Mormonism and Christianity, Inferior Philosophies?

[_Chap]

Some autobiography when talking about the function of religion in the formation of a worldview, is surely necessary unless the discussion is to stay at a level of bland generalisation devoid of any solid content? After all, this board exists purely because there are people who share the experience of having been Mormons, and need to express their experience in a free environment, or who are interested in their experiences. It's a perfectly appropriate place for religious autobiography, I would have thought.

Indeed, there's nothing inappropriate about it. It's been said that all theology is autobiography, although I don't think we need go that far.

Where do you come from in religious terms, by the way?

I'm an Anglican cleric, the stereotype of the annoyingly vacuous liberal vicar. Forgive me if I'm light on the autobiography, as certain prominent LDS bloggers have served as an awful warning of what happens when a priesthood-holder puts too much of himself online.

May I just stress that I try to never, ever risk anything that might identity me in real life. Indeed I would never say as much about myself as you do here!

But anonymous posters on this board may freely and fittingly make 'windows into [their own] souls' without revealing anything much about the person that other people know and can identify.

[_Kishkumen]

Just to be contrarian, I'd question this. I've read a couple of biographies of Smith (Bushman and Vogel), and I gather that questioning the status of the Bible as a fax from God was quite common in 19th century America, even among less educated people. Didn't Smith's grandfather reprimand him for being too conservative and demand that he read Tom Paine, a radical critic of scripture?

Is fax from God a fair metaphor? I am not talking about the finger of God writing on the temple wall here. I am only referring to the idea that the Bible has *a* message from God as his Word. The fact that Joseph Smith could write the Book of Mormon as a single piece of literary architecture with an overarching message does reflect this overall sense that there is not an argument in the Bible so much as there is a message. Tom Paine is showing the absurdity of this, but is not the fact that he has to make a point of challenging it revealing in itself?

Joseph's solution to the problem of Biblical inconsistencies is not to acknowledge disagreement but to create a conspiracy theory starring wicked priests. The clear message there is that the original text had the pure, consistent Gospel. This position is further reinforced by his Christianizing rewrite of the story of Adam being baptized for the remission of sins. Oy vey!

I think I could make a case for challenging this, and not just in the liberal modern era. To take just one example, it was always at least implicit, if not explicit, in the Reformation project that people had the right to read and interpret the scriptural text for themselves, as members of the "priesthood of all believers". They could, in effect, become the latest generation of "arguing Jews". Of course, state authorities in various parts of Europe managed to make sure that it didn't necessarily turn out like that, but the potential was always there.

OK. Cool. Well, my impression of this has usually been that the point was to put the scripture in the hands of the people so they could have direct access to God's word without the mediation of priests. I was not aware that there was any thought that they could take up the many arguments of arguing Jews in the different books. I look forward to the thread in which you sketch that out. Can you recommend any books or articles on that?

Hmm. This interests me. I'm not au fait with the scholarship in this area, so I can't really push back against you here. I'd like to ask, though, what sort of evidence you have in mind. What is there that tells us that "middle-class" people would have been conversant with, say, Stoic ideas?

Stoicism is an interesting example because its founder was a metic from Cyprus teaching philosophy in the ancient equivalent of an Athenian shopping mall. The influence of Stoicism reached down to the grammatical terminology still in use today. I don't know about the history of the use of this terminology, but it is conceivable that this is one way that Stoicism shaped the organization and transmission of knowledge whose impact was felt in schools of the "middle class." Of the Cynics, Diogenes of Sinope practically turned Cynicism into a public performance. Cynic missionaries seem like another way in which philosophy could have reached beyond the elite.

I certainly agree that the church became hierarchical and élitist, but there have always been contrary currents which have sought to emancipate, or indeed been led by, ordinary people. In LDS terms, tou sound like you're talking about the "great and abominable church". I return to my example of the Reformation, even if its full dangerous potential was not fully realised at the time. There were popular lay movements in mediaeval times, too. Ordinary people have always looked for ways to reappropriate the Christian heritage as their own, even at the cost sometimes of coming into conflict with the church hierarchy.

