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Mormon Media Madness

Or, “how I stopped reading my book during stake conference because of the loud ‘BANG’ from somewhere near the pulpet.”

So last Sunday was stake conference, and two hours of talks is usually a bit much for me, let alone my two toddler-aged children. As usual, I normally bring something to read just in case the talks… well, go sour. This week’s reading was Phil Barlow’s Mormons and the Bible which I am enjoying immensely.

While totally wrapped up in my book, I vaguely heard the speaker (a member of the stake presidency) state that he was about to show a video clip he obtained from the History Channel the night before. Then I heard a mechanical buzz as a large screen descended behind the choir seats, and a projector whir itself to life as a brief, two minute clip on Roman architecture was presented on the screen. I thought the clip was neat, but right away I could tell where it was going; it was a clip that described the keystone of an arch, and how important it was for Roman architecture in the ancient world, and that the stake president would bust out that (supposed) Joseph Smith quotation about “the keystone of our religion.” I was right (for once).
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Damning Knowledge

As the perfect antithesis to John C’s deep and insightful recent post, I’d like to ask the opposite.

I thought I had a firm handle on this one until recently, but I’d like to get the take on this from the rest of the ninjas in the Mormon blogger dojo. So…

What constitutes “speaking against the Holy Ghost”?

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The Rules and The Source

Take a moment and think about Dungeons and Dragons. Did any of you play this game as children? Are you Satanists now? Just curious…

I played D&D (or AD&D, at the time) quite a bit growing up. The guy who was our regular DM (ie. the dude who ran the game) always tried to straddle the line between strict adherance to the rules and fudging them to make it the game funner for those participating. We had two kids who consistently went out of control. One who would go off and play with other gamers and come back with these spectacular magical items which, he would then insist, our DM allow him to use in our game. The DM would agree and then destroy the items at the first convienient opportunity. The other kid would consistently get fed up with the slow pace of the game (at around the hour mark) and then spend the rest of the game trying to get the rest of us killed. He would always start the game with some random new chaotic good character and, by the end of the night, he would be some random dead chaotic evil character. I look at that last paragraph and realize what a geek I was (and probably still am).

So, aside from embarassing myself with my high-school nerditude, I think that AD&D (or games in general) may help explain the difference that Geoff J and I appear to be having regarding the manner in which the atonement is expressed in the repentance process. As you have likely guessed, I will, of course, be comparing God to Gary Gygax.

Gary Gygax wrote the rules of AD&D. He came up with manner in which one generates a character (ie. the role that one plays in the game). He developed the manner in which those characters can change over time. He explained who you could be, what you could be, and why you could be it. He established the rules.

Within the parameters of the rules, you could develop your character. You could go on adventures, chop up orcs, drink potions, find treasure, etc. All of these experiences allowed your character to develop over time, helping you to become better. The changes that your character experienced were of two sorts: first, when you received a certain number of experience points (ie. an arbitrary measure of how much your character had learned/developed over time), you were granted the next level (meaning that you received new powers and abilities); second, your character changed because of the experiences themselves (at least, it would if you were a good role player). You might get 2000 experience points for defeating a dragon or something, but if all of your friends died in the process, you were expected to play the game from then on like someone whose friends had died helping him defeat a dragon. Events were meant to have psychological, as well as physical, effects (which was why the two above geekier-than-I kids were particularly obnoxious).

Why Gary Gygax is like God: Gary established the rules. Without Gary, there are no rules. I do not mean that there are no other games and that there are no rules in those other games. I mean that, without Gary, we would not have had these games to play by these rules. Any character development that you accomplished in that game was accomplished by meeting the requirements that Mr. Gygax set out. Without Gygax’s consideration of the need for development, there is not development. This does not absolve you from personal responsibility in developing your character (it is a time-honored adage that if you let someone else play your character in a role-playing game, your character will get killed). If you want to develop the character, you have to do something. You just have to follow the rules that Gygax established in order to do the something. In this manner, I would say that Gary is like God.

Why Gary Gygax is not like God: well, aside from the obvious, AD&D does involve creation ex nihilo. Your characters do not exist until you sit down, roll dice, and make them. However, I don’t believe that this is a killer to the argument. In role playing, like in any other role, you put yourself into the world. You are introduced into the world of the game from elsewhere and you make a form of yourself for participation within the game. Reality contains no NPC’s (ie. roles filled by the DM, as opposed to players).

