DiscussMormonism.com

Here is the entire statement:

Notice from the Area Presidency

Dear Brothers and Sisters of Japan,

We are pleased to inform you that we have now confirmed that all of the missionaries in Japan have been found and are safe. The last two missionaries in Sendai were located on Saturday evening. We sincerely appreciate the efforts of Pres. Tateoka who has worked continuously since the earthquake to account for his missionaries. We also thank the many members who have helped in this effort. We had a large number of church employees who stayed in the Area office building overnight and most of Saturday to help in this time of emergency and we greatly appreciate their service. We will now make every effort to locate and evaluate the condition of all of our members in Japan. Please inform your priesthood leaders of any information you have on the condition of our members. Brother Darwin Halvorson, our area welfare manager, coordinated much of the effort today and will continue to evaluate and arrange for welfare needs throughout the area.

The outcome today really is a miraculous result orchestrated by the Lord. We have been uplifted to have observed all that has taken place leading to this result. We give our thanks to Heavenly Father for his mercy and blessings this day and pray that we now find our members throughout Japan alive and well.

Gary E. Stevenson

Yoon Hwan Choi

Koichi Aoyagi

No-one can reasonably object to anything in the first paragraph, unless they are such monsters of impartiality that when a cyclone strikes Iowa they restrain themselves from first trying to contact their cousins who live near Des Moines, and instead look up overall casualty figures on the state website. What is more, the CoJCoLDS organisation in Japan is clearly responsible for the young people it has, for its own purposes, brought to Japan, and has a duty of care towards them and the parents who will be fearful for them.

It is the second paragraph that gives one a few theological problems. There we can see that the writer clearly believes in a deity who has the power to 'orchestrate' the course of nature so as to 'lead[...] to [the] result' that no LDS missionary is swept away by the waters of the Pacific, or killed by a house collapsing on them, or otherwise terminated with extreme prejudice by the forces of nature, while all around them thousands of Japanese people are dying in horrible ways and this deity, who could save them, does not.

So this deity:

1. Can choose to save the lives of people in dangerous situations by miraculous intervention.

2. Actually did do so in the case of all LDS missionaries in Japan.

3. Did not do so for a very large number of other people, who were not LDS missionaries. He just left them to perish, although he could perfectly well have 'orchestrated' things to save them too.

Let me see, how does it work when I have seen people trying to explain this kind of thing?

(a) The Japanese people who perished were born as non-American non-LDS in an earthquake zone because they were a bit less valiant in the pre-existence?

(b) The Japanese people who perished had signed up to being born as non-American non-LDS in an earthquake zone in full knowledge of the consequences because they wanted a chance to be born as human in the mortality?

(c) The Japanese people who perished were being rescued by the LDS deity from the terrible consequences of a continued life of heathen idolatry, which would denied them all hope of exaltation?

(d) There are some things we can never understand in this life, but we must have faith and one day we shall see why it was the best possible outcome for those people to have their houses collapse on them and then be drowned as they lay pinned under the wreckage, and that is why the LDS deity did not 'orchestrate' things otherwise, although he could have done?

Some people will find a being who needs let-out clauses of this kind worthy of being praised, worshiped, and thanked on all possible occasions.

Others may not.

Chap wrote:<snip>
So this deity:

1. Can choose to save the lives of people in dangerous situations by miraculous intervention.

2. Actually did do so in the case of all LDS missionaries in Japan.

3. Did not do so for a very large number of other people, who were not LDS missionaries. He just left them to perish, although he could perfectly well have 'orchestrated' things to save them too.

Let me see, how does it work when I have seen people trying to explain this kind of thing?

(a) The Japanese people who perished were born as non-American non-LDS in an earthquake zone because they were a bit less valiant in the pre-existence?

(b) The Japanese people who perished had signed up to being born as non-American non-LDS in an earthquake zone in full knowledge of the consequences because they wanted a chance to be born as human in the mortality?

(c) The Japanese people who perished were being rescued by the LDS deity from the terrible consequences of a continued life of heathen idolatry, which would denied them all hope of exaltation?

(d) There are some things we can never understand in this life, but we must have faith and one day we shall see why it was the best possible outcome for those people to have their houses collapse on them and then be drowned as they lay pinned under the wreckage, and that is why the LDS deity did not 'orchestrate' things otherwise, although he could have done?

Some people will find a being who needs let-out clauses of this kind worthy of being praised, worshiped, and thanked on all possible occasions.

Or,

(e) God killed or allowed to be killed the thousands of Japanese so that he could work miracles and demonstrate his love for the LDS who were not harmed.