Yes! I recall reading about lots of interesting popular movements in Gregory of Tours' History of the Franks. But we are talking about the transmission of learning, so I ask, what was the role of scriptural study and exegesis in the popular movements of Medieval Christianity? I understand that my views have been impacted in some way by LDS polemics against Catholicism, but I don't think I am completely unaware of such movements. I recall the contemporary criticisms of their participants as ignoramuses, but I may be forgetting the role played by Biblical reading and interpretation in these movements.

It's interesting - for obvious reasons - that you define your upbringing as LDS rather than Christian. Is that how you would have seen it at the time?

I really thought of myself as Mormon, and I recall feeling uncomfortable attending a Christian Bible camp as a child. I felt like an outsider there, even though I was familiar with many Bible stories and readings.

[_Kishkumen]

Thank you for the compliment, Johannes.

[_Johannes]

Is fax from God a fair metaphor? I am not talking about the finger of God writing on the temple wall here. I am only referring to the idea that the Bible has *a* message from God as his Word. The fact that Joseph Smith could write the Book of Mormon as a single piece of literary architecture with an overarching message does reflect this overall sense that there is not an argument in the Bible so much as there is a message. Tom Paine is showing the absurdity of this, but is not the fact that he has to make a point of challenging it revealing in itself?

I take the point about the Book of Mormon project as a whole being implicitly based on a very naïve view of scripture. That's a good point and one that hadn't previously occurred to me. The fax metaphor probably just shows my age - my point was simply that the authority of scripture was a debated question, even among common folk.

OK. Cool. Well, my impression of this has usually been that the point was to put the scripture in the hands of the people so they could have direct access to God's word without the mediation of priests. I was not aware that there was any thought that they could take up the many arguments of arguing Jews in the different books. I look forward to the thread in which you sketch that out. Can you recommend any books or articles on that?

I have to reiterate my caveat that the radicalism of the Reformation project wasn't necessarily fully realised at the time. I accept that Protestant churches developed and enforced their own orthodox readings of scripture (although in my country the bounds of orthodoxy could be relatively fuzzy). But the genie was out of the bottle, and scripture was democratised in a way that was genuinely revolutionary. As to book recommendations, there was a new edition of Andrew Johnston's The Protestant Reformation in Europe published a couple of years ago. I also keep a copy of The Cambridge Companion to Reformation Theology handy.

Stoicism is an interesting example because its founder was a metic from Cyprus teaching philosophy in the ancient equivalent of an Athenian shopping mall.

That's a good point, actually. I hadn't thought of that. The clue is in the name.

Yes! I recall reading about lots of interesting popular movements in Gregory of Tours' History of the Franks. But we are talking about the transmission of learning, so I ask, what was the role of scriptural study and exegesis in the popular movements of Medieval Christianity?

More than one might expect. There's a temptation to think that popular Bible-reading started at the Reformation, but Wyclif and the "Lollards" were already there a couple of centuries earlier. Without checking the accuracy of this, I believe that the Fraticelli (rebel Franciscans, made famous by The Name of the Rose) engaged in heretical readings of scripture too.

I really thought of myself as Mormon, and I recall feeling uncomfortable attending a Christian Bible camp as a child. I felt like an outsider there, even though I was familiar with many Bible stories and readings.

Now that's interesting. Identifying as a Mormon and not a Christian! Well, well, well. I presume that this must have been before the emphasis on "mainstreaming" the church. Maybe you're showing your age now too.

[_Johannes]

Thank you for the compliment, Johannes.

No thanks required.

It's getting late here, however, so I'm going to have to go to bed at this point. See you again soon.

[_Meadowchik]

Thank you for the compliment, Johannes.

No thanks required.

It's getting late here, however, so I'm going to have to go to bed at this point. See you again soon.

It's late where I am as well! (Alsace, I used to live outside Zurich.)

[_huckelberry]

I cannot be sure but I would expect Kishkumen would concur, that Mormons separate their self identity from Christian by thinking, of course we are Christians but the term and category has been coopted by gentiles.

