Scripture versus Canon - D&C 68: 4

 

"whatsoever they shall speak when moved upon by the Holy Ghost shall be scripture, shall be the will of the Lord, shall be the mind of the Lord, shall be the word of the Lord, shall be the voice of the Lord, and the power of God unto salvation."

 Careful, folks. The Holy Ghost gives utterance, yes. It testifies of eternal truths, absolutely. When the Spirit moves a person to speak, to the extent they really are inspired, their words are the voice, will, and mind of the Lord, and His power unto salvation. No dispute.

However, not all claims to inspiration are true.

However, all true inspiration also has the property of scope--pronouncements bearing on matters outside the scope of the calling of the person inspired are not, in the final analysis, inspired.

However, not all scripture is canonical.

There's "scripture" and there's capital-S scripture. It sounds confusing, but it's not so unclear when you pay attention to context.

The above-cited verse is often abstracted out of its context to support the correct idea that the Holy Ghost can transmit the Lord's will to individuals, and that His words are His words--just as valuable to the recipients as prophetic writ. However, it's also taken to support an incorrect relativity of Word of God, or an incorrect argument for the proliferation of publishable and authoritative writings.

Look at the limiting scope the text itself put on verse 2, which states that the scripture part is applicable only 

"unto all those who were ordained unto this priesthood, whose mission is appointed unto them to go forth."

In other words, inspired words are scripture because of the inspiration, but the promise that everything you say under the influence of the Holy Ghost is scripture is a function limited to: a. priesthood holders, b. the scope of their calling.

There's a reason the LDS canon is referred to as the "standard works" rather than the "canon," and why they avoid talk of "inerrancy" in connection with scripture. The scope of a general authority's calling makes their Spirit-inspired Conference talks scripture in a way that is different from the way a compilation of the Lord's communications with Joseph Smith bearing on the restoration of Christ's church in response to the Master's gentle pedagogy of allowing humans to bump up against issues, wrestle with them, and inquire of Him in faith as to their resolution.

Canon is the authoritative compilation of prophet-screened inspired texts. Scripture is the doctrinal and guiding communication from the Lord to in-mission, authorized representatives. And when you understand scope, you'll never confuse the two.

Labor, Sacrifice, Humility, and Fire Insurance - D&C 64: 23-25

 

"Behold, now it is called today until the coming of the Son of Man, and verily it is a day of sacrifice, and a day for the tithing of my people; for he that is tithed shall not be burned at his coming. For after today cometh the burning—this is speaking after the manner of the Lord—for verily I say, tomorrow all the proud and they that do wickedly shall be as stubble; and I will burn them up, for I am the Lord of Hosts; and I will not spare any that remain in Babylon. Wherefore, if ye believe me, ye will labor while it is called today."

The common half-joke is not wrong: those who pay a full tithe have this scripture's promise as a claim to hold "fire insurance". However, tithing isn't defined here except in the implication of the word itself. Much of the rest of the Christian world is looser about its meaning, and therefore thinks of tithing as whatever optional amount one wishes to donate, but the word itself suggests that amount isn't so optional. Tithe literally means tenth. And that proportion is both mercifully in reach of the poorest saint and large enough to constitute a serious material sacrifice for all.

And while this passage explicitly connects tithing as a key behavior distinguishing Christians from the World--or more symbolically, Zion from Babylon, or more literally, those covered by the Savior's atonement from those not covered--tithing is not the complete set of criteria for escaping a harsh judgment even within these verses.

Notice that tithing, and the fire insurance it offers, comes as the consequence of a duty, invoked as a act of consecration whose implied result is the development of a characteristic, and that it is couched in a time frame. Reminding saints of the Lord's second coming, with all of its attendant calamities and promises, brings a sense of urgency and calls for minds and hearts to steel themselves in faithful courage. Reminding them of fires to avoid through actions in the now frames the saints as agents able to control, through their actions, the cause-and-effect logical categories they will fall into later, and further implies that a radical, polar grace will be theirs--they belong to His side of the extreme dichotomy. And reminding them of tithing's main underlying purpose and feature evokes His own main underlying purpose and feature: sacrifice, which literally means to make holy. He sacrificed Himself for us so that we could be made holy. Our material offering of a tenth of our increase requires us to think, with a heart of gratitude, of every labor and every increase as a grace for which we are required to return only a tenth. That tenth, submitted to the Church for its operational needs, wisely consumed and distributed in a way that has ensured material prosperity and with remarkably few scandals for an organization of its size, is the leaven that leavens the whole lump. Once you intend to set aside a tenth to support the missions of the Church, you have tacitly reframed all of your efforts to earn an honest magnification of your means, as faith-based. And it makes all the difference.

The key to escaping the fires of judgment isn't and never was the mere mechanical act of donation. The Lord sees both, but judges the heart, not the ledger. You can't buy your way out of Babylon, even if you pay the requisite ten percent. Because it never was about the money. It's about the holiness you put yourself on a path to developing. It's about the sacrifice, in the now, to change how you see the world and what you set your heart on. It's about putting forth your labor toward consecrated purposes--building up His kingdom, not yours--putting Him first even in all your temporal actions. It's about believing Him enough to show it.

Because showing your belief is faith, and exercising faith in Him allows Him to change you into something more like Himself.

Tithing is fire insurance only because tithing is an act of faith in Christ, and faith in Christ is the first principle of His Gospel. Tithing is one of the few watershed commandments that can, by itself, divide temple-worthy from stubble-worthy souls. But it's because the underlying hearts are set either on repentance and holiness in conformity to celestial law, or on prideful absorption in the cares of the world and selfish, material indulgences. One can be oriented in degrees, but only toward one or the other of these poles.

Tithing prevents wickedness because it tends to require humility before God, an attitude of gratitude, an eternal perspective, and a willingness to exhaust oneself for worthy goals that aim well beyond this world and this life. It's one key by which we lose our lives in order to find life more abundant. It's one principle by which we internalize He whose model of self-sacrifice we follow--He whose ministry of three years began formally at age 30, a neat 10% of His mortal time. It's one way we take upon us His name, always remember Him, keep his commandments, and live in His Spirit. It is fire insurance because we are humble fellow-laborers in a field that belongs entirely to Him when we undertake the act of donating ten percent of our growth in order to allow Him to make ourselves and the Church we are building holy like Him.

