Churches of anticipation: Alma and John

Book of Mormon, Main

[Author’s note: Hugh Nibley first used the phrase “churches of anticipation” with regards to Alma et alis back in the 1950s. I had forgotten that until recently re-reading his writings on the Book of Mormon. 01/31/2012]

There is a curious religious transition that occurs among the Nephites about a century before the birth of Christ. Up until then, the Nephites appear to have been following the law of Moses, in spite of a clear and unprecedented Christology introduced by Lehi1, Nephi1 and Jacob in the 5th century BC and re-emphasized by King Benjamin around 124 BC just before he abdicated in favor of his son Mosiah2. And even though Nephi1 clearly indicated the need for baptism in following the Savior’s (future) example, there is no record of baptism being practiced for roughly half a millennium afterwards. Instead, the Nephite civilization during that time appears to be a continual kingship with prophets calling the people to repentance.

Those two traditions appear to merge with King Mosiah1, “being warned of the lord”, leading a Nephite exodus from the land of Nephi to the land of Zarahemla. Mosiah1 continues as a prophet/king, interpreting the Jaredite (stone) engravings “by the gift and power of God.” His son, King Benjamin, clearly continues as a prophet/king; as noted above, he has a significant vision of the coming Messiah and puts his people under covenant to take upon themselves the name of Christ — though still with no mention of baptism. Mosiah2 appears to continue that prophet/king tradition, though there is less indication of any revelation or prophecy on his part (however, see Mosiah 21:28).

Continue reading Churches of anticipation: Alma and John →

An LDS comic strip worth reading

Humor, LDS Society, Main

Over at Mormon Matters, I ran across a post by Jamie Trwth with a link to his comic strip “Latte Day Saints“. Here’s one of my favorites so far:

Heh. I’ve said for years that anyone who thinks that Mormons are mindless sheep has clearly never served in an LDS leadership position.

Jamie’s post at Mormon Matters is also worth reading, when he — as a black Latter-day Saints — describes the anti-LDS discrimination he’s encountered in Alaska when trying to register his child in private Christian schools. ..bruce..

Dwellings of prophets

LDS Organization, Main

Outside (and some inside) observers of the LDS Church sometimes hint darkly at the Church’s great wealth, directly stating or leaving others to infer that this somehow reflects greed, corruption, or insensitivity on the part of LDS Church leaders. Peggy Stack, in today’s Salt Lake Tribune, points out yet another way in which the LDS Church differs from many other Christian denominations: the modesty of the homes that its Presidents have dwelt in:

Sometime soon, new LDS Church President Thomas S. Monson likely will move into the church-owned “presidential apartment.”

Though church spokesman Scott Trotter declined to say when or whether Monson will move, his three predecessors all lived on the top floor of Gateway Apartments on State Street in Salt Lake City, across from the LDS Administration Building and within a block of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building and the LDS temple.

Monson and his wife, Frances, currently live in a modest home in Holladay, which the couple built about 40 years ago. . . .

Spencer W. Kimball lived on Laird Street in Harvard/Yale neighborhood. His Mormon neighbors enjoyed the proximity to their spiritual leader.

“He seemed like any of our good neighbors,” said Mavis Oswald, whose husband was Kimball’s bishop. “He talked to children and winked at them while sitting on the stand [behind the pulpit]. He and his wife took walks in the neighborhood, visited with people and patted the dogs.”

Eventually, Kimball, too, had to be moved to Hotel Utah because of security concerns and declining health. He died there in November 1985.

Isn’t it interesting that for all the Church’s wealth, you never hear of any financial scandals or excesses on the part of its leaders involving Church funds? ..bruce..

Is there a Mormon concept of ‘the’ AntiChrist?

Belief systems, LDS Doctrine, Main, World Religions

I use SiteMeter to track hits and traffic to this blog. One of the things SiteMeter lets me do is to see the search words and phrases that lead people here. I was looking at that just a few minutes ago and saw that someone had arrived at this blog by doing a Google search on the words “Mike Huckabee and the Mormon Anti-Christ” (this post, which I wrote some weeks back, was the second entry listed by Google). The phrase “the Mormon Anti-Christ” I interpreted to mean the person that the Latter-day Saints might consider to be “the” AntiChrist mentioned in the Epistles of John in the New Testament (and hinted at in Revelation, some Pauline epistles, the Gospels, and Daniel; see this entry in the Catholic Encyclopedia). In other words, I suspect the person was wondering if Mormons might think that Mike Huckabee could be the “AntiChrist.”