So, if God has established the rules for this world, what does “natural” change mean? If it means that these changes occur according to the rules of the world, I am happy to go along with that (for at least as long as we are in an physical, fallen world). God has established the rules and we progress or regress as we follow them. There doesn’t appear to be another set of rules (for this world) and it appears that those who try to overturn the rules (ala my two friends) fail. Geoff might describe this as a passive role for God, but I tend to think that the rules are tailored too closely to the individual for this to be the case. In other words, while both Geoff and I have to be baptized and believe in Christ in general, some of the challenges that we face are individual (Geoff won’t have to learn to love my in-laws; I won’t have to deal with Geoff’s co-workers).

To be frank, I am not too happy with the above model, but I have put all the thought into it that I want for today. What do you all think?

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The Idiot Mormon’s Guide to Orthodox Christianity, Part 1

Okay, as many of you know, the terminologies employed by both Mormons and orthodox Christians (hereafter “Christians” for brevity’s sake) are identical in form, but often different in meaning. Since getting the word out to our neighbors in the form of missionary work is one of the three essentials to the overall mission of the Mormon church (the other two being perfecting the saints and redeeming the dead), I thought I’d share with you some of the common vocabulary employed by both sides, but at the same time note some of the key differences.

These are all terms phrases that I noticed during my first semester of graduate school at a Protestant educational institution. When appropriate, I will flag terms as distinctly Baptist, Methodist, Catholic, or what have you.

I believe that knowing some of these distinctions will create greater meaning between Mormons and Christians. As always, I encourage you to contribute some of the same similarities/differences in vocabulary that you’ve noticed!

1. Sacrament. For Christians, this term is primarily utilized as a catch-all term for what Mormons call “ordinances” (another misnomer I will discuss later). For Catholics, the sacraments are seven in number. I’m not sure why the Mormon Church now utilizes the term “sacrament” as only applicable to the Lord’s Supper, but I imagine that it is now a truncated form of, possibly, “The Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.” Since it may appear somewhat strange to our Christian brethren and sisteren to hear us saying “sacrament meeting,” perhaps we might qualify what we mean by “sacrament” when discussing it in the company of Christians.

2. Melchizedek Priesthood. This is actually a New Testament term from Hebrews 11. For most Christians, only Jesus possesses the Melchizedek Priesthood, and it can be very offensive for them to hear that we claim to possess it on a collective scale.

3. Similarly, terms like “priest,” “teacher,” and “deacon” for most Christians indicate not only some form of formal ordination before a recognized authority, but there is much more semantic weight with each of them. For us, it mostly indicates the age of the young man (and his purported worthiness) as well, e.g., a 17 year old boy would be considered part of his local priest quorum (but not in every case). Likewise, when a Christian hears us say “I’m an ordained Elder in the Mormon Church,” their assumption, in many cases (though not all), will have them believe that the elder in question has been to some form of parochial school or seminary style of training, passed certain exams and met certain requirements, and then defended himself before an ordained board of ministry of some sort. Likewise with terms such as “deacon,” “priest,” etc. Priesthood ordination is big-time for Christians.

4. Jehovah/Elohim. I almost dare not go here because of how defensive so many temple Mormons become when discussing this. But it is something that offends or causes much confusion with our Christian friends. The Mormons are pretty much alone in assuming that Jesus is a pre-incarnate Jehovah/Yahweh – something I assumed most people except the J-Dubs espoused. However, we ought to be aware that when discussing God’s name with Trinitarian Christians, they won’t see Yahweh as Jesus like most of us do (save only through Trinitarian means). He is what we would call “The Father.” If you’re interested, I can post some of the biblical (read: Hebrew language) reasons for thinking that J and E are the same dude.

5. “The Church.” When our Christian brethren and sisteren say “The Church,” they’re not always talking about their own denomination. Many times they’re referring to all of (orthodox) Christianity. When Mormons utilize the term, it almost exclusively refers only the Mormon Church. This is a handy one to know.

6. Virgin. For Christians, this term represents a woman that has not yet had sexual intercourse with anyone else from this world or any other world (sorry Ezra Benson).

7. Martin Luther. This is not “that one black guy from the 1960s,” but rather the church reformer, which the Lutheran Church now eponymously employs. He’s very important for Protestants, akin to Joseph Smith for a Mormon (although not venerated so often). He was the father of the Reformation, and I believe there’s even praise from our own general authorities for his efforts.

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I Ain’t Got No Body

Okay, enough of these posts on things that can actually have an effect on our daily lives! I need instead to delve into the mysteries, to things I can’t possibly know, and don’t need to know, you know?

I was reading 3rd Nephi recently, and finally hit the verse that I had previously assumed was mere theory within the church. It seemed like Authoritative theory, but I still thought there might be some wiggle room. Nope. This verse pretty much clears up who the God of the Old Testament was. Ok, fine, I can deal with that – it’s what I’ve been told.

