"Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men." (Matt 12: 31)
"They are they who are the sons of perdition, of whom I say that it had been better for them never to have been born." (D&C 76: 32)
LDS theology is, in some respects, nearly universalist in its ideas about salvation. While we certainly believe in divine punishment, we also believe in a healing afterwards for the overwhelming majority of humanity. Two of our midrashim come to mind here:
1) Elder Talmage used to say of Matt 5: 25-26, that the judge is God, and that as the uttermost farthing can be paid, so will the souls in prison be freed in course of time.
2) D&C 19 itself operates like a midrash. Among other things, it explains that "it is not written that there shall be no end to this torment, but it is written endless torment...For, behold, I am endless, and the punishment which is given from my hand is endless punishment, for Endless is my name." By shifting the meaning of endless in this context from chronological to possessive, the section affirms the Latter-day Saint belief that hell is a condition with an end as well as a beginning.
Even most murderers and heinous criminals, we believe, will eventually allow themselves to be healed enough, through the merits of Christ, to inherit some degree of glory. Everyone goes to one form of heaven or other.
Well...almost everyone.
Perhaps because agency (free will) is absolute in our belief system, there must be room left for those who would choose darkness in the face of overwhelming light. Thus, in Mormonism, it is possible to earn darkness without a chronological end; it is possible to commit a sin that cannot be forgiven. That's how we understand Matt. 12: 31, and why we have a fourth, non-kingdom described in D&C 76 along with the degrees of glory. We believe that some people, probably very few, will "sin against the Holy Ghost" and become "sons of perdition."
How do you know if you are one?
I probably never would have come up with this question on my own, because I was always satisfied with the folk Mormon answer that you have to have an awful lot of light and knowledge before you can sin against it that severely, and most of us simply don't.
On my mission, however, two of my favorite people were plagued with doubts that they had committed this sin, and were beyond all forgiveness.
The first was seventeen years old at the time, a son of atheists who had come to believe in nothing so firmly as his own spiritual experiences. It was because he experienced God so strongly and unexpectedly, I think, that he doubted himself so much when he acted in direct opposition to what he had felt. Perhaps in some moments of fear or doubt he denied to others that he had ever had spiritual experiences. In either case, he believed himself guilty of sinning against the Holy Ghost.
The second was perhaps twenty-three. She had joined the church at sixteen and was a sort of scriptural savant, memorizing whole passages with ease. She, too, felt the spirit with great intensity--then broke a series of commandments, stopped coming to church, and got involved in things that made her feel a strong sense of darkness. Did her turn from light to darkness constitute sinning against the Holy Ghost? Could she be forgiven for a turn she had made with such acute awareness?
Talking with these two made me think about the subject more deeply than I might have on my own. I was quite convinced, from the beginning, that neither was beyond forgiveness...far from it. And yet how could I give that confidence to them in a way that they could hold onto in moments of fear and self-doubt?
You can tell you are still eligible for forgiveness, I told the first, whenever you still have a desire to repent. There is no sin which God cannot forgive on the condition of repentance, but it is possible to shut out the Holy Ghost so completely that we are "past feeling" and thus lose all desire to repent. Sons of perdition could be forgiven, but will not be because having shut themselves completely off from the influence of the Spirit, they will never repent.
Monday, July 6, 2009
OCD and the Scriptures -- Matt. 5: 28
"But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart."
I had a companion on my mission with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). I'd mostly associated OCD with excessive handwashing and similar behaviors, but found out that, as is the case with most mental illness, pop culture stereotypes aren't a terribly helpful source of information.
For my companion, at least, OCD mostly meant not being able to ignore or throw out the random thoughts most of us barely even register when they pass through our heads. That is, he might have passing sexual or violent thoughts, and although he would never have acted on them, he couldn't let go. He'd freak out about them and they'd get stuck in his head until he could barely function. That he was serving a mission, in particular, made it difficult for him: his thoughts made him feel out of place, unworthy, and as if he'd actually committed sin.
Matthew 5: 28 was a particular source of difficulty for him. He sometimes told me that when sexual thoughts got stuck in his head, he felt that he was guilty of adultery according to this verse.
I told him I believed that the verse referred not simply to sexual thoughts, but to the specific decision to endorse them. That the Lord here is saying that we will be accountable for every woman we would have slept with, even when the opportunity to actually break the law of chastity never presents itself. His thoughts, I argued, could not count because they didn't constitute a moral decision: they were simply images and unsought impulses, not a chosen course of desired action. The Higher Law was perhaps not so strict as he imagined it.
