Of all the great Christmas songs—the fun ones, the rollicking ones, the cheerful ones, the reverent ones, the worshipful ones—“Oh Come, Oh Come, Emmanuel”—I guess you could describe it as a somber one—is my favorite. I especially like this version by Mannheim Steamroller that uses deep, almost Gregorian chant-like vocals, a cathedral echo, and is sung in Latin. Say what you will about Holly and the Ivy, or Rocking Around the Christmas Tree, or any other Christmas song, this one feels most like Christmas to me. I want to spend the rest of this post explaining why.
First, this song has a distinctly old feeling, which appeals to me. Not only was it written a long time ago (either in the eighth or twelfth centuries) but it’s use of the title “Emmanuel” harkens back to the Old Testament. The title literally means “God With Us,” and Isaiah uses it in speaking about the Messiah. When used with the plea, “Oh Come, Oh Come,” it reminds me of the time immediately preceding Christ’s birth.
While Joseph and Mary were on their way to Bethlehem, the Kingdom of Judah, what remained of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, was suffering under the tyrannical rule of the Romans. The second line of the song refers to “captive Israel,” and I think of this situation when I hear those words. These people were desperate for freedom and many believed that the Messiah would come and deliver them from this political bondage. Which would have made it all the more difficult to recognize, in the poor carpenter’s son from Nazareth, the awaited deliverer.
I want to go back, briefly, to that word “Emmanuel.” As we know, it means, “God With Us,” referring to Jesus’ premortal identity of Jehovah. Jehovah was the God of the Old Testament and he was born of the Virgin Mary in Bethlehem, literally making him God in the flesh, or God walking among us. I can’t imagine the kind of mental leap that the people around Jesus, the neighbors, the friends, the family, the strangers, must have made to look at someone they could see to be flesh and blood, just like they were, and say, “Yep, that there is God.”
True, he performed miracles among them, healing the sick and causing the lame to walk and the blind to see, but prophets did that stuff in the Old Testament too. Elijah even brought someone back from the dead. And it is also true that not everyone who followed him recognized him as the Messiah, but the mere fact that anyone did is mind boggling. That knowledge, that assurance, that the man standing in front of you, the man who breathes and eats and does everything else that you do, is God in the flesh can only come, as Jesus told Peter that it came to him, through the Holy Ghost.
When I hear this song, I wonder if I would recognize Christ for what he was. I wonder if I would have heeded that subtle voice of the spirit that was telling something that my brain would surely react against as impossible, or at least very unlikely.
Second, I like that this song is so old. As noted above, no one is exactly sure when it was written, but we know that it was sometime in the dark ages when Christianity consisted wholly of Catholicism. As a Mormon, I understand that the original church, the church that Christ established during his mortal lifetime, was lost soon after his death and ascension. The people of the eighth or twelfth centuries didn’t have the priesthood organization to facilitate revelation or to make their sacraments valid.
However, this song reminds me that many of them were still wholly devoted to Christ. They believed in him and relied upon his grace and mercy. This song is one of the most beautiful pleas for supplication that I have ever heard. It is far greater than most hymns that Mormons have come up with. Which is why it helps remind me of the bond that I share with my other Christian fellows, which is one of things that we should remember at Christmas, but also of the glorious truth of the restored gospel that these people can receive sacraments under the proper authority, even though they didn’t live in a time when that authority was active.
There has been a lot of great Christmas music written and I hope that more will be written in the future. I feel the reverence of songs like “Silent Night,” and “What Child is This?” as much as anyone. And I like to go riding in a one-horse sleigh and to make my Christmases holly and jolly as much as anyone. But this sacred song, “Oh Come, Oh Come, Emmanuel,” has a special place in my season’s celebrations. And I hope that whatever your favorite Christmas song is (and please tell me about your favorite in the comments) that this season helps remind you that Emmanuel did come, and that he did ransom us, and that he will come again.
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Flagella and Faith
Have you heard the big news? Scientists have found microbes that use arsenic in their genetic makeup instead of phosphorous! If that doesn't mean anything to you, don't fret. It didn't mean anything to me either until I learned a little more about it. Basically, all of life as we knew it uses six elements as its building blocks: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur. This bacteria uses arsenic, a poisonous substance to most organisms, instead of phosphorous. It's kind of a big deal.
Well, it's a big deal for scientists and people interested in that sort of thing. So why am I writing about it here?
One of the greatest questions that people have pondered since the beginning of pondering is where we came from in the first place. I came from my parents who came from their parents who came from their parents and on and on. But, we can't follow that pattern back forever. There had to be a beginning. One of religion's jobs is to tell us where that beginning is. The Judeo-Christian tradition finds the answer in the book of Genesis: There were first parents and their names were Adam and Eve.
Okay, so where did Adam come from? Genesis answers that as well. God created them. Great. That settles that.
At lest it did settle that until Darwin had to come along with his little book on The Origin of Species. You probably know the rest of the story. These new ideas about evolution seemed to show, at least to some, that man was not created by God, but sprung from lesser beings through the mechanism of natural selection. And this mechanism does not need God (again, at least to some). Since then, religious people and scientific people have been engaged in a war over the minds of the people.
I see this new discovery as another battlefield in that war.
I read a book once called The Language of God by Francis S. Collins. Collins is an expert geneticist. In fact, he oversaw the Human Genome Project. He's also a Christian. And in his book, he wrote about being a believer while being surrounded by skepticism, and also some of the traps that believers can fall into when confronted with scientific evidence.
The one that is pertinent to my discussion here is what he calls the “God of the Gaps.” This is when people of faith see gaps, usually in the evolutionary record, that science can't explain and ascribe this gap's existence to God. For example, there is a bacteria that has a flagella (a tentacle like thing that it whips around to propel itself through water) and scientists can't find the evolutionary steps that would have had to occur in order to develop the flagella. “See,” believers will say, “there is God's fingerprint. It couldn't have developed through evolutionary means, therefore, it was created directly by God.”
Here is the problem with this tendency: scientists have this annoying knack for discovering things. To my knowledge, this flagella thing hasn't been figured out yet, but a lot of other gaps in the evolutionary time line have been filled in. So, if you find God only in these gaps, what do you have to stand on when there is no more gap?
DNA could have been one of these gap situations. As far as we could tell for a long time, life could only be based on six elements out of over a hundred. That makes life orderly in a chaotic universe. And order comes from intelligence. So, in the basic structure of life, we find evidence for God's existence.
But this discovery puts a kink in that argument. If life could develop to use arsenic in an environment that is heavily saturated with the poisonous element, what else could it use? Are there any limitations? Is it really chaos?
If someone's faith in God is based on this limited observation of the natural universe (life on Earth only uses six elements), then that person may not be able to answer those questions. Faith has to be based on something internal, not external. It has to be based on spiritual experiences, not physical ones.
After all, science and religion tell us fundamentally different things about the universe. Religion tells us that God created the world. Christians don't all agree about the defenition of creation used here, but we Mormons see it more as organizing existing chaotic matter into the organization that we see today. Religion also tells us that God created humans in his own image, which we Mormons understand to mean that we were made to look like God physically, or that God has the basic appearance of a man, albeit a glorified and perfected one. Religion also tells us why God created all of this stuff. In Moses 1:39, which is found in the Pearl of Great Price, on of the books of scripture that is unique to Mormonism, that God created the world “to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.”
Religion does not tell us how God created the world. It doesn't concern itself with that because it doesn't matter for the ultimate purpose of creation. Knowing how God created the world will not make us better able to live his commandments and become like him. So, religion leaves that question to science. Which is exactly why people of faith shouldn't let any scientific discoveries affect their faith. After all, it's only studying God's creation.
Well, it's a big deal for scientists and people interested in that sort of thing. So why am I writing about it here?
One of the greatest questions that people have pondered since the beginning of pondering is where we came from in the first place. I came from my parents who came from their parents who came from their parents and on and on. But, we can't follow that pattern back forever. There had to be a beginning. One of religion's jobs is to tell us where that beginning is. The Judeo-Christian tradition finds the answer in the book of Genesis: There were first parents and their names were Adam and Eve.
Okay, so where did Adam come from? Genesis answers that as well. God created them. Great. That settles that.
At lest it did settle that until Darwin had to come along with his little book on The Origin of Species. You probably know the rest of the story. These new ideas about evolution seemed to show, at least to some, that man was not created by God, but sprung from lesser beings through the mechanism of natural selection. And this mechanism does not need God (again, at least to some). Since then, religious people and scientific people have been engaged in a war over the minds of the people.
I see this new discovery as another battlefield in that war.
I read a book once called The Language of God by Francis S. Collins. Collins is an expert geneticist. In fact, he oversaw the Human Genome Project. He's also a Christian. And in his book, he wrote about being a believer while being surrounded by skepticism, and also some of the traps that believers can fall into when confronted with scientific evidence.
The one that is pertinent to my discussion here is what he calls the “God of the Gaps.” This is when people of faith see gaps, usually in the evolutionary record, that science can't explain and ascribe this gap's existence to God. For example, there is a bacteria that has a flagella (a tentacle like thing that it whips around to propel itself through water) and scientists can't find the evolutionary steps that would have had to occur in order to develop the flagella. “See,” believers will say, “there is God's fingerprint. It couldn't have developed through evolutionary means, therefore, it was created directly by God.”
Here is the problem with this tendency: scientists have this annoying knack for discovering things. To my knowledge, this flagella thing hasn't been figured out yet, but a lot of other gaps in the evolutionary time line have been filled in. So, if you find God only in these gaps, what do you have to stand on when there is no more gap?
DNA could have been one of these gap situations. As far as we could tell for a long time, life could only be based on six elements out of over a hundred. That makes life orderly in a chaotic universe. And order comes from intelligence. So, in the basic structure of life, we find evidence for God's existence.
But this discovery puts a kink in that argument. If life could develop to use arsenic in an environment that is heavily saturated with the poisonous element, what else could it use? Are there any limitations? Is it really chaos?
If someone's faith in God is based on this limited observation of the natural universe (life on Earth only uses six elements), then that person may not be able to answer those questions. Faith has to be based on something internal, not external. It has to be based on spiritual experiences, not physical ones.
After all, science and religion tell us fundamentally different things about the universe. Religion tells us that God created the world. Christians don't all agree about the defenition of creation used here, but we Mormons see it more as organizing existing chaotic matter into the organization that we see today. Religion also tells us that God created humans in his own image, which we Mormons understand to mean that we were made to look like God physically, or that God has the basic appearance of a man, albeit a glorified and perfected one. Religion also tells us why God created all of this stuff. In Moses 1:39, which is found in the Pearl of Great Price, on of the books of scripture that is unique to Mormonism, that God created the world “to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.”
Religion does not tell us how God created the world. It doesn't concern itself with that because it doesn't matter for the ultimate purpose of creation. Knowing how God created the world will not make us better able to live his commandments and become like him. So, religion leaves that question to science. Which is exactly why people of faith shouldn't let any scientific discoveries affect their faith. After all, it's only studying God's creation.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
The Two Dollar Rule
My mother likes to tell a story about when I was young. According to her, she once took me with her to the store and told me that I could choose one thing for myself that cost two dollars. I was excited to get a new toy and when I saw a Voltron robot, I knew that it was the toy that I had to have. The only problem (which you know if you have clicked on the link) is that the Voltron robot costs much more that two dollars.
When I pleaded that my mother get me that toy, she refused, citing the two dollar rule that I had agreed to before entering the store. I had already set my heart on that Voltron toy, so rules no longer had any meaning for me. When I realized that I couldn't convince her by an rational means, at least any rational means at the disposal of a child (“You should get it for me because I want it”), I resorted to every child's last resort. I started to cry.
I cried as my mom dragged me through the aisles to get the rest of the things she went to the store for. I cried in the checkout line. I cried all the way to the car. Finally, after everything was packed away and we were sitting in the car, my mom waited until I calmed down a bit, then turned to me and said, “Was that fun?”
“No,” I responded.
“Did you get anything?”
“No.”
And just like that, my mother turned the car on and backed out of her parking space, having taught me one of the most important lessons of my life. I learned that just wanting something is not enough justification to get it. We have to follow the rules as well.
It's important to note that my mother hadn't imposed the two dollar rule simply because she wanted me to learn to appreciate cheap things. At that point, my parents really couldn't afford anything more expensive for me. It is harder for parents to teach their children this lesson when they don't have that restriction. When you have the means to by a Voltron robot, it is hard to say no, especially when you have to suffer through the embarrassment of dragging a crying child around in public. But it is important for children to learn that wanting something is not reason enough to get it.
But why isn't wanting something enough reason to get it? If I want something good, why can't I have it right now?
If we instantly have our wants satisfied, we start to think that the world revolves around us, that we are somehow important simply because we exist. We get more selfish, more egotistical, and more lazy. We start to see people as mere means to our own satisfaction.
God did not intend for us to live that way.
When God curses the ground in Genesis, he doesn't say that it is to punish Adam. He says that it is “for [Adam's] sake” (3:17). Adam had to work in order to survive. That helped him to appreciate his life all the more. He was being productive. He was learning and growing. His life had much more meaning outside of the Garden of Eden, where he had to work, than inside the Garden of Eden, where all he had to do was pick his food from the nearest tree.
The world has evolved since the days of Adam though, and survival is not a pressing concern for most of us. But the same principles still apply. If I want to stand on top of Mount Everest, I can't just stroll up there. I have to buy the gear, train for an extended time, make some preparatory climbs, and then travel to Nepal and start the grueling trek up the mountain.
Similarly, if I want a million dollars, I better be willing to put in a lot of work over a long period of time. That is the way God intends for us to get what we want. Through work. However, there is another way. If I really want a million dollars, I can steal it. Getting up to the top of Mount Everest without the work would be a little more tricky—it would require getting someone to drag you up or something—but if it could be done, it would be worth far less than the effort that those who climb it put forth.
God has given us many commandments that work much like my mother's two dollar rule. He gave them to us for many reasons, but they have the added benefit of teaching us that we can't always get what we want (who knew that you could find pearls of truth in Rolling Stones songs?).
