How Can The Bom Be Inspired But Not Historical

[DBMormon]

That's a good point, as well, Mf. At what point does the retelling (and probable embellishment or forgetfulness) of a story that was history, then become fiction?

Once an author intentionally is deceptive in telling a story the way he wants rather then intend to get it right, it becomes fiction. If Captian Moroni exaggerated the numbers of people in battle then that part is fiction. History is the telling of facts through a certain perception which while it doesn't ge the facts completely right (impossible to do) does it's best at retelling the events as it sees them. Once one tells the story intentionaly different then it occured it is propaganda

[Cobalt-70]

The only statement you make here worthy of note is the idea that "Mormonism represents everything that post-Deist Americanism stood for." Perhaps you could develop on that theme a bit. I'd be interested to know, for example, whether you consider Deism ("belief in God based only on reason and nature," is an online definition) compatible with Mormonism. If so, why would you assert that Mormonism is gnostic, magical, and mystical (or at least once was)?

I don't think I know any Mormon deists, but I wouldn't be surprised if some exist.

I think the original 1829 form of Mormonism was a reaction, in part, to deism. Smith's father and paternal grandfather were within the semi-deist tradition (Joseph, Sr. less so than Asael, because the former was like Lehi a "visionary man"), and I don't think that Smith quite agreed with this deist background at first. I think there could be a few traces of influence in the Book of Mormon from that deist generation, but for the most part, the Book of Mormon take the opposite stand against deism. For example, the Book of Mormon is very pro-supernatural, and semi-deist characters like Sherem and Korihor are not depicted favorably.

Smith began his religious career more from the Second Great Awakening generation, which was in part a reaction to deism. When faced with religious pluralism, Smith did not take the deist route of his grandfather in eschewing organized religion--he created a new organized religion filled with magic and miracle. Smith did not try to determine the mind of God the deist way, through reason and study of natural law--he apprehended God's knowledge through gnostic mysticism.

If a deist influence came into Mormonism, it was perhaps after the Book of Mormon was published. That deist nugget would be the idea, developed by Smith and later by Pratt and Widtsoe, that the universe is governed by law, and that nothing is truly supernatural. It is the idea that God places matter and light/truth/intelligence within a sphere, and lets natural law govern there without further micromanaging. But that is sort of a synthesis of deism and gnosticism, and not deism in a traditional sense.

[mfbukowski]

Once an author intentionally is deceptive in telling a story the way he wants rather then intend to get it right, it becomes fiction. If Captian Moroni exaggerated the numbers of people in battle then that part is fiction. History is the telling of facts through a certain perception which while it doesn't ge the facts completely right (impossible to do) does it's best at retelling the events as it sees them. Once one tells the story intentionaly different then it occured it is propaganda

AHA!

In what sense then do facts exist if we cannot know what they are and can never get them "right"? How would we know if they are right or not?

My point is that if we can never know what "really" happened, and all we have is the story itself, the story is all we have to go on. Either we have a good reason to believe it or not, but the bottom line is that all we have is the story.

[DBMormon]

Regardless of how watered down we want to make the restoration, There were 11 formal witnesses and many others, people who say they saw plates, felt them, hefted them. There are miracles, visions which others partook in (Rigdon and section 76) (Cowdery and Priesthood restoration). Sorry for me either the greatest fraud ever perpatrated on makind or there were plates, nephites and Lamanites, and Moroni a actual angel, plus the appearances of other angelic minsters not to mention JC and GtF. Anything outside these two extremes is a watered down effort to mesh the problem with the evidences and still end up with something you can still feel good about... Sometimes you just have to draw a line in the sand.

Edited June 6, 2012 by reelmormon

[mfbukowski]

Regardless of how watered down we want to make the restoration, There were 11 formal witnesses and many others, people who say they saw plates, felt them, hefted them. There are miracles, visions which others partook in (Rigdon and section 76) (Cowdery and Priesthood restoration). Sorry for me either the greatest fraud ever perpatrated on makind or there were plates, nephites and Lamanites, and Moroni a actual angel, plus the appearances of other angelic minsters not to mention JC and GtF. Anything outside these two extremes is a watered down effort to mesh the problem with the evidences and still end up with something you can still feel good about... Sometimes you just have to draw a line in the sand.

No question. The more witnesses there are to an event the more "objective" it becomes.

For me it is never a question of "watering down" reality at all. It is elevating our participation in creating the world as we know it. To me, this is a godlike activity. We are even now creating our own worlds in anticipation of the sublime gifts we may be found worthy of in the worlds to come.

That is not "watering down" anything, it is the acknowledgement of a profoundly ennobling gift God has given us, to participate in the creation of worlds.

Edited June 6, 2012 by mfbukowski

[Libs]

Indeed, that is THE question. And remember that every story presents only one point of view. If you have ever counseled people who's marriages are in trouble, you will find that you interview one and you are instantly on their side, thinking clearly that the spouse is at fault.