Chastening and Forgiveness - D&C 64:7-10

 

"I, the Lord, forgive sins unto those who confess their sins before me and ask forgiveness, who have not sinned unto death. My disciples, in days of old, sought occasion against one another and forgave not one another in their hearts; and for this evil they were afflicted and sorely chastened. Wherefore, I say unto you, that ye ought to forgive one another; for he that forgiveth not his brother his trespasses standeth condemned before the Lord; for there remaineth in him the greater sin. I, the Lord, will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men."

1. On forgiveness:

Among all the tumult of moves to Kirtland, a church organizing an entire new economic system, early dissensions and sensationalized publications critical of the newcomers, and revelations surrounding a Zion the church would need to carefully prepare for a move to, it's easy to forget that 25-year-old Joseph Smith was a young father, dealing with his own family's struggles. Not even six months prior to this Section's revelation on September 11th, 1831, Joseph and Emma had lost twins, both dying on the day they were born. Infant mortality rates in the 1800s were sky-high compared to now, with no modern medicine available, as were the risks of death due to childbirth. It so happened that another couple in the community where the Smiths lost their twins gave birth to twins on the same day. Tragedy struck their family too, but this time it was the mother who expired in the act of giving life, both children surviving her. The father, bereft as he must have been, knew and trusted the Smiths enough to give the twins over to them for adoption nearly immediately. Emma and Joseph's consolation at the loss of their own came in the form of being able to care for others.

But, at the time of this revelation, they couldn't have known that tragedy would strike again, in another short seven months. One of the rescued twins hung on for five days, sick of an illness he contracted by exposure on the cold March Saturday night when a mob broke the door by his bed so they could strangle, torture, tar, and feather Joseph for reasons history hasn't worked out a settled account of (although, evidence is clear that it was not, as some suppose, anger over an accusation the Smith had taken advantage of a teenager in the Johnson home where he was staying, because those claims come from parties not present, 40 years after the events, and are ahistorical with respect to the institution of polygamy, which hadn't occurred yet). Among the mob members, were some former church members who had soured on the church for its religious beliefs, for its economic practices, and for its "alarming" growth in the area, one of whom had been waging a very public and very personal war of words in area newspapers.

Because the next day was Sunday, and he was scheduled to preach, Smith and those who could care for him spent the night removing the tar, ignoring the pain, and getting presentable for the next day's audience. There were mob members in attendance at the meeting, Smith reports, and despite the recent burns and torn flesh, he delivered a homily and baptized new members. I don't know if any personally asked forgiveness. I don't know the contents of the homily. But I know the tar mob had him down about 12 to 1 the night before, and made more serious threats to his life and person than the heat of the sticky pitch, and yet his response was to preach the Gospel to them, rather than sick the better odds of his much more numerous followers on them in a revenge play. He recorded the events and his emotions are evident in his choice of details, but he doesn't reveal the heart-wrenching feeling the loss of that child must have caused him, the inability to comfort his wife it must have caused him, or any other direct remonstrances in his writings. He names names, and points out what groups the mob members represented, but he doesn't insult or rail against them, let alone release more direct forms of anger. I can't tell his heart--if or when that pain was ever fully let go--but the signs are that he practiced what he preached: forgiveness.

The above passage, delivered before Smith knew this would happen, contains the spirit Smith lived by. There are several ways to restate the lessons for effect. God can judge hearts, humans can't, so those who try are usurpers and lose the Spirit's comfort and guidance. Christ atoned for sins, humans can't, so those who refuse to forgive are demonstrating lack of confidence in the Savior and His ability to forgive. The Almighty has power to assign sentences or pardons, and does so according to His omniscience, which humans don't have, so those who withhold forgiveness from a brother can only do so out of ignorance, doubt, and enmity, none of which are characteristics of the Deity we emulate.

This is not to say that forgiveness is easy. In fact, I can hardly think of a more difficult attribute of Christ to cultivate. And I think that's part of the reason the Lord organized His children into families. Families--that fundamental unit of celestial societies--are charged to be the ideal place where children can experience love, law, and commitment despite all challenges, where they can grow into correct use of their agency, in the full light of their infinite potential, under a protective atmosphere of care. Not all families rise to this ideal, of course, but to the extent they do, families are also laboratories for forgiveness. Spouses and children have to learn patience for each other, and choose the covenant relationship over whatever temporary temptations there might be to exact revenge among those who we can hide our weaknesses from the least. Families teach us to be like Him partly because we have to repeatedly train ourselves to let go of the things that don't really matter eternally, even while we orient ourselves and help our children orient their agency upward. Families are the perfect structure for the development of self-sacrificial character. What could describe the Savior's love more aptly?

2. On chastening: 

Among the above cited passage's words, is a reference to disciples withholding forgiveness, at least temporarily, and deserving chastening for the evil. I find no clear and direct record in the New Testament of such an occasion of chastening. There are several others, which varied in the "soreness" of rebuke, including: Peter's ignorant outburst not wishing the Savior to be sacrificed; James' and John's desire to call down fire upon a recalcitrant Samaritan village; and a few minor instances of lack of faith. It's possible that this is an oblique reference to one of these, or that it's a direct reference to an occasion we don't have the record of, but which Christ can reveal to His prophets from His own experience.

What seems obvious, however, is that just as there is a relationship between repentance and forgiveness--between seeking Christ's atoning power, and accepting Christ's atoning power--there is also a relationship between love and chastening. The opposite of love isn't hate, it's apathy. Only parents who love their children communicate appropriate boundaries, and then exercise appropriate discipline when the boundaries are breached. God's charity often has to pass through whatever harshness or manner of scolding will get through to us. And I'm glad His nature is gentle, because my skull is thick, and I usually deserve more than I get. In fact, if it's His design to sanctify us all--all who will--then in recognition of the depth of injury we put Him to every time we sink back into behaviors unbecoming of His infinite purity and holiness, thereby thwarting our own eternal potential, we should be spending every waking minute expecting and accepting His chastisements. Because ultimately His plan is that none of us get what we deserve, but instead that we get His grace.