Take chastity, for one example. Our society says that if you want to have sex, you should be able to. Nothing should stop you. In fact, we are even working extra hard to disconnect sex from it's natural consequences, some of which are good, like pregnancy, and some of which are bad, like sexually transmitted diseases. A person used to have to confront these consequences if they wanted to have sex, which might make them think twice about having it. Today, though, those consequences are almost completely avoidable (the operative word there is “almost”). So why not allow people have sex when they want?
That's because sex is a sacred thing. It's the way we give life to more of God's children—or at least that's how God intended it to be. And it forms a strong, intimate bond between a man and a woman. God intended that as well. The relationship between a husband and wife is one of the most sacred unions that anyone can hope to enter into. It should have the utmost importance and provide the most meaning to a person's life.
When we compare that meaning to standing on top of Mount Everest or earning a million dollars, it becomes clear that skirting the divinely ordained way to get it, through marriage, cheapens it and makes it less satisfying.
As my mom drove me home from the store that day, I could have decided that I was going to work and save until I could by the Voltron robot for myself. If I really wanted it, that is exactly what I would have done. But I didn't. I got home and turned on the TV or started playing with some of my other toys. I wasn't willing to pay the price to get it, so it was clear that I didn't want it enough. God's commandments serve that purpose. They help us determine what we really want, and help us get them in a way that helps us get the most out of them.
When I pleaded that my mother get me that toy, she refused, citing the two dollar rule that I had agreed to before entering the store. I had already set my heart on that Voltron toy, so rules no longer had any meaning for me. When I realized that I couldn't convince her by an rational means, at least any rational means at the disposal of a child (“You should get it for me because I want it”), I resorted to every child's last resort. I started to cry.
I cried as my mom dragged me through the aisles to get the rest of the things she went to the store for. I cried in the checkout line. I cried all the way to the car. Finally, after everything was packed away and we were sitting in the car, my mom waited until I calmed down a bit, then turned to me and said, “Was that fun?”
“No,” I responded.
“Did you get anything?”
“No.”
And just like that, my mother turned the car on and backed out of her parking space, having taught me one of the most important lessons of my life. I learned that just wanting something is not enough justification to get it. We have to follow the rules as well.
It's important to note that my mother hadn't imposed the two dollar rule simply because she wanted me to learn to appreciate cheap things. At that point, my parents really couldn't afford anything more expensive for me. It is harder for parents to teach their children this lesson when they don't have that restriction. When you have the means to by a Voltron robot, it is hard to say no, especially when you have to suffer through the embarrassment of dragging a crying child around in public. But it is important for children to learn that wanting something is not reason enough to get it.
But why isn't wanting something enough reason to get it? If I want something good, why can't I have it right now?
If we instantly have our wants satisfied, we start to think that the world revolves around us, that we are somehow important simply because we exist. We get more selfish, more egotistical, and more lazy. We start to see people as mere means to our own satisfaction.
God did not intend for us to live that way.
When God curses the ground in Genesis, he doesn't say that it is to punish Adam. He says that it is “for [Adam's] sake” (3:17). Adam had to work in order to survive. That helped him to appreciate his life all the more. He was being productive. He was learning and growing. His life had much more meaning outside of the Garden of Eden, where he had to work, than inside the Garden of Eden, where all he had to do was pick his food from the nearest tree.
The world has evolved since the days of Adam though, and survival is not a pressing concern for most of us. But the same principles still apply. If I want to stand on top of Mount Everest, I can't just stroll up there. I have to buy the gear, train for an extended time, make some preparatory climbs, and then travel to Nepal and start the grueling trek up the mountain.
Similarly, if I want a million dollars, I better be willing to put in a lot of work over a long period of time. That is the way God intends for us to get what we want. Through work. However, there is another way. If I really want a million dollars, I can steal it. Getting up to the top of Mount Everest without the work would be a little more tricky—it would require getting someone to drag you up or something—but if it could be done, it would be worth far less than the effort that those who climb it put forth.
God has given us many commandments that work much like my mother's two dollar rule. He gave them to us for many reasons, but they have the added benefit of teaching us that we can't always get what we want (who knew that you could find pearls of truth in Rolling Stones songs?).
Take chastity, for one example. Our society says that if you want to have sex, you should be able to. Nothing should stop you. In fact, we are even working extra hard to disconnect sex from it's natural consequences, some of which are good, like pregnancy, and some of which are bad, like sexually transmitted diseases. A person used to have to confront these consequences if they wanted to have sex, which might make them think twice about having it. Today, though, those consequences are almost completely avoidable (the operative word there is “almost”). So why not allow people have sex when they want?
That's because sex is a sacred thing. It's the way we give life to more of God's children—or at least that's how God intended it to be. And it forms a strong, intimate bond between a man and a woman. God intended that as well. The relationship between a husband and wife is one of the most sacred unions that anyone can hope to enter into. It should have the utmost importance and provide the most meaning to a person's life.
When we compare that meaning to standing on top of Mount Everest or earning a million dollars, it becomes clear that skirting the divinely ordained way to get it, through marriage, cheapens it and makes it less satisfying.
As my mom drove me home from the store that day, I could have decided that I was going to work and save until I could by the Voltron robot for myself. If I really wanted it, that is exactly what I would have done. But I didn't. I got home and turned on the TV or started playing with some of my other toys. I wasn't willing to pay the price to get it, so it was clear that I didn't want it enough. God's commandments serve that purpose. They help us determine what we really want, and help us get them in a way that helps us get the most out of them.
Monday, November 29, 2010
The Bible and Modern Prophets
In a recent column for CNN.com Michael Coogan, a Harvard Divinity School Bible scholar, argued that “the essence of the Bible -- its ultimate authority -- is not in its individual pronouncements, but in its underlying message: equal, even loving, treatment of all persons, regardless of their age, gender, socio-economic status, ethnicity, or sexual orientation.”
Coogan comes to this conclusion after showing that much of what the Bible commands is rejected today. The examples he uses are slavery, which was practiced under certain circumstances by the ancient Israelites; the treatment of women as property, which Exodus 20:17 seems to approve of by putting women in the same category as a house, servants, livestock, etc.; and commanding to abstain from pork, which the Law of Moses considers an abomination. While some of these examples are more valid than others, a Bible scholar should be smart enough to recognize that they all come from the Old Testament and the Law of Moses, which Christians believe was fulfilled and replaced by the gospel of Jesus Christ. So finding inconsistencies in the behavior of ancient Isrealites and modern Christians is expected. After all, there are 613 commandments in the Law of Moses and Christians ignore almost all of them because Christ taught a higher law.
However, there are even some directives in the New Testament that modern Christians, including Mormons, don't follow, that Coogan would have been better served in citing. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 34-35: “Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.” I don't know of anyone who would actually enforce this command.
If I were to follow Coogan's line of reasoning, I would figure that this is an evidence that the Bible was written by mere mortals under the influence of the “views and values they shared with their contemporaries.” Since these views and values are human and not divine, the Bible has little, if anything, to tell us about how to conduct our personal behavior. In the end, according to Coogan, the only important thing is to love others equally.
While I accept that, as Jesus said, doing unto others as we would have them to to us is “the law and the prophets,” (Matt. 7:12) I can't accept that the Bible has nothing to say on other issues that Coogan cites, such as abortion and same sex marriage. Yes, the various books of the Bible were written by many different people over the course of over a thousand years, but those writers were not just ordinary men. They were prophets, writing under the influence of God's Spirit.
In Numbers 12:6, the Lord says, “If there be a prophet among you, I the Lord will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream.” Prophets are God's mouthpieces to the world. They receive divine communication from him and relay that message to the rest of the world. With all of the voices clamoring for our attention, if we know who God's prophet is, we know who's voice is the most important to listen to. This is one of God's ways of providing order to an otherwise chaotic world.
In addition to this, though, prophets have another important function. “No prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation,” says the Apostle Peter. “For prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost” (2 Peter 1:20-21). If prophecy—or scripture, which is prophecy written down—is of no private interpretation, then who is to interpret it? Since it came by holy men of God speaking as they were moved by the Holy Ghost—prophets—then holy men of God speaking as they are moved by the Holy Ghost should interpret it. That would present a big problem if there were no prophets around.
Fortunately, there are prophets around. God appeared in a vision to the boy Joseph Smith, who was subsequently directed to restore God's church. Since then, the president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who is Thomas S. Monson today, has served as God's mouthpiece, or prophet, to the world.
This solves the problem that Coogan has with ancient scripture. With a “holy man of God” to interpret scripture as he is “moved by the Holy Ghost,” we can know what God's will for his people is today. We don't have to make our own judgment calls on what was ancient tradition and what was divine command. The current prophet will make that clear. This is a great blessing to all those who strive to live according to God's will and not according to their own, with a dash of spirituality thrown in for good measure.
Coogan comes to this conclusion after showing that much of what the Bible commands is rejected today. The examples he uses are slavery, which was practiced under certain circumstances by the ancient Israelites; the treatment of women as property, which Exodus 20:17 seems to approve of by putting women in the same category as a house, servants, livestock, etc.; and commanding to abstain from pork, which the Law of Moses considers an abomination. While some of these examples are more valid than others, a Bible scholar should be smart enough to recognize that they all come from the Old Testament and the Law of Moses, which Christians believe was fulfilled and replaced by the gospel of Jesus Christ. So finding inconsistencies in the behavior of ancient Isrealites and modern Christians is expected. After all, there are 613 commandments in the Law of Moses and Christians ignore almost all of them because Christ taught a higher law.
However, there are even some directives in the New Testament that modern Christians, including Mormons, don't follow, that Coogan would have been better served in citing. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 34-35: “Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.” I don't know of anyone who would actually enforce this command.
If I were to follow Coogan's line of reasoning, I would figure that this is an evidence that the Bible was written by mere mortals under the influence of the “views and values they shared with their contemporaries.” Since these views and values are human and not divine, the Bible has little, if anything, to tell us about how to conduct our personal behavior. In the end, according to Coogan, the only important thing is to love others equally.
While I accept that, as Jesus said, doing unto others as we would have them to to us is “the law and the prophets,” (Matt. 7:12) I can't accept that the Bible has nothing to say on other issues that Coogan cites, such as abortion and same sex marriage. Yes, the various books of the Bible were written by many different people over the course of over a thousand years, but those writers were not just ordinary men. They were prophets, writing under the influence of God's Spirit.
In Numbers 12:6, the Lord says, “If there be a prophet among you, I the Lord will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream.” Prophets are God's mouthpieces to the world. They receive divine communication from him and relay that message to the rest of the world. With all of the voices clamoring for our attention, if we know who God's prophet is, we know who's voice is the most important to listen to. This is one of God's ways of providing order to an otherwise chaotic world.
In addition to this, though, prophets have another important function. “No prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation,” says the Apostle Peter. “For prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost” (2 Peter 1:20-21). If prophecy—or scripture, which is prophecy written down—is of no private interpretation, then who is to interpret it? Since it came by holy men of God speaking as they were moved by the Holy Ghost—prophets—then holy men of God speaking as they are moved by the Holy Ghost should interpret it. That would present a big problem if there were no prophets around.
Fortunately, there are prophets around. God appeared in a vision to the boy Joseph Smith, who was subsequently directed to restore God's church. Since then, the president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who is Thomas S. Monson today, has served as God's mouthpiece, or prophet, to the world.
This solves the problem that Coogan has with ancient scripture. With a “holy man of God” to interpret scripture as he is “moved by the Holy Ghost,” we can know what God's will for his people is today. We don't have to make our own judgment calls on what was ancient tradition and what was divine command. The current prophet will make that clear. This is a great blessing to all those who strive to live according to God's will and not according to their own, with a dash of spirituality thrown in for good measure.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Gratitude Proficiency
Much of this post will come from a book by Gregg Easterbrook entitled The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse. In it, he explores how people aren’t any happier than they have been in the past -- in fact, in many cases they are less happy -- even though the quality of life we enjoy is far and away better than it has ever been in the history of the world. Mr. Easterbrook is not a member of the church, but his findings on happiness are pertinent to my topic. At one point in the book, he says this:
It might be said that the human condition is characterized by “complaint proficiency.” Whether through natural selection, God’s touch, or simply practice, human beings as a group are really good at complaining. We complain to our parents for bringing us into the world; complain to our teachers for educating us; complain to our bosses for employing us; complain to the merchants who feed and clothe us; complain to the lovers and spouses who embrace us; complain to the children we summon to join us; complain to the Maker for starting the world in which all this happens. About many things, especially injustice, we should complain. But we practice complaining so much, and on such minor issues, that we become too proficient: And then complain more, if only because we are confident we are good at it. Expressing gratitude or appreciation does not come easily to us because we practice it so little (118).
When we stop to think about it, it seems silly that we complain about waiting for half an hour in an airport for a security check in order to take a flight that will transport us hundreds of miles in a matter of hours when many of our ancestors walked thousands of miles over many months across the country, going maybe fifteen miles on a good day. Or that we complain about the incompetence of doctors when advances in medicine have allowed us to live longer and with greater health than ever before. Or when we complain about the price of gas when most of the people to ever live on this planet never had the means to travel from the town in which they were born. I even heard a friend complain about the hassle of registering for classes, saying that things might have been better back when you had to take a registration card to the school auditorium and navigate the crowd in hopes that you might get the classes you wanted, all because her internet connection was a little slow. We, the citizens of the 21st Century, are spoiled.
Paul prophesied to Timothy that in the last days people would be unthankful, and it doesn’t take much searching to see this prophecy fulfilled. Paul, by the way, mentions the unthankful in the same sentence in which he mentions the covetous, the boasters, the proud, the blasphemers, the disobedient to parents, the unholy, the trucebreakers, the false accusers, the incontinent, the fierce, the despisers of those that are good, the traitors, the heady, the highminded, those without natural affection, and those that are lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God. So, the unthankful are not in very savory company.
Yet, it is still so much easier to see what we have to complain about than what we have to be thankful for. As President Henry B. Eyring said in the October 2007 General Conference:
the challenge to remember has always been the hardest for those who are blessed abundantly. Those who are faithful to God are protected and prospered. That comes as the result of serving God and keeping His commandments. But with those blessings comes the temptation to forget their source. It is easy to begin to feel the blessings were granted not by a loving God on whom we depend but by our own powers (“O Remember, Remember,” Ensign Nov. 2007, 67-68).
