"Egypt is trying to break him."
Deliverer
We don't know, exactly, what Emma thought. Or Joseph. We see them in 1837 and 1838 elliptically, through the eyes and in the words of those around them, with the brief, rending exceptions of Joseph's cries from prison.
But we know Joseph, or are coming to. We know that he wept on his father's chest after baptizing the broken old man, and that the soothing cool of forgiveness and the joy of standing within the powerful circles of the councils he raised up were the palliatives that calmed his temper and quieted the restless insecurities that drove him to seek a religion that bound people together with the power of heaven. And because of all this we know that the years of 1837 and 1838 were likely the worst of his life.
God and men and his own mistakes forced Joseph alone into the wilderness in 1837.
Joseph's oldest friend, in his own words his "bosom friend," was Oliver Cowdery, the man who baptized him, who scribed the Book of Mormon, who had stood next to Joseph during the keystone visions of the Church. In late 1837, Cowdery was shaken to the core, because he became convinced that Joseph Smith had been sleeping with Emma's maid, a teenage girl named Fanny Alger.
We are not sure why he came to this conclusion. There are late reports, forty years after the fact, that Cowdery caught his friend in a compromising position. There are also reports - from Alger's family as well as other Mormons - that Joseph had married Fanny polygamously sometime around 1833. Fanny, still a teenager, went with her family when they moved from Kirtland in 1836. Decades later, she said only that her relationship with Joseph was "a matter of my own."
But Cowdery knew nothing of that. He turned to David Patten, president of the Quorum of the Twelve, and found himself denounced and eventually on trial for apostasy. Joseph vigorously, and specifically, denied that he had committed adultery; Patten and Thomas Marsh, another senior apostle to whom Cowdery went, were horrified at the accusation.
Of Emma's reaction, we know nothing. She had just given birth when Cowdery was excommunicated in April1838. Joseph appeared at the trial, but he remained silent. If his mind had lighted upon polygamy already, he chose to brood over the doctrine privately. He never seems to have mentioned his lost friend again. He threw himself into his church, but found the rock turning to water beneath his fingers.
For almost simultaneously, the strong twin stakes of Zion, Kirtland and Far West, collapsed.
The Saints constantly had struggled for money. Joseph, exhibiting characteristic exuberance and optimism, believed that founding a bank would not only provide the church with financial stability; it would also be among the greatest financial institutions in America, and make Kirtland the central city of the nation. His confidence in his power to build shone through. But this time he was wrong. The Kirtland Safety Society was terribly underfunded; the state refused to grant it a charter, a warning sign Joseph ignored. The Saints (Joseph included) invested heavily, purchasing the notes that Joseph himself signed with a flourish. But the bank collapsed within a month. Cumulative losses exceeded what the Saints had donated to the Kirtland temple; families began to starve and lose their homes.
More terrifying than the money was that Joseph's dreams for his brethren had turned them against him. Patten, who had defended Joseph so staunchly against Cowdery, went to him with financial frustrations; Joseph took his complaints personally, slapped him in the face and threw him from the house. The Pratt brothers, apostles both, similarly confronted their prophet in rage when Joseph came to Parley and demanded repayment of debt to the bank only weeks after the currency collapsed. By June, 1837, Heber Kimball (in a poetic exaggeration) said that not twenty men in Kirtland remained unshaken behind Joseph Smith.
In late May Joseph's loyalists, with his approval, brought charges against those who complained, accusing the Pratts, David Whitmer, First Presidency member Frederick Williams and others of apostasy. And the council system that had worked so well before collapsed. Williams argued that, per the Doctrine and Covenants, only a bishop's court could try someone in his position; Parley Pratt argued that Joseph Smith would not be a fair judge. The council collapsed, and Joseph with it. By June, he lay stricken with illness, and would not rise for weeks. And Kirtland never recovered. By December, there were forty excommunications among the church leadership, growing turmoil, and Joseph had lost his first Zion. He and Sidney Rigdon fled the city for Far West, Missouri, late at night in January 1838, just ahead of a mob of impoverished, angry excommunicants. He left a quarter of his quorum and his second counselor behind.
He hoped for peace in Missouri. Soon after arriving he again began building a sacred world around him. He identified Caldwell and Daviess counties, newly created by the Missouri government in an attempt to provide the Mormons with a safe place, as Edens, literally putting Adam-ondi-Ahman in the center, and a new temple lot in Far West. From the cold nights of Kirtland the church could be born again in the warm Missouri summer.
But his efforts only seemed to turn back upon him. The Mormons of Missouri, increasingly bitter about their expulsion from Jackson County, rose up against the presidency Joseph had placed over them: David Whitmer, WW Phelps and Cowdery. These men had sold their land in Jackson County; this was, members of the Missouri high council believed, tatamount to repudiating Joseph's prophecies. Tensions rose, and Joseph, eager to restore harmony, allowed the high council to draw a picture placing Whitmer's presidency against Joseph and to proceed with excommunications. Cowdery was the first to fall; the other two men soon after. Joseph increasingly prized loyalty; after Kirtland, he no longer trusted friendship.
But loyalty itself backfired. The Mormons who followed him to Missouri, eager to build Joseph's vision, rushed past their prophet, settling not only in Caldwell, designated particularly for Mormons, but increasingly dominating Daviess. Sampson Avard, a brash and confrontational physician, resolved that to protect Joseph's church from dissenters, a secret society was necessary. The Sons of Dan were born in the summer of 1838, intimidating the faction in support of the Presidency. It is unclear to what extent Avard received Joseph's sanction. He knew about the society, attended at least one meeting, and blessed its officers, giving a speech endorsing strong action. These are the behaviors of a man in need of support. But beyond that?
By the fall of 1838 war had broken out in Missouri. Mobs had intimidated and assailed Mormons outside Caldwell County, attempts had been made to stop Mormons from voting. and in response Joseph and Rigdon had preached fiery sermons. Joseph resolved to call out the Caldwell County militia - made up of and headed by Mormons - to defend the Mormons of Daviess. The apostles Lyman Wight and David Patten led raiding parties, burning homes and farms across Daviess County, and Joseph exulted in the righteousness of self defense. He had had enough of persecution from inside and out; now he would resist.
But the Mormons could not stand up to the state of Missouri, and Joseph was quick to realize it. He had been angry, frustrated, feeling powerless and betrayed; in that state he had let men like Avard and Wight lash out in proxy. But Patten was killed at the Battle at Crooked River, and soon after, a mob brutally massacred seventeen defenseless Mormons at Haun's Mill. Joseph realized that overcorrection would not heal his pain or fix his errors. On November 1, Far West surrendered to Colonel Samuel Lucas, and Joseph, Hyrum, Amasa Lyman, Rigdon, and Wight went quietly into chains.
Joseph would remain in Missouri prison, accused of treason, nearly executed as a prisoner of war, for six months. He cried to God. He did not know why the work had failed, so utterly and spectacularly. And he rose above his pain by going through it. He reached out again to Emma, by letter, pledging that he was "yours forever," and asking, pitifully, "Dear Emma do you think that my being cast into prison by the mob renders me less worthy of your friendship?"
He begged her to "never give up an old tried friend," and "not to harber a spirit of revenge." And she reponded, visiting him in prison.
Characteristically, he sought healing in binding ties. It was a solution for the church as well. He wrote to the Saints that they should pursue understanding, forgiveness, and common ground with the non Mormons of America. And finally, his faith was rewarded. The Missouri officials quietly decided that the Mormon War had been an embarrasment, and in April of 1839 let their prisoners escape.