May our will align with His in acceptance of chastisements and forgiveness.

Faith versus adultery - D&C 63:12-17

 

"I, the Lord, am not pleased with those among you who have sought after signs and wonders for faith, and not for the good of men unto my glory. Nevertheless, I give commandments, and many have turned away from my commandments and have not kept them. There were among you adulterers and adulteresses; some of whom have turned away from you, and others remain with you that hereafter shall be revealed. Let such beware and repent speedily, lest judgment shall come upon them as a snare, and their folly shall be made manifest, and their works shall follow them in the eyes of the people. And verily I say unto you, as I have said before, he that looketh on a woman to lust after her, or if any shall commit adultery in their hearts, they shall not have the Spirit, but shall deny the faith and shall fear. Wherefore, I, the Lord, have said that the fearful, and the unbelieving, and all liars, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie, and the whoremonger, and the sorcerer, shall have their part in that lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death."

I've had a persistent Facebook Messenger dialog over years with an evangelical Christian who routinely posts questions "for Mormons" that set themselves up as dichotomous: the Bible says X but the Book of Mormon says Y. His binary approach immediately sets up an opposition, and determines "teams". It's an immediate us vs. them paradigm that prevents him from allowing any sympathetic reading of the texts together. Much of my conversations revolved around asking him to make two essential moves before drawing conclusion: 1. gather more context so we can more fairly compare the passages; 2. view the passages in a Venn diagram and clarify the overlaps before making a case for the dissimilarities. Because I'm approaching the interpretive problem looking for mutual confirmation, the passages rarely seem discordant or contradictory to me, and where they are on the surface, it's usually because there's an inaccuracy in his framing. On the other hand, because he's approaching the interpretive task looking for contradictions, he finds plenty--not because they're actually there, but because his hermeneutic approach has an inherent bias. I have no reason to suspect he's an adulterer, but I do include this experience to illustrate a principle.

As a lit prof, I've seen his kind of interpretive lockdown happen a lot. And it's hard to break students out of it. They generally come to readings with some healthy concepts: that texts are multivalent, and that diverse perspectives can shed new light and produce new readings. That's broadly true, but there are limits: some readings simply are not licensed by the text. You can shed new light on what a thing means through theory, experience, analysis, and just freshness, but you can't make it mean something it just doesn't. There is such a thing as an incoherent argument, and there is such a thing as an invalid opinion. Not all perspectives are equally valuable in the shedding of light. It's hard to keep the balance of valuing diverse perspectives and valuing accuracy, truth, and validity in analysis, because each perspective has the inherent danger of potential self-delusion. Just because you experience a thing a certain way, doesn't mean you're right, doesn't mean you've fully understood the phenomenon in question or how it has affected you, and doesn't mean the insight you get from it is applicable to the text or its interpretation. This self-deluding propensity fuels billions in counseling, psychotherapy, and psychiatry industries.

And to add a third illustrating example, this comes up in politics a lot as well. People tend to get invested in their ideology to the point that pointing out unfairness or inaccuracies in their opinions looks to them like defending their enemies, like you're on the wrong side. It's possible that I'm just a extraordinarily bad communicator and haven't learned the secret, yet, to smoothly enabling a friend to accept valid critique, but it's also true that it's largely an impossible task because of human nature. There's a reason it's considered impolite to discuss politics and religion at the dinner table, and it doesn't matter how honestly compassionate you are, or how eloquent you are, when people get told a hard truth, they tend to hunker down, get defensive, and hold all the tighter to the idea you just "helped" them to discard as erroneous.

None of this is surprising to folks who are familiar with Nephi's record of dealings with his own family members, and his quote to wayward and recalcitrant brothers that "the wicked take the truth to be hard." I don't mean to suggest that everyone who has a hard time accepting another person's "truth" is guilty of wickedness, but it's still true that wickedness infallibly distorts meaning.

One other way of restating that scripture's meaning is that attitude is everything. Attitude determines a person's interpretative horizons for every task of reading (and by reading, I mean in the broadest possible sense of making meaning out of anything). It doesn't authoritatively fix meaning, but it does determine what limits there are on your acceptance of it.

As context for this Section, a small, well-educated, and experienced group of potential leaders--all fairly new converts to the church because the church itself was barely into its second year of operation--were invited to travel to the physical location Joseph Smith would reveal as Zion. There was a purpose to the travel arrangements: some were to travel quickly to be present as close as possible to the arrival time of the Colesville saints who had begun their travels earlier; others were to travel through slower, less costly, and less comfortable methods so as to disseminate a missionary message along the way. To neutral and kindly disposed observers, these purposes seemed rational and acceptable. To a fault-finder, however, it might be noticed that the consequence was that higher ups got privileges that underlings couldn't enjoy. Attitude determines interpretive possibilities.

In a parallel situation, across two millennia, an influential, well-educated, and theologically trained group of Jews--established over generations as leaders of piety--were invited to witness miracles, and join the Light of the World as He taught the keys of His kingdom. Neutral and worshipful observers felt the Spirit testify of the Son of God burn within them as He spoke and ministered, as He taught and healed. But because He seemed to lead his followers to more flippant attitudes than they liked about the Sabbath day--a day for which they had devised and enforced elaborate extra rules above and beyond those written in the Law of Moses--they took up a fault-finding stance. It delivered them everything their hearts actually sought: contention and spiritual blindness. Attitude determines interpretive possibilities.

