Atonement often start at Gethsemane and end (sometimes) after the Resurrection, we cannot and should not separate these things from the life of Jesus.
I’m thankful to Borg for helping Christians remember this.
I am religiously multilingual. I grew up in a devout Mormon family, I learned all the Mormon songs, heard all the Mormon stories, and read all the Mormon scriptures. I identified as a Mormon, and I still do. When I was in elementary school my best friends were all Mormon. But during that traumatic shake-up that happens to kids as they transfer from elementary school to middle school I missed my footing and fell out of favor with the other Mormon kids. For about the next decade, I didn’t have a single close Mormon friend I saw on regular basis, and the Mormons I did get along with most were those on the margins. Throughout the formative years of middle school, high school, and college the people I trusted, depended on, and interacted with outside of regular church meetings were almost exclusively with non-Mormons. And during regular church meetings? I was very lonely.[ref]I have close Mormon friends today, but that’s a recent development over the last 5 years or so.[/ref]
The upside of the loneliness was that I learned a religious version of code-switching. I’ve always had a keen interest in religion and politics and all the controversial topics you’re not supposed to discuss in polite company, and I spent all my time talking about those issues with non-Mormons. So I picked up some of the vocabulary, paradigms, values, and cultural touchstones of the Catholics, evangelicals, Jews, agnostics, and atheists around me.
One of the biggest impacts of religious multilingualism is that it changes how you view your own faith. The first realization is the most basic: you start to see how many of the unspoken assumptions about what you think and how you behave are not universal, but are particular to your own religious and cultural background. You start to realize just how much variety there is to the way different people view the world.
Along the way, you may also catch glimpses of your own religion reflected back to you in the eyes of others. This is a strange experience. It’s like vertigo or an out-of-body experience to see what is most familiar and close to your identity appear suddenly strange and distant. It’s a kind of radical dissociation, like what happens when you repeat an ordinary word until meaning and sound of the word separate. Try it, if you’re curious. The word “tub” is fun to use. Just start repeating it to yourself, out loud, at normal speed. Give it a couple of minutes at most, and suddenly you’ll feel like you’re making sounds instead of words.
Every now and then when I’m sitting in Elder’s Quorum and we’re saying a prayer I can’t help but look around at all the other guys in the room and think: “This is weird.” We’ve all got regular jobs with regular people and we know how to get along just fine in the regular world. But every Sunday we keep coming back to this brutally ugly meetinghouse, sitting in these weird pseudo-rooms made by moving giant curtains to subdivide a carpeted basketball court attached to a chapel, and we pray in front of each other like it’s the most mundane thing in the world. It is, by the experience of most of the American people, not a normal way to behave. For the non-religious the whole project is bizarre, and even for religious Americans the particular habits of Mormons—like our lack of formality or professional leadership—are definitively abnormal.
None of this is to say that I love my weird religion less. On the contrary, there are some things I appreciate about Mormonism that I wouldn’t have noticed without the experience of being religiously multilingual. High on that list is the fact that, as a general rule, Mormons proselyte with a positive message. That might seem obvious, but a Mormon living in the Bible Belt will soon be disabused of that notion. I’ve been told that I’m going to Hell simply for being Mormon on more than one occasion, and when I tried to join a Bible group on campus (because Institute seemed far away and, frankly, non-Mormons often know the Bible much better than we do), the leader staged what I can only describe as an intervention to try and rescue me from “Joe” Smith’s nefarious clutches. So, as it turns out, there are actually other ways to go about it. Of course individual Mormons fall short from time to time, but as a people we have nothing like the countercult movement, and I’m proud of that.