In other words, God works in mysterious, douchey ways (who here said that?)

Daniel Peterson wrote:This statement was apparently released Saturday morning, Utah time, specifically to announce that the missionaries in the Japan Sendai Mission had all been accounted for, and that all are safe. (The other missions had previously reported their missionaries safe, but this one, the mission most affected by the quake and the tsunami, had lagged behind since most means of communication were down.)

Has the Japan area presidency issued no other statements on the disaster? It's possible, I suppose, but it seems unlikely, since the quake occurred at roughly 10:56 PM on Thursday night, Utah time. They may have been utterly silent for a day and a half, but I doubt it.

The fact that this statement, released roughly thirty-six hours after the disaster hit and specifically addressing the question of the safety of Church missionaries, focuses on the safety of Church missionaries, seems a pretty flimsy pretext upon which to accuse Church leadership of "devaluing" non-Mormons, being indifferent to the suffering of non-Mormons, and of being "delusional," or to label Elder Stevenson a "heartless fool."

For what little it's worth, I've known Elder Stevenson for about a decade -- we're not close friends, but we've been associated on some matters since before his call as a General Authority and he was my son's mission president in Nagoya -- and I'm quite certain that he's neither "heartless" nor a "fool."

Moreover, I rather doubt that Elders Choi and Aoyagi are "heartless fools."

My bet is that the area presidency -- besides being criticized anonymously by people who aren't there and probably aren't doing a thing -- are hip deep in organizing humanitarian assistance for those affected by the earthquake and the tsunami, both Mormon and non-Mormon.

Has the Church itself issued any statements on the disaster? Yes, it has. Almost immediately after the first news reports, the Church issued a statement saying, among other things, "Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Japan following the recent devastating earthquake and tsunami. . . . We are also assessing how the Church might help meet the needs of people affected by the earthquake and tsunami."

Notice that the statement doesn't specify members of the Church. It doesn't single them out for concern and possible aid. That doesn't seem quite consistent with the notion here on this board that Church leadership devalues non-Mormons and is indifferent to their pain.

Thanks for providing this context, Dan.

Such statements are not at all uncommon. On Friday morning at work we received an email expressing relief that all the employees in our Tokyo office were accounted for and safe.

I gotta pretty much agree with Dan on this one. Before I had gotten to his post, I was already doing so major eye-rolling about the inane comments made about the area president, etc. Yet another example of people looking for any pretext for attacking LDS church leadership. Lame.

Don't get me wrong...I actually agree with the objections to the underlying ideas philosophies about God that would lead someone to make a statement like the one the area president has made. But it's so deeply ingrained into him and others (yes, even non LDS) that it cannot be taken as some "heartless" statement about "looking out for number one". If you want to get into a discussion of this God-view, I'm all for it. Something like, "I'm sure that Pres. Stevenson has genuine concern for non-LDS Japanese citizens, but there's something about his idea of God that I just can't accept." And I'd be chiming in to agree with you.

floatingboy wrote: If you want to get into a discussion of this God-view, I'm all for it. Something like, "I'm sure that Pres. Stevenson has genuine concern for non-LDS Japanese citizens, but there's something about his idea of God that I just can't accept." And I'd be chiming in to agree with you.

And nothing like that has been said?

Chap wrote:No-one can reasonably object to anything in the first paragraph, unless they are such monsters of impartiality that when a cyclone strikes Iowa they restrain themselves from first trying to contact their cousins who live near Des Moines, and instead look up overall casualty figures on the state website. What is more, the CoJCoLDS organisation in Japan is clearly responsible for the young people it has, for its own purposes, brought to Japan, and has a duty of care towards them and the parents who will be fearful for them.

It is the second paragraph that gives one a few theological problems. There we can see that the writer clearly believes in a deity who has the power to 'orchestrate' the course of nature so as to 'lead[...] to [the] result' that no LDS missionary is swept away by the waters of the Pacific, or killed by a house collapsing on them, or otherwise terminated with extreme prejudice by the forces of nature, while all around them thousands of Japanese people are dying in horrible ways and this deity, who could save them, does not.

So this deity:

1. Can choose to save the lives of people in dangerous situations by miraculous intervention.

2. Actually did do so in the case of all LDS missionaries in Japan.

3. Did not do so for a very large number of other people, who were not LDS missionaries. He just left them to perish, although he could perfectly well have 'orchestrated' things to save them too.

Let me see, how does it work when I have seen people trying to explain this kind of thing?

(a) The Japanese people who perished were born as non-American non-LDS in an earthquake zone because they were a bit less valiant in the pre-existence?

