Being the Bardolator that I am means that my preferences for Shakespeare's plays runs on a continuum more than a binary. I don't hate any of them, and while I do love some more than others (Richard II and Coriolanus come to mind once the masterpieces have leapt about the list), there are some that I like less well. Titus Andronicus is so bitter, so painful, so dark and depressing that I'm not a really a fan of it. Having seen Cymbeline a couple of weeks ago, I can also say that it was…fine. I'm okay with not experiencing it again for a long time. A Midsummer Night's Dream is also in that category of liking it less well than others, though that comes from exposure more than anything within the play itself. I've seen it performed I don't know how often and had it on my curriculum at least three times. Unlike Hamlet, which is a well deep enough for me to dip into it annually and still not sound it, A Midsummer Night's Dream does not have enough beyond light laughter to really draw me toward it. That isn't to say laughter can't be worthwhile in and of itself; The Comedy of Errors is even more sparse on the profundity and is still a lot of fun. In fact, I took my entire family, from my eight-year-old up to my teenager, to see the Utah Shakespeare Festival version of that play this summer, and I laughed all the way through. I enjoyed it for what it was, as that's all it's trying to be. Having just finished A Midsummer Night's Dream this afternoon, I find that I'm not much changed in my opinion about it. The fairy magic and Bottom will always be the best parts of this play; the problematic solution to the lovers' quarrel will always stick out to me. The premise, if you've forgotten, is that there are lovers: Hermia and Lysander, who want to get married. Unfortunately, Hermia's dad, Egeus, is a dirtbag who wants Hermia to marry Demetrius. Not only does Hermia not care for Demetrius, but the man has "made love" (1.1.107) to Helena, another young woman of Athens. (It's always important to remember that, despite how many sex jokes and innuendoes Shakespeare puts into his plays, this isn't one of them: To make love is to woo or court a person.) So Helena wants Demetrius who wants Hermia who wants Lysander. The antics of the play really take off when the four lovers head into the woods to escape Egeus' ultimatum that Hermia must marry his preference for her or face death. Because this is a fairytale, the woods are packed with fairies, including the irrepressible Robin Goodfellow (also known as Puck), King Oberon, and Titania. Oberon has his own subplot about laying claim to a changeling child that Titania has in her train of followers--a subplot that's resolved off-stage and related to us in a brief explanation in 4.1--but his main purpose is to get the squabbling lovers (remember, Demetrius wants Hermia) to stop fighting. To that end, he has Puck put a special love potion on the eyes of…the wrong guy. If one wanted to take a more cynical stance on this play, it's really about four horny people who are interested in having sex and which partner they get doesn't matter much. Yes, Hermia (and Helena, though she doesn't demonstrate it as Hermia does) is interested in consummating her relationship with Lysander, but only after getting married. Lysander is much more anxious for their relationship to become more physical, and that becomes parodic when the love juice accidentally lands on his eyes. He falls for Helena, spurns Hermia, and then ends up trying to woo Helena with a surprising level of gusto. Because Demetrius isn't interested in Helena, then changes his tune after he gets some of that Love Potion Number 9 in his face, Helena ends up with two men vying for her attention. Helena is furious at being made the butt of their jokes: Wherefore was I to this keen mockery born? She rightly takes issue with becoming this focus of infatuation, then has to deal with the fury of her best friend, Hermia, who is now being abandoned by Lysander… Look, the interplay of the characters can be a little complicated. It's harder to read than some other plays by the Bard because of the close proximity of the girls' names (Helena and Hermia) and the interchangeability of the men (Lysander and Demetrius both lust after Helena). Many years ago, I had to come up with a mnemonic to help me keep the pairings straight, or else I become hopelessly lost: Both pairs are supposed to have an L and an M in their names. So Lysander and Hermia go together, while Demetrius and Helena are a couple. And that's part of the point, I think, of the play: When it comes to purely physical relationships, the partnering is one of proximity and convenience, not of compatibility. It's a rather cynical take on what it means to fall in love, surely. The play is filled with slapstick, hijinks, and verbal flourishes, but it's all to further this thesis that love is as mercurial as…well, a dream. But that isn't all. (When it's Shakespeare, there's always a bit more than just the surface story.) Yes, there's a big problem with the concept of consent: Egeus will only consent to having Demetrius marry his daughter, Hermia. More alarmingly, Helena--who seems to love Demetrius purely, though she's not too happy about him behaving so unaccountably strange during the second act--ends up with Demetrius by the end, the love potion removed from Lysander's eyes and leaving Demetrius still drugged. We're told in the final scene by Oberon (or perhaps it's simply a song sung--the First Folio doesn't give him these lines specifically) that "So shall all the couples three/Ever true in loving be" (5.2.37-38). The spell, it seems, will always be on Demetrius, shifting his consent from Hermia to Helena. When I think of it that way, I bristle. These meddling fairies have essentially forced Demetrius into a situation that he didn't choose, their manipulation pushing him into a relationship that he didn't want. But I think there's something more to it. There's magic in words--well-wrought words, I should say--and there are many things about which we change our minds. What is it, exactly, that convinces us to change course? There can be a lot of things, from political ideologies to religious dogma to personal experiences, all of which work on us to get us to move. An example that's a bit of a thing right now is how President Nelson, the leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, has asked that members of the Church get vaccinated and to mask up when social distancing isn't possible. It has caused a kerfuffle, to say the least, as there is a strong anti-mask sentiment among the rank-and-file of members (in my experience, I should say) and now those who felt that their God-given right to breathe contagions into the air is being challenged by the man they claim has a God-given privilege to guide the Church on Earth. What will convince someone to wear a mask during church meetings? Science hasn't done it for many of them; social pressures likewise seem irrelevant. Fearmongers, grifters, hucksters, and other bad actors have eroded the faith of some members in the reality of the global pandemic. Will they change their minds because President Nelson asks them to? Am I comparing, then, the leader of my church to a magical love potion? Well, to a certain extent, yes. The largest difference is that this masking example still hinges on the consent/choice of those who are struggling with changing their minds, while Demetrius has no say in what happens to him. He doesn't even know why he suddenly can't live without Helena. On the other hand, how did you first fall in love? Was that a conscious choice, one that you made out of a rational weighing of the merits of the object of your affection? Or was it something that just…happened, something that, as Mr. Darcy says of his path toward loving Mrs. Darcy, "I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun"? Perhaps there is little choice in falling in love, which is all that this play is concerned with. For us foolish mortals, however, the choice remains on whether or not we remain in love. So maybe the love potion is the mechanism by which Demetrius falls for Helena; let us pretend that, once that has faded, he chooses to remain with her. Of course, there's a lot more to this play than just the lovers, and the hands-down best would have to be Nick Bottom, a weaver of Athens. He is guileless, charming, foolish, brash, and enthusiastic. He's also incapable of keeping the right words in his mind (when he says "deflowered" instead of "devoured", it leads to really bad connotations about what the lion purportedly does to Thisby) or of remaining dissuaded of what he wants. And what he wants is to perform a farcical play for Theseus and Hippolyta on their wedding day (at night). It is his genuineness that pulls me toward him. He is foolish, yes, but he's authentically so. He bungles most everything, but it does tend to go well despite all of that. And there is--though Bottom certainly doesn't know it--a profundity to the speech he utters upon waking up in the forest, his memories of having the head of a donkey and being wooed by Titania (another victim of the love potion): I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was: man is but an ass, if he go about to expound this dream. Methought I was--there is no man can tell what. Methought I was,--and methought I had,--but man is but a patched fool, if he will offer to say what methought I had. The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man's hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was. I will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of this dream: it shall be called Bottom's Dream, because it hath no bottom… (4.1.199-209) His attempt to recreate 1 Corinthians 2:9-10 is delightful, and it points to the simplicity of the man who is trying his best despite not having all his facts straight. It's a brilliant bit of characterization that is in line with everything else we see of Bottom throughout the play entire. It's also rather indicative of the dichotomies, paradoxes, and oxymorons that Shakespeare weaves throughout the play. Okay, so a bit of personal history here: I took one (and only one) Shakespeare class during my college days. Most of the term was spent in rehearsals where I and four other girls were tasked with doing an abridgment of 5.1 of A Midsummer Night's Dream. As I was the only guy, they (naturally) cast me as Thisby, the female lover who kills herself most tragically for love. So there are parts of this scene that live in my memory, even if I wouldn't be able to perfectly recite the words. This part of the play is absolutely my favorite, as it resides close to my heart. In this scene, Theseus says the line "That is hot ice and wondrous strange snow" (5.1.59), which has stuck with me because of its fundamental paradox. How can you have hot ice? But it isn't just there: We get lots of paradoxes and oxymorons in the speeches of the characters, which adds to the impossibility and dream-like quality of the play itself. In other words, through this constant paradoxical pressure that Shakespeare baked into the poetry, we get a strange sense of a world where impossible things can happen, where our typical boundaries of expectation and reality are bent, twisted, or lost entirely. "So musical a discord," says Hippolyta in 4.1.115, "such sweet thunder." These are not typical--discord does not make music and what thunder savors of sweetness?--and neither is this enchanted wood just outside of Athens. I think that's really cool. There are some other components to this play that I noticed, but I think this has probably gone on long enough. If you haven't watched a Shakespeare play in a long time (or ever), my over-familiarity with it leading me to like it less shouldn't dissuade you from making the choice to give it a try. If you don't like it, just take Robin's advice during the Epilogue: If we shadows have offended, The New York Times has recently given a digital subscription to every teacher and student in America. As a result, I can finally read some of the more controversial--or blasé, depending on the day--op-eds and articles that have been behind a paywall. This morning, a number of the op-eds revolved around Christmas and worship. I read two of them, and I wanted to riff off of this one. (I recommend the one about the Zoom church meetings, too, for what it's worth.)