Looking back, I don't think that's the best reading for everyone. For some, the verse is probably better read as a prohibition on pornography. For others, the verse ought to be read more as a warning against investing too much intimacy of any kind outside of marriage. But for an OCD missionary, I think the reading I gave makes a lot of practical sense.
How can we give people a range of readings so that the spirit can help them find the one(s) most relevant to their situation?
I had a companion on my mission with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). I'd mostly associated OCD with excessive handwashing and similar behaviors, but found out that, as is the case with most mental illness, pop culture stereotypes aren't a terribly helpful source of information.
For my companion, at least, OCD mostly meant not being able to ignore or throw out the random thoughts most of us barely even register when they pass through our heads. That is, he might have passing sexual or violent thoughts, and although he would never have acted on them, he couldn't let go. He'd freak out about them and they'd get stuck in his head until he could barely function. That he was serving a mission, in particular, made it difficult for him: his thoughts made him feel out of place, unworthy, and as if he'd actually committed sin.
Matthew 5: 28 was a particular source of difficulty for him. He sometimes told me that when sexual thoughts got stuck in his head, he felt that he was guilty of adultery according to this verse.
I told him I believed that the verse referred not simply to sexual thoughts, but to the specific decision to endorse them. That the Lord here is saying that we will be accountable for every woman we would have slept with, even when the opportunity to actually break the law of chastity never presents itself. His thoughts, I argued, could not count because they didn't constitute a moral decision: they were simply images and unsought impulses, not a chosen course of desired action. The Higher Law was perhaps not so strict as he imagined it.
Looking back, I don't think that's the best reading for everyone. For some, the verse is probably better read as a prohibition on pornography. For others, the verse ought to be read more as a warning against investing too much intimacy of any kind outside of marriage. But for an OCD missionary, I think the reading I gave makes a lot of practical sense.
How can we give people a range of readings so that the spirit can help them find the one(s) most relevant to their situation?
Sunday, July 5, 2009
How was John the least? -- Matt 11:11
"Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he."
Why was the least in the kingdom of heaven greater than John the Baptist?
Roy used to say that because John knew Jesus to the Promised One (Matt 3: 13-17) and then doubted, sending messengers to ask (Matt 11: 2-3), he was less than the least. For nothing shall be impossible unto him who has faith even as a mustard seed (Matt 17: 20) and yet John did not leave place for the seed. (Matt 13: 3-9)
Nicole, however, said that a question is no sin, for it is written "Ask and ye shall receive" but rather, that the spirituality of John, though greater even than that of a prophet (Matt 11: 9), could not compare to the glory of the least in the celestial kingdom, who will inherit the fulness of God.
While I said, sometimes "the kingdom is heaven " refers to the celestial kingdom, sometimes it refers to the promised earthly kingdom to be born out of the church (JST Rev 12: 1-17), and sometimes it refers to the church when on earth in its fulness. John, though individually great and heir to the Aaronic Priesthood, was blessed with less than the least recipient of the collective blessings of the Church when led by the greater blessing of the Melchizedek Priesthood.
Why was the least in the kingdom of heaven greater than John the Baptist?
Roy used to say that because John knew Jesus to the Promised One (Matt 3: 13-17) and then doubted, sending messengers to ask (Matt 11: 2-3), he was less than the least. For nothing shall be impossible unto him who has faith even as a mustard seed (Matt 17: 20) and yet John did not leave place for the seed. (Matt 13: 3-9)
Nicole, however, said that a question is no sin, for it is written "Ask and ye shall receive" but rather, that the spirituality of John, though greater even than that of a prophet (Matt 11: 9), could not compare to the glory of the least in the celestial kingdom, who will inherit the fulness of God.
While I said, sometimes "the kingdom is heaven " refers to the celestial kingdom, sometimes it refers to the promised earthly kingdom to be born out of the church (JST Rev 12: 1-17), and sometimes it refers to the church when on earth in its fulness. John, though individually great and heir to the Aaronic Priesthood, was blessed with less than the least recipient of the collective blessings of the Church when led by the greater blessing of the Melchizedek Priesthood.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Heilsgeschichte
My German Bible has introductory commentaries to each book giving some brief sense of historical background and theological contributions. The word Heilsgeschichte comes up fairly often in the introductions: the word means, roughly, that God has shaped history to contribute to man's salvation. While the German term is fairly new, the idea is old: Zoroastrians, Jews, Christians, Muslims and others have all felt it important to describe how God was working through history in distinct stages to reveal his will as neccessary for humanity.
