Mormon REVERENCE FOR JOSEPH SMITH
Posted: Mon May 28, 2007 12:50 am
Here is another Beliefnet Mormon Issues forum thought from Mormon philosopher Bill Kilpatrick:
We say as a church that we do not worship our prophets. However we sing 'Praise To The Man' in many of our church services. Does this song, that praises Joseph Smith, not prove that at least some of us do worship Joseph and others."
The distinction between "praise" and "worship" ought to be a meaningful one, but it's far too easy to make it a matter of semantics. One person's praise is another person's worship, which is the problem with basing any religious movement on the ideas of an individual, who gets bashed by outsiders and then defended by the faithful. The attempt to defend the good name of someone you hold in highest esteem can blur the line between admiration and reverence, and between praise and outright worship. Every religious movement that identifies with the struggles and insights of a single, unifying, figure is in danger of becoming a form of idolatry.
Mormons are not alone in this.
Judaism is really a set of conventions, rules about what it means to be a "Jew." Ordinarily, no such rules would be necessary, as being born a Jew and living in a Jewish world, would take care of itself. But Judaism clearly wasn't invented by Jews living in a free Jewish state. It was invented by Jews living in Babylonia, Jews who were worried about losing their Jewish identity, Jews who adapted Babylonian stories to create their own national literature.
Judaism may owe more to Ezra, the great redactor, than to anyone else - for this great scholar (who represents what was likely a committee of scholars) took all of the various Jewish stories, legends, myths and histories and redacted them into the Hebrew Bible we call The Old Testament. But, like any good director, Ezra is largely out of sight. His actions (representing that of the nameless, faceless, committee of elders who edited the Old Testament) are to be found reflected in the text.
The figure credited for the creation of Judaism, Moses, is a figure of dubious historicity. There isn't a scrap of evidence - in Egypt or Palestine - to show he ever existed. Moses' purpose is to create a figure around which the Exodus and the Law can be based. It's ironic that the first five books of the Old Testament, "The Five Books of Moses," were likely written by someone else - since Moses dies before the end, buried - as it were - by the hand of God.
Moses' famous inability to enter the promised land - which is attributed to his slapping of a rock - is functional. By barring Moses from the promised land, the text strips Moses of his humanity. Without his bones, we are left with who, like God himself, remains both airy and mysterious.
It's interesting to note the number of such figures who have similarly been removed - completely - from tangibility. Elijah was taken up in a chariot of fire. Jesus arose and ascended. Mary, the mother of Jesus, is said to have ascended. John, the Beloved, was changed so that he would never die - which means he wanders the Earth, but without notice. The Book of Mormon does something similar to the Three Nephites. Muhammad is also believed to have ascended to heaven. Ironically, Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, is said to have announced his own impending death, ate a final meal, felt violently ill, informed the cook that it wasn't the food, and died. The Buddha didn't ascend to anything; he was cremated and his ashes used for monuments.
Every religious tradition with a visible founder is in danger of worshiping the Founder. Jews have been accused of worshiping Moses, though the focus on the Law as an impersonal way of living in harmony with God, whose name they don't pronounce, suggests something far less than worship.
Christians have been accused of worshiping Jesus, which is the primary difference between Christianity and Judaism or Islam, both of which cringe at the degree to which the Christian story is centered around a single figure, Jesus of Nazareth. Whether you accept Jesus as God Incarnate or as The Son of God, the very name, Christian, denotes the cult of Jesus.
Muslims, also, have trouble with the distinction between honor and worship - particularly when it comes to Muhammad. The traditional ban on images of the Muslim prophet may be based on a desire to avoid any idol worship, yet the extreme reverence devoted to his name speaks otherwise. How many figures do you know of whose very name requires the words, "Peace be upon him"? You can't speak the name of Muhammad without also saying, "Peace be upon him." If that isn't worship, I don't know what is.
Mormon REVERENCE FOR JOSEPH SMITH
As I look at the degree to which Joseph Smith was fetishized by first-century Mormons, it becomes clear to me that what was acceptable then is not acceptable today.
In Joseph Smith's 1844 account, where he speaks of meeting God the Father and Jesus Christ, he includes the story of Moroni's visit and the prophecy that his own name would be had for good and evil among all nations. Clearly, Joseph Smith saw himself as a divisive figure, which is to say he saw himself as the dividing line between Mormons and the rest of the world. We can speak of Mormons as Christians - and go on about how the name of the Mormon Church is "the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints." But the major distinction between Mormons and the rest of the world is not a belief in Jesus. It's the belief in the prophetic ministry of Joseph Smith.
That doesn't mean that Mormons worship Joseph Smith. It does, however, mean that, for Mormons, the test of faith has not been whether or not to accept Jesus as the Messiah, but whether or not one accepts Joseph Smith as his Latter-day prophet. At a time when Mormons were reviled for their belief in Joseph Smith, Mormons responded with expressions of faith and devotion to the memory of their slain prophet.
It's to be expected. Doing so, of course, reinforced the stereotype that Mormons weren't Christians and that Mormons were simply worshipers of Joseph Smith. But militant external aggression has a tendency to produce militant domestic aggression. So the more people bashed Joseph, the more good Mormons rallied behind the man, even if Joseph can't be considered the focal point of any Christian community.
And here we are, more than a hundred years after the renunciation of polygamy and the ushering in of an age of Mormonism as part of the mainstream. It's at this point that we have to wonder whether such militancy, bordering on worship, is appropriate to our age. I would suggest it is not. In fact, if the Church has done anything during the last 30 years, it has been to let up on the emphasis of Joseph Smith. After nearly a century-and-a-half of presenting the Gospel from the perspective of Joseph Smith and the Restoration, there has been an increasing push to refocus the message around Jesus Christ.
This is not an easy thing to do, because what makes Mormons unique is the message of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. De-emphasize that and you end up without momentum. But there's a problem: The Restored Gospel of Mormonism is part of a context of Restorationism. Without that context, the logic and appeal of Mormonism are as lost as the idea of the atonement apart from the context of a frustrated Judaism.
SO, WHAT ABOUT SONGS LIKE PRAISE TO THE MAN?
The day is coming when such songs will be mothballed as no longer suitable for Sunday worship. Praise to the Man will still be a Mormon hymn, sung in firesides and as part of a larger framework of Mormon cultural history, but it will eventually be left out of the Church hymnal because its enthusiastic lines, while a message of solidarity to an earlier generation, are no longer appropriate as the Church makes its way through the third millennium.
In a future edition of the Church Hymnal, a number of songs once cherished will be replaced by newer, more doctrinally timely, hymns - hymns causing far fewer controversies.