I'll just come out and say it: The history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is bizarre. Golden plates? Angels appearing? God appearing to Joseph Smith? To respond with incredulity is, I think, a natural response, especially give the modern scientific world view that is so prevalent today.
Then again, the majority of the Western World for the past millennium believed that all evil and suffering ultimately stemmed from a talking snake. Go figure.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Zion
Growing up, I always had Zion in my heart, and as I grew, so too did my love for God and my longing for home. I was raised in a conservative Evangelical home. I went to private Christian school and attended a “Bible believing” Church. I remember as a young teenager my profound desire to be closer to God, though in my immaturity I didn’t know exactly how to achieve it apart from transitory spiritual highs. After graduating high school, I ended up attending college at Multnomah Bible College. My junior high desires had taken deeper root in my soul, and I went off to college with a burning desire to know God and everything He had for me. Based on the tradition I had been raised in, I assumed my primary means of finding these things out would be through God’s Word, the Bible. My desire was to reside in Zion – to really be a citizen of God’s Kingdom. I trusted that reading my Bible would tell me everything I needed to know: how to get there, how to be there, and how to know her Ruler.
I soon found out that there was no “Zion,” at least not in the form I had expected her in. Instead of finding a church that was built on Christ’s authority, I found a multitude of interpretations huddled around a small bundle of “orthodox” truisms. Belief in the Trinity, inerrancy, sola scriptura: these were the requirements to enter what I took to be Zion. I was taught, or at least it seemed to me, that one could not pass through her gates without adhering to certain fundamental doctrine. And so I nodded my head and passed through the gate labeled” Zion.”
“Zion” wasn’t what I expected it. It was human, it was messy and it was confused. Instead of finding transcendent truth and guidance for God’s people, I found division and instability. Had I been wiser, I would have expected Zion to be both human and at least somewhat messy (for, although perfect, God’s dealings with humanity are always fraught with our creaturliness), but in hindsight I never should have for one moment tolerated the division and the doctrinal uncertainty. I should have never have traded in my hopes of the fullness of God’s truth with all its promises for the sliver of “orthodox” sine qua non. But I did not understand then as I do now and we all must grow.
As time progressed, I became more and more disillusioned with the idea that man’s reading of the Bible will lead to a cohesive and necessary understanding of soteriology. Sola scriptura seemed in reality to be the biggest philosophical failure of the western world. Man’s ability to read did not produced a good grasp of who God was or God’s truth. It did not bring Truth, it did not bring unity. It did not bring Zion. Instead, its fruit was school after school of theological thought: Calvinsim, Arminiasm, Baptists, Presbeyterians, traditionalists, new wave theology, the emergent church. Thousands upon thousands of branches of opinions, many of them mutually exclusive in their truth claims.
Ah, yes, you might say, but certainly these efforts could lead to Truth, if only knowledge was really applied with good intent and purity of heart? If only it were so. But I saw teachers and students, both good and learned, reach radically different conclusions, with radically different and perhaps eternal consequences. And so I witnessed firsthand how the Reformation bloom withers under reality’s sun.
In all this, my heart still longed for Zion. When I first realized that Zion was not to be found in any one Protestant tradition or stream of belief, I hoped that reading the Bible might at least tell me how she might be built. However, as I saw those around my striving after this aim with little or no success, I rightly lost faith in my ability to construct her, even in my own heart. I would never be able to know enough or understand enough. Thousands of years, countless histories and incredible culture gaps lay between me and being able to get at the text with enough precision to draw up any sort of blue print for Zion. I felt like a monkey trying to read Shakespeare: I could get bits and pieces here and there, but the metanarrative eluded me.
And so it was that I had not found Zion and I did not know how to build her. But where disappointment met me, hope led me on. And so my heart became a pilgrim and my prayers petitioned the heavens, longing for guidance.
At this point, all the fears that lay at the back of my mind and all the suspicions accumulated since childhood began to take root: there was no Zion here and now on earth, there was no way to build her, there was no way to know or be part of God’s chosen people. There was nothing but the cacophony of opinion and the longing of my heart for my heart’s truest home.
As I felt the twilight coming and as my soul began to despair even as it earnestly poured out its petitions, it happened. I found Zion. She was shrouded in ill opinion and lies, she was hard to descry, but the cries of my heart were heard and God had in His mercy led me home. It was a painful trudge ascending the Hill of the Lord. It was disorienting arriving at her gates and the shock of waking up within her walls jarred me time and time again. Finding her was like learning to see the light, living in color after years of black and white. It was the joy of coming home when you’ve been away so long you can barely remember what home is.
Christ’s Church has been restored once again to the Earth. Zion has descended from the heavens and opens her gates to all who would enter in. Truth is here, beyond thought and supposition, beyond exegesis and all such valiant efforts. Where I had frailly tried to understand God’s Word for myself, I have it explicated for me by His prophets and apostles. Truly, I am blessed beyond words by the blessings of God. Wonder beyond dreaming, peace beyond expression. Zion is here and Christ stands at her gates to welcome all to come in and partake of His Kingdom here and now on Earth.
