Religion

The Radical, Alien Nature of Early Christianity: Thoughts on Hart

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Theologian David Bentley Hart has an interesting piece in The New York Times titled “Are Christians Supposed to Be Communists?” Hart writes:

If the communism of the apostolic church is a secret, it is a startlingly open one. Vaguer terms like “communalist” or “communitarian” might make the facts sound more palatable but cannot change them. The New Testament’s Book of Acts tells us that in Jerusalem the first converts to the proclamation of the risen Christ affirmed their new faith by living in a single dwelling, selling their fixed holdings, redistributing wealth “as each needed” and owning all possessions communally. This was, after all, a pattern Jesus himself had established: “Each of you who does not give up all he possesses is incapable of being my disciple” (Luke 14:33).

This was always something of a scandal for the Christians of later ages, at least those who bothered to notice it. And today in America, with its bizarre piety of free enterprise and private wealth, it is almost unimaginable that anyone would adopt so seditious an attitude.

While Christianity “was not a political movement in the modern sense,” it “was a kind of polity, and the form of life it assumed was not merely a practical strategy for survival, but rather the embodiment of its highest spiritual ideals. Its “communism” was hardly incidental to the faith.” He points out that “the New Testament’s condemnations of personal wealth are fairly unremitting and remarkably stark,” going on to cite Matt. 6:19-20, Luke 6:24-25, and James 5:1-6. “While there are always clergy members and theologians swift to assure us that the New Testament condemns not wealth but its abuse, not a single verse (unless subjected to absurdly forced readings) confirm the claim.”

The early Christians saw “themselves as transient tenants of a rapidly vanishing world, refugees passing lightly through a history not their own.” Many fourth and fifth-century theologians “felt free to denounce private wealth as a form of theft and stored riches as plunder seized from the poor. The great John Chrysostom frequently issued pronouncements on wealth and poverty that make Karl Marx and Mikhail Bakunin sound like timid conservatives.”

He concludes,

No society as a whole will ever found itself upon the rejection of society’s chief mechanism: property. And all great religions achieve historical success by gradually moderating their most extreme demands. So it is not possible to extract a simple moral from the early church’s radicalism. 

But for those of us for whom the New Testament is not merely a record of the past but a challenge to the present, it is occasionally worth asking ourselves whether the distance separating the Christianity of the apostolic age from the far more comfortable Christianities of later centuries–and especially those of the developed world today–is more than one merely of time and circumstance.

While I think Hart is correct about the radicalism of the early Christian church, he only briefly mentions a major driving force behind their radicalism: they saw “themselves as transient tenants of a rapidly vanishing world.” The early Church was more-or-less a Jewish apocalyptic movement. Believing the world is going to end soon tends to produce radical practices. And while the Book of Mormon may be a little more nuanced in regards to wealth, it’s not by much. So what does our economic world look like today compared to that of 1st-century Palestine? Harvard historian Niall Ferguson writes,

Despite our deeply rooted prejudices against ‘filthy lucre’…money is the root of most progress…[T]he ascent of money has been essential to the ascent of man. Far from being the work of mere leeches intent on sucking the life’s blood out of indebted families or gambling with the savings of widows and orphans, financial innovation has been an indispensable factor in man’s advance from wretched subsistence to the giddy heights of material prosperity that so many people know today. The evolution of credit and debt was as important as any technological innovation in the rise of civilization, from ancient Babylon to present-day Hong Kong. Banks and the bond market provided the material basis for the splendours of the Italian Renaissance. Corporate finance was the indispensable foundation of both the Dutch and British empires, just as the triumph of the United States in the twentieth century was inseparable from advances in insurance, mortgage finance and consumer credit.

What was Jesus’ economic world like? Religious studies scholar Philip Harland explains,

First, the ancient economy of Palestine was an underdeveloped, agrarian economy based primarily on the production of food through subsistence-level farming by the peasantry. The peasantry, through taxation and rents, supported the continuance of a social-economic structure characterized by asymmetrical distribution of wealth in favor of the elite, a small fraction of the population. Peasants made up the vast majority of the population (over 90 percent…)…[W}ealth in the form of rents, taxes, and tithes flowed toward urban centers, especially Jerusalem (and the Temple), and was redistributed for ends other than meeting the needs of the peasantry, the main producers. The city’s relation to the countryside in such an economy, then, would be parasitic, according to this view (pg. 515).

Bruce Longenecker of Baylor University provides the following estimates about Greco-Roman urban life (pg. 264):

  • 3% of the population was wealthy (e.g., imperial to municipal elites).
  • 17% had a moderate surplus (something like a middle class).
  • 80% were just above, just at, or just below the subsistence level.

According to economist Edd Noell,

The direction of income to particular favored groups shaped attitudes toward wealth accumulation in first-century Palestine. Indeed, in the New Testament era, it can be argued that the rich or wealthy “as a rule meant [those who were] ‘avaricious, greedy’” (Malina 1987, 355), rather than those who held a specific level of net worth. The wealthy obtained their standing by extractive or redistributive actions; resentment was generated toward these individuals who “impose tributes, extract agricultural goods, and remove them for ends other than peasants want” (Hanson and Oakman 1998, 113). This notion dovetailed with the notion that participation in the economy was a zero-sum game. Schneider asserts that in Palestine “the rich were very often (though not always) people who had made a bargain with the devil Rome”; the gouging of the typical farmer through overpayment of taxes and other means suggests that “we will comprehend the New Testament better if we understand that financial advantage in Israel often implied direct involvement with political evil and injustice” (2002, 121). Hanson and Oakman add that “rich and powerful people could be looked upon as robbers and thieves as much as benefactors” (1998, 111) (pgs. 100-101).

