Q&A With A Mormon Apostle

This Sunday my congregation had the opportunity to rub shoulders with one of the top 15 from the LDS church leadership. As part of our 3-hour tour, he conducted a question and answer session which was worth mentioning. If I had been feeling particularly bold or antagonistic, I can think of a lot of questions I could have asked that may not have gone over very well. But those around me asked questions that were meaningful nonetheless. One brother asked what we should do when our friends voice concerns about Joseph Smith. The wife answered that she couldn’t understand how anybody could be concerned about Joseph Smith, especially with the renovations to the church history museum in Salt Lake City and the fact that Joseph Smith was such a great guy. The apostle himself was more sensible regarding the issue. While he admitted there were screwy things in church history, he considers that Joseph Smith revealed so much truth, so many original ideas that he had to be a prophet. Oh yeah, and there’s no way he could write the Book of Mormon since he couldn’t even write a coherent sentence when he started his journal. His answer, I fear, obfuscates the unfortunate facts surrounding the issue and merits further analysis.

Did Joseph Smith reveal new ideas? My analysis indicates that he did not. Believers refer to Joseph Smith’s teachings regarding the hereafter as the favorite example that Joseph Smith revealed new truths to the world. This would be true except that Emanuel Swedenborg came up with Joseph Smith’s theology many years before Joseph was even born. What’s more, Joseph’s local library had Swedenborg’s book and Joseph could have bought it since it was advertised in his area for the low price of ~$0.37. As for the task of writing an entire book of scripture, nobody is claiming that Joseph Smith sat down and wrote the entire Book of Mormon. When you consider Joseph’s journals (which I have read in their entirety), Joseph typically employed a scribe. He did the same thing with the Book of Mormon. Not only did Joseph chew on the characters and environment of the Book of Mormon for years before the purported translation (Joseph told his family what the ancient peoples of America were like even before any translation was said to have taken place) but the Book of Mormon is not an original book- it is best classified as biblical fan fiction drawing upon other sources that I have mentioned previously. So what is remarkable about Joseph Smith? His persistence, his vision and his charisma will always merit our study and attention. In the same way, the Mormon apostle who visited our congregation today had vision, commitment, charisma and vision. He may very well end up being the prophet of the church within the next twenty years. If that is the case, then Mormons can take comfort in the dedication and leadership available to them. As for me, the closest I come to finding comfort is discovering the truth.

One the one hand, I envy and admire the devotion and authenticity of my church leaders. Both the apostle I heard today and my bishop are great men who love those they serve and truly believe the Mormon gospel 100%. I was once just like them. But I can’t make the evidence fit a foregone conclusion and I can’t extract any other conclusion than the one I have arrived at: that Mormonism is just like every other religion in the sense that it is a belief system made by men trying to find comfort and peace in this life so that they can navigate their passage into the next. I often wish that I could change the facts so that Mormonism were true for me. So maybe if there was serious archaeology supporting the Book of Mormon I could believe it was true. If the Book of Mormon didn’t carry the stench of nineteenth century plagiarism maybe I could believe it came forth through the gift of God through Joseph Smith. If ol’ Joe hadn’t married all those wives and tried to cover it up, maybe I could believe that God really wanted him to bring polygamy back from the dead. If Joseph could have kept his first vision story straight maybe I could believe in it as I once did. If the current church leaders showed the fruits of their purported apostolic mantle then maybe I could sustain them as prophets and revelators. And if the Mormon temple didn’t walk, talk and shake hands like the Masons then maybe I could believe in that again, too. I know I’ve lost something that I’ll never get back. But I’m still not done mourning that loss. And I still struggle to find meaning outside of Mormonism. The apostle said today that living the gospel is easy and that not living the gospel is hard. He was right. When I believed it was simple for me to pay, pray and obey to the very letter. But living something I know isn’t true is even harder than either of those scenarios and I can’t do it no matter how hard I try.

Religion and Politics: A Dangerous Mixture

The 2016 election for president of the United States always makes me think hard about hard questions. Should the government try to pay for everything for everybody? Or should it operate more like a well-oiled business machine? More importantly, how should a country interact with its neighbors? How do you balance cautious communication with compassionate care? Bringing it back to what I ordinarily write about on my blog, how does religion affect a nation? And should religion play a role in our politics? It’s clear that religion plays a big role in US politics today. Many Americans want the federal government to take a clear stand against religious extremists in the Middle East by combating ISIS in a direct confrontation. Conservatives increasingly worry about religious freedom in a time when political correctness strangles free speech. But before I tackle the effects of religion on society as a whole, the best evaluation I have is the effect of religion on me, myself and I.