Now imagine what must be occurring in the mind of one who succumbs to the sin of adultery. They are under covenant vows, but the meaning of those vows means less and less to them the more they indulge tempting thoughts. They know, on some level at least, that the thoughts lead to actions, and that they should exercise self-discipline at the thought level in order to stay on the right side of an important line--one of the deepest possible kinds of betrayal, the betrayal of a spouse's intimate trust. But they progressively ignore both the evil and the covenant itself. They engage in justifying the unjustifiable: he doesn't deserve me, she's not keeping her side of our vows, my spouse owes me things they aren't giving, this isn't a 50-50 arrangement anymore. Whatever the proximal "reason", as distorted as it is, at some point, the idea occurs to them that they could take an action that would give them temporary benefits without the responsibility--they could indulge in the simulation of a relationship with someone with simpler rules, a more advantageous playing field for how that relationship was balanced, without counting the cost. They conceive--well before they act--of a self-delusion in which intimacy can be exchanged, even commodified, rather than earned through the self-sacrifice of investment in a covenantal relationship. And then they conveniently forget altogether that the covenant was between three parties, not just two. God drops out of the equation, and the sinner is left in their own selfishness. Light, love, and truth leave them entirely. If you have ever seen an adulterer, you have also seen a liar. If you have ever understood love, you understand how adultery is its thief. If you have ever served, learned, or felt light in the other ways God sends it to you, you can't imagine adultery as any less than shameful darkness.

John Bytheway uses similar language to describe the commonality between the mindset of the adulterer, and the mindset of the fault-finding sign-seeker who refuses to believe until they see God's power with their own eyes (and, again, attitude determining interpretive possibilities as it does, they've all already seen that power, and merely refuse to recall, or allow it entry for what it is). 

"It comes down to a something for nothing attitude. I want the testimony. I don’t want to do the work. I don’t want to do the prayer. I don’t want to do the study. I don’t want to do the repenting. I don’t want to do the humility. Just show me it’s true first. With adultery, I want the pleasure of another person. I don’t want any commitment. I don’t want any expectation. I just want the pleasure. For me, it always just sounds like a real something for nothing type of mindset that both of them fit into."

And his guest on the podcast where they discuss this together, Dr. Scott Esplin, agrees and expands:

"Here’s another possible connection. He said that signs come by faith. We talk about when someone commits adultery, we use the same term. They haven’t been faithful. Both are rooted in this commitment of faith that I’ve made a covenant and I’m going to be faithful to that. Covenant signs come by faith. When someone commits adultery, we say they haven’t been faithful. Even in our vernacular, even in our language as we talk, we connect them both to faith in one way or another."

 Attitude determines interpretive possibilities. It also determines meaning, purpose, and blessings. Signs come after faith because faith is the first principle of the Gospel that an omnipotent God atoned for our sins and will intervene for the growth of all who covenant with Him, who accept Him as their Savior. This good news puts us in a new state: a state of grace, a state of communion, a state of giving up our own will, even as He did, and finding life more abundant. It's a state of seeking oneness. And breaking it is unfaithful. Marital communion, the oneness of a new "we" replacing the "me" and the "you" that existed prior to the wedding vows and that the covenantal parties seek requires faith in the same way. We have to behave as if the becoming-one is true. We have to invest effort before the proof of the oneness is manifest. We have to take steps into the dark, building on common ground and expanding the ground that's in common before the blessings of the light are revealed.

Attitude determines interpretive possibilities. And this is why being faithful, hopeful, and charitable in putting the other's interests above your own allows you to grow in light, in love, in positivity, and in freedom together. Being one in heart is what Zion is made of. It's what the Lord prayed would happen for those that believe on His name--that they would become one even as He and His Father are one. And it's what makes every family a laboratory of faith. Because we seek oneness in faith, signs abound. Knowing they will abound--that we've been told they are logically connected in a causal relationship--doesn't remove the responsibility we have to act upon them, and doesn't diminish the test inherent in moving forward before the blessings arrive. Because it's not technically knowledge, but rather, more properly faith.

And the faithless--or rather the unfaithful--have an attitude preventing the possibility of faith's blessings, preventing oneness, preventing love, preventing liberty and power, preventing truth, preventing the Spirit. By choosing refusal to believe until X, they persist in the illusion that they are reasonable, honest, and open--even to the X they promise will convince them. Because their attitude determines their interpretive possibilities, and the refusal is the key defining element of their attitude, they can't even see that their very approach is fallacious, the very promise to believe when compelled by external evidence contains its own self-contradiction. They are set up for their own self-fulfilling prophecy--the signs don't come, and they remain unconvinced, but think it's for reasons. But from the outside, we can see that it is they who stand outside reason. They disallow evidence before it has a chance, and thereby fall prey to the larger delusion--that they are judging objectively at all. The material of the betrayal is different to that of adultery, but the thought process and scope of consequences stem from the same father of lies.

The Restored Church, in the 1830s as it still is now, has only ever had sinners as members. And the sins, if this Section is to be believed, ran as serious as sins of adultery, not merely bad attitudes toward the Prophet. I'm glad for a Redeemer capable of forgiving sin, and for commandments to avoid it. With the right attitude, that basic truth can make all the difference--seeing us through every challenge this mortal test can throw at us, and making us clean, whole, and eventually, potentially, consecrated enough for that oneness He promises. Maybe even on earth in a Zion society.

I'm working on my own attitude, and working outward beginning with my own family Zion, and beyond to my ward, community, and nation. The signs appear to be following my attitude.

Seeking out Faithsign - D&C 63:9-11

"Faith cometh not by signs, but signs follow those that believe. Yea, signs come by faith, not by the will of men, nor as they please, but by the will of God. Yea, signs come by faith, unto mighty works."

I'll need another post to flesh this out a little more, but for now, a short comment about context, and a framing of questions.

Joseph Smith and companions have arrived back at their still very new home in Kirtland after some muggy summer travel to the physical place everyone has been dying to learn about and go to: Zion. Land was dedicated in Missouri, and faithful saints arrived and started to get settled, with their leadership organized by the Prophet and with a few new revelations to help them get over some grief, steel themselves against tribulations to come, and to help them understand one of the first principles of a Zion society: Sabbath observance (complete with covenant renewal, and fasting).