Interestingly enough, this seems to fit the distinction between extractive and inclusive institutions outlined by Acemoglu and Robinson in their book Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Power. Reviewing their book, philosopher Bas van der Vossen comments,

Inclusive institutions empower people across society, and thus tend to benefit all. Extractive institutions empower only some, and thus tend to benefit only small groups of people…On the economic side, inclusive institutions secure people’s rights to private property, including private property rights over productive resources, and allow these to be held broadly across society. These allow societies to experience the kinds of specialization, exchange, investment, and innovation that increase productivity…Extractive economic institutions, by contrast, are those that limit or altogether prevent the ability of people across society to individually own private and productive property, engage in commercial and profit-seeking activities, and enjoy the fruits of their investments and innovations. Such institutions stifle productivity. 

…It is important to stress here that Acemoglu and Robinson do not deny that economic growth can occur under extractive institutions. Such ‘extractive growth’ can happen either because of strong policies of state investment in highly productive sectors of the economy (as in Caribbean slave-economies from the sixteenth until the eighteenth century, or the Soviet Union until the 1970s), or because pockets of inclusive economic institutions exist in a larger extractive setting (as in South Korea in the 1960s and 70s).

But such growth never lasts. Extractive economies sooner or later stop growing, or collapse altogether, due to a lack of innovation, state incompetence, conflict and corruption, or the withering away of whatever small inclusive parts may have existed. Only inclusive economic institutions, protected by inclusive political institutions, can offer the kinds of sustained investment, innovation, flexibility, and creative destruction that create a continued path of growth and prosperity (pgs. 68-69).

But here’s the clincher:

The philosophical literature on global justice and ethics contains disturbingly many theories that proceed in ways that are strangely disconnected from the best empirical studies about poverty and prosperity. Sometimes the empirical insights are simply set aside or even ignored. And even those who do engage with them or focus on the role of institutions frequently fail to see the forest for the trees. Hence, we read proposals for new global institutions (ignoring that the quality of domestic institutions is at least as important), we see arguments for extensive redistribution (ignoring that such policies will be counter-productive if not accompanied by institutional changes in developing countries), and so on.

The most important lesson that Why Nations Fail (and other works like it) contains for philosophers working on global justice is this: getting our economic institutions right is just as important as getting our political institutions right. And the evidence strongly indicates that this means endorsing market societies, with strong property rights over private and productive resources and economic freedom for all.

It is hard to say why these facts have been ignored or denied by philosophers for so long. Perhaps the hostility toward inclusive economic institutions is that they are seen as contestable parts of neoliberal, libertarian, or other free market perspectives. But this is to miss the point. Among the most exemplary inclusive countries are European welfare states like Denmark, Sweden, and Germany. Strong property rights and robust economic freedom are compatible with a variety of redistributive policies. Why Nations Fail is far from a libertarian manifesto. And if even those countries are too much market-oriented for our taste, well, I propose we get over it. There is simply too much at stake (pg. 74).

Now what’s my point? Do I think Hart is wrong? No. Far from it. I think he’s absolutely right about the text and the early Christians. However, the text has a specific historical, economic, and socioreligious context. And this context explains the condemnations of wealth and the lack of concern for material prosperity. But in a world that hasn’t ended, how are modern Christians supposed to apply these alien and radical teachings? What about the Bible’s concern for the poor? Does it matter that the poor in developed nations are richer than the rich in Jesus’ time and even today are some of the wealthiest people on the planet? Does it matter that global markets and inclusive economic institutions have reduced extreme poverty to its lowest levels in human history?

Surely it matters. It has to. I can’t fathom that it wouldn’t. But this makes me ask a question that–as a committed Christian–bothers me a great deal: how relevant is the New Testament for today regarding practical matters? If the world hasn’t and isn’t ending any time soon, does it make much sense to “not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’” (Matt. 6:31, NRSV)? If the Kingdom of God is at hand, then financial concerns and the like are certainly trivial. But since the Kingdom is about 2,000 years late, what are we supposed to do? Concerns for and alleviation of the poor among early Christians must have been thought of as a relatively short-term deal, seeing that social and economic justice would be fully achieved in the soon-to-come Kingdom of God. But since we appear to be in for the long haul, do Jesus’ teachings need to be recontextualized? Do they need to be–to borrow Nephi’s words–“liken[ed]…unto us, that it might be for our profit and learning” (1 Ne. 19:23)? Or have we, as Hart suggests, truly strayed from the real intent of Christ’s words?

I’m not exactly sure. It’s a paradox I live with as one who is supposed to be a “stranger and pilgrim” (1 Peter 2:11) in a world that is getting better by virtually every empirical measure.

Maybe the paradox is the point. But it sure sucks at times.

Practice Makes Tolerable

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This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey.

I sure love Howard W. Hunter. He was one of the most intellectual of the general authorities, and he talked about the issues of modernity with the directness and foresight. Of course I like Elder Maxwell—everybody liked Elder Maxwell—but my appreciation for President Hunter took me by surprise because the only reputation he had for me before then was as a bit of a disappointment: he was the first prophet to be ordained while I was old enough to be paying attention and I hoped he would be around for a long time, but instead his tenure was incredibly short.

In any case, his talk in the Sunday Morning session of the October 1977 General Conference is a pretty great example of why I like him so much. Here is the opening:

Henry Ward Beecher once said, “It is not well for a man to pray cream and live skim milk.” That was a century ago. There is now before us a danger that many may pray skim milk and live that not at all.

Our modern times seem to suggest that prayerful devotion and reverence for holiness is unreasonable or undesirable, or both. And yet, skeptical “modern” men have need for prayer. Perilous moments, great responsibility, deep anxiety, overwhelming grief—these challenges that shake us out of old complacencies and established routines will bring to the surface our native impulses. If we let them, they will humble us, soften us, and turn us to respectful prayer.

If prayer is only a spasmodic cry at the time of crisis, then it is utterly selfish, and we come to think of God as a repairman or a service agency to help us only in our emergencies. We should remember the Most High day and night—always—not only at times when all other assistance has failed and we desperately need help.

I highlighted quite a lot from this talk, but I’ll share just one other section of President Hunter’s words. He wrote that:

Prayer, reverence, worship, devotion, respect for the holy—these are basic exercises of our spirit and must be actively practiced in our lives or they will be lost.