(b) The Japanese people who perished had signed up to being born as non-American non-LDS in an earthquake zone in full knowledge of the consequences because they wanted a chance to be born as human in the mortality?

(c) The Japanese people who perished were being rescued by the LDS deity from the terrible consequences of a continued life of heathen idolatry, which would denied them all hope of exaltation?

(d) There are some things we can never understand in this life, but we must have faith and one day we shall see why it was the best possible outcome for those people to have their houses collapse on them and then be drowned as they lay pinned under the wreckage, and that is why the LDS deity did not 'orchestrate' things otherwise, although he could have done?

Some people will find a being who needs let-out clauses of this kind worthy of being praised, worshiped, and thanked on all possible occasions.

Others may not.

Please chime in if you wish ... can you find a way of not seeing as repellent the idea that a deity has let a huge number of other people perish while carefully "orchestrating" the survival of a few young people on the apparent grounds that they were LDS missionaries?

Daniel Peterson wrote:Notice that the statement doesn't specify members of the Church. It doesn't single them out for concern and possible aid. That doesn't seem quite consistent with the notion here on this board that Church leadership devalues non-Mormons and is indifferent to their pain.

My response was rather knee-jerk (it was late, sue me), but I still think it was kind of a thoughtless statement. And no, I don't think the church is unconcerned about non-members, just that bcspace seems to be.

Daniel Peterson wrote:The fact that this statement, released roughly thirty-six hours after the disaster hit and specifically addressing the question of the safety of Church missionaries, focuses on the safety of Church missionaries, seems a pretty flimsy pretext upon which to accuse Church leadership of "devaluing" non-Mormons, being indifferent to the suffering of non-Mormons, and of being "delusional," or to label Elder Stevenson a "heartless fool."

Let us look at the portion I quoted (bolding mine):

The outcome today really is a miraculous result orchestrated by the Lord. We have been uplifted to have observed all that has taken place leading to this result. We give our thanks to Heavenly Father for his mercy and blessings this day and pray that we now find our members throughout Japan alive and well.

To say explicitly that Missionary safety and survival of a disaster was a ‘miraculous result orchestrated by the Lord’ implicitly suggests that those who didn’t survive were either ignored by God or that God intended them to die the way they did.

To say explicitly ‘We give our thanks to Heavenly Father for his mercy and blessings this day’ is also to implicitly suggest that God withheld his mercy and blessings from those who did not survive.

My mentor told me once that one of his first pastoral lessons at Hebrew Union College was never mention God’s mercy or blessings in a context of some sort of disaster where some survived and other’s didn’t. Indeed, there is even a story from the Talmud that warns if you are walking home one night, and see a house of fire that might be yours, not to pray to God that it isn’t your house, because you are petitioning God to set fire to someone else’s house.

Elders Stevenson, Choi, and Aoyagi, may be paragons of humanity, but to release such a statement is both heartless and foolish for senior ecclesiastical leaders to make.


ETA: While the statement disgusts me, it also fascinates me on a different level. The Elders have a total disregard for epistemic humility that both impresses me and entertains me. I’m amazed that these men were able to discern God’s will during a global disaster of such an epic scale. Where most thoughtful and nuanced theologians would express dismay and claim no understanding of why such events happen, these gentlemen have been able to ascertain parts of God’s own OP-ORDER, where they discovered provisions where God himself orchestrated the survival of each and every Mormon missionary.

sethpayne wrote:Such statements are not at all uncommon. On Friday morning at work we received an email expressing relief that all the employees in our Tokyo office were accounted for and safe.

Your company e-mail said that your fellow employees in Tokyo were singled out and protected by God? It's one thing to express relief, it's another to ascribe survival to God playing favorites with fellow humans.

floatingboy wrote:I gotta pretty much agree with Dan on this one. Before I had gotten to his post, I was already doing so major eye-rolling about the inane comments made about the area president, etc. Yet another example of people looking for any pretext for attacking LDS church leadership. Lame.

Don't get me wrong...I actually agree with the objections to the underlying ideas philosophies about God that would lead someone to make a statement like the one the area president has made. But it's so deeply ingrained into him and others (yes, even non LDS) that it cannot be taken as some "heartless" statement about "looking out for number one". If you want to get into a discussion of this God-view, I'm all for it. Something like, "I'm sure that Pres. Stevenson has genuine concern for non-LDS Japanese citizens, but there's something about his idea of God that I just can't accept." And I'd be chiming in to agree with you.

Heaven forbid we hold men accountable for public statements they made.