Arriving back home, however, things were not all hunky dory. And it was rpedictable because it had happened before, even with the Prophet around: the topic of Zion, curiosity about where it is, when we'll know, how we'll know, how to get there, and all the surrounding details, were topics several enthusiastic saints were quick to make claims to special knowledge about, Hiram Page most notably. In this case, apparently a number of rumors and questions had arisen in the Prophet's absence, and the administration of the consecrated economic system seemed complicated by the prospect of some members getting called to journey to Zion before the winter. Worse, it seems there were enough instances of sin--"lying, hypocrisy, rebellion," and even adultery--to require some serious redress, and even a re-establishment of control and leadership.

While I'm not asserting historical accuracy, the text, its preamble, and some outside summary sources lend themselves to wondering about what spiritual questions might have been on the mind of Kirtland members in general around this time. Having joined a movement based on a highly democratic idea--that God could reveal Himself to anyone, and did and still does to their leader, with others getting revelations in their own scope and assignments--and having brought with them common experiences with varied Christian spiritual practices of the day, including charismatic manifestations, it isn't hard to imagine a skeptical mindset among a critical mass of members. Just as the squeaky wheel gets the grease, loud, public claims or attention-grabbing behaviors and speech might begin to seem like "evidence" of Joseph Smith-esque contact with messages from the Lord. And the absence of this kind of behavior or claims to have seen miraculous things, or heard marvelous messages, could then be mistaken for evidence of lack of inspiration. As an example of how this kind of thinking might surface, I once shared a living space with a missionary who had the habit of pronouncing, at the end of common evening prayers that included pauses too long for his liking, that such a prayer was uninspired, because the sign of inspiration would require steady and fluid flow of ideas, and an uninterrupted locution.

In hindsight, the temptation to put the proverbial cart before the horse in matters of spiritual "signs" seems understandable, given the newness of the experience with a mantic Prophet, a democratic faith, and a community without its economic and spiritual intertwinings worked out into standardized "best practices" just yet. So this Section's revealed insistence on faith coming first, and signs coming chronologically later came as a timely doctrinal corrective.

What I'm not sure I quite understand yet is the connection between signs and adultery.

I've often tried to offer an operational definition of faith as "acting as if X is true." That way of framing it captures a few things about faith: 1. that it is oriented toward truth, and that it therefore must be willing to abandon the efforts it inspires if a given experiment on the Word doesn't come back confirming growth in the direction of truth; 2. that faith is distinct from knowledge in the way seeds are distinct from trees--that faith is a sort of proto-knowledge not yet fully formed, but worthy of basing actions upon; 3. that it is a principle of action, and motivates behavior, rather than being merely cognitive or informational in concept; 4. that while open to evidence feeding back into a decision for future action, it essentially is a matter of will to take steps without certainty of result, and therefore entails the concept of risk-taking.

What are the ways this faithful mindset is opposed to the mindset that motivates some to act on lustful thoughts? What are the ways in which seeking for signs first--the anti-faithful mindset--are parallel to the mindset that sets ones own long-term, covenantal relationships at naught, in exchange for petty, temporary, physical indulgences? Why is it that being faithful to marital vows is similar to worthiness to receive promised returns on spiritual investments of effort, as we are taught to expect? And does the relational dimension of covenants, and its opposite transactional nature of logical conditional propositions (like the Moroni's promise in the Book of Mormon's closing pages that the Spirit will manifest the truth of Y if we do action X) have any light to shed on how the Savior can chide Pharisees for being an adulterous generation that seeks after signs?

What is the problem with expecting signs, when we're told to seek after the thing that we're taught brings them?

I'll take these questions up, alongside a hypothesis that might reconcile the surface contradiction at play here, in the coming days. My suspicion is that attitude determines everything, just as reading position fixes interpretive possibilities in any given hermeneutic paradigm.

Slothful Yet Commanded - D&C 58:25-29; 59:4

 

1. "Let them bring their families to this land, as they shall counsel between themselves and me. For behold, it is not meet that I should command in all things; for he that is compelled in all things, the same is a slothful and not a wise servant; wherefore he receiveth no reward. Verily I say, men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness; For the power is in them, wherein they are agents unto themselves. And inasmuch as men do good they shall in nowise lose their reward. But he that doeth not anything until he is commanded, and receiveth a commandment with doubtful heart, and keepeth it with slothfulness, the same is damned."

2. "They shall also be crowned with blessings from above, yea, and with commandments not a few, and with revelations in their time—they that are faithful and diligent before me."

 Quick comments today on a surface contradiction between the above two passages which context and attention to semantics can resolve.

First, passage 1 is commonly cited for its surface meaning, and often requires no context. But the citation usually begins with the "For behold". It transparently helps readers remember that there is a lot more to what God commands us than the "thou shalt nots", and that we are agents who are learning to tool our liberties to alignment with His will, which entails experimentation with initiating good works without specific direction some times. It reminds us that we are not robots and that God's glory doesn't consist in merely doing His will, but in CHOOSING his will, because knowing Him consists in knowing how to live the kind of life He lives--Eternal Life. It's a wonderful sermon on letting God inspire us to do good, and applying our own ingenuity toward the kind of upward-reaching, self-sacrificial acts that His Son's example sets for us as a model.

But I've cited it with an extra verse for context, and I think we would do well to keep that context in mind for a deeper understanding of the direction of the command not to require commandments. It's a general truth that we shouldn't wait for specific revelation before beginning work on good projects. But for this group of saints, having completed the sacrifice of a long journey leaving behind work and investments, wondering now what to do with a place less prepared for them than they had hoped and imagined, the message was not merely to get back to work. It was, instead, to counsel together and then to counsel with the Lord, and to allow for the possibility that direction for how to establish the Zion society they were all aligned to do could and should come from many sources simultaneously. It wasn't so much about avoiding a personal spirit of doing the least possible work until commanded by the Lord, but was more about letting one's own ideas contribute in a ground-up fashion to the solutions of the group's common problems; working out laterally how to proceed in a common project, under the presidency of a Bishop, but through a Ward Council; and allowing the spiritual gifts of all, each with their various forms and connections with the Lord's Spirit to inform the common project. The passage is not about independently going around the Lord and establishing autonomy from Him, but is rather a call to add one's consecrated mind, heart, words, and hands to the communal seeking out of the Lord's will even in the specifics. We must supply the will, but seek out the direction in His ways.