In my life, viewing prayer (and the others) as something to practice has been incredibly beneficial. I read that ancient prophets prayed “mightily” and I thought about my own prayers and realized that there was really nothing “mighty” about them. So I stated practicing, approaching prayer with the same basic attitude as I approach long-distance running. It helped to have a plan, but more than that, it helped to view even my weak prayers as a part of a process of becoming better at praying.

Now I want to expand that to other areas of my life. Something I’m pretty bad at is getting spiritual sustenance out of a typical Sunday service. I like to be entertained. I like articulate lecturers with interesting ideas and novel ways of presenting those ideas. This is not what you’re gonna get out of a typical 15-minute talk prepared by a randomly-selected fellow congregant. And so, to be honest, I tend to read through Sacrament meeting.

I feel uneasy about that, and I should. The fact that I’m reading something spiritual—usually General Conference talks, over the last couple of years—doesn’t make it OK.

We tend to blame the speakers and Mormon culture for its general lack of emphasis on rhetorical ability and latent anti-intellectualism. I’m not going to tell you that those things aren’t real, or aren’t a problem. But I prefer to take responsibility whenever possible. If God wants me to worship with my fellow saints and be nourished by the experience (and He does), then He’s going to provide a way for me to make that happen.

Best start practicing, I suppose.

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A Regular Dad

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This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey.

One upon a time someone tried to insult me on the Internet and inadvertently paid my parents a lovely complement. I was, my interlocutor informed me, “emotionally spoiled.”

Being spoiled isn’t great, of course, but what this person was actually saying was that I was relatively well-adjusted. This was an angsty little corner of the Internet, but I didn’t really share in the angst. I didn’t feel lonely, or isolated, or bitter, or wronged, or any of those things. Most relevantly, I didn’t harbor any of the simmering anti-parental resentment that your typical 90s kid was supposed to harbor. I was free of all these hang ups not because of some virtue on my part, but because I came from a normal, typical, regular home: one where mom and dad loved each other.

Of course, I consider that normal, typical, and regular, but it’s not something to take for granted. That was what came to mine, when I read the end of a story from Elder Hanks’ talk in the Priesthood session of the October 1977 General Conference:

Somehow early in his life Bob has mastered principles and developed character that set him apart from most others. He is a regular boy in every choice sense of the description. Can anyone doubt that he will be an equally fine man, a good husband, a regular dad, a concerned leader who will help many others?

Elder Hanks came back to the idea of a “regular dad” again later on in the talk:

Only a few days ago in Arizona as I was at the pulpit in a conference meeting, a tiny boy came walking down the aisle and up on the stand, perhaps searching for a mother in the choir, maybe just investigating. He wasn’t making any fuss, but he was a wonderful little boy and I couldn’t refrain from pausing a moment and talking with him. I asked him his name and where his mommy and daddy were, and at that point a tall, handsome young man stood in the chapel and advanced to retrieve his child. When the father took his son in his arms in front of the pulpit he kissed him, and I had to swallow a quick lump in my throat. There was no embarrassment, no spanking, no yanking, no anger. There was just the gentle kiss and a loving hug in those big strong arms, and for all of us present a warm, tender, memorable experience from a fortunate youngster and a wise, mature, regular dad.

There is something both beautiful and perilous in this kind of normalcy. The beauty is easy to spot, like a Norman Rockwell painting come to life if just for a moment. The peril is there too, however, because once a moment like this becomes ordinary—which is the goal of any religion, society, nation, tribe, or family—we start at once to forget all the lessons that made such an everyday moment seem effortless and forgettable in the first place.

Every generation has to relearn the same lessons again for themselves, and the conduit for transmitting kernels of wisdom from the parents to the children is slender and fragile.

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The No Vote

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This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey.

Ordinarily, I skim really quickly over General Conference talks that aren’t really talks: financial reports, statistical reports, and the sustaining of church officers. But the sustaining of church officers for October 1977 caught my eye for this reason:

President Tanner: It seems, President Kimball, that the voting has been unanimous in favor of these officers and General Authorities, and we would ask those new members of the First Quorum of the Seventy to take their seats with their brethren, please.
Voice from the gallery: President Tanner? President Tanner?
President Tanner: Yes?
Voice from the gallery: Did you note my negative vote?
President Tanner: No. Let me see it.
Voice from the gallery: Up here.

So, a couple of things come to mind.

First, this was long, long before the new Conference Center. The Salt Lake Tabernacle was a lot smaller; it had overall capacity for 7,000 people compared to the 21,000 that fit in the new conference center. This kind of one-on-one exchange really wouldn’t be possible in the Conference Center.

Second, I had to Google around to find out what the concern was. I found an article from LDS Living that mentioned the event, stating:

The voice from the gallery belonged to Byron Marchant. He objected over the Church’s stance at the time of not sustaining those of African descent to the priesthood.

President Tanner addressed the event in the next General Conference (April 1978), saying:

During the last conference we had one dissenting vote, and there was some misunderstanding about it. Someone said that I treated him very curtly. I would just like to explain just what takes place if anyone or a number of people have a dissenting vote. We give them the opportunity to go to one of the General Authorities to explain to that General Authority why they feel the person is not qualified, and if he’s found not qualified, then we take the necessary action.

That April 1978 General Conference was the last General Conference prior to the 1978 Revelation that opened the priesthood to all faithful Mormon men, regardless of race. I don’t know much about what happened to Marchant after this, other than that he was excommunicated shortly afterwards.

The exact history of the Church’s policy of barring Africans from the priesthood and the revelation that ended the policy are complicated and controversial topics, and I’m not an expert. It strikes me as very sad that Marchant—and another man, Douglas Wallace (mentioned in the same article above)—were both excommunicated less than a year before the policy they protested was overturned. The Church hasn’t had too much to say about these things, other than the very-important Race and the Priesthood essay published a couple of years ago on LDS.org that stated the racial priesthood ban had no known revelatory origin but stopped short of outright calling it a mistake.

