I'm afraid I've been negligent. I've had three meetings with the Mormons since I last posted about one. This is largely because of a paper I was writing in my academic life, but is also a result of my rampant procrastination.
Despite my generally vague memory, there are some things about the recent meetings that have really stuck in my mind; and I will try to relate those as well as I can, though I warn you that what I still remember is not deeply theological. If that is what you are after, I am sure it will come up in later posts.
Also, I must mention that B— has been with me at two of these meetings (and would have been all of them if I had asked), and has greatly helped the conversation along, especially by adding some inductive questions to my largely deductive approach.
And now on to the report.
First off, there has been a reorganization of the LDS mission areas. As a result, I am no longer meeting with Elder M. and Elder C., who have been transferred to Nova Scotia. Elder C., sadly, had to leave before I could say goodbye – I understand they are often transferred with little notice, as was the case here. Of the three meetings I have referred to, the first was with Elder M. and Elder V.
Elder V. was in Fredericton during the summer, before being replaced by Elder C., and so was an old friend. He had been transferred to Woodstock, but was passing through Fredericton on his way to his own new posting in Nova Scotia, and so he accompanied Elder M. to meet with us.
The second meeting with with the new elders, both from Utah, Elder Mo. and Elder R.
Elder Mo. is an extremely tall guy who seems to have thought about his beliefs quite a bit. He is 18 months into his mission, and seems to genuinely enjoy answering questions about his beliefs. Elder R. is a quiet guy near the end of his mission (they last 2 years), who pipes up occasionally with a solid or helpful comment. Though shy, he is bold to speak what he thinks is important, and I appreciate that.
The third meeting was with Elder Mo. and Elder J., who was visiting from St. Stephen. Elder J. was visiting a different mission area, as missionaries often do, so that they aren't just working with the same person constantly for months on end, and so they can have some experience in different environments and with different partners.
In our last meeting with them, Elders M. and V. told us the stories of how they became Mormons. I had already told them the story of how I became a Christian, so this seemed fair. I was intrigued by Elder V.'s testimony especially, since in some ways it paralleled my own. In particular, he wasn't interested in God for a long time, his older sister became a believer before he did, and he did a fair bit of investigating before his conversion.
Elder M. became a Mormon largely because of a prayer for a relative who had an eye condition that he had been told was incurable. The condition was repaired very rapidly, and Elder M. attributes this to prayer from some members of the LDS. It got him investigating the faith, until he also had a moment when he felt that he knew with certainty that it was true.
Testimonies are one of the key elements of the Mormon experience. Every missionary I've met so far has had at least one particular experience that has confirmed to them the truth of some important aspect of their beliefs. These experiences often, but not always, have included a feeling called by Mormons "the burning in the bosom", that is recognized as a manifestation of the Holy Spirit.
Elder Mo. felt it when, after a long time of questioning whether his beliefs were authentic or not, he read Moroni 7:16. For him, since he grew up in Utah where (according to Wikipedia) between 58 and 72% of the population are Mormon, it was hard to distinguish between responses to social/psychological pressures and true belief. He even admitted to us that he suspects that a great many of the Mormons there only see their religion as a social thing – just like many Christians do. For him, the burning his his chest and accompanying conviction that he felt when reading that passage demonstrated to him unequivocally that the book of Mormon is true, and furthermore that he could know it was true by its "fruits" (cf. Matthew 7:15-20), the good things that came of following it.
I have so say, this "burning in the bosom" thing sounds all too familiar to me. I have for years described the first time I experienced what I identify as God's presence as "feeling like my chest was about to explode," among other things. In fact, the first time any Mormons told me about the "burning in the bosom" was a few years ago when I was meeting with Sister C. and Sister K. (also missionaries), and they asked me about my experience with religion. After I described that part of the story, I remember them looking at each other a little surprised, and then one of them saying something along the lines of, "well, we talk about that sort of thing all the time!" and going on to discuss the experience of Joseph Smith (who also felt it), etc. In the end they decided that I have experience the presence of the Holy Spirit but not its fullness.
To wrap up the testimonies, something a little different from Elder J. His testimony comes from a time when he was confronted by a non-Mormon friend, about whether or not he believed non-Mormons would go to Hell since they were not part of the church. Elder J. reports that he was very unsure how to answer, since he didn't know much of the details of LDS doctrine at that time, but thet he started talking about it and words came to him – reminds me of Mark 13:11. He was more fully convinced later, when he discovered that LDS doctrine was consistent with the answer he had been given.
Elder J. was testifying in response to a question about the afterlife. B—, as he has several times in the past, was complaining to the Mormons that by revealing powerful truths to him now they are – if their beliefs are correct – heaping more condemnation on his head for not accepting the beliefs now when he is most able. (The LDS believe that we will still be able to change our fate after we die, during a time when they believe we will live as spirits, before the final separation into the three heavens and the outer darkness. It's a bit like purgatory, but only a bit. I have been told by some Mormons that it will be more difficult to change our beliefs as spirits.) Elder J. has, as a result of his testimony experience, thought a lot about the afterlife, and what the fate will be of those who are not Mormons in this life, and impressed me in a way that I think emphasizes the dedication of the missionaries to LDS orthodoxy, as well as their honesty.
Elder J. started to talk about some of his ideas about the afterlife, and then hesitated for a moment. He said, "Okay, now this is me speaking," and took off his name tag. He then went on to tell us that, in his opinion, we will all be given ample opportunity in the spirit world to change our ways, since God really does want everyone to reach the highest heaven possible (called the Celestial Kingdom in LDS parlance). It was important to him on one hand to answer B—'s concern as well as he could, and on the other, not to represent his own personal ideas as LDS doctrine. I was similarly impressed before with Elder C., who would stumble very awkwardly over explanations because accuracy was more important to him than elegance, and who would refuse to teach as doctrine anything not scriptural, even beliefs common among LDS members.
That is almost all for this entry, although I do want to mention a bit of flattery given by the LDS missionaries at our last meeting. I hope I do this not just out of pride (no doubt it is one of my motivations, given who I am), but also because I think it is an important commentary on how dialogues between faiths can fruitfully take place.
As Elder Mo. and Elder J. were leaving, Elder Mo. told me that, even though we had only met twice, of all of his meetings in the 18 months of his mission he thinks that these have been the most useful. I said I was glad, and asked why, and he said that it's because nobody there really has a hidden agenda, but that everyone seems to be trying as honestly as possible to find out what is true. Given the nature of the contributions of the missionaries to our conversations, I think that although they certainly do have an agenda – one that they are thankfully very open about – they also are willing to investigate their beliefs with a sizeable dose of intellectual honesty. I think that is why these talks work so well.