This framework allows us to see seeking out the Lord's counsel through contribution to His prescribed forms of social and economic connection, such as the wards were in such times as then and now--and the commandments that come from such direction seeking--as positive in and of itself. We shouldn't wait to be commanded, sure, but commandments, when they come, are blessings. As passage 2 suggests, the faithful and the diligent are crowned with rewards of more responsibilities, which means more powers and more freedoms, for having kept and magnified the responsibilities already given.

May we all seek the Lord's will in all things, exercise the faith to take steps in the dark even before we know the full light of God's directing knowledge, and move from magnified stewardship to magnified stewardship until the Lord welcomes us with His loving smile, not for the profits we made, but for the power to serve we expanded, with the words, "well done, thou good and faithful servant."

A Feast for the Poor - D&C 58:8-11

 

"that a feast of fat things might be prepared for the poor; yea, a feast of fat things, of wine on the lees well refined, that the earth may know that the mouths of the prophets shall not fail; Yea, a supper of the house of the Lord, well prepared, unto which all nations shall be invited. First, the rich and the learned, the wise and the noble; And after that cometh the day of my power; then shall the poor, the lame, and the blind, and the deaf, come in unto the marriage of the Lamb, and partake of the supper of the Lord, prepared for the great day to come."

As extended metaphors go, one of the mortal Christ's most striking is his repeated references to a covenant people as the bride of the Lord. The wedding ceremony, an occasion of great joy signifying the unity of separate beings is apt as the ritual by which we become Inheritors with our Lord through an avowal, and a permanent alteration of our relationship with Him. And all are invited. Sadly, according to the parabolic allegories, across various retellings and delivery contexts, many who think they are going to enjoy the fruits of this relationship and its attendant celebrations are going to be disappointed while many who didn't consider themselves worthy will accept the invitation.

It's been a point of faith for me that the day of the Lord's "power" is manifest when the poor in heart and handicapped in body are drawn in to the celebrations, because it always seemed just and merciful to my human understanding to think of the Savior as more powerful for having targeted the least powerful for symbolic and eventually real exaltation. It humbles me to know the Lord I worship needs my humility, and will reward it with power.

However, this passage came up in one of my first district meetings as a young missionary in Africa with a counter-intuitive, but accurate reading done by a faithful young zone leader. And it caused a bit of a controversy with my first in-field companion. The zone leader, under the direction of the Mission President, led eight of us or so through a reflection on the order of invitations in this passage and how they might relate to our current work as some of the nation's first waves of missionaries. I think the mission might have been in its third year of operation by the time I was called. The economic capital, which had ballooned in the prior two decades through urbanization processes like many of its sister cities across Africa and the developing world in general, boasted 10 or more Branches of the Church by this time. But under a strategy we called "centers of strength" we were encouraged to limit our proselyting efforts to within two kilometers of the nearest meetinghouse. There were enough unconverted souls within such a radius to support the finding and teaching efforts sometimes for four or more missionary companionships. And this zone leader took the Mission President's direction seriously when the "centers of strength" concept implied that even within those geographic limits, our efforts to find converts should be even more selective: we should target full families with stable, job-holding heads of household who could bring tithes to the storehouse and serve in Priesthood callings. My own companion, from a sense of compassion and genuine desire to share the Gospel, came to the meeting with a much more open attitude about who to share the Gospel with. But he came away, as did I, convinced of the wisdom of being open to sharing with all as the Spirit would direct, but also of doing our part to align with the Lord's own priorities as communicated both through living Priesthood channels, and through this 200 year old scripture.

In effect, the passage counterintuitively places the invitation priority on the rich, the noble, the educated, and the wise. If success could be found in efforts to bring the Gospel to these, they would effectively form a solid base for rapid and sustainable growth as others joined them. They might even be best placed to help convince others and accelerate the work of conversion. In any case, in a developing country as we were, the numbers of poor and suffering would likely be much larger than the numbers of those with the means and leadership skills to support them, so seeking the latter group first made strategic sense. We were never closed off to the poor and needy--by no means--but we took the Lord's direction seriously enough that our goals. efforts, and time often reflected the harder, more rigorous task of seeking the more established wherever we served.

Please note, however, that the great day of the Lord's power is defined not by riches, but by service. The order of invitation says nothing about the rate of committed response to the invitations. And those wise, learned, rich, and powerful whose money, education, connections, and influence seemed sufficient unto themselves, would be left behind to weep, wail, and gnash teeth over what they failed to accept in time once the day of power arrives. God's justice gives to all at least one chance to accept His Son's sacrifice, and wo to those who reject the chance, because the mercy and healing we all need can't extend eternally to those who reject it.

One more image, perhaps also allegorical, comes to mind in connection with the kind of celebratory feast at the symbolic union of the Lamb with His Zion described in this passage. It was expressed to me, by a kind-hearted bishop, as a humorous story that one could nevertheless find a serious lesson in.

The story goes that a man dreamed of his own death one night, and his spirit was accompanied to the center of a hallway with a door at either end. One door was marked "Hell" and the other "Heaven". The doors had windows through which an accompanying angel invited the man's disembodied spirit to peer. He looked first through the door to Hell, and was surprised to see a banquet table spread with the most delicious and varied foods in great abundance. Sadly for its denizens, the utensils laid out for this feast were oversized to the point that no one could bend their wrist to get a spoon- or fork-full into their mouth. The banquet thus became a tantalizing torture, with victims never able to satisfy their appetites despite deliciousness all around them. After taking in that scene, the spirit wandered over to Heaven's door, and was again astonished to see the same banquet spread with the same overextending utensils as the only tools supplied for the attendees. There was, however, a difference in heaven: the people there organized to feed each other across the table. Service to others made all the difference in the same conditions.