Joseph had already directed the scattered remains of his church north, to a small town on the banks of the Mississippi River named Quincy, Illinois. He followed, and there was a renewed community to greet him. He met Emma and his children first, and the next day, called a council. Wilford Woodruff, a new apostle, noted that "Brother Joseph greeted us with great Joy." Joseph's will was strong; again, for the third time, he resolved to build Zion.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Rough Stone Rolling IV: educations
“The waters never parted for him, not once.”
-Marilynne Robinson, Gilead
For Joseph, the waters did part, sometimes. But they crashed closed before him with some frequency as well. His frustrations, reversals, tragedies matched his outsized ambitions, and the dazzling light of revelation threw the painful shadows of God’s frequent absences and inscrutability into sharp relief.
Joseph felt all abandonment sharply. He feared the sting of betrayal and loss above all other pain, and thus had dual weaknesses. First, he frequently confronted such fear (as many do), with the charged energy of anger. He brooded over failure and loss; as Bushman notes, he spent more time in his history dragging himself again through the loss of the 116 pages than he did discussing the rest of the translation of the Book of Mormon. And the several years following the first trials in Missouri confronted him with all these fears.
But he also had weakness for its grand mitigation. He loved the spectacle of salvation, the cascading emotions of redemption and forgiveness, the divine dramatics of ordinance and priesthood applied to the healing of human relationships.
Zion’s Camp, in retrospect, seems almost ludicrous; a motley batch of some hundred to two hundred men marching in the heat of June 1834 a thousand miles across the Midwest, underarmed, untrained, to confront the Missouri militias and, in Joseph’s grandiose words, to redeem Zion. The camp failed, majestically; the governor of Missouri declined to assist the Mormons as Joseph had hoped and mediators convinced Joseph that his best and only alternative was to accept peaceful resettlement in Clay County, north of Jackson. The men of Zion’s Camp, upon arriving in Missouri, quietly turned and headed for home.
Yet Joseph had thrown himself into it. He spent the months of spring rallying troops; he took upon himself the name ‘Baurak Ale,’ the “officer of the highest rank in the army of the strength of the Lord’s hosts,” and appointed an ‘Armour Bearer’ to carry his pistols. Along the way he pointed out Nephite graves and primordial altars to his followers In his vision, the Camp was redemptive, with every step sacralizing the landscape and binding the Mormons in holy fellowship.
The disappointment, then, was all the more crushing. The harmony Joseph sought collapsed when he picked a fight with Seventy Sylvester Smith over Smith’s complaints about Joseph’s dog; a petty feud that degenerated, ultimately, into Joseph heaving a bugle at the other man. And the Camp, horrifically, was smitten with cholera just as it left Missouri; a plague Joseph read as God’s punishment for his failures. Upon returning home, frustrations remained; he feuded with his brother William, made Emma cry for leaving a church meeting early, and picked a fight with Orson Pratt.
But in weakness, Joseph found strength. He was quick to seek forgiveness and reconciliation, and at the same time willingly submitted himself to a disciplinary council, facing Sylvester Smith’s charges with equanimity. In the trial, Joseph may have seen strength, for his new faith had made a transition: the intricate system of councils and hierarchies he had begun to establish no longer depended upon his personal charisma. In 1835 his vision of organization was finally realized, and it extended across the entire globe. Authority in the world was divided into two separate spheres: Zion and the mission field. Over Zion – defined as the cities of the Saints - watched the High Councils and the stake presidencies – two, by 1835, one in Kirtland and one in Missouri. Over the world watched the Quorum of the Twelve, those who went out and sought converts and preached the gospel. Over these two equal branches sat the First Presidency. The ‘great revelation’ on priesthood, the current D&C 107, was completed at this time; Joseph had in 1831 dictated the first 58 verses, now, in 1835, he completed it, adding the final 42, which discussed the mission of the Twelve. In February of that year, Joseph directed the Three Witnesses to call twelve men, to ordain them, and to send them out. Nine of the twelve were Zion’s Camp veterans.
The dedication of the Kirtland temple on March 27, 1836 was the culmination of Joseph’s multifacted experience. He had for years been promising the Saints an ‘endowment of power.’ As the temple approached completion, he began inviting selected leaders to its unfinished rooms, where they washed and anointed each other. Late on a January night in 1836, Joseph, having received anointing, saw visions, which quickly spread to his fellows. A week later he taught the Twelve Apostles and the Seventy to pray with uplifted hands, and again felt a rush of the Spirit. The dedication of the temple was a slight disappointment after these experiences; Joseph, in love with his councils, spent much of the time on procedural affairs, but again, that night, in private, there was speaking in tongues, inspired exhortions and hymn singing that went on for two days. And finally, after the first Eucharist held in the temple a week after the dedication, the veil dropped, and Joseph and Oliver saw Christ.
Joseph’s journal (his second, but most detailed) runs from September 1835 to April 1836. This is the final entry. There is no evidence that he or Oliver shared this vision; it appears nowhere else in the sources of the time. And the torrent of Joseph’s revelations faded to a trickle after it. Bushman speculates that Joseph did not quite understand, or was afraid to share, what came next. In the vision, he received three keys. The gathering of Israel he understood. But what were the keys of Malachi? And what was the work of Abraham?
He had already pushed the Saints far. The liturgy of anointing was an exceptional thing on the American frontier. The strangeness of Malachi and Abraham, however, as Bushman says, not many could bear.
-Marilynne Robinson, Gilead
For Joseph, the waters did part, sometimes. But they crashed closed before him with some frequency as well. His frustrations, reversals, tragedies matched his outsized ambitions, and the dazzling light of revelation threw the painful shadows of God’s frequent absences and inscrutability into sharp relief.
Joseph felt all abandonment sharply. He feared the sting of betrayal and loss above all other pain, and thus had dual weaknesses. First, he frequently confronted such fear (as many do), with the charged energy of anger. He brooded over failure and loss; as Bushman notes, he spent more time in his history dragging himself again through the loss of the 116 pages than he did discussing the rest of the translation of the Book of Mormon. And the several years following the first trials in Missouri confronted him with all these fears.
But he also had weakness for its grand mitigation. He loved the spectacle of salvation, the cascading emotions of redemption and forgiveness, the divine dramatics of ordinance and priesthood applied to the healing of human relationships.
Zion’s Camp, in retrospect, seems almost ludicrous; a motley batch of some hundred to two hundred men marching in the heat of June 1834 a thousand miles across the Midwest, underarmed, untrained, to confront the Missouri militias and, in Joseph’s grandiose words, to redeem Zion. The camp failed, majestically; the governor of Missouri declined to assist the Mormons as Joseph had hoped and mediators convinced Joseph that his best and only alternative was to accept peaceful resettlement in Clay County, north of Jackson. The men of Zion’s Camp, upon arriving in Missouri, quietly turned and headed for home.
Yet Joseph had thrown himself into it. He spent the months of spring rallying troops; he took upon himself the name ‘Baurak Ale,’ the “officer of the highest rank in the army of the strength of the Lord’s hosts,” and appointed an ‘Armour Bearer’ to carry his pistols. Along the way he pointed out Nephite graves and primordial altars to his followers In his vision, the Camp was redemptive, with every step sacralizing the landscape and binding the Mormons in holy fellowship.
The disappointment, then, was all the more crushing. The harmony Joseph sought collapsed when he picked a fight with Seventy Sylvester Smith over Smith’s complaints about Joseph’s dog; a petty feud that degenerated, ultimately, into Joseph heaving a bugle at the other man. And the Camp, horrifically, was smitten with cholera just as it left Missouri; a plague Joseph read as God’s punishment for his failures. Upon returning home, frustrations remained; he feuded with his brother William, made Emma cry for leaving a church meeting early, and picked a fight with Orson Pratt.