Peter Wehner's thoughts are interesting to me because he has stripped down just what was so revolutionary and radical about Jesus Christ during His own time. As a Mormon--a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints--who doesn't really think of himself as a Christian in its modern form, there's a lot that appeals to me. First of all, I think that there's a large difference between Christ and Christianity, the former being of so much greater import than the latter that it hardly bears mentioning. Christianity is what much of the New Testament is interested in establishing; the four Gospels contain all that Jesus said during his mortal (and slightly post-mortal) ministry. It's not a lot, considering how large of an effect His life has had on the history of the world. And, as a Mormon, there are additional components to this--parts of the Doctrine and Covenants, as well as a few chapters in 3 Nephi of the Book of Mormon--that I would call "canonically Christ's". Even with the Mormonic "additional scriptures", what Jesus actually said and did is a pretty sparse account. Even the four Gospels mostly repeat each other, adding nuance, detail, flavor, or expansion in most of the stories. In short, there's not a lot that could be said accounts for Jesus' ministry among mankind. And that's what works so well about Wehner's look. He is drawing our attention to the radical ideas of love, acceptance, and seeking out those most in need of healing--the core concept of Christ's mortal ministry. There's more to what Christ did while He was here, of course. However, His divine ministry, as it were, involved the sacrifice and atonement of mankind, a singular act done by a singular Being that is not really what can be emulated by the rest of us. His mortal ministry shows us how to live; His divine ministry shows us why we live. So it seems fair to me that we spend some time focusing on Jesus' life, particularly as it's currently Christmas Eve and if I don't do at least this essay, there's no guarantee that I'll be having many spiritual experiences over the next two days of avarice and indulgence. I should say that I am definitely a Scrooge: I don't much care for the Christmas season--it's cold, it demands a huge amount for someone whose introverted nature balks at so much interaction, and the lies of the time bother me (kids may know that Jesus is the reason that we celebrate Christmas, but it's the gifts under the tree that make them excited about this time of year; also, lying about Santa Claus has not sat right with me; I remain silent on the topic every year, letting my wife carry that burden of perjury). For a long time, the fact that it lasted all month long--a type of "holimonth" instead of a "holiday"--irked me. Though it could be the COVID restrictions talking, but maybe I'm a bit past that? It certainly hasn't been as draining this year: We don't have to worry about family-, friend-, and ward parties, sledding (harder and harder to do on an ever-warming globe), watching a perpetually-growing list of "traditional" Christmas shows, and an entire miscellany of additional add-ons to the stresses of this time of year. Also, I continue to change as an individual, so my feelings likewise, perhaps, are changing. After however many years to think about it, I may have come to my conclusion about why Christmas, of all the pagan observations subsumed into Christianity's calendar, has left me cold. I think it's because people kept insisting that we should "put Christ back into Christmas". To explain that, let me talk about something else: Cathedrals. I've been to Europe only a couple of times, so I can only speak in a limited way on this, but one of my favorite things to do is to visit European cathedrals. The denomination doesn't matter to me--religiously speaking, Protestant or Catholic, I view them as spiritual cousins rather than ancestors--I just like being in them. I've been to Koln, Notre Dame (both of Paris and Bayeux), and a couple others. They're always exciting to me, letting me glimpse incredible architecture and religious iconography that is familiar-yet-different. After all of the cookie-cutter, utilitarian churches I attended throughout my life, with only a handful of similar artwork hanging on the walls of the hallways (LDS churches don't do bells, stained glass depictions, reliefs, triptychs, statues, candles, or much beyond ninety-degree angles and burlap-textured walls), seeing so much diversity in religious understanding really spoke to me. I would stand outside them and do the very thing their imposing and inspiring architecture was designed to do: Tip the head and direct the gaze heavenward. As far as the religious worship happening there--vespers and censers, kneeling and recited prayers, communion of soul and parishioner--I remained aloof. I had no problem being respectfully reverential toward those who visited the site as a religious duty or desire, but that wasn't my reason for being there. I had a different approach, one that satisfied me and my needs, albeit of a more secular or academic reason. The point of a cathedral is to help the worshippers have a spiritual experience. That's why they're made. (Yes, there were political shenanigans with the creation of many of them, but the motives of those few historical figures aren't what I'm worried about here.) Their splendor, their ingenuity, their imposition, their hope--all of these things are part of what they're designed to do. Just like it's a marvel-bordering-on-a-miracle to see a medieval cathedral rising up from the ground, it's a miracle that God has created Mankind by rising them up from the dust. From the shape of the building as a cross to commemorate the mode of Christ's death down to the materials used--to build upon a rock, rather than a sandy foundation--are all calculated to add to a person's devotion. Do some of the explanations come about through a post-hoc justification that was not part of the original intention? Surely that's so, though that matters very little. The point of the cathedral is to sweep up people in feelings of awe and reverence that can then be easily transmitted to even higher vistas of religious worship. It also acts as a tourist destination. The tragic loss of Paris' Notre Dame still hurts my heart. Seeing it in flames was one of the saddest images in my pre-2020 lifetime. But I haven't lost a part of my religious identity or my history with the loss of that cathedral. As a citizen of the world, I feel that its loss has impoverished humanity; as a worshipper of Christ, I do not feel that same loss. Other cathedrals exist, other churches, other temples. There are other ways for people to worship, but there's no other Notre Dame of Paris. I continue to mourn the loss of mosques, synagogues, monasteries, chapels, and cathedrals due to the degradation of time, the violence of wars, and neglect of parishioners. There is a rich human history in worshipping the divine that irretrievably slips from us whenever these important areas are no longer frequented, remembered, or appreciated. And sometimes, as in the case of the fire at Notre Dame, accidents rob us and our future generations of the devotion of previous generations. It isn't the slowing of worship that personally hurts me, it's the overall contribution to human society that causes my regret. However, true believers will know that it's less the stones and more the stories, less the place and more the people, less the gaudy and more the God that matters. Worship of a place is an idolatry, and loss of great places helps to remind us of that. Christmas is a cathedral. Inside of it, true believers can focus on the stories, people, and God that comprise its walls. Its outer confines, its spires and its clerestories, its flying buttresses and its apses…these are all the exteriority. You cannot see the how high the belltower goes from the pews. When you're inside the cathedral, you can appreciate much of its work, but the purpose is the worship that you can do while inside of it. Though there is some bits of religious performance, there isn't a performative nature to true worship, regardless of where you are. The cathedral is a place wherein the spiritual can happen. So, too, is Christmas an inside thing, a place where the spiritual can happen. And, like all spiritual moments, it is fundamentally and fortuitously personal: No one can be spiritual on your behalf. That's something that can better be done if in a place set aside for it. Christmas is a cathedral. Outside of it, anyone can focus on the marvels that it creates. This is where the lights, snow, red caps with white trim, and the commercialism reside. The sweeping architecture of a capitalist concoction is so stunning, so all-encompassing that it literally causes sleeplessness. This is the "secular" side of Christmas, but it is also part of the building. They are separate, yet connected. And the problem I have with "putting Christ back into Christmas" is that it strives to pull out what is only valuable within. The vespers are best suited for being spoken inside; what makes the cathedral significant to the parishioners isn't found outside. Yet it's the outside that most people see, most people interact with. There are Parisians who never bothered to step foot inside of Notre Dame; I, some random bloke from Chapelvalley Utah, have had the opportunity to walk over its medieval stones twice now. So Christmas is something that can be appreciated (or somewhat ignored…I don't know that any Parisian in the concourse of the past few centuries wasn't at least aware of Notre Dame) at whatever level. The point is, when people insist on their version of Christmas, that their internal become the external, I find myself bristling. There are very few ways that one can do Christmas wrong, but I think there are, still, a few. Those that get bent out of shape because they wish to be wished "Merry Christmas" by apathetic and overworked retail cashiers; that their coffee cups have the "correct" terminology on them; that the parties and the gifts be "correctly" observed; that the "right" meals must be cooked by unthanked and overworked mothers and wives; that the Christmas tree be visible in the White House or Rockefeller Center and bedecked with all of its glitz; that the radio station be tuned to the "Christmas station" in order to listen to the same three hours total of Christmas music that has been stale since before Thanksgiving; that there be a manger scene at their courthouse; that the kids dress up in itchy, ill-fitting clothes to parade in front of the grown-ups while a drowsy rereading of Luke chapter 2 drones beneath the children's buzzing voices; that we "take a moment to think about Jesus" before indulging in the avarice of the season…the issue here is the insistence that the cathedral be viewed from only one angle, that its purpose be monolithic. A believer can enter a cathedral without look up, without seeing the carvings of saints and apostles standing over the entrance and will walk away being fulfilled. A struggling Mormon can cross the ocean and marvel solely at the stonework. It can be a spiritual gift or a secular miracle. Christmas can be many things, but it can't be all things. Insisting that it must be will lead to disappointment, much like if you came to Notre Dame hoping to play some basketball. You've brought the wrong expectation to the right place. (If you really want to play basketball in a consecrated, holy building, just go to your local LDS chapel. We have more basketball courts than we have belfries.) This is more than a "let everyone enjoy Christmas in their own way" plea, however. I think there is active harm in the forcing the internal out or the external in. A cathedral must have both inner and outer walls. Even though it's of the same structure, there is a difference. If anything, I'm saying that the two "sides" of Christmas are fundamentally incompatible: You cannot hold up the façade of a cathedral and claim that people aren't worshipping it correctly when the worship happens on the inside. That, to me, is what happens when people grouse about a "war on Christmas" or think that secular resistance to the ubiquity of the holiday in some way prevents it from existing. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that those who gnaw on the non-issue of who says "happy holidays" as opposed to "merry Christmas" have yet to walk in through the doors of the cathedral and instead are fixated on a single stone on the plinth. No, I think that an appreciation of Christmas needs to be as radical as its namesake, with that appreciation being much like salvation: A personal connection that transpires because the individual has chosen to walk inside. Merry Christmas… …and happy holidays, from both sides of the cathedral. Note: Mormonism is capable of sustaining a lot of different views and attitudes; what I have almost exclusive contact with is the Utah County variety, which is its own unique brand of the religion. Additionally, I'm speaking from personal, lived experience and perceptions that I have received. Others who've been a part of this religion as long--or longer--may remember and view things differently. Obviously, I'm speaking for myself and not for the Church itself, and there are plenty of people who feel differently than the mainstream Mormonism I'm painting here. Exceptions to what I'm discussing here are what give me hope.
I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints--a Mormon--and I don't view politics the way the majority of my local congregants do. If I had to peg my personal concepts of Mormonism, they'd probably be closer to an LDS liberation theology than where many might expect a Mormon to land. Like any honest seeker of truth, my understandings of the world shift and change as new information comes in. My feelings and ideas also change--there was a time, for example, when I believed that global warming was a hoax, simply because I thought that I was a Republican, and Republicans denied the clear scientific evidence--and so I'm writing this not as an endpoint of my thoughts but rather one that's spurred by recent events and disappointments. It's part of my own journey. What I'm doing here is trying to answer the question that I found in comments to one of Pat Bagley's tweets (which is funny and, to only fuel the irony of this post, I'm linking to but not sharing outright because it has swears and, as a Mormon, I've issues with that). In it, Pat "translates" Evan McMullin's tweet which expresses his disgust at the police brutality against a senior citizen in the recent police riots. Within Bagley's comments is the one I have as the image at the top of the post, from @the_real_scott: "Speaking of Mormonese, I can't understand the Mormon ease in voting for something that is antithetical to everything they say they believe morally. I really don't get how they support Trump's lies, crimes, and overt racism." Good wordplay there, and it shoots straight at my own questions about how Mormons feel about the impeached president. First of all, the majority of Mormons seem to be okay with President Trump. Despite his bragging about sexual assault--revealed before the election happened--his impeachment, and any other catalogue of horrors and abuses, Mormons are poised to vote for him again in November, based upon polls taken at the end of May 2020. And though they've not loved him the way Mormons usually kowtow to Republican presidents, they still abide his presidency by almost two-thirds majority. (Admittedly, that particular stat comes from 2018, and opinions can change.) In short, the impeached president's bragging about murdering someone on 5th Avenue has, metaphorically, held true with the majority of members of the Church of Jesus Christ: Despite his clear disdain for religion--using it as a prop to shore up his Evangelical base--as well as his frequent maligning of Mormon-favorite Mitt Romney, President Donald Trump remains popular among the pious. It should be clear, if it weren't yet, that I view the impeached Donald Trump as a danger to our country and a "king of shreds and patches," to quote Shakespeare. He took a position he was not qualified for, put in office against the wishes of the majority of voters, and has done a worse job as president than I anticipated--which is really saying something. As a human, he's undignified, incapable of coherent thought, and an embarrassment. And, as much as it might pain him to hear it, for Mormons, I don't think it's about him. For some members of the Church, it wasn't about Trump; it was about his competition. To many Mormons, voting for Trump (which both Mormon-heavy Utah and Idaho did in 2016) was more about voting against Hillary Clinton, whom they viewed with suspicion (at best) and outright hostility (at worst…and at more normal levels, from my experience). It feels like much of the AM dial in Utah is dedicated to conservative talk-radio, and talk-radio notoriously despised Clinton, whom they viewed as an Obama-surrogate (among other things). Right or no, the perception of Clinton as somehow even worse than President Obama was definitely part of the milieu in Utah County circa 2016. The case against Clinton was manifold, but the one that I heard a student say that continues to haunt me is that she was "overqualified" to be the President of the United States. And, of course, the sarcastic catchphrase of the election: "But her emails!" was viewed, not as conspiracy-theory bleating, but a coup de grâce about voting red. Abortion is a flashpoint for a lot of members of the Church: The Church is opposed to at-will abortions, so voting for a candidate who embraced the continued legalization of abortion was a non-starter. Marriage, another bastion of Mormonism and an area where the Church feels constantly threatened, was brought up against Clinton. I saw people deride her for staying with the impeached Bill Clinton, despite his highly-public affair. I also heard people use the idea that Bill was a rapist, and therefore Hillary should not be president. (I haven't heard if these same people were distressed by the sixteen allegations of sexual misconduct against 45 has changed their opinions on the toupee-wearing jack-o-lantern.) Trump is on his third wife, and has admitted to extramarital affairs--including a large-scale scandal with a paid-off porn star--but I've not heard much among my conservative friends about whether that has changed any feelings. Despite all of this, Clinton is no longer running (though I hear enough about both Clinton and Obama from conservative defenders of the impeached president that I sometimes wonder) and so voters for Trump no longer have to be his supporters, right? Well, this is where it stops being about Donald Trump, at least from what I can understand. It's not his personality, but his politics where a lot of Mormons align with him. Yes, on the whole, Mormons are opposed to Trump's stance on refugees--consider Governor Herbert's request at the end of 2019--and they aren't a fan of his blatant sexism (I guess; Mormons have a really strong definition of gender roles, but they don't like it when people are mean about those sorts of things). Really, it's more of a "hate the sinner, love the sin" sort of an approach. The death of Antonin Scalia--and the Supreme Court Justice seat McConnell and other Republican senators held unfilled until after the election was over--appeared to me as one of the deciding factors for a number of people: Better to have a spray-tan afficionado in the Oval Office and a conservative Justice than a competent Commander-in-Chief who would put a liberal Justice in place. And so we hit the paydirt of what Mormonism as a political force means. I personally think that the politics of Mormonism is divorced from the theology--as I mentioned before, I lean toward a type of liberation theology, rather than the prosperity theology that has been a part of Mormonic politics/culture for as long as I can remember--and that can, in part, be laid at the feet of President (of the Church) Ezra Taft Benson. His cold-warrior approach to the way the world worked in his time gave a lot of grist to the conservative movement, including his proclamations that the Constitution is a "heavenly banner". (I personally don't know that I want a banner in heaven that enshrines slavery, 3/5 personhood to Blacks, or busies itself with letters permitting piracy…but to each his own, I guess.) Don't get me wrong: I'm a fan of the Constitution. But I'm not a fan of thinking it as some sort of extracanonical scripture (that's what Shakespeare's for) that makes it sacrosanct and above reproach. President Benson wasn't alone in this--we've a long-standing love-affair with conservativism in Mormon history. Heck, BYU's no-beard policy comes in response to counterculture activism in the 1960s and the overall association of hippies and communists to looking less well-groomed, including the wearing of facial hair. What better way to show we're anti-communist than by keeping our faces clean-shaven? The point is, that since at least the mid-twentieth century, Mormonism and conservativism have been growing together. That, however, doesn't explain all of it… From what I can tell, Mormons really want to be a part of the Christian name brand. I wrote about my own feelings on this (before the Church came out and made it a verbal taboo to use the nickname "Mormon"), which haven't changed very much. However, part of my argument is that, aside from a superficial dictionary definition of the term Christian, Mormons aren't Christians. And we're definitely different from the evangelical strains of American Christianity. We members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints won't be accepted as part of the body of Christ. Though old, this article from Michelle Vu at The Christian Post really puts a finger on the issue when she quotes Dr. Richard Land's analysis. We're considered a fourth Abrahamic religion: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Mormonism. However, going it alone is hard to do, especially when there are areas of commonality--a love of Jesus, a hope to do good, a desire for divinity and a blissful afterlife--that make Evangelists appear like natural allies in a world we've been taught to fear, reject, and help save. The marriage of so-called "conservative values" and the Evangelical Right, along with its fusion to the Republican party, has created a web of loyalties and assumptions that Mormonic politics has embraced almost wholesale. This is, to finally get to the answer from @the_real_scott's original question, why Mormons are at ease with Trump. It isn't Trump that they're at ease with: It's the initial next to his name. It's the Republican party that Mormons like. Sure, there are plenty of instances of disagreement--after all, Evan McMullan snagged almost 22% of the electoral vote in 2016, showing a very strong resistance to picking Trump. In fact, McMullan is an interesting case, because it shows that some (quite clearly not all) members did take issue with Trump, but still wanted their conservative views intact. For them, they felt that they were presented with two evils, and so decided to choose neither.