Simple answer: no. That’s because Mormons, unlike many Evangelicals, don’t really have much of a concept of there being a single, literal human (or demonic) “AntiChrist” prior to the Savior’s second coming. The concept (much less the actual phrase) does not show up at all in the various passages in LDS-specific scriptures that deal with events surrounding the Second Coming (e.g., relevant portions of the Book of Mormon, Doctrine & Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price). The term itself does appear twice (in a short span of verses) in the Book of Mormon, but it’s used as an adjective to describe a known individual (Korihor) in Book of Mormon times (~74 BC) who denied and preached against the idea of the Son of God coming to earth as an atoning Messiah.

Donald and Jay Parry, in Understanding the Signs of the Times (Deseret Book, 1999), spend a few pages (pp. 211-214) discussing the LDS concepts of “antichrist” and note “that there are many antichrists in every age”. They see the “man of sin, the son of perdition” spoke of by Paul as being Satan himself. They see the descriptions of the beasts in Revelation as being “in the likeness of the kingdoms of the earth” (citing the Joseph Smith revision of Revelation 13:1) and go on to conclude “both the beasts and the antichrist are individuals, nations, and philosophies.” That sounds about right, but I’m interested if other Latter-day Saints have run across different concepts regarding the AntiChrist within LDS literature, discourses and/or folk doctrine. ..bruce..

A brief postscript: I get the impression from what little research I’ve done that Catholics are much more skeptical about the idea of there being a literal, individual, powerful AntiChrist as a precursor to the Savior’s second coming — probably because, as the Catholic Encyclopedia entry cited above states, Protestants have been claiming for centuries that the Pope is the AntiChrist. What makes that so interesting is that in most horror movies about the rise of the AntiChrist — e.g., “The Omen” — it seems that it’s almost always the Catholics who are fighting against him. On the other hand, it seems like there’s often a group of renegade or corrupted Catholic priests and nuns who are supporting and protecting him. So for all us Mormons who complain about media bias, realize that it could be a lot worse — no one’s made a movie that shows the AntiChrist being born in Spanish Fork, attending BYU, and serving an LDS mission, before going to work for the Marriott Corporation, all the while being protected by a 21st century band of Danites. Yet. Hmm…maybe I’ll write a screenplay.

I even have a title for it: “Oh My Heck!”

Restoring the earth and ourselves: Brigham Young

Current events, Environment, LDS Doctrine, Main, Politics, Technology

In the (out-of-print) anthology To The Glory of God (Deseret Book, 1974), Hugh Nibley had an entry entitled “Brigham Young on the Environment” (pp. 3-29). The entire article is worth reading, but I’ve always been intrigued by the following passage, which suggests that the Article of Faith that states that “the earth will be renewed and receive its paradisiacal glory” is talking about work that we will have to do (Nibley’s citations are from the Journal of Discourses and indicate volumn:page:year):

If the earth still retained its paradisiacal glory, we would be justified in asking, “What do we do now?” But that glory has departed, and the first step in the rebuilding of Zion is to help bring it back. “Who placed the dark stain of sin upon this fair creation? Man. Who but man shall remove the foul blot and restore all things to their primeval purity and innocence? [That is a large order, an impossible assignment, and Brigham admits it.] But can he do this independent of heavenly aid? He cannot. To aid him in this work heavenly grace is here.” (10:301:64.) Fortunately it is God’s work, in which he allows us to participate. “The greatest acts of the mighty men,” said Joseph Smith, have been disastrous. “Before them the earth was a paradise, and behind them a desolate wilderness. . . . The designs of God, on the other hand” are that “the earth shall yield its increase, resume its paradisean glory, and become as the garden of the Lord.” It is a clear-cut and fundamental doctrine: “We believe . . . that Christ will reign personally upon the earth; and, that the earth will be renewed and receive its paradisiacal glory.” (Tenth Article of Faith.) that, however, according to the same Article of Faith, will be the last step of five in the rehabilitation of the earth, and according to Brigham Young, it was to be a long hard pull: “Not many generations will pass away before the days of man will again return. But it will take generations to entirely eradicate the influences of deleterious substances. This must be done before we can attain our paradaical [sic] state.” (8:64:60.)

Now, in fairness, I think that Nibley is misapplying that last quote a bit, though he may not have had the full paragraph on his note card (and appears to have a typo) — but the original, complete quote is in and of itself interesting and does indeed have environmental application and again is decades (if not a full century) ahead of its time:

If the days of man are to begin to return, we must cease all extravagant living. When men live to the age of a tree, their food will be fruit. Mothers, to produce offspring full of life and days, must cease drinking liquor, tea, and coffee, that their systems may be free from bad effects. If every woman in this Church will now cease drinking tea, coffee, liquor, and all other powerful stimulants, and live upon vegetables, &c., not many generations will pass away before the days of man will again return. But it will take generations to entirely eradicate the influences of deleterious substances. This must be done before we can attain our paradisaical state, for the Lord will bring again Zion to its paradisaical state.

