John Dehlin: Initial Criticisms and Impressions Part II
Posted: Sat Jul 07, 2012 2:19 pm
First, as Dehlin makes clear:
The organization is secular. Its fundamental purpose, while it seems, on the surface, to be aimed at Mormons and their religious concerns vis-à-vis the core truth claims of the Church, is based in a secularistic model of what the Church is, its meaning, and the intersection between the Church and that very secular world.
This is a hook. It acknowledges a range of nice things comprising a undefined body of "heritage, teachings, and community" as it prepares to set fire to that very tradition. We will see this below.
Now this is where some rubber hits the road. An entire thread (if not NMI essay - but that time has, unfortunately, passed) could be written on the implications and potential meaning of this statement. Let’s critique this at length and apply some philosophical rigor and analytic scrutiny to Dehlin’s claim here.
First, the vast majority of faithful LDS are not going to simply accept John Dehlin’s definition of what comprises being a “Mormon.” If we set aside the colloquial expressing “Mormon,” for the present, and ask “what does it mean to be a Latter day Saint,” we are approaching the question from a clearer and more precise vantage point. What is the Church? What does it meant to be, not just a member of that Church, but a disciple of Jesus Christ within the boundaries and conceptual framework of the Church that is understood to be the organized, institutional manifestation of that gospel on the earth?
Is being a “Mormon” no more than being heir to a sociocultural heritage, a community in-group, and a vague body of “teachings?” Paul describes the gospel as “the power of God unto salvation;” it is the means through which man learns of and comprehends the means by which he can become like God. Brigham Young spoke at length about the nature, purpose, and extent of the gospel and its relevance to our lives.
I take the following from the Teachings of Presidents of the Church series of Church published doctrinal manuals. Any emphasis will be mine.
Now, if these ideas and concepts are understood to comprise the gospel of Jesus Christ, and if the Church, which is understood as the visible, organized kingdom of God on earth in a dispensational sense, is the vehicle, community, heritage, and body of teachings of which Dehlin speaks (“Mormonism,” in other words), then it is not at all clear that “one can self-identify as Mormon based on one’s genealogy, upbringing, beliefs, relationships, and other life experiences, regardless of one’s adherence or non-adherence to the teachings or doctrines of any religious organization.” Indeed, it is counter-intuitive if one understands that the Church is not a melting pot of religious doctrines, theories, ideas, beliefs, and nostrums all of which are diffused and diluted through “upbringing, beliefs, relationships, and other life experiences” but the repository, in organized institutional, community, and historical form of the very “straight and narrow way” itself.
For John Taylor, the gospel (the only reason the Church and community of Saints exists at all) encompasses far more than a kind of smorgasbord of social, cultural, and psychological reference points to and within one’s life to which one clings and which provide stability and relative meaning:
Here, as with Brigham Young, community, family, friendship, and all other associations and cultural attributes are understood as inextricably linked with and interpenetrated by the restored gospel. In other words, contra Dehlin, if to be a “Mormon” is to be understood as anything more than an anthropological artifact; a social and psychological mediating and palliative matrix of relationships and “beliefs” that assist in the negotiation of life circumstances; if it is, in other words, to be understood as the organization through which the gospel is preached, the ordinances administered, divine ministerial authority held and conferred, the Gift of the Holy Ghost received, and the gospel spread to others not yet blessed by its teachings and power, then Dehlin’s diluted, humanistic social/psychological conception of “Mormonism” is, as one might say, the “Mormon” without the “ism.” The system of religion – the plan of salvation with all it implications – has been removed. All Dehlin leaves us after this intellectual surgery is Mormon culture bereft of its very core: the restored gospel itself that is at the very center of that culture, and, indeed, that culture’s essential origin and frame of reference.
The Church, according to John Taylor, is the organized Kingdom of God on earth, and “ God was desirous of introducing his kingdom upon the earth, and he had, in the first place, to organize his church, to organize the people that he had scattered among the nations and to bring them together, that there might be one fold and one shepherd [see John 10:16], and one Lord, one faith, and one baptism, and one God, who should be in all and through all [see Ephesians 4:5–6], and by which all should be governed. To facilitate this object, he organized his holy priesthood as it existed in the heavens.”
“The Church of God,” According to President Taylor, precedes the establishment, and full establishment of his Kingdom:
Following core LDS doctrinal teaching, leaving the Church of Christ in a dispensation when it is authoritatively upon the earth, is tantamount to leaving Christ’s Kingdom:
Why is there a Church, and in what sense is being a “Mormon” inextricably linked with both the Church and the gospel it teaches? Dehlin wishes a complete secularized, psychologized redefinition of “Mormon” such that the restored gospel at its nucleus can be abandoned while the Church is retained as an institution of generalized social, cultural, and psychological mediation between the individual and the surrounding world (and hence, Dehlin can claim that he isn’t trying to lead anyone out of the Church who doesn’t wish to leave. What he is not clear about in all of this is his idiosyncratic and muddled definition of “Mormon.”). While there is nothing wrong with this, of course (and family, in a broad gospel sense, provides this mediation as well), it is, for committed LDS, only a part of the practices and social dynamics that assist in achieving, for each individual, the fundamental purpose at the center of the Church as an institution: salvation and exhalation, as understood in LDS theology.
