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Here’s are more stumpers along the lines of the second coming bringing on a theocracy, although each goes in a slightly different direction: 1 – When Jesus comes again, will He really rule politically? Didn’t all of the original disciples make the mistake of thinking He was there to rescue them from political oppression, and He refused to get sucked in saying “Render unto Caesar”? Or did He think He was going to influence the political situation, and when He didn’t, the gospels re-interpreted His statements in a more enigmatic and open way to imply that it wasn’t what He meant?
2 – Will there be a “church” during the millenium? Why would there be? Isn’t the church like the babysitter while the Savior’s away?
3 – Will there be various churches then? Will some be non-Christian? Will there be a mass conversion? Will there be apostates after that?
4 – Would post-second coming govt be a theocracy or a democracy with a lot of unity of opinion? Will there still be dissenting opinions? Different political parties? Is Jesus a democrat or republican? If it’s a theocracy, sounds like fascism actually.
Bouvet – I think you raise a very interesting point that bears further discussion. I’m not sure how to untangle the inability of the early church members to understand the basic theology Christ taught or to maintain an accurate depiction of it in their teachings and their link to God through priesthood keys. Within a very short time, the branches of the early Christian church were so divided that many didn’t even believe in the Resurrection. Some didn’t believe that Christ was the Son of God. These aren’t minor theological differences. Many had infused their own pagan or Hellenistic beliefs into the teachings of the church, and due to their geographical isolation, there was essentially no cohesion from branch to branch in a very short time. The Nicean council, which took place hundreds of years after Christ is the first major effort to get it straight what Christianity actually was, and their choices of what stayed in and what was dropped were not without bias and conflict.
Are priesthood keys all equal so long as there is a line of authority? I’m more in the camp that individual apostasy (not sin per se) leads to loss of priesthood keys, including in the case of Warren Jeffs and his ilk. I don’t generally think of priesthood keys when I think of the Great Apostasy, although I know some do.
Quote:I think the church missteps when it influences laws based on doctrine.
I take it that you are not a social conservative. Me neither. I am more of a social libertarian. I would rather err on the side of personal freedom, even protecting the rights of sinners to sin, so long as their sins don’t violate the
tangiblerights of others (meaning secular rights – usually that means the right to life, property, freedom, pursuit of happiness) than to try to enforce morality. IMO, legislated morality is no morality at all, and I value freedom above morality. I don’t suspect that’s a very commonly held opinion in either of the two main political parties. Here are some thoughts I shared elsewhere about Fowler’s stages. IMO, it’s most likely someone will be successful at reintegrating into the church as they move from Stage 4 to Stage 5, although that doesn’t always happen: Stage 3– going along in whatever “normal” state; status quo for your upbringing or background (The majority of people fall into this category) Stage 4– questioning what you took for granted in Stage 3; negative emotion toward Stage 3 experiences Stage 5– acceptance or reconciliation; coming to terms with what you learned in Stage 4 and transcending above it Stage 6– gaining internal peace and wisdom, becoming a whole person with spiritual power and insight (This is a stage most people never get to, and I’m not sure there’s much reason to aspire to it. Most Stage 6ers die as martyrs.) So, if it’s like a marriage, Stage 4 is like being separated. If you reconcile, you probably get back together. But you may not; in rare cases, maybe you don’t get back together but you develop a friendship and decide to part ways (really rare in marriage especially). In any case, you develop mutual respect and can take the good and let go of the bad.
Unlike marriage, though, the church isn’t a person. The church is comprised of too many people to accurately assign it character flaws (just an opinion). Whatever the church’s “personality,” it is largely colored by our own subjective experiences (e.g. our reactions to the things that happen to us, our personalities, the personalities of those around us). As a result, our experiences with the church (and our assessment of the church) differ greatly in each of the stages.