I’ve been keeping a pretty close eye on the talks as we get closer and closer to the October 1978 General Conference (the 1978 Revelation dates to September). I’m surprised that the topic has received almost zero official attention. There are a couple of implications here and there, but overall it’s basically completely absent. So a couple of further thoughts.

I don’t think there’s much basis to the complaint that—as opposed to in 1978—contemporary dissenters are directed to their stake presidents instead of general authorities. For one thing, there are more dissenters, in part because of organized attempts to acquire tickets to General Conference for the sole purpose of protesting. As the Church grows, this kind of thing is going to be pushed farther and farther away from the upper leaders. That’s unfortunate, but it’s hardly unprecedented. Moses learned that lesson the hard way.

I also don’t think there’s much comparison at all between the state of the priesthood ban in 1977 and the Church’s position on same sex marriage in 2017. The Church has communicated again and again and again that it’s position on the definition of marriage will not ever change. It’s been saying that a lot in recent years, but frankly it’s been saying the same thing—explicitly and repeatedly—all the way back to 1974 (the earliest General Conferences I started reading.) For the Church to change now would be to contradict decades and decades of loud, clear, authoritative teachings. The chances of this happening are essentially nil, and the effect if it did would be seismic (to say the least). In contrast—as I mentioned—I can’t find a single General Conference talk that defends the racial priesthood ban.

The contrast could not be starker. The racial priesthood ban wasn’t defended a single time in General Conference (at least, not in the years leading up to 1978). The Church’s position on marriage has been defended in every General Conference that I’ve read (from 1974 to 1977) and every General Conference that I can remember (over the last few years).

The hope some have that this policy is about to be changed does not appear to be grounded in any of the available evidence.

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Marriage is a Quest

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This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey.

You know the old saying: life’s a journey, not a destination. Journeys are cool. Quests are cooler. So I really liked Elder Faust’s quintessentially Mormon teachings on marriage in the opening Saturday Morning session of the October 1977 General Conference: The Enriching of Marriage. His exact phrase, coming at the end of the talk, is that “Marriage is a joint quest for the good, the beautiful, and the divine.”

The more I think about it, the less likely that is as a characterization of marriage. Oh, don’t get me a wrong. A lot of Elder Faust’s counsel is what we, as Mormons, are fairly used to hearing. The idea that “Our homes should be among the most hallowed of all earthly sanctuaries” places a Mormon home as basically one step below a Mormon temple and—I believe, at least—one step above Mormon meetinghouses. This might be an unusual position relative to the world today, but it’s exactly how we usually think about marriage and family and the home.

Similarly, Elder Faust’s teaching that “We understand best the full meaning of love when we become parents” is another absolutely distinctive Mormon teaching. We’re the guys, after all, who believe not only in God the Father but also in God the Mother. It is naturel for us to see our role as parents as echoes of Gods’ roles as Parents, and to see in our love and willingness to sacrifice for our little ones the love and willingness of our Father and Mother to sacrifice for all their children.

And yet, the idea that marriages is a quest still struck me as new.

I can’t even tell you for sure what it means, but I’m mulling it over.

My early thoughts? The idea that marriage is a quest emphasizes that marriage isn’t just a state of being. First you’re single, then you’re married. At one time you were young, now you’re old. Sometimes you’re happy, sometimes you’re sad. No, marriage is a goal-directed activity. It’s intentional. It’s something we do, not just a state we happen to be in.

What I am still pondering—and will continue to ponder after I finish this post—is how the goals of marriage (things like: coming to a unity of love with your spouse and exercising love for your children) generalize to the goals Elder Faust spoke of: the good, the beautiful, and the divine.

I haven’t got that resolved yet, but I’m going to be meditating on it until (hopefully) I do.

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Man and Woman Working Together

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This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey.

Here is a story from Sister Barbara Smith’s talk during the welfare session of the April 1977 General Conference where she compared the role of the priesthood holders and Relief Society working together in the welfare program to a man and a woman working together in a marriage:

Something of this relationship might be seen if I relate a conversation with a friend of mine. He said, “My wife and I decided to face the front of our home with rocks. So I called around and located a place where I could get them.

“I started to get into my truck when my wife called to me and said, ‘Let me go with you. I want to help you.’

“When we got to the place where the rocks were located, we found them on the top of a hill. I complained, ‘That’s going to be a terrible job to get those rocks down.’

“My wife said, ‘I’ll go up to the top of the hill and roll the rocks down to you and then you’ll just have to carry them over to the truck. How does that sound?’

“I thought that was a good idea,” he said. “I watched her climb to the top of the hill and disappear for a few minutes. Soon she called out, ‘Here comes the first rock. Here comes another one.’ Then she said, ‘Oh, this rock is a beauty. I hope this one won’t be too heavy for you to carry.’

“I said, ‘I’ll carry anything you roll down.’

“Then she said, ‘Look at this rock. It has real character. Here comes my favorite.’”

He said, “She actually had me waiting anxiously for each rock.” And then he said, “In this endeavor, as in many other of our projects together, she had given me not only the help I needed but a perspective that often eludes men.”

I would like to see all sisters, particularly Relief Society presidents, acting as helpmeets to the priesthood in the rendering of welfare assistance.

The relationship between husband and wife is something we’re all still figuring out, I think. To one extend, this is because every marriage is as unique as the people in it, and so even if we had the general pattern figured out (and we don’t), we’d still need to figure out the specifics.

But we don’t even have the general pattern figured out to general satisfaction. We’re figuring out how to reconcile (and to what extent to even try) teachings about the husband as leader of the family (which seems unequal) with the belief that men and women are equal and that marriage is an equal partnership.

I’m not sure exactly how this story relates to that question, but I do like the story and I thought I’d share it.

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The Metaphysics of Academics

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I’ve been on a bit of a metaphysics kick. In the last year, I’ve read:

These readings have made me more interested in ways of knowing and–as the publishers should indicate–our institutions of knowledge. What do those within these institutions (and thus those typically generating new knowledge) think and believe?