Being religiously multilingual has helped me be a better Mormon in other ways as well. As I’ve learned more about other faith traditions, I’ve grown to view them with respect and admiration. Treating other religions this way is an intrinsic aspect of the Mormon view on truth. Joseph Smith said that “One of the grand fundamental principles of Mormonism is to receive truth, let it come from whence it may,”[ref]Discourses of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 199[/ref] and his successor Brigham Young reinforced that sentiment as well: “I want to say to my friends that we believe in all good. If you can find a truth in heaven, earth or hell, it belongs to our doctrine. We believe it; it is ours; we claim it.”[ref]Journal of Discourses, vol. 13, p. 335[/ref] Mormon scholar Terryl Givens[ref]Terryl Givens is my father.[/ref] described Joseph Smith’s belief in his calling as “an oracle of God, subject to moments of heavenly encounter and the pure flow of inspiration,” but also wrote that Smith was “insatiably eclectic in his borrowings and adaptations.”[ref]The Woman in the Wilderness: Mormonism, Catholicism, and Inspired Syncretism, p. 14[/ref]
This puts a very different light on the Mormon teaching that our church is “the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth.”[ref]D&C 1:30[/ref] I do believe that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the one true Church, but to me that means something fairly narrow and limited. It means we’re the one authorized, formal institution. But it doesn’t mean we’re perfect, doesn’t mean we’re better, doesn’t mean we know it all, and doesn’t even mean we know the most. Mormons have no monopoly on truth. That is plainly evident from our leaders and in our scriptures. For example, Doctrine and Covenants section 49:8—a revelation given to Joseph Smith—talks about “holy men ye know not of,” cementing in scripture the principle that God is quite busy interacting with a lot of people other than Mormons to accomplish His purposes.Apostle Orson F. Whitney said the same thing in 1928 when he said that: “God is using more than one people for the accomplishment of His great and marvelous work. The Latter-day Saints cannot do it all. It is too vast, too arduous for any one people.”[ref]Orson F. Whitney, Conference Report, April 1928, p. 59[/ref]
I’ve become a huge fan of Krister Stendahl’s Three Rules of Religious Understanding and in particular rule number three: “Leave room for holy envy.” This isn’t a rule that I think Mormons have always fully grasped, but—as the quotes in the previous two paragraphs illustrate—it has always been a part of who we try to be.
I’d like to think that I’ve also been able to use my multilingual perspective in ways that have been constructive for other folks as well. Many years ago when Facebook groups had discussion boards, I was part of a particularly large group where the longest running-thread was titled “Protestants vs. Catholics” (or something similar). I often enjoyed participating in that discussion as the third leg of a tripod: Christian, but neither Protestant nor Catholic. No one ever really wins a debate of that nature, of course, but I think that changing the dynamic from simplistic one-on-one to a more fluid and stable three-way conversation sometimes improved the tenor and expanded the breadth of the discussion.
These, then, are the three primary benefits of religious multilingualism: an increased capacity for introspection, an increased capacity to learn from others, and an opportunity to engage more effectively in ecumenical discussions. Each of them, I believe, can be applied at the macro level to Mormonism as a whole just as I have seen them work in my own life.
One of the big surprises for the world travelers who came to Salt Lake during the 2002 Winter Olympics was that there were all of these conventional-looking white men and women who, at the drop of a hat, could hold forth in Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, German, Tagalog, Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, and dozens of other languages.”Mormons Project Image As Diverse as Olympics,” wrote the New York Times. This is a natural consequence of the Church’s ambitious missionary program. There are about 50 languages taught at the Missionary Training Center (MTC) in Provo[ref]About the MTC[/ref] and the Church also runs MTCs in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ghana, Guatemala, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, the Philippines, South Africa, Spain, and the United Kingdom.[ref]Wikipedia[/ref]
It’s obvious when you think about it: lots of Mormons serve missions, and so lots of Mormons speak foreign languages. Mormons don’t just learn the language when they live in foreign countries. They learn and come to love the culture. Talk to any Mormon missionary—even those who served stateside and didn’t learn a new language—and they will almost invariably be able to tell you about the best local cousine and speak with adopted pride about local traditions and history from wherever they served, be it Alabama or Albania.[ref]Yup, we’re there. I checked.[/ref]
All of this international exposure and cultural multilingualism means that Mormons—and especially American Mormons—have an opportunity and an obligation to try and separate our cultural heritage from the essence of Mormonism. If instead of a young American farmer named Joseph Smith, God had restored His church to a young Indian or a young Japanese farmer, what would the institution look like today? What part of what Mormon missionaries export is essential Mormonism and what part is Wassatch Front culture? These are murky and sensitive questions, but important ones.
The process of attempting to distill religion from culture is uncomfortable and can never yield truly definitive results, but it is important in understanding ourselves and reaching out and engage with a global audience. In years to come, it may very well be that one of the most important consequences of our global missionary effort is not what we teach to others but what, by seeing our faith refracted back in different languages and cultures, we learn about our own religion.