* Had those who voted for McMullan instead picked Clinton, Utah would have gone to a Democratic candidate for the first time since LBJ.** Of course, they picked McMullan because they wanted an alternative to the personality, not necessarily to the politics, of the GOP and Trump. From what I can tell, the reason why Mormons will vote for Trump again in 2020--and, since it's 2020 and everything is topsy-turvy, it'll probably be in higher numbers than four years ago--is because they have long considered conservativism as a shibboleth for their religion. The broad strokes of Evangelical politics and right-wing thinking have enough religious parallels that members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will go along with almost any candidate with an R next to his (almost always his***) name. --- * I get the idea of voting one's conscience: I would argue that people's conscience should be, before "smaller government, lower taxes!", the moral "Don't vote for fascists". But that's just me. ** What's interesting to me isn't the infrequency of Democratic votes, but when they happen. In Utah's whole history, they've voted for five Democratic nominees in a total of eight elections. The remaining twenty-three elections all went to the Republican. And who did they vote for? Well, in the twentieth century, they went with Wilson--who won because he "kept America out of the war" and then sent Americans to war shortly after his second inauguration--before going along with FDR all four times. They even voted for his vice president. Utah didn't even vote for JFK, yet they helped rehire his vice president. I wonder if it had something to do with their perception of how the wars were progressing. I'd have to do more research, but I think that's fascinating. Oh, and did you notice how safe Utah is for Trump? There's no doubt that the Beehive State is securely in the impeached president's pocket. No doubt at all. *** Obviously, there are plenty of females in the Republican party and in the Utah political system. But there's definitely a preponderance of males. Also, the curious case of Ben McAdams versus Mia Love deserves more digestion than a footnote can handle, but it is absolutely worth mentioning that there is a Democrat from Utah in the House of Representatives. It's also worth pointing out that he ended up there because he had 694 more votes than Mia Love. And, to be honest, I was positively gob-smacked when I heard that McAdams won. The world is filled with all sorts of exceptions and unexpected turns, isn't it? Like most people, the news of the spreading corona virus has led me to some serious life reflections and considerations. What is essential? What am I prepared for? What do I view my life to be in the short term? How can I keep my family safe? For all of the unanswered questions, there's one that seems to nag at me the most, waiting in the wings: Is this it? For quite some time now, I've abandoned any millenarian theological interpretations about world events. My study of history--especially within the last hundred years--has shown me that as bad as things are, there have been times in the past where things were significantly worse than now. As a Mormon, I'm part of a millenarian church, but one that's been rather cagey about the end of the world, for the most part. After all, plenty of people--inside and, of course, outside--the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have made predictions about the pending apocalypse. My favorite would have to be the Great Fire of London in 1666. England, which had long thought of itself as God's Chosen Land™, was on edge about the whole year "666" thing. (I say "England", but really it was the more puritanically-inclined people; those who were less religiously devout/superstitious likely didn't mind it as much.) What better year to really show his demonic power off than in Satan's own year? Dire warnings about God's judgment were rife, particularly since the monarchy had only been restored six years prior and was still a sore spot for the revolutionaries who had believed in Cromwell's dictatorship. With a plague outbreak happening a year before, London was feeling like…well, that it was the end of the world. On 2 September 1666, in the King's bakery on Pudding Lane, a fire broke out. Due to a long, hot, dry summer, London was ripe for the roasting and soon half of the City was on fire. Attempts to detonate buildings with gunpowder to provide a fire break occurred (which is, in hindsight, rather an amusing picture), and despite their best efforts, by 4 September 1666, only a fifth of London remained standing. Even St. Paul's Cathedral was destroyed--the one that we all know and love today, that survived the Nazi blitz of World War II, was erected on the same spot in the aftermath of the Great Fire--and though only a handful of people died in the blaze, hundreds of thousands were left homeless and destitute. It was a catastrophe by every mark. (If you want to read more, here's a nifty article.) Who of that time wouldn't look at the great city of London succumbing to flames and think, "This is the end of the world"? On the first day of July 1916, the British launched a bloody and ill-fated attack on German positions near the Somme in France. The battle turned into a lengthy bloodbath, the likes of which have but rarely been seen since then. When I think of how we're behaving now, how convinced we are at the prospect of facing the End Times, I think of this footage. Filmed at 0720 on 1 July 1916 by Geoffrey Malins, this explosion at the Hawthorn Redoubt saw 40,000 pounds of explosive detonate underground. Watch this short clip and ask yourself: What does the end of the world look like? Surely seeing an 80 foot-deep crater, longer than a football field would be part of it? I see an image like this, and I'm reminded of Book 6 of Paradise Lost, when the rebel angels' cannon-fire pushes the loyal angels' ingenuity, and they begin to hurl entire mountains at one another: Forthwith (behold the excellence, the power When I think of the End of Days, I consider how, in the years between Hitler's rise and fall, human beings were turned into purses and riding pants, how Japan's Unit 731 experimented on Chinese prisoners with anthrax and vivisection, how Turkey yet denies having slaughtered a million Armenians…
…if that's not enough to spur Christ's return, why would a twenty-first century flu be sufficient? There's an entire cottage industry of predicting (thus far, wrongly) the end of the world, the Rapture, whatever one wishes to call it, up to and including the creation of a pet-service website for after the apocalypse comes. Mayans were believed to have predicted the end of the world in 2012, of course, and there's hardly a Sunday-gone-by where I haven't heard someone lament about how much more wicked the world is than in those idyllic yesteryears of yore. But I just don't know if that's true. Yes, the world is different, but it's been in a perpetual evolution since Day One. But more wicked than the wholesale enslavement of 16 million human beings from Africa? More wicked than systemic exploitations that led to children dying in mines and factories? History is replete with heinous behavior; why should this be it? The Mormon in me wants to believe that the end is nigh because there are many promised blessings. But the humanist in me wants to believe that we could have chosen differently; we could have aimed to save people, save our planet, save our future--that Christ would come not as a deus ex machina to prevent us from self-annihilation, but because we'd made the world safer, kinder, more loving, more caring, less violent, more equal…more heavenly. When I think of all the despicable things I know from my small store of historical knowledge, I can't believe that twenty-first century problems are what St. John the Beloved was looking at in his great uncovering of the end of the world. Maybe what really worries me is that if the Holocaust isn't sufficiently evil enough to trigger the Second Coming, what will be? I found out about Megan Phelps-Roper's departure from the Westboro Baptist Church when a video clip interview made its way across my timeline on Twitter. I poked about a bit and found out that Megan (I'm going to use her first name instead of her last because it's shorter) left the Westboro Baptist Church a handful of years ago. Now she's written a memoir and doing the whole book-tour thing, which piqued my interest. While I try to buy books as often as possible, sometimes I snag stuff from the library, which also shows support for writers. I put her book, Unfollow: A Memoir of Loving and Leaving the Westboro Baptist Church, on hold and promptly forgot about it. When the text notification let me know it was there, however, I made it a point to pick it up as soon as possible. With all of the other things that I have on my plate--including Les Miserables (for the twelfth time) and Why Write? (for the second time…this year) among others--this was actually the best way for me to read the book: I knew I had to return it, so I couldn't pull a typical-Steve and buy the book so that it could gather dust at my house instead of Barnes and Noble.