Zion is a state of heart, not merely a physical place. The pure who live out its principles, wherever they are, tend to produce the results of unity in their communities--families, wards, neighborhoods, stakes, cities, and nations--that the heaven society in the story displayed. The allegorical great day of the Lord's power is powerful in its ability to create healing, joy, peace, and belonging for those who accept His invitation (which comes to them through authorized representatives, let's not forget, and therefore requires faith and order), partly because the Lord has precisely those powers, but also partly because His influence on each individual attendee causes them to reflect and magnify His power for the benefit of each other and all.

There may not be a "centers of strength" strategy in place in your community, and the time for prioritizing the more fortunate may be past where you live. But the Church is not a kingdom except for under its King. It is also allegorically a hospital which employs only one Physician. All of us suffer, each in our own ways, if not also from our body's corruptible states, at least from our own sins and from the effects of others' sins upon us. In accepting His love and forgiveness through repentance and covenants, we can help each other suffer less until that great day of the Supper where the healing and joy will be complete. Until then, our challenge is to live Zion like it's already here--inviting all, serving those in need as best we can, and lifting our hearts and heads to He whose will was swallowed up in His Father's so we can emulate being swallowed up in His will as well, to the power of all, and to the eternal praise of the Lord.

Remembering the Sabbath, Remembering Him and Remembering Sin No More - D&C 58:42, 59:12

 

"he who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them no more."

 "remember that on this, the Lord’s day, thou shalt offer thine oblations and thy sacraments unto the Most High"

This is the second post in a row in which recourse to Noah Webster's 1828 dictionary features helpfully. This time, the 200 year semantic drift worth investigating occurs on the word remember. Webster distinguishes 15 separate senses of the term, 10 of which he illustrates with Biblical citations, and 8 of which are variations on the theme of "bearing in mind" with X or Y adverbial phrase of manner qualifying them. While nearly all of the 15 meanings are still extant, or at least available in modern usage, the core meaning has shifted toward Webster's first definition--the passive one in which, with no effort, some idea spontaneously surfaces that was already in one's mind previously. We modern folks "remember" the answers when we recall them for a test, and if an idea doesn't present itself for recall, we say we "can't remember" it. Our machine metaphors have become reified--we even think of our brain like a hard drive, a place of storage where thoughts and feelings are archived for future access by querying a given neural location. It's as if remembering is only ever imposed either from the outside when a clue springs a memory back to mind, or by deterministic forces from the inside, like subconscious stimuli to which our conscious minds can only respond.

The scriptural language, well beyond the examples attested in Webster's slew of senses, defines remember much more actively, by contrast. It's much more like the active verb commemorate, and implies taking effort to maintain a brightness of memory despite challenges which would seek to otherwise dim its object or distract from its importance. Whether always remembering the Savior implies keeping Him constantly "in the back of one's mind", or "in the forefront" of one's decision-making process, the sacramental covenant by which we renew baptismal relationship vows requires this active conception.

Similarly, among other teachings on what Sabbath keeping entails, the above passage from Section 59 seems to call on us not merely to not forget what to do on the Lord's day--oblations and sacraments--but rather to go beyond the mere holding of an idea in memory and actually actively create, enact, and perform sacred spaces and actions into efficaciousness. Remembering the Sabbath isn't just a spiritual battery recharge to compensate for week-day depletion, but rather a consecrated day that allows all other days to be infused with eternal purpose. We choose actively, by the covenant renewal of the bread and water, that we are combining our will with His. And this is demonstrated not merely in the symbolism of their integration into our digestive system to become building blocks for our bodies, but also in the choices we make throughout the week in service to Him and to others.

Why, then, should we assume the passive sense is the one the Lord means in Section 58, when the Lord talks about sin? Don't get me wrong: I get an extra sense of wonder thinking about an omniscient God choosing to let one of His memory cells dump its contents because of love and mercy for my sincere repentance. But maybe that's not what He actually means, or what 1830s saints in Missouri understood Him to mean. Maybe, to match the other scriptural senses of the term, remembering our sins no more doesn't mean the log doesn't contain them, but rather means something more like choosing not to hold them against us, choosing to ignore their importance, choosing to impute them and their effects to Himself, rather than to us. He who was slain for those sins chose to retain marks of nails in His immortalized and perfected body in an act of most radical remembrance of our sin. But the reminder isn't what we've done or how badly the sins have damaged us, but rather it's a reminder that He paid their price, and overcame their consequences for us. They are no longer marks of pain, but of love. They are no longer stigmata of our shame, but signs by which we can recognize Him and His love as they affect us.

May our hearts always retain remembrance of Him, so we may be found in His book of remembrance.

Contrition, Ordinances, and Deception Avoidance Patterns - D&C 52:14-19

 

"I will give unto you a pattern in all things, that ye may not be deceived; for Satan is abroad in the land, and he goeth forth deceiving the nations—Wherefore he that prayeth, whose spirit is contrite, the same is accepted of me if he obey mine ordinances. He that speaketh, whose spirit is contrite, whose language is meek and edifieth, the same is of God if he obey mine ordinances. And again, he that trembleth under my power shall be made strong, and shall bring forth fruits of praise and wisdom, according to the revelations and truths which I have given you. And again, he that is overcome and bringeth not forth fruits, even according to this pattern, is not of me. Wherefore, by this pattern ye shall know the spirits in all cases under the whole heavens."

Prolific polyglot and Yalie Noah Webster was an interesting character. From a young adulthood as a freethinking federalist to a more religious, more conservative, educator as his days prolonged, Webster's most lasting contribution to American society is undoubtedly his dictionary. As an independent LDS scholar, I have frequent recourse to its definitions, since it can give the closest approximation to the language of Joseph Smith and the revelations received through him. The American vernacular has evolved, as all languages do, over the 200 years since its publication, and lexical and semantic drift can be best locked down through its prescriptive snapshot from work completed over 20 years of reading, writing, and speaking with Connecticut yankees, culminating in his landmark 1828 volume of about 70,000 entries.