But in weakness, Joseph found strength. He was quick to seek forgiveness and reconciliation, and at the same time willingly submitted himself to a disciplinary council, facing Sylvester Smith’s charges with equanimity. In the trial, Joseph may have seen strength, for his new faith had made a transition: the intricate system of councils and hierarchies he had begun to establish no longer depended upon his personal charisma. In 1835 his vision of organization was finally realized, and it extended across the entire globe. Authority in the world was divided into two separate spheres: Zion and the mission field. Over Zion – defined as the cities of the Saints - watched the High Councils and the stake presidencies – two, by 1835, one in Kirtland and one in Missouri. Over the world watched the Quorum of the Twelve, those who went out and sought converts and preached the gospel. Over these two equal branches sat the First Presidency. The ‘great revelation’ on priesthood, the current D&C 107, was completed at this time; Joseph had in 1831 dictated the first 58 verses, now, in 1835, he completed it, adding the final 42, which discussed the mission of the Twelve. In February of that year, Joseph directed the Three Witnesses to call twelve men, to ordain them, and to send them out. Nine of the twelve were Zion’s Camp veterans.
The dedication of the Kirtland temple on March 27, 1836 was the culmination of Joseph’s multifacted experience. He had for years been promising the Saints an ‘endowment of power.’ As the temple approached completion, he began inviting selected leaders to its unfinished rooms, where they washed and anointed each other. Late on a January night in 1836, Joseph, having received anointing, saw visions, which quickly spread to his fellows. A week later he taught the Twelve Apostles and the Seventy to pray with uplifted hands, and again felt a rush of the Spirit. The dedication of the temple was a slight disappointment after these experiences; Joseph, in love with his councils, spent much of the time on procedural affairs, but again, that night, in private, there was speaking in tongues, inspired exhortions and hymn singing that went on for two days. And finally, after the first Eucharist held in the temple a week after the dedication, the veil dropped, and Joseph and Oliver saw Christ.
Joseph’s journal (his second, but most detailed) runs from September 1835 to April 1836. This is the final entry. There is no evidence that he or Oliver shared this vision; it appears nowhere else in the sources of the time. And the torrent of Joseph’s revelations faded to a trickle after it. Bushman speculates that Joseph did not quite understand, or was afraid to share, what came next. In the vision, he received three keys. The gathering of Israel he understood. But what were the keys of Malachi? And what was the work of Abraham?
He had already pushed the Saints far. The liturgy of anointing was an exceptional thing on the American frontier. The strangeness of Malachi and Abraham, however, as Bushman says, not many could bear.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Rough Stone Rolling III: building
It's easy to forget, and also somewhat alarming, how young Joseph was. He was barely twenty-four when he founded his church; the same age when he stared down Hiram Page, and only a year older when, on merely the strength of a few dozen conversions, uprooted his family and followers to move somewhere he had never seen, and demanded the loyalty of men and women a decade and more older than himself whom he had never met. By 1832, he was a twenty-six year old leading over a thousand people in two states.
And when he moved to Ohio, he knew he had work ahead of him. He had a kingdom to build.
Joseph was a totalist. As we've learned from Peter Berger, he did not merely want to construct a religion - something people do on Sundays and plan ahead for, but don't really worry about integrating with their TV watching and daily jobs and car shopping and the like. Rather, Joseph wanted to build a world; something all consuming, all transforming that left nothing of mundane life untouched.
This was a twofold task. First, Joseph sought to transform history.
The Book of Moses (and later the Book of Abraham) Joseph called translations. But translations of what? Joseph produced the Book of Mormon without looking at the plates; he produced the Book of Moses while looking at a King James Bible.
The concept of midrash might be useful here. This is a Jewish thing, semi-canonical commentary and elaboration, explanation and clarification, that lines the margins of some copies of Tanak. What Joseph does with the Pearl of Great Price could be seen as a similar task; he's taking the unfamiliar, Jewish, very foreign Old Testament and Christianizing it, starting over and putting Christ in the Garden of Eden; making the old stories relevant to his prophetic sense and task and time. And he does it scripturally. He uses sacred language; there is no hint of Joseph, no introduction, no appeal to reason or historical evidence. Rather, they merely begin.
And more, Joseph transformed Christian history: the narrative that begins with the tragic fall and peaks with God intervening into a fallen world to save us. With the concept of exaltation, the fortunate fall of the Book of Mormon, and the hints of a God more human than he himself might have imagined in the Book of Moses, Joseph was rewriting Christianity, making it a narrative of eternal progression rather than the tragedy capped with sudden joy of Protestantism.
Similarly, Joseph transformed landscapes. He moved the Holy Land from Israel to Missouri; found Adam and Eve in a valley north of Independence, and declared his intention to build Zion there. And he was serious. Though he had a millennial bent - he expected history to end with the Second Coming soon - he was not a pessimistic millennialist as we are today. We've learned from fundamentalists to believe that history is slowly spiraling down the drain until Christ bails us out, but Joseph believed that the advent of his church indicated that God was saving history, that things could get better, and that the true Zion could be built within human history to welcome Christ to earth.
Similarly, Joseph had to build a nation. A nation in every sense - a people with a common tongue, a common heritage, a common culture, a common politics.
The problem here, first, was a paradox: too much of the water Joseph drunk so deeply of. He confronted followers who saw God themselves, who translated mystical languages vocally as Joseph did in writing. There were rival prophets, rival seerstones, rival gifts of the spirit. The June 1831 Mormon General Conference saw exorcisms, levitation, visions.
Joseph's solution here was priesthood. Bushman argues that the Melchizedek priesthood appeared in the church at this time; Joseph clearly states that for the first time the "high priesthood" was given to the elders of the church in 1831. This may seem incongruous today, because we tend to equate priesthood with the organizational authority of the church (something that is a late 20th century development) but Bushman reads it in the context of the time; Joseph was desperately trying to impose rigor and order upon his new church. Again, though, he rooted his method in history, drawing upon the currents of the Old Testament to transform Americans into biblical priests. (Incidentally, page 160 contains probably the most beautiful passage of the book). Joseph was to be the president of the high priesthood. Later, he would add counselors, and a stake president, and finally, in 1835, a quorum of twelve apostles.
It was hard. Mormonism had (as I noted in the last post) begun in a egalitarian fashion; offices were distributed like candy, men like Cowdery and Rigdon had visions of their own. But as the priesthood hierarchy slowly rose, Americans, individualist and suspicious of authority, doubted Joseph's intentions. The work stalled. Joseph expected too much out of the New Jerusalem; communities simply could not succeed as quickly as he wanted it to. The money, the resources, the manpower were simply not there. The Mormons' neighbors were suspicious of them. Sidney Rigdon, Joseph's right hand man, did not get along with Edward Partridge, the leader of the Missouri Saints. His own finances were a wreck; though he promised her a home, for years he and Emma drifted from bedroom to bedroom in the homes of their followers, or to the attic above Newel Whitney's general store. They had children, who died. For much of 1832, Joseph was frustrated, he lashed out at followers who questioned him and complained about the weaknesses of those who failed their tasks. He lost some, like Ezra Booth, who left the Church rather than deal with Joseph's temper.
But slowly, in Kirtland at least, a Zion rose, as Joseph found its center: a temple, and a community to build it. He longed to be loved, despite his temper, and the School of the Prophets was more successful as a bonding ritual than as an educative facility. The Mormons there did not gain much actual knowledge, but they became a community within its walls. They spoke in tongues, and translated, and washed each others feet. And the Kirtland temple rose.