Mormons grow up with a serious mistrust of those Christians,. Consider Jimmy Swaggart.

[_Johannes]

I look forward to the thread in which you sketch that out.

This may or may not be of interest to you.....

http://www.mormondiscussions.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=47789

[_Kishkumen]

my point was simply that the authority of scripture was a debated question, even among common folk.

What I am getting out of this is that I have a lot of remedial historical reading to do. I still wonder, though, about how challenging the authority of scripture relates to conceiving of the construction of the Bible as a kind of prolonged dialectical discussion between authors of the different books.

But the genie was out of the bottle, and scripture was democratised in a way that was genuinely revolutionary. As to book recommendations, there was a new edition of Andrew Johnston's The Protestant Reformation in Europe published a couple of years ago. I also keep a copy of The Cambridge Companion to Reformation Theology handy.

Thank you for the recommendations. I look forward to digging in to them. I am fascinated by the democratization of writing in a sacred mode, for example, in the Letters from Heaven, an enduring phenomenon, but also the grimoires that are note and extra books of Moses. I think the Book of Mormon fits into this tradition of the democratization of scripture in folk religion, magic, and Freemasonry, with Freemasonry providing an infusion of Jewish legends.

Wyclif and the "Lollards" were already there a couple of centuries earlier. Without checking the accuracy of this, I believe that the Fraticelli (rebel Franciscans, made famous by The Name of the Rose) engaged in heretical readings of scripture too.

Are Franciscans representative of a popular discourse on scripture? I get your point, though. The Church did not utterly dominate the realm of sacred text and its interpretation.

Now that's interesting. Identifying as a Mormon and not a Christian! Well, well, well. I presume that this must have been before the emphasis on "mainstreaming" the church. Maybe you're showing your age now too.

Yes, my childhood was in the '70s. I don't think the mainstreaming really picked up steam until the late '80s or early '90s. That's my recollection from my own point of view, at any rate. To this day I remain ambivalent about the name "Christian." I understand that it provides a sense of legitimacy and carries with it a tradition, but, frankly, the LDS Church does almost nothing with that tradition.

I really don't see how the LDS Church is substantively Christian in the way most Christians understand that if they reject or simply ignore systematic theology and most of Christian history and thought. The problem is that to say someone is not Christian when Jesus is really important to them is understood to be insulting. People don't generally understand why various distinctions matter when their kids are being pelted with spitballs in homeroom for not being Christian.

Of course, I like the idea of deconstructing the whole thing and looking at the entire sweep of Western religion as an open canon of texts that is subject to reorganization, reinterpretation, and even fresh compositions within the tradition. The Book of Mormon is, in my view, such a book. It may not be a particularly stellar example, but it is at the very least historically interesting and unique. It holds lots of riches for those who would try to understand the western frontier encroaching on the Great Lakes region in the first quarter of the 19th century, for one thing.

[_Johannes]

What I am getting out of this is that I have a lot of remedial historical reading to do. I still wonder, though, about how challenging the authority of scripture relates to conceiving of the construction of the Bible as a kind of prolonged dialectical discussion between authors of the different books.

It's really just a broad point that Smith's time and culture didn't commit him to a literalistic interpretation of scripture. He consciously chose to go down that path, with overt themes of anti-rationalism and anti-Unitarianism. This is what I've learned from reading about his life. He was a participant in early American debates on the nature of scripture, not a redneck among a society of rednecks who didn't know any better (I appreciate this is undoubtedly an oversimplification of your views).

Yes, my childhood was in the '70s. I don't think the mainstreaming really picked up steam until the late '80s or early '90s. That's my recollection from my own point of view, at any rate.

That utterly sinks a personal theory that I'd been developing that the growth of the Mormon Church from the 60s-80s was a function of the Nixonian "silent majority" asserting itself in American society. If Mormonism was still keeping itself from the mainstream as late as the 1970s, it presumably wouldn't have had much appeal for that conservative demographic.