Elder Jeffery R. Holland said the following in his talk, “The Tongue of Angels”:
In all of this, I suppose it goes without saying that negative speaking so often flows from negative thinking, including negative thinking about ourselves. We see our own faults, we speak—or at least think—critically of ourselves, and before long that is how we see everyone and everything. No sunshine, no roses, no promise of hope or happiness. Before long we and everybody around us are miserable…As someone once said, "Even in the golden age of civilization someone undoubtedly grumbled that everything looked too yellow" (Ensign May 2007, 17-18).
Mr. Easterbrook says it this way:
Americans and Europeans live in an age in which most aspects of life are improving for most people, yet many feel progressively worse; in parallel, Americans and Europeans live in an age in which the collecting of grievances and holding of grudges is elaborately encouraged, while forgiveness and gratitude are looked down upon as quaint traits of Kansas farm wives from previous centuries.
Trends in the educational, legal, political, and media systems all urge contemporary men and women to view themselves as wronged by various forces real or imagined; to get angry and fight back; to fixate on any harms of which they may have been the target; to search out wrongs about which to become outraged. Americans and Europeans are further encouraged to even the score with those who may or may not have wronged them, using litigation or bad publicity or other means. The recent fads of children filing lawsuits against parents, or parents filing accusations against other parents regarding events between their children on the sports field or at school, are just two examples of this.
Another example that I have seen is in a recent film adaptation of the classic novel, The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexander Dumas. In the novel, Dumas’s protagonist, Edmond Dantès, learns that “lacking God's omniscience and omnipotence, human beings are simply not capable of—or justified in—carrying out the work of Providence. Dumas's final message…is that human beings must simply resign themselves to allowing God to reward and punish—when and how God sees fit” (http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/montecristo/themes.html). The modern film, on the other hand, simply glorified vengeance.
Easterbrook is clear in saying that grateful people are not merely naïve about the injustices in the world. In fact,
in studies, people who score highly on various indicators of gratefulness also report strong awareness of the bad in their own lives and society. In fact, some research finds that grateful people are slightly more likely to be cynical than the population as a whole. But the grateful person may achieve the ability to be aware of life’s drawbacks and yet thankful to be alive, an attractive combination of views (240).
President Gordon B. Hinckley, said the following in his book, Standing For Something:
The absence of gratitude bespeaks a lack of appreciation and an ignorance that comes of an attitude of self-sufficiency. It expresses itself in ugly egotism and, frequently, in malicious conduct. Many selfish, arrogant, and usually miserable people in this world walk without gratitude. Perhaps they do so because they do not fully realize all they have to be thankful for (90-91).
President Hinckley’s strong words bring up an important question. What do we have to be grateful for? I won’t attempt here to come up with an exhaustive list, but I’ll mention a few things that may seem small, but shouldn’t be overlooked. The shelter over our heads, not matter how shabby it may be when compared to other more opulent homes and apartments, the clothes that keep us warm, regardless of whether they are in style or not, the food we have to maintain our strength every day, even if it is no more than Top Raman. And that's not even mentioning living in a time when the fulness of the gospel is on the earth, our knowledge and faith in God, the manifestations and guidance of the Holy Ghost, and most importantly, the Atonement of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
It is not difficult to cultivate gratitude in our hearts. Elder David A. Bednar recommended that we periodically offer a prayer in which we only give thanks and express gratitude. He invited us to, “ask for nothing; simply let our souls rejoice and strive to communicate appreciation with all the energy of our hearts” (Ensign Nov 2008, 43). I wonder how many of us heard this council, intended to do it, but still haven’t got around to it. Until recently, I found myself in that category. Then, I decided to make my gratitude prayers a more regular thing. I am a systematic guy, and I need a schedule for myself in order to do anything with any sort of regularity. So, I decided that on Sundays, I would do as Elder Bednar instructs in my morning and evening prayers. In just a few weeks, I have seen a difference in the spirituality of my Sabbath worship.
Now I would like to present some of the findings of “gratitude research” as described in Mr. Easterbrook’s book. He quotes Robert Emmons, a psychologist at the University of California at Davis as saying, “Gratitude research is beginning to suggest that feelings of thankfulness have tremendous positive value in helping people cope with daily problems, especially stress, and to achieve a positive sense of the self” (238). Recent studies on the topic have also shown that:
People who describe themselves as feeling grateful to others, and either to God or to creation in general, tend to have higher vitality and more optimism, suffer less stress, and experience fewer episodes of clinical depression than the population as a whole. This result holds even when researchers factor out such things as age, health, and income--equalizing for the fact that the young, the well-to-do, or the hale and hearty might have more to be grateful for.
Grateful people tend to suffer less anxiety about status or the accumulation of material possessions. Partly because of this, they are more likely to describe themselves as happy or satisfied in life.
In an experiment with college students, those who kept a “gratitude journal,” a weekly record of things they feel grateful for, achieved better physical health, were more optimistic, exercised more regularly, and described themselves as happier than a control group of students who kept no journals but had the same overall measures of health, optimism, and exercise when the experiment began. (If the idea of a gratitude journal sounds familiar to you, it should. President Henry B. Eyring spoke of keeping his own “gratitude journal” in General Conference only a few years ago. I have adopted this practice into my regular schedule as well, documenting all the things that I have to be thankful for from the previous week in my journal on Sunday.)
I see this gratitude research as another example of how God knows what is best for us before we learn why it is good for us, much like recent scientific findings that support living the Word of Wisdom.
God has always commanded his people to express gratitude. Paul wrote to the Philippians, “with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God” (Phil. 4:6). And the Lord said to the Latter-day Saints through Joseph Smith, “But ye are commanded in all things to ask of God, who giveth liberally…doing all things with prayer and thanksgiving” (D&C 46:7). In the April 2007 General Conference, Sister Bonnie D. Parkin said that, “[God] has commanded us to be grateful because He knows being grateful will make us happy. This is another evidence of His love” (Ensign May 2007, 35).
Yet, despite all of this evidence that gratitude is in our best interest, a voice still whines at the back of our heads. “It’s easy for people to be grateful when they have money, and a house, and cars, and are married. I’ll be grateful sometime in the future, when life will be good and I’ll have something to be grateful for.” I hope you see the danger in this “grass-is-always-greener” reasoning, but if you don’t, here is what Mr. Easterbrook has to say on the people who are most grateful:
Grateful people are not necessarily ones whom the world has showered with gifts. People of modest means, or who have suffered personal tragedies, nevertheless may report themselves as grateful, while the well-to-do, the good-looking, or the celebrated may exhibit little gratitude. “To say we should feel grateful is not the say that everything in our lives is necessarily good,” [the psychologist Robert] Emmons says. “It just means that if you only think about your disappointments and unsatisfied wants, you may be prone to unhappiness. If you’re fully aware of your disappointments but at the same time thankful for the good that has happened and for your chance to live, you may show higher indices of well-being” (240).
I would like to close with a story from the book Our Heritage that beautifully illustrates this very thing. If ever a group of people had something to complain about it was the members of the Martin Handcart Company, which in 1856 walked to the Salt Lake Valley. As you probably know, they were caught in an early winter. At least 145 people died, and many of the survivors lost fingers, toes and limbs. They suffered through starvation, fatigue, frostbite, and many other afflictions. Our Heritage tells this story of one of the survivors:
A man who crossed the plains in the Martin handcart company lived in Utah for many years. One day he was in a group of people who began sharply criticizing the Church leaders for ever allowing the Saints to cross the plains with no more supplies or protection than a handcart company provided. The old man listened until he could stand no more; then he arose and said with great emotion:
“I was in that company and my wife was in it…. We suffered beyond anything you can imagine and many died of exposure and starvation, but did you ever hear a survivor of that company utter a word of criticism?...[We] came through with the absolute knowledge that God lives for we became acquainted with him in our extremities.
“I have pulled my handcart when I was so weak and weary from illness and lack of food that I could hardly put one foot ahead of the other. I have looked ahead and seen a patch of sand or a hill slope and I have said, I can go only that far and there I must give up, for I cannot pull the load through it…. I have gone on to that sand and when I reached it, the cart began pushing me. I have looked back many times to see who was pushing my cart, but my eyes saw no one. I knew then that the angels of God were there.
“Was I sorry that I chose to come by handcart? No. Neither then nor any minute of my life since. The price we paid to become acquainted with God was a privilege to pay, and I am thankful that I was privileged to come in the Martin Handcart Company” (78).
This Thursday is Thanksgiving, and our minds will be turned to the many things that we should be grateful for. This is a good thing, and I hope we can all enjoy the hearty turkey dinners that will be prepared. My challenge, though, is that we not forget this gratitude once the turkey is gone and we’ve loosened our belts. Let us spend the rest of the year practicing “gratitude proficiency” instead of our customary “complaint proficiency.”
It might be said that the human condition is characterized by “complaint proficiency.” Whether through natural selection, God’s touch, or simply practice, human beings as a group are really good at complaining. We complain to our parents for bringing us into the world; complain to our teachers for educating us; complain to our bosses for employing us; complain to the merchants who feed and clothe us; complain to the lovers and spouses who embrace us; complain to the children we summon to join us; complain to the Maker for starting the world in which all this happens. About many things, especially injustice, we should complain. But we practice complaining so much, and on such minor issues, that we become too proficient: And then complain more, if only because we are confident we are good at it. Expressing gratitude or appreciation does not come easily to us because we practice it so little (118).
When we stop to think about it, it seems silly that we complain about waiting for half an hour in an airport for a security check in order to take a flight that will transport us hundreds of miles in a matter of hours when many of our ancestors walked thousands of miles over many months across the country, going maybe fifteen miles on a good day. Or that we complain about the incompetence of doctors when advances in medicine have allowed us to live longer and with greater health than ever before. Or when we complain about the price of gas when most of the people to ever live on this planet never had the means to travel from the town in which they were born. I even heard a friend complain about the hassle of registering for classes, saying that things might have been better back when you had to take a registration card to the school auditorium and navigate the crowd in hopes that you might get the classes you wanted, all because her internet connection was a little slow. We, the citizens of the 21st Century, are spoiled.
Paul prophesied to Timothy that in the last days people would be unthankful, and it doesn’t take much searching to see this prophecy fulfilled. Paul, by the way, mentions the unthankful in the same sentence in which he mentions the covetous, the boasters, the proud, the blasphemers, the disobedient to parents, the unholy, the trucebreakers, the false accusers, the incontinent, the fierce, the despisers of those that are good, the traitors, the heady, the highminded, those without natural affection, and those that are lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God. So, the unthankful are not in very savory company.
Yet, it is still so much easier to see what we have to complain about than what we have to be thankful for. As President Henry B. Eyring said in the October 2007 General Conference:
the challenge to remember has always been the hardest for those who are blessed abundantly. Those who are faithful to God are protected and prospered. That comes as the result of serving God and keeping His commandments. But with those blessings comes the temptation to forget their source. It is easy to begin to feel the blessings were granted not by a loving God on whom we depend but by our own powers (“O Remember, Remember,” Ensign Nov. 2007, 67-68).
Elder Jeffery R. Holland said the following in his talk, “The Tongue of Angels”:
In all of this, I suppose it goes without saying that negative speaking so often flows from negative thinking, including negative thinking about ourselves. We see our own faults, we speak—or at least think—critically of ourselves, and before long that is how we see everyone and everything. No sunshine, no roses, no promise of hope or happiness. Before long we and everybody around us are miserable…As someone once said, "Even in the golden age of civilization someone undoubtedly grumbled that everything looked too yellow" (Ensign May 2007, 17-18).
Mr. Easterbrook says it this way:
Americans and Europeans live in an age in which most aspects of life are improving for most people, yet many feel progressively worse; in parallel, Americans and Europeans live in an age in which the collecting of grievances and holding of grudges is elaborately encouraged, while forgiveness and gratitude are looked down upon as quaint traits of Kansas farm wives from previous centuries.
Trends in the educational, legal, political, and media systems all urge contemporary men and women to view themselves as wronged by various forces real or imagined; to get angry and fight back; to fixate on any harms of which they may have been the target; to search out wrongs about which to become outraged. Americans and Europeans are further encouraged to even the score with those who may or may not have wronged them, using litigation or bad publicity or other means. The recent fads of children filing lawsuits against parents, or parents filing accusations against other parents regarding events between their children on the sports field or at school, are just two examples of this.
Another example that I have seen is in a recent film adaptation of the classic novel, The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexander Dumas. In the novel, Dumas’s protagonist, Edmond Dantès, learns that “lacking God's omniscience and omnipotence, human beings are simply not capable of—or justified in—carrying out the work of Providence. Dumas's final message…is that human beings must simply resign themselves to allowing God to reward and punish—when and how God sees fit” (http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/montecristo/themes.html). The modern film, on the other hand, simply glorified vengeance.
Easterbrook is clear in saying that grateful people are not merely naïve about the injustices in the world. In fact,
in studies, people who score highly on various indicators of gratefulness also report strong awareness of the bad in their own lives and society. In fact, some research finds that grateful people are slightly more likely to be cynical than the population as a whole. But the grateful person may achieve the ability to be aware of life’s drawbacks and yet thankful to be alive, an attractive combination of views (240).
President Gordon B. Hinckley, said the following in his book, Standing For Something:
The absence of gratitude bespeaks a lack of appreciation and an ignorance that comes of an attitude of self-sufficiency. It expresses itself in ugly egotism and, frequently, in malicious conduct. Many selfish, arrogant, and usually miserable people in this world walk without gratitude. Perhaps they do so because they do not fully realize all they have to be thankful for (90-91).