Then you interview the spouse and it becomes perfectly clear that the first spouse is the one at fault!

So what is the "truth"? Did Columbus "discover" America? Who were all those people living there who didn't know they hadn't been "discovered" yet?

It all depends on your point of view. Are any of these stories "fiction"?- No, just different points of view- different ways of seeing the same events.

Oh, yes, I agree. However, the retelling of actual history and how that eventually gets twisted is a little different from starting out as fiction and not based on any real history, at all. I think the latter is where a lot of people fall, in regards to the Book of Mormon. Not based on true history of any kind, but just inspired fiction.

I'm actually somewhere in between. I just don't know. Could be either.

[JeremyOrbe-Smith]

"All the stories are fictions. What matters is which fiction you believe." -- Orson Scott Card

History is not "what really happened." It's the translation of a particular interpretation of a series of events from biased and uninformed witnesses to even more uninformed readers, severely limited by the constraints of linear language and severely shaped by unquestioned inherited cultural presuppositions. We can only write down a ludicrously tiny amount of what we experience, and the very selection of events we choose to record is predicated on the unconscious moral weight we attach to what is "good" to remember. All causal assertions are post-facto fictions; that they might be useful fictions does not alter their fictiveness. All science is fictions that we tell ourselves until they scrape up against the witnessed "reality" of newly observed phenomena and need to be revised with that "continuing revelation"; in the meantime, the inherently-incomplete fictions are useful enough that we can build our rocketships and fly.

I think the underlying events in the Book of Mormon really happened. Those events were not "fictional". A small group of people from the Middle East crossed an ocean and came to America. They mixed with the others who were already here, and then their party split into devastating civil war. The story of the Book of Mormon is one for our times because it shows the effects of dividing the human family into warring factions rather than taking part in the At-One-Ment taught by the Anointed One who Speaks on behalf of the Divine Council, the rest of the family in the Heavens. The fulness of the Gospel is taught in the Book of Mormon: we had a premortal existence before this world was founded with Intelligence, the Plan of Salvation was voted on, and we can live again after this life.

But the transmission of that story can be handled any number of ways. What we have now in the Book of Mormon has been, at the very least, quadruple-filtered through the conceptual, linguistic, and cultural biases of the Middle East/Egypt, Mesoamerica, 19th-century New England, and the interpretative biases and limitations of our current day. That's thousands of years of history. That's records of memories of records of memories of records of memories of dreams and visions and hopes and sorrows, all funneled through Joseph Smith's brain and translated into the limited idiom he was familiar with. The story is just a construction we're all building in our minds in order to have enough common experience that we can bind each other into intergenerational communities. The Book of Mormon is a tool, not some word-perfect compendium of Unbiased Absolute Self-Interpreting Perfect Truth. There is no such thing; everything is interpretation and personal experience. If Nephi didn't say those exact words to his brothers, does it really matter? The lessons we find in the Book of Mormon are as true as we make them.

Cobalt-70, while I disagree with you on the historicity of the Book of Mormon (as I said, I think the underlying story really happened), I think this part of your earlier post was fantastic, and should be emphasized:

Becoming an "I'm Christian too" religion may stop some of the bleeding in the short term, but could be disastrous in the long run.

The LDS Church has tremendous doctrinal and historical resources that it could bring to bear, with which it could become the premiere religion of the 21st century. We've got Heavenly Mother. We've got social justice built into the Book of Mormon. We've got a history of magic and mysticism that we've let become dormant. We've got a temple ceremony that currently turns people off to the faith, but with a few tweaks and a little more openness, could become a powerful engine to regenerate the faith. We have a lot of historical baggage, yes, but dormant within our doctrine are also powerful solutions to 21st century problems.

These are exactly the things I think we should be emphasizing. I think sometimes that we are trying too hard to appear "normal" to other Christians, when the point of Mormonism is to get Christianity back on track by stripping it of Western excesses. To be honest, I see far more danger in assimilating traditional Christian ideas back into Mormonism than I do in assimilating scientific and "secular" ideas like humanism into our belief structure. If the Gods are not ontologically unique and if the eternal sparks residing in us homo sapiens are of the same species of Intelligence as them, then Mormonism is in fact humanism par excellence.

My two major suggestions:

1. Stop trying to appear "monotheistic" like so much of traditional Christianity does, as if the term is relevant in any way, shape, or form, as if we have any reason to try to perpetuate it. This is the big one, because it is where I see most of the problems between world religions stemming from. When my One Single Absolute God is the Only True God, then all others must be demonic impostors, and I'm obligated to kill the infidels for their blasphemy. The point of the At-One-Ment is for all people to become exalted. Christ thought it not robbery to be equal with the Father, and He wants to bring all people to sit on His throne. If our ancestors are capable of being Divine, then the ancestral "Gods" of every single people on the planet are, quite possibly, real. Inasmuch as they follow the laws of Justice and Mercy, then they too are Good and worthy of giving worth to.