Understanding what parts of history are sacred to a given religion (what its Heilsgeschichte is) can do a great deal to shed light on that religion. It's useful to know, for example, that the kingdom of David, while accepted as significant by Jews and Christians, plays a much different role in Jewish thought than in Christian thought. In Islam, the most fundamental difference between Sunni and Shia branches has to do with the Heilsgeschichte: for Sunnis, God's revelation culminates and ends with Muhammad, for Shias, the subsequent Imams are not simply historical, but essential sacred figures that history could not be considered complete without.
Sunnis and Shias alike, and most Christians, have a Heilsgeschichte which consists primarily of events that took place long ago, complemented by events which will unfold at the end of the world. Latter-day Saints believe that events of paramount religious significance unfolded during the nineteenth century, and that other key events continue to unfold. Although we believe with other Christians in the centrality of Christ's life, we emphasize the history of revelation and of the covenant people, continuing into the present. In doing so, our Heilsgeschichte departs radically from that of most Christians
The American revolution and drafting of the Constitution, for example, while politically signifant to the point of being secularly sacred for most Americans, have a unique religious relevance for Latter-day Saints: because we believe that the restoration of the gospel and coming forth of the church are essential to God's history, the creation of the United States as a land in which religious freedom was (at least nominally) protected becomes a sacred religious event as well as a significant political one. The Exodus of the Saints to Utah, likewise, becomes a significant event in our version of the religious history of the world.
This July, then, I am thinking about how one of the things Joseph Smith restored was an intensified sense of sacred history: a sense that it can still be sacred the ways it was for people long ago.
Understanding what parts of history are sacred to a given religion (what its Heilsgeschichte is) can do a great deal to shed light on that religion. It's useful to know, for example, that the kingdom of David, while accepted as significant by Jews and Christians, plays a much different role in Jewish thought than in Christian thought. In Islam, the most fundamental difference between Sunni and Shia branches has to do with the Heilsgeschichte: for Sunnis, God's revelation culminates and ends with Muhammad, for Shias, the subsequent Imams are not simply historical, but essential sacred figures that history could not be considered complete without.
Sunnis and Shias alike, and most Christians, have a Heilsgeschichte which consists primarily of events that took place long ago, complemented by events which will unfold at the end of the world. Latter-day Saints believe that events of paramount religious significance unfolded during the nineteenth century, and that other key events continue to unfold. Although we believe with other Christians in the centrality of Christ's life, we emphasize the history of revelation and of the covenant people, continuing into the present. In doing so, our Heilsgeschichte departs radically from that of most Christians
The American revolution and drafting of the Constitution, for example, while politically signifant to the point of being secularly sacred for most Americans, have a unique religious relevance for Latter-day Saints: because we believe that the restoration of the gospel and coming forth of the church are essential to God's history, the creation of the United States as a land in which religious freedom was (at least nominally) protected becomes a sacred religious event as well as a significant political one. The Exodus of the Saints to Utah, likewise, becomes a significant event in our version of the religious history of the world.
This July, then, I am thinking about how one of the things Joseph Smith restored was an intensified sense of sacred history: a sense that it can still be sacred the ways it was for people long ago.
Friday, July 3, 2009
The God of Statistics -- Alma 42: 13
"Therefore, according to justice, the plan of redemption could not be brought about, only on conditions of repentance of men in this probationary state, yea, this preparatory state; for except it were for these conditions, mercy could not take effect except it should destroy the work of justice. Now the work of justice could not be destroyed; if so, God would cease to be God"
When God created the mortal universe, he wrapped it in a special barrier called statistics to protect it from the full force of divine will. Thus, in heaven, every act is met immediately with the exact and appropriate consequence: goodness returned with goodness, evil turning back on itself with evil. Pure mathematics. And yet to create a space for probation, the law of consequence on earth is diffracted through a prism of probabilities: we sometimes fail to immediately receive the physical blessings of our obedience, thus increasing our opportunity to exercise faith through agency, and we often fail to reap the full consequence of sin at once, giving us windows for repentance. Is there no justice in the world? God forbid. But God has loosened the effects of justice for a season, from certainty to probability, that we might repent before we return to see his face and live in perfect justice again.
