Gadianton wrote: ↑Wed Jun 19, 2024 4:03 am
Lots of things are a waste of time. Reading a book (the whole thing) is a waste. Writing an article (own work) is a waste. Missions and service and genealogy is a waste, or policies are so complicated surrounding these efforts there's no point trying. Basically, the only thing that isn't a waste is travelling to exotic places, staying in nice hotels, eating good food, and socializing with "upper crust" people. It's really nuts, as religion is supposedly is the apex of human endeavor, but just about everything associated with it is a waste of time, unless it relates to lifestyles of the Christian aristocracy prior to the 19th century: listening to chamber music written by a believer in a ritzy palace while being served grapes (or mini sausage links for those who don't eat fruit).
Has Sic et Non converted more non-members than tracting has? Did the low turnout conference in Rome convert more people than tracting?
The most iconic Chick tract of all time that really defined the brand was a tract called
This is your life. It's about an arrogant non-believer who waltzes around the world carefree, enjoying a life of leisure and the finer things, and ignoring God. It's basically a tract about what DCP imagines life is really about, save the alcohol and tobacco.
Interesting post. It makes me wonder what time well spent actually is. And why do we have this metaphor of "spending" time? Or "wasting" time? What is the origin of these metaphors? Time is a commodity in a society that places monetary profit above everything else. You waste time if you are not using it to make money. Enjoying high culture is the fruit of all of this virtuous spending of time prudently, which leads to the profit that well-spent time creates.
If I recall correctly, Brigham Young once dreamed of a day in which people would only have to work 4 hours a day (not on the Sabbath, of course). These days, the virtuous person, regardless of political persuasion (in the two-party schema), must be about making money all the time.
In my unprofitable line of business, we academics are tasked with increasing the value of our institution's education by pumping out articles and books all hours of the day, or we are "unproductive." Pumping out the articles and books is actually valued much more highly than teaching students.
Right now, the most valuable guy in my department is gone 25% of the time, bagging lots of fellowships in Europe, and doing almost no departmental service (certainly less teaching than others). His third book just came out. This is what being at an R1 is all about. Your kid comes here to be at the place where this happens, not to be educated by this person, who isn't there anyway. He's in Europe writing his next book.
The brand and the sales hype are what it's about.
In this respect, what DCP writes about may be, in the end, really good for the LDS brand. He advertises a sophisticated LDS life of faith, travel to exotic places, and appreciation of the good things in life. And he reassures you that being LDS is rewarding and respectable, not silly. If you think it's silly, then how can you enjoy it? Something will gnaw at you, and you will enjoy being LDS a lot less. In the competitive environment of consumer capitalism, a person will choose to spend their time in more entertaining and reassuring ways than Mormonism, if all you get from Mormonism is the gnawing sense that people think you are a clueless idiot.
I don't doubt DCP's sincerity. And I don't think his quote about the abysmal waste of time that tracting represents is being interpreted fairly here. These are his reminiscences about his missionary experience, no? And I think he is entitled to share how it honestly felt to him after the fact. In California, I think tracting worked pretty well. I and my companion baptized someone whom we tracted out. It may be that if I had tracted more assiduously I would have enjoyed more success from tracting. I tended to do it less because I found it somewhat frightening.
So, if tracting yields very few baptisms, then it is, according to the values of our culture, "a waste of time." The LDS Church gets very few baptisms from it, and thus it yields very little tithing at the end of the day. Other forms of missionary work do better at bringing in the tithing.
Where does tracting come from, then? Actual Christian values, not the values of American civilization. Tracting comes from the idea that every person needs to be contacted because you must give every person the opportunity to hear the good word of salvation.
Unfortunately, the medium does impact the message. American consumer capitalist values cannot help but influence the thinking of American Christians. I would say distort, but I am biased. American Christianity tends to look like a bunch of moneymaking charlatanry because of what the values of American civilization do to Christianity. Mormonism is caught up in the same. Indeed, it was born in the same. Its story is one of tension between moneymaking and Christian values. Ensign Peak is evidence of the victory of moneymaking American civilization over Christianity.
Tracting is a waste of time.
It is crucial to interrogate what we are about.
"He disturbs the laws of his country, he forces himself upon women, and he puts men to death without trial.” ~Otanes on the monarch, Herodotus Histories 3.80.