I find his work especially important because, as a literature scholar, I critique and develop readings which inevitably involve making arguments with words about the meaning of words. And because Smith's words form the Doctrine and Covenants appear in my native tongue, I frequently have to dispel the illusion, even to myself, that the words themselves transmit transparently to me what messages a people from a different age and with a different culture would have captured in their original context. A tool like Webster's 1828 edition is sometimes valuable to check in case what seems like the only valid reading on the surface might not have an alternative reading available.

Case in point, the term "ordinance."

To my modern LDS ears, this term conveys clearly the set of rituals through which we make covenants with Christ through authorized representatives. It can also be used for Priesthood rituals that aren't covenantal, but its core meaning centers less on the ritualistic nature, and more on the use of the rituals and their symbolism to bind us to oneness with the Lord in various ways--immersing ourselves in water to take upon ourselves His name, a laying on of hands to receive His spirit as a gift, etc. In the context of a fledgling church whose recent converts bring an array of ecstatic modes of worship into the sabbath-day meetings of their new Christian confession, without the benefit of a General Handbook of Instructions worked out over decades to help worship conventions to settle folks into, deception was a large concern. Doctrinally, the church taught that all could, should, and must seek out manifestations of the Spirit, its Prophet having an applicable personal history with powers beyond his nature for the revelation of truth from God. But this individual liberty and responsibility to seek higher sources for the benefit of all contained within its principle the danger of chaos and confusion if the manifestations could not be verified and structured into something orderly. God is not a God of confusion, after all, but Satan delights in whispering lies by degrees to even the very elect so as to sow doubt about the provenance of true revelations, and to flatter the unchosen beyond the scope of the Lord's callings to them.

The above passage communicates ways to avoid the repeated need Smith and other Church leaders had to mold congregations toward the fruits of the Spirit with as little calling out, and as much calling in (and calling upward!) as possible. The theme is repeated from at least two earlier sections that revelations do come, but they come in orderly ways, but in this passage there is a condensed set of interpretive "keys" to help ordinary saints avoid deception. A member claiming to receive or relay revelation via prayer can now be tested under conditions. A member claiming to convey truth through teaching and public reasoning can now be tested under conditions. A worshiper who claims to be overcome with the Spirit into undertaking actions beyond his normal volition can now be tested under conditions. The conditions include paying attention to the praiseworthy and wisdom-conveying fruits coming from such actions and words. They also include a judgment upon the attitudes of the saints as manifest in their delivery, whether it be meek or haughty, contrite or prideful, edifying or destructive--all of which seem to offer fairly binary clarity to even outside observers.

But the other sine qua non appears to be about "obeying" ordinances. On the surface, this is valuable anchoring: Someone can't draw others away from Christ and the covenants necessary for accepting Him and still rightly claim revelation from the Spirit. That would make the Spirit self-contradictory. But, on the other hand, a wide variety of spiritual manifestations may be helpful in reaching each individual in their individual circumstances and personal idiosyncrasies to motivate them toward covenant making and further covenant keeping. The Spirit, again in a very binary way, promotes covenant making and keeping.

But Noah Webster records a more obscure semantic possibility in the term "ordinance" that might be hidden to our modern minds unless we consult him on what that word likely meant to the saints of the 1831. Ordinance can also mean "appointment". And this requires we allow an alternative reading. Obeying ordinances can mean keeping covenants and still also mean a second thing: obeying those ordained by divine appointment. Just as we must make and keep individual commitments with Christ, and some breaking of the covenants may be obvious enough as a sign to others not to pay attention to our claims about what we think God has told us or them to do or not do, those who actively speak or act against the Prophet's counsel, or more locally, their Bishop's revealed counsel, are likely also in a position of distance from God's guidance in other ways as well. A Kirtland area former Campbellite trembling under what they claim is the Spirit, who isn't heeding Partridge's counsel on how to contribute to the material needs of the poor in the Kirtland area or who thinks they know better than Smith who should go to Missouri and who should stay in Kirtland, probably isn't trembling under the right spirit in the first place. And that would be pretty plain to judge as well.

If you want to avoid deception, follow the Prophet. If you want to avoid deception, take your bishop up on his counsel. If you want to avoid deception, listen to your spouse, especially as you pray with and for each other. This doesn't mean you have to accept everything without reflection, or do things they tell you to do that run counter to your own conscience--the likelihood any of them would is so remote that it seems inappropriate to even mention the possibility--because you are responsible for your own acts, because good advice can sometimes be just advice, not revelation, and because they don't know you and your relationship to God as well as you know you and your relationship to God. But routinely, actively, or egregiously ignoring them is also quite likely coming from a place of self-deception, not least because just because others can't know the inside of our relationship with God better than ourselves doesn't mean they don't see outward signs we haven't yet admitted to ourselves about its health or direction.

It's worth dwelling another moment on the other repeated condition in this passage, also repeated across several Sections of this week's assignment (51-57) which deal with the Lord's directions on largely material and mechanical matters: the contrite heart.

For the import of this word, we'll have to go back further than Webster, however, to the Hebrew root "dakka," which is sometimes translated as "oppressed" in relation to military defeats or occupations of collectivities, but whose core sense is being "crushed," "bruised," or "broken." When the Lord expects a sacrifice of a broken heart and a contrite spirit, He's not delighting in our brokenness, but in the state that draws us to Him to seek a revival, to be filled with His hope, love, and grace. And He knows what that crushing feels like. He was pierced on the cross, but was crushed under all of creation's guilt and undeserved suffering in Gethsemane. In that place of the olive press, He was trodden upon, smashed into yielding that precious anointing oil mixed with that precious blood, "rubbed together" with us as the Latin root for "contrite" would express it--as a heavy stone grinds the other to a perfect fit of flatness--until we obtained the means to become pure through Him.

Follow the Prophet, keep your covenants, and remain contrite before the Lord, and you'll never be deceived in any eternally important matter. Christ saves, and is not hiding the way to Him. It's a strait and narrow path, to be sure, but His light flows both directly to us, and through authorized conduits to enable our advancement. To ensure our steps are forward and not backwards or sideways, we'll need to make and keep our covenants, and listen to His watchmen on the towers, common judges in Israel, and partners in our family.