This was a renaissance period; a brief spring. For in Missouri in 1833, tensions Mormons and the natives reached a boiling point. The Saints were driven from Zion, from Independence north into Clay County. And when Joseph turned to the Lord, there were no revelations. Joseph was confused, and distraught, and murmured against God that year. By December, he finally came down the stairs and told Oliver and Sidney, "Good morning, brethren. We have just received news from heaven." Even then, in a wash of relief, Joseph spoke in the plural. His ultimate confidence remained. He directed a new settlement in Missouri, selected two men in their forties (Rigdon and Frederick Williams; Oliver was assistant president) to be his counselors, and turned his attention again to temple building. He gained some relief in 1833. He was twenty seven years old.
And when he moved to Ohio, he knew he had work ahead of him. He had a kingdom to build.
Joseph was a totalist. As we've learned from Peter Berger, he did not merely want to construct a religion - something people do on Sundays and plan ahead for, but don't really worry about integrating with their TV watching and daily jobs and car shopping and the like. Rather, Joseph wanted to build a world; something all consuming, all transforming that left nothing of mundane life untouched.
This was a twofold task. First, Joseph sought to transform history.
The Book of Moses (and later the Book of Abraham) Joseph called translations. But translations of what? Joseph produced the Book of Mormon without looking at the plates; he produced the Book of Moses while looking at a King James Bible.
The concept of midrash might be useful here. This is a Jewish thing, semi-canonical commentary and elaboration, explanation and clarification, that lines the margins of some copies of Tanak. What Joseph does with the Pearl of Great Price could be seen as a similar task; he's taking the unfamiliar, Jewish, very foreign Old Testament and Christianizing it, starting over and putting Christ in the Garden of Eden; making the old stories relevant to his prophetic sense and task and time. And he does it scripturally. He uses sacred language; there is no hint of Joseph, no introduction, no appeal to reason or historical evidence. Rather, they merely begin.
And more, Joseph transformed Christian history: the narrative that begins with the tragic fall and peaks with God intervening into a fallen world to save us. With the concept of exaltation, the fortunate fall of the Book of Mormon, and the hints of a God more human than he himself might have imagined in the Book of Moses, Joseph was rewriting Christianity, making it a narrative of eternal progression rather than the tragedy capped with sudden joy of Protestantism.
Similarly, Joseph transformed landscapes. He moved the Holy Land from Israel to Missouri; found Adam and Eve in a valley north of Independence, and declared his intention to build Zion there. And he was serious. Though he had a millennial bent - he expected history to end with the Second Coming soon - he was not a pessimistic millennialist as we are today. We've learned from fundamentalists to believe that history is slowly spiraling down the drain until Christ bails us out, but Joseph believed that the advent of his church indicated that God was saving history, that things could get better, and that the true Zion could be built within human history to welcome Christ to earth.
Similarly, Joseph had to build a nation. A nation in every sense - a people with a common tongue, a common heritage, a common culture, a common politics.
The problem here, first, was a paradox: too much of the water Joseph drunk so deeply of. He confronted followers who saw God themselves, who translated mystical languages vocally as Joseph did in writing. There were rival prophets, rival seerstones, rival gifts of the spirit. The June 1831 Mormon General Conference saw exorcisms, levitation, visions.
Joseph's solution here was priesthood. Bushman argues that the Melchizedek priesthood appeared in the church at this time; Joseph clearly states that for the first time the "high priesthood" was given to the elders of the church in 1831. This may seem incongruous today, because we tend to equate priesthood with the organizational authority of the church (something that is a late 20th century development) but Bushman reads it in the context of the time; Joseph was desperately trying to impose rigor and order upon his new church. Again, though, he rooted his method in history, drawing upon the currents of the Old Testament to transform Americans into biblical priests. (Incidentally, page 160 contains probably the most beautiful passage of the book). Joseph was to be the president of the high priesthood. Later, he would add counselors, and a stake president, and finally, in 1835, a quorum of twelve apostles.
It was hard. Mormonism had (as I noted in the last post) begun in a egalitarian fashion; offices were distributed like candy, men like Cowdery and Rigdon had visions of their own. But as the priesthood hierarchy slowly rose, Americans, individualist and suspicious of authority, doubted Joseph's intentions. The work stalled. Joseph expected too much out of the New Jerusalem; communities simply could not succeed as quickly as he wanted it to. The money, the resources, the manpower were simply not there. The Mormons' neighbors were suspicious of them. Sidney Rigdon, Joseph's right hand man, did not get along with Edward Partridge, the leader of the Missouri Saints. His own finances were a wreck; though he promised her a home, for years he and Emma drifted from bedroom to bedroom in the homes of their followers, or to the attic above Newel Whitney's general store. They had children, who died. For much of 1832, Joseph was frustrated, he lashed out at followers who questioned him and complained about the weaknesses of those who failed their tasks. He lost some, like Ezra Booth, who left the Church rather than deal with Joseph's temper.
But slowly, in Kirtland at least, a Zion rose, as Joseph found its center: a temple, and a community to build it. He longed to be loved, despite his temper, and the School of the Prophets was more successful as a bonding ritual than as an educative facility. The Mormons there did not gain much actual knowledge, but they became a community within its walls. They spoke in tongues, and translated, and washed each others feet. And the Kirtland temple rose.
This was a renaissance period; a brief spring. For in Missouri in 1833, tensions Mormons and the natives reached a boiling point. The Saints were driven from Zion, from Independence north into Clay County. And when Joseph turned to the Lord, there were no revelations. Joseph was confused, and distraught, and murmured against God that year. By December, he finally came down the stairs and told Oliver and Sidney, "Good morning, brethren. We have just received news from heaven." Even then, in a wash of relief, Joseph spoke in the plural. His ultimate confidence remained. He directed a new settlement in Missouri, selected two men in their forties (Rigdon and Frederick Williams; Oliver was assistant president) to be his counselors, and turned his attention again to temple building. He gained some relief in 1833. He was twenty seven years old.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
First RRR Meeting: Inoculation Theory and Cognitive Dissonance
So, it's only taken me a week to get around to posting something about our first Rough Stone Rolling meeting, but I wanted to put something up for those who couldn't attend and possibly get some virtual conversation going.
Since the details are all starting to get a little fuzzy, I'll just quickly mention two topics we spent some good time on (both of which were actually somewhat tangential to the reading, but made decent material for an introductory meeting on this book):
1) Inoculation theory. Should Latter-day Saints be exposed to a less sanitized version of church history so that when they encounter it, it doesn't "shake their foundations"? There are some good posts about this at various Mormon blogs; I suspect Matt could point us towards the most worthy.
**Update 6/18: I was right; Matt did have some good suggestions on this topic:
"Here's an interesting inoculation conversation with reference to the Mormons documentary, at probably the biggest deal Mormon blog out there. Here is one I wrote, speculating that in fact Mormon apologetics is forcing changes in Mormon theology. And here's a nice bullet point type discussion."
2) Dealing with cognitive dissonance. How do you personally do this, especially with regard to church history and doctrine?
Please feel free to follow up on these questions in the comments section of this post, and to post your own observations or pose questions to the group via new posts.
And keep reading! Schedule is at the bottom of this post and in the sidebar.
Since the details are all starting to get a little fuzzy, I'll just quickly mention two topics we spent some good time on (both of which were actually somewhat tangential to the reading, but made decent material for an introductory meeting on this book):
1) Inoculation theory. Should Latter-day Saints be exposed to a less sanitized version of church history so that when they encounter it, it doesn't "shake their foundations"? There are some good posts about this at various Mormon blogs; I suspect Matt could point us towards the most worthy.
**Update 6/18: I was right; Matt did have some good suggestions on this topic:
"Here's an interesting inoculation conversation with reference to the Mormons documentary, at probably the biggest deal Mormon blog out there. Here is one I wrote, speculating that in fact Mormon apologetics is forcing changes in Mormon theology. And here's a nice bullet point type discussion."
2) Dealing with cognitive dissonance. How do you personally do this, especially with regard to church history and doctrine?