I soon found out that there was no “Zion,” at least not in the form I had expected her in. Instead of finding a church that was built on Christ’s authority, I found a multitude of interpretations huddled around a small bundle of “orthodox” truisms. Belief in the Trinity, inerrancy, sola scriptura: these were the requirements to enter what I took to be Zion. I was taught, or at least it seemed to me, that one could not pass through her gates without adhering to certain fundamental doctrine. And so I nodded my head and passed through the gate labeled” Zion.”
“Zion” wasn’t what I expected it. It was human, it was messy and it was confused. Instead of finding transcendent truth and guidance for God’s people, I found division and instability. Had I been wiser, I would have expected Zion to be both human and at least somewhat messy (for, although perfect, God’s dealings with humanity are always fraught with our creaturliness), but in hindsight I never should have for one moment tolerated the division and the doctrinal uncertainty. I should have never have traded in my hopes of the fullness of God’s truth with all its promises for the sliver of “orthodox” sine qua non. But I did not understand then as I do now and we all must grow.
As time progressed, I became more and more disillusioned with the idea that man’s reading of the Bible will lead to a cohesive and necessary understanding of soteriology. Sola scriptura seemed in reality to be the biggest philosophical failure of the western world. Man’s ability to read did not produced a good grasp of who God was or God’s truth. It did not bring Truth, it did not bring unity. It did not bring Zion. Instead, its fruit was school after school of theological thought: Calvinsim, Arminiasm, Baptists, Presbeyterians, traditionalists, new wave theology, the emergent church. Thousands upon thousands of branches of opinions, many of them mutually exclusive in their truth claims.
Ah, yes, you might say, but certainly these efforts could lead to Truth, if only knowledge was really applied with good intent and purity of heart? If only it were so. But I saw teachers and students, both good and learned, reach radically different conclusions, with radically different and perhaps eternal consequences. And so I witnessed firsthand how the Reformation bloom withers under reality’s sun.
In all this, my heart still longed for Zion. When I first realized that Zion was not to be found in any one Protestant tradition or stream of belief, I hoped that reading the Bible might at least tell me how she might be built. However, as I saw those around my striving after this aim with little or no success, I rightly lost faith in my ability to construct her, even in my own heart. I would never be able to know enough or understand enough. Thousands of years, countless histories and incredible culture gaps lay between me and being able to get at the text with enough precision to draw up any sort of blue print for Zion. I felt like a monkey trying to read Shakespeare: I could get bits and pieces here and there, but the metanarrative eluded me.
And so it was that I had not found Zion and I did not know how to build her. But where disappointment met me, hope led me on. And so my heart became a pilgrim and my prayers petitioned the heavens, longing for guidance.
At this point, all the fears that lay at the back of my mind and all the suspicions accumulated since childhood began to take root: there was no Zion here and now on earth, there was no way to build her, there was no way to know or be part of God’s chosen people. There was nothing but the cacophony of opinion and the longing of my heart for my heart’s truest home.
As I felt the twilight coming and as my soul began to despair even as it earnestly poured out its petitions, it happened. I found Zion. She was shrouded in ill opinion and lies, she was hard to descry, but the cries of my heart were heard and God had in His mercy led me home. It was a painful trudge ascending the Hill of the Lord. It was disorienting arriving at her gates and the shock of waking up within her walls jarred me time and time again. Finding her was like learning to see the light, living in color after years of black and white. It was the joy of coming home when you’ve been away so long you can barely remember what home is.
Christ’s Church has been restored once again to the Earth. Zion has descended from the heavens and opens her gates to all who would enter in. Truth is here, beyond thought and supposition, beyond exegesis and all such valiant efforts. Where I had frailly tried to understand God’s Word for myself, I have it explicated for me by His prophets and apostles. Truly, I am blessed beyond words by the blessings of God. Wonder beyond dreaming, peace beyond expression. Zion is here and Christ stands at her gates to welcome all to come in and partake of His Kingdom here and now on Earth.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Did the Great Apostasy Happen? Part One
Prolegomena
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints makes some big claims: a new book of Scripture, a living prophet, God’s full truth restored to the Earth. It’s a lot to take in. Fortunately, though, there is an initial logical hinge upon which all this swings: the claim of a “Great Apostasy.”
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints really only has a reason to exist if the Church set up by Christ and the fullness of Christ’s teachings disappeared from off the face of the Earth. If there was no apostasy, then there would be no need for a restoration, Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon, etc. God would have in essence wound a clock which was still telling perfect time. Mormons claim the clock broke and that God stepped in and through Joseph Smith fixed it. Who then, is right? Is the original clock still telling time or did it break?[1]
This is no mere lofty musing or abstraction – it is important stuff. A radical truth claim is being made by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and that truth claim must be evaluated out of a love not only of truth but also out of a desire to fully know God and His will.