Inasmuch as each one of us is not a Savior of humanity, we are as salt that has lost its savor -- it's the Plan of Salvation that matters, not which particular Messenger brings it to us; "what I the Lord have spoken, I have spoken, and I excuse not myself; and though the heavens and the earth pass away, my word shall not pass away, but shall all be fulfilled, whether by mine own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the same." The Father, the Holy Spirit of Wisdom, and the Child Anointed One are all One in love. That's not Alexandrian "monotheism", that's humanism. That's family. Let's stop trying to force-fit ourselves into a fundamentally unnecessary category that we never belonged to in the first place.

2. Let's also lose the Patriarchy and focus instead on Priesthood. There is no scriptural necessity to tie Patriarchy with Priesthood, and ample reason not to. It is the cosmological shepherding Elderhood which is important, not the gender of the person being called to minister. If we are to pattern ourselves after the Order which is without Father or Mother or beginning of days, then telling one gender that the Priesthood is something to desire and be worthy of without telling the same thing to the other gender does not make sense.

The fundamental point is that we have a Mother in Heaven. If Margaret Barker (and a whole plethora of "feminist" scholars) are correct, then, as Ben Sira taught, She is just as much a Priest as I am, the very Archetype of the High Priests, Wisdom who is the Anointing Oil from the Tree of Life. Instead of being embarrassed by Her (again trying to be philosophical monotheists instead of inviting everyone into the Divine Council), we should be explicitly proclaiming Her existence in our missionary work.

Quick story: I was walking through my college cafeteria a few terms ago (Portland State), and was accosted by a female missionary from another church (I'm kicking myself because I don't remember the denomination) who was trying to lure people in with a little talk on a Mother Goddess. She asked if I was a Christian, and I said yes, and then she became so excited and animated as she began to speak about a Heavenly Mother, as if she was imparting something new and wonderful to me. She actually became quite crestfallen when I said that I actually already believe in a Mother in Heaven, and she immediately jumped in and said definitively "You're Mormon, then, right?" This girl wasn't Mormon, but she knew that we believe in Her -- moreover, she had been using the Mother Goddess angle to reel people in and then reveal that she was actually part of a Christian group that thought of Her merely as a metaphorical "emanation" (or whatever) of the usual bodiless philosopher's God. We Mormons know of the real woman. Think of the missionary possibilities of highlighting Her as an equal alongside the Father and the Son!

The Temple ceremony has been edited all over the place. If authorized folk tweaked it in just a few tiny places, I think we'd lose the few tiny stumbling blocks that are keeping it from utterly revolutionizing the religious world. (And on a related note, we make inaccurate "graven images" of the Messiah despite the fact that we have no idea what He looked like; why can't we complete that trinity and include the Mother and Father in there as well, showing that males and females are equally capable of divinity?)

There is so much exciting stuff about the more unique aspects of LDS theology! I just wish we'd be more comfortable with ourselves in all our weirdness, worlds without number.

[Libs]

Seems, from my perspective, that LDS culture has become too conservative to fully embrace their "weirdness". It started out as very innovative and "liberal" (if I dare say so). But, today, the PR people do seem to want to present a very "mainstream" appearance....which has many members fighting against the stranger aspects of the religion, when confronted. Interesting.

[Robert F. Smith]

"All the stories are fictions. What matters is which fiction you believe." -- Orson Scott Card

History is not "what really happened." It's the translation of a particular interpretation of a series of events from biased and uninformed witnesses to even more uninformed readers, severely limited by the constraints of linear language and severely shaped by unquestioned inherited cultural presuppositions. We can only write down a ludicrously tiny amount of what we experience, and the very selection of events we choose to record is predicated on the unconscious moral weight we attach to what is "good" to remember. All causal assertions are post-facto fictions; that they might be useful fictions does not alter their fictiveness. All science is fictions that we tell ourselves until they scrape up against the witnessed "reality" of newly observed phenomena and need to be revised with that "continuing revelation"; in the meantime, the inherently-incomplete fictions are useful enough that we can build our rocketships and fly.

I think the underlying events in the Book of Mormon really happened. Those events were not "fictional". A small group of people from the Middle East crossed an ocean and came to America. They mixed with the others who were already here, and then their party split into devastating civil war. The story of the Book of Mormon is one for our times because it shows the effects of dividing the human family into warring factions rather than taking part in the At-One-Ment taught by the Anointed One who Speaks on behalf of the Divine Council, the rest of the family in the Heavens. The fulness of the Gospel is taught in the Book of Mormon: we had a premortal existence before this world was founded with Intelligence, the Plan of Salvation was voted on, and we can live again after this life.