Stay tuned for a brief theological discussion relating to my latest talks with the Mormons, and a report of my latest interactions with those other door-knockers, the JW's. Soon it I will be on Christmas break and will have time for a great outpouring of blog posts.
Friday, December 18, 2009
Friday, November 27, 2009
LDS: Ravi and the Godhead
This will be the conclusion of my report of B. and my meeting with the Mormons this past Wednesday. But first, following up from my recent post regarding the Most Improbable Dialogue article, here is the video of Ravi Zacharias' 2004 visit to the Tabernacle.
What struck me most was the following statement by Fuller Seminary president Richard Mouw, who played a significant role in organizing the event:
And now, regarding the Godhead:
Of the differences I have identified to date between LDS and mainstream Christian belief, two stand out as especially important: (1) the legitimacy of the restored priesthood (including the authenticity of the Book of Mormon), and (2) the nature of the Godhead. B. and I had already discussed (1) to some extent, as detailed in my previous post. We thereafter turned to some discussion of (2).
I asked the missionaries if they could reiterate briefly for B., and for my remembrance, some of what they had told me previously about the Godhead. They were quite willing to do so, and put forth the following points:
Our first question was about the unity of the Godhead. The LDS and Christian doctrines have in common that God, Jesus and the Holy Ghost are divided, and unified to some extent, but from point (5) above we see that theirs is a slightly different concept of unity. Elder C. expressed the LDS concept of unity clearly (I think he was quoting but I forget), saying it means that "Whatever circumstances in whatever time, they will all come to the same conclusion."
Both B. and I were surprised about the whole Jehovah = Jesus thing. The Mormons substantiated the belief with verses such as Psalm 3:8, that says, "Salvation belongs to the LORD; your blessings be on your people" (ESV). Since salvation belongs to YHWH, and we know it was Jesus who ultimately saves mankind, the only way this verse (and others like it) makes sense is if YHWH is the same person as Jesus. This requires, by the Mormon understanding that Jesus isn't God, that Jesus still be YHWH and YHWH not be God. (Convoluted, no?) After they brought up and explained this example, I quietly looked up and said, "But you can see why a passage like this would cause absolutely no problem for us and our Trinity thing, right?" They laughed and agreed.
As I suspected above, the JW's have complained about the YHWH = Jesus thing. The Elders told us a few stories about this, and took particular delight in the story of one JW woman who repeatedly criticised the LDS leaders about the YHWY = Jesus belief, and eventually went to Salt Lake City to harangue them about it. One of the Apostles wrote to her and said that if she continued he would speak out publicly and "break" her beliefs. (Elder M. said "crush" her beliefs originally, but Elder. C corrected him to what I think is a more poetic wording anyway.) From what they told us, he did just that. (I may have some details of the story wrong, but the gist of it should be right.) Apparently there is a document detailing the LDS arguments for the YHWH = Jesus belief, written specifically against the beliefs of JW's, called the "Jehovah's Witness Shuffle". I had to ask why it was called that, but the missionaries had no idea.
We went through a few passages regarding the separateness of God and Jesus. I think the most convincing of these to me was the vision of Stephen while he was being stoned (Acts 7:55-56), where he sees God and Jesus in heaven as two separate people. This parallels the experience reported by Joseph Smith, Jr. of seeing God and Jesus as separate beings in Doctrine and Covenants 76:19-24.
By contrast, B. brought us to John 1:1, which is a very clear statement of the unity of God and Jesus given that Jesus is the Logos (translated "the Word"). B., the Mormons and I all believe that "the Word" refers to Jesus, and so the passage seemed clearly to indicate their identity despite the separateness:
It turns out, I don't know what I'm talking about. After examining the Greek and some online searching, it seems that many scholars entirely unconnected with the LDS church support the translation "a God" rather than "God" because of the lacking definite article. The wikipedia article on John 1:1 is well referenced regarding the dispute. I need to look further into the issue, but a-priori I think there is a basis for a translation of John 1:1 that is compatible with the LDS belief, and so we will have to turn to other verses to support the identity in substance of God and Jesus.
That is where we ended our discussion for the evening, with an agreement to meet again at my apartment the following Wednesday.
I have asked the missionaries if we can, at our next meeting, go over the Apostles' Creed, and see where exactly they disagree with Christian orthodoxy. Also, the missionaries left me with a list of scriptures supporting their beliefs in the Godhead that I will read through before next week. It seems to me, right now, that we are engaged in two fruitful discussions about the very differences between our beliefs and theirs, and I look forward to more of the same.
I am kind of thinking that I would like to hang out with the missionaries a little more. We played baseball, did yardwork, and went out to lunch together one day in September, and I think Elder M. in particular enjoyed it greatly. They have plenty of fellowship within their own church, but I think there is great value not only in interfaith dialogue but also in interfaith fellowship, and I will be looking for such opportunities in the future.
Also, FYI, there is an article by the past LDS President Gordon B. Hinkley that details the Mormon conceptions of the Godhead quite well.
What struck me most was the following statement by Fuller Seminary president Richard Mouw, who played a significant role in organizing the event:
"I know that I have learned much in this continuing dialogue, and I am now convinced that we evangelicals have often seriously misrepresented the beliefs and practices of the Mormon community. Indeed, let me state it bluntly to the LDS folks here this evening: we have sinned against you. The God of the Scriptures makes it clear that it is a terrible thing to bear false witness against our neighbors, and we have been guilty of that sort of transgression in things we have said about you. We have told you what you believe without making a sincere effort first of all to ask you what you believe."When we were speaking with the Mormons, the topic of Mormon-evangelical dialogue also came up. B. and my friend J. attends Bethany Bible College, and apparently a Mormon was invited there to explain his beliefs some time ago. The missionaries, after asking some questions about the fellow, thought that they knew him. Asked how he felt about speaking at the Bible College Elder C., who in my mind is often the most forthright of the two, thought for a second and replied, "He said he was pretty scared." I know I would be scared if I were heading to BYU to defend my beliefs.
And now, regarding the Godhead:
Of the differences I have identified to date between LDS and mainstream Christian belief, two stand out as especially important: (1) the legitimacy of the restored priesthood (including the authenticity of the Book of Mormon), and (2) the nature of the Godhead. B. and I had already discussed (1) to some extent, as detailed in my previous post. We thereafter turned to some discussion of (2).
I asked the missionaries if they could reiterate briefly for B., and for my remembrance, some of what they had told me previously about the Godhead. They were quite willing to do so, and put forth the following points:
- God is identified as Elohim of the Old Testament. They often call him "Heavenly Father."
- Jesus, who is the son of Heavenly Father, is Jehovah/Yahweh of the Old Testament (the JW's would have a heyday with this).