Stage 3 – the church is like a wise and protective parent; we trust it implicitly
Stage 4 – the church is like a parent whose flaws and mistakes are exposed at their worst
Stage 5 – the church is like a sweet grandparent that sometimes says wise things, sometimes funny or antiquated things, but is a benevolent forebear
I’m also optimistic that returning to belief in Stage 5 (on one’s own terms, mind you) is likely because of:
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family ties– you have ties to the church that cause it to be unavoidable –
it’s utilitarian– because of your upbringing, Mormonism is a familiar framework; you know how to work the “faith system” in a Mormon context; and now you know how to make it useful to yourself. You could leave and do that somewhere else, but you have to start from scratch. And maybe you are tuckered out from Stage 4. –
paradigm shift– the doubt of Stage 4 gives way to hope and open-mindedness in Stage 5, and being a believer on your own terms by choice is totally different from being a Stage 3 TBM, so it’s not a redundant experience–it’s progress. Just some thoughts on Fowler.
Bouvet – Quote:I think it is almost inconceivable that there isn’t a line of hands on heads in the current Catholic Church back to the original apostles.
Am I misunderstanding this comment? The Romans killed Peter and only several hundred years later did they dig him up (or someone buried in that mass grave) and rebury him beneath their new gleaming Christian city.
Quote:I think there was a very serious apostasy after the death of Jesus Christ. It sure looks to me like his teachings didn’t survive intact very long.
I honestly wonder if it was even fully understood by some of the original twelve apostles. IOW, was it already getting mixed up. The earliest gospels over a generation after the Savior’s death. It seems as though many things were already being confused within the NT.
Quote:I have my doubts sometimes about Paul. I think there are strong arguments that Paul hijacked the “Jesus Movement” and took it in a very different direction.
OK, so I often wonder about Paul, too. He is credited with the success of Christianity, and his writings are poetic and well-written. But he drives the cart a little close to the edge sometimes. He could be the BRM of the early church (very confident, but sometimes off base). I realize the task was great, having to incorporate many new cultures (Christ almost exclusively taught in a very tight geographic area, unless you subscribe to the theory that he made it to Japan in the lost years and practiced Buddhism). Paul is definitely the first written source of a lot of ideas, and he was a post-Christ Christian.
I heard a weird one on the b’nacle that the temple spires were there to impale Christ and his angels at the second coming. You know, as opposed to all the other spires on all the other religions’ buildings. 🙄 Hmmm. I kind of think he saw that the OT people had multiple wives, thought to himself, “Hey, that would be kind of awesome,” then asked about it. But that’s just one opinion. It changes from time to time, but it sure is a weird thing to ask about, isn’t it? If you had the bat phone to God, is that really on your top 10 list? I also have to disagree with curt that the FV was a “fairy tale.” The idea that it was created to bolster priesthood authority was put forward by Grant Palmer, but frankly I didnt find it convincing. Was it a visit or a vision? I think that’s open to interpretation. And why is it essential to join or believe in the church? It sure wasn’t taught or widely known by the first members of the restored church. To me, it seems like a meaningful dream or vision that was personal to JS, but later was applied more broadly to bolster the importance of the restoration. It has subsequently been used by others as the source of many “new” theological components that JS didn’t attribute to it, such as God having a physical body and being separate from Jesus. For it to be a “fairy tale,” one would have to assume JS made it up entirely, which is just not supported by my reading of the accounts. But you are entitled to your opinion. I don’t think you are less Mormon for that. IMO, it’s not “all or nothing.”
Curt: Quote:The passage I quoted from WC’s journal seems to remove all of the so-called spiritual aspects of polygamy which might make it somewhat acceptable for those of us who have found it disturbing, esp that JS was himself a polygamist. It would appear there was lust involved after all.
Remember that this is in the journal of WC, not written by JS. There are various accounts of conversations about polygamy in which JS is quoted. The stories vary widely and rather than giving us a clear view of JS, I think they give us a clear view of how the person who wrote it viewed JS. That WC viewed JS as essentially a fellow wife-trader doesn’t mean it’s how JS viewed the matter, just that his actions and words didn’t contradict that in the mind of WC. Had JS edited WC’s journals (or even read them) he might have said to WC, “That’s not what I said. You misunderstood.” Dead people don’t get to do rebuttals.