President Hinckley’s strong words bring up an important question. What do we have to be grateful for? I won’t attempt here to come up with an exhaustive list, but I’ll mention a few things that may seem small, but shouldn’t be overlooked. The shelter over our heads, not matter how shabby it may be when compared to other more opulent homes and apartments, the clothes that keep us warm, regardless of whether they are in style or not, the food we have to maintain our strength every day, even if it is no more than Top Raman. And that's not even mentioning living in a time when the fulness of the gospel is on the earth, our knowledge and faith in God, the manifestations and guidance of the Holy Ghost, and most importantly, the Atonement of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
It is not difficult to cultivate gratitude in our hearts. Elder David A. Bednar recommended that we periodically offer a prayer in which we only give thanks and express gratitude. He invited us to, “ask for nothing; simply let our souls rejoice and strive to communicate appreciation with all the energy of our hearts” (Ensign Nov 2008, 43). I wonder how many of us heard this council, intended to do it, but still haven’t got around to it. Until recently, I found myself in that category. Then, I decided to make my gratitude prayers a more regular thing. I am a systematic guy, and I need a schedule for myself in order to do anything with any sort of regularity. So, I decided that on Sundays, I would do as Elder Bednar instructs in my morning and evening prayers. In just a few weeks, I have seen a difference in the spirituality of my Sabbath worship.
Now I would like to present some of the findings of “gratitude research” as described in Mr. Easterbrook’s book. He quotes Robert Emmons, a psychologist at the University of California at Davis as saying, “Gratitude research is beginning to suggest that feelings of thankfulness have tremendous positive value in helping people cope with daily problems, especially stress, and to achieve a positive sense of the self” (238). Recent studies on the topic have also shown that:
People who describe themselves as feeling grateful to others, and either to God or to creation in general, tend to have higher vitality and more optimism, suffer less stress, and experience fewer episodes of clinical depression than the population as a whole. This result holds even when researchers factor out such things as age, health, and income--equalizing for the fact that the young, the well-to-do, or the hale and hearty might have more to be grateful for.
Grateful people tend to suffer less anxiety about status or the accumulation of material possessions. Partly because of this, they are more likely to describe themselves as happy or satisfied in life.
In an experiment with college students, those who kept a “gratitude journal,” a weekly record of things they feel grateful for, achieved better physical health, were more optimistic, exercised more regularly, and described themselves as happier than a control group of students who kept no journals but had the same overall measures of health, optimism, and exercise when the experiment began. (If the idea of a gratitude journal sounds familiar to you, it should. President Henry B. Eyring spoke of keeping his own “gratitude journal” in General Conference only a few years ago. I have adopted this practice into my regular schedule as well, documenting all the things that I have to be thankful for from the previous week in my journal on Sunday.)
I see this gratitude research as another example of how God knows what is best for us before we learn why it is good for us, much like recent scientific findings that support living the Word of Wisdom.
God has always commanded his people to express gratitude. Paul wrote to the Philippians, “with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God” (Phil. 4:6). And the Lord said to the Latter-day Saints through Joseph Smith, “But ye are commanded in all things to ask of God, who giveth liberally…doing all things with prayer and thanksgiving” (D&C 46:7). In the April 2007 General Conference, Sister Bonnie D. Parkin said that, “[God] has commanded us to be grateful because He knows being grateful will make us happy. This is another evidence of His love” (Ensign May 2007, 35).
Yet, despite all of this evidence that gratitude is in our best interest, a voice still whines at the back of our heads. “It’s easy for people to be grateful when they have money, and a house, and cars, and are married. I’ll be grateful sometime in the future, when life will be good and I’ll have something to be grateful for.” I hope you see the danger in this “grass-is-always-greener” reasoning, but if you don’t, here is what Mr. Easterbrook has to say on the people who are most grateful:
Grateful people are not necessarily ones whom the world has showered with gifts. People of modest means, or who have suffered personal tragedies, nevertheless may report themselves as grateful, while the well-to-do, the good-looking, or the celebrated may exhibit little gratitude. “To say we should feel grateful is not the say that everything in our lives is necessarily good,” [the psychologist Robert] Emmons says. “It just means that if you only think about your disappointments and unsatisfied wants, you may be prone to unhappiness. If you’re fully aware of your disappointments but at the same time thankful for the good that has happened and for your chance to live, you may show higher indices of well-being” (240).
I would like to close with a story from the book Our Heritage that beautifully illustrates this very thing. If ever a group of people had something to complain about it was the members of the Martin Handcart Company, which in 1856 walked to the Salt Lake Valley. As you probably know, they were caught in an early winter. At least 145 people died, and many of the survivors lost fingers, toes and limbs. They suffered through starvation, fatigue, frostbite, and many other afflictions. Our Heritage tells this story of one of the survivors:
A man who crossed the plains in the Martin handcart company lived in Utah for many years. One day he was in a group of people who began sharply criticizing the Church leaders for ever allowing the Saints to cross the plains with no more supplies or protection than a handcart company provided. The old man listened until he could stand no more; then he arose and said with great emotion:
“I was in that company and my wife was in it…. We suffered beyond anything you can imagine and many died of exposure and starvation, but did you ever hear a survivor of that company utter a word of criticism?...[We] came through with the absolute knowledge that God lives for we became acquainted with him in our extremities.
“I have pulled my handcart when I was so weak and weary from illness and lack of food that I could hardly put one foot ahead of the other. I have looked ahead and seen a patch of sand or a hill slope and I have said, I can go only that far and there I must give up, for I cannot pull the load through it…. I have gone on to that sand and when I reached it, the cart began pushing me. I have looked back many times to see who was pushing my cart, but my eyes saw no one. I knew then that the angels of God were there.
“Was I sorry that I chose to come by handcart? No. Neither then nor any minute of my life since. The price we paid to become acquainted with God was a privilege to pay, and I am thankful that I was privileged to come in the Martin Handcart Company” (78).
This Thursday is Thanksgiving, and our minds will be turned to the many things that we should be grateful for. This is a good thing, and I hope we can all enjoy the hearty turkey dinners that will be prepared. My challenge, though, is that we not forget this gratitude once the turkey is gone and we’ve loosened our belts. Let us spend the rest of the year practicing “gratitude proficiency” instead of our customary “complaint proficiency.”
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Talents and Gifts of the Spirit
In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul lists what we have come to call the Gifts of the Spirit. These gifts, along with even more, are listed in the Book of Mormon and in the Doctrine and Covenants as well. We know that anyone who receives the Gift of the Holy Ghost is entitled to at least one Gift of the Spirit, but that members of the church don't have a monopoly on spiritual gifts. Many people who are not Mormons have gifts from God that they use to bless the lives of others. One example that comes readily to mind is Mother Theresa, who seems to have been blessed with the gift of charity.
But how can we tell the difference between a Gift of the Spirit and just a innate talent? For example, a friend of mine was baptized into the church when he was nineteen. After his baptism, people would compliment him on something that he was doing and say that it must be a spiritual gift. Only, he had been pretty good at doing that given thing before his baptism too. So is it a spiritual gift or just a talent?
I'm not sure I can give a definitive answer to this question, but I have come to some insights after thinking about it for a while. First, we know that all good things come from God. That's a given. Second, it is my opinion that the more good you are capable of doing in the world, the more evil you are capable of doing too. Or in other words, the more talents you have, the more influence you can have on the world. You determine whether that influence is for good or evil.
A classic example of this is Adolf Hitler. From what I gather, he was a great public speaker. People who heard him talk were captivated not only by what he had to say, but how he said it. He chose to use that talent to achieve horrific ends, but what if he had decided to do something good with that talent?
I'm sure that I can say that Hitler's public speaking abilities came from God, but I do give credit to God for my talents. I consider the things I am good at as spiritual gifts, even if I would have had these talents if I had never heard of the church. So, I find it very difficult to distinguish between an innate ability, or a talent, and a spiritual gift. I'm starting to think that they are one and the same. The real difference is in how we use them.
But how can we tell the difference between a Gift of the Spirit and just a innate talent? For example, a friend of mine was baptized into the church when he was nineteen. After his baptism, people would compliment him on something that he was doing and say that it must be a spiritual gift. Only, he had been pretty good at doing that given thing before his baptism too. So is it a spiritual gift or just a talent?
I'm not sure I can give a definitive answer to this question, but I have come to some insights after thinking about it for a while. First, we know that all good things come from God. That's a given. Second, it is my opinion that the more good you are capable of doing in the world, the more evil you are capable of doing too. Or in other words, the more talents you have, the more influence you can have on the world. You determine whether that influence is for good or evil.
A classic example of this is Adolf Hitler. From what I gather, he was a great public speaker. People who heard him talk were captivated not only by what he had to say, but how he said it. He chose to use that talent to achieve horrific ends, but what if he had decided to do something good with that talent?
I'm sure that I can say that Hitler's public speaking abilities came from God, but I do give credit to God for my talents. I consider the things I am good at as spiritual gifts, even if I would have had these talents if I had never heard of the church. So, I find it very difficult to distinguish between an innate ability, or a talent, and a spiritual gift. I'm starting to think that they are one and the same. The real difference is in how we use them.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
The Censorship We Should Fear
If you weren’t aware—and there is no real reason why you should be aware unless you are involved in some way with books—this past week was Banned Books Week. This week always annoys me. It is when every elitist Manhattenite in the book industry laughs at the quaint, religious, backwater yokels who are afraid that their children will become witches after reading Harry Potter.
Now, I don’t agree with most of the challenges that are raised against many books—I don’t think that reading Harry Potter will make anyone a witch—but I do think that we should be very careful about what we expose children to. I am not a parent, but I hope to be one someday, and I will be sure to keep explicit sex, violence, drug use, profanity and the like away from them. I plan on making careful and informed decisions about what I allow them to read, watch, listen to, etc.
One of the big stories in Banned Book Week was about someone calling the book Speak “soft porn,” obviously implying that it isn’t appropriate for the audience it was written for: teenagers. Recently, some people have even called for a book rating system. This makes people in the book industry scream about their First Amendment rights. They argue that a rating system will affect what an author writes because he or she will be writing for a specific rating. They see it as a form or censorship.
I see it as a matter of trust. Parents don’t trust authors and publishers to produce literature that is appropriate for the age that it’s targeting. They go to great lengths to encourage their children to read only to find that they don’t approve of what passes for children’s literature these days. Because that trust has been shattered, they feel like they need some way to control what their child reads short of prereading everything. If publishers and authors were trustworthy, we wouldn’t have this problem. If a rating system for books was enacted, I would prefer it to be more like this website’s movie ratings.
But I also think that this distracts us from the censorship that we should be looking out for. The First Amendment wasn’t written to stop some soccer mom from keeping Twilight off the shelves of the local elementary school library. It was written to prevent the government from silencing dissent. Everyone has the freedom to say or write or publish whatever they want. That’s an inalienable right. That doesn’t mean, though, that anyone has to listen to them. Choosing not to listen is not censorship. Preventing from speaking is. The soccer mom doesn’t have that power on a large enough scale to matter. The government does.
Now, I don’t agree with most of the challenges that are raised against many books—I don’t think that reading Harry Potter will make anyone a witch—but I do think that we should be very careful about what we expose children to. I am not a parent, but I hope to be one someday, and I will be sure to keep explicit sex, violence, drug use, profanity and the like away from them. I plan on making careful and informed decisions about what I allow them to read, watch, listen to, etc.
One of the big stories in Banned Book Week was about someone calling the book Speak “soft porn,” obviously implying that it isn’t appropriate for the audience it was written for: teenagers. Recently, some people have even called for a book rating system. This makes people in the book industry scream about their First Amendment rights. They argue that a rating system will affect what an author writes because he or she will be writing for a specific rating. They see it as a form or censorship.
I see it as a matter of trust. Parents don’t trust authors and publishers to produce literature that is appropriate for the age that it’s targeting. They go to great lengths to encourage their children to read only to find that they don’t approve of what passes for children’s literature these days. Because that trust has been shattered, they feel like they need some way to control what their child reads short of prereading everything. If publishers and authors were trustworthy, we wouldn’t have this problem. If a rating system for books was enacted, I would prefer it to be more like this website’s movie ratings.
But I also think that this distracts us from the censorship that we should be looking out for. The First Amendment wasn’t written to stop some soccer mom from keeping Twilight off the shelves of the local elementary school library. It was written to prevent the government from silencing dissent. Everyone has the freedom to say or write or publish whatever they want. That’s an inalienable right. That doesn’t mean, though, that anyone has to listen to them. Choosing not to listen is not censorship. Preventing from speaking is. The soccer mom doesn’t have that power on a large enough scale to matter. The government does.
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Rationalized Obedience
We are all aware of the dangers of rationalizing sin. Someone will say that they can get as much out of a Sunday afternoon in a park as they could get out of church services, or that one drink of wine isn’t a big deal, or that premarital sex is acceptable as long as the two people love each other. We recognize these pathetic excuses for what they are—excuses to engage in sin—and try to avoid them. However, I get the sense that we Mormons sometimes rationalize the obedience that we render to the unique commandments that we observe.
We Mormons are a peculiar people mostly because of the strict moral code that we adhere to, and which the rest of the world doesn’t. We don’t shop on Sunday in observation of the Sabbath. We don’t use tobacco or alcohol. And, as referenced above, we don’t engage in extramarital sexual relations. To the rest of the world, we are weird for doing all of these things.
These things distinguish us as a people, but why do we do them? That is what many people want to know when they first meet a Mormon. You don’t do this? Can you do that? Why? Why not? When confronted with these questions, we have to justify our behavior. We have to help these people understand. So we explain that having a day in which we don’t worry about getting work or chores done makes the rest of the week more productive, and science has shown that tobacco and alcohol are damaging to the body, and that abstinence is the only sure guard against sexually transmitted diseases and prevents the emotional stress that uncommitted sex can cause, both to the partners and to the child born out of wedlock.
All of these benefits that we cite are true benefits of living these commandments, but are they the real reasons for which we obey them? Did the leaders of our church read studies about the damaging effects of tobacco and react by prohibiting it universally for all church members? Did they command us to be abstinent in a response to the growing number of children born without fathers in the home? And how to we reconcile our obedience when the science goes against it, like when doctors say that one glass of wine a night is healthy?
These commandments that we follow are God’s immutable laws. They are not based on research, but revelation. We abstain from all of these things that the rest of the world engages in because God, through his prophet, commanded us to. We get blessings of health, both physical and mental, and strong family relationships as a result, but we would still be obliged to obey God’s commandments even without these blessings.