- Jehovah (the tetragrammaton, YHWH, usually translated nowadays as "LORD" in all caps) in the OT was the spirit of Jesus before being born into a body. The LDS believe that everybody existed as a spirit before having a body, including Jesus and God.
- The person of the Holy Ghost is the third part of the Godhead. (I have read that the Holy Ghost, the person, is also considered by the LDS as different from the Holy Spirit, that is the spirit of God. I did not detect this distinction in our discussion, but I expect I will ask about it sooner or later.)
- These three distinct parts are "United in Purpose".
Our first question was about the unity of the Godhead. The LDS and Christian doctrines have in common that God, Jesus and the Holy Ghost are divided, and unified to some extent, but from point (5) above we see that theirs is a slightly different concept of unity. Elder C. expressed the LDS concept of unity clearly (I think he was quoting but I forget), saying it means that "Whatever circumstances in whatever time, they will all come to the same conclusion."
Both B. and I were surprised about the whole Jehovah = Jesus thing. The Mormons substantiated the belief with verses such as Psalm 3:8, that says, "Salvation belongs to the LORD; your blessings be on your people" (ESV). Since salvation belongs to YHWH, and we know it was Jesus who ultimately saves mankind, the only way this verse (and others like it) makes sense is if YHWH is the same person as Jesus. This requires, by the Mormon understanding that Jesus isn't God, that Jesus still be YHWH and YHWH not be God. (Convoluted, no?) After they brought up and explained this example, I quietly looked up and said, "But you can see why a passage like this would cause absolutely no problem for us and our Trinity thing, right?" They laughed and agreed.
As I suspected above, the JW's have complained about the YHWH = Jesus thing. The Elders told us a few stories about this, and took particular delight in the story of one JW woman who repeatedly criticised the LDS leaders about the YHWY = Jesus belief, and eventually went to Salt Lake City to harangue them about it. One of the Apostles wrote to her and said that if she continued he would speak out publicly and "break" her beliefs. (Elder M. said "crush" her beliefs originally, but Elder. C corrected him to what I think is a more poetic wording anyway.) From what they told us, he did just that. (I may have some details of the story wrong, but the gist of it should be right.) Apparently there is a document detailing the LDS arguments for the YHWH = Jesus belief, written specifically against the beliefs of JW's, called the "Jehovah's Witness Shuffle". I had to ask why it was called that, but the missionaries had no idea.
We went through a few passages regarding the separateness of God and Jesus. I think the most convincing of these to me was the vision of Stephen while he was being stoned (Acts 7:55-56), where he sees God and Jesus in heaven as two separate people. This parallels the experience reported by Joseph Smith, Jr. of seeing God and Jesus as separate beings in Doctrine and Covenants 76:19-24.
By contrast, B. brought us to John 1:1, which is a very clear statement of the unity of God and Jesus given that Jesus is the Logos (translated "the Word"). B., the Mormons and I all believe that "the Word" refers to Jesus, and so the passage seemed clearly to indicate their identity despite the separateness:
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." (ESV)B. impressed the Mormons by having me recite it in Greek, on which count I lucked out because this is the only verse I can recite in Greek. the Mormons attempted to reconcile the verse with their beliefs by suggesting that the Logos was only being called a god in the sense that they believe all humans will become gods, and not that He was being equated with Heavenly Father. At the time, I thought I remembered that the language reinforced the identity of God and the Logos, related to the Greek word for God, "theos", lacking a definite article in the phrase "the Word was God."
It turns out, I don't know what I'm talking about. After examining the Greek and some online searching, it seems that many scholars entirely unconnected with the LDS church support the translation "a God" rather than "God" because of the lacking definite article. The wikipedia article on John 1:1 is well referenced regarding the dispute. I need to look further into the issue, but a-priori I think there is a basis for a translation of John 1:1 that is compatible with the LDS belief, and so we will have to turn to other verses to support the identity in substance of God and Jesus.
That is where we ended our discussion for the evening, with an agreement to meet again at my apartment the following Wednesday.
I have asked the missionaries if we can, at our next meeting, go over the Apostles' Creed, and see where exactly they disagree with Christian orthodoxy. Also, the missionaries left me with a list of scriptures supporting their beliefs in the Godhead that I will read through before next week. It seems to me, right now, that we are engaged in two fruitful discussions about the very differences between our beliefs and theirs, and I look forward to more of the same.
I am kind of thinking that I would like to hang out with the missionaries a little more. We played baseball, did yardwork, and went out to lunch together one day in September, and I think Elder M. in particular enjoyed it greatly. They have plenty of fellowship within their own church, but I think there is great value not only in interfaith dialogue but also in interfaith fellowship, and I will be looking for such opportunities in the future.
Also, FYI, there is an article by the past LDS President Gordon B. Hinkley that details the Mormon conceptions of the Godhead quite well.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
LDS: A leaky roof, pork, and skepticism about the restored priesthood
I was about half an hour late to meet with the Mormons, Elder C. and Elder M. (they told me their first names, but I forget them since I usually use their proper titles), on account of a leak in my apartment's roof. Unfortunately, the leak was right over the desk in my study, and since my desk was messy that meant a ton of papers scattered about on it became drenched. They are mostly dry now, but I take it as a handy reminder that I should tidy my study soon.
Upon arrival I was greeted by B. and a glass of whiskey. I was a bit hesitant to take the glass, since I was worried about making the Mormon's uncomfortable, but B. has told me before that they have said they are okay with it.
The missionaries have suggested to B. before that he try abstaining from alcohol. This is part of what the LDS commonly refer to as the Word of Wisdom, a prophecy given to Joseph Smith, Jr. and recorded in Doctrine and Covenants 89, that instructs Mormons to abstain from alcohol except for Communion. It also discourages tobacco use, and drinking of coffee and tea.
In our meeting with them last Saturday, they told B. with some contrition that they had been speaking with a fellow on their rounds who challenged them to obey the Levitical instruction not to eat pork. Realizing that now they were being asked to do what they had been asking of B., they (impressively, in my books) decided that they had better take the challenge to abstain from pork. And they have been, as of last night. Say what you will about their beliefs; I can't help but admire their willingness to put their actions where their mouths are, even with something so relatively trivial.
So much for context.
When I arrived, the discussion was on the 1978 revelation to LDS President Spencer Kimball that blacks should be allowed priesthood authority in the church. Due to my possible absence, the discussion on the Godhead and Faith had been postponed. Though we would speak a bit about the Godhead later that night, I will report on that part in a later posting.