But the transmission of that story can be handled any number of ways. What we have now in the Book of Mormon has been, at the very least, quadruple-filtered through the conceptual, linguistic, and cultural biases of the Middle East/Egypt, Mesoamerica, 19th-century New England, and the interpretative biases and limitations of our current day. That's thousands of years of history. That's records of memories of records of memories of records of memories of dreams and visions and hopes and sorrows, all funneled through Joseph Smith's brain and translated into the limited idiom he was familiar with. The story is just a construction we're all building in our minds in order to have enough common experience that we can bind each other into intergenerational communities. The Book of Mormon is a tool, not some word-perfect compendium of Unbiased Absolute Self-Interpreting Perfect Truth. There is no such thing; everything is interpretation and personal experience. If Nephi didn't say those exact words to his brothers, does it really matter? The lessons we find in the Book of Mormon are as true as we make them.

Cobalt-70, while I disagree with you on the historicity of the Book of Mormon (as I said, I think the underlying story really happened), I think this part of your earlier post was fantastic, and should be emphasized:

These are exactly the things I think we should be emphasizing. I think sometimes that we are trying too hard to appear "normal" to other Christians, when the point of Mormonism is to get Christianity back on track by stripping it of Western excesses. To be honest, I see far more danger in assimilating traditional Christian ideas back into Mormonism than I do in assimilating scientific and "secular" ideas like humanism into our belief structure. If the Gods are not ontologically unique and if the eternal sparks residing in us homo sapiens are of the same species of Intelligence as them, then Mormonism is in fact humanism par excellence.

My two major suggestions:

1. Stop trying to appear "monotheistic" like so much of traditional Christianity does, as if the term is relevant in any way, shape, or form, as if we have any reason to try to perpetuate it. This is the big one, because it is where I see most of the problems between world religions stemming from. When my One Single Absolute God is the Only True God, then all others must be demonic impostors, and I'm obligated to kill the infidels for their blasphemy. The point of the At-One-Ment is for all people to become exalted. Christ thought it not robbery to be equal with the Father, and He wants to bring all people to sit on His throne. If our ancestors are capable of being Divine, then the ancestral "Gods" of every single people on the planet are, quite possibly, real. Inasmuch as they follow the laws of Justice and Mercy, then they too are Good and worthy of giving worth to.

Inasmuch as each one of us is not a Savior of humanity, we are as salt that has lost its savor -- it's the Plan of Salvation that matters, not which particular Messenger brings it to us; "what I the Lord have spoken, I have spoken, and I excuse not myself; and though the heavens and the earth pass away, my word shall not pass away, but shall all be fulfilled, whether by mine own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the same." The Father, the Holy Spirit of Wisdom, and the Child Anointed One are all One in love. That's not Alexandrian "monotheism", that's humanism. That's family. Let's stop trying to force-fit ourselves into a fundamentally unnecessary category that we never belonged to in the first place.

2. Let's also lose the Patriarchy and focus instead on Priesthood. There is no scriptural necessity to tie Patriarchy with Priesthood, and ample reason not to. It is the cosmological shepherding Elderhood which is important, not the gender of the person being called to minister. If we are to pattern ourselves after the Order which is without Father or Mother or beginning of days, then telling one gender that the Priesthood is something to desire and be worthy of without telling the same thing to the other gender does not make sense.

The fundamental point is that we have a Mother in Heaven. If Margaret Barker (and a whole plethora of "feminist" scholars) are correct, then, as Ben Sira taught, She is just as much a Priest as I am, the very Archetype of the High Priests, Wisdom who is the Anointing Oil from the Tree of Life. Instead of being embarrassed by Her (again trying to be philosophical monotheists instead of inviting everyone into the Divine Council), we should be explicitly proclaiming Her existence in our missionary work.

Quick story: I was walking through my college cafeteria a few terms ago (Portland State), and was accosted by a female missionary from another church (I'm kicking myself because I don't remember the denomination) who was trying to lure people in with a little talk on a Mother Goddess. She asked if I was a Christian, and I said yes, and then she became so excited and animated as she began to speak about a Heavenly Mother, as if she was imparting something new and wonderful to me. She actually became quite crestfallen when I said that I actually already believe in a Mother in Heaven, and she immediately jumped in and said definitively "You're Mormon, then, right?" This girl wasn't Mormon, but she knew that we believe in Her -- moreover, she had been using the Mother Goddess angle to reel people in and then reveal that she was actually part of a Christian group that thought of Her merely as a metaphorical "emanation" (or whatever) of the usual bodiless philosopher's God. We Mormons know of the real woman. Think of the missionary possibilities of highlighting Her as an equal alongside the Father and the Son!

The Temple ceremony has been edited all over the place. If authorized folk tweaked it in just a few tiny places, I think we'd lose the few tiny stumbling blocks that are keeping it from utterly revolutionizing the religious world. (And on a related note, we make inaccurate "graven images" of the Messiah despite the fact that we have no idea what He looked like; why can't we complete that trinity and include the Mother and Father in there as well, showing that males and females are equally capable of divinity?)

There is so much exciting stuff about the more unique aspects of LDS theology! I just wish we'd be more comfortable with ourselves in all our weirdness, worlds without number.

I hope that you are writing a book with this very content, and much more of like content. Very poetic and powerful.