May God grant that we may see and enjoy it. Amen. (JD 8:64)

Something to think about. ..bruce..

A sweet look from outside [OOPS!]

LDS Society, Main, Succession

EGG ON MY FACE: Kathleen Flake is LDS. My fault for leaping to the assumption that a professor of religious history at Vanderbilt was not LDS. Thanks for the comments that corrected me. Sigh….

As Latter-day Saints, we (well, I, but I suspect most of you as well) reflexively brace for misunderstandings and misrepresentations in non-LDS coverage of our doctrines, society, and practices. So it was refreshing — and moving [but mistaken on my part!] — to read this insightful piece by Kathleen Flake from the On Religion website about President Hinckley’s funeral:

The Latter-day Saints buried their prophet on Saturday. Thousands attended the service in person and millions more faithful watched in chapels around the globe, as well as on the internet. What they saw was an unusually personal ceremony for a very public man who led and to large degree defined the contemporary Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Notwithstanding the numbers and titles of participants, Gordon Hinckley’s funeral was a family affair both in word and sacrament. It was an extraordinary display of what makes Mormonism tick.

Be sure to read the whole thing. Hat tip to the Deseret News LDS Newsline. ..bruce..

Republican Mormons and Obama: a true-life story

Current events, LDS Society, Main, Politics

The issue of potential LDS support for Obama continues to bubble around the bloggernacle; see for example here and here for opposing views. I will note for the record that I haven’t on this blog stated that I would support Obama or that I thought other Latter-day Saints should. What I have stated, repeatedly, is that with the right pro-active outreach from Obama himself, he could well win over Utah against a McCain/Huckabee or even a McCain/not-Huckabee ticket.

Here’s the interesting part. I’m in Utah this week, visiting relatives (kids, grandkids, in-laws, etc.), but I made some time today to have lunch with an old friend/colleague whom I’ve known since I taught at BYU some 20+ years ago. We exchange e-mails a few times a year, but it’s probably been a decade since we’ve actually seen each other face to face.

Anyway, we’re sitting at lunch today, and out of the blue, my friend — I’ll call him Bill — starts to raise the issue of the upcoming election. I’ll note for the record that he has never read this blog and he hasn’t read my other blog for a few months. Also, this is the issue he chose to raise; I had said absolutely nothing about politics or the election. And yet he proceeds to explain his feelings regarding the Republican primary race, particularly regarding the anti-Mormon aspect to it, then tells me that he’s been reading Obama’s book (The Audacity of Hope), which he says is actually quite rational and even-handed (his words). The upshot: he tells me that he’s voted a straight Republican party ticket for 25+ years, but he’s seriously considering voting for Obama in the fall, particularly if Huckabee is on the Republican ticket, but even if it’s just McCain plus someone else.

As I said elsewhere, the plural of ‘anecdote’ is not ‘data’. But it was startling to have Bill bring this up out of the blue and — with no input or prompting from me, and as I said, never having read this blog — recite to me almost exactly the same decision-making process that I’ve been describing here and that others have described elsewhere.  This is a self-described staunch LDS conservative, well-educated (PhD) and established in his profession, with a large family at home. Yet he’s ready to vote for Obama for all the reasons that we’ve been kicking around.

For what it’s worth.  ..bruce..

P.S. If you are interested in my personal political thinking, see this post on my other blog.

Huckabee backpedals, Marty critiques

Current events, LDS Society, Main, Politics

GOP candidate Mike Huckabee now says that he was misunderstood in making what were perceived as anti-Mormon comments:

WASHINGTON — Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee says it is “unfounded” for anyone to say he has alienated the Mormon community or that he used rival Mitt Romney’s LDS faith as a wedge issue.

Huckabee, talking to reporters over breakfast in Washington Tuesday just two blocks from the White House, blamed a single remark he made to The New York Times Magazine last year — when he asked whether Mormons believed Jesus and Satan are brothers — as the cause of the angst in the Mormon community.

The LDS Church issued a statement following that remark that acknowledged the belief that Jesus and Satan were both children of God, as well as all of humanity. Still, Huckabee’s comment was seen by many as pejorative.

Some members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have charged that Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minister and former Arkansas governor, was tapping into wariness about Mormons in campaigning against Romney. Some even raised the specter in letters to the editor that they would vote Democratic if Huckabee were the GOP nominee.