Any truth, of any kind, that helps human beings negotiate their social and internal worlds is, of course, welcome and necessary, and that can be found outside the Church as well as within it. However, the teachings of the gospel are also clear that, as Brigham Young said:
If all truth pertains to divinity, and if the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints is the Lord’s authorized organization for the perfecting of the Saints, the preaching of the true gospel, and the redemption of the dead, then “genealogy, upbringing, beliefs, relationships, and other life experiences” within the context of the Church and grounded in its central concepts are all inseparable from it; nothing that happens in the church regarding settled, established doctrine, teaching, principle, counsel, practice, and ordinance has any other purposes than the exaltation of the individual and the salvation and exhalation of the family unit in eternity. Relationships, life experiences, friendship, social cohesion, belonging, since of place, are all wonderful and important things, but they are aspects of the human condition ennobled and sanctified by the Church and participation within it, not substitutes for it and the gospel it ministers.
We are a secularly-based organization with no affiliation to the LDS church. We are not a religion and have no intention of becoming a religious organization at any point in the future...
The organization is secular. Its fundamental purpose, while it seems, on the surface, to be aimed at Mormons and their religious concerns vis-à-vis the core truth claims of the Church, is based in a secularistic model of what the Church is, its meaning, and the intersection between the Church and that very secular world.
We acknowledge the richness of Mormon heritage, teachings, and community in all of its diversity.
This is a hook. It acknowledges a range of nice things comprising a undefined body of "heritage, teachings, and community" as it prepares to set fire to that very tradition. We will see this below.
We believe that one can self-identify as Mormon based on one’s genealogy, upbringing, beliefs, relationships, and other life experiences, regardless of one’s adherence or non-adherence to the teachings or doctrines of any religious organization.
Now this is where some rubber hits the road. An entire thread (if not NMI essay - but that time has, unfortunately, passed) could be written on the implications and potential meaning of this statement. Let’s critique this at length and apply some philosophical rigor and analytic scrutiny to Dehlin’s claim here.
First, the vast majority of faithful LDS are not going to simply accept John Dehlin’s definition of what comprises being a “Mormon.” If we set aside the colloquial expressing “Mormon,” for the present, and ask “what does it mean to be a Latter day Saint,” we are approaching the question from a clearer and more precise vantage point. What is the Church? What does it meant to be, not just a member of that Church, but a disciple of Jesus Christ within the boundaries and conceptual framework of the Church that is understood to be the organized, institutional manifestation of that gospel on the earth?
Is being a “Mormon” no more than being heir to a sociocultural heritage, a community in-group, and a vague body of “teachings?” Paul describes the gospel as “the power of God unto salvation;” it is the means through which man learns of and comprehends the means by which he can become like God. Brigham Young spoke at length about the nature, purpose, and extent of the gospel and its relevance to our lives.
I take the following from the Teachings of Presidents of the Church series of Church published doctrinal manuals. Any emphasis will be mine.
Our religion is nothing more nor less than the true order of heaven—the system of laws by which the gods and the angels are governed. Are they governed by law? Certainly. There is no being in all the eternities but what is governed by law.
The Gospel of the Son of God that has been revealed is a plan or system of laws and ordinances, by strict obedience to which the people who inhabit this earth are assured that they may return again into the presence of the Father and the Son. The laws of the Gospel are neither more nor less than a few of the principles of eternity revealed to the people, by which they can return to heaven from whence they came .
When we talk of the celestial law which is revealed from heaven, that is, the Priesthood, we are talking about the principle of salvation, a perfect system of government, of laws and ordinances, by which we can be prepared to pass from one gate to another, and from one sentinel to another, until we go into the presence of our Father and God.
Now, if these ideas and concepts are understood to comprise the gospel of Jesus Christ, and if the Church, which is understood as the visible, organized kingdom of God on earth in a dispensational sense, is the vehicle, community, heritage, and body of teachings of which Dehlin speaks (“Mormonism,” in other words), then it is not at all clear that “one can self-identify as Mormon based on one’s genealogy, upbringing, beliefs, relationships, and other life experiences, regardless of one’s adherence or non-adherence to the teachings or doctrines of any religious organization.” Indeed, it is counter-intuitive if one understands that the Church is not a melting pot of religious doctrines, theories, ideas, beliefs, and nostrums all of which are diffused and diluted through “upbringing, beliefs, relationships, and other life experiences” but the repository, in organized institutional, community, and historical form of the very “straight and narrow way” itself.