I'm glad I read it, though. It really is a heartbreaking and inspiring story that traces Megan's involvement since she was a little kid with her family's church. If you aren't familiar with the Westboro Baptist Church…well, you're pretty lucky, then. This is the church that protests the funerals of soldiers, victims of mass-shootings, and other high-profile people. They tote around colorful protest signs that say things like "Thank God for IEDs" and, their number-one-jam, "God Hates F*gs". They use harsh, offensive language, manipulating press coverage to get themselves more publicity, though the "inside look" that Megan gives us is much more nuanced than this summary. And that's what I really liked about the book. It gave me a glimpse into a life that I had already judged--and, on occasion, was even right about--being one of a type of religious depravity. But there's more to what's going on than hatemongering--which they are absolutely doing. Some of what I've long heard about the church had to do with the late Fred Phelps, the founder of the Westboro Baptist Church and most prominent firebrand. His fiery sermons invoked hellfire, wrath, destruction, and condemnation on any who weren't the elect of God (e.g. his church and its handful of members, almost all of whom are family). His doctrines focused primarily on the collective sin that America has committed by allowing the LGBTQ+ community to have human rights; death was the ultimate punishment, in his mind, drawing attention to that sin during a community's most vulnerable moments (that is, at the funerals for victims of sundry events) was the best way to demonstrate the immorality of the country. From a theological point of view, his thinking was pretty messed up, though Megan points out that, as they were a Calvinist-inspired denomination, they didn't have to worry about trying to convince anyone of what they were preaching, as everyone was already heaven- or (more likely) hell-bound. It doesn't really behoove me to unpack their doctrine, in part because my Bible game is pretty weak, and also because that seems like a waste of time. I'm more interested in seeing the ways that Megan navigated her youth. She's about my age--within one or two years, give or take--which makes it easier to tap into some of the things that she had to deal with, including the way the internet changed everything in the late '90s. However, Megan had a couple of experiences that stood out to me: One was the cocksure way of approaching any problem. "We're right and they're wrong" was a catchall. Biblical explanations pasted over massive problems--while Megan doesn't report of any specific physical abuse from her grandfather, it's clear that he beat Megan's mother (his daughter) and his other children. When explaining this part of the story, Megan did what she does throughout--tosses in a verse of scripture, in italics, that would be used as the hermeneutics for the behavior. In the case of child abuse, she quotes Proverbs 23:13, which reads (in the King James Version of the Bible, which is the one both Mormons and Westboro Baptists use), "Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die." I don't think I have to explain--I hope I don't have to explain--why this was so startling to me. What really got to me was that I, as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, have a distinctly different relationship with the Bible than other denominations (probably one of the larger reasons why I'm not in the "Mormons are Christians, too!" camp, but I've already talked about that). More than that, however, I don't worry about fitting every moment of my life into a biblical narrative, which is clearly an impulse that Megan grew up with. If something bothers my heart, I don't turn to the Good Book to try to assuage what's bothering me--and it really doesn't take too much to find a biblical verse to support any specific idea that one might wish. That isn't to say, however, that I'm not also in a tradition that is cocksure about any and every question. Even if you take one that's non-eschatological (though, if we poke at it long enough, it could be eschatological) as the concept of evolution, some Mormons will assert that the official word is that evolution isn't true. Others, including my wife, will point out that there actually isn't any official stance on the topic (which is correct; the Church doesn't go either way), though there are plenty of opinions on the matter, even from high authorities in the church. The point of this example, however, is to show how "We don't know" can be a bit of a surprise answer when the theology is supposed to be one that "has all of the answers". My own understanding of that reality has been one of the necessary steps I've had to take in how I treat my belief system. Megan had a similar issue, and in the end she decided to abandon her church--which also meant that she had to abandon the family she deeply loved. She apologized for the hateful messages she'd been sharing for the majority of her life, and in many ways sought to make amends. This was hard to read about, not because I think she did the wrong thing (she didn't; leaving her church was the only logical thing for her to do in her situation), but because it's so familiar. Members of the LDS Church are taught to care deeply about families, and a family member who doesn't worship the way the rest of the family does can very often be ostracized. There are plenty of heartbreaking stories about kids who are transgender, gay, atheist, or somehow non-conforming to Church principles being exiled from family institutions. In Megan's case, she left her church after she'd already graduated from college*, making her able to land on her feet, to a large degree. Her process of self-discovery takes up the last third or so of the book, and her musings over what she'd learned, how she had to unlearn it, and what she did to try to make things right is a beautiful component of the text. On the whole, I would really recommend this book. It's thoughtful and thought provoking. I don't always agree with some of her conclusions--particularly the argument, voiced in the final pages, that a marketplace of ideas is the panacea for the poisoned discourse that we suffer through daily (though that's a different topic for a different day)--but Unfollow is a remarkable book. I would say that, of the two, Educated struck closer to home, as its theology more closely mirrors mine, but both memoirs of women leaving the theologies of their youths are worth pursuing. --- * This was one of the surprises about the Westboro Baptist Church: It is a well-schooled institution. Many of the highest members are lawyers, and they always sent their kids to school (Megan picketed her own high school graduation, then went inside to get her diploma), and they are a far cry from the homeschooling version of fundamentalism that I saw in Educated. The other large surprise was that Fred Phelps was instrumental in advancing civil rights for Blacks in America back in the day. That he could view racism (though not antisemitism: he had a lot of spleen for Jews) as a genuine evil but not homophobia is one of the most extraordinary examples of cognitive dissonance I've ever seen. Have you noticed those "LDS Millionaire Matchmaker" billboards that have been flowering through Utah Valley the past couple of months? I sure have. And it…really is weird to me. But, since I'm not a single, vivacious, unique, starry-eyed blonde Mormon woman (I am, according to my latest calculations, not even half of those things), I didn't put too much thought into it save, in true LDS-fashion, a quick "What the fetch?" as I was continuing my commute. Now that we're in the last throes of June, the deadline for the millionaire's matchmaking dreams has come and passed, the ending of which I still don't know. The blessing of Twitter, however, has given me a much needed (and wonderfully snarky) update to the story. You should read this before you finish mine, if only because the professional writer does such a great job, plus it fills you in on some of what I'm talking about. And, as a heads up, I'm not interested in simply ridiculing those involved (Meg Walter does it well enough). Everyone finds those who matter in different ways, so perhaps this millionaire finds happiness through this process. In fact, it's less the people and more the process that I want to look at here. From where I sit (in my Tudor-esque office, overlooking a neighborhood street with wind-rippled trees undulating prettily) and from my essential non-experience*, I feel like much of what is constructed in Mormon-culture (or, as I use the term, Mormonism, which, I would argue, is quite different from the culture endorsed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, much as the doctrine of the Church and the history of Mormonism are not necessarily the same, either) with regards to dating, courtship, and marriage, is massive spectacle. Consider Guy Debord, in The Society of the Spectacle: The whole life of those societies in which modern conditions of production prevail presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. All that once was directly lived has become mere representation. (1) There's a highly performative aspect to Mormonism on many (perhaps all) fronts: Clothing, verbiage, political point of view, daily behaviors, and much, much more. The interiority of conversion is encouraged, via monthly testimony meetings (Open Mic Sundays, as I like to think of them), to be brought out publicly for communal commodification and inspiration. Tears are not uncommon accompanists to the spiritual retellings of private moments**. The society of Mormonism is a fascinating amalgamation of traditional accumulations and nonce incorporations. Ossification happens, as does innovation. In many ways, the "modern conditions of [spiritual] production" truly do prevail within Mormonism and the Church proper. (A quick example: The Church has fully embraced the power of social media--to the point that a process of "selling God" is so prevalent that, though I don't have any Mormon-related views of videos on YouTube, I still get Church-sponsored ads on that website.)