There are a great many things that could be said about the past racist policies of the LDS church, but many of those things could also be said of any Christian denomination that has been around for a while, and even more about those denominations claiming guidance by a divine representative. I do not wish to deal with that discussion now, and it was not the purpose of the discussion last night. We instead considered a question more fundamental to LDS belief: can we trust that the restored priesthood is authentic if its revelations appear to follow cultural trends? The same question could be asked, for example, about the 1890 manifesto prohibiting polygamy in the LDS church.
B.'s contention was along these lines (if I remember correctly):
Regarding No. 1, to some extent this makes sense to me. It is true that God sometimes waits until people are ready before giving a certain revelation or acting in a certain way (the stories in Matthew 17:1-13, Acts 16:6-10 or Exodus 3:7-10 come to mind, though none explicitly says why God was waiting). God has even withheld things (like tons of revelation) from the Gentiles (that's right, it was restricted on the basis of race) until shortly after Jesus' arrival, and withheld explicit knowledge of Christ even from almost all the Jews. So it wouldn't be without precedent. That said, what was the readiness here? If there was a lack of readiness, it must have been on the part of the leaders. Blacks had always been welcome in the Mormon church, and had been appointed as Elders (a priesthood position) under Joseph Smith, Jr., although I didn't know that at the time of meeting with the Mormons. But if it was a lack of readiness of the leaders, were they really very spiritual men? They may have been spiritual by the standards of their time, but if I am to count them as Apostles and Prophets I have to hold them to a much higher standard. This, to me, is a weak point in the case for a restored priesthood.
No. 2 seemed to me at the time to be at best inconclusive. I mean, fluctuations are a bad sign aren't they, if you're supposed to be guided by an unchanging God? Reading a bit about it on Wikipedia, I can see a bit better where they're coming from. For example, in 1969, Harold Lee, an apostle, blocked the Quorum of the 12 from allowing blacks into the priesthood on the basis that the decision should only be reversed as a result of revelation. Thus, there was resistance initially to the cultural trend. It was during intense deliberation as a result of the expansion of the church into South America that the 1978 revelation is said to have come. So, at least according to a superficial investigation, it seems that the primary influence leading to the 1978 revelation was not the North American civil rights movement, but rather the LDS church's ambition to expand into other countries. This does not really solve the problem, but it specifies the question we should be asking. Was the 1978 revelation (a) a real revelation given when the church asked for leadership concerning their expansion, or (b) an expedient fake revelation meant to permit greater expansion of the church?
No. 3 seems historically accurate. Joseph Smith, Jr. and many of the early Mormons spoke against slavery, and blacks were admitted into the priesthood before Bingham Young's time. (Bingham Young was Joseph Smith, Jr.'s successor, and probably the Mormon I like least of those I've met or read about. There was some controversy about his selection, which makes me wonder...) Even after blacks were not supposed to be admitted into the priesthood, some were; and there were movements within the Mormon church at various times that wished blacks to be admitted into the priesthood.
As to no. 4, notwithstanding interpretations of the curse of Cain, which is a whole other kettle of fish, Mormon scripture is clearly against institutions such as slavery. This is most obvious in the statement by Joseph Smith, Jr. in Doctrine and Covenants 101:79 that "It is not right that any man be in bondage to another." There are also instances of leaders being opposed to slavery, but the above quotation alone is a more direct statement on slavery than exists in the Christian scriptures alone. Regarding priesthood, there is no racial restriction in the Mormon scriptures that I am aware of, and apparently none was advanced to support the racial restriction of the priesthood. All in all, the LDS scriptures seem ambivalent on the issue of blacks in the priesthood.
Upon arrival I was greeted by B. and a glass of whiskey. I was a bit hesitant to take the glass, since I was worried about making the Mormon's uncomfortable, but B. has told me before that they have said they are okay with it.
The missionaries have suggested to B. before that he try abstaining from alcohol. This is part of what the LDS commonly refer to as the Word of Wisdom, a prophecy given to Joseph Smith, Jr. and recorded in Doctrine and Covenants 89, that instructs Mormons to abstain from alcohol except for Communion. It also discourages tobacco use, and drinking of coffee and tea.
In our meeting with them last Saturday, they told B. with some contrition that they had been speaking with a fellow on their rounds who challenged them to obey the Levitical instruction not to eat pork. Realizing that now they were being asked to do what they had been asking of B., they (impressively, in my books) decided that they had better take the challenge to abstain from pork. And they have been, as of last night. Say what you will about their beliefs; I can't help but admire their willingness to put their actions where their mouths are, even with something so relatively trivial.
So much for context.
When I arrived, the discussion was on the 1978 revelation to LDS President Spencer Kimball that blacks should be allowed priesthood authority in the church. Due to my possible absence, the discussion on the Godhead and Faith had been postponed. Though we would speak a bit about the Godhead later that night, I will report on that part in a later posting.
There are a great many things that could be said about the past racist policies of the LDS church, but many of those things could also be said of any Christian denomination that has been around for a while, and even more about those denominations claiming guidance by a divine representative. I do not wish to deal with that discussion now, and it was not the purpose of the discussion last night. We instead considered a question more fundamental to LDS belief: can we trust that the restored priesthood is authentic if its revelations appear to follow cultural trends? The same question could be asked, for example, about the 1890 manifesto prohibiting polygamy in the LDS church.
B.'s contention was along these lines (if I remember correctly):
"Let's be honest. If factions within and without a church are pressuring it to change its practice, and after a few years of this it changes its practice, most of us would at least suspect mere conformity rather than revelation. It all seems too convenient."B. undeniably had a point. The most evident motive for the change is the cultural pressure, I know that culture is a powerful agent of change, and the sequence sure looks like cause-and-effect. The missionaries admitted as much a few times as we continued discussion along these lines. Their explanations, as I remember them, are:
- God couldn't work until the leaders of the Mormon church, the black members of the church, and the black people outside the church reached a certain point in their development as a culture,
- the LDS leadership fluctuated throughout the Civil Rights movement, rather than immediately changing their rule to fit with cultural pressures,
- the LDS church historically has not had a uniform view about the status of blacks, and
- the LDS scriptures make no clear statement about blacks entering the priesthood.
Regarding No. 1, to some extent this makes sense to me. It is true that God sometimes waits until people are ready before giving a certain revelation or acting in a certain way (the stories in Matthew 17:1-13, Acts 16:6-10 or Exodus 3:7-10 come to mind, though none explicitly says why God was waiting). God has even withheld things (like tons of revelation) from the Gentiles (that's right, it was restricted on the basis of race) until shortly after Jesus' arrival, and withheld explicit knowledge of Christ even from almost all the Jews. So it wouldn't be without precedent. That said, what was the readiness here? If there was a lack of readiness, it must have been on the part of the leaders. Blacks had always been welcome in the Mormon church, and had been appointed as Elders (a priesthood position) under Joseph Smith, Jr., although I didn't know that at the time of meeting with the Mormons. But if it was a lack of readiness of the leaders, were they really very spiritual men? They may have been spiritual by the standards of their time, but if I am to count them as Apostles and Prophets I have to hold them to a much higher standard. This, to me, is a weak point in the case for a restored priesthood.