Please feel free to follow up on these questions in the comments section of this post, and to post your own observations or pose questions to the group via new posts.
And keep reading! Schedule is at the bottom of this post and in the sidebar.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Rough Stone Rolling II: beginnings
The sociologist Peter Berger has posited that human beings are born incomplete. To function in the world, to gain the things we need, we must participate in the creation of a social reality: a set of relationships, of explanations, of norms, of, more than anything else, meanings. These things give us the tools with which to interact with each other and to justify our ways of living. The notion that when we are ten years old certain people who are older than we are have the right to make us sit at a desk and spell for hours on end, for example, is a construct that exists entirely within our heads, and yet we accept it as 'real,' because it and the state, and the family, and driver's licenses, and US Weekly hold the chaos at bay. They give us categories and expectations and ScanTron forms and other things that help us feel like we have some modicum of control and understanding over the ludicrousness of the world.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Rough Stone Rolling I: introduction and schedule
Start with the title.
Already we are in a country foreign to the well-groomed, serene Joseph of Legacy or the Work and the Glory. This Joseph is impetuous, unpolished, brilliant, quick-tempered and sometimes proud. He is vigorous, combative, trembling with a weird and powerful vision. He thrives and grows through conflict; his existence is defined by struggle; he laughs into hell and loves doing it. He is not safe. And his world is not the one he lives in.
As the scholar Walter van der Beek has written of Joseph, "He could not live without the word of God, and could barely live with it."
Rough Stone Rolling, then, is in its own way as romantic a story as is another biography titled with Joseph's own words. No Man Knows My History did Joseph a perhaps backhanded favor; it rescued him from historians who had for decades dismissed him as a shallow but charismatic frontman for Sidney Rigdon by firmly advocating for his almost artistic religious genius. Fawn Brodie loved Joseph, though she did not believe him a prophet. Richard Bushman loves him too, and does believe. But in the end, he agrees with Brodie's title - we cannot fully know Joseph Smith.
But Bushman tries. He gets into Joseph's mind, as much as the prophet allows us to, which isn't as deep as we long for. The book, though, is driven more than anything by what Joseph dreamed of, what he hoped for, what spiritual hungers panged him. How did Joseph's personality, Bushman asks, shape his work?
He does not skimp on the controversies - treasure digging, Masonry, polygamy are all here - but it's that question, I think, which could be the most challenging to faith. For Bushman, Joseph the prophet is not merely a mouthpiece for God, serenely confident in every situation. His personality drives his questions for God, his self-conception of his role as prophet, his religious imagination as he laid out his new faith. This is Joseph Smith's church as much as it may be God's.
His life can be sectioned into fourths: his calling, and only gradual sense of his prophetic role, which culminates in the organization of the Church; his early triumphs and creation of a people, culminating in the Kirtland Temple Pentecost; his failures and overreaching, which lead to the collapse of Kirtland and the shadowed valley of Liberty Jail; and finally, rebirth and recreation, the weird genius of Nauvoo.
Organizing the book by this schema looks like this:
The preface and prologue through the end of chapter 5, "The Church of Christ." xix-127.
"Joseph, Moses, and Enoch" through the end of chapter 17, "The Order of Heaven," 127-322.
"Reverses" through "Washington," 322-403.
"Beautiful Place," through "Epilogue," 403-563.
I propose we split that long middle section into two: "Joseph, Moses, and Enoch" through "Cities of Zion," 127-231; "The Character of a Prophet" through "The Order of Heaven," 231-322.
Here's a schedule, then:
By June 11: The preface and prologue through the end of chapter 5, "The Church of Christ." xix-127.
By June 25: "Joseph, Moses, and Enoch" through "Cities of Zion," 127-231
By July 9: "The Character of a Prophet" through "The Order of Heaven," 231-322.
By July 23: "Reverses" through "Washington," 322-403.
By August 13 (I'll be returning the weekend before this, and it's a bit longer section): "Beautiful Place," through "Epilogue," 403-563.
How does that sound?
I am like a huge, rough stone rolling down from a high mountain; and the only polishing I get is when some corner gets rubbed off by coming in contact with something else, striking with accelerated force against religious bigotry, priestcraft, lawyer-craft, doctor-craft, lying editors, suborned judges and jurors, and the authority of perjured executives, backed by mobs, blasphemers, licentious and corrupt men and women--all hell knocking off a corner here and a corner there. Thus I will become a smooth and polished shaft in the quiver of the Almighty, who will give me dominion over all and every one of them, when their refuge of lies shall fail, and their hiding place shall be destroyed, while these smooth-polished stones with which I come in contact become marred. (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 304)
Already we are in a country foreign to the well-groomed, serene Joseph of Legacy or the Work and the Glory. This Joseph is impetuous, unpolished, brilliant, quick-tempered and sometimes proud. He is vigorous, combative, trembling with a weird and powerful vision. He thrives and grows through conflict; his existence is defined by struggle; he laughs into hell and loves doing it. He is not safe. And his world is not the one he lives in.
As the scholar Walter van der Beek has written of Joseph, "He could not live without the word of God, and could barely live with it."
Rough Stone Rolling, then, is in its own way as romantic a story as is another biography titled with Joseph's own words. No Man Knows My History did Joseph a perhaps backhanded favor; it rescued him from historians who had for decades dismissed him as a shallow but charismatic frontman for Sidney Rigdon by firmly advocating for his almost artistic religious genius. Fawn Brodie loved Joseph, though she did not believe him a prophet. Richard Bushman loves him too, and does believe. But in the end, he agrees with Brodie's title - we cannot fully know Joseph Smith.
But Bushman tries. He gets into Joseph's mind, as much as the prophet allows us to, which isn't as deep as we long for. The book, though, is driven more than anything by what Joseph dreamed of, what he hoped for, what spiritual hungers panged him. How did Joseph's personality, Bushman asks, shape his work?
He does not skimp on the controversies - treasure digging, Masonry, polygamy are all here - but it's that question, I think, which could be the most challenging to faith. For Bushman, Joseph the prophet is not merely a mouthpiece for God, serenely confident in every situation. His personality drives his questions for God, his self-conception of his role as prophet, his religious imagination as he laid out his new faith. This is Joseph Smith's church as much as it may be God's.
His life can be sectioned into fourths: his calling, and only gradual sense of his prophetic role, which culminates in the organization of the Church; his early triumphs and creation of a people, culminating in the Kirtland Temple Pentecost; his failures and overreaching, which lead to the collapse of Kirtland and the shadowed valley of Liberty Jail; and finally, rebirth and recreation, the weird genius of Nauvoo.
Organizing the book by this schema looks like this:
The preface and prologue through the end of chapter 5, "The Church of Christ." xix-127.
"Joseph, Moses, and Enoch" through the end of chapter 17, "The Order of Heaven," 127-322.
"Reverses" through "Washington," 322-403.
"Beautiful Place," through "Epilogue," 403-563.
I propose we split that long middle section into two: "Joseph, Moses, and Enoch" through "Cities of Zion," 127-231; "The Character of a Prophet" through "The Order of Heaven," 231-322.
Here's a schedule, then:
By June 11: The preface and prologue through the end of chapter 5, "The Church of Christ." xix-127.
By June 25: "Joseph, Moses, and Enoch" through "Cities of Zion," 127-231
By July 9: "The Character of a Prophet" through "The Order of Heaven," 231-322.
By July 23: "Reverses" through "Washington," 322-403.
By August 13 (I'll be returning the weekend before this, and it's a bit longer section): "Beautiful Place," through "Epilogue," 403-563.
How does that sound?
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Quick things on Tolstoy
So perhaps a few quick things for everyone to ponder before meeting on weds.