According to sociologist Elaine Howard Ecklund’s study, 47% of elite scientists in U.S. have a religious tradition, while 34% of American scientists profess atheism, 30% profess agnosticism, and 36% profess at least some form of belief in a “higher power” (God or otherwise). Furthermore, she explains, “Nearly 60 percent of scientists I interviewed displayed a spirituality that scholars might call “thin.””

Ecklund, 2010, pg. 15.

 

Ecklund, 2010, pg. 16.

Philosopher Helen De Cruz summarizes the sociological data on spirituality within academia:

Atheism and agnosticism are widespread among academics, especially among those working in elite institutions. A survey among National Academy of Sciences members (all senior academics, overwhelmingly from elite faculties) found that the majority disbelieved in God’s existence (72.2%), with 20.8% being agnostic, and only 7% theists (Larson and Witham 1998). Ecklund and Scheitle (2007) analyzed responses from scientists (working in the social and natural sciences) from 21 elite universities in the US. About 31.2% of their participants self-identified as atheists and a further 31 % as agnostics. The remaining number believed in a higher power (7%), sometimes believed in God (5.4%), believed in God with some doubts (15.5%), or believed in God without any doubts (9.7%). In contrast to the general population, the older scientists in this sample did not show higher religiosity—in fact, they were more likely to say that they did not believe in God. On the other hand, Gross and Simmons (2009) examined a more heterogeneous sample of scientists from American colleges, including community colleges, elite doctoral-granting institutions, non-elite four-year state schools, and small liberal arts colleges. They found that the majority of university professors (full-time tenured or tenure-track faculty) had some theistic beliefs, believing either in God (34.9%), in God with some doubts (16.6%), in God some of the time (4.3%), or in a higher power (19.2%). Belief in God was influenced both by type of institution (lower theistic belief in more prestigious schools) and by discipline (lower theistic belief in the physical and biological sciences compared to the social sciences and humanities).

These latter findings indicate that academics are more religiously diverse than has been popularly assumed and that the majority are not opposed to religion. Even so, in the US the percentage of atheists and agnostics in academia is higher than in the general population, a discrepancy that requires an explanation. One reason might be a bias against theists in academia. For example, when sociologists were surveyed whether they would hire someone if they knew the candidate was an evangelical Christian, 39.1% said they would be less likely to hire that candidate—there were similar results with other religious groups, such as Mormons or Muslims (Yancey 2012). Another reason might be that theists internalize prevalent negative societal stereotypes, which leads them to underperform in scientific tasks and lose interest in pursuing a scientific career. Kimberly Rios et al. (2015) found that non-religious participants believe that theists, especially Christians, are less competent in and less trustful of science. When this stereotype was made salient, Christian participants performed worse in logical reasoning tasks (which were misleadingly presented as “scientific reasoning tests”) than when the stereotype was not mentioned.

It is unclear whether religious and scientific thinking are cognitively incompatible. Some studies suggest that religion draws more upon an intuitive style of thinking, distinct from the analytic reasoning style that characterizes science (Gervais and Norenzayan 2012). On the other hand, the acceptance of theological and scientific views both rely on a trust in testimony, and cognitive scientists have found similarities between the way children and adults understand testimony to invisible entities in religious and scientific domains (Harris et al. 2006). Moreover, theologians such as the Church Fathers and Scholastics were deeply analytic in their writings, indicating that the association between intuitive and religious thinking might be a recent western bias. More research is needed to examine whether religious and scientific thinking styles are inherently in tension.

How about philosophers? A 2014 study came up with the following numbers (from pgs. 14-16 of the ungated version). I’ve highlighted a few that stand out to me:

1. A priori knowledge: yes 71.1%; no 18.4%; other 10.5%.
2. Abstract objects: Platonism 39.3%; nominalism 37.7%; other 23.0%.
3. Aesthetic value: objective 41.0%; subjective 34.5%; other 24.5%.
4. Analytic-synthetic distinction: yes 64.9%; no 27.1%; other 8.1%.
5. Epistemic justification: externalism 42.7%; internalism 26.4%; other 30.8%.
6. External world: non-skeptical realism 81.6%; skepticism 4.8%; idealism 4.3%; other
9.2%.
7. Free will: compatibilism 59.1%; libertarianism 13.7%; no free will 12.2%; other
14.9%.
8. God: atheism 72.8%; theism 14.6%; other 12.6%.
9. Knowledge claims: contextualism 40.1%; invariantism 31.1%; relativism 2.9%;
other 25.9%.
10. Knowledge: empiricism 35.0%; rationalism 27.8%; other 37.2%.
11. Laws of nature: non-Humean 57.1%; Humean 24.7%; other 18.2%.
12. Logic: classical 51.6%; non-classical 15.4%; other 33.1%.
13. Mental content: externalism 51.1%; internalism 20.0%; other 28.9%.
14. Meta-ethics: moral realism 56.4%; moral anti-realism 27.7%; other 15.9%.
15. Metaphilosophy: naturalism 49.8%; non-naturalism 25.9%; other 24.3%.
16. Mind: physicalism 56.5%; non-physicalism 27.1%; other 16.4%.
17. Moral judgment: cognitivism 65.7%; non-cognitivism 17.0%; other 17.3%.
18. Moral motivation: internalism 34.9%; externalism 29.8%; other 35.3%.
19. Newcomb’s problem: two boxes 31.4%; one box 21.3%; other 47.4%.
20. Normative ethics: deontology 25.9%; consequentialism 23.6%; virtue ethics 18.2%;
other 32.3%.
21. Perceptual experience: representationalism 31.5%; qualia theory 12.2%; disjunctivism
11.0%; sense-datum theory 3.1%; other 42.2%.
22. Personal identity: psychological view 33.6%; biological view 16.9%; further-fact
view 12.2%; other 37.3%.
23. Politics: egalitarianism 34.8%; communitarianism 14.3%; libertarianism 9.9%;
other 41.0%.
24. Proper names: Millian 34.5%; Fregean 28.7%; other 36.8%.
25. Science: scientific realism 75.1%; scientific anti-realism 11.6%; other 13.3%.
26. Teletransporter: survival 36.2%; death 31.1%; other 32.7%.
27. Time: B-theory 26.3%; A-theory 15.5%; other 58.2%.
28. Trolley problem: switch 68.2%; don’t switch 7.6%; other 24.2%.
29. Truth: correspondence 50.8%; deflationary 24.8%; epistemic 6.9%; other 17.5%.
30. Zombies: conceivable but not metaphysically possible 35.6%; metaphysically possible
23.3%; inconceivable 16.0%; other 25.1%