No. 2 seemed to me at the time to be at best inconclusive. I mean, fluctuations are a bad sign aren't they, if you're supposed to be guided by an unchanging God? Reading a bit about it on Wikipedia, I can see a bit better where they're coming from. For example, in 1969, Harold Lee, an apostle, blocked the Quorum of the 12 from allowing blacks into the priesthood on the basis that the decision should only be reversed as a result of revelation. Thus, there was resistance initially to the cultural trend. It was during intense deliberation as a result of the expansion of the church into South America that the 1978 revelation is said to have come. So, at least according to a superficial investigation, it seems that the primary influence leading to the 1978 revelation was not the North American civil rights movement, but rather the LDS church's ambition to expand into other countries. This does not really solve the problem, but it specifies the question we should be asking. Was the 1978 revelation (a) a real revelation given when the church asked for leadership concerning their expansion, or (b) an expedient fake revelation meant to permit greater expansion of the church?
No. 3 seems historically accurate. Joseph Smith, Jr. and many of the early Mormons spoke against slavery, and blacks were admitted into the priesthood before Bingham Young's time. (Bingham Young was Joseph Smith, Jr.'s successor, and probably the Mormon I like least of those I've met or read about. There was some controversy about his selection, which makes me wonder...) Even after blacks were not supposed to be admitted into the priesthood, some were; and there were movements within the Mormon church at various times that wished blacks to be admitted into the priesthood.
One of the most surprising discoveries of my investigations is that Bringham Young, during the very pronouncement restricting the priesthood to non-blacks, said that there would come a time when blacks could again be admitted to the priesthood. This can be seen as looking forward to the 1978 revelation that overruled Young's proclamation. While I still find the idea that God wanted to change the church's policy on this for a hundred years or so unpalatable, that is a pretty impressive prophecy (and more testable than most in the LDS church) coming from a man like Young. Maybe God was working in him in some way, even if that work was far more corrupted than it should have been for anyone acting as God's primary representative on Earth. After all, God can make a donkey talk, and making Bingham Young qualify his prophecy accordingly is far easier than that (especially if we assume that Young was, in some measure, seeking to follow God and aware of His guidance).
As to no. 4, notwithstanding interpretations of the curse of Cain, which is a whole other kettle of fish, Mormon scripture is clearly against institutions such as slavery. This is most obvious in the statement by Joseph Smith, Jr. in Doctrine and Covenants 101:79 that "It is not right that any man be in bondage to another." There are also instances of leaders being opposed to slavery, but the above quotation alone is a more direct statement on slavery than exists in the Christian scriptures alone. Regarding priesthood, there is no racial restriction in the Mormon scriptures that I am aware of, and apparently none was advanced to support the racial restriction of the priesthood. All in all, the LDS scriptures seem ambivalent on the issue of blacks in the priesthood.
At the meeting itself we essentially reached a point where we all had to confess we knew too little about the situation to continue. As far as I am concerned, it is still an open topic (as is the whole debate about the validity of the restored priesthood). But both the meeting and the subsequent research were a good learning experience, and I hope to delve further into the question of the restored prophecy in the future. It is annoying that very little of the revelation given in the Mormon church is falsifiable, beyond testing it against commandments of scripture, because it is usually in the form of imperatives or doctrine rather than predictions. I suppose, and the Mormons agree with me about this, that the only sure indicator I may be left with is the testimony of the Holy Spirit – and the only direction it has ever given me regarding my interactions with Mormons is that I ought to keep talking with them.
In any event, at that point in the evening, we transitioned into a discussion on the Godhead, which I will present in a later entry.
In any event, at that point in the evening, we transitioned into a discussion on the Godhead, which I will present in a later entry.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Re. Most Improbable Meeting
It seems that I have unwittingly placed myself on the forefront of evangelical interfaith discourse, given one progressive article in November's Christianity Today. I found the article through the Mormon Heretic blog, which is very interesting and well worth following if you are interested in such things.
Tonight, my friend B. and I will be meeting with the LDS missionaries to talk about Faith and the Godhead. The topic of faith came up last Saturday when B. and I were discussing Alma 32 with the Mormons, and the Godhead topic follows a discussion I had with them the week before, about the relation between Jesus and God. Should be interesting -- report to follow.
Tonight, my friend B. and I will be meeting with the LDS missionaries to talk about Faith and the Godhead. The topic of faith came up last Saturday when B. and I were discussing Alma 32 with the Mormons, and the Godhead topic follows a discussion I had with them the week before, about the relation between Jesus and God. Should be interesting -- report to follow.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Ground rules
I am going to try here to honestly, openly, unreservedly, informatively and maybe even entertainingly record my interactions with unorthodox Christians. In the first place, I intend to publish to the world (a la Henry David Thoreau or Kevin Roose) an account of my experience since it may be of benefit to others, especially given the misinformation spread in many Christian circles about those who ascribe to an understanding of Christianity different from their own. Your conclusion upon reading these accounts could be that, really, these people are just as heretical as you thought. It could be that they have some useful ideas, or that their understandings serve by way of opposition to reinforce your own. Or you might decide that they aren't really that strange, and belong within the circle of those you call brothers and sisters in Christ. I will for my part try to be open in reporting my interactions, as there is enough misinformation about already. Hopefully I will thus do good by all.
I am writing with a Christian reader in mind, or at least someone a little familiar with Christianity, but I will try to make the posts accessible to all. I feel that Christians themselves are naturally most concerned with the distinctions between heresy and orthodoxy, although many people could stand to learn more about where some of the "strange" groups and ideals within the Christian-like sphere are coming from.
Currently I am in discussions on a regular basis with a pair of Jehovah's Witnesses and a pair of Mormons. Throughout, I will use the abbreviations JW and LDS to refer to these groups respectively, especially since each set of missionaries is representing a group of believers with largely unified beliefs. I may report on my discussions with other heretics here as well, since I am known to associate with them on a regular basis. Anything beyond discussions with heretics, I will try to post on my (very infrequently updated) livejournal page.
Finally, my livejournal page not withstanding, I am not very used to blogging, and not used at all to this site. Thus I will be learning some functionality as I go, and the frequency of hypertext links and useful formatting ought to increase as I go.
You have been warned. And now, you are welcome to dive in.