I’m not saying that we shouldn’t explain to people the blessings that we get from obedience, but that that is where we should finish, not where we should start. We should start with something more fundamental, like the faith that is expressed in the phrase, “Because God commanded me to.”
Sunday, August 22, 2010
The Definition of Morality
This week, I had the pleasure to read Freakonimics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. While I give the book my highest recommendation to the curious reader, I want to take this opportunity to pick a bone with the definition of morality that the authors use repeatedly in the book. This is how they state their definition of morality, “Morality, it could be argued, represents the way that people would like the world to work—whereas economics represents how it actually does work” (p. 11).
This definition of morality makes the people who care about living moral lives seem like naïve do-gooders who go around wearing rose colored glasses and are oblivious as to what the world is actually like. Considering myself a moral person, I take offense at that characterization.
The authors define economics elsewhere in the book as the study of how people get what they want. They argue that people respond to incentives and that sometimes incentives are set up that encourage immoral behavior. These incentives motivate teachers to change their students’ standardized test scores, sumo wrestlers to throw matches, and real estate agents to accept a lower offer than could be found for a given house. I don’t disagree with the authors’ assessment of these situations. The incentives are set up to encourage cheating. I am a moral person and I understand how the world actually does work.
Morality, at least in its truest sense, is doing the right thing even though it is economically advantageous to you to do the wrong thing. I will most likely be taking the LSAT next summer. If I get a high score on that test I will be able to get into better schools, which will translate into a better chance of getting a job upon completing law school, and a strong likelihood of getting a better paying job at that. It also gives me a better chance to get financial aid. So, I have a lot of financial incentives to get the highest score possible on this test.
Since I’m fairly confident that the Law School Admissions Council has thought of most of the possible ways to cheat on the test and has put into place ways to catch potential cheaters, it isn’t in my best interest to cheat, because if I get caught cheating, I’m losing out on every economic incentive that is available to me using my own intellect. It is in my best interest to study and learn all I can before showing up on the test day. My decision to not cheat could be a manifestation of my own moral strength, or it could just be a manifestation of my desire to not get caught.
But let’s imagine that I have a group of friends who are also going to take the LSAT and one of them has devised a method to game the system. He has detailed knowledge of all of the cheater finding strategies and is absolutely certain that this cheating will not be detected.
Here I am faced with a choice. I can take the test with my own abilities and risk getting a low score, or I can use this cheating method, and have a reasonable expectation that I will not get caught and can guarantee the greatest possible economic payout. I hope that the moral decision is obvious to you, the reader, and that you aren’t so naïve as to wonder why these hopeful law students would consider cheating.
Now I want to address the most controversial topic covered in Freakonomics. In Chapter 4, the authors argue that the single greatest factor causing the severe drop in crime over the past two decades is Roe v. Wade. They argue that the women who are getting the most abortions—low income, single, poorly educated—are the women who would be the worst mothers, giving their unwanted child a higher probability to live a life of crime. Since these children aren’t being born, there are fewer criminals around.
Some people have been outraged by this argument. They see abortion as morally reprehensible and can’t accept that anything good can come out of its practice. I also see abortion as morally reprehensible but can’t see any flaw with the authors’ reasoning. It makes perfect sense. But if abortion is bad but causes less crime, which is good, does that make abortion good?
Of course not. A moral person does not live under the delusion that there will be no negative consequences of moral behavior or no positive consequences of immoral behavior. Sure, because of abortion, many future potential criminals aren’t being born, but if we really wanted to lower crime, we could impose the death penalty for anyone convicted of any crime—murder, assault, drug trafficking, vandalism, shoplifting, speeding, etc. I am absolutely certain that this would cause the crime rate to plummet to next to nil. However, it doesn’t take a moral giant to see that it would be a very immoral thing to do.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Missionary Heroes
Everyone is the hero (or heroine, as the case may be) of their own story. Fiction writers need to understand this so that their secondary characters feel like real people. They have their own values and their own motivations. Their raison d'être is not to provide support the story’s hero, but to live their own life. Likewise, I am not a supporting character in the story of my life. I am the hero.
We Mormons have lots of missionary heroes from the Book of Mormon, Ammon being the most famous. Ammon is everything that a future missionary wants to be. He’s zealous, charismatic, dynamic, brave, humble, faithful, knowledgeable, and any number of other positive attributes. On top of all that, he goes on one of the greatest missions in history. He cuts off a bunch of bad guys’ arms, converts a king, and ultimately an entire kingdom. He is a hero worth emulating and missionaries would do well to strive to be like him.
However, it is important to remember that Ammon is a hero of the Book of Mormon, and he’s the hero of his own story, but he isn’t the hero of King Lamoni’s story, the man he teaches. King Lamoni is the hero of his own story, Ammon is merely a secondary character. That is not to say that Ammon is unimportant, or that his efforts weren’t vital in bringing King Lamoni to the truth, but that without King Lamoni’s own efforts to understand and accept what Ammon was teaching, those efforts would have been to no effect.
Too often I see missionaries that see themselves as the hero of every story they are in. They are rightly the hero of their own story, but they are egotistical to think that they are the hero of every person they teach and baptize. Using my missionary experience as an example, I don’t see myself as a necessary component in the stories of any of the people I taught and baptized. I strived to be the best missionary I could be, to teach as diligently and as clearly and as powerfully as I could, but I refuse to believe that those people wouldn’t have been baptized if I chose not to serve a mission. They are the heroes of their own stories. I didn’t convert them, they converted themselves. My blessing for serving a mission was just being a character, in any capacity in their stories. The great blessing of serving a mission is accepting that role, changing your raison d'être, and witnessing the miracle of conversion firsthand.
We Mormons have lots of missionary heroes from the Book of Mormon, Ammon being the most famous. Ammon is everything that a future missionary wants to be. He’s zealous, charismatic, dynamic, brave, humble, faithful, knowledgeable, and any number of other positive attributes. On top of all that, he goes on one of the greatest missions in history. He cuts off a bunch of bad guys’ arms, converts a king, and ultimately an entire kingdom. He is a hero worth emulating and missionaries would do well to strive to be like him.
However, it is important to remember that Ammon is a hero of the Book of Mormon, and he’s the hero of his own story, but he isn’t the hero of King Lamoni’s story, the man he teaches. King Lamoni is the hero of his own story, Ammon is merely a secondary character. That is not to say that Ammon is unimportant, or that his efforts weren’t vital in bringing King Lamoni to the truth, but that without King Lamoni’s own efforts to understand and accept what Ammon was teaching, those efforts would have been to no effect.
Too often I see missionaries that see themselves as the hero of every story they are in. They are rightly the hero of their own story, but they are egotistical to think that they are the hero of every person they teach and baptize. Using my missionary experience as an example, I don’t see myself as a necessary component in the stories of any of the people I taught and baptized. I strived to be the best missionary I could be, to teach as diligently and as clearly and as powerfully as I could, but I refuse to believe that those people wouldn’t have been baptized if I chose not to serve a mission. They are the heroes of their own stories. I didn’t convert them, they converted themselves. My blessing for serving a mission was just being a character, in any capacity in their stories. The great blessing of serving a mission is accepting that role, changing your raison d'être, and witnessing the miracle of conversion firsthand.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Priorities
So, this is my first blog post in a little over three months. I’m pretty sure that I don’t have scores of adoring fans out there in cyberspace waiting with baited breath for my next brilliant utterance, but I started this blog with the intention of posting every week for my own exercise, for the habit of forcing myself to write every week, with the hopes that someone would read it, enjoy it, and maybe even glean something from it.
The first few weeks I missed because I got a full-time job and was still in the middle of a heavy semester of grad school. After the semester ended, I needed a break on Sundays, when I normally write these posts. After I had rested, I was too busy with friends inviting me to do things. Long story short: I always had excuses. Which got me thinking about priorities.
When we really value something, we make it a priority. I like sports, so I make sure to plan TV watching time around the sporting events that I want to watch. I value literature, so I make time to read whenever I can. I also value money--which may not be obvious by my chosen profession--so I make sure to check my accounts every day (to be sure no one is taking my money) and I monitor my credit regularly (I don’t think that my valuing of money is excessive, just safe). So, if I really value my blog and my writing and the thought that goes into it, I need to make it a priority and write every week. So, all of you readers out there in cyberspace have my word that I will make this blog a priority from now on.
Now, I want to talk about making God a priority. Jesus taught that the greatest commandment was to love God with all of our heart, might, mind, and strength (Matthew 22:35-38). In my mind if you love someone, you make that person a priority. For example, if I love someone, I won’t tell them that I’ll see if I have time to spend with them after I get all my errands done, and after I play videogames for a while, and after I watch this movie, and after I read some from this really great book that I just picked up. I will make the time with the person I love first, and if I have time for anything else, I’ll squeeze in time for those other things too (assuming that I could do important errands with the person I love).
So, time for God shouldn’t just be when we have some extra time some odd Sunday to get to church. We should put Him first. That doesn’t mean that we have to be monks and nuns to make God happy with the time we are giving Him, just like the person you love should understand that you have to go to work and that you have other interests and hobbies that you want to pursue. We just need to make sure that He is not an afterthought.
After all, His work and glory is to bring to pass our immortality and eternal life (Moses 1:39). Of all the things He could be doing with His time, we are His priority. This is how He shows His love for us, His children. It is only fitting that we should reciprocate that love.
The first few weeks I missed because I got a full-time job and was still in the middle of a heavy semester of grad school. After the semester ended, I needed a break on Sundays, when I normally write these posts. After I had rested, I was too busy with friends inviting me to do things. Long story short: I always had excuses. Which got me thinking about priorities.
When we really value something, we make it a priority. I like sports, so I make sure to plan TV watching time around the sporting events that I want to watch. I value literature, so I make time to read whenever I can. I also value money--which may not be obvious by my chosen profession--so I make sure to check my accounts every day (to be sure no one is taking my money) and I monitor my credit regularly (I don’t think that my valuing of money is excessive, just safe). So, if I really value my blog and my writing and the thought that goes into it, I need to make it a priority and write every week. So, all of you readers out there in cyberspace have my word that I will make this blog a priority from now on.
Now, I want to talk about making God a priority. Jesus taught that the greatest commandment was to love God with all of our heart, might, mind, and strength (Matthew 22:35-38). In my mind if you love someone, you make that person a priority. For example, if I love someone, I won’t tell them that I’ll see if I have time to spend with them after I get all my errands done, and after I play videogames for a while, and after I watch this movie, and after I read some from this really great book that I just picked up. I will make the time with the person I love first, and if I have time for anything else, I’ll squeeze in time for those other things too (assuming that I could do important errands with the person I love).
So, time for God shouldn’t just be when we have some extra time some odd Sunday to get to church. We should put Him first. That doesn’t mean that we have to be monks and nuns to make God happy with the time we are giving Him, just like the person you love should understand that you have to go to work and that you have other interests and hobbies that you want to pursue. We just need to make sure that He is not an afterthought.
After all, His work and glory is to bring to pass our immortality and eternal life (Moses 1:39). Of all the things He could be doing with His time, we are His priority. This is how He shows His love for us, His children. It is only fitting that we should reciprocate that love.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Why Seek Ye the Living Among the Dead?
With my limited time this weekend, I just wanted to send out a brief note about the significance of what we celebrate on Easter. In a time when it is deemed unreasonable to think that Jesus was anything more than an ordinary man, anything more than an extraordinary teacher, or that his death was anything more than an ordinary death, it is all the more important to vigorously proclaim what is unreasonable.
Jesus was more than an ordinary man. He lived as the Son of God. He lived a perfect life, taught with the authority of a God, took upon himself our sins as part of his agonizing death on the cross, and rose from the dead three days later. All of that didn’t happen figuratively. He was dead. His spirit left his body. Three days later, it entered that body again and he was resurrected and perfected. He still lives today.
Of course these things are unreasonable. If they weren’t they wouldn’t mean anything. They wouldn’t be extraordinary. They wouldn’t be worth declaring.
Jesus was more than an ordinary man. He lived as the Son of God. He lived a perfect life, taught with the authority of a God, took upon himself our sins as part of his agonizing death on the cross, and rose from the dead three days later. All of that didn’t happen figuratively. He was dead. His spirit left his body. Three days later, it entered that body again and he was resurrected and perfected. He still lives today.
Of course these things are unreasonable. If they weren’t they wouldn’t mean anything. They wouldn’t be extraordinary. They wouldn’t be worth declaring.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
God Laughs
My favorite movie of all time is It’s a Wonderful Life, and one of my favorite scenes from the movie is when George Bailey is sitting in a bar, distressed over the five thousand dollars that has gone missing from his business, and prays for some help. Immediately after he finishes praying, a man punches him in the mouth. When his guardian angel asks about his fat lip, he says, “This is what I get for praying.” I have felt like George Bailey many times in my life.
One of the concerns that has weighed most heavily on my mind since moving out to Boston has been finding employment. I have been living off of school loans, and while I’m grateful that I have that means to support myself right now, I can’t help but think with every dollar that I spend that I’ll have to pay for it again, with interest. I’m not used to not working, and it made me very uncomfortable.
I had been applying for jobs, but with the job market the way it is, I wasn’t getting many responses. I was qualified for these jobs, but people who were far more qualified were getting them. I was starting to think that I’d have to take anything, even waiter jobs--which I swore I would never do again--in order to survive.
I made my job search the focus of my prayers when I went to the temple about a month ago. With the reverence and comfort I feel in the temple, it is far easier to focus my payers and really communicate with God, and when I left, I felt like I had made my case sufficiently clear. I had had a phone interview for a job earlier that week, and as I drove home, I wasn’t expecting to get a call that very day saying I’d gotten the job, but I also wasn’t expecting to have an email telling me I hadn’t got the job waiting for me either. As you can probably guess, the latter is exactly what happened. I looked up into the heavens and sighed, “So, this is what I get for praying.”
I think that God likes to laugh at our shortsightedness, much like a parent may laugh when their child bites off more than he can chew. But since God is a perfect parent, He doesn’t just laugh for His own amusement, He laughs to help us see with a wider vision. The punch to the mouth wasn’t the answer to George Bailey’s prayer (I know I’m using a fictionalized story to illustrate my point, but I think it works). Everything that comes after that is the answer to his prayer, and even then, not all of it is pleasant--if you don’t know what happens, I suggest you see the movie at your earliest convenience. Likewise, that email wasn’t the answer to my prayer, that wouldn’t come until later.