If you asked me five years ago, I would tell you that religion makes men moral and that without it, mankind would be lawless and depraved. Before I turned my life over to Jesus over ten years ago, I felt lawless and depraved myself. Only by committing myself to study and follow the precepts of holy scripture was I able to overcome those feelings and achieve a meaningful relationship with God for a decade. Now that I find myself without knowledge of God or his ways, how have I changed? The first and most obvious change is that my politics have become much more liberal. Since I no longer feel like I can rely on God or a church to save the world, I think that government should use their means to create a safety net for the underprivileged and downtrodden. Of course they do a lot of that already, but I support their ongoing efforts to do fine-tune the system without breaking the bank. Additionally, I no longer accept as taboo so many things that Mormonism forbids. But as a person, I haven’t changed so much. Truly, my compassion for the whistleblower and the doubter has magnified beyond measure; and my willingness to hear out any point of view, no matter how different from my own, has far surpassed what I considered “open-mindedness” when I was a teen. Religion has affected me most by creating distrust of any person or organization that claims infallibility or refuses to take responsibility for its mistakes. That’s why I have a problem with religion in general. While these attitudes don’t represent every professor or religion or every sect in the world, these attitudes present often enough that we should be worried about them.

What problems arise when humans beings apply these dangerous attitudes to their daily lives? If you believe that a religious leader communicates directly with a benevolent, omniscient God, then whatever he says or does must be right, no matter what reason may dictate. I’m not opposed to seeking spiritual guidance to make tough choices. But it’s dangerous to let another person tell you what to do without weighing the pros and cons coupled with reason and evidence. Religion separates the wheat from the tares. It groups us into followers and dissenters. Religion is great at polarization. Religion takes advantage of the tribal instincts that linger from how we have evolved, viewing the world simply as “us” and “them”. And yet, some of the greatest heroes of religious freedom were heretics of their own time. But do the Lutherans view their own dissenters as holy men with pure motives to seek truth? Perhaps not. Do Mormons view their own visionaries and doubters as persons of integrity and goodwill? Unfortunately, it may be that in Mormonism you are either a sheep or a wolf. I suppose I’d rather howl at the moon than to be sheared every Sunday even if I don’t have any wool left.

How does religion affect the development of the countries of the world? The most developed and wealthy nations of the world are surprising irreligious. The USA is unique in this regard; here in the land of the free and the home of the brave, we love to carry guns and we love religion. But Sweden, the Netherlands and the UK seem to do just fine and produce responsible, moral people with a decreasing religious presence. Perhaps religion was more important and influential in centuries past, when religion had more to offer than science did. And in some countries, religious dogmatism continues to impede progress, both socially and intellectually.

On the other hand, religion always has and I believe always will provide an important source of support to communities everywhere. Just this week, my wife was injured and I relied on help I received from members of my congregation. They offered this help freely with no thought of reward simply because we are all Mormons who go to church together. At this time in my life, that is a price I will gladly pay to have support and help at the drop of a hat. If all I have to do is show up on Sunday and keep my mouth shut when they preach doublethink and historic revisionism then I can deal with it for a while. But the truth is that I have outgrown most of what Mormonism has to offer and that will only increase. But I will never outgrow the desire to serve my fellow human beings and as long as Mormonism gives me that opportunity I am willing to be a part of it. But I don’t know how many more hours of Sunday meetings I can sit through before I have to open my mouth and at least try to open the minds of my fellow Mormons.

There is no reason to get rid of religion. When applied conservatively (pun intended) it helps men think outside of themselves and render good to all of our brothers and sisters on this planet. When applied excessively, it makes men judgers, false swearers, and promotes loyalty to doctrine and ideology rather than to ethics and morals. So religion probably needs a reboot in order to prevent extremism. But for today I’m just glad that my fellow Mormons helped out a brother in need, even if he is really a wolf in sheep’s clothing. But the truth is that I’m outgrowing Mormonism and I’m not sure how much longer I can endure the preaching and the testimonies and the other things I hear each Sunday.