I am writing with a Christian reader in mind, or at least someone a little familiar with Christianity, but I will try to make the posts accessible to all. I feel that Christians themselves are naturally most concerned with the distinctions between heresy and orthodoxy, although many people could stand to learn more about where some of the "strange" groups and ideals within the Christian-like sphere are coming from.
Currently I am in discussions on a regular basis with a pair of Jehovah's Witnesses and a pair of Mormons. Throughout, I will use the abbreviations JW and LDS to refer to these groups respectively, especially since each set of missionaries is representing a group of believers with largely unified beliefs. I may report on my discussions with other heretics here as well, since I am known to associate with them on a regular basis. Anything beyond discussions with heretics, I will try to post on my (very infrequently updated) livejournal page.
Finally, my livejournal page not withstanding, I am not very used to blogging, and not used at all to this site. Thus I will be learning some functionality as I go, and the frequency of hypertext links and useful formatting ought to increase as I go.
You have been warned. And now, you are welcome to dive in.
JW: What does the Bible Really Teach?, Chapter 1, Part 1
I am currently in meetings with ~2 Jehovah's witnesses, Kathy and Kathy (seriously), one middle aged and one slightly older. Sometimes, when one can't come, a non-Kathy missionary takes her place. They are not my favourite people in the world, for reasons I will soon outline, but my disdain has changed to pity as of our latest meeting, and perhaps I will be better at loving them hereafter. Our most recent meeting was yesterday, and was the first of a series going through the JW book What does the Bible Really Teach? (emphasis theirs).
About those reasons. My former roommate and I, around 2002, spoke with two JW missionaries over the course of a handful of meetings. It was a revealing experience at first, but after a short time the meetings degenerated into the missionaries reiterating pat answers as we tried to rephrase our questions in the hope that they had simply been misunderstood. I think eventually we moved and they stopped contacting us. My experience has been biased from the outset by that previous set of meetings.
During my current set of meetings, I have, until yesterday, left every one feeling deeply disturbed. This is in many senses just a personal impression. The missionaries (K&K, as well as the substitutes) have almost universally staunchly not met my eyes when we talk, not addressed the questions I was actually asking, and spoken in very superficial ways about things that to me are very profound. I am not sure why I find this troubling. They seem to me like empty shells, with nothing inside of them, and something about the combination of that and talking about things of God is horrific to me.
I have rationalized my fear (and thus reinforced it) in some ways. Reading their literature, I have discovered that they are "the ones who don't like blood transfusions". The bases for this belief, which I will explore at some later point, are shockingly trivial. That people could ignore their inbuilt moral compass and let people die on the basis of such poor arguments is pretty appalling. I suppose it ought to be even more appalling that they are dealing so lightly with the salvation of those they speak to. There is also their flagrant (by my understanding) abuse of the Biblical text, both in their literature and in discourse. That is always disturbing, in light of the plentiful evil instigated by disregard for the cultural and literary context of religious texts.
So much for my personal impressions of the JW's. Far be it from me to let fear prevent ecumenical discourse.
After a few meetings that jumped around wildly the JW's presented me with a copy of What does the Bible Really Teach?, and suggested that we go through it. They have a corresponding discussion guide, giving questions for each paragraph or two of the book, that they are meant to ask the subject of their witnessing. I agreed to this format, as it seems a good way to have an overview of their beliefs and the reasons for them, and in the spirit of forcing myself to "give them a chance" despite my personal qualms. My goal in these and all discussions is to remain to the best of my ability open but critical. And if I am honest, I must confess a secondary goal in this case, of trying to draw the JW's out of their shells a bit and see if they really are "real people" beneath the exterior they present. In the meeting I will describe here, we covered most of the first chapter, titled "What is the Truth About God?" At this meeting, the younger Kathy was replaced with a Serbian woman whose name escapes me.
The introduction to the talk took me by surprise. The JW's are masters of corny illustrations, and they began by directing me to two pages of them at the start of the book. The pictures show faded images of infirm humans juxtaposed with vibrantly coloured images of the same humans healed of their infirmities. Apparently a question went with these two. "Now Rob," asked Kathy (they like to call me Rob), "do you like what you see in those pictures? Wouldn't it be wonderful if the whole world were like that?"
Now, I knew exactly where that question was directed. In many of our previous talks, the JW's have tried to convince me that an Earth without infirmity is a "good enough" heaven. I answered honestly, but couldn't resist letting them know that I was on to them: "Of course I would like to see those things. But we see most of those things already, when people are healed by the medical profession. You are asking if I would like it if those good things always happened, and nothing bad did. Of course I would; that is the way the world was meant to be."
I saved comments along the lines of "...but those pictures are nothing compared to what I think God has in store for us", as not really relevant to the question and valuable at a later date. We began going through the chapter.
Most of the first chapter presents things I already believe: God loves us, God is just, God wants us to know Him, we can have a close personal relationship with Him. Standard tract. There are also plentiful encouragement to question assumptions and to seek truth, which is neither here nor there. I find the JW's tend to emphasize this more, probably because they disagree with some of the more fundamental aspects of orthodox Christianity (e.g. the Trinity, or Hell), and wish for people to question those. Of course, in tract form the exhortation to question often only extends to the reader's current beliefs and not to the ones meant to replace them. The same is true here. In my disdain for the JW's, I was very tempted to ask the missionaries if they questioned their own beliefs often, but I restrained my tongue.
We covered much of the chapter in the meeting yesterday. I will highlight two topics. First, on the problem of pain, and second, on the name of God.
I was dismayed by the weakness of argumentation in the first chapter about the problem of pain. In my mind, if they bring it up in the first chapter, they had better present some good answer for it. I can summarize the answer given by the book as follows:
In my books, this does not constitute a good answer, and I said as much to the missionaries. But I will withhold further judgement until I read the answers given in Chapter 11. And of course, for any orthodox denomination, I would not expect tract answers to necessarily be good answers either.
The JW's consider Scriptural support for whatever they say as very important, but the support usually takes the form of a verse or two which supports their case only given their interpretation of the verses. Sometimes I wonder whether they really believe that the verses mean what they say they mean, but then it is easy with an older Bible translation to just take the meaning you are told a verse has, if you cannot clearly understand its specific meaning or context (and they do favour the KJV). By way of illustration, for what is admittedly an especially bad case, in the discussion on the problem of pain, the JW's book gives the following story to illustrate the difference between God allowing evil and causing it:
The scriptural reference given for this is Luke 15:11-13. The biblically astute might recognize this as the first few verses of the Prodigal Son story, which I will reproduce here:
Try as I might, I see nothing there about whether the father is the cause of the son's problems, much less whether God is the cause of ours. It is just a similar story.