That very afternoon, I got another email in my inbox. This one was from a fellow ward member and she was letting the members of the ward know about a job opening where she works. The job was advertised as a “great way to get into publishing.” Since that is exactly what I want to get into, I jumped at the possibility. Even at this point I didn’t want to assume that this was the answer to my prayer because there was no guarantee that I would get the job. I calmed myself and took it all one step at a time, trying not to assume that I knew what God’s purpose was until He decided to make it known.
To make a long story short, I know work at Boston Common Press, publisher of Cook’s Illustrated, Cook’s Country, and various cookbooks, as the office manager. I’ll be making enough money to cover my expenses, and I have the possibility of moving into the editorial side of things. Now God is probably laughing that I even wanted a job right now. My schedule is as full as it has ever been and I will be running myself ragged until the end of this semester, but I’ll laugh along with Him. I know that the business won’t laugh forever, that it’s a means to an end. And I know that with His help, I’ll reach the end I’m working toward.
One of the concerns that has weighed most heavily on my mind since moving out to Boston has been finding employment. I have been living off of school loans, and while I’m grateful that I have that means to support myself right now, I can’t help but think with every dollar that I spend that I’ll have to pay for it again, with interest. I’m not used to not working, and it made me very uncomfortable.
I had been applying for jobs, but with the job market the way it is, I wasn’t getting many responses. I was qualified for these jobs, but people who were far more qualified were getting them. I was starting to think that I’d have to take anything, even waiter jobs--which I swore I would never do again--in order to survive.
I made my job search the focus of my prayers when I went to the temple about a month ago. With the reverence and comfort I feel in the temple, it is far easier to focus my payers and really communicate with God, and when I left, I felt like I had made my case sufficiently clear. I had had a phone interview for a job earlier that week, and as I drove home, I wasn’t expecting to get a call that very day saying I’d gotten the job, but I also wasn’t expecting to have an email telling me I hadn’t got the job waiting for me either. As you can probably guess, the latter is exactly what happened. I looked up into the heavens and sighed, “So, this is what I get for praying.”
I think that God likes to laugh at our shortsightedness, much like a parent may laugh when their child bites off more than he can chew. But since God is a perfect parent, He doesn’t just laugh for His own amusement, He laughs to help us see with a wider vision. The punch to the mouth wasn’t the answer to George Bailey’s prayer (I know I’m using a fictionalized story to illustrate my point, but I think it works). Everything that comes after that is the answer to his prayer, and even then, not all of it is pleasant--if you don’t know what happens, I suggest you see the movie at your earliest convenience. Likewise, that email wasn’t the answer to my prayer, that wouldn’t come until later.
That very afternoon, I got another email in my inbox. This one was from a fellow ward member and she was letting the members of the ward know about a job opening where she works. The job was advertised as a “great way to get into publishing.” Since that is exactly what I want to get into, I jumped at the possibility. Even at this point I didn’t want to assume that this was the answer to my prayer because there was no guarantee that I would get the job. I calmed myself and took it all one step at a time, trying not to assume that I knew what God’s purpose was until He decided to make it known.
To make a long story short, I know work at Boston Common Press, publisher of Cook’s Illustrated, Cook’s Country, and various cookbooks, as the office manager. I’ll be making enough money to cover my expenses, and I have the possibility of moving into the editorial side of things. Now God is probably laughing that I even wanted a job right now. My schedule is as full as it has ever been and I will be running myself ragged until the end of this semester, but I’ll laugh along with Him. I know that the business won’t laugh forever, that it’s a means to an end. And I know that with His help, I’ll reach the end I’m working toward.
God Laughs
My favorite movie of all time is It’s a Wonderful Life, and one of my favorite scenes from the movie is when George Bailey is sitting in a bar, distressed over the five thousand dollars that has gone missing from his business, and prays for some help. Immediately after he finishes praying, a man punches him in the mouth. When his guardian angel asks about his fat lip, he says, “This is what I get for praying.” I have felt like George Bailey many times in my life.
One of the concerns that has weighed most heavily on my mind since moving out to Boston has been finding employment. I have been living off of school loans, and while I’m grateful that I have that means to support myself right now, I can’t help but think with every dollar that I spend that I’ll have to pay for it again, with interest. I’m not used to not working, and it made me very uncomfortable.
I had been applying for jobs, but with the job market the way it is, I wasn’t getting many responses. I was qualified for these jobs, but people who were far more qualified were getting them. I was starting to think that I’d have to take anything, even waiter jobs--which I swore I would never do again--in order to survive.
I made my job search the focus of my prayers when I went to the temple about a month ago. With the reverence and comfort I feel in the temple, it is far easier to focus my payers and really communicate with God, and when I left, I felt like I had made my case sufficiently clear. I had had a phone interview for a job earlier that week, and as I drove home, I wasn’t expecting to get a call that very day saying I’d gotten the job, but I also wasn’t expecting to have an email telling me I hadn’t got the job waiting for me either. As you can probably guess, the latter is exactly what happened. I looked up into the heavens and sighed, “So, this is what I get for praying.”
I think that God likes to laugh at our shortsightedness, much like a parent may laugh when their child bites off more than he can chew. But since God is a perfect parent, He doesn’t just laugh for His own amusement, He laughs to help us see with a wider vision. The punch to the mouth wasn’t the answer to George Bailey’s prayer (I know I’m using a fictionalized story to illustrate my point, but I think it works). Everything that comes after that is the answer to his prayer, and even then, not all of it is pleasant--if you don’t know what happens, I suggest you see the movie at your earliest convenience. Likewise, that email wasn’t the answer to my prayer, that wouldn’t come until later.
That very afternoon, I got another email in my inbox. This one was from a fellow ward member and she was letting the members of the ward know about a job opening where she works. The job was advertised as a “great way to get into publishing.” Since that is exactly what I want to get into, I jumped at the possibility. Even at this point I didn’t want to assume that this was the answer to my prayer because there was no guarantee that I would get the job. I calmed myself and took it all one step at a time, trying not to assume that I knew what God’s purpose was until He decided to make it known.
To make a long story short, I know work at Boston Common Press, publisher of Cook’s Illustrated, Cook’s Country, and various cookbooks, as the office manager. I’ll be making enough money to cover my expenses, and I have the possibility of moving into the editorial side of things. Now God is probably laughing that I even wanted a job right now. My schedule is as full as it has ever been and I will be running myself ragged until the end of this semester, but I’ll laugh along with Him. I know that the business won’t laugh forever, that it’s a means to an end. And I know that with His help, I’ll reach the end I’m working toward.
One of the concerns that has weighed most heavily on my mind since moving out to Boston has been finding employment. I have been living off of school loans, and while I’m grateful that I have that means to support myself right now, I can’t help but think with every dollar that I spend that I’ll have to pay for it again, with interest. I’m not used to not working, and it made me very uncomfortable.
I had been applying for jobs, but with the job market the way it is, I wasn’t getting many responses. I was qualified for these jobs, but people who were far more qualified were getting them. I was starting to think that I’d have to take anything, even waiter jobs--which I swore I would never do again--in order to survive.
I made my job search the focus of my prayers when I went to the temple about a month ago. With the reverence and comfort I feel in the temple, it is far easier to focus my payers and really communicate with God, and when I left, I felt like I had made my case sufficiently clear. I had had a phone interview for a job earlier that week, and as I drove home, I wasn’t expecting to get a call that very day saying I’d gotten the job, but I also wasn’t expecting to have an email telling me I hadn’t got the job waiting for me either. As you can probably guess, the latter is exactly what happened. I looked up into the heavens and sighed, “So, this is what I get for praying.”
I think that God likes to laugh at our shortsightedness, much like a parent may laugh when their child bites off more than he can chew. But since God is a perfect parent, He doesn’t just laugh for His own amusement, He laughs to help us see with a wider vision. The punch to the mouth wasn’t the answer to George Bailey’s prayer (I know I’m using a fictionalized story to illustrate my point, but I think it works). Everything that comes after that is the answer to his prayer, and even then, not all of it is pleasant--if you don’t know what happens, I suggest you see the movie at your earliest convenience. Likewise, that email wasn’t the answer to my prayer, that wouldn’t come until later.
That very afternoon, I got another email in my inbox. This one was from a fellow ward member and she was letting the members of the ward know about a job opening where she works. The job was advertised as a “great way to get into publishing.” Since that is exactly what I want to get into, I jumped at the possibility. Even at this point I didn’t want to assume that this was the answer to my prayer because there was no guarantee that I would get the job. I calmed myself and took it all one step at a time, trying not to assume that I knew what God’s purpose was until He decided to make it known.
To make a long story short, I know work at Boston Common Press, publisher of Cook’s Illustrated, Cook’s Country, and various cookbooks, as the office manager. I’ll be making enough money to cover my expenses, and I have the possibility of moving into the editorial side of things. Now God is probably laughing that I even wanted a job right now. My schedule is as full as it has ever been and I will be running myself ragged until the end of this semester, but I’ll laugh along with Him. I know that the business won’t laugh forever, that it’s a means to an end. And I know that with His help, I’ll reach the end I’m working toward.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Mormon Art and Babies
I have a love/hate relationship with Mormon art, which includes painting, sculpture, music, fiction, movies, etc. (I will focus in this post more on fiction and film, because that’s where I have more experience, but I think that what I write below applies to painting and sculpture as well. I won’t even touch music because I don’t know enough about it to write about it.) I want to like it. After all, it is from and for the demographic that I belong to. It addresses concerns that I share and speaks the language that I speak. From all objective indicators, the indicators that marketing people would use to determine the audience for a given work of art, I should like it. But, most of the time I don’t. I don’t think that it is worth my time when there are great works of art to be enjoyed by people outside the Church. Yet, I feel like if I don’t support these fledgling artistic endeavors to create something wholesome and good, I’m betraying my beliefs.
I should make it clear that I don’t think that any Mormon has any obligation to financially support anything that they don’t want to support. It doesn’t matter if it is made by a Mormon, sold by a Mormon, or packaged to appeal to a Mormon, business and faith should never be combined and anyone who says differently shouldn’t be trusted. However, one thing that Mormons tend to complain a lot about is decadence in the mass media. Movies are too violent, there’s too much sex on television, and most magazines are borderline pornographic. We complain, yet we still fork out or money for that super-violent, ultra-crude summer blockbuster (cough…Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen) or tune in every week to see television bring out the worst in people (cough…reality tv).
And when a good wholesome movie made my people who share our faith comes around, we intend to put it on our Netflix queue someday, but never seem to get around to it (I’m talking about myself, here). The literary part of me wants to say that if Mormons bothered to make good movies or write good fiction, I’d be more willing to lay down my hard earned dollars for it. The moral part of me argues that if I support these artists, their art will get better--after all, Mormon art is young and is still developing.
I think we kind of have to treat Mormon art as if we were a parent and it were a baby. In a global perspective, taking a step is no big deal. Billions of people do it thousands of times a day. But for a baby, it is a big deal. It shows that the child is developing into a healthy child. So you congratulate that child much more than you would congratulate your uncle if he were to do the same thing. However, if that baby chose not to take any more steps for the rest of his life, but decided that the one was enough, you would do something to motivate him to walk because you don’t want him to be stuck as a baby. As much as you like baby’s, a human being cannot be a baby for its whole life.
Mormon art is currently in the baby phase. It’s taking a few steps and I think that we should reward those steps by buying tickets to those movies or copies of those books. But if we ever get the feeling that it won’t progress beyond those few steps, if we get the sense that it has decided to not progress, then we should indicate that we are not pleased. It’s a hard balance to maintain, just as it is hard for parents to maintain the balance between rewarding success and demanding further achievement, but I think that Mormons with discerning tastes, and I know that there are a lot of us out there, can start to make that happen.
I should make it clear that I don’t think that any Mormon has any obligation to financially support anything that they don’t want to support. It doesn’t matter if it is made by a Mormon, sold by a Mormon, or packaged to appeal to a Mormon, business and faith should never be combined and anyone who says differently shouldn’t be trusted. However, one thing that Mormons tend to complain a lot about is decadence in the mass media. Movies are too violent, there’s too much sex on television, and most magazines are borderline pornographic. We complain, yet we still fork out or money for that super-violent, ultra-crude summer blockbuster (cough…Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen) or tune in every week to see television bring out the worst in people (cough…reality tv).
And when a good wholesome movie made my people who share our faith comes around, we intend to put it on our Netflix queue someday, but never seem to get around to it (I’m talking about myself, here). The literary part of me wants to say that if Mormons bothered to make good movies or write good fiction, I’d be more willing to lay down my hard earned dollars for it. The moral part of me argues that if I support these artists, their art will get better--after all, Mormon art is young and is still developing.
I think we kind of have to treat Mormon art as if we were a parent and it were a baby. In a global perspective, taking a step is no big deal. Billions of people do it thousands of times a day. But for a baby, it is a big deal. It shows that the child is developing into a healthy child. So you congratulate that child much more than you would congratulate your uncle if he were to do the same thing. However, if that baby chose not to take any more steps for the rest of his life, but decided that the one was enough, you would do something to motivate him to walk because you don’t want him to be stuck as a baby. As much as you like baby’s, a human being cannot be a baby for its whole life.
Mormon art is currently in the baby phase. It’s taking a few steps and I think that we should reward those steps by buying tickets to those movies or copies of those books. But if we ever get the feeling that it won’t progress beyond those few steps, if we get the sense that it has decided to not progress, then we should indicate that we are not pleased. It’s a hard balance to maintain, just as it is hard for parents to maintain the balance between rewarding success and demanding further achievement, but I think that Mormons with discerning tastes, and I know that there are a lot of us out there, can start to make that happen.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
What is Love?
I was flipping through the channels a while ago when I fell upon an interview with a starlet who had just gone through a divorce. I normally would have blown right by the program on my way to ESPN, but something she said caught my attention. The interviewer asked her how she was coping with being alone again, to which she responded, “Nothing lasts forever, much less love.”