What’s interesting is that while nearly 73% of philosophers are atheist, only about half are naturalists or physicalists when it comes to the mind. Furthermore, nearly 40% would consider themselves Platonists, indicating the possibility of a Platonic atheism. Yet, when you consider philosophers of religion, the numbers reverse:

Answer Correlation coefficient
God:theism 0.351
theism atheism
Philosophy of Religion
72.3% (34/47)
23.4% (11/47)
not Philosophy of Religion
11.7% (102/870)
79.4% (691/870)
Response pairs: 917   p-value: < 0.001
Free will:libertarianism 0.262
libertarianism not libertarianism
Philosophy of Religion
57.4% (27/47)
38.2% (18/47)
not Philosophy of Religion
11.8% (101/852)
78.7% (671/852)
Response pairs: 899   p-value: < 0.001
not Free will:compatibilism 0.207
compatibilism not compatibilism
Philosophy of Religion
25.5% (12/47)
70.2% (33/47)
not Philosophy of Religion
63.1% (538/852)
27.4% (234/852)
Response pairs: 899   p-value: < 0.001
Mind:non-physicalism 0.193
physicalism non-physicalism
Philosophy of Religion
27.6% (13/47)
68% (32/47)
not Philosophy of Religion
59.2% (516/871)
28.7% (250/871)
Response pairs: 918   p-value: < 0.001
Metaphilosophy:non-naturalism 0.19
non-naturalism naturalism
Philosophy of Religion
61.3% (27/44)
20.4% (9/44)
not Philosophy of Religion
26.8% (218/811)
58% (471/811)
Response pairs: 855   p-value: < 0.001
Time:A-theory 0.145
B-theory A-theory
Philosophy of Religion
27% (10/37)
54% (20/37)
not Philosophy of Religion
48.3% (264/546)
27.1% (148/546)
Response pairs: 583   p-value: < 0.001
Meta-ethics:moral realism 0.142
moral realism moral anti-realism
Philosophy of Religion
89.1% (41/46)
8.6% (4/46)
not Philosophy of Religion
57.1% (486/850)
33.8% (288/850)
Response pairs: 896   p-value: < 0.001
Personal identity:further-fact view 0.14
further-fact view not further-fact view
Philosophy of Religion
37.2% (16/43)
51.1% (22/43)
not Philosophy of Religion
12.7% (98/770)
65.9% (508/770)
Response pairs: 813   p-value: < 0.001
Laws of nature:non-Humean 0.114
non-Humean Humean
Philosophy of Religion
78.7% (37/47)
14.8% (7/47)
not Philosophy of Religion
60.7% (496/817)
29.4% (241/817)
Response pairs: 864   p-value: < 0.001
Moral judgment:cognitivism 0.112
cognitivism non-cognitivism
Philosophy of Religion
91.3% (42/46)
8.6% (4/46)
not Philosophy of Religion
70% (581/829)
20.9% (174/829)
Response pairs: 875   p-value: < 0.001
Mental content:internalism 0.108
externalism internalism
Philosophy of Religion
38% (16/42)
47.6% (20/42)
not Philosophy of Religion
60.8% (496/815)
24.5% (200/815)
Response pairs: 857   p-value: 0.001
not Politics:egalitarianism 0.107
egalitarianism not egalitarianism
Philosophy of Religion
20% (7/35)
68.5% (24/35)
not Philosophy of Religion
44.2% (317/716)
37.7% (270/716)
Response pairs: 751   p-value: 0.003
not Personal identity:psychological view 0.106
psychological view not psychological view
Philosophy of Religion
25.5% (11/43)
62.7% (27/43)
not Philosophy of Religion
39.2% (302/770)
39.4% (304/770)
Response pairs: 813   p-value: 0.002
Perceptual experience:sense-datum theory 0.101
sense-datum theory not sense-datum theory
Philosophy of Religion
~2.8% (~1/35)
71.4% (25/35)
not Philosophy of Religion
3.9% (27/681)
80.9% (551/681)
Response pairs: 716   p-value: 0.006
Aesthetic value:objective 0.099
objective subjective
Philosophy of Religion
67.3% (31/46)
21.7% (10/46)
not Philosophy of Religion
44.1% (375/849)
40.5% (344/849)
Response pairs: 895   p-value: 0.003
A priori knowledge:yes 0.093
yes no
Philosophy of Religion
89.3% (42/47)
8.5% (4/47)
not Philosophy of Religion
71.6% (624/871)
20.2% (176/871)
Response pairs: 918   p-value: 0.004
not Normative ethics:consequentialism 0.092
consequentialism not consequentialism
Philosophy of Religion
14.6% (6/41)
78% (32/41)
not Philosophy of Religion
28.1% (214/759)
57.4% (436/759)
Response pairs: 800   p-value: 0.009
Knowledge:rationalism 0.091
empiricism rationalism
Philosophy of Religion
26.6% (12/45)
55.5% (25/45)
not Philosophy of Religion
42.6% (373/874)
33.4% (292/874)
Response pairs: 919   p-value: 0.005
Perceptual experience:qualia theory 0.087
qualia theory not qualia theory
Philosophy of Religion
25.7% (9/35)
51.4% (18/35)
not Philosophy of Religion
15.4% (105/681)
69.4% (473/681)
Response pairs: 716   p-value: 0.019
Truth:correspondence 0.085
correspondence not correspondence
Philosophy of Religion
70.4% (31/44)
20.4% (9/44)
not Philosophy of Religion
53.9% (442/819)
40.1% (329/819)
Response pairs: 863   p-value: 0.012
Newcomb’s problem:one box 0.084
one box two boxes
Philosophy of Religion
37.1% (13/35)
28.5% (10/35)
not Philosophy of Religion
29.9% (188/628)
46.6% (293/628)
Response pairs: 663   p-value: 0.03
Zombies:metaphysically possible 0.083
metaphysically possible not metaphysically possible
Philosophy of Religion
46.5% (20/43)
44.1% (19/43)
not Philosophy of Religion
25.1% (197/782)
60.8% (476/782)
Response pairs: 825   p-value: 0.017
not Truth:deflationary 0.073
deflationary not deflationary
Philosophy of Religion
11.3% (5/44)
79.5% (35/44)
not Philosophy of Religion
27.5% (226/819)
66.5% (545/819)
Response pairs: 863   p-value: 0.032
Teletransporter:death 0.066
death survival
Philosophy of Religion
51.1% (22/43)
34.8% (15/43)
not Philosophy of Religion
34.9% (271/775)
43.2% (335/775)
Response pairs: 818   p-value: 0.059
Normative ethics:virtue ethics 0.062
virtue ethics not virtue ethics
Philosophy of Religion
34.1% (14/41)
58.5% (24/41)
not Philosophy of Religion
20.4% (155/759)
65.2% (495/759)
Response pairs: 800   p-value: 0.079
Politics:libertarianism 0.05
libertarianism not libertarianism
Philosophy of Religion
22.8% (8/35)
65.7% (23/35)
not Philosophy of Religion
11.7% (84/716)
70.2% (503/716)
Response pairs: 751   p-value: 0.171
Analytic-synthetic distinction:yes 0.05
yes no
Philosophy of Religion
78.7% (37/47)
14.8% (7/47)
not Philosophy of Religion
65.2% (570/873)
28.8% (252/873)
Response pairs: 920   p-value: 0.129

