LDS: Postmen and Border Guards

A random tidbit of what I am told (by the missionaries) is insider info on the LDS missionary lifestyle:

Mormon missonaries love postmen. They are very disconnected from their families during the two years of missionary service, and so they are always looking forward to that contact with loved ones that may come with the mail. I guess they normally get to know the postmen pretty well, since they're always waiting excitedly when the mail arrives.

They also get to know all the border guards, if they're posted near the US/Canada border like ours are. Since they often have temporary postings, and the locations of these vary a fair bit (within a cross-border region), they tend to travel to and fro over the borders a lot.

Sounds pretty exciting to me.


For something a bit more relevant: My wife and I have been invited to attend a baptism, and some of the upcoming general conference sessions (where everybody gets together at the local Mormon church to hear the current Prophet, Apostles and some others speak). I'm looking forward to this, and hoping we can at least make it to one of the sessions. It's on Easter weekend, and I'm secretly hoping that we can go to a session and follow it up with attending a passion play at a church just across the street. Because I like mixing my inputs.

LDS: Book of Abraham Analysis

An interesting article on the Book of Abraham, part of the Pearl of Great Price accepted as scripture by the LDS church and ostensibly translated from the Egyptian by Joseph Smith Junior. I think this bears much more investigation, as a relatively concrete way of testing Joseph Smith Junior's authenticity.

I've been thinking a bit about Joseph Smith Junior lately. Maybe those thoughts will sometime coalesce into a full entry. Basically, the Mormons claim that even under threat of death he maintained that the Book of Mormon was authentic. This, to me, parallels the claim sometimes used to support Christianity that those who just made something up will not die for it.

However, it seems to me that we often cling to lies most strongly. Furthermore, if someone comes up with a lie and promulgates it because the believe very strongly that it will help people, I can very easily imagine them dying for it. That could have been the case with Joseph Smith Junior, but it also (any other evidence aside) could have been the case with Jesus or the Apostles. So, to me, the "people don't die for things that aren't true" argument doesn't make sense, because people will die for something they consider more important than their own lives, whether true or not.

This is just one way that LDS claims about the reliability of Joseph Smith Junior parallel orthodox Christian claims about Christ or the Apostles. The only difference is that there are many more contemporary sources about Joseph Smith Junior. Maybe if I get to a point where his reliability is a burning question, I will dig into those sources more and see what I find out.

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:

"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:

1. God is identified as Elohim of the Old Testament. They often call him "Heavenly Father."
   
2. Jesus, who is the son of Heavenly Father, is Jehovah/Yahweh of the Old Testament (the JW's would have a heyday with this).
3. 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.
4. 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.)
5. These three distinct parts are "United in Purpose".

I think it is evident from these points that the LDS belief on the Godhead departs significantly from traditional Christian doctrine. Interestingly, I think the above is compatible with the wording – though perhaps not the intent – of the Apostle's Creed.  In the time we had left, B. and I questioned the Elders on some of these 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:

"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.

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):

"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:

1. 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,
   
2. the LDS leadership fluctuated throughout the Civil Rights movement, rather than immediately changing their rule to fit with cultural pressures,
   
3. the LDS church historically has not had a uniform view about the status of blacks, and
   
4. the LDS scriptures make no clear statement about blacks entering the priesthood.

Some of these arguments are better than others, and I'll address them individually.

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.

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.