When God created the mortal universe, he wrapped it in a special barrier called statistics to protect it from the full force of divine will. Thus, in heaven, every act is met immediately with the exact and appropriate consequence: goodness returned with goodness, evil turning back on itself with evil. Pure mathematics. And yet to create a space for probation, the law of consequence on earth is diffracted through a prism of probabilities: we sometimes fail to immediately receive the physical blessings of our obedience, thus increasing our opportunity to exercise faith through agency, and we often fail to reap the full consequence of sin at once, giving us windows for repentance. Is there no justice in the world? God forbid. But God has loosened the effects of justice for a season, from certainty to probability, that we might repent before we return to see his face and live in perfect justice again.
The Stranger Within Thy Gates
I'm a Master's student in the English Department, which is a very strange place. After all, most of us in the program have been speaking English since we were in diapers--have we really still failed to master it?
In many ways, the answer is yes: I am constantly learning new words, and I still get puzzled when my students ask me anything but the most basic of mechanics questions. Learning English is not really what most courses focus on, however, and when professors get together, they don't spend much times swapping grammatical fun facts. You see, English departments, through the medium of literature, are actually philosophy/history/culture/ethics departments (topped, in many cases, with a lovely pretension sauce). I don't actually learn English in classes, I learn Theory (=philosophy/history/culture/ethics) and how to read and see in light of any insights said theories may give me.
One of the common strains in Theory is to pay special attention to power dynamics: how they work in literature, and how they inform the create of literature. Which group has what power? How are they using and abusing it? How do groups without power find ways to express themselves? Because these strains are often identified with Marxist literary criticism, it's tempting to dismiss them as mindless communist drivel...but I have learned not to do that. The same concerns, after all, run all through our religion.
Maybe the best-known example is D&C 121: 34-46, dealing with unrighteous dominion, but other examples abound. The one running through my head today is the Old Testament's obsessive concern with "the stranger within thy gates." The Law seems to have recognized that unequal power relationship are inevitable and call for special ethical attention.
Injunctions are given, on the one hand, against stripping the stranger of the protections of God's law: even in the Ten Commandments, the stranger is specifically included as one who should not be forced to work on the Sabbath. There are also contrasting regulations that imply a need not to enforce certain standards on the stranger: Deut. 14: 21 suggests offering certain kinds of unclean meat to the stranger because the commandment not to eat belongs specifically to those who wish to set themselves apart as God's sacred people, as opposed to a commandment with universal ethical significance. Underlying both principles is the most fundamental commandment: that the stranger, along with the fatherless, the widow, and the landless Israelite, should never be denied sustenance, whether physical (they are to be fed, see Deut. 26: 12), emotional (they are to be included in festive occasions of rejoicing, see Deut. 16: 11, 14), or spiritual (they are not to be denied sacred teaching, see Deut 31: 12). You have a special obligation, God says, to the stranger because he is a stranger and because you have gates for him to be within!
The trick to living these commandments today, I think, is to learn to recognize what lies within our gates, so that we don't dismiss these commandments as only applying to those who spend time in our yards. Only if we are able to see the less obvious interactions in which we have the upper hand, a priveleged kind of power, can we avoid abusing it.
After all, one of the best questions anyone ever asked the Savior was "Who is my neighbor?" Isn't it time that we, too, profited by trying to be specific about who we should recognize as having the vulnerability of the stranger and what areas lie within our own gates?
In many ways, the answer is yes: I am constantly learning new words, and I still get puzzled when my students ask me anything but the most basic of mechanics questions. Learning English is not really what most courses focus on, however, and when professors get together, they don't spend much times swapping grammatical fun facts. You see, English departments, through the medium of literature, are actually philosophy/history/culture/ethics departments (topped, in many cases, with a lovely pretension sauce). I don't actually learn English in classes, I learn Theory (=philosophy/history/culture/ethics) and how to read and see in light of any insights said theories may give me.
One of the common strains in Theory is to pay special attention to power dynamics: how they work in literature, and how they inform the create of literature. Which group has what power? How are they using and abusing it? How do groups without power find ways to express themselves? Because these strains are often identified with Marxist literary criticism, it's tempting to dismiss them as mindless communist drivel...but I have learned not to do that. The same concerns, after all, run all through our religion.