For John Taylor, the gospel (the only reason the Church and community of Saints exists at all) encompasses far more than a kind of smorgasbord of social, cultural, and psychological reference points to and within one’s life to which one clings and which provide stability and relative meaning:
We, as Latter-day Saints, believe, first, in the gospel, and that is a great deal to say, for the gospel embraces principles that dive deeper, spread wider, and extend further than anything else that we can conceive. The gospel teaches us in regard to the being and attributes of God. It also teaches us our relationship to that God and the various responsibilities we are under to him as his offspring. It teaches us the various duties and responsibilities that we are under to our families and friends, to the community, to the living and the dead.
Here, as with Brigham Young, community, family, friendship, and all other associations and cultural attributes are understood as inextricably linked with and interpenetrated by the restored gospel. In other words, contra Dehlin, if to be a “Mormon” is to be understood as anything more than an anthropological artifact; a social and psychological mediating and palliative matrix of relationships and “beliefs” that assist in the negotiation of life circumstances; if it is, in other words, to be understood as the organization through which the gospel is preached, the ordinances administered, divine ministerial authority held and conferred, the Gift of the Holy Ghost received, and the gospel spread to others not yet blessed by its teachings and power, then Dehlin’s diluted, humanistic social/psychological conception of “Mormonism” is, as one might say, the “Mormon” without the “ism.” The system of religion – the plan of salvation with all it implications – has been removed. All Dehlin leaves us after this intellectual surgery is Mormon culture bereft of its very core: the restored gospel itself that is at the very center of that culture, and, indeed, that culture’s essential origin and frame of reference.
The Church, according to John Taylor, is the organized Kingdom of God on earth, and “ God was desirous of introducing his kingdom upon the earth, and he had, in the first place, to organize his church, to organize the people that he had scattered among the nations and to bring them together, that there might be one fold and one shepherd [see John 10:16], and one Lord, one faith, and one baptism, and one God, who should be in all and through all [see Ephesians 4:5–6], and by which all should be governed. To facilitate this object, he organized his holy priesthood as it existed in the heavens.”
“The Church of God,” According to President Taylor, precedes the establishment, and full establishment of his Kingdom:
We talk sometimes about the church of God, and why? We talk about the kingdom of God, and why? Because, before there could be a kingdom of God, there must be a church of God, and hence the first principles of the gospel were needed to be preached to all nations, as they were formerly when the Lord Jesus Christ and others made their appearance on the earth. And why so? Because of the impossibility of introducing the law of God among a people who would not be subject to and be guided by the spirit of revelation.
Following core LDS doctrinal teaching, leaving the Church of Christ in a dispensation when it is authoritatively upon the earth, is tantamount to leaving Christ’s Kingdom:
God could not build up a kingdom on the earth unless he had a church and a people who had submitted to his law and were willing to submit to it; and with an organization of such a people, gathered from among the nations of the earth under the direction of a man inspired of God, the mouthpiece of Jehovah to his people; I say that, with such an organization, there is a chance for the Lord God to be revealed, there is an opportunity for the laws of life to be made manifest, there is a chance for God to introduce the principles of heaven upon the earth and for the will of God to be done upon earth as it is done in heaven.
Why is there a Church, and in what sense is being a “Mormon” inextricably linked with both the Church and the gospel it teaches? Dehlin wishes a complete secularized, psychologized redefinition of “Mormon” such that the restored gospel at its nucleus can be abandoned while the Church is retained as an institution of generalized social, cultural, and psychological mediation between the individual and the surrounding world (and hence, Dehlin can claim that he isn’t trying to lead anyone out of the Church who doesn’t wish to leave. What he is not clear about in all of this is his idiosyncratic and muddled definition of “Mormon.”). While there is nothing wrong with this, of course (and family, in a broad gospel sense, provides this mediation as well), it is, for committed LDS, only a part of the practices and social dynamics that assist in achieving, for each individual, the fundamental purpose at the center of the Church as an institution: salvation and exhalation, as understood in LDS theology.
Any truth, of any kind, that helps human beings negotiate their social and internal worlds is, of course, welcome and necessary, and that can be found outside the Church as well as within it. However, the teachings of the gospel are also clear that, as Brigham Young said:
All truth is for the salvation of the children of men—for the benefit and learning—for their furtherance in the principles of divine knowledge; and divine knowledge is any matter of fact—truth; and all truth pertains to divinity
If all truth pertains to divinity, and if the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints is the Lord’s authorized organization for the perfecting of the Saints, the preaching of the true gospel, and the redemption of the dead, then “genealogy, upbringing, beliefs, relationships, and other life experiences” within the context of the Church and grounded in its central concepts are all inseparable from it; nothing that happens in the church regarding settled, established doctrine, teaching, principle, counsel, practice, and ordinance has any other purposes than the exaltation of the individual and the salvation and exhalation of the family unit in eternity. Relationships, life experiences, friendship, social cohesion, belonging, since of place, are all wonderful and important things, but they are aspects of the human condition ennobled and sanctified by the Church and participation within it, not substitutes for it and the gospel it ministers.