One of the things, interestingly, that the Church has now given up on, is the spectacle par excellence of the "Mormon Miracle Pageant" in Manti, Utah, a sanitized version of Church history, performed with all the spectacle that a pageant ought to have, on the extreme slopes of the Manti Temple. (I went once. I was not a fan.) Despite that, there's still plenty of spectacle that's part and parcel of the Mormon experience, though it is often a spectacle that is done with an eye toward symbolism and spiritual depth: Baptism is one, complete with attendant witnesses and audience; marriage (as it is throughout non-Mormon society) is also highly spectacle driven, even if the ceremony itself is often privately attended inside the temples. Performative worship, while nothing compared to, say, the whirling dervishes, is also part of the Mormon experience. So it's little wonder that there's also performative spectacle when it comes to Mormon cultural expectations. Which leads back to the LDS Millionaire Matchmaker Challenge (it's not really a challenge, which is sad, because it would have been great to see a played-straight Iron Chef segment where the ladies had to incorporate something bizarre into their Jell-O dishes, ranging from carrots to marshmallows) and the experience as shown in the video and described by Meg Walter (again, follow the link). What happened at the actual event is, for me at least, an awkward afternoon that has a serious assumption underpinning what was thought of, by some of the contestants, as a joke, and that has to do with prosperity theology. This is not a uniquely Evangelical (though you could make an interesting argument about how Evangelical-like (-lite) Mormonism is), and though it isn't an official Church doctrine, it is absolutely part of how many Mormons view wealth. Particularly here in Utah, it is much more unusual and uncommon to see a teacher, a librarian, or any number of countless lower-middle class workers become involved in Church leadership than those who are of a more wealthy class. Since the Church is a lay religion, the bishops and stake presidents all come from the wards in which these leaders live. They don't attend seminary or any sort of rigorous, full-time training to do their service. It's all on the Church leader--say, the stake president--to do both money-making and Church-leading activities. Again, it's not the rule, but it is the trend to see those who are financially more well off--upper management, software CEOs, retired-before-50 types--in the leadership roles. Implicit, then, is the idea that wealth = righteousness, with the idea of additional wealth an indicator of even greater righteousness. I can't cite numbers, as this is more my intuition than anything, but I think it's fair to say that members who struggle financially, despite doing all of the things prescribed by the Church, have moments of wondering if they simply aren't righteous enough--aren't obeying the manifold rules well enough--to be given the blessing of wealth. One other thing to add to the mix: Mormonism's highly conservative tendencies mingle in disastrous (in my view) ways when it comes to self-reliance (an actively taught principle in the Church; it's a part of the doctrine, which is probably why part of me likes Milton's Puritanism to a certain degree) and what happens when a family requires Church assistance. There's a stigma to taking welfare of any type in the Church (but not, interestingly, in giving it…provided it's with the Church's name slapped on the side of the truck, rather than a governmental agency), and, from what I can tell, that is only made worse by the assumption on the part of some members that the reason a person is failing financially is because he's*** also failing spiritually. So the words "LDS Millionaire Matchmaker" sound, superficially, as though that's all there is: A millionaire who happens to be LDS is looking for a relationship. As I mentioned before, there are manifold ways of finding a worthwhile partner. Why not advertise it, if you have the means? But those words imply an additional level of piety that may not be visible to the uninitiated. This nameless, sheet-drenched millionaire (who couldn't afford to just, I don't know, take all the ladies on dates?) isn't simply saying that he's financially well off (I don't want to say "stable" because millionaires don't necessarily make good financial decisions all of the time--another assumption about wealth that, I personally think, plays into the trust that members put in their (rich) leaders: He's wealthy, so he must know how to make the right decisions!). No, those three words mean--to me, at least--that there's someone who is available and is, in essence, flaunting his righteousness by asserting his wealth status. Like a peacock whose feathers are made out of dollar bills, there's the outward spectacle that's meant to catch everyone's eyes; but the peahens are also aware of what those feathers are really saying. --- * Many of you know that my courtship with my wife involved meeting her as a junior in high school, dating her exclusively (so exclusively that we've never had any other serious relationship; we've only ever held hands with each other; neither of us has so much as kissed any other person romantically), and marrying her when we were both 21. I do not speak with personal experience at all when it comes to courtship and marriage. ** Please note, I am not disparaging those whose emotional response to important things is through crying. If anything, we need to have more times where it's socially acceptable (though not expected or required) to shed tears. *** And I mean he in many of the cases. The idea of a working Mormon woman as being someone without condemnation is a recent phenomenon and it doesn't have a lot of widespread application. That's a whole other subset to this: Single women are judged as somehow being unworthy of the blessing of marriage; poor men are judged as somehow being unworthy of the blessing of wealth. I'm working through another Mark Edmundson title. This one is Why Teach? and it's really good. I'll write up my thoughts about it later, so suffice to say that I'm enjoying it a lot and I am excited to also push through his slim volume Why Read? as soon as I can.
A couple of days ago, I came across one particular quote that stood out to me. He was talking about the two different types of college--the corporate one and the scholarly oasis one--and said that the leadership that's generated by the corporate one tends to be less of actual leadership and one more of enthusiastic regurgitation. He says, "What people usually mean by a leader now is someone who, in a very energetic, upbeat way, shares all of the values of the people who are in charge." That got me thinking. In education, we have some Twitter personalities that are sometimes called "thought leaders" and they'll be people who tweet faux-profound messages like, "Grades indicate an end of learning" or (and this one falls into Edmundson's quote quite aptly), "Principals, the likelihood of anyone else in your building having principal experience is slim to none. Be confident in your decisions, your process, and your shortcomings. Most recognize that they don’t fully understand your role and want to support you." The ideas typically aren't bad, per se, but they're an energetic, upbeat way of sharing the values of the people in charge. And isn't that very much what we want in a leader? My bosses are all on my wavelength--or I'm on theirs, perhaps?--and so I'm happy to go along with them. Though we bump into conflicts every once in a while, it is, for the most part, a pretty smooth experience going from one day to the next. So what about in my religion? This one is trickier, because there's an implicit (and sometimes not-so-implicit) gag order on criticisms, critiques, or questions about leadership decisions. I think back to my mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Back then (early 2000s), the missionary program asked missionaries to memorize six different discussions about core principles of the gospel. By memorize, I mean to literally memorize, word for word, what was written in the discussion pamphlet. This was something that I saw some value in, as it helped me to gain a stronger (admittedly, gospel-centric) vocabulary in Spanish. But I rarely recited the charlas (the Spanish word for discussions) verbatim, despite having a couple of them fully committed to memory. Though there was personal benefit to the memorization process, it wasn't useful outside of the confines of my apartment. Despite it not being something that I utilized "correctly", my mission president*, a man whom I love and respect now as I did then, was constantly pushing the memorization process. He testified to its importance and explained why we, as missionaries, would only be remiss by letting the memorization process slacken. Part way through--not even a full year after I began, if I remember correctly--the Church reversed course on the memorization process. Instead, we were to use the charlas as a guide to outlining a custom-made discussion for our investigators. (The new thrust ended up being a stop-gap between the old discussions and the next phase, which is currently being used and is called Preach My Gospel.) As soon as the new outline-only format, with no more need to memorize, happened, my mission president immediately began testifying to the importance of outlines. He used personal experiences--just as he had with the memorization format--to explain and expound the value of such a teaching tool. From then on, in my mission, we outlined, feeling the support and leadership of my mission president. In the years since then, I've have cause to reflect on that. I don't say this to in any way diminish my mission president's leadership calling, his role, or his effectiveness. He led me through the very difficult process of a two year mission, far away from home. He helped shore me up and encourage me when I needed that support. So I'm not trying to say that he wasn't a leader, despite my quote by Edmundson at the top. What I can't quite get out of my mind is his firm resolve to say what the Church asked him to say. And maybe that's it: Maybe what's important here is to see my mission president's commitment to the Church, rather than any program or procedure. In a rapidly changing church environment**, trusting the leaders is to not trust the policies. The thinking, I suppose, is that the policies can change…but our leaders change, too. Widescale shifts in Church policies (how long we attend services on Sundays, how we minister to one another) are all welcome and interesting--but they didn't start happening until President Monson died. So obviously the leader does matter…and the leader also changes. Our ward was split last week--our first Sunday services under a new bishop (a new leader) is today. It will be interesting to see how my new leadership differs from the old…and whether I feel an Edmundsonian vibe coming from the new bishopric, or a sense of leadership in a less jaded, less cynical way. --- * If you're unfamiliar with how missions are set up in the Church, there's a man who serves for a number of years as the president of the mission. He's the one who decides who serves with whom and where, as well as other important decisions for how missionary work unfolds in the section of the world to which he's been assigned. He acts as a surrogate father for a lot of the missionaries, and though some people have really negative experiences with their mission presidents, mine were nothing but pleasures. ** I spoke about my own experiences in the field, but the Church recently made a large change in how often missionaries can talk to their families. Only a month ago, missionaries could only call home on Mother's Day and Christmas morning. Now, they can text and Facetime and communicate with parents on their preparation days--meaning weekly. Going from four times in a mission to weekly is a massive change. (It makes sense to me, as parents can be a great source of help and support to their missionaries, and there's little reason, I think, that a 21st century missionary needs to rely on 20th century policies.) There were good reasons for the old policy, and good reasons for the new. That it's changing so much is indicative of how much policy is being upended by the new First Presidency. Recently, Russell M. Nelson, the prophet and president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, gave a talk about the change in what he wanted people to say in reference to the Church itself. This is not a new topic for him; in April Conference of 1990, he gave a separate address that touches on the same themes. All of them are concerned with how the Church is named and how people refer to it. What is different is who is saying it and the more distinct prohibitions that have come down as a result.