Of course it’s not just our own religion we should learn about, but the religions, traditions, and cultural insights of the people of the world. This is a matter of scriptural injunction for Mormons: “study and learn, and become acquainted with all good books, and with languages, tongues, and people.”[ref]Doctrine and Covenants 90:15[/ref] I also find it very interesting that the topic of faith crises is so prominent in our discussion these days, and is linked in our scripture to the command to learn: “And as all have not faith, seek ye diligently and teach one another words of wisdom; yea, seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom; seek learning, even by study and also by faith.”[ref]Doctrine and Covenants 88:118[/ref] We may come to learn that when it comes to faith crisis in our secular age, the best way out is through. The solution is not insularity, but greater exposure and the inoculation that comes with the habit of being exposed to many, many new ideas and developing the skill of synthesizing what we learn that is new into our traditions and beliefs.
Now that I’ve covered briefly how Mormons can use our cultural multilingualism to achieve greater introspection and learn from others, let’s consider the third benefit of multilingualism, engaging beneficially in ecumenical discussions.
The relationship between Mormonism and the broader Christian community has always been fraught. Mainstream Christian denominations have reacted to Mormonism’s stark claims to being the only truth Church by refusing to recognize Mormon baptisms. Mormons are occasionally miffed about that without realizing that Mormons don’t recognize anyone else’s baptisms either! The biggest sticking point in this relationship, of course, is that many other Christians denominations assert that Mormonism is not Christian at all.
Mormons, who unambiguously view themselves as Christians, are torn by conflicting desires to enter a broader ecumenical community and to maintain their distinctiveness. Mormon scholar Armand Mauss writes about this as the tension between assimilation and differentiation in, for example, The Angel and the Beehive . Early Mormons like the Pratt brothers emphasized Mormon distinctiveness, but more recently President Hinckley (who led the Church until 2008) oversaw a period of engagement that downplayed the more revolutionary teachings of Joseph Smith and emphasized common Christian doctrines.
Although clearly important, this emphasis on the relationship between Mormons and mainstream Christianity has distracted attention from a different set of bridges that Mormons could be building. In an age in which it often seems as though traditional religious voices are declining in prominence and importance, Mormonism may be uniquely positioned to enter into dialogue with rising secular voices, shifting the emphasis from intra-Christian discussions to inter-faith discussions where “secularism” is considered a faith group in its own right. That’s a controversial classification, of course, but other than that nomenclature there isn’t really that much to debate: secularism is clearly more than the mere absence of religion. In our society, secularism entails a suite of philosophical commitments (such as to materialism/physicalism and analytic reductionism) and cultural attitudes that function in ways that are broadly equivalent to a religion, and it is a religion with which Mormonism is uniquely positioned to interact with.
Mormonism has long held, for example, that there is no conflict between science and religion. Brigham Young taught that “Our religion will not clash with or contradict the facts of science in any particular,” and he even viewed that as a distinctive element of Mormonism that set it aside from other Christian denominations.[ref]Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, vol 14, pg 116[/ref] Mormons have also long taught a kind of metaphysical monism that, while not necessarily identical to physicalism, is certainly more akin to it than to traditional Cartesian dualism. “All spirit is matter,” reads a canonized revelation to Joseph Smith.[ref]Doctrine and Covenants 131:7[/ref]
Mormons also reject the conventional Christian idea that God created the world ex nihilo, which means “from nothing.” Instead of God creating by conjuring something out of nothing, Mormons believe that the world was created by organizing materials that were already present. More importantly, Mormon scripture contains hints that some kernel of the human soul itself is fundamentally uncreated: “Man was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be.”[ref]Doctrine and Covenants 93:29[/ref]
The precise philosophical implications of these beliefs are unclear, especially since Mormonism has no official theology and no authoritative theologians. But some general trends are clear. The first is that, in a sense, Mormons reject supernaturalism. Instead, we embrace a variant of Clarke’s Third Law: Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from miracles. How far Mormons run with this notion is a matter for individual deliberation, but the extreme position that posits God as a kind of super-evolved person is not inconceivable. And that is a definition of God that even Richard Dawkins could learn to live with.