Maybe the best-known example is D&C 121: 34-46, dealing with unrighteous dominion, but other examples abound. The one running through my head today is the Old Testament's obsessive concern with "the stranger within thy gates." The Law seems to have recognized that unequal power relationship are inevitable and call for special ethical attention.
Injunctions are given, on the one hand, against stripping the stranger of the protections of God's law: even in the Ten Commandments, the stranger is specifically included as one who should not be forced to work on the Sabbath. There are also contrasting regulations that imply a need not to enforce certain standards on the stranger: Deut. 14: 21 suggests offering certain kinds of unclean meat to the stranger because the commandment not to eat belongs specifically to those who wish to set themselves apart as God's sacred people, as opposed to a commandment with universal ethical significance. Underlying both principles is the most fundamental commandment: that the stranger, along with the fatherless, the widow, and the landless Israelite, should never be denied sustenance, whether physical (they are to be fed, see Deut. 26: 12), emotional (they are to be included in festive occasions of rejoicing, see Deut. 16: 11, 14), or spiritual (they are not to be denied sacred teaching, see Deut 31: 12). You have a special obligation, God says, to the stranger because he is a stranger and because you have gates for him to be within!
The trick to living these commandments today, I think, is to learn to recognize what lies within our gates, so that we don't dismiss these commandments as only applying to those who spend time in our yards. Only if we are able to see the less obvious interactions in which we have the upper hand, a priveleged kind of power, can we avoid abusing it.
After all, one of the best questions anyone ever asked the Savior was "Who is my neighbor?" Isn't it time that we, too, profited by trying to be specific about who we should recognize as having the vulnerability of the stranger and what areas lie within our own gates?
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Elise Yumi and Zion -- D&C 28:9
"And now, behold, I say unto you that it is not revealed, and no man knoweth where the city Zion shall be built, but it shall be given hereafter. Behold, I say unto you that it shall be on the borders by the Lamanites."
Because the Saints left the subsequently revealed location for the city of Zion in Jackson County, Missouri, over 170 years ago, it's easy to dismiss this passage as strictly historical in interest. Today we tend to focus on Zion as a people rather than a city, and with the exception of some predictions that large numbers the Saints will return to Missouri just prior to Christ's second coming, the sense of precise location for Zion has faded from our interest.
And yet the idea of Zion as a border place, neither in one world or the other, continues to occupy my mind. Zion should be built, says the Lord, at this intersection of two cultures. Zion should be built at a certain distance from the heart of any given order of the world. Is this so that in Zion different traditions can meet and merge, that all knowledge and truth may be gathered into one? Is it so that by its very marginality Zion will be more accessible for all?
In March, the only other Mormon from my old college theatre program gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. She and her husband gave the child the first name Elise, meaning "from God" and the middle name "Yumi", Japanese for "the reason for beauty." I thought of my own sister Judith Shandiin, whose middle name is Navajo, of my brother Mattathias Singh, a staunch Mormon named for Jewish and Sikh heroes, of Haruka Louisa and Nanika Basant, and wondered how many Latter-day Saints have multiculturalism written so clearly in their very names.
If Zion is to be built on the borders, perhaps we are doing more to build it than we sometimes believe.
Because the Saints left the subsequently revealed location for the city of Zion in Jackson County, Missouri, over 170 years ago, it's easy to dismiss this passage as strictly historical in interest. Today we tend to focus on Zion as a people rather than a city, and with the exception of some predictions that large numbers the Saints will return to Missouri just prior to Christ's second coming, the sense of precise location for Zion has faded from our interest.
And yet the idea of Zion as a border place, neither in one world or the other, continues to occupy my mind. Zion should be built, says the Lord, at this intersection of two cultures. Zion should be built at a certain distance from the heart of any given order of the world. Is this so that in Zion different traditions can meet and merge, that all knowledge and truth may be gathered into one? Is it so that by its very marginality Zion will be more accessible for all?
In March, the only other Mormon from my old college theatre program gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. She and her husband gave the child the first name Elise, meaning "from God" and the middle name "Yumi", Japanese for "the reason for beauty." I thought of my own sister Judith Shandiin, whose middle name is Navajo, of my brother Mattathias Singh, a staunch Mormon named for Jewish and Sikh heroes, of Haruka Louisa and Nanika Basant, and wondered how many Latter-day Saints have multiculturalism written so clearly in their very names.
If Zion is to be built on the borders, perhaps we are doing more to build it than we sometimes believe.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
LinkWithin