 

All of this is utterly fascinating, particularly for me as I try to work my way through a coherent Mormon metaphysics.

The Power of Plainness

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This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey.

I straight-up stole the title of this blog post from the title of Elder Marvin J. Ashton’s talk in the Sunday afternoon session of the April 1977 General Conference. Of course plainness isn’t a new concept to Mormonism. The Book of Mormon talks a lot about “plain and precious” truths. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen an entire talk with plainness as its theme, and I did like what Elder Ashton had to say. Here are a couple of excerpts that I highlighted as I read:

Plainness is best comprehended by the humble, the teachable, the intelligent, the wise, and the obedient. Often plain truths are perverted by the pretentious, the crude, the low, the critical, the contentious, the haughty, and the unrighteous. More so than in any other time in our history, there is an urgency in today’s society for men and women to step forward and teach the gospel of Jesus Christ in the power of plainness. God delights when His truths are taught clearly and understandably with no conspicuous ornamentation. Plainness in life, word, and conduct are eternal virtues. When the plainness of Christian teaching and living is lost, apostasy and suffering result. People walk in darkness when the light of plainness is taken from their lives.

Interesting that plainness is rejected by both “the low” and “the haughty”. Perhaps plainness is a kind of moderation or even a kind of modesty: free of unnecessary embellishment or ornamentation.1

The power of a plain, unadorned testimony is always impressive to me. I recall a twelve-year-old boy standing in front of a large congregation to share his testimony. As he stood trembling in fear and emotion, his voice failed him. He stood speechless; our hearts went out to him. The creeping seconds dragged on, making the silence of the moment intense. Prayerfully we hoped that he might gain composure and the ability to express his testimony. After great uneasiness and anxiety peculiar to a young person in such a circumstance, he raised his bowed head and softly said, “Brothers and sisters, my testimony is too small.” He cleared his voice and sat down. His message had been given. I thought then, as I think now, what a timely observation. Whose testimony isn’t too small? Whose testimony doesn’t need to be added upon? After this one-sentence sermon, I acknowledged before the congregation that my testimony was too small also and I was going to give it a chance to grow by more frequent sharing. I had been taught by a plain, simple statement.

Nothing to add. I just like this story.

Some of life’s greatest lessons are taught and learned as we go about our Father’s business in routine daily kindnesses.

How could I not quote that? You know how I feel about sifting the sacred from the mundane. And here’s one more, to exit on:

Certainly the Savior has spoken in plainness that we may learn. The words of the Savior are eloquent in their plainness.

Glamour and mystery do not lead to eternal life.

—

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

The Agency of God

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This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey.

Mormonism has been called an atheological religion, notably by philosopher James E. Faulconer in Why a Mormon Won’t Drink Coffee but Might Have a Coke: The Atheological Character of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Faulconer begins:

It is a matter of curiosity to many and an annoyance to some that it is sometimes difficult to get definitive answers from members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to what seem like straightforward questions – questions of the form “Why do you believe or do x?” Latter-day Saints subscribe to a few basic doctrines, most of which they share with other Christians (such as that Jesus is divine) and some of which differentiate them, such as the teaching that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. They also accept general moral teachings, the kinds of things believed by both the religious and the non-religious. Apart from those, seldom can one say without preface or explanation what Latter-day Saints believe.

The explanation for this, according to Faulconer is that Mormonism is atheological, meaning “they are without an official or even semi-official philosophy that explains and gives rational support to their beliefs and teachings.”

Faulconer is right, and for the most part I see this as a feature rather than a bug. A lot of the strife in other Christian denominations has come precisely from the high stakes involved in authoritatively laying out doctrinal claims. This is why there are all those creeds out there, many of which not only played a role in religious wars and persecution, but frequently have no practical relevance today. In other words: a lot of people died for basically no good reason. By refusing to have any kind of an authoritative theology, Mormonism avoids that (metaphorical or literal) bloodbath and instead keeps the focus on the basics (for one) and on actions (for another).