[Hamilton Porter]

Except that those religious groups which have opted for a more or less fictional Bible are withering away.

Amen!

[Libs]

I don't have any stats (although, I might look for some when I have more time), but I was somewhat active as a Progressive Christian, for awhile, and by all counts, they seem to be a fast growing group (and most do not take much of the Bible literally).

Edited June 6, 2012 by Libs

[altersteve]

I think the original 1829 form of Mormonism was a reaction, in part, to deism.

I think the original 1829 form of Mormonism was a reaction, in full, to apostasy.

[Hamilton Porter]

I don't have any stats (although, I might look for some when I have more time), but I was somewhat active as a Progressive Christian, for awhile, and by all counts, they seem to be a fast growing group (and most do not take much of the Bible literally).

It's pretty well documented that liberal churches are falling by the wayside. See Rodney Stark and Roger Finke, The Churching of America. Or the chapter on religion in The Audacity of Hope.

[Cobalt-70]

It's pretty well documented that liberal churches are falling by the wayside. See Rodney Stark and Roger Finke, The Churching of America. Or the chapter on religion in The Audacity of Hope.

Not all liberal churches are declining, and for those that are, it would be a mistake to assume that the decline is caused by their liberalism. Stark and Finke did not make that conclusion in their book. According to Stark and Finke's theory, growing religions are that way because they require more sacrifice and/or induce more stigma, thus increasing the "cost" of membership, which in turn causes members to value their membership more. A liberal church could require just as much sacrifice, and induce just as much stigma, as a conservative church.

[Hamilton Porter]

Not all liberal churches are declining, and for those that are, it would be a mistake to assume that the decline is caused by their liberalism. Stark and Finke did not make that conclusion in their book. According to Stark and Finke's theory, growing religions are that way because they require more sacrifice and/or induce more stigma, thus increasing the "cost" of membership, which in turn causes members to value their membership more. A liberal church could require just as much sacrifice, and induce just as much stigma, as a conservative church.

Which liberal church isn't declining? Stark & Finke's conclusion was, "Those churches who try to go mainline are headed for the sidelines."

Edited June 6, 2012 by Hamilton Porter

[mfbukowski]

I hope that you are writing a book with this very content, and much more of like content. Very poetic and powerful.

I agree, for the most part.

The good news is that as I think McMurrin correctly noticed, we don't understand the strength of our own theology. The problem is the two sides of Mormon Pragmatism- on one hand, we are a practical people with a literal understanding of personal experience as "reality", how to plant crops build barns etc,very commonsensical and straightforward, and more than a tad suspicious of the "philosophies of men" and intellectualism.

But yet we also want a theoretical basis for seeing spiritual experience as "real" as well, and most flounder around when confronted with scientific topics like evolution or again, the question of how it can be possible that visions of angels can be "real" in any intellectual sense.

This board alone is ample evidence of this- that is precisely what most of the threads here are about and is one of the major reasons I post here. It seems no one "gets" it.

Philosophically the reality of spiritual experience can only make sense where the world is ultimately based on subjective, (but collectively subjective evidence) where reality is seen as a "pool" of ultimately subjective human experiences. This is seen most clearly in what we call "history" and is what I have been talking about in this thread. When reality is seen as a collective "pool" of each individuals subjective experiences, expressed linguistically, subjective experience, including spiritual experience, takes an honored position instead of being wrongly relegated to the trash-heap of "imagination".

History really IS clearly every person's unified and pooled experience of what they recall they saw. What people do not tend to understand is that that is true of every human activity, including science, is as well.

What IS science, after all, if not a collection or pool of empirical observations, expressed linguistically, of the subjective personal experiences of thousands of people we call "scientists" who make it their business to record such observations in a very systematic way?

This is the essence of linguistic constructivism; the notion that since we only communicate through languages, (natural or otherwise) the "pool" I have been discussing of common experience actually exists IN language. Language is the great storage system of culture which houses the collective experience of all the individuals who have ever lived. When a language is lost, a portion of all we can know about reality is lost. Learning a language allows us to experience different worlds. And of course, as we know, "translation" between languages and therefore cultures can be very very difficult precisely because they do represent "different worlds"

The problem is to get Mormons to understand all this philosophically while they retain an Aristotelian and Cartesian view of the universe which is ultimately incompatible with their theology.

What needs to happen, in my never humble opinion, is a major paradigm shift to a more post-modern (in the sense of post-Enlightenment, in a historical sense, not including the usual nihilistic implications of those words) view of reality being humanly created, as a pooled, culturally-generated world of information we all draw upon with every word we speak.

So for me, bringing about the paradigm shift is a chicken/egg problem.

Should it come primarily through art and literature and poetry, or through shifting the philosophical underpinnings of the theology from the 8th century at least to the 20th?

Neoplatonic vocabularies have no place in Mormonism, but the philosophy of Peirce and William James, John Dewey and their philosophical descendents like Wittgenstein and others need to be squarely in the center of any philosophical paradigm shift in my opinion.