Mind you, as with the weak argumentation in tracts, this sort of abuse of Scripture is plentiful within orthodox Christianity as well. It is always disappointing.
The name of God is a big issue for the Jehovah's Witnesses. It is a cornerstone of their beliefs that God's proper name is Jehovah (their representation of the tetragrammaton), and that he should be referred to as such. The reasoning in the book is as follows:
I asked why Jesus is never recorded as calling God Jehovah, and pointed out that something like "Abba" would indicate an even closer personal relationship. They said that by virtue of His close relationship with God (I wonder if they would ever capitalize Jesus' 'H'), Jesus by saying "Abba" or any other title knew very specifically who he meant. For us, they say, we should be careful to refer specifically to Jehovah since there are other spiritual beings who we might accidentally direct our prayers or worship to. I was very impressed with this answer, since it was reasonable and directly addressed my question. In fact, I think they may have a point. There is value to being able to specify that we are talking to God. Whether the name "Jehovah" helps with that, or rather to what extent it helps, I am not sure. But I told them they had a point, and they were happy.
I then asked whether the name Jehovah actually appears in the New Testament, reasoning that writing the Hebrew representation of God's name in Greek would be strange, and that it may even have seemed sacrilegious at the time to write YHWH in a bunch of letters and stories. I think I nailed them on that one. Their Bible uses "Jehovah" in place of "Lord" somewhere, but that is not the usual translation (sadly, I forget the verse, but the Greek is kyrios, usually translated "Lord", and certainly not "Jehovah"). According to this, albeit only a wikipedia article, YHWH does not appear in any extant NT manuscript. If it were sacrilegious, that would be a great argument against flagrant use of the name "Jehovah". But that is an uneducated guess, and I really know nothing about it.
I suppose to me YHWH, however is interpreted, is only God's name as represented to the Hebrews. I do not especially reverence this name (e.g. being careful not to say it or such, as I understand is part of some Jewish practice). I am sure in any event that God transcends a single name, and it has been my supposition that under the new covenant He can be known personally to anyone by many names and in a way that really defies assigning Him a single name.
So, the JW's haven't convinced me yet that using Jehovah as God's name matters much. But the discussion on that topic was redeeming for them and liberating for me. I discovered that they can, at least sometimes, hit a point that addresses my argument. And perhaps if I can make them a bit more comfortable around me, and get them to open up a little, they will do that more often. So I have a little less fear about the whole thing. At our next meeting, we will hopefully finish Chapter 1 of the book, but we will be beginning with a discussion of the name of God (there's an appendix on it that we will cover), and I am honestly looking forward to that.
As the JW's were leaving to go about their rounds, I commented that they must meet lots of interesting people. They said that they did, but most people weren't really interested in listening to them. Then, for about the first time since I started talking to them, Kathy actually made eye contact and thanked me for listening to them, since most people just shut the door on them. That made me feel that I was doing something of actual value by talking to them. I have to confess, in my heart of hearts, I think I sort of want to convert them. Not so much to my beliefs, but (presumptuous as it is of me to think such a thing) to people whose minds connect more closely with their hearts.
I realize now, typing about it, that walking around every day having doors shut on you might make it very difficult to be open and sincere with somebody you've only recently met behind one of those doors. The thought turns my disdain at their emptiness over pity over the hurt that I presume has caused their exteriors to detach so far from their selves. I think, if I am to know what they are really all about, then my goal should be to let them know that they are safe and comfortable when talking to me. Maybe then they will be able and willing to speak to me from their hearts, and have some real sincere discussions about God and the important things of life.
(1) Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, 2005. What Does the Bible Really Teach?. Brooklyn, New York: Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York Inc., 2006. Print.
(2) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Bibles, 2001. Print.
About those reasons. My former roommate and I, around 2002, spoke with two JW missionaries over the course of a handful of meetings. It was a revealing experience at first, but after a short time the meetings degenerated into the missionaries reiterating pat answers as we tried to rephrase our questions in the hope that they had simply been misunderstood. I think eventually we moved and they stopped contacting us. My experience has been biased from the outset by that previous set of meetings.
During my current set of meetings, I have, until yesterday, left every one feeling deeply disturbed. This is in many senses just a personal impression. The missionaries (K&K, as well as the substitutes) have almost universally staunchly not met my eyes when we talk, not addressed the questions I was actually asking, and spoken in very superficial ways about things that to me are very profound. I am not sure why I find this troubling. They seem to me like empty shells, with nothing inside of them, and something about the combination of that and talking about things of God is horrific to me.
I have rationalized my fear (and thus reinforced it) in some ways. Reading their literature, I have discovered that they are "the ones who don't like blood transfusions". The bases for this belief, which I will explore at some later point, are shockingly trivial. That people could ignore their inbuilt moral compass and let people die on the basis of such poor arguments is pretty appalling. I suppose it ought to be even more appalling that they are dealing so lightly with the salvation of those they speak to. There is also their flagrant (by my understanding) abuse of the Biblical text, both in their literature and in discourse. That is always disturbing, in light of the plentiful evil instigated by disregard for the cultural and literary context of religious texts.
So much for my personal impressions of the JW's. Far be it from me to let fear prevent ecumenical discourse.
After a few meetings that jumped around wildly the JW's presented me with a copy of What does the Bible Really Teach?, and suggested that we go through it. They have a corresponding discussion guide, giving questions for each paragraph or two of the book, that they are meant to ask the subject of their witnessing. I agreed to this format, as it seems a good way to have an overview of their beliefs and the reasons for them, and in the spirit of forcing myself to "give them a chance" despite my personal qualms. My goal in these and all discussions is to remain to the best of my ability open but critical. And if I am honest, I must confess a secondary goal in this case, of trying to draw the JW's out of their shells a bit and see if they really are "real people" beneath the exterior they present. In the meeting I will describe here, we covered most of the first chapter, titled "What is the Truth About God?" At this meeting, the younger Kathy was replaced with a Serbian woman whose name escapes me.
The introduction to the talk took me by surprise. The JW's are masters of corny illustrations, and they began by directing me to two pages of them at the start of the book. The pictures show faded images of infirm humans juxtaposed with vibrantly coloured images of the same humans healed of their infirmities. Apparently a question went with these two. "Now Rob," asked Kathy (they like to call me Rob), "do you like what you see in those pictures? Wouldn't it be wonderful if the whole world were like that?"
Now, I knew exactly where that question was directed. In many of our previous talks, the JW's have tried to convince me that an Earth without infirmity is a "good enough" heaven. I answered honestly, but couldn't resist letting them know that I was on to them: "Of course I would like to see those things. But we see most of those things already, when people are healed by the medical profession. You are asking if I would like it if those good things always happened, and nothing bad did. Of course I would; that is the way the world was meant to be."