And, even without precisely working out the theology, the Mormon perspective does have relevance to important topics like the Problem of Evil. How does one reconcile why bad things happen to good people? The most prominent response involves citing free will, but if you believe that God created human beings out of nothing then that explanation doesn’t work very well. Sure, we’re free to act out according to our sinful natures, but if God made us then He made our natures. Why didn’t He make them better? Discarding the doctrine of creation ex nihilo doesn’t solve the Problem of Evil in one fell swoop, but it does have a significant and meaningful impact on the conversation.
It is, however, not an ecumenical conversation. The Problem of Evil is an example of a theological problem that is of interest to anyone who believes in a creator God and also serves as a linchpin in many atheist arguments. And so, rather than jumping into the Protestant vs. Catholic debate as I did many years ago, I have to wonder if Mormonism might be able to fill a similar role in the more general religious vs. secular discussion going on in our world. It would be a stretch to say that Mormonism has a foot in each domain, but it is at least in the unique position of being able to survey both landscapes from where it stands.
This may seem like an absurd position, so I want to spend just a little time on it. Lots of faiths can adapt to secularism by simply downplaying supernatural claims and reducing everything to symbolism. Mormonism is as capable as any other denomination of taking that route. There is nothing unique to Mormonism in that strategy. There’s also nothing interesting or useful in that strategy. Assimilating religion into a secular worldview does nothing good for either religion or secularism, and history shows that religions which go down that road gradually fade and die.
Instead, what Mormonism offers is the prospect of maintaining the vitality of historical religious propositions in a secular environment. To be clear: I’m talking about Mormons who believe a man named Jesus Christ walked the Earth 2,000 years ago, performed various miracles, died, and was resurrected. The Mormon difference isn’t to deny that miracles can happen, it’s to imagine that miracles do not violate the laws of physics but operate at a higher level. This is weird, yes, but quantum mechanics is weird. Again: the best way out of the religion vs. science conflict is through.
It is also worth noting that the idea of synthesizing religious and secular views is not a new one for Mormons. One of the greatest examples comes from Orson Scott Card’s greatest work The Speaker for the Dead. The book recounts how, after exterminating humanity’s rivals in the events of Ender’s Game, Ender created a new, secular religion. The religion is secular in the sense of not making any supernatural claims or even discussing God, and it is clearly modeled on the cultural place Mormonism actually occupies in American society. Mormonism is at once scoffed at by traditional religions for being irreligious in its conceptions of deity and by secular society for being overly religious in its belief in angels in the age of railways. Similarly, in Card’s writing, the religion of the Speakers is viewed with mistrust both by the futuristic Catholic Church and the dominant secular society. It’s an uncomfortable and strange place that Mormonism occupies, but also a potentially fruitful one.
Perhaps the biggest thing holding Mormonism back from this kind of bridge-building between religious and secular society is our own reticence. One of the reasons Mormonism seems weird is that in trying to emphasize our commonality with other Christian denominations we sometimes refuse to speak up clearly and plainly about beliefs that would emphasize our distinctiveness. And, since we suddenly go silent exactly where people are most interested in what we believe, it’s no surprise that the vacuum gets filled with tangential, obscure, or false versions of what we believe. Being more willing to speak explicitly about uniquely Mormon beliefs is an important part of being seen as less weird or, at least, being seen as weird for the right reasons.[ref]This is a big part of what inspired my parents, Terryl and Fiona Givens, to write their first book together: The God Who Weeps: How Mormonism Makes Sense of Life .[/ref]
Mormonism, both because of our unusual doctrine and our far-flung missions, is truly multilingual. We can and should use this trait to better understand ourselves, better learn from our neighbors, and more productively engage in the great religious discussions of our day, which is happening not within the overtly religious community, but between secular and religious philosophies.
This is not a topic I enjoy writing about for several reasons. First, I feel no ill-will towards Dehlin and therefore no happiness at all that he faces disciplinary council. It is simply sad. Second, there is a lot of material to read through in order to write a post like this, and none of the material is intrinsically interesting or uplifting. Lastly, this kind of post tends to bring out the more adversarial aspects of Internet communication, and that is something that I do not enjoy. My days of being excited at the prospect of a flamewar are long, long gone.