How then, can this claim be proven or disproven? What issues are important and what questions what must be answered? What reliable criteria can be used?
In attempting to answer this question of a Great Apostasy, we are from the outset disadvantaged. History is not objective, incomplete and sometime unreliable. People lie and often do, even in historical records. Perspectives change and evidence (both archaeologically and documentarily) is incomplete. Although I’m personally not comfortable trying to construct my theology on the basis of history, it is a necessary evil that must be appealed to as second-tier evidence. God’s word should come first, history second. Although history is flawed, it still has its place.
Unfortunately, too, the Bible also brings with it disadvantages in trying to establish whether or not a Great Apostasy occurred. This, of course, comes from the fact that the New Testament give us only a very small sliver of the time frame we are trying to evaluate. We are in essence evaluating the last 2,000 years of Christian History; the New Testament goes radio silent after about 90 AD. Additionally, some of the passages referred to are prophetic, and it is notoriously difficult trying to differentiate stages at which a prophecy will be fulfilled. For instance, take the confusion at the time of Christ regarding Messianic prophecies. The Jews were expecting a triumphant king, as Isaiah prophesied, not understanding that his writings referred to two comings of the Messiah: the first as servant, the second as ruler. As it is said, prophecies can be fulfilled a thousand ways, and often times the real fulfillment is only to be seen in hindsight and with the aid of the Holy Spirit.
So then, in the quest to answer the question, “Did the Great Apostasy occur?,” we will move forward using our two main tools – history and the Bible, with the caveats and handicaps mentioned above.
[1] I would like to briefly add that it is possible that a Great Apostasy did take place and that we are as of yet awaiting a full restoration of God’s truth. Nevertheless, it is important to determine whether or not such an event did take place, before evaluating further LDS claims which will either uphold or destroy their position.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints makes some big claims: a new book of Scripture, a living prophet, God’s full truth restored to the Earth. It’s a lot to take in. Fortunately, though, there is an initial logical hinge upon which all this swings: the claim of a “Great Apostasy.”
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints really only has a reason to exist if the Church set up by Christ and the fullness of Christ’s teachings disappeared from off the face of the Earth. If there was no apostasy, then there would be no need for a restoration, Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon, etc. God would have in essence wound a clock which was still telling perfect time. Mormons claim the clock broke and that God stepped in and through Joseph Smith fixed it. Who then, is right? Is the original clock still telling time or did it break?[1]
This is no mere lofty musing or abstraction – it is important stuff. A radical truth claim is being made by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and that truth claim must be evaluated out of a love not only of truth but also out of a desire to fully know God and His will.
How then, can this claim be proven or disproven? What issues are important and what questions what must be answered? What reliable criteria can be used?
In attempting to answer this question of a Great Apostasy, we are from the outset disadvantaged. History is not objective, incomplete and sometime unreliable. People lie and often do, even in historical records. Perspectives change and evidence (both archaeologically and documentarily) is incomplete. Although I’m personally not comfortable trying to construct my theology on the basis of history, it is a necessary evil that must be appealed to as second-tier evidence. God’s word should come first, history second. Although history is flawed, it still has its place.
Unfortunately, too, the Bible also brings with it disadvantages in trying to establish whether or not a Great Apostasy occurred. This, of course, comes from the fact that the New Testament give us only a very small sliver of the time frame we are trying to evaluate. We are in essence evaluating the last 2,000 years of Christian History; the New Testament goes radio silent after about 90 AD. Additionally, some of the passages referred to are prophetic, and it is notoriously difficult trying to differentiate stages at which a prophecy will be fulfilled. For instance, take the confusion at the time of Christ regarding Messianic prophecies. The Jews were expecting a triumphant king, as Isaiah prophesied, not understanding that his writings referred to two comings of the Messiah: the first as servant, the second as ruler. As it is said, prophecies can be fulfilled a thousand ways, and often times the real fulfillment is only to be seen in hindsight and with the aid of the Holy Spirit.
So then, in the quest to answer the question, “Did the Great Apostasy occur?,” we will move forward using our two main tools – history and the Bible, with the caveats and handicaps mentioned above.
[1] I would like to briefly add that it is possible that a Great Apostasy did take place and that we are as of yet awaiting a full restoration of God’s truth. Nevertheless, it is important to determine whether or not such an event did take place, before evaluating further LDS claims which will either uphold or destroy their position.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Fundamentally Bizzare, but Intriguing
One of the weirdest things I've ever come across.I'm not exactly sure what conclusion it was aiming towards and it suffers from a lack of solid scholasticism, but if you can leap with the author in her logic and look past the interesting way in which she interprets some texts, it makes for an interesting read.
Sort of like the X-files for theologians.http://www.thinlyveiled.com/barker/josiahsreform.htm
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