1.) Why the Broncos can not beat the Raiders and why the BCS is so messed up this year.
2.) For the individual, what do things like turn the other cheek and blessing them that curse you mean?
3.) In focusing on the Sermon on the Mount, was the sermon meant for individual or collective obedience? Does the state have a moral responsibility to turn the other cheek even if a majority of its subjects do not believe it should?
4.) Has the Sermon on the Mount been neglected in the pursuit of other doctrinal, ceremonial and organizational issues in Christianity? Has it been neglected because of its seeming inpracticality in a world where things are not black and white and we live ina grey area where the greater good seems to dictate action? Does God really expect us to live the Sermon on the Mount in a grey world such as our own?
See you on wednesday.
1.) Why the Broncos can not beat the Raiders and why the BCS is so messed up this year.
2.) For the individual, what do things like turn the other cheek and blessing them that curse you mean?
3.) In focusing on the Sermon on the Mount, was the sermon meant for individual or collective obedience? Does the state have a moral responsibility to turn the other cheek even if a majority of its subjects do not believe it should?
4.) Has the Sermon on the Mount been neglected in the pursuit of other doctrinal, ceremonial and organizational issues in Christianity? Has it been neglected because of its seeming inpracticality in a world where things are not black and white and we live ina grey area where the greater good seems to dictate action? Does God really expect us to live the Sermon on the Mount in a grey world such as our own?
See you on wednesday.
Saturday, December 1, 2007
The Unforgiven
So a friend and I were talking tonight about the idea of unforgiveable sins in Christianity. According to conventional Christianity there are certain sins that can not be forgiven whic begs the questions, does the atonement of Christ not cover these sins? So if the atonement does not cover these sins, then is it because Christ was not capable to pay the price for these sins? Or if the atonment does cover these sins is it a matter of choice of whether or not the atonement will be applied to these sins.
Of course murder is one of the "unforgiveable" sins, but one only needs look so far as Paul, or Saul, to see a person who took part in the killing of innocents. Whether or not Paul comitted murder is a sound discusion, but does it point to a contradiction between what we take to be unforgiveable, and the sins of one whose writings we take as scripture?
Of course murder is one of the "unforgiveable" sins, but one only needs look so far as Paul, or Saul, to see a person who took part in the killing of innocents. Whether or not Paul comitted murder is a sound discusion, but does it point to a contradiction between what we take to be unforgiveable, and the sins of one whose writings we take as scripture?
Friday, November 23, 2007
Pres. Hinckley on Empire, War and Peace
So I just read Pres. Hinckley's talk on War and Peace at the 2003 General Conference. The link to it is here:
http://www.lds.org/conference/talk/display/0,5232,23-1-353-27,00.html
Given we are reading Tolstoy's thoughts on violence I wanted to perhaps make a few comments on Pres. Hinckley's speech.
In his speech Pres. Hinckley noted the need to defend freedom and the atrocities that are synonomus with empire, noting the horrors of the Ottmans, Romans and British. We are foolish to think the American Empire is atrocity free. The question is whether the benefits of empire (rights and freedoms) outweigh the moral costs (which inevitably is bloodshed on a genocidal level as there is no way to build an empire without committing atrocity on a previously unkown level given that the methods of killing have become ever more sophisticated). So it is a question of utilitarianism, are empires justifiable because they create the greatest good for the greatest number?
Second point in Pres. Hinckley's speech of which I must quote him:
"One of our Articles of Faith, which represent an expression of our doctrine, states, “We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law” (Articles of Faith 1:12).
But modern revelation states that we are to “renounce war and proclaim peace” (D&C 98:16).
In a democracy we can renounce war and proclaim peace. There is opportunity for dissent. Many have been speaking out and doing so emphatically. That is their privilege. That is their right, so long as they do so legally."
For me the immediate question becomes the correlation between legality and morality? We all know there are unjust laws (one on need read Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" to best understand this, The letter can be found here http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html) Our own Declaration of Indpendence notes the existence of unjust laws and our own revolution was treason made just by might making right, or that what is just is defined by the victor on the battlefield.
The debate between duty to God and duty to country is an old question. When is it just to violate a man made law? Was Gandhi just in marching to the sea to make salt? Is Cindy Sheehan just to protest outside to Whitehouse without a permit? Are the officers of the state who arrested Gandhi and Cindy Sheehan (in no way am I drawing a moral linkage or comparison between Gandhi and Sheehan) just in carrying out their orders?
Here comes a difficult one. Jesus of Nazereth was executed by the state. Of course there were numerous legal shortcomings in the process by which he was tried and executed, but no more than the processes by which numerous citizens find themselves under in our own country where we pride ourselves on due process of law. Under the law of the land, Jesus was a criminal and was dealt a punishment. Were the laws Jesus broke or the guards who nailed him to the cross just?
http://www.lds.org/conference/talk/display/0,5232,23-1-353-27,00.html
Given we are reading Tolstoy's thoughts on violence I wanted to perhaps make a few comments on Pres. Hinckley's speech.
In his speech Pres. Hinckley noted the need to defend freedom and the atrocities that are synonomus with empire, noting the horrors of the Ottmans, Romans and British. We are foolish to think the American Empire is atrocity free. The question is whether the benefits of empire (rights and freedoms) outweigh the moral costs (which inevitably is bloodshed on a genocidal level as there is no way to build an empire without committing atrocity on a previously unkown level given that the methods of killing have become ever more sophisticated). So it is a question of utilitarianism, are empires justifiable because they create the greatest good for the greatest number?
Second point in Pres. Hinckley's speech of which I must quote him:
"One of our Articles of Faith, which represent an expression of our doctrine, states, “We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law” (Articles of Faith 1:12).
But modern revelation states that we are to “renounce war and proclaim peace” (D&C 98:16).
In a democracy we can renounce war and proclaim peace. There is opportunity for dissent. Many have been speaking out and doing so emphatically. That is their privilege. That is their right, so long as they do so legally."
For me the immediate question becomes the correlation between legality and morality? We all know there are unjust laws (one on need read Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" to best understand this, The letter can be found here http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html) Our own Declaration of Indpendence notes the existence of unjust laws and our own revolution was treason made just by might making right, or that what is just is defined by the victor on the battlefield.
The debate between duty to God and duty to country is an old question. When is it just to violate a man made law? Was Gandhi just in marching to the sea to make salt? Is Cindy Sheehan just to protest outside to Whitehouse without a permit? Are the officers of the state who arrested Gandhi and Cindy Sheehan (in no way am I drawing a moral linkage or comparison between Gandhi and Sheehan) just in carrying out their orders?
Here comes a difficult one. Jesus of Nazereth was executed by the state. Of course there were numerous legal shortcomings in the process by which he was tried and executed, but no more than the processes by which numerous citizens find themselves under in our own country where we pride ourselves on due process of law. Under the law of the land, Jesus was a criminal and was dealt a punishment. Were the laws Jesus broke or the guards who nailed him to the cross just?
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Doctrine and Practice
Happy Festivus everyone!
Tolstoy is obviously a Christian and has derives his doctrine of good works from his Christian theology. But does Tolstoy ever show how a Christine doctrine ever prevent a good work? Is it possible or just for a religious belief or doctrine to prevent a follower from doing a good work? If it is possible should the doctrine change or the good work left un-done?
An example would be some Orthodox Jewish doctrines that forbid driving on the Sabbath and the hypothetical need for a vehicle transport of humanitarian supplies. Or, as has been in the papers recently, various Muslim communities forbid single women to associate alone with other men. Of course we can all come up with just acts that a man and woman can undertake together. Do people sometimes hold to a belief as a show of faith when it voids opportunities for good works? What correspondence does this have to many of the pharisees and others who Jesus showed to be living a life lived strictly in observance of the old law while Jesus associated with prostitutes and others since those who are sick are the ones in need of a doctor. Or the famous question posed to Jsus about whether it was within the law (or whether it is just) to heal on the sabbath as Jesus responded witht he question of who would let a sheep suffer in a hole it fell into on the sabbath.