Huckabee said Tuesday he would have concern if anyone said he had estranged the Mormon community. 

Fine. If Huckabee is serious, here’s all he needs to to: publicly and unequivocally state “Yes, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a Christian church.”

Not holding my breath.

In the meantime, Martin E. Marty — who, unlike Huckabee, actually knows a fair amount about the LDS Church — has his own observations about what went on in the GOP primaries:

Now that Governor Romney is off the campaign trail — we don’t do any columns of candidates on the trail — we can, without commenting on him or the part his church and faith played in his demise, do a retrospective on the Mormon-hate that blighted air waves, the internet, and some printed quotations while he was spotlit…

Taking testimony about the evils of Mormonism by ex-Mormons is likely to be as objective as it is if it comes against Catholicism by ex-Catholics. Were it our calling, we could find profound fault with many policies and actions of some Latter-Day-Saints or members and leaders of other faiths. My own company, that of historians, is in the business of telling stories about others’ stories. No one is to be uncritical, where there is often much to criticize. But criticism is one thing; hate-speech and untruths are another.

Amen, Martin.  ..bruce..

Obama and the Mormons, redux

Current events, LDS Society, Main, Politics

It was via an article by Rob Graham over at the Beehive Standard Weekly that I first learned of the outreach by Barack Obama campaign personnel towards Latter-day Saints here in the West. Now Rob has put together a rather lengthy commentary summarizing what’s been kicking around on various news sources and blogs: if Obama (w/out Clinton) is the Democratic candidate this fall, large numbers of Mormons may abandon the GOP and vote for Obama instead:

 The many Mormons I have spoken to in attempting to obtain a read on how Mormons will vote in November are universally stating that they will either not vote for the Republican candidate, which is likely to be McCain, or they will vote for Obama as a candidate who will include Mormons in his campaign. If the candidate is Huckabee, the Mormons will turn out in droves to reject him as he openly used religion against the Mormons, which would result in a heavy vote for Obama.

Obama has taken note. In Obama’s Super Tuesday speech, he made it very clear that his candidacy is inclusive of disaffected Republicans, as well as those who share differing religious views — e.g., code word for Mormons. He is a smart character and he knows what it feels like to be on the receiving end of bigotry. He perceives he can tap into that well and turn the Mormon vote in his direction. He can also bridge to the Mormons on race as Mormons have been viewed as intolerant because of excluding their priesthood leadership responsibilities where the rank-and-file Mormon population is far from racist and as a group they have been seeking a way to heal the perceived racist policies of the past. Many prominent black Americans, such as Gladys Knight, who have joined the church have found racial ignorance in the church’s mostly white and Hispanic population, but not intolerance or open racism in the church. With some patience, Obama can appeal to the members of the Mormon faith and become a popular symbol for overcoming the church’s past perceived isolationist and racially-based policies.

Of course, Obama sees the possibilities and recently sent his wife out to Salt Lake City to meet with two members of the Mormon Church hierarchy and had photographs taken with them. It was all smiles and mutual understanding. No one would have thought the Mormons would embrace so openly and warmly a black American candidate and his family, but bigotry, religious intolerance and racism does create a common cause and mutual understanding among its victims.

Like Evangelicals, Mormons also have their differences with liberals, but the feeling is different with Obama as he is reaching out and acknowledging the differences, but emphasizing the similarities while assuring Mormons that they would be treated with respect in expressing their differences. A close analysis of Obama’s policies finds some common ground which could result in broad-based support from Mormons. For instance, the Mormon emphasis on family values, education, welfare, compassion, self-reliance and the like are all significant political similarities.

Be sure to read the entire article. Graham pulls all the pieces together to a level of detail that no one has to date, at least not that I’ve seen.  I fully believe that with some relatively modest but explicit outreach towards Latter-day Saints, Obama could indeed gain hundreds of thousands of votes in key Western states, including Utah, Idaho, Arizona, Colorado, and California. Given how few votes the last few Presidential elections have hinged upon, that could be enough to help Obama win the Presidency.  ..bruce..

Relief Society Magazine: January 1951

LDS History, LDS Organization, Main, Media

And now for something completely different.

One of my treasured books — which I begged of my mother-in-law, and which she generously gave to me — is a bound volume of all 1951 issues of The Relief Society Magazine (Vol. 38, Nos. 1-12). The Relief Society Magazine (TRSM) was a small, semi-glossy official monthly publication of the Relief Society of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Like the contemporaneous general Church magazine, The Improvement Era, TSRM carried paid advertising (Orson Scott Card quipped in Saintspeak that when The Ensign replaced The Improvement Era, the advertising function was taken over by BYU Magazine). Each issue appears to be roughly 70-75 pages long.