One consequence—for good or ill—is that a lot of the tough questions that other denominations have scads of theological work on are basically wide-open fields. Such as: what is the nature of all that smiting and cursing that God foretells for the wicked through prophets? Does got really get angry—in a sense that we would understand—lose his temper and let natural disasters and wars and famines and plagues loose on the targets of his wrath? Or are those depictions in some sense metaphorical or hinting at some other, underlying reality that was either misunderstood by prophets at the time or intentionally misconstrued as a means to provoking better behavior?

For a Mormon: you’re kind of on your own.

Like most religious folks, we also tend to want to have it both ways. In the last General Conference (October 2017), Elder Rasband gave one of those “there are no coincidences” talks where every little (good) thing that happens is a sign of God’s micromanaging of our day-to-day lives. In the April 1977 General Conference, Elder Romney took up the flipside of this coin, arguing that God doesn’t intentionally smite anyone:

[L]et it not be supposed, now, that the Lord takes pleasure in these calamities. He does not. He graphically foretells the inevitable consequences of men’s sins for the purpose of inducing them to repent and thereby avoid the calamities.

So, if it’s a good thing that happens, we credit it to God’s personal intervention in our lives, no matter how small. But if it’s a bad thing that happens, we absolve God of any responsibility (i.e. we claim the “calamities” are “inevitable consequences” rather than divinely-willed punishment or retribution), not matter how big.

This is a tough conundrum, and I don’t have an answer. I believe God is all-loving, and I find this very hard to reconcile with a God who micromanages a world so full of suffering and injustice. It’s easier for me to imagine a God who is—perhaps because of the strictures of free will—more often than not constrained from direct intervention. On the other hand, it’s clear that what I’m doing is creating a theodicy to conform to my intuition of justice. It’s entirely possible that there are other solutions to the problem that reconcile God’s love and mortality’s seemingly senseless misery and beauty.

If you’re from an older, orthodox religion (like Catholics or Calvinists), then you’ve got literally dozens of tomes you can fall back on. There’s some comfort in that. On the other hand, you’re also bound down to one particular authoritative interpretation or the other. And that feels like a bad idea. Not only because I’m skeptical that anybody has really gotten it right, but also because in the end I think it detracts from what really matters.

I think it’s a lot less important—although clearly not irrelevant—how we interpret the problem of evil and other theological quagmires and much more important—positively vital—how we respond to those dilemmas with our actions. I’ll take an orthoprax religion without the answers over an orthodox religion with flawed answers any day of the week.

I  might even take an orthopraxy religion without the answers over a hypothetical orthodox religion with the right answers, to be honest.

—

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

Snapshots from a Priesthood Session

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This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey.

From Elder Paramore’s talk, I liked this story:

I am grateful for my wife. I would like to tell you a little story. I have been to three or four thousand meetings, I guess, in the last twenty-five years; and every one of those times she has sustained me—except for one. When I was off to a Sunday School meeting one night, she asked, “Will you be home early?” I said, “Yes, I’ll be home at 10:30.” Eleven o’clock and 11:30 came, and I wasn’t home. When I finally came home, I walked up to the door to walk in as usual, and it was locked. I rang the doorbell—and no answer. So I knocked on the door, and finally she came. She said, “I’m not going to let you in.”

I said, “Oh, come on.”

And she said, “No, it’s one time too many.”

In those days we had a Nash Rambler with a front seat that made out into a bed (but it was in the middle of winter). So I took my overcoat and went out into the car and rolled back the seat, and went to bed.

After a little while I could hear the front door open, and my wife came out to the car and asked me to come in. I told her I didn’t think I would. It was so cold I finally did.

Good intentions, obedience, and righteousness are not a pass on the ordinary difficulties of relationships. Good to keep in mind. We always expect religion to make life easier. It doesn’t. It makes life better. I don’t think I’ll ever really, truly learn that distinction. I just have to keep reminding myself.

From Elder Tanner’s talk:

Some people ask the reason for an organized church. They feel they can work out their salvation alone, and that there is no need to attend church meetings or fill other requirements as long as they are honest and honorable and do good to their fellowmen. But the Lord has given us instructions that we should belong to a church; and this, his church, has the same organization that Jesus Christ himself established while he was on the earth. We have many explicit declarations from the Lord that make this clear, and also that we need to encourage and help one another.

You might have expected an explanation of why we need to have an organized church. I did. But there really isn’t one. There is just an explanation that we need to have an organized church because Jesus said so. God reveals the what more often and sooner than the why. Another good thing to keep in mind, when it comes to keeping our expectations in tune.

And finally from President Kimball’s concluding talk:

Let me mention one more thing. While we are in the mortal body we cannot “fashion kingdoms [or] organize matter, for [that is] beyond our capacity and calling, beyond this world. In the resurrection, men who have been faithful and diligent in all things in the flesh, [who] have kept their first and second estate, and [are] worthy to be crowned Gods, even the sons of God, will be ordained to organize matter. How much matter do you suppose there is between here and some of the fixed stars which we can see? Enough to frame many, very many millions of such earths as this, yet it is now so diffused, clear and pure, that we look through it and behold the stars. Yet the matter is there. Can you form any conception of this? Can you form any idea of the minuteness of matter?” (JD, 15:137).

So, was Brigham Young presciently predicting the existence of dark matter? Or is that just an attempt to retcon his words?  Hard to say, or rather: I’d better not try to say without much more context and historical awareness than I actually possess. I’ll just quote President Kimball’s next words:

Can you realize even slightly how relatively little we know?

That sentiment is almost always a wise one. And—more than a habitual regard for intellectual humility—I like the practical implications of a religion that has a lot to look forward to. Much as Mormons do believe the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the “one, true church”, we also very much believe it’s a work in progress with more to come.

—

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