Of course doctrines are open to interpretation but doctrines do lend themselves to a certain type of practice. But if we take doctrine and practice ina zero sum game, which is more important when all is said and done? If we could choose only one, which takes priority? Obviously Tolstoy would choose practice and even though a zero sum game does not exist between doctrine and practice, perhaps it is helpful to create a hypothetical where it does. In asking which we would choose if we coudl have only one, perhaps it would give us some guidance in which, doctrine or practice, should have more priority in our daily lives?
Just some random thoughts.
Tolstoy is obviously a Christian and has derives his doctrine of good works from his Christian theology. But does Tolstoy ever show how a Christine doctrine ever prevent a good work? Is it possible or just for a religious belief or doctrine to prevent a follower from doing a good work? If it is possible should the doctrine change or the good work left un-done?
An example would be some Orthodox Jewish doctrines that forbid driving on the Sabbath and the hypothetical need for a vehicle transport of humanitarian supplies. Or, as has been in the papers recently, various Muslim communities forbid single women to associate alone with other men. Of course we can all come up with just acts that a man and woman can undertake together. Do people sometimes hold to a belief as a show of faith when it voids opportunities for good works? What correspondence does this have to many of the pharisees and others who Jesus showed to be living a life lived strictly in observance of the old law while Jesus associated with prostitutes and others since those who are sick are the ones in need of a doctor. Or the famous question posed to Jsus about whether it was within the law (or whether it is just) to heal on the sabbath as Jesus responded witht he question of who would let a sheep suffer in a hole it fell into on the sabbath.
Of course doctrines are open to interpretation but doctrines do lend themselves to a certain type of practice. But if we take doctrine and practice ina zero sum game, which is more important when all is said and done? If we could choose only one, which takes priority? Obviously Tolstoy would choose practice and even though a zero sum game does not exist between doctrine and practice, perhaps it is helpful to create a hypothetical where it does. In asking which we would choose if we coudl have only one, perhaps it would give us some guidance in which, doctrine or practice, should have more priority in our daily lives?
Just some random thoughts.
Friday, November 9, 2007
Tolstoy and a Simplistic Christianity
First off, great discussion the other night. The size and make up of the group is great. Everyone ad great comments and thanks to Allison for hosting and thansk to everyone who brought the eats, my belly thanks you.
Now on to Tolstoy.
I hope none of you mind but Tolstoy was my suggestion and I as hoping to give a little background on why I picked the book. It gets a little or very repetitive bu the general idea of it is a much needed lesson in todays, and tomorrow's, moral philosophy.
As we briefly talked about in the last meeting, Tolstoy puts forward a very simple idea in his book, namely that Christ told us to love our enemies, bless them that curse us, turn the other cheek, and that if a man takes you to law for your coat, give him your cloak as well. The question we are left is why don't we?
For me it is extremely refreshing and embarassing to think about this as we seem to spend alot of our time talking doctrine, religious organization, etc., and very little time on these simple truths that came straight from the Master himself, and are widely considered to be the apex of his commandments.
It is the simplest of things yet it is the most abused and in many ways, always have been. I would argue that the primary reason these commandments are largely ignored is that people feel the complexity and lack of universal morality in this world gives ample reason to ignore these high commandments. The argument that "if I give my neighbor my cloak in addition to my coat then my neighbor will be toasty warm, since my neighbor not only took me to law but makes a of living out of doing it to everyone, and I will be left naked in the cold".
It is precisely this argument that serves as a great way to introduce to kind of heritage that Tolstoy inherited and passed on. The idea of non-violence is the heritage and was built on by each predeccesor and gave us the like of Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. Both of whom gave their unjust neighbor their coat and cloak but made the neighbor watch them shiver naked in the cold as they sat in the plush surroundings with their ill gotten coats piled high.
In the mid ninteenth century New England saw the abolitionist movement fall under the leadership of William Lloyd Garrision. I must admit that I do not know Garrison philosphy as well as i do Tolsoy, Gandhi and King but Garrison was a man ahead of his time when he came to race and gender equality. However Garrison was no pacifist, he cheered on John Brown and sought the coming of the Civil War to purge the U.S. of the sin of slavery in blood, and perhaps even to perpetuate the second comming of Christ.
Tolstoy began a correspondence with Garrison's son as Tolstoy was goign through a deep depression and questioning of the fundamental doctrines of what he saw as a Christianity that had lost its way in ceremony, riches and pomp. Religion had become a tool of Kings rather than salvation for the masses. But beyond that Tolstoy developed a philosphy of non-violence that was to be see its culmination in the next generation to receive this heritage.
In my mind, Gandhi stands next to Christ in finding a way to communicate to the very essence of humanity, in developing a dialogue with the souls of men and defining all that it is to be human. Gandhi took the principle of non-violence and made humanity confront its own ugliness. He took the coomandent to turn the other cheek literally.
Of course America was the home of the latest holder of this legacy in Martin Luther King Jr. I would really suggest reading Louis Fischer's book on Gandhi along with Tolstoy, Gandhi took Tolstoy's philosophy and built upon witha philosophy of his own and then lived it to it's fullest. Fischer wrote a nice little 150 page book that talks about both.
A couple of questions I think about when reading Tolstoy:
If we want to look at Tolstoy through the lense of political philosophy, we must ask ourselves wether it is just for states as a collective enterprise to live the sermon on the mount? Of course an individual can fully live the sermon on th mount and Christ and Gandhi did, but lets say Gandhi is elected or appoint head of the Indian government, is it just for Gandhi to have his personal views to become the law of the land? We saw Thoreau go to prison in refusal to pay taxes which he thought woudl go to a unjust war (ironicalliy the Mexican-American war or Polkes War which Lincon considered to be unjust and in which the Mormon Battalion was created for).
It is a a long philosophical debate that has gone for centuries on whether the morality that rules an individual should rule a state. Every religious tradition has its history of being persecuted at the hands of state that imposed its own mode of morality. But is it an imposition to not retaliate for a 9-11? If we are going to talk about pragmatic Christianity this question seems extremely relevent as 9-11 has galvanized a militancy and at the very least, a passive attitude by the population towards the military actions of its own government.
So again the question, would it be immoral for for a democratic govt. not to respond to a 9-11 attack when a majority of its population wants it to? Would responding to a 9-11 attack violate the sermon on the mount?
Now on to Tolstoy.
I hope none of you mind but Tolstoy was my suggestion and I as hoping to give a little background on why I picked the book. It gets a little or very repetitive bu the general idea of it is a much needed lesson in todays, and tomorrow's, moral philosophy.
As we briefly talked about in the last meeting, Tolstoy puts forward a very simple idea in his book, namely that Christ told us to love our enemies, bless them that curse us, turn the other cheek, and that if a man takes you to law for your coat, give him your cloak as well. The question we are left is why don't we?
For me it is extremely refreshing and embarassing to think about this as we seem to spend alot of our time talking doctrine, religious organization, etc., and very little time on these simple truths that came straight from the Master himself, and are widely considered to be the apex of his commandments.
It is the simplest of things yet it is the most abused and in many ways, always have been. I would argue that the primary reason these commandments are largely ignored is that people feel the complexity and lack of universal morality in this world gives ample reason to ignore these high commandments. The argument that "if I give my neighbor my cloak in addition to my coat then my neighbor will be toasty warm, since my neighbor not only took me to law but makes a of living out of doing it to everyone, and I will be left naked in the cold".