I wrote my initial piece[ref]The RCR and DR posts were one post before the RCR version got substantially edited for length[/ref] because I thought it was important for there to be a rigorous and balanced alternative to Dehlin’s narrative. When Meridian invited me to republish the post there, I did the work of merging and updating for the same reason. I hope I’ve accomplished that goal.
EDITED 2017-Mar-28: There was originally an image on this post. The image was a screenshot of an iOS device with a notification from the New York Times stating “Prominent Mormon Faces Excommunication for Backing Gay Marriage.” The person who took that image contacted me today and asked me to remove it and also his/her name, and so I have.
John Dehlin applauds for a performance of “The Book of Mormon” musical, as covered in the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/31/us/31mormon.html
Real Clear Religion is running a post I wrote about the probable reasons behind John Dehlin’s upcoming disciplinary council: The Real Reason Why One Mormon Is On Trial. Dehlin promulgated a heroic narrative in which he will face down Church discipline because he refuses to abandon his support of same-sex marriage and Ordain Women. The narrative is attractive to a secular audience, which has picked it up and run with it. Examples so far include:
New York Times
First paragraph: Mormon leaders have moved to excommunicate the prominent founder of an online forum for questioning Mormons, charging him with apostasy for publicly supporting same-sex marriage and the ordination of women, and for challenging church teaching.
Daily Beast
Headline: The Coming Crackdown on Mormon Liberals
Slate
In the first paragraph: Dehlin… said his regional church leader scheduled a hearing for Jan. 25, and that if he didn’t take down podcasts that are critical of the church and disavow his support for the organization Ordain Women as well as gay marriage, he would likely be excommunicated.
The narrative initiated by Dehlin and echoed by these sources is not accurate. My article at RCR explains why by relying on two of Dehlin’s fellow liberal Mormons: Steve Evans and Chris Henrichsen. Both openly support same-sex marriage and sympathize with Ordain Women. Neither have (as far as we know) faced discipline. And both doubt that gay marriage and Ordain Women are central to Dehlin’s disciplinary council.
You should read the article, of course, but there are a couple of points that got left out of my RCR piece (mostly for length constraints). I want to point those out here, and then make a final observation that wasn’t in the original RCR piece.
Letter from Stake President Bryan King
First and most importantly, Byran King (Dehlin’s stake president) sent Dehlin a letter dated August 11th, 2014 in which he specifically said that gay marriage and Ordain Women were not the primary concerns:
I fear that in my willingness to engage in a discussion on all of the issues that you chose to address during our lengthy conversations, the direction of my true concerns may have not been clear… I am focused on five core doctrines of the Church: (1) The existence and nature of God; (2) Christ being the literal Savior of the World and his Atonement being absolutely necessary to our salvation; (3) the exclusive priesthood authority restored through the Church; (4) The Book of Mormon as scripture and the revealed word of God; and (5) the governance of the Church by doctrine and revelation through inspired leaders. As you know, and as my letter outlined, in the past you have written and spoken out against these core doctrines on numerous occasions and in numerous public contexts.
When Dehlin provided a document dump with his initial press release about the disciplinary council on January 17 he left that letter out. In a January 19th follow-up in which he repudiated Steve Evans’ assertion that gay marriage and Ordain Women were probably not central issues, he provided a different version of the document dump that included the August 11th letter. But he only quoted from an August 7th letter that seemed to bolster his case. (Hat tip to Angels in the Architecture for alerting me to the Aug 11th letter and the two different document dumps.)
The letter shows that Dehlin’s Stake President clarified his real concerns to Dehlin back in August of 2014, and that same-sex marriage and Ordain Women were not on the list.[ref]At the most, female ordination is implied tangentially by point #3 (although that is far from certain). Same sex marriage isn’t on the map.[/ref]
Changing Stories
Yesterday Dehlin revised his January 17th statement in which he had repudiated Steve Evans’ assertion[ref]Evans was paraphrased by Peggy Fletcher Stack. The line was then edited out of the article, but the quote still exists (for now) on Dehlin’s site.[/ref] that gay marriage and Ordain Women were not central issues. He now claims that:
Even though the media have chosen to focus on SSM and OW in many of their stories, I don’t believe that I have ever claimed that SSM and/or OW were the only causes for the disciplinary council, or even necessarily the main causes (if I have done so, I’m more than willing to apologize/clarify).