But that got me thinking (oh no!) How was Jesus able to do the things he did, like creating the world and stuff, before becoming a resurrected being? Aside from Him needing to come to Earth to save us all, it doesn’t seem like He needed the ‘mortal challenge’ in order to progress. For that matter, 3rd Nephi suggests that he did the righteous smiting on them before he was resurrected. (Didn’t the darkness lift afterwards?) So, he did all of that world-changing again without a physical body?

I guess I had been led to believe that Jesus was the Firstborn of Heavenly Father, but was pretty much in the same boat as the rest of us, prior to coming to Earth. (Clearly not the case.) There was talk on another blog* about how intelligences / spirits might have been created, but it would seem that not all were created equally. Granted, we can’t all have been Saviors, but it does make me wonder how all of that happened. Perhaps one day it will all become clear. (FWIW, I can see the simple answer to this: He was a member of the Godhead, even pre-mortal.)

* I’m feel like I’m breaking some sort of Bloggernacle rule by not explicitly linking back to the referenced blog, but I really don’t remember where that was.

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Teaching, Learning, the 1,000 little changes, and the nature of exaltation/atonement

This is in response to the gauntlet that was thrown down by Geoff J (although I should note that he was only responding to my gauntlet).

In his parable of the piano, Geoff is trying to negotiate the roles of the individual spiritual agent in relation to the role of God in the Atonement and Exaltation (I am in the camp that believes (as apparently Geoff agrees) that one cannot successfully talk about one without invoking the other). Specifically, God gives everyone a piano that they could not get on their own and then God spends years and years training up the kid in piano, giving all the necessary skills, guidance, instruction, encouragement, discouragement, etc. necessary to get the orphan (us) to be as good a piano player as the instructor is. This places the responsibility for our salvation squarely on our shoulders; Although God gave us the piano as a gift, we must learn to play it individually. He cannot play it for us. (Geoff, please correct me if I am misinterpreting here).

If anyone has been following this debate (as I am sure you all are), you will note that whenever I disagree with Geoff, I initially point out that I mostly agree with him and find his parables helpful (his comments here reinforce that impression). Since patterns must be followed, I will do the same here. Taken individually, I agree with all of the sentences in the above paragraph. I just think that the sum is greater than the whole that paragraph creates.
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CallingAndElectionMadeSure (CAEMS)

I considered tacking this onto the end of David J.’s welcome post (of which I am trying not to be covetous of his responses.)

John C. made an allusion to my unusual religious upbringing; well, here it will be revealed in this system of things. (hint)

When reading about the Second Anointing, the topic of “Calling and Election made sure” featured prominently. When I was investigating the church, I had heard the phrase, and it sounded pretty much like the topic title. All one word and completely incomprehensible. (Much like FamilyHomeEvening.) When I got someone to explain it to me, it sounded very similar to a concept in the religion I had grown up in. In that religion, certain people (usually in leadership) would get a special feeling that they had been chosen to be a special servant of God and sit at his right hand. In other words, they would get to be one of the 144,000 mentioned in the book of Revelation (Chap 14) . Now, this “special feeling”, in LDS terms, could be likened to the Holy Ghost, which it sounds like modern interpretations of the Second Anointing are tending towards.

So, having this background, I wondered if the CAEMS might refer to the 144,000 for us, too. John C. thought not.

In case it’s not really obvious, I grew up as a Jehovah’s Witness. I was quite active until I was about 14 or so, when I began to question some of the doctrines that didn’t really make sense. Unable to get any good answers from them, I felt the need to seek elsewhere, which ended me up here. =)

So, any speculation, comments, words of wisdom on the similarities of these two versions of Heavenly Selection? I can’t actually believe that it is THE Holy Ghost visiting the Witnesses, so what gives?

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Metaphorical Mormon Smackdown: Iron Rod Edition!

Well, as usual, my inspiration for posts comes from BCC. I was going to discuss the merits of the seer stone vs. the Urim and Thummim, but I just wasn’t as inspired as I was by this idea. Go with me on it.

What metaphor more accurately describes the Iron Rod from 1st Nephi 8: a handrail or a divining rod?

Hand rail: well, the thing extends along a river and a path and people are supposed to hold onto it. What more do you want?

Divining Rod: (I admit I am cribbing this idea from this) I have personally long been unsatisfied with the hand rail approach (do we have any evidence of these in the ANE?). However, we do have evidence of the use of arrows and sticks as forms of divination.

Why is this an issue? Because if the divining rod metaphor is the one that we should be using, doesn’t it make the dichotomy between “Iron Rod” and “Liahona” Mormons discussed here a bit pointless?

Vote and comment below.