So first through philosophy, or first through literature and poetry? I kind of like a direct frontal attack on both fronts.

My only disagreement with Jeremy, I think, is about his dislike of Patriarchy. I see that the notion of "opposition in all things" or yin and yang or whatever linguistic formulation it takes, is essential to Mormonism covering all the necessary theological "bases" required to become a worldwide religion. Clearly family creation (and I see the family and unity through love and purpose as basic to the social trinitarianism I see as creating the Godhead)- family creation requires Male and Female, I believe in complimentary roles, not the same role.

I also see any attempt to change that aspect of Mormonism, besides being undesirable, as a huge stumbling block, tactically, to getting to the necessary philosophical paradigm shift. But other than that, I think we are both on the same side!

Edited June 6, 2012 by mfbukowski

[Cobalt-70]

Which liberal church isn't declining? Stark & Finke's conclusion was, "Those churches who try to go mainline are headed for the sidelines."

By "mainline" they meant socially-acceptable and low-impact. So, the LDS Church has slowly been "going mainline" since the 1890s, and anything that the church does to try and "fit in" more with surrounding society, or to make participation easier and less work-intensive for its members, is "going mainline."

As for which liberal churches are growing, that would include Wicca and other forms of paganism, and Unitarian Universalism. Also, while many liberal mainline churches have been shrinking (as have conservative mainline churches like the SBC), there is no reason to think that liberal faith has been shrinking. The liberals have just become disengaged from their organizations. A church like the LDS Church would be in a much better position than mainline Christian churches to retain those people, because the appeal and authority of Mormonism is not necessarily linked to literal and inflexible interpretations of scripture.

[Cobalt-70]

My only disagreement with Jeremy, I think, is about his dislike of Patriarchy. I see that the notion of "opposition in all things" or yin and yang or whatever linguistic formulation it takes, is essential to Mormonism covering all the necessary theological "bases" required to become a worldwide religion. Clearly family creation (and I see the family and unity through love and purpose as basic to the social trinitarianism I see as creating the Godhead)- family creation requires Male and Female, I believe in complimentary roles, not the same role.

I also see any attempt to change that aspect of Mormonism, besides being undesirable, as a huge stumbling block, tactically, to getting to the necessary philosophical paradigm shift. But other than that, I think we are both on the same side!

Gender difference is not patriarchy, though. Patriarchy is a social construction in which femininity is a "supplement" to masculinity, or where femininity is within the margins, or is Other. That part of Mormonism we could very well change.

[DBMormon]

Jeremy Orbe Smith - I really enjoyed your post. With a church founded on revelation, there are limitless possibilities and your suggestions certainly make for a church that would welcome in greater numbers.

couple of questions

1.) are you proposing women recieve priesthood? which as you point out Heavenly Mother would certainly have some power sisters could tap into. Also Temple indicates that women already are promised access to it at least in terminology eternally if not here. If you answered yes, are you advocating female bishops? Stake Presidents? Apostles, prophets? and please people don't take this conversation in the tank.... No I am not advocating these changes just possible futruture revelations that have potential for dramatic change in the church and a discussion of their reach.

2.) Are you advocating changing the temple sealings procedures so that non-members could view marital sealings? This would be an awesome change. To me it is the one gigantic moment that non-members are deeply offended and the member while feeling and knowing it is right, has no good way to explain to their non-member parent(s). I would applaud this change. Also without violating temple sacredness, what other changes are you suggesting?

3.) me speaking on my own ( I am heavy on vicadin today due to the broken leg so if this is out there.... bear with me.... My mind is moving fast.... reaqlly fast... no time to double check what it is thinking) - lets stress to the nth degree our basics, Book of Mormon, prophets, authority, but lets cut loose all the dead weight with the having to have an authoritarian say on every last facet of theology. Let's just openly say .... hey we know some things for sure.... but there is a heck of a lot we don't know... even stuff some of our past leaders claimed to have known before... yeah, we don't know that. Kind of Like President Hinkley's answer to As man is God once was question on 60 minutes or Larry King... or captain kangaroo or somewhere. Let's leave some space for people to truly bring all that they value and hold as true and then see if we can add to it... only adding what we know for sure... no more theories and opinions.

Ok Jeremy and others what say you... and yes while it is completely legal and needed...... I am stoned

[Robert F. Smith]

I agree, for the most part.

The problem is to get Mormons to understand all this philosophically while they retain an Aristotelian and Cartesian view of the universe which is ultimately incompatible with their theology.

Should it come primarily through art and literature and poetry, or through shifting the philosophical underpinnings of the theology from the 8th century at least to the 20th?

Neoplatonic vocabularies have no place in Mormonism, but the philosophy of Peirce and William James, John Dewey and their philosophical descendents like Wittgenstein and others need to be squarely in the center of any philosophical paradigm shift in my opinion.

So first through philosophy, or first through literature and poetry? I kind of like a direct frontal attack on both fronts.