Logically, this makes no sense. Steve Evans said SSM and OW were not the “main causes.” If Dehlin didn’t feel differently, why would he have written a response solely to contradict Steve Evans?[ref]And that was the sole original purpose of the post. Even in its edited form that much remains clear.[/ref]
Pragmatically, however, it makes all the sense in the world. Dehlin fed a dishonest narrative to the media on January 15th. Now that they have taken the ball and run with it (see articles above) he can disavow the narrative and still reap the benefits.
Final Thoughts
I read a lot of comments, Facebook posts, and other quotes from John Dehlin as I researched my piece this weekend. Through it all there was one unexpected feeling: empathy.
Dehlin is a man who has spent the last 10 years straddling two diametrically opposed worlds. He has ardent fans within the Mormon and post/ex-Mormon communities, and both sets of fans are sure that he is really one of them. One of the quote that RCR trimmed from my piece came from a post-Mormon commenter who wrote of Dehlin[ref]EDIT: on 2017-Feb-9 I have removed the URL for this link because the target is suspected by Google of being loaded with malware. For posterity / completeness, the URL is: http://www.postmormon.org/exp_e/index.php/discussions/viewthread/28352/P40/#487406. I do NOT recommend you follow that URL unless you know what you’re doing because it is probably not safe for your computer.[/ref] that “he does not make it crystal clear he isn’t a Mormon… [but] everyone knows Dehlin is a mole in the Mormon church.” Within the post/ex-Mormon community, there is a belief that if Dehlin is excommunicated they will lose their best undercover agent.
It’s easy for someone who is a Mormon to be angry about that. The first thing to point out, however, is that as far as I could learn the post/ex-Mormon community is just as much in the dark as the Mormon community. Just as some Mormons are convinced Dehlin isn’t a “real” Mormon, some of them are convinced that he isn’t a “real” post/ex-Mormon. So my point is not that we should just take the word of an anonymous post-Mormon commenter as final.
I sort of recognized some of what Dehlin has been trying to navigate from my own similar (but not identical) experiences. I’ve never made any effort to hide the fact that if you’re going to put me in a bucket, I pick the conservative bucket over the liberal bucket. But I have also worked pretty hard to keep minds and channels of communication open. And this means that some of the conservatives I tend to admire the most for their forthright and bold positions view me as a kind of untrustworthy, counterfeit conservative. Meanwhile, some of the liberals who might actually have a lot in common with me in terms of values even if not policies view me as a kind of dangerous alien who wraps sinister right-wing dogma in moderate-sounding rhetoric. Building bridges can be thankless work.[ref]And, just to be clear, it’s not always a good idea. Diversity is something I value. It’s not the only thing.[/ref]
And so when I say that I have no desire to judge or demean Dehlin I mean it sincerely. I don’t think he started out a decade ago with an aspiration to become an undercover anti-Mormon. That’s not because I’m unwilling to believe that anyone could be so evil. People are capable of great evil. They just aren’t, in my experience, capable of great long-run planning. Who has a plan that works out like clockwork over a 10-year period? So I think it’s much more likely that Dehlin’s roller-coaster ride in and out and in and out of the Church reflected a lot of genuine turmoil on his part.
But, as important as bridge-building can be, so is being honest. Trying to relate to widely different viewpoints shouldn’t ultimately come down to masking your own intentions and beliefs. It’s one thing to refuse to choose sides because you’re sitting this one out. It’s another to be actively involved in the game, but playing for both teams.
And so my analysis stands. His initial post did plant the SSM / OW seed in the media. It is a false narrative. The most probable reasons for the disciplinary council are his public repudiation of core Mormon beliefs and his work–in consequence even if not in intent–to drive Mormons in faith crisis out of the Church. We can’t know how the disciplinary council will go, and it’s not really our business. But as long as Dehlin chooses to make this part of his story public we should at least have the facts.