I feel that I should say that I wrote about my own feelings about how the Church is discussed a couple of years ago, and much of what I wrote there remains my opinion. As much as possible, I feel like people talking about the Church ought to designate it using its full name, per the request of the institution. There is, however, more to be said about this topic. The problem with talking about it is some assumptions that I want to unpack. If you're unfamiliar with the Church, you may not recognize the way the president--often called the prophet (as opposed to the Prophet, who was Joseph Smith) of the Church--is considered. Particularly in official decrees over the pulpit during General Conference (which is what that first link is connected to), the pronouncements of Church leaders is considered sacrosanct and of divine origin. This is part of the reason why, back in October 2010, there was a kerfuffle about Boyd K. Packer's modified version of his talk on same-sex attraction: If the speakers at General Conference are inspired of the Lord, how can they say anything astray? This type of thinking is fundamental to Mormonism (yes, I used the M-word; I'll explain why in a minute) because the entire concept of coming into the Church, of conversion, is a belief in continued revelation--both organizationally and personally--that allows anyone to come to know the truth of the gospel as contained within the doctrines of the Church (see Moroni 10: 3-5). Without revelation about what is and is not orthodoxy (and, quite often, orthopraxy), the Church's entire conceit is lost. So when a Church leader says something in April or October General Conference, it's considered a soft-kind of scripture. (Most talks recycle ideas and themes from the canonical texts, though they will quote each other frequently, and very rarely would anything come across as being "new" doctrine--hence the stir Elder Packer's comments created, as well as their omission.) This is why it's such a big deal that the president of the Church made the kinds of nomenclature changes* as he did back in October. As a member of the Church, I'm not supposed to criticize or argue against what has been done. As a Mormon, I'm really uncomfortable with the declaration. And the two conflicting emotions have given me a bit of an identity crisis. Part of this is because I still stand by the idea that Mormonism isn't Christianity. While I love my Christian friends and my atheist friends and my Muslim friends and my all-of-the-other-things friends, there is enough difference between Mormonism and Christianity that I do not want to be considered a Christian. That is a term for the branch of religion from which Joseph Smith broke back in 1830. Christians believe in the Bible; Mormons believe in the Book of Mormon and the Bible and the Pearl of Great Price and the Doctrine and Covenants. Much like Jews believe in the Tanakh and Christians in the New Testament and the Tanakh, I feel that my religion is an outgrowth of a previous one, built upon its foundations and using its texts, while at the same time expanding. And a term that works very well for indicating that unique and powerful doctrine is Mormon. Now, President Nelson pointed out that using the term Mormon omits the name of the Savior from how we're viewed. I don't disagree: It's one of the things that makes it hard for other Christians to understand that we believe in Christ. I don't think that someone who doesn't know who we are, however, is going to have more positive feelings toward us simply because our two-syllable name is eschewed in favor of the eleven-syllable one. And I simply don't feel that my belief in Jesus Christ, His sacrifice, and His Atonement are lost when I use the word Mormon to describe my beliefs. And that, right there, is part of what makes this particular topic so fraught. How can I say I disagree with the prophet? A man whom I said I sustained as prophet, seer, and revelator? It's…tricky. Believing in President Nelson's guidance as the leader of the Church doesn't mean I have to turn off my brain. I flatly disagree with my Sunday School teacher, who said that the leaders of the Church are "perfect". I resist the hero-worship that many Saints practice (as one bishop said, "If it's good enough for President Monson, it's good enough for me") and would rather not defer my feelings to another. But why would I be enamored of a nickname to the point of opposing the president? (And I don't think I'm opposing him; I'm stating why I feel differently than others.) President Nelson alluded to Romeo and Juliet (how could you not? Shakespeare is everywhere) in his talk, saying, "What's in a name, or in this case, a nickname?" A rose really does smell as sweet, regardless of the language naming it. Without going into Derridean postmodern deconstruction on the purpose and power of words--which absolutely do matter and, so far as our society operates, really do mean things--I assert that Mormon is a word that easily and clearly describes the types of beliefs that I hold. Mormonism is an excellent way of describing the religious philosophies that I espouse. In his talk, President Nelson reminds us of how the term Mormon was used as an epithet and a way of speaking derogatorily about members of the Church. That much is true. But the thing about derogatory terms used against a particular group is that the group can also appropriate that term. Because words matter and mean things, that means that words are power. To usurp a persecutor's power, one can usurp that persecutor's term. This is why the Black community can use the N-word (and those outside of it really can't), as it defangs the pain the word can cause. Queer members of the LGBTQ+ community (and I know there's arguments about what to do with that argument which I'm not up to speed on, so I'm using this term for the nonce) also took what was supposed to be the verbal rock of the word queer and used it to build their own fortress to protect themselves from the scorn of those who hated them. In other words, it's only an epithet to me if I'm willing to let it be. And, as a member of the community, I feel I'm justified in choosing to feel that Mormon describes me in a non-persecutorial way. Additionally, it's important to note that our early history shows an acceptance of the term. Brigham Young was fond of saying "Mormonism" (as he always put it into quotes), going so far as to asssert that "Mormonism" was true. Even Joseph Smith omitted Christ's name in an early version of the Doctrine and Covenants**, and I don't think that Smith's actions were "victories for Satan". Of course, that's the tension inside the Church, isn't it? We believe in continuing revelation, but we always cleave to our canonized past. I don't know how to square that circle, save to say that, for me and myself, I don't have any problems with the M-word. It fits who I am and what I believe; it's convenient and it creates a solidarity for the persecuted past through which my ancestors suffered; and even if it is a bit of a shibboleth to others, I see it as pushing me into a deeper exploration of whom I believe in. --- * Clearly, it's not a "change" in that the Church didn't get a new name. It's the same as before. In fact, it's not even a request to others that they stop using the term Mormon, as the Church has been asking that for years. It's a change in how we, as members, think of ourselves. ** "Joseph Smith oversaw the editing of the text of some revelations to prepare them for publication in 1835 as the Doctrine and Covenants of the Church of the Latter Day Saints" (Introduction). ==== Hey, friends. I have been releasing essays on my website for a couple of years now at a pretty steady rate. I'm happy to do so, as it benefits me as a writer and (I hope) you as a reader. I also think that, as a writer, it's okay if I believe that my work has some value monetarily as well as emotionally. To that end, I've created a Ko-Fi account, which is basically a way to give an online tip to a creator whose work you appreciate. The idea is, you can buy them a cup of coffee. (That's what the name of the website sounds like, if you're curious.) I'm not charging for any of the content on my website; instead, if you'd like to toss me a cup-le (see what I did there?) of bucks to show your gratitude, that would be cool. I'd totally appreciate that appreciation. If you don't? No problem. We can still be friends. As always, thanks for reading! In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we now have two hours of Sunday meetings at the local chapels. The first hour is as a ward family--the sacrament meeting--and then there's an alternating schedule of Sunday School/Relief Society (or Elders' Quorum) meetings for the second hour. This is all new to us, as the change was announced back in October 2018 and is only now being implemented. During Sunday School today, the lesson was designed to be a primer for the rest of the year, explaining the roles and responsibilities of the class as well as the teacher. As far as purpose of a class goes--and helping to shift a more passive paradigm--I think it was a good move. As far as personal gains from it…well, that's a little more complicated. One of the things that a member of the class said that stood out to me was the idea that the comments from everyone ought to build on each other and not seek to outdo anyone else's insights--to keep the conversation on track, rather than distracting from the topic. As he said this, it suddenly made sense why I'm so quiet at church: I think my thoughts and questions would be a distraction. I don't do this on purpose, necessarily. That is, I don't approach the class with an attempt to be antagonistic or heretical or anything. But there are lots of unchallenged assumptions and, at times, fallacies that crop up and my instincts are to explore and expand on those concepts. Since I'm neither the teacher nor, as this brother in the ward pointed out, likely to be contributing to the conversation, I keep my mouth shut. Here's an example of something that interested me and would have been an area I'd want to explore, but left alone because it wasn't really the point. We were asked to read Luke 5:17-26. The verse that stood out to me was 17: And it came to pass on a certain day, as he was teaching, that there were Pharisees and doctors of the law sitting by, which were come out of every town of Galilee, and Judæa, and Jerusalem: and the power of the Lord was present to heal them. It's pretty straightforward, I think, except for the ambiguity of the final pronoun. What is the antecedent for them: the Pharisees and doctors, or the people whom Jesus was teaching (an implied group)? If it's the latter, what justifies that reading? I think "the power of the Lord was present" is a bit of a clue, as the Pharisees and doctors are notoriously antagonistic to Jesus. But maybe they really were there to learn and listen, and only after the bit with the man with palsy coming through the roof (the rest of this scripture's story) did they start to question. So maybe them really does mean the Pharisees and doctors, people who are learned in the ways of scripture and religious orthopraxy. It says something different if the purpose of the meeting was for Jesus to teach the learned and they are interrupted by the man coming through the roof in order to be healed. Perhaps their frustration and "Who can forgive sins, but God alone?" (21) question comes about less because of what Jesus said and more because of the fact that he shifted his attention away from them to someone else?