My only disagreement with Jeremy, I think, is about his dislike of Patriarchy. I see that the notion of "opposition in all things" or yin and yang or whatever linguistic formulation it takes, is essential to Mormonism covering all the necessary theological "bases" required to become a worldwide religion. Clearly family creation (and I see the family and unity through love and purpose as basic to the social trinitarianism I see as creating the Godhead)- family creation requires Male and Female, I believe in complimentary roles, not the same role.

Yes, Lehi's law of opposition is essential, and I agree wholeheartedly with the rest, although I think that science has now moved beyond the old Cartesian and Aristotelian norms, as have most thinking Mormons.

However, I particularly love Jeremy's mellifluous and poetic powers of expression. So rare to find someone able to capture the otherwise ineffable.

Edited June 6, 2012 by Robert F. Smith

[Libs]

It's pretty well documented that liberal churches are falling by the wayside. See Rodney Stark and Roger Finke, The Churching of America. Or the chapter on religion in The Audacity of Hope.

Looks like, what I am reading, is that most churches (denominations) are on the decline and have been for some time now. Sixty percent of our youth have never been churched.

[mfbukowski]

However, I particularly love Jeremy's mellifluous and poetic powers of expression. So rare to find someone able to capture the otherwise ineffable.

Yeah, yeah, I know, I hate the the guy for that.

[mfbukowski]

Yes, Lehi's law of opposition is essential, and I agree wholeheartedly with the rest, although I think that science has now moved beyond the old Cartesian and Aristotelian norms, as have most thinking Mormons.

Do you really think so??

[Cobalt-70]

Jeremy Orbe Smith - I really enjoyed your post. With a church founded on revelation, there are limitless possibilities and your suggestions certainly make for a church that would welcome in greater numbers.

couple of questions

1.) are you proposing women recieve priesthood? which as you point out Heavenly Mother would certainly have some power sisters could tap into. Also Temple indicates that women already are promised access to it at least in terminology eternally if not here. If you answered yes, are you advocating female bishops? Stake Presidents? Apostles, prophets? and please people don't take this conversation in the tank.... No I am not advocating these changes just possible futruture revelations that have potential for dramatic change in the church and a discussion of their reach.

2.) Are you advocating changing the temple sealings procedures so that non-members could view marital sealings? This would be an awesome change. To me it is the one gigantic moment that non-members are deeply offended and the member while feeling and knowing it is right, has no good way to explain to their non-member parent(s). I would applaud this change. Also without violating temple sacredness, what other changes are you suggesting?

3.) me speaking on my own ( I am heavy on vicadin today due to the broken leg so if this is out there.... bear with me.... My mind is moving fast.... reaqlly fast... no time to double check what it is thinking) - lets stress to the nth degree our basics, Book of Mormon, prophets, authority, but lets cut loose all the dead weight with the having to have an authoritarian say on every last facet of theology. Let's just openly say .... hey we know some things for sure.... but there is a heck of a lot we don't know... even stuff some of our past leaders claimed to have known before... yeah, we don't know that. Kind of Like President Hinkley's answer to As man is God once was question on 60 minutes or Larry King... or captain kangaroo or somewhere. Let's leave some space for people to truly bring all that they value and hold as true and then see if we can add to it... only adding what we know for sure... no more theories and opinions.

Ok Jeremy and others what say you... and yes while it is completely legal and needed...... I am stoned

This is directed to Jeremy Orbe Smith, but I'll say what my answers would be:

1. Yes. Nothing short of women prophets and apostles

2. Anyone should be able to see a temple sealing. The temple building is not "polluted" by the mere presence of nonbelievers or people we think are wicked. Sins don't rub off onto the carpet. Also, let's just publish the ceremony (leaving out the key symbols, of course) and have Sunday School classes that examine it in great detail, so that nobody is surprised when they go there. Also, reintroduce prayer circles in contexts other than the endowment ceremony, and bring back the second anointing.

3. I agree, and I think the church could be more tolerant of diverse doctrinal views. If a doctrinal issue is unsettled or uncanonical, then one person's views on the subject are just as good as anyone else's. If a Mormon wants to be a Trinitarian, then fine. If a Mormon wants to pray to Heavenly Mother, then fine.

[JeremyOrbe-Smith]

Oh jeez, Bob and bukowski -- y'all are far too kind. Thanks for the nice words.

...

Here's my spiel:

"Patriarch" comes from the Greek patriarches, meaning the chief/head of a family. But it's not the father, the pater, that I disagree with; it's the archein, the "to rule." I don't think a father has the right, merely by being male, to rule over how things go in a family. The same would go for a hypothetical Matriarchy; a woman does not have the right, merely by being female, to be in charge. The problem is not any particular gender; I rather like both of them. The problem is unrighteous dominion. Instead of acting as One Body through persuasion and mutual love, decisions are based on who has the right to be the sole Arch. It's essentially the same problem I have with philosophical monotheism; the argument boils down to the idea that the ontologically unique God is only right because it "says so."