In a 2011 post, historian John Fea acknowledged the idea that the United States is a “Christian nation” is typically associated with the Christian Right. People from Glenn Beck to Newt Gingrich have claimed America was founded and meant to be a Christian nation. “Rarely, if ever,” Fea writes, “do we hear the name Martin Luther King, Jr., included in this list of apologists for Christian America. Yet he was just as much of an advocate for a “Christian America” as any who affiliate with the Christian Right today”:
King’s fight for a Christian America was not over amending the Constitution to make it more Christian or promoting crusades to insert “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance (June 14, 1954). It was instead a battle against injustice and an attempt to forge a national community defined by Christian ideals of equality and respect for human dignity. Most historians now agree that the Civil Rights movement was driven by the Christian faith of its proponents. As David Chappell argued in his landmark book, Stone of Hope: Prophetic Religion and the Death of Jim Crow, the story of the Civil Rights movement is less about the triumph of progressive and liberal ideals and more about the revival of an Old Testament prophetic tradition that led African-Americans to hold their nation accountable for the decidedly unchristian behavior it showed many of its citizens.
King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” “offered a vision of Christian nationalism that challenged the localism and parochialism of the Birmingham clergy and called into question their version of Christian America.” Furthermore,
King understood justice in Christian terms. The rights granted to all citizens of the United States were “God given.” Segregation laws, King believed, were unjust not only because they violated the principles of the Declaration of Independence (“all men are created equal”) but because they did not conform to the laws of God. King argued, using Augustine and Aquinas, that segregation was “morally wrong and sinful” because it “degraded “human personality.” Such a statement was grounded in the biblical idea that all human beings were created in the image of God and as a result possess inherent dignity and worth. He also used biblical examples of civil disobedience to make his point. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego took a stand for God’s law over the law of King Nebuchadnezzar. Paul was willing to “bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.” And, of course, Jesus Christ was an “extremist for love, truth, and goodness” who “rose above his environment.” …By fighting against segregation, King reminded the Birmingham clergy that he was standing up for “what is best in the American dream and for the most sacred values in our Judeo-Christian heritage, thereby bringing our nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in their formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.”
Every side of the political spectrum attempts to lay claim on the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr.[ref]King’s policy suggestions were actually quite socialist in nature, especially later in life. See Thomas E. Woods, Jr., “Did Martin Luther King Jr. Oppose Affirmative Action?” in his 33 Questions About American History You’re Not Supposed to Ask (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2007).[/ref] But as one writer put it, “The texts we argue about most—the Bible, the Constitution, Orwell’s wartime essays, MLK’s civil rights sermons—are the ones whose force of enlightenment, poetry, passion, and morality have risen above the cacophany of human language to almost universally stir souls and inspire liberation. People don’t fight over words that only apply to one side of most arguments…Like the Declaration [of Independence] itself, MLK’s words were considered radical upon utterance, yet universal within a couple of generations.”
Jesus is often seen as a radical (even when he was at times more conservative in his interpretation of the Torah than his peers)[ref]For example, see his teaching on divorce (Matt. 19:3-9). The two rabbinic schools of Shammai and Hillel differed on the grounds for divorce. Shammai permitted divorce only in the case of adultery, while Hillel allowed divorce for almost any reason. Jesus sided with the former.[/ref] whose love was universal. In an effort to follow in his Master’s footsteps, King was also a radical advocating for the universal.
May we all be a bit more radical in pushing forward the universal.
Michael Shermer will debate “Does God Exist” with Father Lucas Laborde today at 7 PM PST at the Oregon State University Socratic Club. The debate will livestream at the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXRLqv0XfYE
Speaker bios:
Dr. Michael Shermer is the Founding Publisher of Skeptic magazine, and Presidential Fellow at Chapman University. Dr. Shermer received his Ph.D. in the history of science from Claremont Graduate University. He has authored many books, including Why Darwin Matters: Evolution and the Case Against Intelligent Design
Fr. Lucas Laborde is the pastor of St. Patrick Catholic Church in Portland. He earned his M.A. in Philosophy at the Universidad del Norte Santo Tomás de Aquino, Argentina, and studied Theology at San Carlos Borromeo Seminary in Rosario, Argentina. Fr. Laborde also spent five years as a Campus Minister at the Oregon State University Newman Center.
Tune in and enjoy. I will be at the debate in person and may even sneak in a question.
Margaret Blair Young has a Kickstarter campaign that you should consider supporting:
New Testament scholar, 