I don't know. An exegesis of Luke 5 is probably immaterial, since apologists for the New Testament much smarter than I have likely tackled the problem. It does, I think, show how my own way of approaching the scriptures is unlike how others do so. And that's kind of why I just keep quiet. ==== Hey, friends. I have been releasing essays on my website for a couple of years now at a pretty steady rate. I'm happy to do so, as it benefits me as a writer and (I hope) you as a reader. I also think that, as a writer, it's okay if I believe that my work has some value monetarily as well as emotionally. To that end, I've created a Ko-Fi account, which is basically a way to give an online tip to a creator whose work you appreciate. The idea is, you can buy them a cup of coffee. (That's what the name of the website sounds like, if you're curious.) I'm not charging for any of the content on my website; instead, if you'd like to toss me a cup-le (see what I did there?) of bucks to show your gratitude, that would be cool. I'd totally appreciate that appreciation. If you don't? No problem. We can still be friends. As always, thanks for reading! For most of the people who read my essays, there's no need for explanation of the title: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has, for the past 38 years, had three hours of church meetings on almost every Sunday. Back in October, President Nelson announced that there was going to be a change in the amount of time members were expected to be in church each week, shifting from a three hour block to a two hour block and an hour or so set aside for at-home study.
I am in favor of this, if only because it means that I have one fewer hour in which to sit on the metal folding chairs, also known as a violation of my Eighth Amendment rights. The ostensible reason to do this is for members to have more opportunities to study at home and to fortify their familial relationships. (It has faint echoes of a comment I saw somewhere that members of the Church worship families more than they do Jesus; there may be something in that, but I'm not interested in pursuing that thought right now.) The practical result is that my church meetings, which have started at 8:30 in the morning this year (a true trial of my faith) and ended at 11:30 will now begin at 10:20 and finish at 12:20pm. This shows that faithfulness through heartache and sorrow can often lead to great blessings. I'm not much of a morning person--weird, considering I'm a teacher--and I never have been. All joking aside, one of the largest difficulties that I had as a missionary in Florida was following the rules of when to go to bed and when to wake up. I never mastered the different circadian rhythm; within a week of coming home I was back to my midnight to bed, nine-in-the-morning to rise routine. And though having church meetings begin at 8:30 doesn't sound too bad, I should remind you that the weekends are, historically in my house, the times when we finally caught up on all that sleep we'd been missing during the early-hours of the week. I take the idea of Sunday being a day of rest very seriously, so I'm excited to finally be able to get the rest that I need. As for the new structure, I think it sounds great on paper. I've been unsure what to make out of Sunday School for a long time, as the pedantic lessons tend not to be particularly interesting to me, and the third hours of the block were often so physically uncomfortable (seriously, the metal folding chairs the Church purchases make me sad simply to think about) that I rarely pulled much from them. Seeing the shift to one hour dedicated to the sacrament and remembering Jesus Christ, the other being on more practical, communal-modes of worship? Well, that all sounds good to me. I don't know how well it will go in our household once we're back. We'll arrive home in time for a late lunch, so after that, what will we do? Some members are talking about having dedicated scripture study time. Others talked about doing "stations", short activities that the younglings can more readily enjoy--ten minutes coloring in a scripture-based coloring book, a Church-created video (complete with soft-focus speech), or time in their personal journals. One idea that I think I'll definitely use was the idea of strapping the kids in the car and driving up the canyon. We're kind of far from the mountains--they're visible from where I live, but they aren't close, necessarily--but there's a lot of places in this city that we've yet to explore, despite living here for over two years. Maybe we should plan on poisoning the atmosphere as we trundle about and talk of Jesus? In terms of personal study, I'm trying to wrap my head around what I'm supposed to do. When I read literature, I do so with certain lenses--some of them are inherent, others are institutional--and try to find alternative impressions and ideas from the text. In other words, I like to deconstruct things and poke at assumptions within the texts. That's not really encouraged when it comes to scripture study. Admittedly, there is a wide range of interpretations out there--the hermeneutics of the Bible are robust enough to keep a person busy for a lifetime--but when you're a part of a church like mine, there's a lot of pressure to color within the lines. Individual interpretations are often considered secondary to official pronouncements, and approaching the teachings of the Church in any other way is all too frequently considered "apostate" or indicative of a weak faith. Not only that, but I usually end up with a lot more questions than answers when I think religiously. It's not that reading the Book of Mormon gives me questions, per se, but more that I interrogate works. It doesn't matter what it is. I think, perhaps, this is why I love reading Milton so much. Paradise Lost is one of the most doctrinally dense pieces of writing on the planet, and I love to interrogate it. What's interesting about that, is I usually interrogate it based upon my religious lens: The Mormonic* answers to the Miltonic questions is fine for me. That is, I want to read Paradise Lost in order to ask questions that I then think have scriptural answers. But if I go the other way--reading the Book of Mormon and asking questions--then the place I usually turn to for satisfaction is instead the area that's taking me down a dubious path. Gayle said that we can incorporate Paradise Lost into our studies, if it makes me feel better. It does…though there's a definitive risk that I'd put more time and effort into reading Milton than Moroni, if only because Milton is a way better writer. I can really only think of one exception to when prose is superior to Milton's poetry when describing an important idea, and that's because the prose version is Milton's own. So though the Book of Mormon has a straightforward way of approaching a doctrinal thought, I'm not drawn to it in the same way that I am to Milton's more convoluted approach to the same topic. I would rather hear Milton's Satan ruminate on the repercussions of agency and free will than a handful of important but dry lines in the Pearl of Great Price. When both have great substance, I think I'd prefer the one with exceptional style. All that being said, I'm hopeful that I will feel more spiritually enriched through personal study and time with the family than I ever did during the seemingly-endless three hour block. We'll just have to wait and see how it goes. --- * So, Mormonic isn't really a word, and the Church's recent allergy to the term Mormon is something that I've been thinking about a lot. I do believe there's a difference between Mormonism and the teachings of the Church…but that's a topic for another day. |
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