It is precisely this argument that serves as a great way to introduce to kind of heritage that Tolstoy inherited and passed on. The idea of non-violence is the heritage and was built on by each predeccesor and gave us the like of Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. Both of whom gave their unjust neighbor their coat and cloak but made the neighbor watch them shiver naked in the cold as they sat in the plush surroundings with their ill gotten coats piled high.
In the mid ninteenth century New England saw the abolitionist movement fall under the leadership of William Lloyd Garrision. I must admit that I do not know Garrison philosphy as well as i do Tolsoy, Gandhi and King but Garrison was a man ahead of his time when he came to race and gender equality. However Garrison was no pacifist, he cheered on John Brown and sought the coming of the Civil War to purge the U.S. of the sin of slavery in blood, and perhaps even to perpetuate the second comming of Christ.
Tolstoy began a correspondence with Garrison's son as Tolstoy was goign through a deep depression and questioning of the fundamental doctrines of what he saw as a Christianity that had lost its way in ceremony, riches and pomp. Religion had become a tool of Kings rather than salvation for the masses. But beyond that Tolstoy developed a philosphy of non-violence that was to be see its culmination in the next generation to receive this heritage.
In my mind, Gandhi stands next to Christ in finding a way to communicate to the very essence of humanity, in developing a dialogue with the souls of men and defining all that it is to be human. Gandhi took the principle of non-violence and made humanity confront its own ugliness. He took the coomandent to turn the other cheek literally.
Of course America was the home of the latest holder of this legacy in Martin Luther King Jr. I would really suggest reading Louis Fischer's book on Gandhi along with Tolstoy, Gandhi took Tolstoy's philosophy and built upon witha philosophy of his own and then lived it to it's fullest. Fischer wrote a nice little 150 page book that talks about both.
A couple of questions I think about when reading Tolstoy:
If we want to look at Tolstoy through the lense of political philosophy, we must ask ourselves wether it is just for states as a collective enterprise to live the sermon on the mount? Of course an individual can fully live the sermon on th mount and Christ and Gandhi did, but lets say Gandhi is elected or appoint head of the Indian government, is it just for Gandhi to have his personal views to become the law of the land? We saw Thoreau go to prison in refusal to pay taxes which he thought woudl go to a unjust war (ironicalliy the Mexican-American war or Polkes War which Lincon considered to be unjust and in which the Mormon Battalion was created for).
It is a a long philosophical debate that has gone for centuries on whether the morality that rules an individual should rule a state. Every religious tradition has its history of being persecuted at the hands of state that imposed its own mode of morality. But is it an imposition to not retaliate for a 9-11? If we are going to talk about pragmatic Christianity this question seems extremely relevent as 9-11 has galvanized a militancy and at the very least, a passive attitude by the population towards the military actions of its own government.
So again the question, would it be immoral for for a democratic govt. not to respond to a 9-11 attack when a majority of its population wants it to? Would responding to a 9-11 attack violate the sermon on the mount?
Sunday, October 28, 2007
On Power
So the Rockies lost the World Series and I blame all of you for not praying hard enough. I expect a cake from each of you in penence.
I was listening to Guerilla Radio today, if you get the chance they do a podcast that is alot of fun, and I started thinking about the power of God.
So we know that evil things happen, hence God allows them to happen or does not have the capability to stop them from happening. Simply put, this is an old debate, does God have the capability to stop bad things from happening?
It seems to me that many beleive that God intervenes to keep bad things from happening at times and to make good things happen. Now if you beleive this then the next question should be why God always some bad things to happen and not others.
So if God does have the capability to stop all bad things from happening, as we believe God to be all powerful, then the bad things that do happen either happen because they have a role in the design of God, or God just did not stop them from happening which might be a wrong in and of itself hence God would cease to be God. So should we focus afresh on the bad things that happen in this world and what role they might have in the design of God?
Now what if God does not have the ability to stop all bad things from happening? Does this contravene the idea of God being all powerful?
THe Euthphro question asks whether Right is Right because God says it is Right or whether God says it is Right because it is already Right? So does God make what is right or does God follow what is right? If God creates what is right God is truly all powerful, if God follows some kind of higher law God's status as an all-powerful being needs much closer examination.
But if God does have to follow a higher law then the bad things that are allowed to happen are outside God's capability to alter. I say it is outside of God's capability because if God follows a higher law then God, while having a choice to follow the law or not, cannot break that law and remain God.
So the question is, if God has to follow a higher law, and stopping some bad things from happening is outside God's capability, because stopping those bad things would violate the higher law, then is God really all powerful? Do we need to redefine all powerful since we can only think of power in the temporal terms of our mortal experience?
Would love to hear your guy's comments on this. Thanks and you all keep rockin.
I was listening to Guerilla Radio today, if you get the chance they do a podcast that is alot of fun, and I started thinking about the power of God.
So we know that evil things happen, hence God allows them to happen or does not have the capability to stop them from happening. Simply put, this is an old debate, does God have the capability to stop bad things from happening?
It seems to me that many beleive that God intervenes to keep bad things from happening at times and to make good things happen. Now if you beleive this then the next question should be why God always some bad things to happen and not others.
So if God does have the capability to stop all bad things from happening, as we believe God to be all powerful, then the bad things that do happen either happen because they have a role in the design of God, or God just did not stop them from happening which might be a wrong in and of itself hence God would cease to be God. So should we focus afresh on the bad things that happen in this world and what role they might have in the design of God?
Now what if God does not have the ability to stop all bad things from happening? Does this contravene the idea of God being all powerful?
THe Euthphro question asks whether Right is Right because God says it is Right or whether God says it is Right because it is already Right? So does God make what is right or does God follow what is right? If God creates what is right God is truly all powerful, if God follows some kind of higher law God's status as an all-powerful being needs much closer examination.
But if God does have to follow a higher law then the bad things that are allowed to happen are outside God's capability to alter. I say it is outside of God's capability because if God follows a higher law then God, while having a choice to follow the law or not, cannot break that law and remain God.
So the question is, if God has to follow a higher law, and stopping some bad things from happening is outside God's capability, because stopping those bad things would violate the higher law, then is God really all powerful? Do we need to redefine all powerful since we can only think of power in the temporal terms of our mortal experience?
Would love to hear your guy's comments on this. Thanks and you all keep rockin.
Friday, October 26, 2007
Hallowe'en
Hey, folks - if you're still looking for something to do Halloween night, some folks from Langley and I are putting together a trip to the Arlington Cinema and Drafthouse to see the greatest movie ever made. I speak, of course, of the 2004 British masterpiece Shaun of the Dead, which both perfects and transcends the honorable timetested genres of romantic comedy and apocalyptic zombie thriller, while seemlessly intertwining the both into something that is, gloriously, more then the parts.
Drop me a line or comment here if you'd like to join the crowd.
Drop me a line or comment here if you'd like to join the crowd.
Monday, October 22, 2007
The Ten Commandments
Something I was thinking about today and wanted to pose to the group.
Every few years there is a national debate about the place of the Ten Commandments in U.S. government building or state houses. For example various federal or state judges have gone to court over the placing of copies of the Ten Commandments in the court in which they preside.
My question is why the Ten Commandments, as it is no longer applicable and had been fulfilled and why not the admonition of Christ when he said that "Whoever sues (takes you to law) for your coat, give him your cloak also"?
Every few years there is a national debate about the place of the Ten Commandments in U.S. government building or state houses. For example various federal or state judges have gone to court over the placing of copies of the Ten Commandments in the court in which they preside.
My question is why the Ten Commandments, as it is no longer applicable and had been fulfilled and why not the admonition of Christ when he said that "Whoever sues (takes you to law) for your coat, give him your cloak also"?
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