Quote:It also, I think, removes any doubt that JS consummated his polygamous marriages. That had, for me, remained a possibility.
There are other sources that remove this doubt also, although there is doubt that ALL of his polygamous relationships were consummated. There’s strong reason to believe some were not consummated, although some doubtless were.
Quote:I think it was about sex and power, now, another nail in the coffin.
That begs the unanswered question, “what was polygamy to JS?” I can’t agree with you that it was all about sex and power. That’s one possibility, but there are many others. Truly, I don’t think we can know. I sincerely believe JS may not have even understood it. Consider the following possibilities:
– Did he see it as a “perk” of the job? (is that what you mean by sex & power)
– There was a widespread expectation at that time that evangelical/Holy Ghost spirit-heavy religious movements like Mormonism would lead to sexual orgies. Is there an inherent connection between feeling the spirit and sexuality?
– JS was seeking to understand two things at this time: the endowment and sealing. He was extremely open minded to whatever the spirit suggested. Did he get confused about what he was supposed to do and what sealings were for?
– Did he lust for sex or for kin? Was he just trying to increase the family around him (vs. have more wives)? In this case, Emma’s rejection of polygamy probably hindered him.
– Was polygamy necessary for the church to grow & thrive after his death in one way or another? So, while not necessary to him personally or in his lifetime, was it necessary for him to “lead the way” so others would accept it?
Anyway, there are many possibilities. Just wanted to throw a few out there. If it was for sex & power, it maybe met on the first requirement but didn’t do much for him on the second. If anything it reduced his power because so many early church members left over it, and it was clearly the key factor leading to his death.
I agree with Orson on this one. It also begs the question to me how much of inspiration is mixed in with wishful thinking. JS seemed to have a personality that might lead him toward that kind of attribution error; he was unusually open-minded, even suggestionable. If he had not been, it is highly unlikely that he would have been able to do what he had to do to let go of the creeds and comforts of the past that were handed down in other religions and strip those away in favor of a new view (a restoration) of the original church that Christ set forth. Likewise, whenever a prophet speaks, you hear their own voice coming through. That doesn’t make it uninspired, but it is filtered through the lens of their own understanding. They only ask about what they can fathom and are interested in. But to the sexism inherent in the statements in WC’s journal, bear in mind the blood-curdling way women have been talked about and treated as recently as the 1950s (or watch an episode of Mad Men). I realize that our standards for church members should be higher and for church leaders possibly higher still, but to evaluate statements about race or sex that are made so far in the past is problematic. From our modern sensibility, women were (or are by some) viewed as property or sex slaves paid in refrigerators instead of money. It was not even illegal to rape your own wife until the 1970s, and even then, try to find someone who could be convicted for it. I’m not justifying the ill treatment of women. I do personally believe polygamy was a bad system, but not necessarily worse for women or even as bad as the foundation of many marriages of that era and eras more recent.
Maybe he just said “if worthy” to hedge his bets for those who don’t get an answer. But it seems unnecessary to me. I suppose the exception might be that some are seeking for a sign in prayers or asking for something totally inappropriate. Might that qualify it as an “unworthy” prayer not meriting a response? I have family members who are both in the church and out of it, some who are strong TBM types, some who are heterodox types, some inactive, and some who have alternate beliefs (e.g. eastern mysticism, pentacostal, atheist, etc.). We have to care more about the individual than the institution. Part of that is honoring where people are coming from. And if you are the one with more awareness (regardless of whether you are the one in or out of the institution), you have the most responsibility in the relationship. Maturity, insight and perspective gives you responsbility to lead by example, to bridge the divide, to “strengthen the feeble knees.” You can’t do those things by being judgmental or by only loving conditionally or by focusing on who is right and who is wrong. Again, people on both sides of the divide do this. The problem is that those on the institution’s side are often like those guys in the Verizon commercial who feel like they have a network of 500 people standing behind them, in their corner, telling them they are right. When everyone is telling you that you are right, beware. Agreement often drowns out what we really need to hear.