I thought I’d reproduce the table of contents of a single issue: January 1951 (Vol. 38, No. 1); I’ve dropped the page numbers and reformatted a bit:

SPECIAL FEATURES

  • A New Year Wish — General Presidency of Relief Society
  • Ernest L. Wilkinson, President of Brigham Young University — Ivor Sharp
  • Award Winners: Eliza R. Snow Poetry Contest
    • Lot’s Wife (First Prize Poem) — Alice Morrey Bailey
    • Old Home (Second Prize Poem) — Julia M. Nelson
    • Pioneer Wagon Wheels (Third Prize Poem) — Ruth Horsley Chadwick
  • Award Winners: Annual Relief Society Short Story Contest
    • “But Covet Earnestly” (First Prize Story) — Mirla Greenwood Thayne
  • Polio Strikes Again
  • Pioneering in the Big Horn Basin — Botilda Berthelson McBlain

FICTION

  • A Christmas Gift for Teacher — Fae Decker Dix

GENERAL FEATURES

  • Sixty Years Ago [these are excerpts from the Woman’s Exponent, 1891]
  • Woman’s Sphere — Ramona W. Cannon
  • Editorial: The Old and the New — Vesta P. Crawford
  • New Serial (“For the Strength of the Hills”) to Begin in February
  • Notes to the Field: Relief Society Assigned Evening Meeting of Fast Sunday in March; Bound Volumes of 1950 Relief Society Magazines; Award Subscriptions Presented in April; Relief Society Not a Selling Agent; Pictures of all General Presidents of Relief Society Available
  • Notes from the Field: Relief Society Socials, Bazaars, and Other Activities — Gen. Sec’y-Treasurer, Margaret C. Pickering
  • From Near and Far

LESSON DEPARTMENT

  • Theology: “The Long Night of Apostasy” — Don B. Colton
  • Visiting Teaching Message: “And Jesus Answering Saith Unto Them…” — Mary Grant Judd
  • Work Meeting: Pictures, Mirrors, and Wall Accessories — Christine H. Robinson
  • Literature: Oliver Goldsmith — Briant S. Jacobs
  • Social Science: The Role of Ancient Israel — Archibald F. Bennett
  • Music: Theories Underlying Singing, Accompanying, and Conducting — Florence J. Madsen

FEATURES FOR THE HOME

  • A Gingerbread House — Phyllis Snow
  • The Low Cost of Happiness — Caroline Eyring Miner
  • From Commode Into Buffet –Rachel K. Laurgaard
  • Crocheting Keeps Her Busy and Happy — Rosella F. Larking

POETRY

  • “The Heart Will Find It” — Dorothy J. Roberts; “Boys Are Dear” — Christie Lund Coles; “Letter From a Daughter” — Calra Laster; “Rosemary” — Margery S. Stewart; “The Wild Geese Fly” — Marvin Jones; “Progress” — Anges Just Reid; “The Dying Year” — Beatrice K. Ekman; “Sketches” — Evelyn Fieldsted; “Recompense” — Matia McClelland Burk; “Mirror, Mirror” — Mabel Jones Gabbott; “My Choice” — Marion W. Garibaldi; “My Child” — Marylou Shaver; “Within My Heart” — Grace Sayer

And here’s the first prize winning poem in the Eliza R. Snow contest:

Lot’s Wife

She merely turned for one last, stolen look
Before her woman’s lingering mind forsook
The home her hands had decked, her smile made sweet,
The memories of her children on the street.
A spirit, set on right, must keep front-face
Forever rigid toward the chosen place
And eyes firm-narrowed in the lane of duty.
No wayside resting place and no lush beauty
Should tempt the soul to longing, no lost
Love or glory, and no treasure mete their cost
In nostalgic indecision, not even pity
For a wanton, doomed, and wicked city,
Lest the will be drawn into the sucking blaze,
Consumed to smoke and ash. The backward gaze
Can bend desire, compel the step to halt,
And slowly, slowly turn the heart to salt.

— Alice Morrey Bailey

All in all, the articles are interesting, and the range of topics is fascinating. Much as with The Improvement Era, the articles are often lengthier and written at a more scholastic level than what you find currently in The Ensign. I also find it interesting that many of the women use as bylines their first names followed by both what are almost certainly both maiden and married names.

Oh, and here’s the scary part: the General Relief Society President at that time (January 1951 — two years before I was born) was Belle Spafford — who was still General Relief Society President when I was an undergraduate at BYU in the 1970s. A different era, indeed.

Comments? ..bruce..