I wanted to protest, to clarify her grievous misunderstanding of what love is and what it can do, but the television is, unfortunately, a one-way communication device. She could not hear me.
But then I started thinking about what I’ve learned about love from popular culture about love. I’ve learned that I can’t buy me love, that love can drive you crazy, that love is a long, long road, that you can be love sick, love drunk and a soldier of love, that love stinks, that all is love, and that all you need is love. Sometimes, though, you don’t get any real answer in popular culture about love. Instead, you get a question: What is Love? (Baby don’t hurt me, baby don’t hurt me, no more.)
That’s not a very deep understanding of what love is. So, I decided that I would look to God’s revealed word to find out what He has to say about love. Even there, though, I didn’t get a definitive answer. The scriptures use the word love in so many different contexts, such as the following:
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting live” (John 3:16).
“Jesus saith unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord they God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Matt. 22:37-39).
“And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell the of” (Gen. 22:2).
“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it” (Eph. 5:25).
“That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children” (Titus 2:4).
“And Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her” (Gen. 29:20).
The word love cannot mean exactly the same thing in all of these passages. The love God has for us is not exactly the same as the love we should have for Him. The love someone has for a neighbor is not exactly the same the love shared between a husband and wife, while the love the husband and wife have for their children is different still. And the love that Jacob had for Rachel is the kind of love that all of us single people are looking for. Is it any wonder that someone might be confused about love, when it can be used in so many different contexts?
I found a quote from Gordon B. Hinckley in his book Standing For Something. He says, “If the world is to be improved, the process of love must make a change in the hearts of humans. It can do so when we look beyond self to give our love to God and others, and do so with all our hearts, with all our souls, and all our minds.
“As we look with love and gratitude to God, and as we serve others with no apparent recompense for ourselves, there will come a greater sense of service toward our fellow human beings, less thinking of self and more reaching out to others. This principle of love is the basic essence of goodness” (p. 9).
That definition of love sounded a lot like the definition of charity, which is the pure love of Christ. It is a selflessness that can enhance every kind of relationship. God sacrificed His Son as a selfless act for us, His children. We obey His commandments out of love, not only because we want the promised blessings if we do. Husbands and wives should serve one another and they should both sacrifice to satisfy their children’s temporal and spiritual needs. And any service rendered for a loved one should seem like a small price, just as Jacob’s seven years of service seemed to him but a few days.
This kind of love doesn’t seem like the kind of love that pop culture talks about. It seems like so much more. And as Mormon wrote to his son, Moroni, it is far more enduring that whatever that starlet felt for her ex-husband. “I am filled with charity,” he writes, “which is an everlasting love” (Moroni 8:17).
Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone!
I wanted to protest, to clarify her grievous misunderstanding of what love is and what it can do, but the television is, unfortunately, a one-way communication device. She could not hear me.
But then I started thinking about what I’ve learned about love from popular culture about love. I’ve learned that I can’t buy me love, that love can drive you crazy, that love is a long, long road, that you can be love sick, love drunk and a soldier of love, that love stinks, that all is love, and that all you need is love. Sometimes, though, you don’t get any real answer in popular culture about love. Instead, you get a question: What is Love? (Baby don’t hurt me, baby don’t hurt me, no more.)
That’s not a very deep understanding of what love is. So, I decided that I would look to God’s revealed word to find out what He has to say about love. Even there, though, I didn’t get a definitive answer. The scriptures use the word love in so many different contexts, such as the following:
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting live” (John 3:16).
“Jesus saith unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord they God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Matt. 22:37-39).
“And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell the of” (Gen. 22:2).
“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it” (Eph. 5:25).
“That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children” (Titus 2:4).
“And Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her” (Gen. 29:20).
The word love cannot mean exactly the same thing in all of these passages. The love God has for us is not exactly the same as the love we should have for Him. The love someone has for a neighbor is not exactly the same the love shared between a husband and wife, while the love the husband and wife have for their children is different still. And the love that Jacob had for Rachel is the kind of love that all of us single people are looking for. Is it any wonder that someone might be confused about love, when it can be used in so many different contexts?
I found a quote from Gordon B. Hinckley in his book Standing For Something. He says, “If the world is to be improved, the process of love must make a change in the hearts of humans. It can do so when we look beyond self to give our love to God and others, and do so with all our hearts, with all our souls, and all our minds.
“As we look with love and gratitude to God, and as we serve others with no apparent recompense for ourselves, there will come a greater sense of service toward our fellow human beings, less thinking of self and more reaching out to others. This principle of love is the basic essence of goodness” (p. 9).
That definition of love sounded a lot like the definition of charity, which is the pure love of Christ. It is a selflessness that can enhance every kind of relationship. God sacrificed His Son as a selfless act for us, His children. We obey His commandments out of love, not only because we want the promised blessings if we do. Husbands and wives should serve one another and they should both sacrifice to satisfy their children’s temporal and spiritual needs. And any service rendered for a loved one should seem like a small price, just as Jacob’s seven years of service seemed to him but a few days.
This kind of love doesn’t seem like the kind of love that pop culture talks about. It seems like so much more. And as Mormon wrote to his son, Moroni, it is far more enduring that whatever that starlet felt for her ex-husband. “I am filled with charity,” he writes, “which is an everlasting love” (Moroni 8:17).
Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone!
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Simon Peter: The Unauthorized Biography
I’ve always been bothered by the way Peter, the Apostle, is talked about in religious discussions. Some scorn him for his lack of courage and others praise him for overcoming his moments of weakness and becoming a powerful instrument in the Lord’s hands. Both characterizations ring false to me. They don’t adequately explain the entire New Testament record that we have of him.
We know that Peter did deny Christ three times, but we also know that he “smote high priest’s servant, and cut off his right ear” (John 18:10) when Judas came to betray Jesus with “a band of men and officers from the chief priests and Pharisees…with lanterns and torches and weapons” (John 18:3). The other gospels describe this group as “a great multitude with swords and staves” (Matt. 26:47, Mark 14:43). I would imagine that this multitude outnumbered the people with Christ, and that they were better armed. Many of them were probably soldiers. Yet Peter attacked them first. I can’t understand how he could be so zealous in the garden, yet so craven only a few hours later. With the rest of this post, I will present an alternative narrative to explain Peter’s actions here. I don’t present this as doctrine or the absolute truth, but as another way of understanding the scriptures and the people they teach us about, based on what they tell us.
The narrative starts at the Last Supper. This is where Christ, according to the popular understanding of these events, prophesies that Peter will deny Him. But the language Christ uses here is very important. He says, “Before the cock crow twice, thou shalt deny me thrice” (Mark 14:30). God frequently uses the future tense in commands, not necessarily prophecies. Just look at the Ten Commandments and all of the “thou shalts” that it uses (Exodus 20). But why would Jesus command anyone, let alone His chief Apostle, to deny Him? Right before this, Peter declared, “I am ready to go with thee, both into prison, and to death” (Luke 22:33).
Peter was perfectly willing to die for the man he knew to be the Christ. In fact, I get the feeling that he wanted to die for Him. Nothing would have been more glorious than giving his life for the man he worshipped. But that is not what Christ had in mind for him. Christ needed him to lead the church, no to die in some futile attempt to stave off the inevitable.
With this understanding, we see Peter’s reckless attack on the high priest’s servant as brave, but stupid, disobedience. Peter hasn’t yet got the message, so Christ tells him to put his sword away. Jesus has to help his overzealous disciple understand that this is supposed to happen. This isn’t a battle for Peter to fight.
Even still, while all of his other disciples “forsook him, and fled” (Mark 14:50), Peter followed. Being anywhere near Christ at that point was the most dangerous place for a disciple to be. The people wanted to kill the master, I can’t imagine that they would have treated the disciple any better. Despite the danger, Peter was there, as close as he could get to his Lord. When he was exposed as one of the Christ’s followers, he knew he had a choice to make, declare his allegiance to a condemned man and suffer the same fate, or deny it and escape with his life, as Christ commanded him. He chose obedience, even though the pain of it made him weep.
As the culmination of this narrative, the resurrected Christ asks Peter three times if he loves him not as a backhanded way of saying, “See, I told you so,” but as a reward. Peter suffered through helplessly watching the Messiah die, but it was not without a purpose. Peter was meant to “feed [the Lord’s] sheep” (John 21:17).
We know that Peter did deny Christ three times, but we also know that he “smote high priest’s servant, and cut off his right ear” (John 18:10) when Judas came to betray Jesus with “a band of men and officers from the chief priests and Pharisees…with lanterns and torches and weapons” (John 18:3). The other gospels describe this group as “a great multitude with swords and staves” (Matt. 26:47, Mark 14:43). I would imagine that this multitude outnumbered the people with Christ, and that they were better armed. Many of them were probably soldiers. Yet Peter attacked them first. I can’t understand how he could be so zealous in the garden, yet so craven only a few hours later. With the rest of this post, I will present an alternative narrative to explain Peter’s actions here. I don’t present this as doctrine or the absolute truth, but as another way of understanding the scriptures and the people they teach us about, based on what they tell us.
The narrative starts at the Last Supper. This is where Christ, according to the popular understanding of these events, prophesies that Peter will deny Him. But the language Christ uses here is very important. He says, “Before the cock crow twice, thou shalt deny me thrice” (Mark 14:30). God frequently uses the future tense in commands, not necessarily prophecies. Just look at the Ten Commandments and all of the “thou shalts” that it uses (Exodus 20). But why would Jesus command anyone, let alone His chief Apostle, to deny Him? Right before this, Peter declared, “I am ready to go with thee, both into prison, and to death” (Luke 22:33).
Peter was perfectly willing to die for the man he knew to be the Christ. In fact, I get the feeling that he wanted to die for Him. Nothing would have been more glorious than giving his life for the man he worshipped. But that is not what Christ had in mind for him. Christ needed him to lead the church, no to die in some futile attempt to stave off the inevitable.
With this understanding, we see Peter’s reckless attack on the high priest’s servant as brave, but stupid, disobedience. Peter hasn’t yet got the message, so Christ tells him to put his sword away. Jesus has to help his overzealous disciple understand that this is supposed to happen. This isn’t a battle for Peter to fight.
Even still, while all of his other disciples “forsook him, and fled” (Mark 14:50), Peter followed. Being anywhere near Christ at that point was the most dangerous place for a disciple to be. The people wanted to kill the master, I can’t imagine that they would have treated the disciple any better. Despite the danger, Peter was there, as close as he could get to his Lord. When he was exposed as one of the Christ’s followers, he knew he had a choice to make, declare his allegiance to a condemned man and suffer the same fate, or deny it and escape with his life, as Christ commanded him. He chose obedience, even though the pain of it made him weep.
As the culmination of this narrative, the resurrected Christ asks Peter three times if he loves him not as a backhanded way of saying, “See, I told you so,” but as a reward. Peter suffered through helplessly watching the Messiah die, but it was not without a purpose. Peter was meant to “feed [the Lord’s] sheep” (John 21:17).
Sunday, January 31, 2010
What is Man?
A week ago, one of my professors posed a question to my class. What makes a man a man? What would have to happen to a man to make him no longer a man? If he lost a leg would he still be a man? If he lost an arm? What if he lost all four of his limbs? We all seemed to be of the consensus that he would still be a man, albeit an armless, legless one.
At this point one girl remarked that if he lost his head he would be a dead man, to which we all laughed.
Okay, my professor said, what if he was barking like a dog, living like a dog? Or some other animal? Well, physically he would still be a man. Only his behavior would be different from most other men, and I couldn’t say that that would change the essence of what he is.
I started thinking about metaphysical attributes that humans possess and mere animals do not to try and determine if a man could lose one these attributes and be no more than a man. Humans are self-aware, whereas animals are not. We can contemplate our own existence, and ask questions about it. Animals cannot, as far as we can tell. Maybe being self-aware is what makes human life meaningful. But, then I thought of babies, which, to all intents and purposes are little more than human shaped slugs. They aren’t self-aware. They aren’t asking questions about their existence. They just cry when they’re hungry or tired or cold or when they’ve messed themselves and are uncomfortable. I can’t make a philosophical distinction between a baby and a man since all of the potential for manhood his there in a baby boy. Even without self-awareness, a man is still a man.
My professor then asked if a man without a conscience would still be a man. The ability to know right from wrong is another key difference between humans and animals. Many people in the class conceded that the lack of a conscience would turn a man into something else. I almost agreed with them, thinking of the horrors perpetrated by serial killers and rapists and the like. Surely they are something less than human. But then I thought of grown men with mental deficiencies that make them unable to distinguish right from wrong. Are these people something different from men because they happen to have this mental deficiency? I had to answer that they are men, even though they have such a deficiency.
I kept thinking about one of the scriptures that I used over and over again to teach people about our relationship to God: Romans 8:16-17. It reads, “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ.” That doesn’t just apply to people we like or people who behave in ways that we approve of, but every person on the earth.
I had to say that nothing could make a man less than a man, nor could anything make a woman less than a woman. Or in other words, nothing could happen to a human being to make him or her something less. There is something divine and sacred in human life, and nothing can take that away. If he demote someone to less than human when they do something horrific, as our favorite villains of the twentieth century, the Nazis, did, what we are really saying is that we don’t want to go through the effort of understanding them. (I won’t reiterate here what I recently wrote on the Nazis, but if you’d like to read it you can here) Animals don’t do the things they do for any rational reason, they just do things, and we want to think that no rational being would do anything horrific, so we say that they are less than human. Yet, man is capable of committing horrors. And, if guilty, man is worthy of the just punishment, which may be death.
At the same time, innocent human life is precious and should be preserved for its own sake. The devaluing of human life for any reason is the first step on the road to euthanasia, abortion, and even eugenics. All of these destroy the greatest of God’s creations: human life and the free agency it is endowed with. That is why I could not draw any line of when a man would become something else. Once a man, always a man. Once a woman, always a woman. Forgetting that gets us into dangerous philosophical ground. Forgetting that, I believe, makes it so much easier for us to commit horrors on our brothers and sisters.
At this point one girl remarked that if he lost his head he would be a dead man, to which we all laughed.