I saved comments along the lines of "...but those pictures are nothing compared to what I think God has in store for us", as not really relevant to the question and valuable at a later date. We began going through the chapter.
Most of the first chapter presents things I already believe: God loves us, God is just, God wants us to know Him, we can have a close personal relationship with Him. Standard tract. There are also plentiful encouragement to question assumptions and to seek truth, which is neither here nor there. I find the JW's tend to emphasize this more, probably because they disagree with some of the more fundamental aspects of orthodox Christianity (e.g. the Trinity, or Hell), and wish for people to question those. Of course, in tract form the exhortation to question often only extends to the reader's current beliefs and not to the ones meant to replace them. The same is true here. In my disdain for the JW's, I was very tempted to ask the missionaries if they questioned their own beliefs often, but I restrained my tongue.
We covered much of the chapter in the meeting yesterday. I will highlight two topics. First, on the problem of pain, and second, on the name of God.
I was dismayed by the weakness of argumentation in the first chapter about the problem of pain. In my mind, if they bring it up in the first chapter, they had better present some good answer for it. I can summarize the answer given by the book as follows:
- God doesn't cause the suffering, He allows it.
- God has good reasons for allowing it, and he doesn't have to explain them to us, but we will tell you about them in Chapter 11.
In my books, this does not constitute a good answer, and I said as much to the missionaries. But I will withhold further judgement until I read the answers given in Chapter 11. And of course, for any orthodox denomination, I would not expect tract answers to necessarily be good answers either.
The JW's consider Scriptural support for whatever they say as very important, but the support usually takes the form of a verse or two which supports their case only given their interpretation of the verses. Sometimes I wonder whether they really believe that the verses mean what they say they mean, but then it is easy with an older Bible translation to just take the meaning you are told a verse has, if you cannot clearly understand its specific meaning or context (and they do favour the KJV). By way of illustration, for what is admittedly an especially bad case, in the discussion on the problem of pain, the JW's book gives the following story to illustrate the difference between God allowing evil and causing it:
"For example, think about a wise and loving father with a grown son who is still living at home with his parents. When the son becomes rebellious and decides to leave home, his father does not stop him The son pursues a bad way of life and gets into trouble. Is the father the cause of the son's problems? No." (1)
The scriptural reference given for this is Luke 15:11-13. The biblically astute might recognize this as the first few verses of the Prodigal Son story, which I will reproduce here:
"And [Jesus] said, 'There was a man who had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father, "Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me." And he divided his property between them. Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in reckless living.'" (2)
Try as I might, I see nothing there about whether the father is the cause of the son's problems, much less whether God is the cause of ours. It is just a similar story.
Mind you, as with the weak argumentation in tracts, this sort of abuse of Scripture is plentiful within orthodox Christianity as well. It is always disappointing.
The name of God is a big issue for the Jehovah's Witnesses. It is a cornerstone of their beliefs that God's proper name is Jehovah (their representation of the tetragrammaton), and that he should be referred to as such. The reasoning in the book is as follows:
- In the Old Testament, the importance of God's name is often emphasized, and given as the tetragrammaton (which I will refer to by YHWH, its roman representation).
- God's name is distinct from titles such as "Lord", "God", "Father", etc. It indicates a more personal relationship.
I asked why Jesus is never recorded as calling God Jehovah, and pointed out that something like "Abba" would indicate an even closer personal relationship. They said that by virtue of His close relationship with God (I wonder if they would ever capitalize Jesus' 'H'), Jesus by saying "Abba" or any other title knew very specifically who he meant. For us, they say, we should be careful to refer specifically to Jehovah since there are other spiritual beings who we might accidentally direct our prayers or worship to. I was very impressed with this answer, since it was reasonable and directly addressed my question. In fact, I think they may have a point. There is value to being able to specify that we are talking to God. Whether the name "Jehovah" helps with that, or rather to what extent it helps, I am not sure. But I told them they had a point, and they were happy.
I then asked whether the name Jehovah actually appears in the New Testament, reasoning that writing the Hebrew representation of God's name in Greek would be strange, and that it may even have seemed sacrilegious at the time to write YHWH in a bunch of letters and stories. I think I nailed them on that one. Their Bible uses "Jehovah" in place of "Lord" somewhere, but that is not the usual translation (sadly, I forget the verse, but the Greek is kyrios, usually translated "Lord", and certainly not "Jehovah"). According to this, albeit only a wikipedia article, YHWH does not appear in any extant NT manuscript. If it were sacrilegious, that would be a great argument against flagrant use of the name "Jehovah". But that is an uneducated guess, and I really know nothing about it.
I suppose to me YHWH, however is interpreted, is only God's name as represented to the Hebrews. I do not especially reverence this name (e.g. being careful not to say it or such, as I understand is part of some Jewish practice). I am sure in any event that God transcends a single name, and it has been my supposition that under the new covenant He can be known personally to anyone by many names and in a way that really defies assigning Him a single name.
So, the JW's haven't convinced me yet that using Jehovah as God's name matters much. But the discussion on that topic was redeeming for them and liberating for me. I discovered that they can, at least sometimes, hit a point that addresses my argument. And perhaps if I can make them a bit more comfortable around me, and get them to open up a little, they will do that more often. So I have a little less fear about the whole thing. At our next meeting, we will hopefully finish Chapter 1 of the book, but we will be beginning with a discussion of the name of God (there's an appendix on it that we will cover), and I am honestly looking forward to that.
As the JW's were leaving to go about their rounds, I commented that they must meet lots of interesting people. They said that they did, but most people weren't really interested in listening to them. Then, for about the first time since I started talking to them, Kathy actually made eye contact and thanked me for listening to them, since most people just shut the door on them. That made me feel that I was doing something of actual value by talking to them. I have to confess, in my heart of hearts, I think I sort of want to convert them. Not so much to my beliefs, but (presumptuous as it is of me to think such a thing) to people whose minds connect more closely with their hearts.
I realize now, typing about it, that walking around every day having doors shut on you might make it very difficult to be open and sincere with somebody you've only recently met behind one of those doors. The thought turns my disdain at their emptiness over pity over the hurt that I presume has caused their exteriors to detach so far from their selves. I think, if I am to know what they are really all about, then my goal should be to let them know that they are safe and comfortable when talking to me. Maybe then they will be able and willing to speak to me from their hearts, and have some real sincere discussions about God and the important things of life.
(1) Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, 2005. What Does the Bible Really Teach?. Brooklyn, New York: Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York Inc., 2006. Print.
(2) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Bibles, 2001. Print.
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