We should recall that there are only eight references to "patriarchs" in the scriptures we have upheld by common consent. Of those eight, the four which occur in Acts and Hebrews in the New Testament are merely references (made by men brought up within a deeply Patriarchal culture) to Abraham, the heads of the Twelve Tribes, and David. The one reference in the Pearl of Great Price is made by Abraham, who explicitly records that the Patriarchy is actually based on the government of Ham. The last three references, found in the D&C, say that the Lord's "servant Hyrum may take the office of Priesthood and Patriarch", meaning that the Priesthood is something separate from the office of Patriarch.

In other words, they're not interchangeable. The cosmological Priesthood is that Order which is without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life. (Hebrew Kohen = Greek presbyteros = Priest = Old Enough To Shepherd Cattle = Elder) There was an office of Patriarch for a time, but it has fallen into disuse and was, after all, merely a subset of the larger Priesthood, just as the Aaronic is merely a specialized subsection/appendage of the Melchizedek.

All those who are ordained unto this Priesthood are made "like unto the Son of God," but is this saying anything about gender? No -- we are made like unto the Son of God in that we are to "abid[e as] a priest continually." Again, it is the Priesthood which is important, not the Patriarchy. If we become Little Melchizedeks, then we are Anointed as Kings of Righteousness to El; but again, Latter-Day revelation shows how even the "King", which is a male political reference, is subsumed within the larger Priesthood which is without father or mother.

The reason, I think, is that Gods are not ontologically unique, and therefore we as Intelligences are following the same eternal pattern that all the others have, by going from one small degree to another, from life to life. Women are not "more spiritual" than men; men are not "more spiritual" than women. All Intelligences are eternal, and each has to learn how to become Good by following the Laws of Justice and Mercy in order to take part in the At-One-Ment, the Reconciliation of all uncreated Intelligences. It's a life cycle; it's evolution and eternal progression.

With this in mind, I think there is plenty of room for complementary opposition in all things, Light and Dark symbolism, Yin and Yang, Alchymical Marriages, etc. What there is no room for is saying that one gender is ruler over the other. I think this is actually already present in the Temple ceremony, in which the woman is only counseled to listen to her husband insofar as he is listening to God (and who judges that but her?). It's just that the particular way the phrases are formulated (which, remember, are amenable to change) are awkward and make this point somewhat muddled.

(This is one area where we could stand to more explicitly note that both husband and wife are to be accountable to the Gods -- the Gods who are the immortalized human representatives of the Family over worlds without number, and who are themselves only worthy of worship insofar as they do not break the laws of justice either. Again, this is not authoritarianism, this is not monotheism, and this is not "feminism" or "masculinism"; it's humanism, in which all Intelligences are invited to take part in the Divine Council and made Priests and Priestesses.)

So from this background, I can answer reelmormon's questions like this:

1. Absolutely, women should get the Priesthood, and serve as Bishops, Stake Presidents, Apostles, and Prophets. Remember that the Spirit of Prophecy is a gift, not an office; it is to have a Testimony of the Anointed One, and Moses wanted all people to be Prophets. Furthermore, there are many Prophetesses recorded in the Bible (Miriam, Deborah the Bee, Huldah, Anna, and the four daughters of Philip the Evangelist), there was possibly a female Apostle in the New Testament (Junia, depending on how you interpret the verses), and in the early days of the Restoration, women such as Eliza R. Snow could be regarded as a Prophetess, a Priestess, and a Presidentess. According to Brigham Young, Joseph Smith "would not worship a God who had not a father; and I do not know that he would if he had not a mother; the one would be as absurd as the other."

(Remember that when we speak of "the" Prophet, we are actually speaking of "the" President. The Speaker. There are plenty of living Prophets; the authority of the office is not an intrinsic aspect of the fallible, mortal person who holds it, it's a calling. So why shouldn't God call a female Prophetess by the laying on of hands by those who are in authority? Again, it's the Plan of Salvation which matters -- the Gospel, the Good Story. It's not about the particular Messenger.)

2. Absolutely, non-members should be able to view marital sealings. I agree with Cobalt-70's answers up to this point; we should include whatever version of the Temple Ceremony is current in the Standard Works. Illustrations, even. And I am all for Prayer Circles wherever. I love the transcripts of the early days before the Temples were finished and the Saints were doing their rituals in the midst of the trees and rivers and fields. (I'm a huge William Blake fanboy, for one thing. *grin* "I went to the Garden of Love ...")

(The one place I'd disagree with Cobalt-70 is Trinitarianism. Since I personally believe the Holy Spirit of Wisdom is Lady Wisdom/Queen of Heaven, I think we're already invoking Her in prayer all the time, so that's not a big deal. But I think Trinitarianism is one of the philosophical constructs from traditional Christianity that the Restoration pretty definitively rejected. Still, I am all in favor of diverse doctrinal views -- it don't prove a man ain't a good man just because he errs in doctrine. )