Okay, my professor said, what if he was barking like a dog, living like a dog? Or some other animal? Well, physically he would still be a man. Only his behavior would be different from most other men, and I couldn’t say that that would change the essence of what he is.
I started thinking about metaphysical attributes that humans possess and mere animals do not to try and determine if a man could lose one these attributes and be no more than a man. Humans are self-aware, whereas animals are not. We can contemplate our own existence, and ask questions about it. Animals cannot, as far as we can tell. Maybe being self-aware is what makes human life meaningful. But, then I thought of babies, which, to all intents and purposes are little more than human shaped slugs. They aren’t self-aware. They aren’t asking questions about their existence. They just cry when they’re hungry or tired or cold or when they’ve messed themselves and are uncomfortable. I can’t make a philosophical distinction between a baby and a man since all of the potential for manhood his there in a baby boy. Even without self-awareness, a man is still a man.
My professor then asked if a man without a conscience would still be a man. The ability to know right from wrong is another key difference between humans and animals. Many people in the class conceded that the lack of a conscience would turn a man into something else. I almost agreed with them, thinking of the horrors perpetrated by serial killers and rapists and the like. Surely they are something less than human. But then I thought of grown men with mental deficiencies that make them unable to distinguish right from wrong. Are these people something different from men because they happen to have this mental deficiency? I had to answer that they are men, even though they have such a deficiency.
I kept thinking about one of the scriptures that I used over and over again to teach people about our relationship to God: Romans 8:16-17. It reads, “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ.” That doesn’t just apply to people we like or people who behave in ways that we approve of, but every person on the earth.
I had to say that nothing could make a man less than a man, nor could anything make a woman less than a woman. Or in other words, nothing could happen to a human being to make him or her something less. There is something divine and sacred in human life, and nothing can take that away. If he demote someone to less than human when they do something horrific, as our favorite villains of the twentieth century, the Nazis, did, what we are really saying is that we don’t want to go through the effort of understanding them. (I won’t reiterate here what I recently wrote on the Nazis, but if you’d like to read it you can here) Animals don’t do the things they do for any rational reason, they just do things, and we want to think that no rational being would do anything horrific, so we say that they are less than human. Yet, man is capable of committing horrors. And, if guilty, man is worthy of the just punishment, which may be death.
At the same time, innocent human life is precious and should be preserved for its own sake. The devaluing of human life for any reason is the first step on the road to euthanasia, abortion, and even eugenics. All of these destroy the greatest of God’s creations: human life and the free agency it is endowed with. That is why I could not draw any line of when a man would become something else. Once a man, always a man. Once a woman, always a woman. Forgetting that gets us into dangerous philosophical ground. Forgetting that, I believe, makes it so much easier for us to commit horrors on our brothers and sisters.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Faith’s Proof
The Book of Mormon recounts an experience that the prophet Alma had with a man named Korihor. This Korihor was going around saying that the prophecies of God’s prophets, many of which concerned the coming of Jesus Christ, (this was before Christ’s birth in Bethlehem) were not true because “no man can know of anything which is to come” (Alma 30:13). He taught that no one can know of things that they cannot see, and that faith in the coming Messiah was the “effect of a frenzied mind” (16). “And many more such things did he say unto them, telling them that there could be no atonement made for the sins of men, but every man fared in this life according to the management of the creature; therefore every man prospered according to his genius, and that every man conquered according to his strength; and whatsoever a man did was no crime” (17).
This passage in the Book of Mormon is so fascinating. Korihor, a man from the first century B. C., is making the same arguments that the wise and the learned are making in the 21st century. These arguments are not modern or new. People have been saying the same things for millennium, so the faithful should not fear them. We’ve dealt with them before.
Getting back to the story, Korihor ends up resorting to murder to win an argument and is subsequently brought before Alma to be judged. They get into an interesting theological debate and when Korihor asks Alma to show him proof of God’s existence in a sign, Alma responds with these words: “Thou hast had signs enough; will ye tempt your God? Will ye say, Show unto me a sign, when ye have the testimony of all these thy brethren, and also all the holy prophets? The scriptures are laid before thee, yea, and all things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator” (44).
Alma’s answer doesn’t satisfy the rational and scientific modern mind. Nature obeys basic laws of physics like gravitation and thermodynamics. The motions of the planets and all of the things are not evidence of God’s existence because they can be explained scientifically. The scientific mind sees no place for God there.
In some respects, I have to agree with science on this one. Alma is taking one of his own assumptions, that the order of the universe denotes the existence of a Creator of that order, and demanding that Korihor accept it. Korihor doesn’t.
Yet, even though Alma doesn’t prove God’s existence with his rebuttal, he illuminates an important principle of faith. Alma can’t prove God’s existence to Korihor. He knows that he can’t. So, he does the next best thing: he declares his faith in God. To Alma, nature and the motion of the planets and everything else, witness that there is a Supreme Creator because he has chosen to believe in that Supreme Creator. He has had personal experiences with God that have confirmed that faith and as a result, he sees proof of God’s existence everywhere he looks. Korihor can look at the same scene and see only dirt, rocks, a few trees and the sky. He doesn’t see what Alma sees because he chooses not to.
Philosophers and scholars have been trying to prove and disprove God’s existence for ages. I find some arguments more compelling than others, but when you come down to it, none of them actually does what it seeks out to do. Those trying to prove God’s existence always run into the wall of only having secondary evidence to make their case and those trying to disprove it always run into the wall of trying to prove a negative and end up sounding like people trying to disprove the existence of bears because they never saw one at the zoo. In the end, I can only prove God’s existence to one person: myself. The evidence cannot be used outside the courtroom of my own conscience.
I think that God wants it this way. God wants us to rely on faith. After all, it is the first principle of the gospel of Jesus Christ. If He wanted to prove His own existence, He surly could. He chooses not to because He wants us to rely on faith, when things are going well for us and when things are not going well. He wants our faith to be tried and tested, not coddled and obvious.
Korihor chose not to have that faith. He continued to demand a sign, so Alma gave him one. He was struck dumb. Later on, he was trampled and killed. It’s funny. Being struck dumb didn’t cause Korihor to change his life and serve God. I guess he figured that there was a perfectly rational and scientific explanation for why his vocal chords gave out right when Alma said they would. There’s always a perfectly rational and scientific explanation for those kinds of things.
This passage in the Book of Mormon is so fascinating. Korihor, a man from the first century B. C., is making the same arguments that the wise and the learned are making in the 21st century. These arguments are not modern or new. People have been saying the same things for millennium, so the faithful should not fear them. We’ve dealt with them before.
Getting back to the story, Korihor ends up resorting to murder to win an argument and is subsequently brought before Alma to be judged. They get into an interesting theological debate and when Korihor asks Alma to show him proof of God’s existence in a sign, Alma responds with these words: “Thou hast had signs enough; will ye tempt your God? Will ye say, Show unto me a sign, when ye have the testimony of all these thy brethren, and also all the holy prophets? The scriptures are laid before thee, yea, and all things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator” (44).
Alma’s answer doesn’t satisfy the rational and scientific modern mind. Nature obeys basic laws of physics like gravitation and thermodynamics. The motions of the planets and all of the things are not evidence of God’s existence because they can be explained scientifically. The scientific mind sees no place for God there.
In some respects, I have to agree with science on this one. Alma is taking one of his own assumptions, that the order of the universe denotes the existence of a Creator of that order, and demanding that Korihor accept it. Korihor doesn’t.
Yet, even though Alma doesn’t prove God’s existence with his rebuttal, he illuminates an important principle of faith. Alma can’t prove God’s existence to Korihor. He knows that he can’t. So, he does the next best thing: he declares his faith in God. To Alma, nature and the motion of the planets and everything else, witness that there is a Supreme Creator because he has chosen to believe in that Supreme Creator. He has had personal experiences with God that have confirmed that faith and as a result, he sees proof of God’s existence everywhere he looks. Korihor can look at the same scene and see only dirt, rocks, a few trees and the sky. He doesn’t see what Alma sees because he chooses not to.
Philosophers and scholars have been trying to prove and disprove God’s existence for ages. I find some arguments more compelling than others, but when you come down to it, none of them actually does what it seeks out to do. Those trying to prove God’s existence always run into the wall of only having secondary evidence to make their case and those trying to disprove it always run into the wall of trying to prove a negative and end up sounding like people trying to disprove the existence of bears because they never saw one at the zoo. In the end, I can only prove God’s existence to one person: myself. The evidence cannot be used outside the courtroom of my own conscience.
I think that God wants it this way. God wants us to rely on faith. After all, it is the first principle of the gospel of Jesus Christ. If He wanted to prove His own existence, He surly could. He chooses not to because He wants us to rely on faith, when things are going well for us and when things are not going well. He wants our faith to be tried and tested, not coddled and obvious.
Korihor chose not to have that faith. He continued to demand a sign, so Alma gave him one. He was struck dumb. Later on, he was trampled and killed. It’s funny. Being struck dumb didn’t cause Korihor to change his life and serve God. I guess he figured that there was a perfectly rational and scientific explanation for why his vocal chords gave out right when Alma said they would. There’s always a perfectly rational and scientific explanation for those kinds of things.
Monday, January 4, 2010
So This is the New Year…And I Don’t Feel Any Different
I’ve never really liked New Year’s Eve, and this past one was the second worst I’ve ever had. I flew from California to Boston on the 31st and landed with a splitting headache and some real stomach discomfort. I got to my apartment at about 10:30, crawled into my bed and didn’t move until about 12:30, when I turned off the light and fell asleep. Only one of the twenty-six New Year’s Eves that I’ve celebrated has been quite as bad as that, but I still don’t like it. Usually on New Year’s Eve, people get all excited and talk about new beginnings and blank slates and stay up until midnight and watch the ball drop and sing “Old Lang Syne” if they can remember all of the words.
Well, every year, I stay up and watch the ball drop and go to bed and wake up the next day and…well, life hasn’t changed much. I have to remember to write the date as ’10 now instead of ’09, which I will consistently forget to do until about June, but other than that, I’m in pretty much the same situation I was in on December 31st: my student debt hasn’t gone away, I still don’t have a job, and this coming semester of graduate school is looking to be even worse than the last one.
So what’s with all the talk about new beginnings and blank slates?
I was thinking about that in church yesterday and had an interesting thought. The New Year doesn’t give anyone a blank slate. Yes, it’s fun to go to a party and to watch a ball drop as everyone else in the world is watching that same ball drop (unless they happen to live in a different time zone as you do, then you’re watching it one or more hours before or after them) but you have to admit that New Year’s is pretty meaningless. It’s an excuse to party and (if you’re not Mormon) drink till you pass out. That’s it.
What really provides a blank slate is Jesus Christ. We all make mistakes. We say something we don’t mean, or mean but don’t intend to say that hurts someone else. We neglect to go out of our way to offer help that someone could probably use, but we’re not sure and we wouldn’t want to offend them by offering our help. We take our loved ones for granted, we take what isn’t ours, we take offense where none is intended. All of us do things we wish we hadn’t. All of us sin, and that sin weighs us down. I know that it’s not popular in our modern world to talk about sin, but it’s real and ignoring it won’t make it go away. A New Year won’t make it go away either.
The Gospel of Jesus Christ provides lots of new beginnings. One almost every week, in fact. When we are baptized, we are washed clean of all our past sins. We come out of the water completely clean. After that, we got to church each week and partake of the Sacrament (the name we Mormons use for what other churches call the Eucharist or Holy Supper). If we are repentant as we eat of the bread and water, we renew our baptism and are clean again. We have a blank slate. And we can resolve then and there that we’ll be a little better in the coming week.
A real blank slate is not something that comes with the changing of a calendar. It’s not something you celebrate with late night parties, confetti and a giant ball. Don’t get me wrong. Next December 31st, I don’t want to be lying in bed. I want to be among good company and eating good food. Even more, I want to have a lovely lady that I can kiss to start 2011. But that’s just the day that I’ll have to start writing the date twice every time I sign something. My new beginning I celebrate quietly every Sunday.
Well, every year, I stay up and watch the ball drop and go to bed and wake up the next day and…well, life hasn’t changed much. I have to remember to write the date as ’10 now instead of ’09, which I will consistently forget to do until about June, but other than that, I’m in pretty much the same situation I was in on December 31st: my student debt hasn’t gone away, I still don’t have a job, and this coming semester of graduate school is looking to be even worse than the last one.
So what’s with all the talk about new beginnings and blank slates?
I was thinking about that in church yesterday and had an interesting thought. The New Year doesn’t give anyone a blank slate. Yes, it’s fun to go to a party and to watch a ball drop as everyone else in the world is watching that same ball drop (unless they happen to live in a different time zone as you do, then you’re watching it one or more hours before or after them) but you have to admit that New Year’s is pretty meaningless. It’s an excuse to party and (if you’re not Mormon) drink till you pass out. That’s it.
What really provides a blank slate is Jesus Christ. We all make mistakes. We say something we don’t mean, or mean but don’t intend to say that hurts someone else. We neglect to go out of our way to offer help that someone could probably use, but we’re not sure and we wouldn’t want to offend them by offering our help. We take our loved ones for granted, we take what isn’t ours, we take offense where none is intended. All of us do things we wish we hadn’t. All of us sin, and that sin weighs us down. I know that it’s not popular in our modern world to talk about sin, but it’s real and ignoring it won’t make it go away. A New Year won’t make it go away either.
The Gospel of Jesus Christ provides lots of new beginnings. One almost every week, in fact. When we are baptized, we are washed clean of all our past sins. We come out of the water completely clean. After that, we got to church each week and partake of the Sacrament (the name we Mormons use for what other churches call the Eucharist or Holy Supper). If we are repentant as we eat of the bread and water, we renew our baptism and are clean again. We have a blank slate. And we can resolve then and there that we’ll be a little better in the coming week.
A real blank slate is not something that comes with the changing of a calendar. It’s not something you celebrate with late night parties, confetti and a giant ball. Don’t get me wrong. Next December 31st, I don’t want to be lying in bed. I want to be among good company and eating good food. Even more, I want to have a lovely lady that I can kiss to start 2011. But that’s just the day that I’ll have to start writing the date twice every time I sign something. My new beginning I celebrate quietly every Sunday.
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Love Thy Neighbor...
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